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THE INQUISITION OF SPAIN
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION OF THE MIDDLE AGES. In three volumes, octavo.
A HISTORY OF AURICULAR CONFESSION AND INDULGENCES IN THE LATIN CHURCH. In three volumes, octavo.
AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF SACERDOTAL CELIBACY IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Third edition. (In preparation.)
A FORMULARY OF THE PAPAL PENITENTIARY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. One volume, octavo. (Out of print.)
SUPERSTITION AND FORCE. Essays on The Wager of Law, The Wager of Battle, The Ordeal, Torture. Fourth edition, revised. In one volume, 12mo.
STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY. The Rise of the Temporal Power, Benefit of Clergy, Excommunication, The Early Church and Slavery. Second edition. In one volume, 12mo.
CHAPTERS FROM THE RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF SPAIN, CONNECTED WITH THE INQUISITION. Censorship of the Press, Mystics and Illuminati, Endemoniadas, El Santo Niño de la Guardia, Brianda de Bardaxí.
THE MORISCOS OF SPAIN. THEIR CONVERSION AND EXPULSION. In one volume, 12mo.
A HISTORY
OF THE
INQUISITION OF SPAIN
BY
HENRY CHARLES LEA. LL.D.
———
IN FOUR VOLUMES
———
VOLUME II.
———
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1922
All rights reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Copyright, 1906,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
——
Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1906.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
BOOK III—JURISDICTION. Chapter I—Heresy. PAGEImportance attached to Unity of Belief
1Popular Abhorrence of Heresy
2Limitations of Inquisitorial Jurisdiction
3Classification of Heresy—Heresy both a sin and a crime
4Original Episcopal Jurisdiction
5The Inquisition obtains exclusive Jurisdiction
6Episcopal Concurrence—It is merely formal
11Jurisdiction over the Forum of Conscience
10The Question of Papal Indulgences
24Extension of Exclusive Jurisdiction
26 Chapter II—The Regular Orders.The Regular Clergy claim exemption from the Inquisition
29Fluctuations of the Struggle—the Inquisition triumphs
31Resistance of the Jesuits—their Defeat
33Jurisdiction assumed in Quarrels between the Orders
37 Chapter III—Bishops.Torquemada vainly seeks Jurisdiction over Bishops
41Cases of Dávila of Segovia and Aranda of Calahorra
42Case of Acuña of Zamora
45Jurisdiction conferred personally on Inquisitor-general Manrique
44Case of Archbishop Carranza of Toledo
45Inquisitor-general Valdés falls into disfavor
46Seeks to re-establish himself by prosecuting Carranza
48Carranza’s Orthodoxy—Melchor Cano
49Carranza’s Commentaries on the Catechism
54Royal and Papal Assent obtained for the Prosecution
56Carranza’s Arrest and Incarceration, Aug. 22, 1559
65He recuses Valdés and two other Judges
69Procrastination—Trial begins July 30, 1561
71Continued Delays—Intervention of Council of Trent in 1563
73Fruitless Efforts of Pius IV to expedite the trial
75Pius V evokes the Case to Rome
77Carranza reaches Rome May 28, 1567—Trial recommenced
79Gregory XIII recommences the Trial in 1572
81Sentence rendered April 24, 1576
82Carranza’s Death, May 2d—Estimates of him
84Jurisdiction claimed over Bishops
87Cases of Toro of Oviedo and Queipo of Mechoacan
88 Chapter IV—The Edict of Faith.Its Effectiveness in stimulating Denunciations
91Its comprehensive Details
93Its Anathema
95Popular Training in Delation
99 Chapter V—Appeals to Rome.Supremacy of Papal Jurisdiction
103Conversos purchase Letters of Pardon from the Holy See
104Ferdinand and the Inquisition disregard them
105Papal Pardons claimed to be good in the Judicial Forum
107Struggle between Spain and Rome—Pardons sold and revoked
108Citation to Rome of Inquisitorial Officials
118Tergiversations of the Curia
120Charles V carries on the Struggle
123He obtains exclusive Appellate Jurisdiction for the Inquisitor-general
126But the Curia still entertains Appeals
128Friction continued under Philip II and Philip III
129Philip IV enforces surrender of papal letters
132Case of Gerónimo de Villanueva
133His connection with the Convent of San Placido
134He obtains an Acquittal from the Inquisition in 1632
136Arce y Reynoso reopens the Case in 1643
138Villanueva’s Sentence—His Appeal to Rome entertained
143Persistent Resistance of Philip IV
146Copies of the Papers sent to Rome in 1651
154Efforts to have them returned continued until 1660
157Appeals to Rome forbidden under the Bourbons
159 BOOK IV—ORGANIZATION. Chapter I—The Inquisitor-General and Supreme Council.Commissions of Officials expire with the Inquisitor-general
161Suprema at first merely a Consultative Body
162Rapid Increase of its Functions
164It becomes the ruling Power
167Its struggle with Inquisitor-general Mendoza in the Case of Froilan Diaz
169Mendoza removes the opposing Members
174Philip V. decides in favor of the Suprema and of Froilan Diaz
177The Suprema reduces the Tribunals to Subordination
179It gradually intervenes in Sentences and Trials
181It requires monthly Reports of current Business
183Centralization becomes complete—The Tribunals are merely ministerial
185Appellate Jurisdiction of Inquisitor-general and Suprema
187Control over all Details of the Tribunals
189Control over the Finances
190Salaries and Perquisites of the Suprema
194Its Enjoyment of Bull-fights
198Its Revenues and Expenses
200 Chapter II—The Tribunal.Gradual Delimitation into Districts
205Organization of the Tribunal—Multiplication of Officials
208Vain efforts to restrict the Number
211Sale of Offices
212Census of Officials in 1746
216Hereditary Transmission of Office
218Tenderness shown to official Malfeasance and its Results
223Visitations or Inspections of the Tribunals
227The Palace or Building of the Tribunal
230The Personnel of the Tribunal—The Assessor
232The Inquisitors—Their Qualifications
233Their Duty of visiting their Districts
238The Promotor Fiscal or Prosecutor
241The Notaries or Secretaries
243The Alguazil
245The Nuncio, Portero and Gaoler
246The Physician, Surgeon and Steward
248Financial Officials
250Salaries and Ayudas de Costa
251The Records
255 Chapter III—Unsalaried Officials.Calificadores or Censors
263Consultors
266Commissioners
268Familiars
272Their excessive Numbers and Turbulence
274Qualifications prescribed
279Organization of officials—Hermandad de San Pedro Martir
282Fernando VII makes it an Order of Knighthood
283 Chapter IV—Limpieza.Origin of Limpieza or Purity of Blood
285Distinction between Old and New Christians
286The Religious Orders seek to exclude New Christians
287New Christians excluded from Colleges
289The Church of Toledo adopts a Statute of Limpieza
290Limpieza enforced in the Observantine Franciscans
293It becomes a Prerequisite in the Inquisition
294Verification of Limpieza
295Number of Generations required—Penitents of the Inquisition
297Character of Investigation—It is a Source of Revenue
300Perjury and Subornation
304Futile Effort of Philip IV to diminish the Evils of Limpieza
307Unfortunate Effects of the Proscription
308It increases the Terror of the Inquisition
310Rigidity relaxed under the Restoration
311Remains of Prejudice in Majorca
312 BOOK V—RESOURCES. Chapter I—Confiscation.Necessity of Confiscation to support the Inquisition
315Confiscation borrowed from the imperial Jurisprudence
316Responsibility for it
317Claims of the Church in Cases of Clerics
318Division made with feudal Lords
319Enforced on all reconciled or condemned Heretics
320Methods to prevent Evasion
321Commissions paid to Informers
323Rapacious Practice of the Old Inquisition
325The Question of Alienations and Creditors
326The Question of Dowries
332The Question of Conquests
334Thoroughness of Confiscation—Provision for Children
335Alienations subsequent to Commission of Heresy
339Slaves of Confiscated Estates
339Rigorous Collection of Debts
340Routine of Business—Responsibility of Receivers
341Hardships inflicted by Confiscation
349Exclusive Jurisdiction of the Inquisition
349Compositions for Confiscation
352Losses and Dilapidation
363Productiveness
367Becomes Obsolete in the Eighteenth Century
370Disposition made of the Proceeds
371Lavish Grants to Favorites
372Ferdinand’s Kindliness
378Reckless Grants by Charles V
380Influence of Confiscation
386 Chapter II—Fines and Penances.Pecuniary Penance
389Distinguished from Confiscation
391Sometimes substituted for Confiscation
394Its Productiveness
396Fines as Punishment
389 Chapter III—Dispensations.Rehabilitation from Disabilities
401Struggle between the Crown, the Inquisition and the Papacy
403Sale of Commutation of Punishments
408 Chapter IV—Benefices.Officials provided with Benefices
415Quinquennial Dispensations from Residence
416Patronage granted to the Sovereigns
416Opposition of Cathedral Chapters
417Doctoral and Magistral Canonries
421Grant of a Canonry in each Church, in 1559
423Fruitless Resistance of the Churches
428Productiveness
431 Chapter V—Finances.Failure to provide permanent Funds
433Improvidence—Complaints of Poverty
435Power of Recuperation
439Deficiency of Revenue in the Eighteenth Century
441Financial Organization—The Receiver
445Detailed Accounts required—Neglect to render them
447The Coffer with three Keys—Its Ineffectiveness
450The
Junta de Hacienda 453Defalcations
454 BOOK VI—PRACTICE. Chapter I—The Edict of Grace.Nature of the Edict of Grace
457Confession under the Edict
459Its Utility to the Inquisition
460Revived in 1815
463 Chapter II—The Inquisitorial Process.The Inquisitorial Process in secular Procedure
465Laxity in the Spiritual Courts
469Rigid Secrecy in the Inquisition
470Its Importance
476The Fiscal as Party to the Case
478The Inquisitorial Ideal
482 Chapter III—Arrest and Sequestration.Duty of Denunciation
485Preliminaries to Arrest
486Their Disregard
491Segregation of the Prisoner
493Immediate Sequestration of Property
495Provision for Families
499The Secrestador
501Embargo
503 Chapter IV—The Secret Prison.Grades of Imprisonment
507Character of the Secret Prison
509Terror inspired by Imprisonment
511The Chaining of Prisoners
511Escape from Prison
513Deprivation of all outside Intercourse
513Restrictions on writing Materials
517Prison Regulations
518Deprivation of the Sacraments
520Treatment of the Sick
522Care of Female Prisoners
523Humane Instructions—not always obeyed
524Expenses of Maintenance—Rations
528Collection of Costs
533 Chapter V—Evidence.The Judge assumed to weigh the Character of Evidence
535No Qualifications required in Witnesses for the Prosecution
536Strict Qualifications for Witnesses for the Defence
539Witnesses forced to testify
540Examination of Witnesses
541Control over Evidence for the Defence
543Ratification of Evidence
544Suppression of Witnesses’ Names
548False-witness
554Character of Evidence admitted
563Negative Evidence
567 Chapter VI—Confession.Duty of Saving Souls
569Urgency to induce Confession
570Spontaneous Confession, its Frequency
571Confession must be complete—The
Diminuto 573Denial of Intention
576Denunciation of Accomplices
577Time of Confession
580Revocation of Confession
582Denial of Guilt—The
Negativo 585Appendix of Documents
587The merciless zeal of the Holy Office might gradually relieve the people of this danger, but it intensified by its methods the unreasoning abhorrence of heresy. The honest cavalier Oviedo, about the middle of the sixteenth century, merely phrases the current opinion of the time when he says that all possible punishments prescribed by the canons and admitted by the laws should be visited on the persons and property of heretics; they eat the bread of the good, they render the land infamous, by their conversation they lead souls to perdition and, with their marriages and kinships, they corrupt the blood of good houses.[3] As time wore on this increased rather than diminished. Galceran Albanell, Archbishop of Granada, who had been tutor of Philip IV, wrote to his former pupil April 12, 1621, to express his horror at learning that the English ambassador had been allowed to have divine service performed in his house, after the rites of his sect. The king should not allow it; it is the greatest of sins and unless it is remedied we shall all perish. It is an accursed reason to allege that that accursed king permits the Spanish ambassador to have mass celebrated in London. The English ambassador should be dismissed and the English king can send away the Spanish ambassador; if the Council of State interferes, let Philip show them the way of God. The Licenciado de Angulo should have a bishopric because he resigned his office as fiscal of the Council rather than affix his name to a paper in which the English king was styled Defender of the Faith and Albanell declares his readiness to resign his own see in Angulo’s favor.[4] To a population sedulously trained in such sentiments the awful ceremonies of the auto de fe were a triumph of the faith, of which they felt proud, and they were filled with pious exultation when the flames of the brasero consumed the bodies of heretics who passed through temporal to eternal fire. It was a vindication of the honor of God, and it is necessary to understand and bear in mind this temper when considering the performance by the Inquisition of its allotted task.
Age placed slender limits on inquisitorial jurisdiction. Children were considered capable of committing heresy as soon as they were doli capaces, at six or seven years, but were not held responsible until they reached years of discretion. This was fixed by Torquemada at twelve for girls and fourteen for boys, below which they were not to be made to abjure in public,[7] but the limit was frequently infringed. In 1501, Inesita, daughter of Marcos Garcia, between nine and ten years old and Isabel, daughter of Alvaro Ortolano, aged ten, were sentenced to appear in an auto de fe. They had confessed to fasting once or twice and the latter had been told by her father not to eat pork.[8] In 1660, at Valladolid, Joseph Rodríguez, aged eight, accused of Judaism, was regularly tried, with all the complicated formalities of procedure, occupying a year, and was made to give evidence against his father and brother; he was absolved secretly and placed in the penitential prison for instruction.[9] Of course there was no maximum limit of age. In 1638, at Valladolid, María Díaz, a hundred years old, was thrown into the secret prison for Judaism and her trial went forward.[10]
There was still another definition of even greater importance. Heresy was both a sin and a crime. As a sin it was subject to the forum internum, or forum of conscience; as a crime, to the forum externum or judicial forum. A penitent in sacramental confession, admitting heretical belief, might receive sacramental absolution and be pardoned in the sight of God, but the crime, like that of murder or any other violation of human laws, would still remain to be punished in the judicial forum. We shall see that in the Inquisition the penitent, who confessed and repented and received absolution, was still subject to penalties ranging, according to circumstances, from slight penance to death.
Such was the somewhat cumbrous combination of episcopal and inquisitorial jurisdiction which the founding of the Holy Office brought into Spain. Independent action by bishops still continued occasionally, of which we have seen example (Vol. I, p. 167) and it was recognized, though subordinated to the inquisitorial jurisdiction in a brief of Innocent VIII, September 25, 1487, conferring on Torquemada appellate power in cases before episcopal courts, whether they were acting separately or in conjunction with inquisitors, provided appeal was made before sentence was rendered.[14] The popes of the period, moreover, were careful to maintain the assertion of episcopal participation in inquisitorial proceedings, as is manifested in the superscription of their letters addressed “Ordinariis et Inquisitoribus,” or assuming that inquisitors acted under episcopal as well as papal authority.[15] Theoretically, this continued throughout the sixteenth century. The writers of highest authority treat bishops and inquisitors as possessing cumulative jurisdiction, so that both could prosecute, either separately or conjointly and the old canons were still cited threatening with deposition the bishop who was negligent in purifying his diocese of heresy.[16]
In a carta acordada of November 23, 1612, the Suprema made an attempt to define the boundaries of the rival jurisdictions, in which it allowed to the spiritual courts exclusive jurisdiction only over ecclesiastics in matters touching their duties as pastors, the ministry of the Church, simony and cases relating to Orders, benefices and spiritual affairs, while it admitted cumulative jurisdiction in usury, gambling and incontinence.[30] Restricted as were these admissions, the Suprema itself did not observe them. In 1637, Sebastian de los Rios, cura of Tombrio de Arriba, who met with one or two accidents in handling the sacrament and feared accusation, by his enemies, of irreverence, denounced himself to the provisor of Astorga and was fined in four thousand maravedís. In spite of this he was prosecuted, in 1640, by the tribunal of Valladolid; he vainly pleaded his previous trial; the Suprema assumed its invalidity in ordering his incarceration in the secret prison, where he died.[31] This process of encroachment continued and towards the end, when there was little real heresy to occupy its energies, its records are full of cases which, even under its own definitions, belonged unquestionably to the spiritual courts—inobservance of ecclesiastical precepts of all kinds, irregularities in the celebration of mass, taking communion after eating, eating flesh on fast days, working and inattendance at mass on feast days and other miscellaneous business, wholly foreign to its original functions.[32] It does not argue favorably for the Spanish episcopate that they seem to have welcomed this relief from their duties and strenuously resisted the abolition of the Inquisition in 1813, which restored to them, under limitations, their original functions. After the Restoration, the Archbishop of Seville, in 1818, gathered evidence to show that the cura of San Marcos had not confessed for many years and then, in place of punishing him, handed the papers over to the tribunal. This was probably fortunate for the peccant priest, as the Suprema ordered that nothing should be done except to keep him under surveillance and that the archbishop should be warmly thanked and assured that the necessary steps had been taken.[33]
Still the bishops did not wholly abandon their rights and cases continued occasionally to occur, in which of course they were worsted. They were frequent enough to justify, in a Formulary of 1645, the insertion of a formula framed to meet them. It is addressed to the provisor of Badajoz and recites that the fiscal complains of him as having commenced proceedings against a certain party for heretical propositions; as this is a matter pertaining exclusively to the Inquisition, he is commanded to surrender it under the customary penalties of excommunication and fine. The fiscal also demands that the provisor be prosecuted so that in future neither he nor any one else shall dare to usurp the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and the document ends with a statement that the prosecution has been commenced.[25] Such methods were not easily resisted. When, in 1666, the Barcelona tribunal learned that the Bishop of Solsona, on a visitation, had taken considerable testimony against some parties in a matter of faith, it at once claimed the papers, which he promptly surrendered. It had the audacity to propose to prosecute him, but the Suprema wisely ordered it to take no action against him.[26] Yet Benedict XIV repeated the assertion of Clement VIII that the popes, in delegating powers to inquisitors, had never intended to interfere with episcopal jurisdiction or to relieve bishops from responsibility.[27]
Confession of formal heresy was not so leniently treated and, as it inferred accomplices, every effort was made to secure their denunciation. The confessor was ordered to persuade, if possible, the penitent to come to the Inquisition and confess as to himself and others, promising secret absolution without confiscation. This was virtually the offer made to those who came forward under an Edict of Grace and did not exclude arbitrary pecuniary penance; it was not likely to attract self-denunciation, especially as it included betraying kindred and friends, although power to absolve was not granted in case of refusal. This led to a dead-lock and possibly in such cases the confessor was expected to violate the seal of confession under the old rule that it did not cover heresy. At least this may be inferred from a case occurring in Lima about 1580, when Padre Luis López, S. J. reported that a penitent in confession had admitted to have Judaized and on being told to go to the Inquisition had refused. The matter was regarded as so grave that it was referred to the Suprema which sent orders to deliver López to the viceroy for shipment to Spain—apparently one who would not violate the seal was too dangerous to be left in Peru.[78] Simancas, however, characterized this as a most pernicious doctrine and argues that infraction of the seal is much worse than allowing a heretic to escape punishment.[79]
The Cruzada indulgence was a special financial favor to the Spanish monarchy which it could virtually control, but it was otherwise with the jubilee indulgences which, about this period, the popes began to publish—plenary remissions of sins such as were obtainable by pilgrimage to Rome at the jubilees celebrated every twenty-five years. St. Pius V set the example of this, on his accession in 1566, which has since been followed by his successors, together with special jubilees decreed at decreasing intervals. The jubilee published in 1572, on the accession of Gregory XIII, excepted heretics and readers of prohibited books and added a positive declaration that in it and all that might be subsequently issued the absolution was only in the forum of conscience and did not affect the judicial forum.[84] Taking advantage of this, when another jubilee indulgence appeared, in 1578, the Suprema ordered it to be published with the omission of all that concerned the Inquisition, in accordance with the declarations of Gregory.[85] Subsequent jubilees, however, of 1589, 1592 and 1595 included heresy and called forth unavailing protests from Spain until finally, in the latter year, preachers were ordered to declare, as of their own motion, that, under the general clause of the jubilee, absolution could not be had for heresy.[86] While the Roman Inquisition made no protest against these indulgences, the Spanish persistently objected to them and it seemed impossible to harmonize the conflict. When Alexander VII, on his accession, in 1655, published a jubilee, it contained the obnoxious clause; Cabrera, the agent of the Suprema in Rome, warmly remonstrated with him and he promised in future to except heresy; this did not satisfy Cabrera who asked for a constitution excepting heresy from all jubilees. Alexander promised to investigate the matter, but apparently his investigations were resultless for the subject continued till the end of the century to furnish occasion for repeated discussion.[87]
Such was the situation when the Spanish Inquisition was founded. Conversos were numerous in the Orders and many were prosecuted. Under Torquemada, himself a Dominican, the inquisitors were largely Dominicans and the Franciscans naturally claimed the privileges of the papal decrees of 1460 and 1479; when, in 1487, some Observantine Franciscans were prosecuted, Innocent VIII ordered their release and repeated the provisions of 1479.[94] In the following year, however, by a motu proprío of May 17, 1488, he declared that none of the Orders were exempt and specially mentioned the Cistercians, Dominicans and Franciscans.[95] Even before this, Torquemada had treated the regulars as under his jurisdiction for, though he had granted to the Geronimite prelates power to try some of their frailes he revoked this, May 3, 1488, and commissioned the inquisitors of Toledo to prosecute them.[96] In Rome the influence of the regular Orders was great; that of the growing Spanish power was steadily increasing, and the contest between these opposing forces is seen in the fluctuating policy of the Holy See. The motu proprio of 1488 remained in force for a considerable time, but, after the death of Ferdinand, the Franciscans in 1517 obtained from Leo X the renewal of their old privileges, which probably also included the Dominicans.[97] The Augustinians soon followed, for a letter of the Suprema, May 7, 1521, directs the tribunals, in view of their privileges to be tried by their prelates, to obtain from the superiors delegated power to act in their cases, or to get a fraile assigned to sit as assessor, or to remit the cases to the Suprema as they may deem best.[98] Apparently these exemptions were not always respected, for Clement VII, by a brief of January 18, 1524, emphatically confirmed the Franciscan privileges and ordered all their cases pending in the tribunals to be transferred within six days to the prelates of the accused.[99] So when, in a brief of March 19, 1525, he prohibited descendants of Jews and heretics from acquiring dignities in the Observantine branch of the Order, he gave as a reason that the provincials are judges of their subjects.[100]
In issuing this the Suprema evidently was unaware that some three weeks earlier there had occurred another shifting of the scales. The frailes had not been idle; the Franciscans, and presumably the other Orders, had won a victory. A brief of Clement VII, June 23, 1534, recites the various exemptions granted by preceding popes to the Franciscans, while numerous complaints showed that some inquisitors continued to prosecute them, to their great perturbation and scandal, wherefore it was ordered that whenever any of the frailes were suspected of heresy they must be remitted to their superiors for punishment, notwithstanding all privileges granted to the Holy Office. Confirmation of this was procured from Paul III, November 8th of the same year, but apparently these commands received slender attention, for another confirmation was obtained, December 15, 1537, with the addition that all cases pending in the Inquisition must be surrendered to the superiors of the Order within six days and all sentences in derogation of this were declared invalid.[104] Even this did not keep the Inquisition in check and Paul issued, March 6, 1542, another decree reciting cases in contempt of his orders, wherefore all inquisitors, in every part of the world, were commanded, under penalty of excommunication, deprivation of benefice and disability for preferment, not to proceed against the frailes and to deliver up any who might be imprisoned. All bishops and prelates were made executors of the brief, with power to invoke the aid of the secular arm.[105]
Some details in this would seem to point to the Society of Jesus as the chief recalcitrant and this is confirmed by a brief of Alexander VII, July 8, 1660, which condemns, as pernicious and rash, opinions calling in doubt the obligation to denounce and the pretexts employed of fraternal correction to prevent denunciation. Even the Company of Jesus is ordered to obey the constitution of Paul V; no superiors are to molest or oppress their subjects for performing this duty but must exhort them to it. Disobedience is threatened not only with the penalties provided by Paul V but with deprivation of office, the right of voting and being voted for, perpetual disability and other punishments at the discretion of the pope and removable only by him. The decree is to be read annually on March 1st at the public table and notarial attestation of the fact is to be sent to the nearest tribunal or to Rome and a copy is to be posted where all can read it. The Inquisition lost no time in publishing this and the decree of November 7, 1606, in an edict commanding their observance and pointing out that the alternative of denunciation to the Ordinary was invalid in Spain, where the Inquisition had exclusive jurisdiction. It further ordered that in all books where contrary opinions were taught there should be noted in the margin “This opinion is condemned as pernicious and rash by our Holy Father, Alexander VII.”[114]
THERE was, in Spain, but one class over which the Inquisition had no jurisdiction. Boniface VIII, at the close of the thirteenth century, had decreed that, when a bishop was suspect of heresy, the inquisitor could not prosecute. The most that he could do was to gather evidence and send it to the Holy See, which reserved to itself judgement on the episcopal Order.[118] This was embodied in the canon law and remained in force, although of course the pope could delegate his power or could enlarge inquisitorial commissions, as when, in 1451, Nicholas V responded to the request of Juan II and included bishops among those subjected to the inquisitors whom he appointed.[119] During the middle ages the question was one of scarce more than academic interest, but in Spain, where the conversos had attained so many lofty positions in the Church and where all of Jewish blood were regarded with suspicion, it might at any moment become of practical importance.[120] The influence and power of the Inquisition would manifestly be increased if it should be granted faculties to prosecute bishops and Torquemada seems to have applied for this, in 1487, intimating that there were suspects among the bishops. Innocent VIII, however, was not disposed to subject the whole episcopate of Spain to the Holy Office and replied, September 25th, reciting the decree of Boniface and telling him to examine carefully all the evidence collected by the inquisitors and, if in it he found what incriminated prelates or showed that they were defamed or suspected of heresy, he should send it in legal shape and carefully sealed to Rome, where it would be duly weighed and proper action be taken.[121]
Half a century was to elapse before there was another case involving the episcopal Order. It has been sometimes thought that the Inquisition was concerned in the trial and execution of Antonio de Acuña, Bishop of Zamora, but such was not the fact, although the case illustrates the difficulty of holding a bishop accountable for his misdeeds. That turbulent prelate, somewhat absurdly styled a second Luther by Leo X, was an active leader in the Comunidades, who, after the defeat at Villalar, April 21, 1521, fled in disguise but was caught at Villamediana, on the Castilian border. Episcopal immunity rendered him a doubtful prize; Charles V was resolved on his death, but there was considerable doubt as to how he was to be punished. The Inquisition was not brought into play but, after some negotiation, Leo X was induced to issue a commission to Cardinal Adrian and the nuncio to take testimony and forward it for judgement by the pope in consistory. On Adrian’s accession to the papacy he transferred the commission to the Archbishop of Granada and the Bishop of Ciudad-Rodrigo, but gave no authority to employ torture. Then Clement VII, by a brief of March 27, 1524, granted faculties to proceed to extremities, under which the trial went on, but apparently died out when carried to Rome. Wearied with five years’ confinement in the castle of Simancas, Acuña made a fruitless attempt to escape, in which he killed the alcaide, Mendo Noguerol. Charles then sent to Simancas his alcalde de casa y corte, Rodrigo Ronquillo, with instructions to torture Acuña and put him to death—instructions faithfully executed, March 23, 1526. This violation of the immunities of the Church caused no little scandal. Charles speedily obtained for himself, from Clement, absolution from the ipso facto excommunication incurred, but that which he had promised to procure for his subordinates was granted with difficulty and only after delay of more than a year, the final ceremony not taking place until September 8, 1527. At Valladolid a tradition was long current that Ronquillo came to an evil end, being carried off by demons.[130]
Pedro de Aranda of Calahorra was a man of equal mark who, in 1482, acquired the high position of President of the Council of Castile. His father, Gonzalo Alonso, had been baptized with the famous Pablo de Santa María and had been ennobled. The Valladolid tribunal prosecuted his memory, with the result of a discordia, or disagreement, and the bishop went to Rome in 1493, where he gained papal favor and procured a brief transferring the case to the Bishop of Córdova and the Benedictine Prior of Valladolid. He remained in Rome, when Alexander VI, in 1494, sent him to Venice as ambassador and subsequently made him Master of the Sacred Palace. Since 1488, however, Torquemada had been collecting evidence against him. It was sent to Rome and, on the night of April 21, 1498, he was ordered to keep his room in the palace as a prison; on the 26th he was brought before the pope and had a hearing, after which he was taken to other rooms and kept under guard until September. Meanwhile Alexander seized his property and Sanuto intimates that his real crime was his abundance of ready money, while Burchard tells us that he was accused of heresy and marrania and that he had many enemies. Three bishops of the curia were commissioned as his judges; they heard many witnesses presented by the fiscal and a hundred and one by the accused, but all of these testified against him. The points against him were that he said the Mosaic Law had one principle, the Christian three; in praying he said Gloria Patri, omitting Filio et Spiritui Sancto; he celebrated mass after eating; he ate meat on Good Friday and other prohibited days; he declared that indulgences were useless and had been invented by the Fathers for gain; that there was neither hell nor purgatory but only paradise, and much more of the same nature. On November 16th the judges laid the evidence before the pope in secret consistory when, by the advice of the cardinals, Aranda was deposed and degraded from Orders; he was confined in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo, where he was given a good room and he died there, apparently in 1500.[127]
This evidently was a personal delegation, expiring with Manrique, for no reference to it was made in the next case—that of Bartolomé de Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo. This was, perhaps, the most important affair during the career of the Inquisition. It attracted the attention of all Catholic Europe and illustrates in so many ways, not only inquisitorial methods but the conflict between orthodoxy and reform that it merits consideration in some detail.[132]
It was evident to Valdés that something was necessary to strengthen his position and he skilfully utilized the discovery of a few Protestants in Valladolid, of whom some were eminent clerics, like Augustin Cazalla and Fray Domingo de Rojas, and others were persons of quality, like Luis de Rojas and Doña Ana Enríquez. We shall have occasion to note hereafter the extraordinary excitement caused by the revelation that Protestantism was making inroads in court circles, the extent of which was readily exaggerated, and it was stimulated and exploited by Valdés, who magnified his zeal in combating the danger and conjured, at least for the moment, the storm that was brewing. Philip wrote from Flanders, June 5, 1558, to send him to his see without delay; if he still made excuses he was to be excluded from the Council of State and this would answer until his approaching return to Spain, when he would take whatever action was necessary. Ten days later, on receiving letters from Valdés enumerating the prisoners and describing the efforts made to avert the danger, he countermanded the orders.[135] Still, this was only a respite; we chance to hear of a meeting of the Council of State, in August or September, in which Juan de Vega characterized as a great scandal the disobedience of a vassal to the royal commands, in a matter so just as residence in his see, and he suggested that, when the court moved, no quarters should be assigned to Valdés, to which Archbishop Carranza replied that it was no wonder that the orders of the king were unable to effect what the commandments of God and the Church could not accomplish.[136]
Bartolomé de Carranza y Miranda was born in 1503. At the age of 12 he entered the university of Alcalá; at 18 he took the final vows of the Dominican Order and was sent to study theology in the college of San Gregorio at Valladolid, where, in 1530, he was made professor of arts, in 1533 junior professor of theology and, in 1534, chief professor as well as consultor of the tribunal of Valladolid. In 1540 he was sent as representative of his Order to the General Chapter held in Rome, where he distinguished himself and was honored with the doctorate, while Paul III granted him a licence to read prohibited heretic books. On his return to Spain his reputation was national; he was largely employed by the Suprema in the censorship of books, especially of foreign Bibles, while the Councils of Indies and Castile frequently submitted intricate questions for his judgement. In 1542 he was offered the see of Cuzco, esteemed the wealthiest in the colonies, when he replied that he would willingly go to the Indies on the emperor’s service but not to undertake the cure of souls.[137] On the convocation of the Council of Trent, in 1545, Charles V selected him as one of the delegates and, during his three years’ service there, he earned the reputation throughout Christendom of a profound theologian. When, in 1548, Prince Philip went to join his father in Flanders, they both offered him the position of confessor which he declined, as he did the see of Canaries which was tendered to him in 1550. In this latter year he was elected provincial of his Order for Castile and, in 1551, he was sent to the second convocation of the Council of Trent by Charles and also as the representative of Siliceo, Archbishop of Toledo. As usual, he played a prominent part in the Council and, after its hasty dissolution, he remained there for some time employed in the duty of examining and condemning heretical books. In 1553 he returned to his professorship at Valladolid and when, in 1554, Prince Philip sailed for England to marry Queen Mary and restore the island to the unity of the Church, he took Carranza with him as the fittest instrument for the work.[138]
He had unquestionably been more or less intimate with some of the prominent personages whose arrest for Lutheranism, in the spring of 1558, produced so immense a sensation. It was not unnatural that, on their trials, they should seek to shield themselves behind his honored name, but the detached fragments of conversation which were cited in support of vague general assertions, even if correctly reported, amount to nothing in the face of the emphatic testimony by Fray Domingo de Rojas, for the discharge of his conscience, a few hours before his execution, that he had never seen in Carranza anything that was not Catholic in regard to the Roman Church and all its councils, definitions and laws and that when Lutherans were alluded to he said their opinions were crafty and deceiving; they had sprung from hell and the incautious could easily be deceived by them.[149] The credence due to the evidence of the Lutherans, on which so much stress was laid, can be gauged by a subsequent case illustrative of the tendency to render Carranza responsible for all aberrations of belief. A certain Gil Tibobil (de Bonneville) on trial in 1564 for Lutheranism, in Toledo, sought to palliate his guilt by asserting that he had heard Carranza preach, in the church of San Agustin, against candles and images and that confession was to be made to God and not to the priest. This was too crude to be accepted and he was sternly told that it cast doubt on the rest of his confession for, if Carranza had thus preached publicly, it would have come to the knowledge of the Inquisition and he would have been punished.[150]
No one, I think, can dispassionately examine the Commentaries without reaching the conviction that Carranza was a sincere and zealous Catholic, however reckless may seem many of his isolated utterances. Nor was his orthodoxy merely academic. He belonged to the Church Militant and his hatred of heresy and heretics breaks out continually, in season and out of season, whether apposite or not to his immediate subject. Heretic arguments are not worthy of confutation—it is enough to say that a doctrine is condemned by the Church and therefore it is heretical. The first duty of the king is to preserve his dominions in the true faith and to chastise those who sin against it. Even if heretics should perform miracles, their disorderly lives and corrupted morals would be sufficient to guard the people from listening to them or believing them. If they do not admit their errors they are to be condemned to death; this is the best theology that a Christian can learn and it was not more necessary in the time of Moses than it is at present.[154]
Philip’s letters were received July 10th, but there was still hesitation and it was not until August 3d that the princess wrote, summoning Carranza in haste to Valladolid, where she would have lodgings prepared for him. This she sent, with secret instructions, by the hands of Rodrigo de Castro, a member of the Suprema.[179] Carranza was at Alcalá de Henares, whither Diego Ramírez, inquisitor of Toledo, was also despatched, under pretext of publishing the Edict of Faith. Carranza, who suspected a snare, was desirous of postponing his arrival at Valladolid until Philip, on whose protection he still relied, should reach Spain. Accordingly he converted the journey into a visitation, leaving Alcalá on the 16th and passing through Fuente el Saz and Talamanca to Torrelaguna, which he reached on the 20th. On the road he received intimations of what was in store and at Torrelaguna Fray Pedro de Soto came with the news that emissaries had already started to arrest him, which elicited from him a despairing and beseeching letter to Fresneda, the royal confessor.[180]
Diego González, one of the inquisitors of Valladolid, was assigned to the special charge of Carranza who, in a long and rambling memorial to the Suprema represents him as treating him without respect, insulting him, suppressing his communications with the Suprema, fabricating answers, throwing every impediment in the way of his defence and aggravating, with malicious ingenuity, the miseries of his position. Some details as to the parsimony with which he was treated are almost incredible when we reflect that the Inquisition and Philip were enjoying the enormous sequestrated revenues of their prisoner.[190]
Philip leisurely postponed for a year the nomination of new judges. It may seem harsh to attribute this to the repulsive motive of prolonging the trial in order to enjoy the benefit of the sequestrated revenues of Toledo, but his financial needs were extreme and the temptation was great. In violation of the rule of the Inquisition that sequestrations were held for the benefit of the owner, to be accounted for unless confiscation was imposed, Philip had appointed Tello Giron administrator of the archbishopric, had procured his confirmation from Pius IV, in spite of the earnest remonstrances of the chapter, and was quietly absorbing the revenues, except such portion as the Suprema claimed for the expenses of Carranza and of the trial.[193] We happen to have evidence of this in the promise of a pension of twelve thousand cruzados on the see of Toledo, by which he won over Cardinal Caraffa to the Spanish interest, during the long conclave which resulted in the election of Pius IV[194], and the acquiescence of that pope in his enjoyment of the revenues was probably purchased by the promise of a similar pension of twelve thousand crowns to his favorite nephew, St. Charles Borromeo—a promise which he neglected to fulfil although, in 1564, it was reckoned that he had already received from the see some eight hundred thousand crowns. When he quarrelled with Pius for deciding the question of precedence in favor of France, the pope threatened to make him disgorge, but without success.[195] It is therefore easy to understand why the case promised to be interminable. The two years of the original brief expired in April, 1561; Pius extended it for two years more; then, by a brief of April 4, 1563, he renewed it for another year, at the same time prescribing that Carranza should be more mercifully treated; then, August 12, 1564, it was extended until January 1, 1565, and for another year still before the matter passed into the sterner hands of St. Pius V.[196] These delays it was the fashion to impute to Carranza. Bishop Simancas, who hated him for the proverbial reason odisse quem læseris, asserts that he was constantly employing devices to prevent progress, but this is absurd.[197] It was Carranza’s interest to be released from his dreary incarceration and to be sent to Rome, where he felt confident of favor; the cumbrous estilo of the Inquisition enabled it to retard action at will, while the accused could do little either to hasten or to impede.
Thus a year passed away and, on June 5, 1562, the fiscal presented a second accusation, for there was no limit to these successive charges, each of which could be made to consume time. These new articles were mostly based on rumors and vague expressions of opinion, for all who were inimical, secure in the suppression of their names, were free to depose as to what they thought or imagined and it was all received as evidence. These he answered as best he could and he succeeded in identifying the names of some of the adverse witnesses. Then he presented a defence, doubtless drawn up as customary by his counsel, for it was clear and cogent, bearing little trace of his discursive and inconclusive style. In support of this he handed in a long list of witnesses to be examined, including Philip II and the Princess Juana, but the fiscal, passing over the royalties, objected to the rest on the ground that they were friends of Carranza—hostile testimony was admitted from any source, but that which was suspected of favorable partiality was rejected. As a principle, this was recognized in inquisitorial practice, but it was not habitually applied with so much rigor.[201]
Pius IV, to do him justice, felt keenly the humiliating position in which he was placed by the overbearing determination of Philip, but each attempt at self-assertion only rendered more evident the contempt in which he was held. More than once he wrote to the Archbishop of Santiago rebuking him for the long delay which kept Carranza in prison while the case made no advance. He named January 1, 1564, as the limit of the archbishop’s commission, after which the process, whether completed or not, was to be forwarded to Rome. The limit passed without obedience to his commands and he wrote again, expressing high displeasure at the contumacy which doomed such a man to grow old in the squalor of a prison without law or justice. Again he ordered the case, whether completed or not, to be sent to Rome; if there were delay, all concerned were ipso facto anathematized, deprived of all dignities and functions and rendered infamous and incapable of restoration; all letters granting jurisdiction were revoked and the case was evoked to Rome for decision. Carranza himself was to be delivered forthwith to the nuncio, who was empowered either to keep him in honorable custody or to liberate him on bail. These were brave words, but there was no heart to back them up with action and, when they were disregarded, he extended, on August 12th the Archbishop’s commission until January, 1565, after which, as previously ordered, the case was to be transmitted to Rome, and there was a significant absence of the minatory tone so prominent in the previous briefs.[209]
Pius IV had carried to an extreme his subservience to Philip. Pedro de Avila, one of Philip’s agents, wrote, August 23, 1565, that Cardinal Borromeo assured him that the pope had done and was doing more than he had power to do in order to gratify the king; he had gone against the canons, the councils and the cardinals and, when recently he thought himself to be dying, nothing weighed on his conscience more heavily than this.[213] His successor was a man of different stamp. To few popes does Catholicism owe more than to St. Pius V, for, while pitiless in his persecution of heresy, his recognition of the need of reform and his unbending resolution to effect it, regained for the Church much of the respect which it had forfeited. The Spanish agents speedily found that in the matter of Carranza he was incorruptible and intractable. As the ambassador Zuñiga plaintively reported to Philip, February 23, 1566, “He is certainly well-intentioned but, having no experience in affairs of state and no private interests, which are the two things that ordinarily make popes yielding, he fixes his eyes on what he deems just and is immovable.”[214] As cardinal-inquisitor and Dominican he had been favorably inclined to Carranza, whose friends received with hope the news of his accession. They conveyed this by means of an arrow aimed at one of his window-shutters and he responded by casting out a paper, picked up by a person stationed for the purpose, in which he addressed the new pope in the words of Peter, “Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water” (Matt. xiv, 28).[215]
Valdés might be willing to risk a schism, but Philip drew back; it was not to be thought of that the Catholic king should incur excommunication, and he recognized what strength the heretic cause throughout Europe would derive from such a quarrel in such a cause. Still he dallied, until Pius forced Valdés to resign and threatened to lay all Spain under interdict.[219] He had encountered a will stronger than his own and Antonio Tiepolo, the Venetian envoy, is doubtless correct in saying that no other pope but Pius could have carried his point.[220] The pressure became irresistible and he yielded. Carranza, under charge of the hated inquisitor Diego González and guarded by a body of troops, left Valladolid December 5th, reaching Cartagena on the 31st, where he was confined in the castle until April 27, 1567, awaiting the arrival of the voluminous papers of the case, when he was placed on the admiral’s ship which was conveying the Duke of Alva on his fateful way to Flanders. Civita Vecchia was reached May 25th and Rome May 28th, where he was confined in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo—a second imprisonment that was to last for nine years. It was much less harsh than the previous one; besides his two faithful attendants he was allowed two others; he was assigned apartments in the quarters reserved for archbishops, he was sometimes permitted to leave his room under guard and enjoy the landscape, and at the first jubilee he was admitted to confession, although communion was still denied.[221]
The Spanish tactics of delay were successful. Pius V died, May 1, 1572, without having published a sentence. Whether one was framed or not is a disputed question. Salazar tells us that it was drawn up, but that Pius, before publication, desired to submit it to Philip and sent it by his chief chamberlain, Alessandro Casale, who was detained by bad weather and other accidents until after the death of the pope. Llorente gives the details of the sentence as absolving Carranza of the charges but maintaining the prohibition of the Commentaries in the vernacular, with permission to translate it into Latin after removing the doubtful expressions. Simancas, who was one of the inquisitors employed on the case in Rome, says positively that Pius died without framing a sentence; that when Carranza’s friends claimed that he had done so, and urged his successor, Gregory XIII, to publish it, the latter offered twenty thousand crowns to any one who would produce it and thus save him the task of reviewing the case.[223] However this may be, Pius was convinced of Carranza’s innocence. He allowed the Commentaries to be publicly sold in Rome; when the fiscal Salgado petitioned for its suppression, he made no answer and, when Salgado insisted upon it in the congregation, he replied angrily that he did not consider it subject to suppression and that they had better not by persistence force him formally to approve it by a motu proprio.[224]
As the time approached at which it was understood that the long protracted case would be terminated, Philip’s anxiety increased. An autograph letter of February 16, 1575, to Pope Gregory, strongly urged Carranza’s speedy condemnation, in view of the dangers which he had represented to Pius, and asked the fulfilment of a promise to communicate to him the sentence before publication. Whether such promise was made or not, Gregory refused to submit it to him, but intimation of what it was to be reached him and, on April 20th, he wrote vigorously to Zuñiga expressing surprise that the pope did not keep his word. As for Carranza, he was so thoroughly convicted of heresy that, according to inquisitorial routine, he ought to be burnt, or at least reconciled after abjuring all kinds of heresy. To allow him to abjure for vehement suspicion of heresy, with temporary suspension from his see, assumes that in time he will return to occupy the primatial church of Toledo, which would cause disturbance and scandal impossible to contemplate. The pope can well conceive the dangers which may follow, in Spain and elsewhere, by the mere example of such a criminal in such a position. Even if the suspension were perpetual yet, if God should remove his Holiness, a successor might lift the suspension unless Carranza is wholly deprived.[226]
As a penance, the pope ordered Carranza to visit the seven churches on Saturday of Easter week (April 28th) and offered him his own litter and horses for his servants, which he declined. It was noised abroad and the whole population was stirred to accompany him, for the compassion felt for him was universal. To avoid such a demonstration Gregory changed the day to Monday the 23rd, but notwithstanding this the throng of coaches and crowds of people changed the penance into a triumph. In the churches he was received with all honor and at the Lateran he celebrated mass but, towards the end of the day, a strangury commenced and, on his return to the convent, he took to his bed, never to leave it. The disease made rapid progress, during which the pope repeatedly sent consolatory messages and, on April 30th, his apostolic benediction, with an indulgence a poena et a culpa. The same day Carranza made a solemn declaration before his secretaries, affirming his unbroken adhesion to the faith; he received with fervor the last consolations of religion and passed away at 3 A.M. on May 2nd. He had entered his prison a vigorous man of 56 and had left it to die, a broken old man of 73.[231]
The affair of Carranza seems to have been regarded as weakening the position of bishops and, with the customary audacity of the inquisitors in extending their jurisdiction, the tribunal of Cuenca boasted or threatened that it would arrest the bishop. The services of the incumbent, Pedro de Castro, in furnishing evidence against Carranza, had been too recent to permit him to be hoisted by his own petard and Valdés, in a letter of June 17, 1560, rebuked the tribunal for its superserviceable zeal.[241] We have seen how the bishops, at the Council of Trent, endeavored to protect themselves by reserving to the pope exclusive right to pronounce sentence, but this was of small avail when he assumed the right to delegate his power as he pleased. When Sixtus V, January 25, 1586, issued a commission to the Cardinal Archduke Albert of Austria, as inquisitor-general of Portugal, it specifically subjected archbishops, bishops and patriarchs to his jurisdiction and that of his subdelegates.[242] As Portugal was under the Spanish crown, this served as a precedent when in December, 1629, the Inquisition desired to prosecute Gavino Mallani, Archbishop of Oristano in Sardinia, against whom it had gathered evidence that, since his consecration, in 1627, he had never been to confession or had celebrated mass, that he was a blasphemer, that he had a familiar demon confined in a ring, etc. The Suprema submitted to Philip IV the Portuguese commission and asked him to instruct his ambassador to procure a similar one for Spain or, failing this, to obtain a special brief for the case of Mallani. Philip ordered the necessary letter to be drafted for his signature, but the effort failed. Mallani was probably sent to Rome with the evidence, for he was deposed, being succeeded, in 1635, by Pedro Vico, while he did not die until 1641.[243] In spite of this recognition of lack of jurisdiction over bishops, we have seen (Vol. I, p. 501) that, in the quarrel with Manjarre de Heredia, Bishop of Majorca, in 1668, Inquisitor-general Nithard claimed that the Inquisition could prosecute him criminally. He had the effrontery to assert, in a consulta of February 5, 1668, that its possession of this power was so notorious and so completely established in practice as to require neither argument nor demonstration, and the infatuated queen-regent sustained him in summoning the bishop to appear for trial. In spite of an adverse decision in Rome, the Inquisition continued the prosecution, even after the expulsion of Nithard, and proceedings ceased only with the death of the bishop.[244]
As, in the course of time, new fields of activity were opened to the Inquisition the enumeration of offences requiring denunciation grew to be a long and detailed catalogue, in which all the acts by which they could be recognized were specified so that there could be no excuse for omission. The simplest and oldest formula which I have met is that published in Mexico at the installation of the Inquisition, in 1571, and, in view of its comparative brevity, it is given in the Appendix. Subsequently the edict grew to portentous dimensions, the purport of which can be gathered from an abstract of that of 1696.
When the six days allowed for denunciation or confession had elapsed, a second proclamation was made, reciting the former one and adding that the fiscal complained that many had not complied with it and he demanded the fulmination of the censures in the most aggravated form. An edict was therefore addressed to all priests requiring them at high mass, when the people were assembled, to denounce as publicly excommunicated and anathematized all who had not obeyed the first edict, sprinkling holy water to drive away the demons who kept them in their toils and praying Christ to bring them back to the bosom of the Church. If they persisted in contumacy, all faithful Christians were ordered within three days to withdraw from all intercourse with them, under pain of similar excommunication. Both those who should have confessed and those who should have denounced, but who continued contumacious, were involved in the anathema pronounced on the third Sunday.
The efficacy of the Edict of Faith is incontestable, although, in 1578, the Inquisitor Francisco de Ribera, in reporting his visitation of the dioceses of Gerona and Elne and his publication of it in places which had never before been visited, complains that it did not render the people disposed to make denunciations, which he attributes to their limited intelligence.[271] In more enlightened centres its effectiveness is seen in the frequency with which accusers preface their charges with the statement that their attention has been called to the duty by the publication of the edict. It naturally set men to searching their memories for what they had seen or heard respecting the various offences so elaborately enumerated and described. For instance, the edict was published in Madrid on September 4, 1569 and, the next day, Hans de Evalo appeared before the inquisitor to denounce Hans Brunsvi and Costancio, two members of the royal Guarda Tudesca, for things which he had heard and known of them, but of which he had thought nothing until he heard the edict read.[272] It was the same in stimulating self-denunciation, whether through pricks of conscience or fear of accusation by others. Thus, in 1581 we have two cases following each other, in which Juan González and Bartolomé Benito accuse themselves of having, in conversation with their wives, asserted that fornication is no sin, for which both were duly penanced and fined. The wives were sent for and confirmed the confessions, which we may safely attribute to the fear that the spouses might be led to denounce them.[273]
Papal predominance had its foundation in the universal supreme jurisdiction, original and appellate, of Rome in all matters of faith and the unlimited area of affairs contingent on faith. This had been gradually acquired during the dark ages and was strenuously upheld, as it was the source of wealth as well as of power, and without it the Bishop of Rome would speedily shrink to his original primacy of honor. That he should divest himself of it was not to be expected, especially for the benefit of inquisitors, whose jurisdiction was a delegation from him and whose claim to superiority over bishops was based on the functions of the latter being merely “ordinary” while theirs were “apostolic.” It is true that Nicholas V, in his projected Castilian Inquisition of 1451, had granted jurisdiction without appeal, but this could have been withdrawn at any time and the whole attempt had been so soon forgotten that no allusion was ever made to it in the subsequent controversy. In the Old Inquisition, appeals to the pope were recognized, but it was an intricate and costly process, only possible to those familiar with canon law and, as the victims then were mostly peasants or ascetic missionaries, it was rarely employed and still more rarely successful.
The earliest recourse was naturally to the papal Penitentiary. It had long been in the habit of selling confessional letters, empowering any confessor, whom the purchaser might select, to absolve him from all sins, including those reserved to the Holy See. Originally these were understood to be good only in the forum of conscience, but the further step was easily taken of making them effective also in the judicial forum, thus anticipating or annulling the action of the courts and selling immunity for crime as well as pardon for sin.[278] There was no difficulty in obtaining such letters for anyone, and they were sought by the Conversos as a means of protection in advance and of setting aside sentences after conviction. In the Appendix will be found a specimen, issued December 4, 1481, by the Major Penitentiary, to Francisco Fernández of Seville and his wife and mother. It purports to be granted by the direct command of the pope and authorizes the recipient to select any confessor who, after secret abjuration, can absolve him for all acts of heresy, apostasy, relapse and dogmatism and annul all sentences by whomsoever pronounced after trial and conviction, redintegrating him into the Church, removing all stain of heresy, restoring him to all his rights and releasing him from all punishment, only imposing on him salutary penance—which, at that period, was understood to be a money payment for the benefit of the poor, i. e. the Church or its members. A final clause grants the further faculty of overcoming all opposition by the use of censures under papal authority.
This gives us an inside view of the struggle to escape the Inquisition which was going on in every corner of the land. It was useless, for these papal letters were disregarded and the purchasers could look for no redress from the curia, for Pope Sixtus had no scruple in abandoning his customers. It was a lucrative business, this disposing of exemptions and then allowing them to be annulled for a consideration. Both sides thus contributed to the papal treasury and, as it all came from the Conversos in the end, the curia indirectly got its share of the confiscations, and the Inquisition was but nominally restricted. One device for accomplishing this is revealed in a cruzada indulgence, granted March 8, 1483, ostensibly in aid of the war with Granada, but, as Sixtus bargained for one-third of the proceeds, his share was sufficient inducement for sacrificing the purchasers of his confessional letters. A special clause of the indulgence empowered any confessor to absolve the possessor of it—the price being six reales—for killing or despoiling those seeking the Roman court, or for preventing the execution of papal letters, or for forbidding notaries to draw up acts concerning such letters, or for detaining them from those to whom they belonged,—all of which was evidently framed to allow the sovereigns to annul the papal briefs in any way they deemed best.[280]
Yet while Sixtus thus was content, for a moderate compensation, to permit those who were seeking his court to be detained or slain and to have his letters contemptuously annulled, yet when their market was threatened by the assertion that the Penitentiary was only a court of conscience and its absolutions were good only in the interior forum, his indignation burst forth in a bull of May 9, 1484, stigmatizing all such opinions as contumacious and sacrilegious. The Penitentiary, he declared, could grant absolutions good in either forum and those for the judicial forum were good in both spiritual and secular courts. This monstrous assumption, which claimed for the Penitentiary the power to anticipate or set aside the judgement of every criminal court in Europe, for the benefit of culprits who could pay the moderate fee demanded for its letters, was not merely a temporary policy adopted by Sixtus for this occasion. Having once been asserted, it was persisted in. Paul III, July 5, 1549, confirmed the bull of 1484 and subjected to the anathemas of the bull in Coena Domini all who called in question the validity of such letters; when confined to the forum of conscience they were sealed and addressed to the confessor, when intended for the judicial forum they were patent. As Paul died, November 10, 1549, before the publication of this brief, it was confirmed and issued, February 22, 1550, by Julius III.[281] It was the settled purpose of the Holy See of the period to continue this profitable business of selling pardons so long as purchasers could be found for them; they continued to plague the Inquisition and we shall see what stern measures Ferdinand found necessary for their suppression. Yet Ferdinand was justified and the curia was self-condemned for, when the Roman Inquisition was reorganized and found its operations similarly impeded by the letters of the Penitentiary, it ordered, September 26, 1550, its subordinates to pay no attention to them.[282]
The ferocity of this, after a constant struggle with the curia for twenty-five years, shows the importance attached by Ferdinand to the autonomy of the Inquisition and his determination to suppress all papal interference. Still that interference continued and Ferdinand could not but recognize that it was legal. In a case occurring in 1510, when a certain Augustinian Fray Dionisio, on trial before the tribunal of Seville, obtained letters committing the case to a judge who inhibited the tribunal, Ferdinand requested the pope to evoke the case and commit it to Cardinal Ximenes and further that all future cases of the kind should be similarly treated.[316]
A contemporary case, which attracted much attention at the time, shows Leo in a more favorable light. Blanquina Díaz was an octogenarian widow of Valencia, whose orthodoxy had never been suspected, but in 1517 she was denounced for Judaism and thrown into the secret prison. An appeal to the pope brought orders that she be released on good security, be allowed defence and the case be speedily tried. This brief never reached the tribunal, being apparently suppressed by the Suprema, whereupon Leo issued a second one, March 4, 1518, evoking the case to himself and committing it to two ecclesiastics of Valencia, Blanquina being meanwhile placed in a convent and Cardinal Adrian being especially prohibited from intervening, anything that he might do being declared invalid. It was probably before this was received that the tribunal submitted the case to Adrian, who assembled a consulta de fe and condemned Blanquina to perpetual imprisonment and confiscation. The papal intervention seems to have aroused much feeling; Charles was ready to sign anything drawn up for him by Adrian, and, in two letters, of May 18th and June 18th to his Roman agent Luis Carroz, he ordered the latter to disregard all other business in the effort to procure the withdrawal of the two briefs. If the safety of all his dominions had been at stake he could not have been more emphatic; such interference with the Inquisition was unexampled; unless the pope would revoke the briefs and promise never to issue similar ones, the Holy Office would be totally destroyed, and heresy would flourish unpunished, for every one would seek relief at the curia and the service of God would become impossible. He also wrote to the pope and the cardinals, while Adrian and the Suprema sent pressing letters. Leo, however, was firm in substance, though he yielded in form. In briefs of July 5th and 7th to Adrian he ordered that everything done since his letters of March 4th should be annulled, Blanquina being restored to her good fame, her sanbenito being removed and she being placed, under bail, in a convent or in the house of a kinsman. As the evidence against her consisted of trifles committed in childhood, he again evoked the case to himself and committed it to Adrian. There had been active work on both sides in Rome, for the brief of July 5th gave Adrian full power to decide the case while that of the 7th limited him to sending the results to Leo and awaiting instructions as to the sentence. Leo thus kept Blanquina’s fate in his hands; Adrian was only his mouthpiece and the sentence pronounced her to be lightly suspect of heresy and discharged her without imprisonment or confiscation.[328]
These cases will suffice to show how the traditional policy of the curia continued, of taking the money of the refugees and appellants for protecting briefs, and then abandoning them by revocations issued, without even a sense of shame, when their funds were exhausted in the protracted struggle. Yet, undeterred by this, there was a constant succession of new applicants, who had no other refuge on earth, and the valueless briefs were granted with unfailing readiness. It was a source of perpetual irritation and Charles was untiring in his efforts to counteract it, not always observing due courtesy, as when, March 25, 1525, he wrote to Clement VII, in violent language, to revoke and erase from the registers a brief granted to Luis Colon and to order his officials not to issue such letters, as they were scandalous.[333] He no longer had the excuse of his youthful tutelage under Adrian and yet his subserviency to the Inquisition was complete. This was manifested in the case of Bernardo de Orda, a servant of Cardinal Colonna, who had a suit against Doctor Saldaña about the treasurership of the church of Leon. Saldaña was a member of the Suprema and, when Orda came to Spain, it was not difficult to have him charged with heresy and arrested by the tribunal of Valladolid. He escaped to Rome and the prosecution was continued against him in absentia, whereupon Charles demeaned himself by writing to Colonna, July 30, 1528, asking him to prevent Orda from obtaining a brief of exemption, as it would be an injury to the faith, and also not to favor him in his suit with Saldaña.[334]
When, in 1542, Paul III reorganized the moribund papal Inquisition by forming a congregation of cardinals as inquisitors-general for all Christendom, there was a not unnatural apprehension that this, even if not so intended, might interfere with the independence of the Spanish Holy Office. To representations of this he responded by a brief of April 1, 1548, in which he characterized such fears as baseless; he declared that it was not designed to interfere with the authority of inquisitors in Spain and he formally revoked anything to their prejudice that might be found in the decree establishing the Congregation.[340] This brief remained to the end the charter to which the Spanish Inquisition appealed in its frequent collisions with the Roman Congregation and, but for such a declaration, it would probably have been subordinated.[341]
Under Philip III, the papal supremacy continued to be exercised and was submitted to as reluctantly as ever. In 1602 a Doctor Cozas, under prosecution by the tribunal of Murcia, managed to escape to Rome and to have his case tried there. Philip labored strenuously and persistently to have him remanded, first through his ambassador the Duke of Sesa and then through the succeeding envoy, the Duke of Escalona, to whom, on April 1, 1604 he sent a special courier, urging him to renew his efforts, for every day the Roman Inquisition was intervening in what the popes had granted exclusively to the inquisitor-general, thus threatening the total destruction of the Spanish Inquisition.[353] In 1603 a Portuguese appealed to the Roman Inquisition, alleging that his wife was unjustly held in prison; he obtained an order on the inquisitor-general to transmit the papers and meanwhile to suspend the case; Acevedo demurred, eliciting from Clement VIII a still more peremptory command, whereupon the documents were sent and, while the case was under consideration in Rome, the woman was discharged.[354] It was preferable to let an assumed culprit go free than to allow the Roman Holy Office to exercise jurisdiction.
The subserviency of Philip IV to his inquisitors-general was even more marked, and we have seen how vigorously he supported the Inquisition in its extension of its jurisdiction over matters foreign to the faith, leading the clergy of Majorca to procure papal briefs exempting them from it in such cases. The chapter of Valencia was less fortunate and was exposed to the full force of the royal indignation in 1637. Inquisitor-general Sotomayor had obtained a pension of nine hundred ducats on the archdeaconry of Játiva and one of three hundred and forty ducats on a prebend vacated by the death of the canon Villarasa. The chapter refused payment; Sotomayor sued them in the tribunal and of course obtained a decision in his favor. The aggrieved chapter revenged itself by ceasing the customary courtesy of sending two canons to receive the inquisitors at the door of the cathedral on the occasion of publishing the edict; this continued for two years and, on the second, the door of the great chapel was locked and the inquisitors had to await its opening. For this disrespect they prosecuted the chapter, which then appealed to Rome on both suits and obtained briefs committing the cases to a special commission of the Roman Inquisition, granting a faculty to relieve them from any excommunication and citing Sotomayor to appear in Rome. The case was assuming a serious aspect and the Suprema, November 30, 1637, presented to Philip a consulta with letters for his signature, addressed to his ambassador, to the pope, to the viceroy, the archbishop, and the chapter. Philip was in the full ardor of a contest with the pope over the jurisdiction of the nuncio and the Roman condemnation of books supporting the royal prerogative; he was not content with the measures proposed and returned the consulta with the comment that much more vigorous methods were required, nor did it comport with the royal dignity to ask for what he could legally enforce. He had therefore ordered the Council of Aragon to write to the chapter, through the viceroy, expressing his displeasure and his determination to resort to the most extreme steps. Letters were also to be written to the viceroy and the archbishop commanding the prosecution of the chapter in the Banco Real unless the briefs were forthwith surrendered; the Inquisition was not to appear in the matter, but only the archbishop, and a minister of justice was to be at hand when the demand was made, so as to seize the briefs as soon as they were produced. This violent program was duly carried out; Canon Oñate, the custodian of the briefs, was forced to surrender them; through the hands of the Council of Aragon they were passed to Sotomayor and were carefully preserved as trophies in the archives of the Suprema.[355]
Gerónimo de Villanueva, Marquis of Villalba, belonged to an ancient family of Aragon, of which kingdom he was Prothonotary, or secretary of state; while his brother Agustin was Justicia. He won the favor of Olivares, as well as of Philip, and accumulated a plurality of offices, rendering him at last one of the most important personages of the state, for he became a member of the Councils of Aragon, War, Cruzada and Indies, of the Camara of the Council of Indies, Secretary of State and of the “Despacho universal de la Monarquia.”[357]
In all this Villanueva was compromised. His house adjoined the convent and he was much there, especially at night, after his official duties were over. The conventual discipline became inevitably relaxed and, in the subsequent proceedings, it was in evidence that he had been seen sitting in Teresa’s lap while she cleaned his hair of insects. He took much interest in the demonic prophecies, especially those which foretold his importance in the Church, and he treasured a picture which was drawn of his guardian angel, in which he was represented as a pillar sustaining the Church. He took part in interrogating the demons and writing what they said and he kept these writings in his house. This appeared in the evidence taken in the trial of Teresa and the nuns and, according to inquisitorial practice, the portions relating to him were extracted and submitted to censors who reported, March 12, 1630, unfavorably; he was an accomplice or, if not, he was at least a fautor of the heresies. Then other censors were called in and a junta was held, March 20th, which reduced the finding to his being moderately suspect of having incurred the above censure.[360]
It was never safe to reckon upon the Inquisition. If it could reverse a condemnation, it could reverse an acquittal, especially as St. Pius V had decreed that no acquittal for heresy should be held to be res judicata and permanent, whether pronounced by inquisitors, bishops, popes or even the Council of Trent.[363] For awhile, matters were quiescent. Villanueva was receiving fresh proofs of the royal favor. October 27, 1639 Philip gave him a seat in the Council of War and, on January 16, 1640, granted him additional graces in reward of services performed in Aragon. Even the fall of his protector Olivares, in February, 1643, did not affect his position, for his membership in the Council of Indies was bestowed on April 23d of that year.[364] Yet the disgrace of the chief favorite opened the way to many intrigues and especially to those directed against his return to power, of which, at one time, there seemed much probability. It would be impossible now to assert with absolute certainty what was the direct object sought for in Villanueva’s ruin, but we may feel confident that, in addition to the desire to divide his spoils, a powerful motive was the wish to get possession of his papers, in the hope of finding in them compromising material for use against Olivares.
In the estilo of the Inquisition, when there was discordia in the consulta de fe, the case was referred to the Suprema, which thus became the judge. September 1st, Villanueva recused one of the members, Antonio de Aragon, and the recusation was admitted after a hearing. Finally, on February 7, 1647, the Suprema pronounced sentence; there were to be present in the audience-chamber four ecclesiastics, four frailes, and four laymen; Villanueva was to be severely reprimanded and warned, he was to abjure de levi, be prohibited from communicating with the nuns or living in the adjoining house and be banished for three years from Toledo and Madrid and from twenty leagues around them.[372]
Navarro found little difficulty in obtaining the desired brief, in spite of Oñate’s efforts. Villanueva seems to have awaited it, while recuperating in retirement from his three years’ incarceration and final struggles. When it arrived he went to Saragossa, which he reached August 31st. His coming aroused many fears, for people thought it might be the prelude to a bloody drama, like that of Antonio Pérez. On September 2nd he presented himself at the prison of Manifestacion, where bail was entered for him by the sons of his brother Agustin and of the Count of Fuentes, after which he applied for a firma, to protect him from molestation during the course of his appeal, which was duly granted. He was given the city—or as some said the kingdom—as a prison and, on September 4th the Bishop of Málaga, who was captain-general, reported to the Count of Haro, Philip’s new minister, that the city was quiet and there was nothing to fear. The bishop enclosed a letter of September 1st from Villanueva to the king, announcing that, during his imprisonment, his representatives, without his knowledge, had appealed to the pope, who had granted a brief empowering either the Bishop of Cuenca, Segovia or Calahorra, to hear the case in appeal and to render a final decision. While anxious for this means of obtaining justice, he would desist from it if such were the royal pleasure; the brief had not been presented to either of the prelates, nor would it be without the royal licence.[378]
This was all purely for papal consumption. Philip himself was beginning to hesitate and, on March 2nd, he ordered the Council of State to consider the tenacity with which the pope was insisting upon his encroachment on the regalías and the privileges of the Inquisition. Arce at once took the alarm and, in a memorial to the king, he sought earnestly to dissuade him from yielding. He repeated the falsehood that, for a hundred and fifty years, there had not been an instance of the pope disregarding the royal wishes, and reminded him that he had declared that he would rather lose his crown than allow the case to go to Rome. Now he learns that the king, in consultation with the Council, has resolved to let the papers go to Infantado with instructions not to deliver them or to ask the pope to return the package without opening it; it is folly to believe that he would do so and such precedent will be ruin to the Inquisition.[396]
Villanueva died in Saragossa, July 21, 1653. In his will, executed the day before, he made ample provision for the salvation of his soul, and San Placido was in his mind to the last, for he appointed as its patron his nephew Gerónimo and his descendants, or in their default his niece Margarita and her descendants, they being the principal heirs of his large estate. The only change which this brought into the affair was that the Inquisition proposed to take advantage of the opportunity to commence a new prosecution against his fame and memory—apparently with the double purpose of vindicating its jurisdiction and, by sequestrating his property, of restraining the family, who continued their efforts in Rome for a vindication. Fortunately for them, Alexander VII, who saw in such action an invasion of his jurisdiction, prohibited, in 1656, this cowardly profanation of the ashes of the dead and when, with quenchless malignity, Arce, in 1659, sought to get this prohibition removed, the attempt was unsuccessful.[403]
In the subsequent quarrel with the canons and clergy of Majorca, in 1671 (Vol. I, p. 503) the latter appealed to the Holy See, under the brief obtained in 1642, and procured letters declaring void the excommunications fulminated by the tribunal and valid those uttered by the executors of the brief. The nuncio exhibited these letters to the inquisitor-general with a paper arguing that these appeals should be allowed and asking, in case there was a privilege or regalía to the contrary, that it should be shown to him. This was a test which the Suprema could not meet and, after a long delay, it sent, June 11, 1676, to the king all the documents bearing on the subject and asked him to assemble a junta to consider them and advise him what to do. It must have been impossible to solve the question favorably for, in a consulta of July 28, 1693, on the occasion of a fresh disturbance, it expressed its profound regret that the junta had failed to reach any conclusion.[406]
THE superior efficiency of the Spanish Inquisition was largely due to its organization. The scattered subordinate tribunals, which dealt directly with the accused, were not independent, as in the old papal Inquisition, but were under the control of a central head, consisting of the inquisitor-general and a council which, for the sake of brevity, we have called the Suprema. It has been seen how Ferdinand and Isabella, after a few years’ experience, obtained from the Holy See the appointment of Torquemada as inquisitor-in-chief with power of delegating his faculties and of removing his delegates—a power which gave him absolute control. At first the commission of the inquisitor-general was held to require renewal at the death of the pope who issued it, although, in the old Inquisition, after considerable discussion, it was decided, in 1290, by Nicholas IV, in the bull Ne aliqui, that the commissions of inquisitors were permanent.[411] This formality was subsequently abandoned and, towards the close of the sixteenth century, the commissions were granted ad beneplacitum—during the good pleasure of the Holy See—and this continued until the end.[412] Similarly there was a question whether the powers of the inquisitors lapsed on the death of the inquisitor-general. When Mercader of Aragon died, in 1516, the Suprema, in conveying the news to the tribunals, instructed them to go on with their work; in some places the secular authorities assumed that they were no longer in office, a royal letter had to be procured to prevent interference with them, and, when Cardinal Adrian was appointed, he confirmed their faculties.[413] It became customary for each new inquisitor-general to renew the commissions on his accession, but as there frequently was a considerable interval, the question arose whether, during that time, all the acts both of the Suprema and the tribunals were not invalid. In 1627 it was concluded that they held delegated power directly from the pope and not from the inquisitor-general, so that their faculties were continuous.[414] This was a forced construction, somewhat derogatory to the authority of the inquisitor-general, and was upset in 1639, when the Suprema decided that the inquisitor-general could confer powers only during his own life and therefore each one on his accession confirmed the appointments of all officials during his pleasure, which continued to be the formula employed.[415] This left open the question of the interregnum, which seems to have been somewhat forcibly settled by necessity, as when Giudice resigned in 1716 and his successor, Joseph de Molines, was serving as auditor of the Rota in Rome. The Suprema, in notifying the tribunals of his appointment, told them that, until his arrival in Madrid, they were to continue their functions.[416]
When Torquemada passed away, in the absence of his vigorous personality, the Council rapidly became a determining factor in the organization. In 1499 and in 1503, instructions of a general character, although signed by one inquisitor-general, also bear the signatures of two or three members of the Council and are countersigned by the secretary “por mandado de los señores del consejo.” A decree of November 15, 1504, although signed by Deza alone, bears that it is with the concurrence, opinion and vote of the Council.[422] It was also assuming the appellate jurisdiction, for it announced to inquisitors, January 10, 1499, that, if any parties came before it with appeals, it would hear them and administer what it deemed to be justice.[423] If papal confirmation of this were lacking it was supplied by Leo X, in his bull of August 1, 1516, in which he conferred on members of the Council, in conjunction with the inquisitor-general, power to act in all appeals arising from cases of faith.[424]
The result of this is seen, in 1540, when Cardinal Tavera, in announcing to the tribunals his accession to office, tells them that he will act with the concurrence and opinion of the members of the Council and when, in the same year, he appointed Nicolao Montañánez inquisitor of Majorca, he refers him to what the Council writes to him with regard to his duties. The appointing power continued to give to the inquisitor-general a certain predominance, but otherwise he and the Suprema had coalesced into one body—a fact emphasized by a declaration, May 14, 1542, that they formed together but a single tribunal and that there was no appeal from the one to the other.[437] Still, there was a primacy of honor in the inquisitor-generalship. When the Instrucciones nuevas—the elaborate code of procedure embodied in the Instructions of 1561—were sent to the tribunals, it was in the name of Inquisitor-general Valdés but, in the prefatory note, he is made to state that they had been maturely discussed in the Council, where it was agreed that they should be observed by all inquisitors.[438]
As we have seen, this was a usurpation, grown strong by prescription. It was fairly put to the test, in 1700, by Inquisitor-general Mendoza, in the trial of Fray Froilan Díaz, which was, in some respects, one of the most noteworthy cases in the annals of the Inquisition.
Then followed a struggle for mastery in the Suprema. Mendoza procured the assent of the members to the appointment of special calificadores or censors to consider the charges and evidence. Five theologians were selected who reported unanimously, June 23, 1700 that there was no matter of faith involved, whereupon the Suprema, with the exception of Mendoza, voted to suspend the case, which was equivalent to acquittal. Then, on July 8th, Mendoza signed an order of arrest and sent it around for the signatures of the members, who unanimously refused, whereupon he summoned them to his room and with alternate wrath and entreaty vainly sought their co-operation. In a gust of passion he declared that he would have his way and in an hour he had ordered three of them to keep their houses as prisons and the Madrid tribunal to prosecute the secretary for refusing to counter-sign the warrant. Folch de Cardona was the only member left and this was because his half-brother Antonio, now Archbishop of Valencia, was a favorite of the queen. This violence caused no little excitement, which was increased when Miguélez, one of the members, who talked freely, was arrested one night in August and hurried off to the Jesuit college in Compostella, followed by the jubilating, or retiring on half-pay, of all three in terms of reprobation, as unfaithful to their duties, while the secretary was banished.
The Admiral of Castile was a refugee in Portugal, whence he was actively fomenting resistance to Philip. Mendoza notoriously belonged to the Austrian party and Philip could ultimately scarce fail to decide against him. On October 27th he sent for Cardona, with whom he had a secret interview, resulting in a paper drawn up for his signature the next day. On November 3rd a royal order was read in the Suprema restoring to their places the three jubilado members, who were to receive all the arrears of their salaries. This was followed November 7th by a decree addressed to Mendoza ordering him and his successors to respect the members of the Suprema as representing the royal person, as exercising the royal jurisdiction and as entitled to cast decisive votes. Moreover, he was, under pain of exile and deprivation of temporalities, within seventy-two hours, to deliver to the Suprema all the papers concerning Froilan Díaz and to make known whether he was alive and in what prison. The next day it was ordered that the Suprema should decide the case and, on November 17th, after hearing the proceedings, a sentence was unanimously rendered, absolving Froilan, restoring to him his seat in the Suprema, with all arrears of salary, and also the cell in the convent del Rosario assigned to the royal confessors, of which he had been unjustly deprived. A copy of this sentence was ordered to be transmitted to all the tribunals for preservation in their archives.[449]
Simple arrest by the Inquisition was in itself an infliction of no common severity and, from an early period, the Suprema sought to exercise supervision over it. In 1500, the Instructions of Seville require the tribunals, whenever they make an arrest, to send to the inquisitor-general, by their messenger, the accusation, with the testimony in full, the number of the witnesses and the character of the accused.[478] This salutary check on the irresponsible power of the inquisitors was too cumbrous for enforcement and it soon became obsolete but, in 1509, when there was discordia as to sentences of arrest they were ordered, before execution, to be submitted to the Suprema with the opinions of the voters.[479] In 1521, to check the persecuting zeal of the tribunals towards the Moriscos, or newly baptized Moors, Cardinal Adrian ordered that they should not be arrested save on conclusive evidence which must first be submitted to the Suprema—a humane measure speedily forgotten.[480] The religious Orders were favored, in 1534, by requiring confirmation of all sentences of arrest pronounced against their members—a measure which required to be repeated in 1555 and, in 1616, it was extended to all ecclesiastics.[481] The Instructions of 1561 order consultation with the Suprema before arresting persons of quality or when the case is otherwise important[482] and, in 1628, it was ordered that no arrest be made on the testimony of a single witness, without first consulting the Suprema; if escape were feared, precautions might be taken, but in such wise as to inflict as little disgrace as possible.[483] Under these limitations the practice is summarized by a writer, about 1675, who tells us that there are cases in which the tribunals can vote arrest, but not execute it without the assent of the Suprema; these are where there is but one witness (but this is not observed with Judaizers), when the accused is a cleric, religious, knight of the Military Orders, notary or superior officer of justice—unless, indeed, flight be apprehended. In these cases the sumaria, or summary of evidence, must be well drawn up and submitted to the Suprema with the votes of the inquisitors.[484]
It is satisfactory to be able to say that, as a rule, the interference of the Suprema with the tribunals was on the side of mercy rather than of rigor. It is true that torture, then the universal solvent of doubt, was frequently ordered, but there seems to have been a fairly conscientious discharge of the responsibilities which it had grasped. In the Valladolid records of the seventeenth century, the modifications of sentences are almost uniformly mitigations, especially by the omission of scourging, which the tribunals were accustomed to administer liberally, and there would seem to be especial tenderness for the offences of the clergy.[488] A typical instance of this moderation is seen in the case of Margarita Altamira, sentenced by the Barcelona tribunal, in 1682, to appear in an auto de fe, to abjure de levi, to receive a hundred lashes through the streets and to seven years’ exile from Barcelona and some other places, the first two of which were to be passed serving in a hospital without pay. All this the Suprema reduced to hearing her sentence read in the audience-chamber and to four years’ exile from the same places.[489] This mitigating tendency is especially apparent in the restored Inquisition, from 1814 to 1820, where the sentences are almost uniformly revised with a reduction of penalties. Scourging is more rarely prescribed by the tribunals and, when it is ordered, it is invariably omitted by the Suprema, the power of dispensing with it being attributed to the inquisitor-general.[490]
This would seem to dispose of any claim that appellate jurisdiction was a special attribute of the inquisitor-general, and this is confirmed by a case, in 1552, in which Angelica Vidama appealed from the sentence of the Valencia tribunal condemning the memory and fame of her deceased mother Beatriz Vidama. On March 8th, Inquisitor-general Valdés and the members of the Council with some assessors declared that, after examining the matter in several sessions their opinion was that the sentence should be revoked. Then, on March 12th, in the presence of Valdés, the Council adopted a sentence restoring her and her posterity to honor and good fame and releasing the confiscation of her estate. The sentence is not signed by Valdés but only by three members of the Council, which indicates that his signature was unnecessary.[498] When he was held simply to have a vote, like every other member, he could claim no special authority as to appeals and, with the gradual intervention of the Suprema in all the acts of the tribunals, appeals themselves became obsolete.
From a comparatively early period the control assumed by the Suprema over the provincial tribunals was absolute. Already, in 1533, it tersely informed them that what it ordered and what it forbade must be obeyed to the letter; this it repeated in 1556 and, in 1568, it took occasion to tell them that it was not to be answered, nor were inquisitors to offer excuses when they were rebuked.[499] This control was not confined to their judicial proceedings but extended to every detail of their affairs. Even Ferdinand, with his minute watchfulness over the management of the tribunals, gave to the inquisitors a certain latitude as to expenses and instructed his receivers that they were to honor the requisitions of the inquisitors for outlays on messengers, lodgings, work on houses, prisons, stagings, etc.[500] The Suprema permitted no such liberty of action; it required to be consulted in advance and roundly scolded tribunals which incurred expenses on their own responsibility.[501] In 1569 a general order specified in minute detail the trifling matters of daily necessity for which they could make disbursements; for everything else reference must first be made to the Suprema.[502] This continued to the end and its correspondence is filled with instructions as to petty outlays of all kinds, and largely with regard to repairs of the houses and other properties belonging to the Inquisition. If Valencia, in 1647, wanted a clock in the audience-chamber, it had to apply for permission to purchase one and, in 1650, the Suprema ordered its price to be allowed in the receiver’s accounts. In 1665 it ordered the fiscal of Barcelona to be lodged in the palace of the Inquisition and gave minute instructions how the apartments were to be redistributed so as to accommodate him.[503] It is scarce necessary to add that the determination of salaries, which had originally been lodged in the hands of the inquisitor-general, had passed absolutely under the control of the Suprema.
A necessary feature of this financial control was the centralization in the Suprema of the auditing of the accounts of all the tribunals. Their receivers or treasurers were supposed to send, at regular intervals, itemized statements with vouchers of all receipts and expenditures, which were audited by the contador general, or auditor, of the Council.[516] The efficiency of this system was marred by habitual vices of maladministration and the hesitation to punish offenders, of which a petition of the historian, Gerónimo Zurita, affords us a glimpse. In 1538 he was made secretary, or escribano de camera of the Suprema. In 1548 Inquisitor-general Valdés gave this place to Juan de Valdés, presumably a kinsman, and Zurita was transferred to the contaduría general for Aragon. In a petition presented May 2, 1560, he represents that he has served as contador for twelve years at a salary less than that of his predecessor and with more work; there were the accounts of the tribunal of Sicily, which had not been rendered for twenty years, and it was notorious that the accounts of the receivers had been very confused and embarrassing, all of which he had straightened out with the utmost care, rejecting, for the service of the Holy Office, opportunities offering him better prospects, and now the only reward he asks is that his son, Miguel Zurita, a youth of 18, may be adjoined to him as an assistant—a moderate prayer which was granted.[517] That Zurita was a laborious and conscientious auditor it would be impossible to doubt, but the frequency of defalcations, as we shall see hereafter, would indicate that such officials were not universal and that the precautions of the system were negligently enforced.
The terrible condition of the debased currency, known as vellon, at a discount from plata or silver, ranging from 25 to 50 per cent., gave further opportunities for quietly increasing salaries. As a rule, public officials had to take their salaries in the depreciated vellon—the government was obliged to accept it for taxes and to pay it out at its face value.[524] The Suprema, however, computed its salaries in silver and paid in vellon with the discount added. In 1680 the members made a special grant to themselves, for they ordered the salaries to be paid one half in silver and the other half in vellon with a hundred per cent. added, thus in effect doubling their salaries. How often this liberality was repeated it would be impossible now to say; it was not a settled matter, for the receipts in 1681 show a return to the usual practice of payment in vellon with 50 per cent. added.[525] Another device by which the depreciation in vellon was made a pretext for augmenting salaries is shown by the receipts for 1670. Payments were made every three months in advance; the first tercio, on January 1st, and the second on May 1st, were made in vellon with the customary addition of 50 per cent.; then, on September 1st this augmented sum was taken as a basis and 66⅔ per cent. added, bringing the payment to two and a half times the legitimate amount.[526] The Suprema was not particular as to other devices for increasing its emoluments. In 1659, the birth of the Infante Fernando Thomás served as an excuse for two extra propinas and for five luminarias.[527] In 1690, when it probably was in funds from the confiscations in Majorca, under the transparent pretext of replacing various articles of which it had availed itself, it voted to its members and chief officers 14,160 reales in silver and to the subordinates 8555 in vellon.[528] It was also profuse in gratuities to its employees, as when, in 1670, it voted to Doña Juana de Fita y Ribera—evidently the daughter or niece of its secretary Joseph de Ribera—the handsome pension of four hundred ducats, to enable her to marry.[529] In spite of its perpetual complaints of poverty, it evidently was not an inexpensive department of the government.
We happen to have the details of the cost of the autos sacramentales performed before the Council on the Corpus Christi feast of 1659, amounting to 2040 reales vellon and 1168 of silver.[530] The fiestas de toros, or bull-fights, cost nothing for the performers but were attended with elaborate and somewhat expensive preparations for the enjoyment and refreshment of the members and officials. As there were three or four of these a year, the amusement was costly, but the Suprema did not grudge expense when its own gratification was concerned. As affording an insight into this unexpected aspect of the Holy Office, I give below the items of expenditure for the “toros” of June 5, 1690, amounting to 2067 reales 7 mrs., to which is to be added, as the exhibition was given at the palace of Buen Retiro, the sum of 4400 reales paid to the treasurer of the palace for the use of the balconies occupied by the Council and its servants.[531] This is a single example of a constant outlay on occasions where the Suprema defrayed the expenses of its members and attendants. They were by no means confined to the toros and autos. In this same year 1690, the Suprema paid 3300 reales for balconies on the Calle Mayor from which to see the new queen, Maria Anna of Neuburg, when she entered Madrid.[532]
In the original economical simplicity of the institution, Torquemada, in 1485, ordered that all the officials should lodge in one house, but, as the personnel of the tribunals waxed larger and self-indulgence increased, this rule became obsolete and houses were furnished to the subordinates, the rents of which, under instructions from Cardinal Manrique, about 1525, were defrayed from the fines and penances levied on culprits.[552] This became the general rule, although there are some instances of its inobservance and of individual officials complaining of adverse discrimination in not being thus favored.[553] In thus providing houses for its employees the Inquisition claimed the right of eminent domain and vindicated it after the usual arbitrary fashion, when it encountered resistance, as occurred in Valladolid in 1612. The secretary of the tribunal wanted a house which was occupied by an official of the chancellery, or high court of justice for Old Castile and Leon. The tribunal incontinently ejected him and installed its secretary, who in turn was ousted by the offended court. The judges were promptly excommunicated and the court rejoined by fining the parish priests for publishing the censures; arrests were made on both sides; the court imposed fines on the inquisitors who replied by threats of further anathemas. The chronicler fails to inform us of the outcome but, under Philip III, there can be little doubt of the final triumph of the tribunal.[554]
The law of growth continued to operate. A list of ayudas de costa for Valladolid, in 1515, shows three inquisitors, a fiscal, an alguazil, three notaries of the secreto or trial-chamber, a receiver, a notary of sequestrations, a gaoler, a messenger and a portero.[562] In 1568, Philip II, in defining the salaried officials exempt from taxation enumerates, for this same tribunal, two or three inquisitors, a fiscal, an alguazil, an auditor, a judge of confiscations, four notaries of the secreto, a notary of sequestrations, a receiver, a messenger, a portero, an alcaide of the secret prison and one of the penitential prison, a notary of the juzgado or court of confiscations, an advocate of the fisc, a procurator of the fisc, two chaplains, a physician, a barber, a surgeon and a steward for the poor prisoners.[563] Besides these salaried officials, there was an indefinite number of unsalaried ones, consultors, who served in the consultas de fe, calificadores or censors, who pronounced on the charges prior to arrest and sat in judgement on books and writings, advocates of the accused, “personas honestas” who were present at the ratification of witnesses, in addition to the familiars and commissioners with their notaries. Then there came subsequently to be other officials, either salaried or living on fees—the notary de lo civil or secretary in civil cases, the notary of actos positivos in matters of limpieza, the depository with whom applicants to prove their limpieza had to deposit in advance the cost of investigation, the superintendent of sequestrations, the superintendent of property, the proveedor or purveyor of food for prisoners and, in some tribunals, the locksmith and bricklayer were reckoned as officials.[564] Even when the salaries were trifling, the pressure for place was incessant, in order to enjoy the privileges and exemptions of the Inquisition, and we shall see that when financial despair caused offices to be offered for sale they were eagerly purchased, irrespective of profit.
The effect of all this was nugatory. In the Aragon Concordia, forced upon the king in 1646, the number allowed to a tribunal, in addition to the inquisitors and fiscal, commissioners and their notaries and familiars, was twenty-three, which shows how excessive had been the practice.[566] What this was elsewhere is indicated in a memorial from Majorca, about 1650, occasioned by the imprisonment in chains of a familiar, named Reginaldo Estado, because he desired to resign on being appointed Consul del Mar. The opportunity is taken of representing the evils arising from the multiplication of officials, as set forth in a previous petition of January 11, 1647, and protesting that the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the Inquisition was the total ruin of the people, so that they would welcome its limitation to matters of faith as a full recompense for all the services rendered to the crown. In each of the thirty-four villages, outside of the capital, there were three officials, besides familiars. In Palma they were multiplied without limit, by creating places that had no duties and appointing assistants and deputies ad libitum, while all the tradespeople and mechanics employed were reckoned as officials, bringing the number up to a hundred and fifty besides familiars. All these, with their wives and children and household servants, and the widows of the deceased, enjoyed the active and passive fuero in both civil and criminal cases, bringing in large revenues to the tribunal, through the excessive costs of litigation, and stimulating oppression of all kinds endured through dread of its censures. This memorial, with evidence sustaining its allegations, was submitted to the Council of Aragon which, after due examination, reported it to the king with a recommendation that the officials and familiars in Majorca should be reduced to what was necessary for the business of the tribunal, but there is no trace that attention was paid to this advice.[567]
It was impossible to get rid of those who held offices under these grants for successive lives, but efforts were made to reduce the numbers of the class that had not been put up at auction. In 1677, Valladares represented to Carlos II that the income of the Inquisition did not meet more than half the expenses for salaries, prisons, etc., wherefore he recommended that, as vacancies occurred, the offices should be suppressed until, in the busiest tribunals, there should not be more than three inquisitors, a fiscal and four secretaries, while in the smaller ones two inquisitors, a fiscal and three secretaries would suffice. The king assented and the plan was enlarged by leaving unfilled other superfluous places. Like other reforms, this was not permanent. In 1695 Carlos caused Rocaberti to investigate the personnel of the tribunals and to enforce the regulations of 1677. About 1705, Philip V, in his attempted reform, instituted a searching examination into the increase in numbers and salaries since the time of Arce y Reynoso and of Rocaberti, and the Inquisitor-general Vidal Marin again put in force the schedule of 1677, which continued to be, nominally at least, the rule. At intervals, as in 1714, 1728 and 1733, inquiries were made and reports were ordered from the tribunals, doubtless with a view to see that the limitations were observed for, under the Bourbons, the Inquisition was held to an accountability much stricter than of old.[579]
The tribunals were constantly complaining of their penury and of the inadequacy of the salaries, doubtless with reason, but the pressure for appointment precluded the wholesome reduction in numbers which would have afforded relief. It was probably with a view to some practical re-adjustment that the Suprema repeatedly, in 1776, 1783, 1793 and 1806 called upon the tribunals for full and exact reports of all employees.[582] If so, the only result was a trifling increase in the salaries of the lower officials, averaging about fourteen per cent., leading to a complaint, in 1798, repeated in 1802, that the pay of the secretaries and messenger—the hardest worked of all the officials—had remained unchanged for a hundred years, while the cost of living had quadrupled and they had been deprived of their old exemptions and emoluments. It took, as the Valencia tribunal declared, half of their salaries to rent a decent house, which would seem to show that they were no longer furnished with dwellings.[583]
When there was no lineal successor available, the custom arose of granting—doubtless for a consideration—coadjutorships with the right of reversion. In 1619 the tribunal of Valencia took exception to this and consulted the Suprema, resulting in a decision not to recognize such transactions for the future.[601] They still continued, however and, in September 1643, a papal brief was procured prohibiting them, in spite of which a well-informed writer tells us that the inquisitor-general still granted them.[602] Another frequent abuse was saddling an office with a pension in favor of some representative of the previous incumbent or even of a stranger, suggesting collusion of the appointing power. Even inquisitors themselves sometimes accepted office under these degrading conditions. In 1636, a commission issued to Don Alonso de Buelva, as inquisitor of Toledo, bore on its face the full salary, but it was secretly coupled with the condition that he was to draw only the half, while the other half was given to Don Francisco de Valdés. A man taking such an office on these terms would probably not be nice in his methods of recouping himself. Still more suggestive of this was the not infrequent custom of taking office “sin gages”—without pay. Thus, in 1637, the Licenciado Pedro Montalvo accepted such a commission as notary of the secreto in Toledo and, in 1638, a similar one was issued for Córdova to Pedro Gutiérrez Armentía. Even inquisitors did not disdain to stoop to this as when, in this same year 1638, Doctor Villaviciosa took the inquisitorship of Murcia without pay.[603]
Absence from the post of duty was an abuse which also seemed incurable. Even under the vigilant rule of Ferdinand, a circular letter of the Suprema, September 7, 1509, calls attention to the absence of the officials on their private business; the inquisitors, in urgent cases, could grant leave of absence for twenty days in the year, but this was never to be exceeded; records were to be kept and salaries were to be proportionately docked.[615] This was perfectly ineffectual. In 1520 we find the Suprema writing to the officials of Barcelona to return to their posts within ten days, and rebuking the inquisitors for permitting this neglect of duty, but a repetition of the letter in 1521 shows how fruitless had been the first one. The trouble was by no means confined to Barcelona and, in 1521, Cardinal Adrian made an effort to check it by declaring vacant the office of any one absenting himself for two months.[616] It was not only the subordinates, for the inquisitors themselves had frequently to be taken to task for similar neglect of duty.[617] The trouble was endless and serves in part to explain the cruel delays which aggravated so greatly the sufferings of those under trial. In 1573 the rule of 1509 was repeated with the addition that, if the twenty days granted were exceeded by ten days, the absentee was not to be admitted to his office on his return and this again was reissued in 1597, together with an order that no inquisitor should absent himself without the permission of the Suprema.[618]
The visitador was expected to make a thorough investigation of the condition and working of the tribunal, to discover all neglect of regulations, all abuses and malfeasance of the officials, all derelictions of duty, all maladministration of the property and revenues, all misuse of power, whether through oppression of the defenceless or remissness in vindicating the faith. He was to examine the records, not only to see that they were properly kept and indexed but also whether justice had been duly administered and the estilo of the Holy Office had been rigidly followed. He visited the prisons, listened to the complaints of the prisoners and investigated them. On arrival, he fixed a day on which he would appear in the audience-chamber; the inquisitors and all officials were assembled, his credentials were read and the inquisitors promised obedience in the name of all present. The next day the inquisitors were examined under oath, as to whether there was anything requiring amendment and whether the officials performed their full duty, the answers being taken down in writing. The inspector brought with him an elaborate series of interrogatories, usually forty-eight or fifty in number, covering all the points which experience had shown as likely to tempt to wrongdoing and on these he examined all the officials singly. He also listened to all who had complaints to make; if these appeared to be justified he investigated them thoroughly, summoning all witnesses, who were guaranteed that their names would be kept secret, and on this evidence he framed charges against those inculpated and heard them in defence. When his duties in the tribunal were accomplished he was expected to visit the district and investigate all complaints. The results were reduced to writing and, when his labors were completed, he sent or carried the whole to the Suprema for its action.[630] As a rule, he had no executive authority and could only make recommendations, but visitadores to the colonies were frequently invested with greater power, presumably in view of the long delays in communication. When, in 1654, Medina Rico came as inspector to Mexico, where maladministration was flagrant, he sat in judgement on the inquisitors, Estrada and Higuera, suspended them and occupied the tribunal for years.[631] It can readily be conceived that at times there was no little friction between inspector and inquisitors, and, in 1645, the Suprema presented to the king a consulta on the controversies thence arising.[632]
In considering the personnel of the tribunal, we may dismiss the assessor with a few words. Such an official was unknown in the Old Inquisition, but we have seen that, when the first inquisitors were sent to Seville, they were accompanied by an assessor, and such a functionary continued for some time to be considered a necessary adjunct to a tribunal. At the beginning the inquisitors were Dominican friars, presumably good theologians but unversed in the intricacies of the law. It was therefore desirable to associate with them a lawyer as a guide, and his presence moreover might serve as an assurance to the people of the legality of the proceedings. In Torquemada’s instructions of 1485 it is provided that they must always act in concert and that anything done by one without the other was invalid; even communications to the Suprema must be signed by both.[640] In the trials of this period we sometimes find the assessor sitting with the inquisitors and sometimes not, and the sentences are rendered by the latter with the concurrence of the former.[641] In the secular law of the period, the assessor had only a consultative and not a decisive vote, and this would appear to be his position in the tribunal, when the routine of the Inquisition had established its own precedents, when all doubtful questions were decided by the Suprema and the services of trained lawyers were no longer required.[642] In the early time their salaries were the same as those of the inquisitors—indeed, at Saragossa, in 1486, Martin Martínez, the assessor, receives five thousand sueldos while the inquisitors are rated at four thousand.[643] It was not long, however, before it apparently became indifferent whether there was an assessor or not. In 1499, the salary lists of Seville, of Burgos and of Palencia have no mention of such an official, while there is one at Saragossa and, in 1500, Ferdinand empowers the inquisitor of Sardinia to select for his assessor any doctor he pleases.[644] The office continued to exist for a time, as a kind of supernumerary, employed in hearing the civil cases of officials but, in the Aragonese Concordia of 1568, this duty was placed on the inquisitors and the assessorship was abolished. In Castile, the list of officials, promulgated in the same year by Philip II, as entitled to exemption from taxation, makes no mention of the assessor, who may be assumed by this time to disappear.[645]
It also kept watch over the morals of the inquisitors, recognizing the temptations to which they were exposed and the opportunities afforded by their position. Among the interrogatories which the inspector was instructed to make was whether the inquisitors lived decently, without publicly keeping concubines or corrupting the female prisoners or the wives and daughters of prisoners or of the dead whose fame and memory were prosecuted.[664] When attention was called to official misconduct it was promptly looked into, as in 1528, when the inquisitors of Barcelona were accused of receiving bribes and suborning witnesses, an inquisitor of Valencia with a notary of Tortosa was despatched thither, fully commissioned to investigate and report.[665]
When there were three inquisitors, the absence of one did not interfere with current business, but where there were only two it was a serious impediment. From the beginning the rule was absolute that two must act conjointly in all important matters, such as sentencing to torture, ordering publication of evidence, or rendering final sentence, and this in both civil and criminal actions. Minor and trivial cases, however, could be despatched by one in the absence of his colleague and he could continue to hold audiences and gather testimony, while, in the habitual leisurely transaction of inquisitorial business, procrastination caused by the crippling of the tribunal for four months in every year was evidently not regarded as of any moment.[678] In the little tribunal of Majorca, however, which could support but a single inquisitor, he was deemed competent to act by himself and he probably was excused from visitations.[679]
The position of the fiscal gradually improved. In his instructions of 1595 to Manrique de Lara, Philip II couples him with the inquisitor, in requiring both to be in orders, and prescribes great care in the appointment for it is customary to promote fiscals to the inquisitorship. Similarly Philip III, in 1608, requires both offices to be filled by jurists and when, in 1632 and 1637, the Suprema made holy orders a condition it included fiscals with inquisitors.[687] The assimilation between the offices was rapid and, in 1647, in a payment of ayuda de costa in Valencia there occurs an item of thirty thousand maravedís to Inquisitor Antonio de Ayala y Verganza, “por la plaza de fiscal,” showing that he was acting as fiscal.[688] The idea of coalescence was becoming familiar. When, in 1658, Gregorio Cid, after six years’ service as inquisitor of Sardinia, was transferred to Cuenca, he suggested that there ought to be there two inquisitors and a fiscal, or at least that the junior inquisitor should serve also as fiscal.[689]
There was also a notary of sequestrations, whose duties were highly important in the early times of abundant confiscations. He was always present when arrests were made, so as to draw up on the spot an inventory of the property seized, but, as confiscations diminished, the office became superfluous and was suppressed by a carta acordada of December 1, 1634. After this we hear of a superintendent of sequestrations, in 1647, and subsequently its occasional duties were discharged by some other official for a moderate compensation as, in 1670, in Valencia, the procurator of the fisc received twenty-five libras a year for attending to them.[698]
His functions were various. The inquisitors, the receiver and the judge of confiscations were forbidden to appoint any one else to execute their orders if he were at hand. If, in his absence, an arrest had to be made, the fact had to be attested at the foot of the warrant issued to another, without which the receiver was ordered not to pay the expenses incurred. He made all levies and seizures and was entitled to fees for the service.[703] By the instructions of 1488, if the duty was at a distance of more than three or four leagues, he was not to be sent, but a temporary substitute, whose commission expired with the performance of the errand. Perhaps this was because the thrifty Ferdinand had insisted that, if he was sent out of the city, he must pay his own expenses, but this was relaxed for, in 1502, we find the rule established that, if an alguazil is sent from one province to another, to a greater distance than four leagues, his expenses were to be paid. He had, however, to furnish at his own cost a satisfactory person to take charge of the prison during his absence and, if he required assistance in making arrests, the inquisitors selected the persons and determined their pay.[704]
The gaoler was necessary to a tribunal which had its special prison. At first, as we have seen, the alguazil had charge of this and his employees were not reckoned among the officials. The first allusion to a carcelero that I have met occurs in 1499, when Juan de Moya is spoken of as the carcerarius of the Barcelona tribunal; he must have been an exceptional official and a person of some consideration, for he was provided with a prebend.[711] In 1515 Ferdinand deemed it advisable to put the prisons under control of the tribunals, with which view he empowered the inquisitors to appoint carceleros with salaries of five hundred sueldos.[712] The gaoler thus became a salaried official, entitled to all the privileges and immunities of this position and gradually, toward the middle of the sixteenth century, the humble title of carcelero was exchanged for the more dignified one of alcaide de las carceles secretas.[713] He was necessarily a person of confidence, responsible for the safe-keeping of prisoners and for their proper maintenance, functions which will be more conveniently treated when we come to consider the prison system. From the report of the tribunal of Murcia, in 1746, it appears that the salary then was 2353 reales, in addition to which there was a jubilado alcaide with 330 reales. Possibly this habit of providing for supernumeraries explains why, in the table of officials, Toledo has four alcaides and Llerena and Valencia have three each.[714] In the early period the carcelero sometimes served as torturer, but subsequently it became customary to employ the public executioner.[715]
The prison, sometimes crowded with inmates and exposed to insanitary conditions, rendered necessary an official physician, whose services were also indispensable in examinations before and after torture and in the not infrequent cases of insanity, real or feigned. As his duties called him within the sacred limits of the secreto, he had to be a person of confidence, sworn like all the rest to secrecy. He was expected also to bestow gratuitous service on the officials, and the Suprema, in the eighteenth century, indulged itself in two, at the fairly liberal salary of 1258 reales apiece, though they did not share in the extra emoluments so freely bestowed on other officials.[716] At first the appointment of physicians was not universal, although the salary was inconsiderable—attributable, no doubt, to the fact that the physician was at liberty to continue his private practice. Thus, in 1486, Ferdinand designated ten libras as the pay of the physician of the Saragossa tribunal, while there was none provided for that of Medina del Campo.[717] The surgeon was rated at even less for, in 1510, one is furnished to Saragossa at a salary of five libras and the same is paid to an apothecary, who can scarce have furnished expensive drugs on such a stipend.[718] The surgeon, at this period, was also a barber and, in 1502, a grant, once for all, of fifteen libras was made to Joan de Aguaviva, “cirujano y barbero” of Calatayud, for fourteen years curing and barbering the poor prisoners, without salary or other advantage.[719] By 1618, apparently, the professions had become distinct, for there is an order to pay Narciso Valle, surgeon and Miguel Juan, barber, to the tribunal of Valencia.[720] A chaplain was also a necessity, not for the prisoners, who were denied the sacraments, but for the daily mass celebrated before commencing the work of the audience-chamber. In 1572, a stipend of 7500 maravedís is assigned for this but, in the eighteenth century, the Suprema paid the handsome salary of 5500 reales.[721] Confessors were also required for the penitential prison and were called in to the secret prison for the moribund.[722] There were also two personas honestas, or discreet persons, friars as a rule, whose duty it was to be present when witnesses ratified their testimony. In the earlier period these services were gratuitous but, in the later time, there was a small payment which, in the case of a friar, would enure to his convent. An alcaide of the casa de penitencia, or penitential prison, was also a necessity during the period of active work, although subsequently it was virtually a sinecure and in many tribunals was suppressed. We occasionally also meet with the office of proveedor, or purveyor of the secret prison, who seems to be identical with the dispensero or steward. In the sixteenth century this official had a salary of 2000 maravedís, besides two maravedís a day for each prisoner and five blancas for cooking and washing; he was required to have honest weights and not to charge more for food than it cost him; he kept an account with each prisoner and was paid out of the sequestrations.[723] Locksmiths, masons and other mechanics employed on the buildings were also sometimes reckoned as officials, for their duties in repairing the prisons were confidential. All tribunals moreover had from one to three abogados de presos or advocates of prisoners, whose duties will claim consideration hereafter; they were classed as salaried officials, though sometimes they received a small stipend and sometimes none, and they were allowed to serve other clients if they had any.
The qualifications for holding office in the tribunal were simple. From some of the cases of hereditary transmission it would appear that the minimum age was nineteen or twenty. Limpieza, or purity of blood from admixture of Jewish or Moorish or heretic strain, was the chief essential, as will be seen when we come to consider that important subject. Legitimacy was also a requisite in both the official and his wife, although dispensations could be had for its absence.[726] By a carta acordada of June 15, 1608, those who were unmarried could not marry without permission of the Suprema; they were obliged to furnish proof that the bride was limpia and, if a foreigner or the daughter or grand-daughter of foreigners, a dispensation was necessary, of all of which the appointee was solemnly notified when he took the oath of office.[727]
For awhile there was a regular scale of fifty ducats for the inquisitors, thirty for the fiscal, alguazil, notaries and receiver, fifteen for the nuncio and ten for the portero and alcaide but, in 1559, this was increased by twenty per cent. Care was taken to make it understood that it was a grace and not a right and the ordinary formula was that it was given in view of the labor in determining the cases of the auto de fe of the previous year and when, in 1561, Calahorra was exceptionally active and celebrated a second auto, it was rewarded with a supplementary ayuda of half the customary amount.[743] The grant was dependent on the receipt of detailed reports of all the cases in the previous auto, which were frequently accompanied with an humble petition for it, setting forth the insufficiency of the salaries and the cost of living, and begging the Suprema to obtain the grace from the king, who was technically the giver.[744] Subsequently, as we have seen, it was made conditional on rendering monthly reports and on the discharge of the duty of visiting the district and other matters apt to be neglected, such as rendering prompt statements of accounts and of properties. Finally, in the later period, when the tribunals were under close supervision of the Suprema, it sometimes took the form of a Christmas-gift.[745] Perhaps the most remarkable of all ayudas de costa was one granted by Carlos IV, in October 1807, in the midst of his troubles with his son Fernando, when the shadow of Napoleon was already darkening Spain and the treasury was empty. It was possibly with the object of securing the fidelity of the Inquisition that he ordered an ayuda de costa of 100 ducats to be given to every official of all the tribunals who did not enjoy an income of 7000 reales outside of his salary.[746] In the existing condition of Spanish finances the money could probably have been better employed.
In the medieval Inquisition all sentences were agreed upon in an assembly of experts summoned for the purpose by the inquisitors, prior to holding the auto de fe in which the sentences were executed. This custom was naturally followed in Spain, and these consultas de fe, as they were called, will be considered hereafter when treating of the conduct of trials. At present we have merely to consider the consultores who assisted the inquisitors in passing judgement.
With the progressive centralization of business in the Suprema, the consulta de fe gradually diminished in importance and, as we shall see, in the eighteenth century it became virtually obsolete. The table of officials in 1746 shows that, at that time, there were only eighteen consultores in all the tribunals and, of these, eight were in the little Inquisition of Majorca.[781]
Although without salary, the office had become attractive, not only on account of the importance and immunities which it conferred, but also because a large part of the attendant labor brought in satisfactory fees. In the eagerness to prove limpieza, investigations into genealogies were perpetual; nearly all these passed through the Inquisition and were confided to the commissioner nearest to the birth-place of the applicant. He was expected to pay roundly and the commissioner was entitled to sixteen reales a day for his time, or to two ducats if he had to leave his residence. Moreover the knowledge thus acquired of the genealogies of his neighbors gave him power to render them uncomfortable, as we may gather from a carta acordada of 1622, forbidding commissioners to make notes of the ancestry of those who were not officials of the Inquisition and threatening dismissal for stigmatizing any one as a Jew, Moor, Converso or descendant of such.[794] At sea-ports and frontier towns, also, the commissioners had a considerable source of revenue from fees for the examinations requisite to prevent the entrance of heretics and heretic books—fees which, as we shall see hereafter, were the abundant source of complaint. These positions the inquisitor-general reserved for his own appointment and finally also those in the cathedral towns and larger cities.[795]
It was impossible that such a class as this, released from the restraints of law, should not prove troublesome and even dangerous. Inquisitors appointed them at discretion, furnished them with licences to bear arms and turned them loose on the community. It would have been some slight protection if registers of these appointments had been kept, and the names of the appointees furnished to the magistrates, so that it could be known whether those who claimed immunity were entitled to it. It was impossible, however, to induce the inquisitors to do this. Ximenes and the Suprema ordered the names to be entered in a book and a copy to be furnished to the corregidors and Ferdinand, in a general order of July 11, 1513 emphasized this, but to no purpose and it was repeated endlessly with the same result.[799] The inquisitors steadily refused obedience, for it would have imposed some check upon multitudinous and indiscriminate appointments which had a recognized money value. The result of all this appears in a letter of Ferdinand, in 1514, to the inquisitors of Toledo, informing them that the royal and municipal authorities complained of the number of turbulent fellows, carrying licences signed by only one inquisitor, who went around in bands disturbing the peace and, if the civil magistrate endeavored to restrain them, the tribunal at once interposed, leading to dissensions between it and the ministers of justice, to the great injury of the city and its vicinity. Ximenes had already endeavored to check these disorders without success, and Ferdinand now insists that his orders must be obeyed, that all such licences must be signed by the three inquisitors, a record of them must be kept and a copy be furnished to the corregidor.[800]
While thus the Suprema was vainly busied in repressing the exuberance of its subordinates, it fiercely resented any assistance offered by outsiders. The Concordia of 1553 was part of the law of the land, and as such it was printed in the official Nueva Recopilacion (Lib. IV, Tit. i, ley 20). In 1634 the Council of Castile, apparently wearied with the stubbornness of the tribunals, undertook to enforce it by printing the articles concerning the numbers and qualifications of familiars and sending them to the magistrates of the towns and villages with instructions that, if the number was in excess, they were to strike off the surplus; if a list had not been furnished, they were not to regard any one as a familiar and entitled to exemptions and privileges. When this practical method of enforcing obedience to law came to the knowledge of the Suprema, it was highly incensed. On December 22nd it addressed an indignant consulta to the king; the Council of Castile, it said, was meddling with concerns wholly beyond its competence; it had no authority in matters concerning the Inquisition; if inquisitors transgressed the law, specific complaints could be made and settled in a junta of the two bodies; the Council was leading the local magistrates to sit in judgement on inquisitors and get themselves into trouble. Besides the familiars are so molested when they seek to avail themselves of their privileges that they think it better to abandon them; they are fewer already than the Concordia permits, are diminishing daily and, in a few years, the Inquisition will not have ministers to attend to its business. The consulta concludes by asking the king to order the Council to erase the paper from its records and not to issue similar ones in future. For once this arrogance overshot the mark. There must have been a desperate contest waged over the matter for Philip kept the consulta until October 3, 1636, when he returned it with the endorsement that the Council of Castile can issue the provision embodying the articles of the Concordia and can order the local magistrates to observe and execute them.[807]
By this time the number of familiars had greatly fallen, though not to the extent that would be inferred from the table in the Appendix, for the tribunals had evidently not reported them—in fact, it is probable that few if any had kept registers enabling them to do so. The diminishing influence of the Inquisition, the curtailment in the privileges of the office, the new spirit vivifying Spain under the Bourbons, all combined to render the position less sought for, and thenceforth we hear comparatively little of the familiar as a disturbing element in the social order.
The extension of the Hermandad over Spain was by no means simultaneous. It was not established in Seville until 1604 and then only after considerable opposition. Even as late as 1700, in a Formulary, there is a formula of a grant by inquisitors to the commissioners and familiars of an arch-priest district to found a cofradia.[820] The functions of the body may be assumed as purely ornamental, giving lustre to the solemnities of the auto de fe and an occasion for the Inquisition to exhibit its strength. Marching in procession under the standard of the Holy Office in the Seville auto of November 7, 1604, they formed a body four hundred strong and at that of Córdova, in 1655, they were reckoned at over five hundred. At the last of the great autos, celebrated in Madrid, in 1680, the Suprema ordered all the familiars of the city to join the Congregation, under penalty of forfeiting the fuero, and each member was required to carry in the procession a wax candle of two pounds’ weight, with the insignia of the Inquisition, whereupon it ordered three hundred candles. On this occasion it received a splendid standard which it continued to use in solemn celebrations.[821]
The first indication of this exclusiveness is seen in the Sentencia Estatuto of Toledo, in 1449, under which all Conversos were stripped of official positions as being suspect in the faith (Vol. I., p. 126). This, as we have seen, elicited the bull of Nicholas V, denouncing such legislation as unchristian, forbidding discrimination between Old and New Christians and confirming the laws to that effect of Alfonso X, Henry III and Juan II. This was evaded in the founding of a confraternity, under the title of Christian Love, in Córdova, in 1473, from which all Conversos were rigorously excluded, leading to the tumults and massacres described above.[825] It may have been this which induced Archbishop Carillo of Toledo, in a provincial synod held at Alcalá, to denounce the growing practice of brotherhoods, bound under oaths to exclude Conversos and alleging these oaths in justification. All such statutes were declared invalid and all who had taken such oaths were released from them.[826] In 1473, also, Juan II of Aragon abrogated the statutes of a similar association in Majorca and ordered that Conversos should have full enjoyment of all faculties in his dominions.[827] A somewhat ludicrous aspect was given to this prejudice by a guild of stone-masons in Toledo, composed principally of Mudéjares, which, in 1481, adopted a rule forbidding members from teaching their art to Conversos, and the next year a still more prescriptive statute was adopted in Guipúzcoa, prohibiting Conversos from settling or marrying in the province.[828]
The tendency to discriminate against Conversos was stimulated by the disabilities inflicted under the canon law on the children and grandchildren of impenitent heretics. This will be treated more fully hereafter and it suffices to say here that it was construed as applying to the children and grandchildren of all condemned or reconciled by the Inquisition. It was the subject of some debate, and the Instructions of 1488 required inquisitors to enforce by heavy penalties the incapacity of such descendants to hold any public office or to be admitted to holy orders.[831] These disabilities were extended still further by the sovereigns, in two pragmáticas of 1501, forbidding the children and grandchildren by the male line and the children by the female to hold any office of honor or to be notaries, scriveners, physicians, surgeons, or apothecaries. These pragmáticas were promptly sent by the Suprema to all tribunals, with orders for their strict enforcement, as the sovereigns did not permit exceptions to be made.[832]
The Dominicans were not as active as the Franciscans in obtaining papal protection of their limpieza. In a long list of briefs conceded to Spanish Dominican houses there is no allusion to the exclusion of Conversos between Torquemada’s of 1496 and 1531 when the houses of Santa Maria Nieba and San Pedro Martir of Toledo were forbidden to receive any fraile suspected of Jewish or Moorish origin, while in the college of Santa Maria the professors and students of arts and theology were required to be free from all suspicion of such descent.[839] The sentiment of the Order was less proscriptive than that of the Franciscans. Its most conspicuous member of the period was Thomas de Vio, better known as Cardinal Caietano who, when consulted, in 1514, by the regent of Salamanca, as to the legality of excluding those of Jewish blood from the Order, replied that it was not a mortal sin but, seeing that the race had furnished Jesus Christ and the apostles and the salvation of man, it was irrational and ungrateful to discriminate against them, as well as an obstacle to their conversion.[840] Paul III agreed with him for, in a motu proprio of 1535 addressed to the Dominican Provincial, he forbade any impediment to the entrance in the Order of those of Jewish or Moorish blood and, on learning that this was disregarded in some houses, he repeated and confirmed it with censures by a brief of August 3, 1537.[841]
Charles V was as inconsistent as Paul III. In 1537 he issued a decree reciting that as, in some colleges of the universities, admittance was refused to New Christians he ordered that the constitutions of the founders be observed.[844] Yet when the chapter of Córdova, in 1530, adopted a statute of limpieza applicable to all the ministrants of the cathedral, and was unable to obtain papal confirmation, he ordered its observance and contributed by his influence to induce Paul IV, in 1555, to confirm it.[845]
This vacillation continued. A number of appointments subsequent to that of Romeo have no allusion to limpieza until 1549, when, on April 8th, Valdés enquires of the inquisitors of Barcelona whether Gerónimo de Torribos, candidate for the receivership, possesses the qualifications of limpieza and habits required in officials, and whether there is anything connected with his wife to prevent his appointment. So, on April 8th, when Moya de Contreras, inquisitor of Saragossa, proposed to employ commissioners of the Cruzada, Valdés emphatically negatived the suggestion, giving, among other reasons, the fact that the officials of the Cruzada were not “tan limpios de sangre.” Yet, in an order of October 8th of the same year to the tribunal of Cuenca, remodelling its familiars, there is no allusion to the necessity of limpieza.[859]
As a matter of course the test was applied to all new appointments and no one was admitted to office in any capacity in the Inquisition who was not free from the mancha of Jewish or Moorish blood or of ancestral punishment. Even for temporary employment, limpieza was essential. In his visitation of the Canaries, in 1574, the Inspector Bravo de Zayas brought an accusation, against the Inquisitor Ortiz de Funes, of appointing officials without preliminary investigation, the cases being two emergency appointments to fill temporary vacancies, and the appointees being montañeses, or highlanders from the northern provinces of Spain, where purity of blood was presumable—to say nothing of the fact that an investigation would probably have consumed a year or two.[868] Yet this was but the natural expression of the infatuation which had taken possession of Spain. In 1595, Philip II, in his instructions to Manrique de Lara, lays especial stress on the importance of limpieza. Investigation as to this and as to habits must be made with the utmost rigor and no dispensations must be granted. No examinations are to be made before the party is selected, because otherwise, if he is not appointed owing to other reasons, it may be ascribed to a mancha and thus undeserved infamy be cast upon an entire kindred.[869] Strangely enough, however, the inquisitor-general himself was never required to furnish proofs of purity of blood.[870]
The second source of impurity—descent from one penanced by the Inquisition—originally applied only to those who had incurred the heavier penalties of relaxation or reconciliation, but there was nothing to check the scrupulosity of the examiners, who worked in secret, and they came to regard any penance inflicted by the Holy Office as affixing an indelible stigma on the descendants. The results of this are forcibly described in a memorial presented, in 1631, to Philip IV by Doctor Diego de Sylva, a member of the Suprema. After alluding to the greatly increased rigor of investigation, dating from the later years of Philip II, he proceeds to state a further source of wrong only appreciable by one who has handled the records of the Inquisition, and not to be openly mentioned. In contrast to the exquisite justice and benignity which he ascribes to the existing tribunals, the proceedings in the earlier period were hurried and violent; many to save their lives made confessions which may have been groundless; whole districts were reconciled rather as a spiritual than a judicial process; in that dangerous period careless words and propositions created suspicion, and people were tried and dismissed with some trivial penance—a few masses, some almsgiving or a light fast—for offences belonging really to the exterior forum. Yet all these were sentences and, as there has since grown up the rule requiring immemorial limpieza, whole families are branded with infamy.[875] As, in fact, since the Reformation, the Inquisition had grown more and more exacting and had inflicted on Old Christians innumerable penances for careless words, it is easy to conceive how this rigorous definition of limpieza spread infection throughout the land, even outside of those who had a drop of Jewish or Moorish blood.
All this, of course, involved expense and the fees earned in the work by the officials formed a welcome source of revenue. In 1625 the pay of notaries or secretaries was fixed at a per diem of sixteen reales.[885] This was subsequently raised for, in 1665, a statement of expenses in the case of Doctor Martin Roig, applicant for the position of consultor in Valencia, shows that the secretary was paid 30 sueldos a day and a local commissioner 20. This was only part of the cost, for every act and every blank filled in, every piece of writing bore its separate charge. The bill rolled up for him and his wife in Barcelona, for this unsalaried position, amounted to 955⅔ sueldos and this was only the beginning. Similar researches were required in the tribunals of Valencia and Cuenca, which must have been still more costly, for the Barcelona report only occupied twenty-three folios, while that of Valencia was in ninety and one against his son Vicente was in a hundred and eight. Two years later, in 1667, the affair was still dragging on.[886] It was a large price for the honor of an unpaid position, even if he proved successful. These extortions were multiplied as often as possible. In 1661, Juan Temprado Múñoz made his proofs as receiver of the tribunal of Murcia and of course this included his wife, but when, in 1667, their son Juan Temprado de Cereña desired an office in the tribunal of Barcelona, he had to go through the same process afresh, when the examination of the Barcelona registers alone cost him 546 sueldos. In addition to this the registers of Cuenca and Valencia had to be examined and evidence had to be taken in the home of his ancestors. This chanced to be in Roussillon, which was now French territory; there was war between the nations and, even in peace, France refused entrance to officials of the Inquisition, so the ingenious formality was devised of sending a commissioner to the border and examining there the requisite number of old men as witnesses. The evidence of course was valueless, but it gathered in the per diem all the same.[887] In time this per diem for the secretary was increased to 50 reales and, from one or two cases in 1815, it appears that it was a perquisite which the secretaries took in turns, and, when the commissioner nearest to the place of examination was employed, it was without prejudice to the secretary—that is, the commissioner who did the work received 30 reales a day, while the secretary took the other 20.[888]
Considering the acute perception of existing evils displayed in the preamble to the law, the slender restrictions imposed manifest the strength of the prejudices to be overcome. Slight as they were, the Inquisition and the Council of Military Orders, after nominally accepting the law, proceeded vigorously to nullify the provision of the tres actos positivos. A writer, in 1629, tells us that they had succeeded in requiring regular investigations, in spite of the production of the three acts; they also held that these only related to parents and grandparents and that they were conclusive only as to the articles covered by them and not as to new points that would require fresh examinations and thus the fees of the officials and the anxieties of the applicants remained undiminished.[895] As regards the character of the testimony received, the secrecy of the procedure renders credible the assertion of Escobar, in his commentary on the law, that there was little if any improvement. There was some mitigation of rigor in an order of the Suprema, about 1645, that when an applicant could prove the tres actos positivos it was not necessary to push investigations as to his great grandparents. Somewhat halting was another rule promulgated in 1639, requiring submission to the Suprema of matters more than a hundred years old, before rejecting the applicant, but this was withdrawn in 1654.[896]
The effects of this proscription were manifold. As early as 1575, Lorenzo Priuli, the Venetian envoy, describes the descendants of the Conversos as living like other good Christians and being among the richest and noblest of the land, yet perpetually incapacitated from the honors and employments which were the ambition of every Spaniard—an evil which was increasing every day. Thus Spain, being full of discontented persons and divided in itself, some rising would be feared but for the severe execution of justice and the presence of the king. In 1598, Agostino Nani repeats the assertion—the descendants of all, who have at any time been punished by the Inquisition, live in a state of despair for, to the third and fourth generation they are regarded as infamous and incapable of any office in Church or State.[900] Navarrete does not hesitate to suggest that, but for the exclusion from public life of all but Old Christians of purest lineage, the fatal necessity of the expulsion of the Moriscos might have been averted: they might have been Christianized had they not been driven to desperation and hatred of religion by the indelible mark of infamy to which they were subjected.[901]
Another result was greatly to increase the authority of the Inquisition and the terror which it shed around it, by the fact that at a word it could inflict this undying infamy upon a lineage. To be arrested and cast into the secret prison, even without cause, was sufficient. In 1601, Philip III, when instructing the Inquisition to furnish to the Council of Military Orders full information as to any one, when called upon, required the report to include, not only the imprisonment of an ancestor subsequently acquitted, but even the fact of an accusation never acted upon.[904] It can readily be understood that even a summons to appear, in a matter not of faith, was felt acutely through a whole kindred. In the long struggle at Bilbao over the visitas de navios, the corregidor Mendieta took an active part against the commissioner Leguina who, to silence him, caused him to be cited by the tribunal of Logroño. This caused intense excitement and the Señorio of Biscay had him accompanied by two caballeros. When he demanded to know the charges against him, there were none forthcoming and he was dismissed. The affair was regarded as so serious that the Council of State presented a consulta to the queen-regent in October, 1668, setting forth that the citation might lead to the disgrace of his family and posterity and suggesting that some relief should be found for him.[905]
The limpieza test survived the Revolution and purity of blood was as essential under the Restoration as under the old monarchy, but there was some relaxation of rigidity. Thus, if a man and wife proved their limpieza, it sufficed for their children, only a legal certificate of baptism being required, and in the same way the proofs presented by one brother answered for another on his furnishing evidence of their common paternity.[906] A couple of years was also allowed to appointees in which to put in their proofs, and there is even a case of secretaries admitted without proofs, but with a warning that it would not be allowed again.[907] In the extreme penury of the time the Suprema imposed a fee, for its own benefit, of 60 reales on every investigation, which the receivers were required to collect and to remit yearly.[908] It was also in receipt of the two per cent. levied by the depositarios de los pretendientes, and one of its last acts was the acknowledgement, February 10, 1820, of 360 reales remitted by the depositario of Seville, which would show that 18,000 reales had passed through his hands.[909] The part of the business which fell to the Suprema was not large. Its first certificate is dated January 3, 1816 and the last one January 4, 1820, the whole number being only one hundred and eight.[910] From these certificates it would appear that the investigation was scarce more than a formality.
Wise statesmanship in Spain would have sought the unification of the races within its borders. In place of this, race hatred was stimulated in the name of religion, with the deplorable results recorded in Spanish history.
WHEN the Inquisition was established it was expected to be not only a self-sustaining institution but a source of profit. To what extent the anticipation of gain, by seizing the substance of their subjects, may have influenced Ferdinand and Isabella, in adopting this method of vindicating the faith, it would be useless now to enquire, but they refused to permit any division of the spoils as in the older papal Inquisition of Italy. These were reserved to the crown and, when the first inquisitors were sent to Seville, in 1480, they were accompanied by a receiver of confiscations—a royal official whose appointment shows what were the expectations entertained. Yet the support of the Inquisition had to come out of the product of its labors; the basis of its finances was confiscation and the use which it made of its powers in this respect, whether for its own benefit or for that of the sovereign, exercised so large an influence on the prosperity of Spain that it demands a somewhat careful examination. Spoliation on such a scale, continued unremittingly for nearly three centuries, was a tremendous burden on the productivity of the most industrious class of the population. At the commencement, a very large portion of the accessible wealth of Spain was in the hands of the Jews and Conversos. By the expulsion of the former and the prosecution of the latter they were stripped of it. The marvellous persistence of the New Christians, their tireless activity and business aptitude, kept them incessantly at work making acquisitions which continued to render persecution profitable and contributed to maintain the institution which was laboring, with equal persistence, for their destruction. It would not be wholly true to assert that the exhaustion of confiscations caused the inertia of the later decades of the Inquisition, but it unquestionably was a contributing factor.
In Aragon, the introduction of the Inquisition in the thirteenth century rendered confiscation for heresy a matter of course. In Castile a more tolerant spirit, as expressed in the laws of Alfonso X, forbade it, so long as there were Catholic heirs or kindred; if there were none, the king inherited, subject to the right of the Church, if the culprit were a cleric, to claim it within a year.[917] This code however was not confirmed until 1348, by which time scruple had diminished, for Alfonso XI, followed by Henry III, confiscated to the royal treasury one-half of the possessions of the convicted heretic.[918] It was reserved for Ferdinand and Isabella tacitly to accept the canon law in all its rigor, while diverting to the royal treasury all the proceeds. A contemporary asserts that they divided it into thirds—one for the war with the Moors, one for the support of the Inquisition and the third for pious uses,[919] but there is no trace of such allotment and we shall see that the crown made such use as it pleased of its acquisitions.
There evidently was popular repugnance to this spoliation and no one wished to be responsible for it. Ferdinand, in a proclamation of October 29, 1485, declared that the confiscations were made by order of the pope, in discharge of his conscience and by virtue of his obedience to holy Mother Church.[922] It was probably owing to his instructions that the tribunals finally assumed the responsibility, as is seen in a sentence of July 8, 1491, in Saragossa, on the deceased Juan de la Caballería, where the king is ordered, in virtue of holy obedience, to take the property and hold it as his own.[923] Apparently all did not acquiesce promptly for we find him, in 1510, ordering the inquisitor of Majorca, when pronouncing any one to be a heretic, to add at the end of the sentence that he declares the property confiscated and applied to the royal fisc and orders the receiver to take it, when the receiver is to do so in virtue of the sentence.[924] In accordance with this the official formula adopted bore that the tribunal found the culprit guilty of heresy and as such to have incurred excommunication and the confiscation and loss of all his property, which it applied to the royal treasury and to the receiver in the name of the king, from the time when he commenced to commit the crime of heresy. Or, if the offender was an ecclesiastic, it was applied to whom it lawfully belonged. This rather evaded the question whether confiscation was self-acting, but the Fe de confiscacion, given by the notary to the judge of confiscations, formally asserts that the inquisitors and Ordinary had confiscated the property to the king’s treasury and by the sentence had applied it to his receiver in his name.[925] If any uncertainty remained, it was removed by a carta acordada of 1626, which ordered that, in all cases of formal heresy, the sentence should include confiscation for, if there was to be any mitigation, the granting of such grace belonged to the inquisitor-general.[926] The anterior date to which the confiscation operated was determined, under the Instructions of 1561, by the consulta de fe when voting on the sentence.[927]
The phrase, in the case of ecclesiastics, of adjudging the property to whom it legally belonged, was a recognition of the claims of the Church. What these were seems to have been open to question. Under the Partidas the Church had the right, if it put forward the demand within a year, but Ferdinand, in a letter of March 11, 1498, says he is told that he has a right to a third in such cases. Whence this was derived we are not told, but he established the rule and it remained in force as late as 1559 when two-thirds of the estate of Dr. Agustin Cazalla passed to the Bishop of Palencia who, however, transferred it back to the Inquisition.[928] This was probably a compromise, for the Inquisition had asserted its right to the whole, and Bishop Simancas, in 1552, had said that many hold that the property of clerics goes to the bishop, but the truer opinion, which had always been followed in Spain, was that it belongs to the fisc, for the use of the Inquisition.[929] The question, however, was not definitely settled for, in 1568, the Suprema called upon all the tribunals to report without delay what was their practice and what was their formula of sentence.[930] It was inevitable that any doubts should eventually be construed in favor of the Holy Office and, in the seventeenth century, the authorities assume as a matter of course that the confiscations of clerics enure to the tribunals, although the sentence still attributed them to whom they lawfully pertained. Forfeited benefices of heretics, however, were a papal perquisite, by decree of Paul IV, June 18, 1556 and this is cited, about 1640, as still in force in Spain.[931]
For awhile the confiscations were subject to another diversion. The feudal lords, who saw the property of their vassals swept into the royal maelstrom, grew restless and, although they do not seem to have put forth any legal claim, Ferdinand, in many cases, deemed it wise to pacify them with a grant of one-third of the confiscations made in their estates. The earliest grant of the kind that I have happened to meet is to the Infante Enrique, Duke of Segorbe, April 20, 1491.[932] These grants were subject to a deduction for the expenses of the trials, which led to a good deal of friction, as none of the parties concerned were over-scrupulous. If the grantee quarrelled with the receiver over the question of expenses he had a fashion, when the customary auction of the property was held, of announcing that he desired to bid and that nobody should bid against him. By this device the Duke of Bejar enforced a settlement in 1514 and again in 1517.[933] The experience of the Duke del Infantado shows how skilful were the officials in neutralizing these grants. In 1515 he obtained a grant of one-half of confiscations up to that time and one-third for the future, subject to expenses. Disputes arose as a matter of course and, in 1519, he prevented auction sales till he should be paid and, in 1520, he compromised for two hundred ducats in settlement of claims up to that time and ten per cent. for the future, free of expenses.[934] It is safe to say that Ximenes was exposed to no such trouble in his settlements but, with his enormous revenues and his position as inquisitor-general, it would have better comported with his dignity to have abstained from procuring, in 1515, a grant of one-third of the confiscations made in his estates and in the Cazorla lands assigned for the expenses of his table.[935] With the gradual weeding out of the wealthier Conversos and the increasing expenses of the tribunals, the share of the feudal lords doubtless diminished until it was not worth contesting, for shortly after this period we cease to hear of this division of the proceeds.
Confiscation, as we have seen, was one of the invariable penalties of heresy under the canon law. The heretic was outside of the Church; if persistent he was relaxed and burnt; if he repented and professed conversion he was “reconciled” to the Church, but though he thus escaped death the forfeiture of his property remained. Reconciliation, as a rule, inferred confiscation. An exception to this was when a Term of Grace was published, usually of thirty or forty days, during which those who made full confession of their sins and gave full information about others were received to reconciliation, under promise of release from imprisonment and confiscation, but subject to public penance and giving as “alms” such portion of their property as the inquisitors should designate.[936] This was an abandonment by the king of the property which had become forfeit through heresy and was confirmed by a formal grant by him to them of what was lawfully his, empowering them to sell and convey a good title, which otherwise they could not do.[937] This did not apply to what the penitent suffered from the crimes of others, and thus children so reconciled could not claim estates forfeited by their parents. Outside of the Term of Grace there was no escape. Espontaneados—those coming forward spontaneously—after its expiration, had already forfeited all their possessions and, as it was explained, it was not the intention of the sovereigns to remit the penalty to them, save when, in special cases, they might exercise clemency.[938] This covetous policy, which discouraged the repentant sinner, was continued until, in 1597, the Suprema ordered that espontaneados should be reconciled without confiscation.[939] Yet, in spite of this, when, in 1677, Alvaro Núñez de Velasco, came forward voluntarily to denounce himself and was reconciled, his sentence included confiscation.[940]
This prostitution of religion to the service of greed was exploited to the utmost. Excommunication was so habitually abused for temporal purposes that it was naturally resorted to, and all who concealed or held any property of a convicted heretic were subjected to it. In 1486 Ferdinand writes that certain notaries refuse to give copies of contracts passed before them, relative to obligations due to heretics, to which they must be constrained by censures and the invocation, if necessary, of the secular arm, and the same course must be taken with debtors refusing to pay what they owe.[944] October 17, 1500, he scolds some inquisitors for their negligence; those who know that they are suspected commonly hide their property or place it in the hands of third parties and “in this way those who hold such property become excommunicated to the great damage of their souls, for they continue under the censure and my fisc suffers, for the property escapes confiscation.”[945] In 1645 a writer gives us the form adopted in such cases. If the fiscal thought that there was property of a confiscated estate concealed or debts due to it unrevealed, the tribunal issued an edict to be read from the pulpits, ordering under pain of excommunication every one holding such property, or cognizant of facts concerning it, to make it known to the commissinoner or to the parish priest within three days. On the expiration of this term the priests were required to denounce from their pulpits all such persons as excommunicated and to be avoided by all Christians. Then, after three days more, followed the anathema, in its awful solemnities of bell, book and candle, with the imprecatory psalm, and invoking the wrath of Almighty God and the glorious Virgin his Mother and of the Apostles Peter and Paul and all the saints of heaven and all the plagues of Egypt on the wicked ones who were withholding its own from the Holy Office.[946]
While doubtless the fisc, by thus stimulating detectives, recovered property which might otherwise have escaped, the system was one which invited collusion between them and the officials. Frauds of this kind were probably not uncommon for, in 1525, the Suprema complained of the abuses that had sprung up through the disregard by the receivers of their instructions. These were to be strictly observed and, in future, commissions must be paid only on property of which nothing had been known to the officials, and the informer must not be an official whose knowledge had been acquired in the discharge of his duties. Moreover the compensation was strictly limited to twenty per cent. of the amount realized through the information furnished.[952] This is the latest allusion that I have met with to this phase of the business; it evidently diminished with the falling off in the confiscations, though doubtless special transactions continued to occur, for it was inevitable that the victims should exhaust their ingenuity in the effort to save for their children some fragments of their possessions.
It is pleasant to be able to say that, in time, some of the worst features of this all-grasping rapacity were softened in the Spanish Inquisition. Its early operations were so extensive and the commerce of the land was so largely in the hands of the New Christians, that we can readily imagine the general consternation aroused by the strict enforcement of the canon laws which vitiated all alienations and stripped all creditors of their claims. It could lead only to wide-spread ruin and general paralysis of trade, and there doubtless arose a cry for relief which the sovereigns could not disregard. With a wise liberality, therefore, they consented to a partial abandonment of their claims, which is set forth in the Instructions of 1484, in a manner showing how fully they knew what were their rights. The clause recites that they could recover all alienations and refuse to pay all debts unless the proceeds could be identified among the effects of the confiscated estate, whether of those condemned or of those reconciled outside of the term of grace, but, out of clemency and to avoid oppression of vassals who had dealt with heretics, they ordered that all sales, donations, exchanges and contracts, prior to the year 1479, should be valid, if duly proved to be genuine. Attempts to take fraudulent advantage of this were declared punishable, in reconciled heretics, with a hundred lashes and branding in the face with a hot iron; in Christians, with confiscation, deprivation of office and penalties at the royal discretion.[954]
An examination of the records of the Valencia court of confiscations, in 1531 and 1532, evinces on the whole an evident desire to administer the law rigidly, whether in favor of or against the fisc. Among the claimants were a number of serving women for wages, which were always allowed, although the court exercised somewhat arbitrary discretion in cutting down the amounts.[969] Gradually the honest policy prevailed and, in 1543, the Suprema instructed the tribunals that the first thing to be paid were the debts that were properly proved—a rule which apparently was difficult to enforce, for the order had to be repeated in 1546 and again in 1547.[970] Yet it was no easy matter for creditors to obtain payment against the resistance offered by receivers and their advocates. In 1565, after Pierre and Gilles de Bonneville were burnt for Protestantism in Toledo, the fiscal reported to the inquisitors that numerous creditors had come forward whose claims were pending before the juez de los bienes, wherefore he asked for a certificate as to the date of the culprits’ heresies, in order to use it before the court. The inquisitors duly certified that the date was about 1550, the object being to plead the obsolete canonical rule that subsequent obligations were invalid.[971] That chicanery of all kinds was employed to exhaust the patience of creditors and accumulate costs is plainly admitted in the memorial of 1623 to the Suprema, which states that, in the suits of creditors, there is much that brings discredit on the Inquisition, for confiscations are managed solely for the benefit of those who administer them, the appointees of the juez de los bienes and ordinarily his kinsmen or friends, for whose advantage the suits are prolonged until they become immortal.[972] Abuses such as these were inevitable in a system which confined everything within the circle of the Inquisition, permitting no outside interference or supervision, while dealing so tenderly with official malfeasance. It would be difficult to overestimate the wide-spread damage resulting when the accused were merchants with extensive and complicated transactions, as in the immense confiscations in Mexico and Peru from 1630 to 1650 and those of Majorca in 1678, when funds and merchandise of correspondents were tied up for an indefinite time to the destruction of their credit. The hazards to which business was thus exposed was a factor, and by no means the least important, in the decay of Spanish commerce, for no one could foresee at what moment the blow might fall. Sequestration accompanied arrest and, in 1635, it was ordered that, during the pending of a trial, no payments or delivery of property should be made to creditors, no matter what evidence they presented, without awaiting the decision of the Suprema, the only exception being claims of the king, which were to be paid without delay. In 1721 this prohibition to pay debts was made absolute, excepting a few trivial matters such as servants’ wages and house-rent.[973] That foreigners dealing with Spain had ample cause to dread the decisions of the juez de los bienes is shown by a remarkable clause in the English treaty of 1665 which provided that, in case of sequestration of property by any tribunal of either nation, the effects or debts belonging to a subject of the other should not suffer confiscation but should be restored to the owner.[974] On the whole, however, the Spanish Inquisition is entitled to the credit of mitigating, in favor of creditors, the abhorrent harshness of the inquisitorial law of confiscation, although in practice its officials were guilty of minimising, as far as they could, the benefits of this moderation.
Another feature, which frequently complicated these settlements, was the question of the conquests—the ganancias or creix—the gains made during married life, in which both spouses had an equal share. The laws of Toro, in 1505, provide that neither husband nor wife could forfeit claim to half the ganancias for the crime of the other, even if the crime were heresy, and the ganancia is defined to be the whole increase during wedlock until the decree of confiscation, no matter when the crime was committed—a rule which remained in force.[981] The complexity introduced by these various interests in the settlement of confiscations is illustrated in the case of Diego López, a merchant of Zamora, reconciled in the auto de fe of Valladolid, in June, 1520. He kept no books and the number of debits and credits rendered his affairs exceedingly complicated; moreover the paternal estate had never been divided between him and his brothers, while his wife put in claims for her dowry and share of the ganancias. In this perplexity the only solution was a compromise, which was reached by the wife and brothers agreeing to pay four hundred and fifty thousand maravedís in instalments, giving adequate security.[982] The Valencia court of confiscations, however, invented a method of evading the wifely claim to the accretions for, in 1532, when Angela Pérez, widow of Luis Gilabert, burnt for heresy, demanded her dowry of three thousand sueldos and the creix, the court ordered the receiver to pay the dowry but refused the creix on the ground that the date of his committing heresy showed that he could not lawfully make any gains.[983]
This policy was not merely transient. In 1634 the Inquisition seized the goods and credits of Portuguese merchants, residents of Holland, Hamburg and France, trading with Spain. Agents had been sent abroad to secure evidence of their Judaism; they naturally sought to defend their property and presented certificates of their orthodoxy; the affair dragged on and, in 1636, Doctor Juan de Gosa presented an elaborate opinion in justification of this, proving that the property must be confiscated, although the owners were not Spaniards, nor domiciled in Spain, nor had committed heresy in Spain. His argument was based on the principle of the canon law that the heretic had no rights and that any Catholic could seize and despoil him; heresy is a crime all-pervading and not limited to the spot where it is committed for it is an injury to the whole Christian Republic. No evidence was required, for it was notorious that the Portuguese absented themselves in order to indulge their heretical proclivities and that they frequented the synagogues in Amsterdam and elsewhere. The Inquisition was to hold the property and, for greater justification, to summon by edict the owners to appear and defend it within a fixed term, or it could appoint defenders to act for them, but in no case was it to raise the sequestration or surrender the property.[997] It is superfluous to point out the effect of all this on Spanish commerce.
Ferdinand and Isabella manifested liberality in setting free the Christian slaves of confiscated estates, and this was extended by the Instructions of 1484, at the cost of those reconciled under Edicts of Grace, for, though they were not subject to confiscation, their Christian slaves were manumitted.[1001] It was, perhaps, a kindly care that kept these freedmen in a species of serfdom, for Instructions about 1500 direct the inquisitors to place them with proper persons under agreements as to wages and, if they are not reasonably treated, to transfer them to other masters.[1002] Embarrassing cases sometimes arose, such as that in which a slave was owned jointly by a good Catholic and a condemned heretic, but it would seem, from a decision in 1531, that the manumitted half carried with it into freedom the enslaved half, and the Catholic owner had no redress.[1003] The inquisitors did not always respond to the humane intentions of the Instructions; they seem to have sometimes kept slaves for themselves, in place of setting them free, for which, in 1516, they were rebuked and were also ordered that, during the trials of the owners, the slaves should be hired out and their wages be strictly accounted for—all of which points to current abuses. These did not cease for, in 1525, Dr. Mercader, in a visitation of Sicily, found similar ones flourishing.[1004]
In the rigor of collection, debtors to the confiscated estates, who were unable to pay, were imprisoned without mercy. Thus, in 1490, the judge of confiscations at Segovia orders the alguazil to seize the lands and goods and money of Don Mosé de Cuellar, who was indebted in the sum of 393,000 maravedís to the late Gonzalo de Cuellar, regidor of Buitrago, burnt for heresy; if he cannot find property enough to satisfy the debt he is to seize the person of Don Mosé and confine him in the public prison of Segovia.[1006] It was the same with husbands who were liable for the dowries of their wives, as we have seen in the case of Don Pedro Gascon (p. 334). Forbearance, however, was sometimes found to be better policy. In 1509 Sancho Martínez of Hellin was sentenced to pay 50,000 maravedís for the dowry of his wife whose parents had been reconciled. He pleaded poverty to the Suprema, which ordered that, if his property was insufficient, he should not be imprisoned and that, at the auction of his effects he should be allowed to purchase to the amount of 10,000 or 12,000 maravedís on a year’s credit. The event showed the wisdom of the arrangement. The auction realized 17,000; he was the purchaser and paid for it at the expiration of the year. He accumulated, as the years went by, 100,000 maravedís and the judge ordered execution on him for the 33,000 still due on the dowry. Again he appealed to the Suprema, some members of which doubted whether his subsequent acquisitions were liable and the matter was compromised, July 5, 1519, by ordering him to pay half the deficiency.[1007] These instances are not without interest as illustrations of the manner in which this gigantic spoliation was effected through more than a couple of centuries.
The avidity of the Inquisition did not diminish with time, nor its disastrous influence on all exposed to its claims. In 1615, a German Protestant, known as Juan Cote, was condemned by the Toledo tribunal to perpetual prison and confiscation. He was then twenty-four years old and had been taken, in early youth, by his uncle Juan Aventrot, to the Canaries, where the uncle married María Vandala, a widow with four children, who died in 1609, leaving one-fifth of her estate to Cote. In 1613 Aventrot sent him to Spain with a letter to the Duke of Lerma, which led to the discovery of his heresy. Proceedings for the confiscation of his share in the widow’s estate dragged on interminably. September 7, 1634, the Suprema ordered the Toledo tribunal to furnish papers in the case, including a certificate of the date of Cote’s heresy, which, in view of his having been brought up as a Protestant, it fixed at the age of fourteen, when he could be considered responsible. In this the Inquisition overreached itself, for in 1635 the Canary tribunal reported that the heirs alleged Cote to have been incapable of inheritance, seeing that he was brought up as a Protestant and both he and his uncle had pretended to be Catholics, and they called for a copy of the sentence to demonstrate this. The unabashed Suprema then shifted its ground and procured, September 10, 1640, from the Toledo tribunal, a certificate that Cote had commenced his heretical acts in 1613, when he brought the letter to Lerma and delivered it to Philip III, in August, 1614. How the affair terminated and how much longer it was protracted we have no means of knowing, but the Inquisition had at least succeeded in tying up the estate for twenty-five years.[1024]
It was impossible that this monstrous policy, of making it the judge in its own cases, should be submitted to without resistance, but it was stoutly maintained by the crown. The tribunal of Jaen invested some of its funds in a censo created by a cleric of Alcalá. He died in 1524, when his mother and brothers attacked the censo as being secured on a property in which they held undivided interests, and another party came forward with an incumbrance on the same property. The Inquisition seized it and also collected some debts due to the deceased, which reduced its claim to seven or eight thousand maravedís. The other parties appealed to the chancellery of Granada, which entertained the case, but the Inquisition invoked Charles V who, in letters of May 19 and July 7, 1525, repeated the commands of Ferdinand to abstain from all interference. The Inquisition was the sole judge and parties thinking themselves aggrieved must appeal to the Suprema.[1037] Still, those who smarted under injustice sought relief in the secular courts, which were nothing loath to aid them; complaints were loud on both sides and competencias were frequent until, as we have seen, they led to the settlement of 1553, in which Prince Philip emphatically forbade cognizance of such matters to all courts and ministers of justice, and confined appellate jurisdiction strictly to the Suprema.[1038]
Charles’s Flemish favorites were growing impatient to share in the elusive spoils. He had granted to his chamberlain, M. de Beaurains, the rest of the composition, but it was not forthcoming, nor were the accounts of Villacis. In January, 1519, he wrote to Torquemada, one of the Seville inquisitors, to enforce on Villacis, with the utmost rigor of the law, the payment to Beaurains of any amounts collected and not paid over, while, if there was a balance uncollected, Villacis was to assess it afresh and account for it to Beaurains. This produced nothing and, on March 24th Charles emphatically repeated the order, granting full power to enforce it with penalties at discretion. Villacis, however, had experience in eluding such demands and Ferdinand had not left much to glean. In 1515 he had divided up the Córdova composition, giving twenty thousand to the Inquisition and reserving thirty thousand for himself. Of this he had received twenty thousand and the remaining ten he granted to the Marquis of Denia, but when the latter presented this order to Villacis, he was told that eight thousand was covered by previous grants and he could only have two thousand. Denia complained to Ferdinand, by that time mortally sick, who, on December 4th, assented to the transfer to him of the previous grants, but Ximenes, in transmitting this order to Villacis, made a condition that the twenty thousand for the Inquisition must first be paid and he subsequently suspended Denia’s grant altogether. The marquis complained of this to Charles, who from Ghent, May 22, 1517, ordered Ximenes to lift the suspension, but again Ximenes insisted with Villacis that the Inquisition must first be paid. The funds seemed to evaporate and vanish into thin air. It is probable that Denia got little or nothing and that Beaurains fared no better, for Charles’s prime favorite, Adrien de Croy, received as his share of the spoils only the seven hundred and fifty thousand maravedís, the penalties for delay, which had been assigned to the tribunal of Seville. The insatiable Calcena and Aguirre, however, secured a thousand ducats which, in 1515, Ferdinand granted them in recompense for their labors on the composition.[1054] Thus for ten years the New Christians of a large part of Spain had been harried and impoverished under delusive promises of exemption and, of the moneys thus extorted, but little reached either the crown or the Inquisition. The tribunal of Seville, indeed, can have received virtually nothing for, as we have seen, in 1556, its Archbishop Valdés asserted that, since the beginning of the century, it was so impoverished that it could support but a single inquisitor and pay only one-third of the ordinary salaries.[1055]
Possibly this may have produced improvement, but if so it was but temporary. We have just seen how recalcitrant about his accounts was Pedro de Badia, the receiver of Barcelona; he did not improve and when he died, in 1513, he left his office in bad condition. He was replaced by Martin de Marrano, transferred from Majorca, who proved to be no better. In 1520 Cardinal Adrian, to punish him, reduced his salary to 2880 sueldos and then, April 16, 1521, wrote a long and indignant letter to the inquisitors, principally devoted to Marrano’s misdeeds, among which was refusal to settle his accounts and alleging claims for which he had no vouchers. Yet, to all appearances, with the inexplicable tenderness shown to official culprits, he was retained in office.[1068] The tribunal of Sicily, where the confiscations were large, was in even worse hands. Diego de Obregon, who served as receiver from 1500 to 1514, left its affairs in lamentable confusion. He was succeeded by Garcí Cid, who was sent to reduce it to order. How he accomplished this is seen in a report of Benito Mercader, sent as inspector, describing the financial management as characterized by every vice, while peculation was rife among all the officials. Garcí Cid returned to Spain in 1520 and it was not until 1542 that the Suprema ordered him to pay the 1420 ducats, which he was found to owe, as well as what he had collected of 9300 more which were charged against him.[1069] Things did not mend for, as we have seen, Zurita, who became Auditor-general for Aragon in 1548, describes his untangling of the Sicilian accounts, which had not been received for twenty years and were in the utmost disorder.[1070]
As the eighteenth century advanced, confiscation gradually grew obsolete. Heresy had been so successfully extirpated that relaxation and reconciliation grew rarer and rarer. In the records of the Toledo tribunal, extending to 1794, there is no sentence of confiscation later than 1738.[1086] In the census of all the tribunals, about the year 1745, there is but a single juez de los bienes, though occasionally we find that office tacked on to an inquisitorship, as in Valencia in 1795, where an addition of 52ll. 10s. is made to the salary in consequence, but that it was a sinecure is apparent from the fact that, in a record of the sentences of that tribunal from 1780 to 1820, there is not a case of confiscation.[1087]
Unfortunately, the records do not bear out these flattering assurances. The Inquisition, of course, had the first claim on the product of its labors and its expenses were defrayed from this source. I have met with but two cases, one in 1500 and one in 1501, where a salary was paid from the royal treasury and in both of these the recipient was Diego López, member of the Suprema and royal secretary—a duplicate position which might justify calling upon either source of supply.[1090] During the war with Granada, ending with 1491, undoubtedly the funds derived from the industry of the Holy Office were largely employed in its prosecution which, according to the standards of the age, was not only a patriotic but an eminently pious use. While this drain continued it is not likely that much of the confiscations was otherwise employed, and I have met with but one or two pious gifts—in 1486 a thousand sueldos to aid in the construction of an infirmary for the Franciscan convent of Santa Maria de Jesus and, in 1491 a rent of five hundred sueldos a year to the church of San Juan of Calatayud.[1091] After the conquest of Granada we find occasional grants to convents and churches, but they are not frequent and, as a rule, are meagre in comparison with the profusion lavished on courtiers and servants. The only large recipient of bounty seems to have been Ferdinand’s favorite Geronimite convent of Santa Engracia of Saragossa to which, in 1495, he gave thirteen thousand sueldos for the purchase of certain lands and gardens and, in 1498, ten thousand more. There was, in addition, a yearly allowance of six thousand sueldos for the maintenance of the frailes; the payment of this was suspended, in 1498, on account of lack of funds, but Ferdinand, after some hesitation, made this good by transferring to the convent certain censos that had been appropriated to the Inquisition.[1092] In his correspondence of this period, up to 1515, there occur a few more pious expenditures, but all are of moderate amount and in no way justify the assertion that the confiscations were largely expended in this manner.
Ferdinand went on precisely as before and it would be superfluous to multiply instances of his reckless profusion, save that we may mention a gift to his wife Queen Germaine, in 1515, of 10,000 florins from the confiscations of Sicily and we may recall his attempted grant of 10,000 ducats to the Marquis of Denia from the composition of Córdova.[1105] In this general scramble for fragments of the spoils, there is one point that may be noted—the demand for attractive slave-girls. How their existence came to be known to those who asked for them we can only guess, and it would be indiscreet to enquire why reverend members of the Suprema seem to be especially desirous of such acquisitions. April 7, 1510, Ferdinand writes to the receiver of Cartagena that he is told that, in the confiscated property of Ramado Martin de Santa Cruz, there is a Moorish female slave named Alia; if this is so she is to be delivered to Doctor Pérez Gonzalo Manso, of the Suprema, to be his property as a gift. March 18, 1514, the Licenciado Ferrando de Mazuecos, of the Suprema, petitions for a Moorish slave-girl, confiscated among the property of Juan de Tena of Ciudad Real, and Ferdinand orders her to be given to him, to do what he pleases with her. There was some contest over Fatima, a white Moorish slave-girl confiscated in the estate of Alonso Sánchez del Castillo. The Marquis of Villena asked for her and Ferdinand granted his request, June 15, 1514, but when the order was sent to Toledo, the deputy receiver refused to obey it, alleging that it was obtained by false representations, as the Suprema had already given her to the fiscal, Martin Ximenes. This was promptly answered, in a letter signed not only by Calcena but by the members of the Suprema, reiterating the grant to Villena and ordering the receiver to compensate Ximenes for her value.[1106] It is suggestive that no such eagerness is shown to obtain male slaves.
It would be wrong not to bear testimony also to the spirit of justice which is apparent in many of Ferdinand’s decisions of questions brought before him. Thus on January 8, 1502, in instructing a receiver about a censo in dispute with Galceran de Santangel, he concludes by telling him to act without legal delays, so that justice may be administered with rectitude and promptitude, and that nothing may be taken but what belongs to the fisc, without wronging any one. September 12, 1502, he wrote that Garcí Corts complains that he had granted him certain censos and then, by a second letter, had stopped the transfer, whereupon he now orders the matter to be settled according to justice, without reference to what he may have written to the contrary, for it is not his will to inflict wrong on any one.[1112] It would be easy to multiply these examples, from his confidential correspondence with officials, when there could have been no possible object in a hypocritical affectation of fairness. If he not infrequently rebuked inquisitors and receivers for negligence in gathering in confiscations, it may be truly said that he more often scolded them for undue harshness and delay in settling honest claims.
After Charles’s departure, in May, 1520, to assume the imperial dignity, we hear of few new grants. He was rapidly ripening under the weight of the tremendous responsibilities accumulated upon him and was recognizing that his position implied other duties than the gratification of his courtiers’ greed. It would seem that he willingly shifted upon the inquisitor-general and Suprema the burden of such trivial matters, and left it to them to assent to or dissent from such graces as he might bestow. A grant from a confiscation at Saragossa, dated at Brussels, October 1, 1520, bears the formula that it is with the assent and advice of the inquisitor-general and Council of Aragon, and, though it is signed by Ugo de Urries by order of the emperor, it has the vidimus of Cardinal Adrian.[1124] Practically thus the control was lodged with the Suprema, whose needs, as we have seen, prevented any accumulations in the tribunals and we hear little or nothing subsequently of this dissipation of the confiscations.
There was an advantage to the Inquisition in considering these fines as penitential, for penance was part of the sacrament of absolution which was an ecclesiastical function, the proceeds of which were controlled by the Church, and it differed thus wholly from confiscation. It is true that practically this was merely a verbal juggle, for the inquisitor did not absolve and, as he was not necessarily a priest, his office did not comprise the administration of the sacraments, but the verbal juggle sufficed and serves to explain the rigid separation of the funds arising from penance and from confiscation, even after both were controlled by the Inquisition. We have seen (Vol. I, p. 338) the prolonged struggle made by Ferdinand to obtain possession of the penances, which finally terminated in favor of the Inquisition. This was rather beneficial to the accused, as the tribunal would be inclined to find him guilty only of suspicion of heresy, enabling it to inflict a pecuniary penance for its own benefit, rather than of formal heresy which inferred confiscation. Of course this passed away when financial control practically lapsed to the Suprema, but the distinction between the funds was still maintained.
The distinction between the confiscations and the fines and penances was rigidly maintained when both were concentrated in the hands of the receiver. A special commission was issued to authorize him to receive the latter[1141] and he was straitly instructed to keep the accounts separate. The confiscations were devoted to salaries and, if there was an overplus, to investments of a more or less permanent character, while the fines and penances were levied, as the formula of the sentences habitually expressed it, for the gastos extraordinarios—the other and extraordinary expenses of the tribunals. Still, when the confiscations ran short, there was no hesitation in drawing upon the other fund, although a special order of the Suprema was necessary for its authorization. Ayudas de costa were generally drawn from the fines and penances, though frequently the receiver is told to pay them out of any funds in hand.[1142] In 1525, Manrique directed the house-rents of the officials to be paid from the fines and penances; in 1540 Tavera granted, from the same fund in Valencia, three thousand sueldos to the nunnery of Santa Julia as the dowry of a reconciled Morisca, placed there to save her soul; in 1543 he calls upon the receiver of Granada to furnish, from the same source, two hundred ducats to Juan Martínez Lassao, secretary of the Suprema, on the occasion of his marriage; in 1557 the inquisitors of Saragossa were allowed, in the same manner, to defray the cost of alterations in the Aljafería.[1143] In short, this fund was expected to meet the innumerable miscellaneous expenses of the tribunals and to supply all deficiencies, rendering the inquisitors watchful to keep it abundantly supplied.
A lucrative bargain was finally made with Valencia, which had the largest Morisco population. In 1537 the Córtes proposed that, for a payment of 400 ducats a year, the Inquisition should abstain from penancing the Moriscos, but the Suprema refused, on the ground that it would be a disservice to God. It was shrewd in this for, in 1571, it secured an agreement under which, for an annual payment of 50,000 sueldos (2500 ducats) it abandoned confiscation and limited penance to 10 ducats, the payment of which was rendered secure by levying it on the aljamas of the culprits.[1148] Favorable as was this, the inquisitors did not restrain themselves to its observance. In the auto de fe of January 7, 1607, there was a penance of 50 ducats, one of 30 and one of 20 and, while there were only eight reconciliations, there were twenty penances of 10 ducats. The Suprema took exception to this, saying that, without reconciliation, the fines were uncalled for, in the absence of some special offence.[1149] The agreement, in fact, was one under which the gains of the tribunal were limited only by its industry, for there was no lack of Morisco apostates. The little village of Mislata, near the city, must have been well-nigh bankrupted, for it was liable for the penances of its inhabitants, of whom there were eighty-three penanced in 1591 and seventeen in 1592.[1150]
The situation was complicated by the pretensions of the sovereigns to intervene and claim their share, and this they sought to establish by procuring from Alexander VI a brief of February 18, 1495, which recites that the inquisitors collect various sums from those who had obtained papal rehabilitations and retained them; all such moneys theretofore and thereafter received for commutations and rehabilitations were to be placed at the disposal of the sovereigns, under pain of ipso facto excommunication.[1177] It is obvious from this that the papal dispensations were not admitted without the exaction of further payments; that the pope was content with this, so long as the taxes of the Penitentiary were paid in Rome, and that Ferdinand was concerned only with the destination of the proceeds and was quite willing to acknowledge the papal authority when it was exercised for his benefit. He lost no time in availing himself of the papal grant on a large scale and, before the year was out, we find him selling relief in mass to all those disabled by the tribunal of Toledo, a transaction which brought in large returns for, in 1497, Alonso de Morales, the royal treasurer, acknowledges the receipt of 6,499,028 maravedís from Toledo commutations and rehabilitations, and this was doubtless only one of numerous similar compositions.[1178]
Roman competition, however, by no means destroyed the home traffic in dispensations. Whatever was imposed by the inquisitors could be removed by the inquisitors-general, as when Valdés, May 27, 1551, granted licence to Leandro de Loriz to accept the position of assessor to the bayle of Valencia after he had been disabled by the tribunal from holding any office of justice.[1192] When, however, disabilities were the result of the pragmáticas, it was recognized that their removal was a function of the crown. Thus, in 1549, the Suprema expresses pleasure that those reconciled under an Edict of Grace should procure rehabilitations from the king and, in 1564, it explains that the dispensations granted by the inquisitor-general only relate to the sumptuary cosas arbitrarias, so that those obtaining them who exceed in this are to be prosecuted.[1193] The functions of the Inquisition thus were restricted to enabling the disabled to wear costly apparel and jewels, to bear arms and ride. These, which were known as dispensations “en lo arbitrario” were in great demand and a brisk business was done in them. In the records of course there is nothing said about their being sold, or the prices paid for them, which were doubtless proportioned to the station or wealth of the penitent or of his kindred, but that they were articles of traffic is shown by their being frequently given as gratifications to the lower officials, issued in blank, to be disposed of at the best price that could be had.[1194] So customary, indeed, became the issue of these dispensations that, towards the close of the sixteenth century, Peña closes his remarks on disabilities by saying that, after a time, it is usual to dispense for them.[1195]
WHEN the Inquisition was established, it was apparent that if its officials, or a portion of them, could be quartered on the Church there might be less diversion of the confiscations from the royal treasury. At the very commencement, in 1480, Ferdinand and Isabella obtained, from Sixtus IV, an indult authorizing them to present the four earliest inquisitors to benefices, of course without obligation to reside. As yet, however, the Inquisition had not inspired general terror, and the people refused to admit the intruders, whereupon the sovereigns provided them with four chaplaincies in the royal chapel.[1217] The attempt was not abandoned and, in the supplementary Instructions of December, 1484, Torquemada announced that it was the intention of the sovereigns to procure a papal indult authorizing them to bestow benefices, not only on the inquisitors but on all the clerics employed in the holy work.[1218] Something of the kind was evidently obtained for, when the Holy Office was organized, in 1485, under Torquemada, the brief confirming his appointment dispensed from residence all officials in its service who held or might thereafter obtain preferment; new appointees were released from the customary temporary residence, and all were assured of their full revenues without deduction, all apostolical and conciliar decrees to the contrary notwithstanding.[1219] There was nothing in this to shock public opinion, for the canon law permitted canons to be absent for study in any recognized university, and the enjoyment of benefices everywhere by the creatures of the curia was legalized by assuming service to the pope to be equivalent to service in a chapter.[1220] Yet the Spanish Church, apparently, was not disposed to submit quietly to this and its resistance may be assumed as the cause of another brief of Innocent VIII, February 8, 1486, which limited the grant to five years and required the beneficiary to supply a vicar to fill his place. At the same time it specified all officials, down to messengers and gaolers, as entitled to its benefits and provided for opposition by appointing the Bishops of Córdova and Leon and the Abbot of San Emiliano of Burgos as executors with full powers to suppress recalcitrants.[1221] When the five years expired, the indult was renewed for another five years and so it continued until the end of the Inquisition—the popes steadily refusing to prolong the term, as it gave them an important advantage, in their frequent collisions with the Spanish Holy Office, to say nothing of the fees consequent upon the issue of briefs so voluminous and so valuable.
This brief probably was good only for five years for, in 1494, the sovereigns obtained from Alexander VI another, with enlarged powers, of which Martin Ponce, Bishop of Avila, was executor. Under this, on April 11, 1495, they made twenty-four appointments, mostly inquisitors, but comprising seven fiscals, two members of the Suprema and two Roman agents of the Inquisition. Among the inquisitors we recognize the notorious Lucero and his predecessor in Córdova, the embezzling Dr. Guiral.[1223] It is probable that these briefs encountered resistance, for, in this latter case, we chance to hear of a prolonged struggle required to install Doctor Manuel Fernández Angulo of the Suprema in the Seville canonry given to him.[1224] Haughty canons of noble blood might well resent the intrusion of low-born officials such as Ferdinand sometimes thrust upon them. Thus, in 1499, on the death of Inquisitor Cevallos of Barcelona, his first appointee to a prebend in the church of Santa Ana, in the same city, he replaced him with Juan Moya, a simple tonsured clerk and gaoler of the tribunal, nor was this the only instance of such abuse of patronage.[1225] He also availed himself largely of the privilege of non-residence by appointing canons and other beneficed clerks to positions in the tribunals, and his letters of the period are numerous in which he notifies the chapters that their members have been thus drafted to the service of God, during which they are, under the papal letters, to be reckoned as present and are not to be deprived of any of the fruits of their preferment. So, when he drew the Licentiate Pero González Manso from the professorship of law in Valladolid, he told the college that the chair would be filled by a substitute at half-price during Manso’s absence.[1226] Everything was subservient to the Inquisition and all other institutions were expected to minister to its needs.
At length Philip III listened to the complaints of the chapters and, in a decree of December 24, 1599, addressed to the Suprema, he called attention to the injury inflicted on the cathedral services by withdrawing canons from their duties, and he ordered that in future much caution be exercised, especially as regarded the deans, the doctoral and magistral canons and the penitentiaries.[1238] If this produced an effect it was but temporary. In 1655 we chance to learn that, in the tribunal of Córdova, of the three inquisitors, Bernardino de Leon de la Rocha was a prebendary of Córdova and collegial of the cathedral of Cuenca; Bartolomé Bujan de Somoza was a canon of Cuenca and Fernando de Villegas was collegial of San Bartolomé. In addition, the fiscal, Juan María de Rodesno was collegial of Cuenca and the secretary, Pedro de Armenta was prebendary of Córdova.[1239] This single tribunal thus deprived Cuenca of three of its dignitaries and Córdova of two.
Commissioners were frequently selected from the chapters of their places of residence, and it was a long-debated question whether they were entitled to constant non-residence, seeing that their duties were occasional and mostly local. It was finally settled that they should enjoy the fruits when absent on duty for the Inquisition, but even this was disputed, in 1780, by the collegiate church of San Ildefonso of Llerena, in the case of the prebendary, Pedro Enríquez Verones, a commissioner of the Valladolid tribunal, who was refused his share of the distributions during absence by order of the inquisitors. Inquisitor-general Bertran complained to Carlos III, who peremptorily ordered payment whenever absent on business of the faith. A similar question apparently arose in 1818, for the Suprema sent, July 18th, to the tribunal of Llerena, a statement of the case with a copy of the letter of Carlos.[1246]
No time had been lost in gathering the fruits of the papal grant. April 16, 1559, a provision was despatched to take possession of a prebend, which had fallen vacant in the church of Palencia; April 27th another for one in Leon and soon afterwards for others in Calahorra and Saragossa. Frequently they were found to be burdened with pensions that had to be recognized, but the process went on and, in comparatively a few years, it would seem that vacancies had occurred in most of the chapters.[1259] Possession, however, was not had without sturdy resistance, during which, at one time or another, nearly all the chapters were under excommunication. Legal proceedings were frequently resorted to in the desperate hope of averting the absorption, but it was futile. The Suprema was the court of appeal, the cases practically were prejudged before they were commenced and there was no escape.
There were many intricate questions affording prolific causes of quarrel to keep alive the hostility between the chapters and the Inquisition, engendered by the seizure; there were frequent appeals to Rome, which appear rarely to have benefited the appellant, and the Inquisition eventually was left in assured possession of its acquisitions. Yet the friction was constant, as was inevitable when the relations were so close between parties who disliked and distrusted each other. Thus, in 1665, we find the Suprema rebuking the Barcelona tribunal for requiring a chapter to exhibit its books to show what were the allotments made to the resident canons; the information, it said, could be obtained in a less offensive way. Again, about the same time, when the tribunal ordered the farmer of the revenues of the prebend of Guisana to investigate whether the chapter was defrauding it, the Suprema wrote that, as no increase of revenue could be thus obtained, it would be more prudent to keep quiet, especially if the farmer was a beneficed member of the church; it would be better to order the commissioner at Agramont to examine the books of the chapter, because the fifty libras paid by the farmer, when compared with the two hundred distributed to the canons, was too small. To this the tribunal replied that it had long been exposed to frauds and suppression of the value of fruits by some of the chapters; as for that of Guisana, it would be useless to examine the books, as the contador would be the first of the conspirators.[1267]
These indications are fragmentary but they suffice to justify the conclusion that the proceeds of the great confiscations in the early period were dissipated without laying up any permanent provision for the future. As the Suprema, throughout the first half of the sixteenth century, was constantly drawing upon the tribunals, it proves that, as a rule, they were making more than their expenses and that when one chanced to run short its deficiency was supplied from some more fortunate one. The grant, in 1559, of a hundred thousand ducats, levied upon the Spanish ecclesiastics, was probably, for the most part, invested by the Suprema for its own benefit, though ten thousand ducats were placed in the hands of its alguazil mayor Ibarra, to be drawn upon for special purposes.[1276] Then came the suppression of the prebends, which was expected to relieve all necessities, but it seems to have led to improvidence for, in 1573, the Suprema complained that moneys received from redemption of censos had not been reinvested but had been spent, and it called for reports as to amounts received and expended. Apparently the explanations were not satisfactory for, in 1579, peremptory orders were issued that, when a censo was paid off, the money must be reinvested in another, no matter how imperative might be other calls.[1277] Thus, in 1586, the tribunals were called upon for reports of their revenues, as it was understood that these had increased, together with statements as to the product of the prebends and censos.[1278] It is not likely that these were fully and frankly rendered. Under the rules, as we shall see, monthly statements were required, which should have made demands for special reports superfluous, but the tribunals were apt to observe towards the Suprema the same reticence which it showed to the king. We happen to have the report of Valencia, made in 1587, in response to this order, and find that it is quite imperfect. No mention is made of the confiscations and penances, and various items are omitted, while the 2500 ducats levied on the Moriscos shrink to 1500 libras, and the total amounts to about 5000 libras for the year.[1279] Yet Valencia must have been abundantly supplied for, when in 1601, the Suprema gave it permission to have a canopy, for occasions of extraordinary sentences, made at a cost not exceeding 500 ducats, when it was finished the bill amounted to over 900. The Suprema grumbled at this extravagance, but finally ordered it to be paid.[1280] The tribunal of Logroño must also have been in funds, for we chance to learn that, in 1587, it lent to the Countess of Osorno the sum of 155,535 reales 17 mrs. for which it received the annual interest of 4552 reales 5 mrs., or about three per cent.[1281]
This justifies what is asserted in the plain-spoken memorial of 1623 to the Suprema—that through negligence there have been such losses that, if they had been avoided, the tribunals would be abundantly provided. This is attributed to the beggarly salaries of the financial officials; not having enough to support them, they engage in other occupations and, being sure of their salaries, they pay no attention to their duties. Another effect is that it is necessary to appoint natives who, through kinship or fear of offending their neighbors, do not execute orders, or who grant such delays that the chances of collecting are lost. Moreover, as they get no fees for looking up evidence and documents, suits miscarry.[1290] Incompetent, slovenly and often corrupt administration such as this affords ample explanation of whatever distress may have existed. Nor was malversation confined to the local tribunals. In November, 1642, Madrid was startled when, by order of the inquisitor-general, the presiding member of the Suprema, Pedro Pachecho, was suddenly arrested for malversation in office and was hurried off to Leon, without allowing him to communicate with the king or with Olivares, and every one said that it was a judgement of God on him for his extortions[1291]—the same Pacheco to whom Philip had just granted some 30,000 ducats accruing from the sale of offices (p. 215). There is significance in the cautious remark of Pellicer, August 15, 1643, comparing the death of Don Lope de Morales, of the Council of Castile, who died very poor, and of Inquisitor Alcedo, of the Suprema, who died very rich, leaving 40,000 ducats in gold and silver.[1292]
Complaints of poverty continued and, if we may trust a tabular statement of the receipts and expenditures of each tribunal, drawn up in 1731, they were fully justified, for the finances must have undergone a most notable deterioration under Philip V. Indeed, it is a mystery how the institution continued to exist under such conditions, with a yearly deficit of over half a million reales and nearly a million and a half of overdue wages to its employees.[1299] The expenses of the Suprema are represented as about double its receipts. Only two tribunals, those of Santiago and Seville, show a small excess of income, while Valencia prudently squares its accounts to a maravedí. The rest all show a greater or less deficit. The Suprema no longer draws at will on the tribunals, but some of them have to make to it definite subventions; thus Santiago is obliged to contribute 18,000 reales, Córdova 10,000, Seville 20,000, Murcia 45,000 and Majorca 10,000, the rest nothing, but on what principle these payments were based does not appear. Each tribunal, although subordinate to the Suprema in financial matters, has its own budget, its own independent resources, and is left to manage its deficit as best it can. The result, as might be expected, is various. Córdova, Murcia and Majorca would be solvent but for the subventions to the Suprema. The little Majorca tribunal, formerly so necessitous, has now the largest salary list of all, amounting to 104,694 reales, but it likewise enjoys the largest revenue from investments, 96,829 drawn naturally from its lucky confiscations in 1678 and 1691, from which it doubtless secured an endowment. Toledo, with but a moderate deficit of 27,000, owes over 250,000 reales to its officials. Saragossa continues unfortunate; it was ejected from the Aljafería, probably as an incident of the War of Succession, but Philip V, in 1708, granted it 5200 ducats a year out of the confiscations to rent buildings. This was withdrawn in 1725 and, in 1727, the Suprema appealed to the king with a deplorable account of its condition, dependent on its prebends and with an income less than half of its pay-roll.[1300] Its position had not improved in 1731. It had undertaken to put up new buildings, on which 20,000 ducats had been spent and more than 20,000 additional were required for their completion. It was very expensively managed, with a salary list of nearly 93,000 reales and total expenses of 118,000, on an income of about 80,000, while Barcelona paid in salaries only 50,000 and its whole expenditure was less than 60,000 on an income of 48,000. Santiago was fortunate in its prebends, which brought in nearly 88,000 a year; outside of this it had only 5000 from investments, but it was able to pay its subvention and had a surplus of nearly 4000. In only four tribunals—Santiago, Seville, Murcia and Valencia—were the salaries fully paid up.
While the power of the receiver in making collections was almost boundless, in disbursements he was prudently limited. An instruction of Deza, in 1504, requires the auditors not to pass in the accounts any item for which the receiver could not exhibit an order from the king, the inquisitor-general, the Suprema, or the judge of confiscations in matters adjudicated by him.[1315] In Aragon, the accounts were audited by the maestre racional or auditor-general of the kingdom and, in Castile, by the auditor of the Suprema, after which they were submitted to Ferdinand, who examined them minutely and decided as to the items disallowed by the auditors.[1316] All this, as we have seen, passed into the hands of the Suprema, which exercised the most careful watchfulness over all gastos extraordinarios, or expenditures other than the regular payment of salaries and the like. Thus, in 1645, Martin Pretel, the treasurer of Toledo, paid out, on orders of the inquisitors, 190½ reales for repairs to a house occupied by one of them and 116 reales for repairs to the prison. The auditor refused to pass these trivial outlays, and it was not until 1654 that the Suprema allowed them, with a caution that in future the cartas acordadas must be observed.[1317]
That a receiver was expected to use the money in his hands and to be in arrears is indicated by a letter of the Suprema, in 1542, on learning the death of Ramon de Esparza, receiver of Majorca. He had not sent in his accounts and the inquisitor was empowered to compel his heirs to render a statement and to pay whatever balance might be found due.[1335] The device of the coffer had fallen evidently into complete neglect and the Suprema endeavored to resuscitate it by a carta acordada of December 9, 1545, which prescribed that all collections were to be deposited within three days of receipt, if made in the city, or within four days if made in the country, and salaries and other expenses were to be paid only from the money in the coffer, under pain of excommunication latæ sententiæ and of ten ducats for each infracion. This was the commencement of an endless series of legislation reiterating or modifying the regulations in a manner to indicate how impossible it was to enforce observance. The delay allowed for deposit was increased from three days to ten; receivers were required to take an oath to obey; reports of all deposits and withdrawals were ordered to be rendered every four months. These constant repetitions are the measure of their inefficiency, and the hardened indifference of the receivers is evidenced by a complaint of Reynoso, Inquisitor of Toledo, in 1556, that since the accounts of the receiver had been balanced he had received large sums which he refused to deposit in the coffer, saying that his accounts had been settled. Then, in 1560, the order of 1545 was reissued with instructions that, in case of infraction, the receiver was to be prosecuted and punished, evidence of which was to be furnished to the Suprema.[1336] It was all in vain and the receivers continued to hold their collections at their convenience.
In 1569, with the object of reducing to some kind of order the finances of the tribunals, a junta de hacienda, or finance committee, was constituted in each, consisting of the inquisitors, the judge of confiscations, the receiver and the notary of sequestrations, which was to meet on the last day of each month and consider all questions of property and income, deciding them by a majority vote. This, with occasional modifications, remained a standing feature of the tribunals, although the repeated exhortations and commands that the sessions be held regularly show how difficult it was to secure business-like action and management.[1337] The attempt was made to utilize this organization in compelling the receivers to deposit their collections in the coffers. In 1576 and again in 1579, orders were issued that, at the monthly meetings, the receiver should declare, under oath and under excommunication, the amount of money in his hands, what he had collected and what placed in the coffer. This was ineffectual and then it was tried to compel the notary of sequestrations to make a declaration that the receiver had deposited all that he admitted to have received. Then, in 1584, a concession was made allowing the receiver to make his deposits monthly, which of course only increased the risk of defalcations. This was followed, in 1586, by orders that he must be compelled to collect and deposit promptly the revenues of the prebends and that, at the monthly meetings, the schedule of income was to be examined in order to see what had been collected and deposited.[1338] It would be wearisome to pursue further these details, which continued indefinitely, with perpetual and ineffectual iteration, to compel the receivers to hand over their collections without delay. It hardly needs the assertion of the memorial of 1623 that the coffer was used in but very few places as a depository for the funds of the tribunals. The writer adds that the receivers thus incur excommunication and commit perjury monthly; the finances suffer great losses and the receivers are ruined by squandering the money, but the only remedy that he can suggest is that the penalties be increased and strict orders be issued that, under no pretext, should funds be left outside of the coffers. These expedients had been abundantly tried but, in the absence of rigid discipline and of punishment of offenders, they had been and continued to be fruitless. Another and most serious omission pointed out was that in many tribunals there was no Libro Becerro or register of property, with descriptions and titles, the lack of which led to great losses and much difficulty in making collections.[1339] The cause of the poverty complained of is not far to seek.
While thus much of the chronic complaint of indigence may reasonably be attributed to mismanagement and peculation, it would be unjust to the Inquisition to ascribe to it a specially bad eminence in this respect. It was probably neither better nor worse than the other departments of the Government. Neglect of duty and misappropriation of funds, common enough to this day in public affairs, were in past times rather the rule than the exception and flourished in Spain, perhaps, to a greater extent than elsewhere. Multiplication of offices and inadequate salaries are direct incentives to irregular gains, and the practical immunity of offenders, caused by the unwise effort to preserve the external reputation of the Holy Office, was an encouragement which could not fail to induce slovenly service, disobedience of rules and frequent embezzlement.
I have nowhere met with the full text of an Edict of Grace, but the substantial formula is given in the sentence pronounced, January 30, 1484, in Ciudad Real, against the fugitives Sancho de Ciudad and his wife. This recites that, as there was public report that in Ciudad Real many nominal Christians followed the Law of Moses, the inquisitors had verified it by testimony; that, desiring to treat them with clemency, they had issued their Edict that all thus guilty should come forward and abjure within thirty days, when they would be treated with all possible mercy; that they had extended this for thirty days more and had received all who desired to present themselves, after which they had issued their summons and edict against all who had fled and had been testified against as suspect and defamed for heresy.[1348]
The confessions under the Edicts of Grace are pitiful reading. The poor creatures naturally admit as little as possible, in the hope of diminishing the pecuniary penance. They strive to extenuate their errors and throw the blame on those who misled them; they grovel before the inquisitors, profess the deepest contrition and promise strenuous perseverance in the faith. They rarely go out of their way to compromise others, but they frankly state who it was that perverted them and have no hesitation in implicating parents and kindred and benefactors. Unlike the priest in the confessional, the inquisitors abstained from interrogating them or seeking information about themselves or others. It was not their policy to stimulate confession and the penitent was allowed to state as much or as little as he chose. The results are evidently the unassisted work of the penitents, inconsistent, rambling, frequently almost unintelligible, whether written by themselves or taken down verbatim by the notaries, for it was essential that they should be of record, to be brought up against them, in the probable case of backsliding or of testimony to omitted facts. The confession of Maria Gonsales de la Panpana, Ciudad Real, October 9, 1483, may be taken as a specimen. In it she throws all the blame upon her husband and recites the thrashings received at his hands to force her to follow Jewish observances. She was duly admitted to reconciliation but, in about three months, she was arrested and tried and was burnt in the great auto de fe of February 23, 1484.[1349] The unsubstantial character of the mercy promised in the Edict of Grace is illustrated in the typical case of Andres González, parish priest of Talavera. Soon after the tribunal of Toledo had been organized and before there had been any proclamation in the archidiaconate of Talavera, he sought to protect himself by appearing before the tribunal, making confession and obtaining reconciliation. Doubtless prisoners on trial testified against him, for he was soon afterwards arrested. November 5, 1484 he made a fuller confession, covering all the points of Judaism and disbelief in the sacraments which he had been administering. In spite of his professions of repentance, the fiscal claimed that this was extorted by fear, and presented the evidence of ten witnesses, whose testimony as a whole was but a confirmation of his confession. He gained nothing by his self-denunciation; he was degraded from the priesthood and burnt in the auto de fe of August 17, 1486.[1350]
For two centuries after the expulsion of the Moriscos we hear nothing more of Edicts of Grace. There were no longer in Spain bodies of heretics or suspects to whom such expedients were applicable, and the desired unity of faith was secured so far as practicable but, with the Napoleonic wars, there came new sources of infection. Spain was traversed from end to end by armies composed of heretics like the English or largely of free-thinkers like the French. Jews had taken advantage of the troublous times to pollute the sacred soil and liberal ideas, abhorred alike by Church and State, had ample opportunity of dissemination. With the re-establishment of the Inquisition, in 1814, it seemed opportune to meet the flood of heresy and libertinism by the old methods. On January 2, February 10 and April 5, 1815, therefore, the inquisitor-general issued Edicts of Grace, promising that all who, during the current year, should come forward and denounce themselves for heresy or other crimes justiciable by the Inquisition, should be absolved without punishment and without obligation to denounce accomplices. This was followed, April 12th, with orders to collect all information possible, but not to prosecute until after the expiration of the term, when all who should not have spontaneously presented themselves were to be put on trial. This comprehensive plan can scarce be pronounced a success. The records show that a few espontaneados availed themselves of the promised grace, but the number was lamentably insignificant. This did not encourage prolongation of the term and, on January 12, 1816, another edict announced its expiration and the revival of the old obligation to denounce all offences known to the penitent.[1357] There does not seem to have followed any outburst of prosecutions. The tribunals, doubtless, had been too much occupied in repairing their shattered fortunes to waste much thought on accumulating information as to heretics.
If we find reason to believe that the tribunals of the Inquisition were largely actuated by passion or greed, they were in this no worse than the secular courts. The constantly reiterated complaints of the Córtes, during the sixteenth century, assume that the whole judicial system of Castile, from the highest to the lowest, was not so much an instrumentality of justice as a venal organization to extort the largest possible sums from pleaders and to oppress the poor for the benefit of the rich.[1364] We might, perhaps, regard this as rhetorical exaggeration if we had not the opportunity of seeing how a court of the highest rank—the royal Audiencia of Seville—in 1598, disregarded all law and justice when it sought to gratify its spite on the magistracy of that city. We have seen (Vol. I, p. 362) the absurd quarrel raised with the judges by the inquisitors on the occasion of the obsequies of Philip II. The judges, unable to avenge themselves on the tribunal, discharged their wrath upon the civic authorities, who had sought to mediate and keep the peace. They arrested on the spot several of the highest officials, including two members of the great house of Ponce de Leon and, in spite of the indecency of sitting as judges in their own case, they prosecuted their prisoners. They took the testimony of thirty-seven witnesses on written interrogatories, containing leading questions, and accepted hearsay evidence of the veriest gossip. The accused were allowed to see the accusation framed by the fiscal, but not the evidence, and no opportunity of making defence was permitted. Thereupon their advocates recused the judges, but the recusation was not only rejected on the day of its presentation, but the accused and their advocates were all heavily fined for offering it and, the next day, sentence was pronounced condemning the prisoners to various terms of suspension from office, exile, fines and costs. Both they and the fiscal appealed, and a second hearing was held, in which the defendants at last were allowed to see the evidence. Both parties meanwhile had been applying to the Council of Castile, which ordered that the sentence should not be confirmed without being first submitted to it, but the judges anticipated this and, the day before the order was received, hastily assembled with closed doors and, in the absence of the accused and their counsel, affirmed the decision and ordered its immediate execution, with the exception of Ponce de Leon Almansa, who was of kin to one of them. The sentences were carried out with cruel vindictiveness. There was pestilence in the district to which the exiles were sent and they were brought back sick to Seville, where the Alcalde mayor, Juan Ponce de Leon, died and the others were treated with the utmost harshness.[1365] When the royal courts permitted themselves such arbitrary perversions of justice, we need not be surprised that the Inquisition was reckless, shielded as it was from responsibility by impenetrable secrecy. Between them, the Spanish people were sorely vexed.
To this the spiritual courts offered a contrast in their customary benignity towards clerical offenders, amounting almost to immunity. The course of procedure was that, when a denunciation was made to the provisor or vicar-general, he took testimony or sent an official to make inquisition; the accused was summoned and was admitted to bail; the trial took the shape of an action between him and the fiscal, who presented an accusation to which the defence made reply. Witnesses for the defence were examined, publication of evidence was made and, when both parties had concluded, the judge named a day for pronouncing sentence. From two cases of the sixteenth century, of which the papers are before me, it would appear that there was little delay, that formalities were loosely observed and that the proverbial leniency shown to the cloth rendered the whole a matter of comparative indifference. One of these illustrates the expiring episcopal jurisdiction over heresy and its supplantation by the Inquisition. In 1551, Diego de Carcano, a priest of Ciudad Real, was tried for heretical acts and speeches, which he freely admitted, saying that they had been in jest and that he ought not to have trifled with the things of God. The trial was concluded within three weeks and Diego was confined for a few days in a parish church with spiritual exercises, besides paying costs, amounting to about thirty-two reales. Two years later, Inquisitor Valtodano, on a visitation, chanced to hear of the affair; he treated the episcopal trial as invalid and vindicated together the faith and the inquisitorial jurisdiction by a second prosecution of the unlucky priest.[1366]
Not the least important result of this secrecy was the fact that it enabled the Inquisition to combine legislative and judicial functions in a manner known to no other tribunal. It framed its own code and administered it in darkness. It is true, as we shall have occasion to see, that many of the regulations and limitations of the Instructions were inspired by a sense of justice, but this mattered little when the secrecy, so jealously preserved, practically left everything to the discretion of the tribunal, until the Suprema absorbed and centralized everything into itself. Shielded from responsibility—save to the more or less perfunctory occasional visitation of an inspector—there was scarce any injustice that could not be safely perpetrated, or any enmity that a perjured witness could not gratify. The secrets of those dark prison-houses will never be known, even by the records, for these were framed by those whose acts they recount and they may be true or falsified. What was the real administration of so-called justice can only be guessed by occasional revelations such as we chance to have in the trials of Archbishop Carranza, of the Nuns of San Placido, of Gerónimo de Villanueva, of Fray Froilan Díaz and, when the principles of justice were set at naught by the chiefs of the Inquisition in the cases of those so prominent, it is not likely that the obscure were treated with greater consideration by the tribunals. At its best, the inquisitorial process left much to the temper and disposition of the judge; as modified by the Inquisition, the fate of the accused was virtually at the discretion of the tribunal, and that discretion was relieved of the wholesome restraint of publicity. At a time when, as we have seen, the secular courts, although open to the public, were little better than instruments of oppression and extortion, it is not to be imagined that the inquisitorial tribunals, shrouded in impenetrable secrecy, and largely dependent for support on fines and confiscations, were scrupulous in the administration of the cruel laws against heresy.
Yet, whatever we may think of the morality of the inquisitorial process, there can be no doubt as to its efficacy. In studying the long and minute records of the trials, where every detail is set forth in writing, it is instructive to see how often the accused, who commences by boldly asserting his orthodoxy, comes in successive audiences to make some admission of which advantage is skilfully taken and gradually the denial breaks down, or perhaps yields to the terrors of the accusation and the publication of evidence, ending in complete confession and eager implication of kindred and friends. The situation of the accused, in fact, was helpless. Standing up alone before the stern admonitions of the trained and pitiless judge; brooding in his cell, cut off from all external communication, during weeks or months of interval between his audiences; apparently forgotten, but living in the constant uncertainty of being at any moment summoned to appear; torturing his mind as to the impression which his utterances might have made, or the deductions drawn from his admissions or denials; balancing between the chances of escape, by persistent assertions of innocence, and those of condemnation as an impenitente negativo, and urged by his so-called advocate to confess and throw himself on the mercy of the tribunal—it required an exceptionally resolute temperament to endure the prolonged strain, with the knowledge that the opponent in the deadly game always had in reserve the terrible resource of the torture-chamber. The whole course of the procedure was based on the assumption that the accused was guilty; that it was the province of the tribunal to induce or compel him to confess his guilt and, in the great majority of instances the assumption was correct. To those who regarded aberrations from the faith as the greatest of crimes before God and man, and their punishment as the most acceptable service that man could render to God, this presumption of guilt served to justify the cruelty of the procedure and the denial of all facilities for defence which, to those trained in the principles of English justice, seem the imprescriptible right of the accused, whether innocent or not.
To what extent this idealization of inquisitorial methods was justified, we have had some opportunity to see, and we shall have more.
No duty was more strenuously inculcated on the people than that of denouncing any utterance or act partaking of calidad de oficio—that is, which came within the cognizance of the Holy Office. Divine law required this under penalty of mortal sin, and ecclesiastical law under that of excommunication.[1412] From this no ties of blood furnished release. It is true that, under the imperial jurisprudence, accusations of near relatives were forbidden; a mother could not accuse a son except of offences against herself and even a man brought up in another’s house could not accuse his benefactor.[1413] But Simancas, while highly approving of this, says that there are two cases in which a son must accuse his father—one, when under examination by the Inquisition, the other, when the father is a persistent heretic and, as the obligation of the son to the father is of the highest, this includes all other cases.[1414] The Instructions of 1484 offer mitigation of punishment to minor children who spontaneously denounce their parents, and Alfonso de Castro relates that he denied absolution to a young man, perfectly orthodox in faith, who in confession, in response to interrogatories, admitted that his father was a Judaizer, but refused to denounce him in view of the consequences to himself of poverty and infamy.[1415]
Apart from these formalities, there was an evident desire on the part of the chiefs of the Inquisition to prevent injustice arising from hasty and inconsiderate action. In the reformatory Instructions of 1498, inquisitors are ordered to be careful and to arrest no one on insufficient evidence—an order the frequent repetition of which proves how little it was regarded.[1433] It was thoroughly understood that the mere fact of imprisonment inflicted indelible infamy and all the authorities urge the utmost caution in the exercise of this tremendous power.[1434] In theory, at least, stronger proof was therefore required by inquisitors than by the judges of other courts; it ought to be as strong as that which justified torture—what was known as semiplena—but this merely consisted in the evidence of a single unexceptionable witness; when there was apprehension of flight, less was required and Sousa, a Portuguese authority, tells us that in heresy flight is always to be apprehended.[1435] It is true that, in 1630, the Suprema ordered that arrest on the testimony of a single witness should not be made without its permission, but this exercised little restraint. Such an arrest was made, in 1638, of Domingo de Mezquita, with a sort of apologetic explanation that he was a Portuguese and had already been tried on the same charge of Judaism.[1436]
Even after the Suprema had required to be consulted prior to ordering arrest, small respect was paid to formalities. In criticizing, August 25, 1695, the report of cases pending in Valencia, the Suprema expresses astonishment that an arrest should have been made previous to the calificacion of the charges. In this case the accused was thrown into prison October 22, 1694, and the calificacion followed, February 9, 1695, but the Suprema contented itself with this rebuke and merely ordered the prosecution to be pushed and not be allowed to become immortal.[1442] The Suprema need not have been surprised at this trifling informality in view of the atrocity of a group of cases comprised in a Valladolid report of July, 1699. Francisco Hernández Castañeda had been imprisoned August 30, 1697; his case is reported in the same state as before, there being no testimony against him. Baltazar González Cardozo, aged 14, was arrested August 15, 1698, and there is no evidence against him. Ana Gutiérrez, aged 9, was arrested August 14, 1697, and there is nothing against her as yet. Leona de Paz was arrested September 15, 1698, and there is no proof against her.[1443] Thus these poor creatures had lain in gaol for one or two years without a scintilla of evidence to justify their arrest, and the fact that the tribunal coolly makes this report indicates that there was in it nothing unusual or regarded as scandalous.
Another feature, falling with especial severity on the poorer classes, arose from the rule of the Inquisition to cast all expenses on its prisoners. The officer who made the arrest was instructed to bring with him a specified sum to 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]
It was very properly a cardinal principle, frequently reiterated, that sequestrated property was sacred and was 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.
While recognizing the humanity of these provisions it may be questioned how far they relieved the hardships of dependents, especially in the later period, when the 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]
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.
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.
In some tribunals we also hear of cárceles medias, cárceles comunes and cárceles públicas, for offences not of faith. These appear to be similar to the cárcel de 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]
Yet there were ways of eluding the vigilance of the tribunals, of which bribery of the underlings was the most 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]
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.”
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]
Sickness was of frequent occurrence and was treated with creditable humanity. The Instructions of 1561 require 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.
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.
When the prisons were full and the trials, after the first hurried rush, grew more and more protracted, the expense of maintenance was not small, as can be gathered from occasional indications. Thus, in 1566, we find the Suprema ordering its alguazil mayor to remit to the tribunal of Calahorra 400 ducats to defray the food of prisoners.[1581] In 1586, Benito Sanguino, the receiver of Valencia, in settling his accounts, claimed credit for 19,856s. 11d. paid to the dispensero for the maintenance of poor prisoners, in addition to what he had disbursed for the purpose on the orders of inquisitors, an irregularity for which the Suprema demanded an explanation.[1582] Some light is thrown on the way in which these costs accumulated by the case of Fray Lucas de Allende, guardian of the Franciscan convent of Madrid and one of the dupes of Lucrecia de Leon, a beata revelandera. When arrested in 1590, his brother, Alonso de Allende, asked permission to give him an allowance of a real a day—a request which proved costly, as the trial lasted for six years and two months.[1583] In 1659, the orders given by the tribunal of Madrid, for the food and incidentals of its poor prisoners, who seem to have averaged about ten in number, reached an aggregate of 12,874 reales and, in 1681, the amount was 25,748.[1584] As the activity of the Inquisition diminished, and perhaps also as its resources fell short, this drain on its finances was greatly reduced. In a statement of the expenses of the Valencia tribunal, from 1784 to 1790 inclusive, the charge for maintenance of poor prisoners becomes trifling. The total expenditure during these seven years was 501 libras 18s., of which 300 libras 8s. were recovered from the parties, leaving a net outlay of 201 libras 10s., or less than 30 libras per annum.[1585]
On the whole we may conclude that the secret prisons of the Inquisition were less intolerable places of abode than the episcopal and public gaols. The general policy respecting them was more humane and enlightened than that of other jurisdictions, whether in Spain or elsewhere, although negligent supervision allowed of abuses and there were ample resources of rigor in reserve, when the obstinacy of the impenitent was to be broken down. The one unpardonable feature was the seclusion which kept the unhappy captive ignorant of all that occurred outside of his prison walls and deprived him of facilities for defence and of communication with family and friends. This rendered doubly bitter the prolonged detention which often held him for years in suspense as to their fate and deprived them of all knowledge as to him.
In the ancient Castilian law, both parties to an action saw the witnesses sworn, but the judges examined them in secret, apparently as a precaution against their being tampered with. Great care was taken as to their character, and those were excluded who were of ill-repute or had been imprisoned, or perjured, or were Jews, Moors, heretics, apostates, or who were interested in the case, or dependents on one of the parties, or were less than fourteen years of age, or very poor, unless proved to be of good fame, while, in criminal cases, no witness was received who was under twenty and no member of a religious Order.[1592] In Aragon, the utmost care was prescribed as to the character of witnesses; if not personally known to the judge, the fact was to be entered upon the record and the judge was required to cross-examine them personally as to all minute details that might lead to the exposure of fraudulent testimony.[1593] Under the civil law, parents and children were not admitted to testify against each other nor could a freedman be a witness against his patron.[1594]
It is true that some precautions were prescribed to guard against the admission of worthless testimony, but their very enunciation proves how unscrupulous was the current practice.
The rules as to witnesses admissible for the defence were carefully drawn so as to exclude all who were likely to be serviceable to him, on the ground that their evidence would be untrustworthy, the inquisitor thus being sedulously guarded against misleading in favor of the prisoner, while he was trusted to discriminate as to the adverse testimony. Thus no kinsman to the fourth degree was allowed to testify for the defence, even when the accused was blindly striving to prove enmity on the part of those whom he conjectured to be the opposing witnesses. No Jew or Morisco or New Christian could appear for him, although they were welcomed for the prosecution, and the same distinction applied to servants. As formulated in the Instructions of 1561, the accused was told that he must not name as his witnesses kinsmen or servants, and that they must all be Old Christians, unless his interrogatories be such as cannot otherwise be answered, and Pablo García adds that, under such circumstances, he must name a number from among whom the inquisitor may select those whom he deems most fit. It became, indeed, a commonplace among the authorities that witnesses for the defence must be zealots for the faith—zelatores fidei.[1609] Yet, in fact, all this is of interest rather as a manifestation of the pervading spirit of the Inquisition than from any practical influence which it exercised on the outcome of the trials for, as we shall see, the simulacrum of defence permitted to the accused was so limited that in but very few cases did it matter whether he had or had not any witnesses.
Witnesses were compelled to give evidence and were liable to punishment if suspected of withholding it. In Doctor Zurita’s report of his visitation of Gerona and Elne, in 1564, it appears that he arrested Maestre Juan Fregola, canon of San Martin of Gerona, because he said that he did not remember a matter at issue; his memory was thus refreshed and he was released on giving the desired evidence.[1612] This continued to the end. In 1816, the Suprema, in confirming the vote of the tribunal of Cuenca to continue the case of Antonio Garcés, adds that it must take the necessary steps against the witnesses who refuse to testify.[1613]
While thus with unwilling witnesses the inquisitor acted as counsel for the prosecution, with those who were willing he made no attempt to ascertain the truth of their stories. He asked leading questions without reserve and abstained from any cross-examination that might confuse the story and expose mendacity. When, in the trial of Juan de la Caballería, at Saragossa, in 1489, his procurator asked that certain interrogatories which he presented should be put to the witnesses, the inquisitors roughly refused, saying that it was their official duty to find out the truth for the discharge of their consciences.[1621] So long as witnesses incriminated the accused, as a rule there was no effort to test their accuracy or to obtain details of place and time or other points which would facilitate defence against false charges. In the case of Simon Nocheau, at Valladolid, in 1642, he succeeded in getting a series of interrogatories put to the witnesses which exposed discrepancies that it was the duty of the inquisitors to have discovered.[1622] Even the Suprema recognized the injustice of this, in the case of a priest whom the tribunal of Barcelona, in 1665, sentenced to imprisonment for “propositions,” and ordered it to recall the witnesses and cross-examine them so as to verify their testimony and also to investigate whether they were actuated by enmity.[1623]
To estimate the conscious unfairness of this it is only necessary to contrast it with the treatment of evidence presented by the defence. The handling of this was likewise wholly with the inquisitor. All that was allowed to the accused was to offer a list of witnesses and a series of interrogatories to be put to them. It was the duty of the inquisitor to summon the witnesses and put the questions, or to forward the interrogatories to commissioners for the same purpose, but he had full discretional power to omit what he pleased, both as to witnesses and questions. In fact, he received the interrogatories only salvo jure impertinentium et non admittendorum, and he exercised this power without supervision and without informing the accused or his advocate as to what he threw out. In 1572, Luis de Leon on his trial presented six series of interrogatories to be put to his witnesses of which three were calmly thrown out as “impertinent.”[1624] Not only was all knowledge of this concealed from the accused but also the answers of the witnesses to such questions as were permitted. It is true that, in 1531, even the Suprema revolted at this and ordered the evidence in favor of the accused to be submitted to him and to his advocate, so that it might not be said that he was deprived of defence, but injustice prevailed and the Instructions of 1561, in prescribing the suppression to the accused, gave as a reason for it that the accused might thus be prevented from identifying the adverse witnesses—thus showing how one denial of justice led to another.[1625] The witnesses for the defence were further subject to cross-examination which, at least in the earlier period, could be conducted by the fiscal—an indecency almost incredible in view of the crippling restrictions placed on the defence.[1626] In fact the distinction recognized in the treatment of evidence for the prosecution and for the defence is epitomized in the instructions sent by Toledo, in 1550, to its commissioner at Daimiel, about taking testimony in the cases of some Moriscos of that place. He is not told to investigate the credibility of the mass of idle gossip and hearsay evidence gathered for the prosecution but, when examining witnesses for the defence, he is to cross-examine them strictly to ascertain what are the grounds for their assertions.[1627]
Before the invention of the formula ad perpetuam, there was a hardship inflicted by ratification, in the excessive delays which it frequently caused. Thus Francisco Alonso, a Portuguese of Zamora, accused of bigamy, was thrown into the secret prison of Valladolid, July 10, 1627. As the alleged marriages had taken place in Coimbra, the evidence of their celebration had to be obtained from there, and it was a year before he had his first audience. When the time came for ratification, the depositions were sent for that purpose to Coimbra, September 28, 1628 but, in spite of repeated urgency, they were not received back until December 18, 1629. Then the case dragged on until the poor wretch died, June 10, 1630, after three years of incarceration, when it was perforce suspended.[1645]
While sedulous care was taken to prevent the accused from identifying the witnesses, it often was necessary for the witnesses to identify the accused, to prevent mistakes liable to occur in the arbitrary methods of the Inquisition. This was so managed as to accomplish both objects. The somewhat crude plan adopted, in 1528, in the trial at Toledo of Diego de Uceda, was to conceal the witnesses in the torture chamber, while he was walked up and down for a quarter of an hour, until they fully identified him.[1667] Subsequently it was found expedient to furnish the audience-chamber with a celosia—a jalousy or lattice-work, through which the witness could peer without being discovered. Its utility was strikingly demonstrated in 1649, in a Valladolid case of alleged bigamy, when one of the wives, Ana Roman, was brought to inspect the accused through the lattice and declared that he was not the Juan González whom she had married, as he differed in age, in size, and in features, whereupon he was discharged.[1668]
Even in the seventeenth century, Escobar affirms the rule absolutely; if one witness swears that he heard Pedro say in the market-place that God is not a Trinity and another that he heard him say so in a house, it does not convict him for neither fact is legally proved.[1702] Such a definition, however, threw too many obstacles in the way of the prosecution not to be eluded and, in fact, there were classes of cases, such as solicitation in the confessional, in which it was impossible to have more than one witness to each individual act. So, in prosecutions for Judaism, in which the evidence frequently covered a long series of years and turned on infinitesimal incidents in daily life, concurrent witnesses to any single one could scarce be had. Yet the claims of the Inquisition to extreme benignity required this to be understood as Escobar expresses it, while in practice it was disregarded. It was discovered that witnesses could be contestes in genere when they testified to different acts of heresy, and thus make full proof. It is true that Rojas, after citing authorities on both sides, concludes that the rule requiring two concurrent witnesses to a fact must be observed, but one of his authorities asserts that the contrary is the rule in practice, and the Suprema affirmed this, July 27, 1590, by ordering that, where formal heresy is concerned, depositions as to different ceremonies and points of faith are to be held as contestes.[1703] This was inevitable and it was only sanctioning what had long been the custom in the tribunals.
How slender was the evidence requisite for prosecution is manifested in the trials of a whole family, in Valladolid, from 1622 to 1624. When Dr. Jorje Enrriquez, physician to the Duke of Alva, died, the body was soiled, requiring washing, followed by a clean shirt. A number of witnesses thereupon deposed that it was prepared for sepulture according to Jewish rites. The consulta de fe on the arrest was not unanimous, and it was referred to the Suprema, which ordered the arrest of all concerned, with sequestration. The whole family, widow, children and servants, with some cousins, were thrown into the secret prison and the eldest son, a youth of twenty, died from the effects of torture. After nearly two years of this, the evidence was so weak that the consulta de fe voted in discordia and the Suprema ordered the prisoners to be acquitted. So, in 1625, Manuel de Azevedo, a shoemaker of Salamanca, was denounced because he had removed the lump of fat from a leg of mutton which he took to a baker to be roasted. The consulta voted to dismiss the case but the fiscal appealed to the Suprema, which ordered arrest with sequestration. The trial went on through all the forms and when at length Azevedo learned from the accusation what was the charge, he said that he was ignorant of this being a Jewish custom, but had been told that a leg of mutton roasted better when the fat was cut out. When the defence was reached he proved that he was an Old Christian on all sides; he was not acquitted but the case was suspended. Had he been a New Christian he would have been tortured and penanced, whether he overcame the torture or not. In another case, in 1646, one of the charges was that the accused, in slicing bread, held the knife with the edge turned away and not towards his breast, as was customary with Christians. Trivial as all this may seem, one occasionally meets a case showing that the Inquisition did not always spend its energies in vain in following up the slenderest evidence, however great were the sufferings frequently inflicted on the innocent. In several Jewish cases in Valladolid, in 1642, the chief evidence was that the meat before cooking was soaked in water to remove the blood and grease. This led to the discovery and punishment as Judaizers of a group of some fifteen or twenty in Benavente, who appeared in the auto de fe of 1644. As soon as one was brought to confess, he implicated others, and the net was spread which captured them all. The fact, however, that torture was freely used casts an unpleasant doubt over the justice of the result.[1713]
It has seemed worth while to enter thus minutely into the details of inquisitorial treatment of evidence, as it was so largely a determining factor in the fate of the accused. From this examination it is impossible to resist the conclusion that the system of procedure was framed rather to secure conviction than to ascertain the truth. Guilt was presumed in the fact of arrest and the business of the tribunal was to prove it.
While the distinction was fully recognized between judicial and sacramental confession, and the inquisitor was in no sense a confessor, there was a curious assumption that in the tribunal confession was of a mixed character, partaking of both classes.[1717] The whole procedure was directed to induce the accused to confess his errors, to profess repentance and to beg for mercy. He was adjured by the love of God and his Blessed Mother to discharge his conscience and save his soul by a full confession, as to himself and others, without uttering false testimony as to himself or to them. The so-called advocate who was furnished to defend him was instructed to urge him to this, and to explain that the Holy Office was not like the other tribunals whose business it was to punish the body, for here the only object was to cure the soul and to reunite to the Church those who, by their sins, had left the holy congregation of Christians, in violation of their baptismal promises; he should therefore cast aside all thought of that which concerns the body and think only of his soul, confessing his crimes so that the Holy Office could cure his infirmity, which was beyond the power of any other judge or confessor.[1718]
This urgency to induce confession produced the natural result that the unfortunates subjected to it were led, not infrequently, to gratify their judges by admitting whatever they thought necessary to win the favor of the tribunal. This was recognized in a warning issued by the Suprema, in 1541, that much caution was required in weighing the truth of confessions, because the accused, through malice, were wont to confess against themselves and others in order to obscure the truth.[1720] This warning was doubtless needed, but there is little evidence that it was heeded. As a rule, the confession was accepted, provided it was sufficiently criminatory and, as far as regarded its implication of accomplices, it was used for their conviction.
Not long after this the reports of the tribunal of Toledo present numerous cases of spontaneous self-denunciation which show that its influence on the sentence varied with the character of the confession and the motives to which the inquisitors attributed it. There was a curious case of twelve Judaizers of Alcazar de Consuegra who came forward to accuse themselves and implicate twelve others; all twenty-four figured in the great auto de fe of 1591 and all had the full penalty of reconciliation, confiscation and perpetual prison with the sanbenito. On the other hand, Andrés de Palacios, in 1586, presented himself and confessed that, when sailing in the galleys, he had made the acquaintance of an English captain who converted him to all the Lutheran heresies; for six years, and until within a few weeks, he had believed them, but now with tears he begged for mercy and for readmission to the Church. He was duly put on trial and was privately reconciled with only some spiritual penances. In the same year occurred the more complicated case of Ursule de la Croix, a French nun in the convent of Santa Margarita at Alcalá de Henares. She confessed to a commissioner there that she had imbibed some of the errors current in her native land; she had deliberately struck a crucifix and had eaten meat on Fridays. The Suprema examined the confession and ordered the commissioner to absolve her. Subsequently she returned to confess that she still held the errors which she had abjured. The Suprema ordered her to be confined in the secret prison and her trial to proceed, during which she repeated her confession, begged for mercy and professed her desire to live and die in the Catholic faith. The consulta de fe was puzzled and, on reference to the Suprema, it ordered her to be secretly reconciled, the sanbenito to be at once removed, and her reclusion for a year in a convent cell. As she was a relapsed and as Lutheranism was the object of special severity, this mercy shows ample consideration for spontaneous confession, but the event proved that the patience of the Inquisition might be tried too far. The unstable mind of the poor creature continued to torment itself and, in 1594, she again accused herself of the same errors. The tribunal reported this to the Suprema, with the statement that she had already been thrice reconciled, and the order came to relax her to the secular arm, when she was duly burnt.[1722]
Closely connected with diminucio was the confession of acts accompanied by a denial of intention. As we have seen, the Inquisition relied for proof on acts or words from which heretical belief was inferred, it being assumed that, after baptism, any one practising Judaic or Moslem rites or customs was an apostate. Many of these were wholly indifferent in themselves and their significance depended on the intention with which they were performed, so that it was not unusual for the accused to admit the acts while disclaiming knowledge of their religious character. He might confess avoidance of pork but allege that it disagreed with him; he might acknowledge to washing hands or changing linen but assert that it was for the sake of cleanliness; he might not deny uttering an heretical proposition but say that it was thoughtless or jocular. As human intentions are inscrutable, in such cases resort was inevitable to the universal solvent of judicial doubt—torture—at least in the later period. In the earlier time it was more in consonance with the swift justice then habitual to condemn him; such acts, it was argued, did not admit of doubt, they were in themselves sufficient proof and the accused was not to be allowed the privilege of torture.[1734] In the later period the authorities are not wholly unanimous, for the shades of guilt and the collateral circumstances varied so infinitely that a definite rule was difficult to frame. In general it may be summed up as admitted that for heretical acts, under the law, no plea of non-intention could be entertained, and that the offender must be relaxed, but in practice he had the benefit of torture; if he succumbed in it he was reconciled with confiscation, the galleys and perpetual prison; if he endured it without confession, according to the judicial logic of the age, he was not acquitted but was punished, less severely, for the suspicion. For words and opinions and heretical propositions, if serious, he was to be tortured on intention, but not for lesser offences, in which the appropriate penalty would be less grievous than the infliction of torture—yet one writer admits the use of torture when intention is denied in the widely current proposition that simple fornication is no sin. When, in these minor cases, torture was used, if, according to the legal phrase, it was endured sufficiently to purge the testimony, it became customary to suspend the case or to acquit the accused.[1735]
If the inquisitorial records occasionally ennoble human nature with such examples of self-sacrifice, they more frequently exhibit it in its most despicable aspect, through the eagerness with which unfortunates, enfeebled and despairing in their protracted incarceration, seek to gain the favor of pitiless judges, or to render their confessions complete, by hastening to betray the confidences of their cell-companions, who incautiously relieve their hearts in careless talk with comrades in misery. The instances are innumerable in which the recipient of such avowals at once asks an audience and proves the sincerity of his own conversion by detailing what he had heard. There is a certain grim satisfaction, however, in noting that these revelations, however damaging to the victim, seem never to benefit the informer, for I have nowhere observed that they are accepted as attenuating circumstances to diminish his own punishment.
A wholesale case of this kind, in Valencia, in 1540, aroused much excitement. A large number of prominent Conversos had been punished—some with relaxation—on the charge of holding conventicles in which Jewish fasts were observed and a crucifix was scourged. Subsequently they asserted that their confessions had been extorted by fear; popular feeling was excited and there was danger that the Inquisition would be seriously discredited, for ecclesiastics of high repute had recommended them to revoke their confessions and had joined in a letter on the subject to Inquisitor-general Tavera. The honor of the Inquisition was to be preserved at all hazards. Doctor Azeve was sent as a special commissioner to investigate, and his report increased the disquietude. To reinforce the Valencia tribunal, in May, 1541, Tavera urged Loazes of Barcelona to hasten thither and take charge of the matter, promising him support for his advancement. Then, in October, two members of the Suprema were sent there to assist and two additional inquisitors were put to work. The crisis was evidently alarming and there was ample for them all to do. Prosecutions were instituted against all who had revoked their confessions. They were kept segregated to prevent collusion and, as the secret prison of the tribunal was inadequate, the inquisitors and officials were turned out of their quarters and seven adjoining houses were hired and converted into gaols. What was the number involved does not appear, but a letter of November 26, 1543, mentions that twenty-two cases had been voted on, twenty more were in progress, on which they were working night and day and on feast days, and the remainder it was hoped to conclude so that all might be included in a single auto. The prisoners had no chance. A letter of the Suprema suggests that publication of evidence be omitted, because many of the witnesses had retracted their evidence and a knowledge of this would encourage the accused in their defence; the consultas de fe were to be packed, taking care to admit none who were favorable to them, and, under such conditions, the result was inevitable. Full details are lacking; we only know that autos de fe were held in which the culprits appeared for the second time, the sentences appear not to have been severe, but the honor of the Inquisition was vindicated.[1757]
When all other means failed to obtain a satisfactory confession, including the denunciation of accomplices, there was always in reserve the potent persuasive of torture.
THE INQUISITION OF SPAIN.
BOOK III.
JURISDICTION.
CHAPTER I.
HERESY.
THE Inquisition was organized for the eradication of heresy and the enforcement of uniformity of belief. We shall have occasion to see hereafter how elastic became the definition of heresy, and we have seen how far afield its extinction led the operations of the Holy Office but, to the last, the suppression of unorthodox belief remained the ostensible object of its existence.
It is not easy at the present day, for those accustomed to universal toleration, to realize the importance attached by statesmen in the past to unity of belief, or the popular abhorrence for any deviation from the standard of dogma. These convictions were part of the mental and moral fibre of the community and were the outcome of the assiduous teachings of the Church for centuries, until it was classed with the primal truths that it was the highest duty of the sovereign to crush out dissidence at whatever cost, and that hatred of the heretic was enjoined on every Christian by both divine and human law. The heretic was a venomous reptile, spreading contagion with his very breath and the safety of the land required his extermination as a source of pestilence.[1]
In the earlier periods of the Inquisition, moreover, when the hierarchy was filled with New Christians of doubtful orthodoxy, it was essential to know that the sacraments necessary to salvation were not vitiated by the apostasy of the ministrant, for his intention is indispensable to their validity. No man could tell how many priests there were like Andrés González, parish priest of San Martín de Talavera, who, on his trial at Toledo, in 1486, confessed that for fourteen years he had secretly been a Jew, that he had no intention when he celebrated mass, nor had he granted absolution to the penitents confessing to him. There was also a classical story, widely circulated, of Fray Garcia de Zapata, prior of the Geronimite monastery of Toledo, who, when elevating the Host, used to say “Get up, little Peter, and let the people look at you” and who always turned his back on the penitent to whom he pretended to grant absolution.[2]
CONDITIONS OF JURISDICTION
The merciless zeal of the Holy Office might gradually relieve the people of this danger, but it intensified by its methods the unreasoning abhorrence of heresy. The honest cavalier Oviedo, about the middle of the sixteenth century, merely phrases the current opinion of the time when he says that all possible punishments prescribed by the canons and admitted by the laws should be visited on the persons and property of heretics; they eat the bread of the good, they render the land infamous, by their conversation they lead souls to perdition and, with their marriages and kinships, they corrupt the blood of good houses.[3] As time wore on this increased rather than diminished. Galceran Albanell, Archbishop of Granada, who had been tutor of Philip IV, wrote to his former pupil April 12, 1621, to express his horror at learning that the English ambassador had been allowed to have divine service performed in his house, after the rites of his sect. The king should not allow it; it is the greatest of sins and unless it is remedied we shall all perish. It is an accursed reason to allege that that accursed king permits the Spanish ambassador to have mass celebrated in London. The English ambassador should be dismissed and the English king can send away the Spanish ambassador; if the Council of State interferes, let Philip show them the way of God. The Licenciado de Angulo should have a bishopric because he resigned his office as fiscal of the Council rather than affix his name to a paper in which the English king was styled Defender of the Faith and Albanell declares his readiness to resign his own see in Angulo’s favor.[4] To a population sedulously trained in such sentiments the awful ceremonies of the auto de fe were a triumph of the faith, of which they felt proud, and they were filled with pious exultation when the flames of the brasero consumed the bodies of heretics who passed through temporal to eternal fire. It was a vindication of the honor of God, and it is necessary to understand and bear in mind this temper when considering the performance by the Inquisition of its allotted task.
The jurisdiction of the Holy Office over heresy was confined to the baptized, for baptism is a condition precedent to heresy; the unbaptized are outside of the Church and it has no spiritual authority over them. In the auto de fe of 1623, at Valladolid, a woman taken out to be relaxed for Judaism, declared that she was not baptized, whereupon the proceedings respecting her were stopped and she was remanded for investigation.[5] Although baptism can be validly administered by a heretic, yet in the trial of foreign Protestants, minute inquiry was made as to the details of their baptism in their sects, so as to be assured that they were truly baptized; in the case of Jacques Pinzon, at Toledo, in 1598, his advocate ingeniously but vainly argued that this could not be assumed, because it could not be proved that the minister had the proper intention, without which the rite was invalid.[6]
Age placed slender limits on inquisitorial jurisdiction. Children were considered capable of committing heresy as soon as they were doli capaces, at six or seven years, but were not held responsible until they reached years of discretion. This was fixed by Torquemada at twelve for girls and fourteen for boys, below which they were not to be made to abjure in public,[7] but the limit was frequently infringed. In 1501, Inesita, daughter of Marcos Garcia, between nine and ten years old and Isabel, daughter of Alvaro Ortolano, aged ten, were sentenced to appear in an auto de fe. They had confessed to fasting once or twice and the latter had been told by her father not to eat pork.[8] In 1660, at Valladolid, Joseph Rodríguez, aged eight, accused of Judaism, was regularly tried, with all the complicated formalities of procedure, occupying a year, and was made to give evidence against his father and brother; he was absolved secretly and placed in the penitential prison for instruction.[9] Of course there was no maximum limit of age. In 1638, at Valladolid, María Díaz, a hundred years old, was thrown into the secret prison for Judaism and her trial went forward.[10]
Responsibility to the Inquisition varied with the grade of heresy, which was carefully classified by the theologians. Material heresy is error in a baptized person arising from ignorance and, if the ignorance is inculpable, it is scarce to be considered as true heresy deserving of punishment.[11] Formal or mixed heresy is voluntary and pertinacious error, pertinacity being adherence to what is known to be contrary to the teachings of the Church. This formal heresy is again distinguished into internal, or mental, and external. Internal, or mental, heresy is that which is secretly entertained and is not manifested by either word or act. External heresy is subdivided into occult and public. Occult external is that which is manifested by words or signs, either in secret or to one or two persons only—as though a man in the solitude of his chamber should say “There is no God,” or should utter his thought in the presence of another. Public external is that which is manifested openly, either in public or to more than two persons.[12] The bearing of these distinctions on the work of the Inquisition will be apparent hereafter.
EPISCOPAL JURISDICTION
There was still another definition of even greater importance. Heresy was both a sin and a crime. As a sin it was subject to the forum internum, or forum of conscience; as a crime, to the forum externum or judicial forum. A penitent in sacramental confession, admitting heretical belief, might receive sacramental absolution and be pardoned in the sight of God, but the crime, like that of murder or any other violation of human laws, would still remain to be punished in the judicial forum. We shall see that in the Inquisition the penitent, who confessed and repented and received absolution, was still subject to penalties ranging, according to circumstances, from slight penance to death.
Prior to the organization of the Inquisition in the thirteenth century, the cognizance of heresy was a natural attribute of the episcopal office. The duty of persecution was negligently performed and, when the Catharan and Waldensian heresies threatened the predominance of the Latin Church and the Albigensian Crusades left it master of the situation, the Inquisition gradually sprang up as an assistance to the bishops. There was some rivalry, but the bishops, as a rule, did not share in the confiscations and, as few of them had persecuting zeal sufficient to induce them to perform this gratuitous service, the field was virtually abandoned to the new organization, in the lands where it was introduced. Still the episcopal rights were undisputed. Jurisdiction over heresy was recognized to be cumulative—that is, it was enjoyed by both tribunals, either of which was entitled to any case in which it had taken prior action. Finally, in 1312, the Council of Vienne, in response to complaints of the cruelty of inquisitors, formulated a settlement under which the combined action of both jurisdictions was required in all commitments to harsh detentive prison, in all sentences to torture and in all final sentences, unless the one called upon to coöperate failed to come within eight days.[13] This, embodied in the acts of the council, technically known as the Clementines, remained the law of the Church. The bishops, however, remained indifferent and rarely took independent action. The inquisitorial districts were large, comprehending a number of dioceses; the episcopal jurisdiction was limited to the subjects of a single diocese. It was impossible for the bishops to assemble at the seat of the tribunal, and when an auto de fe was in preparation they would usually delegate their Ordinaries to represent them or commission an inquisitor to act.
Such was the somewhat cumbrous combination of episcopal and inquisitorial jurisdiction which the founding of the Holy Office brought into Spain. Independent action by bishops still continued occasionally, of which we have seen example (Vol. I, p. 167) and it was recognized, though subordinated to the inquisitorial jurisdiction in a brief of Innocent VIII, September 25, 1487, conferring on Torquemada appellate power in cases before episcopal courts, whether they were acting separately or in conjunction with inquisitors, provided appeal was made before sentence was rendered.[14] The popes of the period, moreover, were careful to maintain the assertion of episcopal participation in inquisitorial proceedings, as is manifested in the superscription of their letters addressed “Ordinariis et Inquisitoribus,” or assuming that inquisitors acted under episcopal as well as papal authority.[15] Theoretically, this continued throughout the sixteenth century. The writers of highest authority treat bishops and inquisitors as possessing cumulative jurisdiction, so that both could prosecute, either separately or conjointly and the old canons were still cited threatening with deposition the bishop who was negligent in purifying his diocese of heresy.[16]
CLAIM OF EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION
Thus there was no legislation depriving the episcopal order of its traditional jurisdiction over heresy, yet the Inquisition claimed, and made good the claim, that its cognizance was exclusive and that the Clementines merely gave to the bishops a consultative privilege in the three sentences specified. No such privative right was conferred in the papal commissions to the inquisitors-general and the only source of such right is to be looked for in Ferdinand’s masterful determination that nothing should interfere with the swift operation of his favorite institution, and no claim be admitted to a share in its pecuniary results. It was natural that he should favor the Inquisition, for procedure in the spiritual courts was public and was much less likely to result in conviction than the secrecy of the tribunals, and by 1500 he seems to have established the matter to his satisfaction for, in a letter of August 19th of that year to the Archbishop of Cagliari, he expresses surprise that the prelate, without his licence, or a commission from the inquisitor-general, should have meddled with matters belonging to the Inquisition and have collected certain pecuniary penances, although he had already been forbidden to do so. This prohibition is now emphatically repeated; he is to have nothing to do with the affairs of the Inquisition, except to aid the inquisitor when called upon, and he is at once to hand over his collections to the receiver, Pedro López, who is going to Sardinia.[17] Nothing can be more peremptory in tone than this missive, although the Sardinian tribunal was thoroughly disorganized and was about to be reconstructed by sending a full corps of officials. We may assume from this that if there had been any resistance on the part of the Castilian episcopate it had by this time been overcome.
That this concentration of exclusive jurisdiction in the Inquisition was the work of the royal power and was not universally admitted, even by the middle of the sixteenth century, is manifest from the remark of Bishop Simancas, himself an experienced inquisitor, when he says that it is the duty of bishops to enquire into cases of heresy, but they ought to send the prisoner and the testimony to the inquisitor, for otherwise their inexperience is apt to result in failure, as he had often found; there ought to be a papal decree prescribing this and, in default of it, the king is accustomed to order it of the bishops.[18] Of this we have an example, in 1527, when the vicar-general of the Archbishop of Toledo was required by Inquisitor-general Manrique to surrender a cleric whom he had arrested and was prosecuting.[19]
Simancas still recognizes the duty of the bishop to make preliminary inquiries into heresy, but even this had long before been forbidden, although there was a prolonged struggle before it was surrendered. In 1532 the Ordinary of Huesca issued an Edict of Faith, modelled on that of the Inquisition, calling for denunciation of heretics, for which the empress-regent sharply rebuked him, in a letter of March 23d, calling it an innovation unknown since the Inquisition had been introduced, and threatening him with fitting measures for the repetition of such intrusion on the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.[20] In spite of this, Archbishop Ayala of Valencia, in 1565, and his successor the Blessed Juan de Ribera, in 1576, and another bishop in 1567 repeated the indiscretion for which they were promptly called to account. When, in 1583, the Bishop of Tortosa committed the same offence, the Suprema wrote, January 14, 1584, that the popes had given the Inquisition exclusive jurisdiction over heresy and had prohibited its cognizance by others and that he must not in future intervene in such matters.[21] Undeterred by this, the Council of Tarragona, in 1591, reasserted the ancient episcopal jurisdiction by ordering all bishops to be vigilant in watching their flocks and, if they found any disseminators of heresy, to see to their condign punishment according to the canons.[22] How completely justified was the council in this and how false was the assertion of the Suprema, was manifested in 1595, when the Archbishop of Granada complained to Clement VIII that the inquisitors had forbidden him to issue an edict on the subject of heresy and the pope forthwith wrote to the inquisitor-general that this must not be allowed, for the faculties delegated to inquisitors in no way abridged episcopal jurisdiction.[23]
EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION ENFORCED
After this, at least, the Suprema could not plead ignorance and yet it persisted in the assertion that it knew to be false. A savage quarrel broke out in Guatimala between the bishop, Juan Ramírez, and the commissioner of the Inquisition, Phelipe Rúiz del Carral, who was also dean of the chapter. Ramírez imprisoned him and undertook to organize a sort of inquisitorial tribunal of his own, whereupon, in 1609, the Suprema presented to Philip III for signature a letter which it describes as drawn in the form customary for cases where bishops interfere in matters concerning the faith. This describes how the pope, in instituting the Inquisition, evoked to himself all cases connected with heresy and committed them to the inquisitor-general and his deputies, inhibiting all judges and Ordinaries from intervening in them, in consequence of which they have ceased to take cognizance of such matters and have referred to the inquisitors whatever came to their knowledge. As the bishop has laid his hand on things beyond his jurisdiction, he is ordered in future not to meddle with anything touching the Inquisition, as otherwise fitting measures will be taken.[24] The only foundation for this mendacious assertion was, as we shall see hereafter, that, in the struggle made by Ferdinand and Charles V to prevent appeals to Rome from the Inquisition, briefs were sometimes obtained from popes evoking to themselves all cases pending in the tribunals and committing them to the inquisitor-general, with inhibition to any one, including cardinals and officials of the curia, to entertain appeals from him. In this there is absolutely nothing that relates to original jurisdiction and nothing to limit the traditional functions of the episcopate, but the Suprema held the records and could assert what it pleased concerning them.
Still the bishops did not wholly abandon their rights and cases continued occasionally to occur, in which of course they were worsted. They were frequent enough to justify, in a Formulary of 1645, the insertion of a formula framed to meet them. It is addressed to the provisor of Badajoz and recites that the fiscal complains of him as having commenced proceedings against a certain party for heretical propositions; as this is a matter pertaining exclusively to the Inquisition, he is commanded to surrender it under the customary penalties of excommunication and fine. The fiscal also demands that the provisor be prosecuted so that in future neither he nor any one else shall dare to usurp the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and the document ends with a statement that the prosecution has been commenced.[25] Such methods were not easily resisted. When, in 1666, the Barcelona tribunal learned that the Bishop of Solsona, on a visitation, had taken considerable testimony against some parties in a matter of faith, it at once claimed the papers, which he promptly surrendered. It had the audacity to propose to prosecute him, but the Suprema wisely ordered it to take no action against him.[26] Yet Benedict XIV repeated the assertion of Clement VIII that the popes, in delegating powers to inquisitors, had never intended to interfere with episcopal jurisdiction or to relieve bishops from responsibility.[27]
Not content with thus depriving the episcopate of its immemorial jurisdiction over heresy, inquisitors sought to obtain cognizance of a class of cases clearly belonging to the spiritual courts, on the ground of inferential heresy—bigamy, disregard of church observances, infractions of discipline and the like. In 1536 the tribunal of Valencia created much excitement by including in its Edict of Faith a number of matters of the kind but, on complaint from the vicar-general, the Suprema ordered the omission of everything not in the old edicts.[28] The attempts continued and, in 1552, a decision was required from the Suprema that eating pork on Saturdays was not a case for the Inquisition,[29] and the Concordia of 1568 contains a clause prohibiting inquisitors from entertaining cases belonging to the Ordinaries.
EPISCOPAL CONCURRENCE
In a carta acordada of November 23, 1612, the Suprema made an attempt to define the boundaries of the rival jurisdictions, in which it allowed to the spiritual courts exclusive jurisdiction only over ecclesiastics in matters touching their duties as pastors, the ministry of the Church, simony and cases relating to Orders, benefices and spiritual affairs, while it admitted cumulative jurisdiction in usury, gambling and incontinence.[30] Restricted as were these admissions, the Suprema itself did not observe them. In 1637, Sebastian de los Rios, cura of Tombrio de Arriba, who met with one or two accidents in handling the sacrament and feared accusation, by his enemies, of irreverence, denounced himself to the provisor of Astorga and was fined in four thousand maravedís. In spite of this he was prosecuted, in 1640, by the tribunal of Valladolid; he vainly pleaded his previous trial; the Suprema assumed its invalidity in ordering his incarceration in the secret prison, where he died.[31] This process of encroachment continued and towards the end, when there was little real heresy to occupy its energies, its records are full of cases which, even under its own definitions, belonged unquestionably to the spiritual courts—inobservance of ecclesiastical precepts of all kinds, irregularities in the celebration of mass, taking communion after eating, eating flesh on fast days, working and inattendance at mass on feast days and other miscellaneous business, wholly foreign to its original functions.[32] It does not argue favorably for the Spanish episcopate that they seem to have welcomed this relief from their duties and strenuously resisted the abolition of the Inquisition in 1813, which restored to them, under limitations, their original functions. After the Restoration, the Archbishop of Seville, in 1818, gathered evidence to show that the cura of San Marcos had not confessed for many years and then, in place of punishing him, handed the papers over to the tribunal. This was probably fortunate for the peccant priest, as the Suprema ordered that nothing should be done except to keep him under surveillance and that the archbishop should be warmly thanked and assured that the necessary steps had been taken.[33]
There was one formality preserved which recognized the episcopal jurisdiction over heresy. We have seen that, in the Clementines, the concurrence of both bishop and inquisitor was requisite in ordering severe detentive incarceration, in sentencing to torture and in the final sentence. No allusion was made to this in the bull of Sixtus IV authorizing the appointment of inquisitors for Castile. No allusion, in fact, was necessary, as it had been for nearly two centuries a matter of course in inquisitorial procedure, but the earliest inquisitors took no count of it and Sixtus, in his brief of February 11, 1482, called forth by complaints of their cruelty, insisted on the concurrence of episcopal officials in all judgements.[34] Ferdinand was indisposed to anything that threatened interference with the autonomy of the Inquisition and his experience in Valencia with the representatives of Rodrigo Borgia, the absent archbishop, showed him how this episcopal right could be exercised to obstruct proceedings and compel division of the spoils. He doubtless represented to Sixtus that there were many of Jewish blood among the bishops and their officials, whom it would not be safe to trust, for Sixtus, with Borgia behind him, met such objection with a brief of May 25, 1483, addressed to all the Spanish archbishops. In this he ordered them to warn any of their suffragans of Jewish extraction not to meddle with the business of the Inquisition but to appoint an Old Christian, approved by the archbishop, who should have exclusive powers over all such matters. In case this was not done the archbishop was to make the appointment for each diocese and the appointee was to be wholly independent of the bishop.[35] Then a question arose whether Torquemada’s appellate jurisdiction, as inquisitor-general, could override judgements in which bishops participated, but this was settled in Torquemada’s favor by a brief of Innocent VIII, September 25, 1487, thus completely subordinating episcopal to inquisitorial jurisdiction.[36]
Ferdinand was not satisfied, but he had to acquiesce and adopt the device of the bishops delegating one of the inquisitors as their representative—an expedient for which precedents can be found in the early Inquisition of Languedoc. That this soon became common is indicated in the Instructions of 1484, which warns the inquisitor holding the commission that he is not to deem himself superior to his colleagues.[37] Another plan was to require the bishops to issue a commission as vicar-general to whomsoever the inquisitors might designate, as Ferdinand ordered the bishops of Aragon to do, in a letter of January 27, 1484. The individual thus selected became an official of the tribunal and was borne on its pay-roll for a salary to be paid out of the confiscations for which he might vote. Of this we have examples in Martin Navarro thus serving at Teruel, in 1486, on a yearly stipend of two thousand sueldos and in Martin Garcia, included as vicar-general at a salary of three thousand sueldos, in the Saragossa pay-roll of the same year.[38]
EPISCOPAL CONCURRENCE
It is possible that the bishops grew restive under this absorption of their powers and that they remonstrated with the Holy See for, in 1494, when Alexander VI issued commissions to the four new inquisitors-general there appeared a new condition requiring them to exercise their functions in conjunction with the Ordinaries of the sees or their vicars or officials, or other persons deputized by the Ordinaries.[39] Ferdinand, however, was not accustomed to brook opposition to his will. The most efficient and economical expedient was the episcopal delegation to an inquisitor and this he enforced by whatever pressure was necessary. Thus when, in 1498, the Bishop of Tarazona demurred to do this, Ferdinand, in a letter of November 21st, brushed aside his reasons and imperatively ordered the delegation to be sent at once. Still the bishop recalcitrated and Ferdinand wrote, January 4, 1499, that he must do so at once; no excuse would be admitted and nothing would change his determined purpose, but it was not until March that he learned the bishop’s submission. In this same year, 1499, he broke down, in similar rude fashion, the resistance of two other bishops and when, in 1501, the Archbishop of Tarragona notified the tribunal of Barcelona not to hear, without his participation, certain cases committed to them on appeal, Ferdinand expressed his indignant surprise; the archbishop must remove the obstruction at once and not await a second command.[40]
Ferdinand’s resolve was to render episcopal concurrence a mere perfunctory form and, when bishops presumed to act or their vicars-general were distasteful to him, there are various cases which attest his imperious methods of dealing with them. He had some trouble, on this account, with his son, Alfonso Archbishop of Saragossa, who, in 1511, obtained the perpetual administratorship of Valencia and who persisted in retaining as his delegate the vicar-general of Valencia, Micer Soler, against the commands of his father, so that in 1512 and again in 1513, there was delay in the celebration of autos de fe, greatly to Ferdinand’s annoyance.[41] These occasional obstructions explain why, as he wrote November 27, 1512, he endeavored to reduce it to a rule that the Ordinary should confer his powers on the inquisitors and should not be allowed to see the cases.[42]
The people did not view the matter in the same light and regarded the participation of the bishop or his representative as some guarantee against the arbitrary proceedings of the inquisitors. Among the complaints of the prisoners of Jaen, in 1506, to Philip and Juana, is one reciting that the inquisitors act independently of the episcopal provisor and communicate nothing to him, so as to be able to work their wicked will without interference.[43] Similarly the Córtes of Monzon, in 1512, included among the abuses requiring redress the royal letters concerning episcopal concurrence, the delegation of powers to inquisitors and other methods by which the participation of the bishops was evaded, and when Leo X, in 1516, confirmed the Concordia, he ordered that the Ordinaries should resume their functions.[44] It was the same in Castile, where, as we have seen (Vol. I, p. 217) one of the petitions of the Córtes of Valladolid, in 1518, was that the episcopal Ordinaries should take part in the judgements.
EPISCOPAL CONCURRENCE
While the petitions of Valladolid for the most part received scant attention, this one at least bore fruit for, with the removal of Ferdinand’s pressure, the bishops had an opportunity to reassert themselves. In 1520, a decision of Cardinal Adrian required the presence of both inquisitors and Ordinary at abjurations and confessions under Edicts of Grace and, in 1527, Manrique and the Suprema declared that the Ordinary concurred in the cases required by the law—an ambiguous phrase which seems to have been variously construed.[45] This was not conducive to harmony, the inquisitors grudging any intrusion on their jurisdiction and the Ordinaries insisting on their rights under the Clementines. In 1529, when the Suprema chanced to be at Toledo, the matter was brought before it by Diego Artiz de Angulo, fiscal of the local tribunal, in a memorial arguing that to require the presence of the Ordinary would entail great delay, as he often could not attend when summoned; besides, he was always in contradiction with the tribunal, as was notorious to all connected with the trials, objecting to pecuniary and light penalties and endeavoring to acquire jurisdiction at the expense of the Holy Office. At Angulo’s request, the Suprema had a number of witnesses examined, of whom the most important was Martin Ximenes, who had been occupied for forty years in the tribunals of Barcelona, Toledo, and Seville. He testified that the Ordinaries were only called in for the three acts specified in the Clementines, but in explaining details he showed that the inquisitors construed them in a fashion to exclude the Ordinary from much of his functions, for, in place of participating in all sentences, he was allowed to join only in convictions for heresy and bore no part in the lighter cases, the object being to prevent his claiming a share in the pecuniary penalties, although he was summoned to the consulta de fe in which they were voted on. Other witnesses bore the same testimony and it is not difficult to understand why the Ordinaries took little interest in the exercise of the jurisdiction thus arbitrarily limited.[46] It was probably owing to this discussion that the Suprema, January 25, 1530, told the tribunals that differences with the Ordinary must be avoided. In the same year it notified Valencia that all cases sent up to it must have been voted on by him and, in 1532, it sent similar orders to Barcelona, adding that the presence of the Ordinary was requisite at all abjurations.[47] Evidently the tribunals were jealous, the Ordinaries were rebuffed and discouraged, and the coöperation of the two jurisdictions was little more than a formal recognition of a virtually obsolete right.
The routine practice and its working are exemplified in the report of a summons served, August 8, 1534, on Blas Ortiz, then vicar-general of Toledo. It cited him to come and assist in despatching the accumulation of cases since the last auto de fe, held nearly four years before. He was to lay aside all other business and present himself daily at the morning audience to witness the torture in nine specified cases and, at the afternoon audience, to vote on ten of which the trials had been completed. He was notified that, if he did not come, the inquisitors, after the delay specified by law (eight days) would proceed without him. The summons was borne by the fiscal, accompanied by a notary, who made a formal act of the service. When the fiscal stated his errand, Blas Ortiz negligently told him that there was no necessity of reading the paper; he was not well but, if he were able, he would be present at all the cases; if he did not come he committed his powers to the two inquisitors, or to either of them who was willing to accept the commission.[48] Apparently Ortiz did not come, for in several sentences rendered this year at Toledo the inquisitors styled themselves “apostolic inquisitors holding the powers of the Ordinary.”[49]
From some motive, not clearly apparent, a custom arose to some extent of appointing episcopal Ordinaries or provisors as inquisitors. This was frequent enough to lead the Córtes of Madrid, in 1552, to complain of the combination of the two offices, because when a provisor arrested a layman, which he could not do legally, he claimed that he acted as inquisitor, with the result that many persons were subjected to infamy. They therefore petitioned that no provisor should also be inquisitor, to which the answer was returned that in such cases royal cédulas had been issued and that this would be continued.[50] Discouraging as was this reply, the petition seems to have made an impression for, in 1556, both Charles V and Philip II rebuked Inquisitor-general Valdés, who was also Archbishop of Seville, because his provisor was also inquisitor in that tribunal. His defence was that this had been the case in Seville for half a century, owing to the poverty of the tribunal, which paid only one-third the customary salaries and that he himself defrayed the stipend of the provisor.[51]
EPISCOPAL CONCURRENCE
During the remainder of the century we generally find the participation of the Ordinary carefully recorded, whether it was by a special representative or by delegation to the inquisitors. In 1561, Inquisitor Cervantes takes the Barcelona tribunal to task for not keeping record of this and he orders the fiscal to observe it sedulously for, without the concurrence of the Ordinary, the sentence is invalid.[52] A carta acordada of October 15, 1574, reminds the tribunals that he must sign all sentences of torture and all final sentences on which he has a vote, but there was a rule that he did not sign sentences of acquittal, even though he had voted on them.[53] Yet how purely perfunctory was his participation appears in the case of Fray Hieronimo de la Madre de Dios, at Toledo, in 1618. In the consulta de fe, Melgoso, the provisor, agreed with one of the inquisitors and a consultor on a certain punishment; another inquisitor voted for a heavier penalty and, when the matter was submitted to the Suprema, it adopted the latter, but Melgoso obediently signed the sentence.[54] The inquisitorial jurisdiction, for all practical purposes, had absorbed the episcopal.
As the inquisitorial districts usually embraced several dioceses and it was impossible for the bishop or provisor of those at a distance from a tribunal to be personally present when their subjects were tortured or sentenced, it became customary for them to delegate their powers to some resident of the city which was the seat of the tribunal. That they were not always careful in their selection would appear when the tribunal of Sicily was obliged, in 1574, to notify an archbishop that he must appoint ecclesiastics and not laymen to sit in judgement on matters of faith.[55] Taking advantage of this carelessness the Inquisition undertook to control the character of appointees and it issued, August 17, 1637, instructions to bishops that their provisors must be graduates in canon law but, as canonists proved to be scarce, it was obliged, October 12, to modify this and permit the appointment of theologians. In accordance with this there is an entry by the tribunal of Valencia, that it will recognize Don Luis Crispi as Ordinary of Tortosa, although he is a theologian.[56]
Thus a further encroachment was made on episcopal jurisdiction by the Inquisition in claiming and exercising the right to determine whom it would recognize as a fit representative of the bishop. How offensively this was sometimes used was manifested in 1752, in Lima, when the inquisitors Amusquibar and Rodríguez were involved in a prolonged quarrel with the secular and ecclesiastical organizations. To annoy the inquisitors, Archbishop Barroeta notified them that in view of their bitter competencia with the viceroy, he withdrew the faculty of Don Fernando de la Sota as his representative and appointed Padre Francisco Larreta, S. J. To this they replied that they recognized his right to withdraw the faculty, but as for Larreta he was incapacitated by his profession from exercising the functions; if the archbishop would appoint some one in accordance with the statutes of the Holy Office and possessing the necessary qualifications, he would be received. The assumption that they would recognize only whom they pleased staggered the archbishop and he asked them to explain the disqualification of Larreta, to which they insolently replied that they had already stated what was sufficient for his guidance. He submitted and appointed the Franciscan Thomas de la Concha, who was accepted, but when the archbishop transmitted the correspondence to Inquisitor-general Prado y Cuesta and asked for reparation he obtained none.[57]
Episcopal concurrence had never been more than a bare formality in recognition of the immemorial jurisdiction of bishops over heresy and, as time wore on, the Inquisition became careless even of this. In a number of trials by the tribunal of Madrid, between 1703 and 1710, the inquisitors are recorded as acting sometimes with and sometimes without the episcopal representatives and, in the latter half of the century, a writer informs us that the concurrence of the Ordinary is unusual; it depends on the will of the inquisitors, who sometimes summon him and sometimes do not.[58] Still there were some bishops, zealous for the claims of their order, who persisted in asserting this remnant of jurisdiction. Antonio Tavira, Bishop of Canaries, and subsequently of Salamanca, expressed their feelings when, in 1792, he complained to Carlos IV of the treatment of the episcopal order by the Inquisition, saying that they had ceased to vote in cases of faith in order to escape the humiliation and degradation to which they were exposed; they sent their vicars, although this was indecorous and wholly useless, but they felt that they must preserve this little shadow of a jurisdiction which was rightly theirs.[59]
[1] Hæreticus animal pestilentissimum est: quamobrem punire debet antequam virus impietatis evomat, forasque projiciat.—Simancæ de Cathol. Institt., Tit. II, n. 17.
[2] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 153, n. 331.—Burriel, Vidas de los Arzobispos de Toledo (Bibl. nacional, MSS. Ff, 194, fol. 8).
[3] Las Quinquagenas, I, 342 (Madrid, 1880).
[4] Revista crítica de Historia y Literatura, V, 148.
[5] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Leg. 522, fol. 2.
[6] MSS. of Library of Univ. of Halle, Yc, 20, T. VIII.
[7] Instrucciones de 1484, § 12 (Arguello, fol. 4).
[8] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 158, n. 431, 435.
[9] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Leg. 552, fol. 44.
[10] Ibidem, fol. 23.
[11] Still, Protestant sailors arriving in Spanish ports, when not protected by treaty, and even prisoners of war in the American colonies, as we shall see hereafter, were claimed by the Inquisition.
[12] Ferraris, Prompta Bibliotheca, s. v. Hæresis, n. 1-10.—Avila de Censuris ecclesiasticis, P. I, Dub. 10 (Lugduni, 1609).—Páramo, p. 570.
[13] Cap. 1, § 1, Clement. v, iii.
[14] Bibl. nacional, MSS., X, 157, fol. 244.
[15] Boletin, XV, 579, 594.
[16] Mich. Alberti Repert. Inquisit. s. v. Episcopus.—Arn. Albertini de agnoscendis Assertionibus Catholicis, Q. XI, n. 1 (Valentiæ, 1534).—Simancæ de Cath. Institt. Tit. XXV, n. 2, 3, 4.—Pegnæ Comment. LIV in Eymerici Direct. P. III.—Páramo, p. 536.
[17] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 1.
[18] Simancæ de Cath. Institt., Tit. XXV, n. 5.
[19] Llorente, Añales, II, 335.
[20] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 926, fol. 139.
[21] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 688, fol. 228, 517; Libro 939, fol. 69.
[22] Concil. Tarraconens. ann. 1591, Lib. v, Tit. vi, Cap. 2 (Aguirre, VI, 319).
[23] Decreta Sac. Congr. S. Officii, p. 284 (R. Archivio di Stato in Roma, Fondo camerale, Congr. del S. Offizio, vol. 3).
[24] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 45, fol. 168.
[25] Modo de Proceder, fol. 107 (Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 122).
[26] Libro XIII de Cartas (MSS. of Am. Philos. Society).
[27] Benedicti PP. XIV de Synodo diœcesana, Lib. IX, cap. iv, n. 3.
[28] Archivo de Simancas, Lib. 78, fol. 80.
[29] Ibidem, Lib. 83, fol. 106.
[30] MSS. of Royal Library of Copenhagen, 218b, p. 232.
[31] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Leg. 562, fol. 28.
[32] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 100.
[33] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 4352; Lib. 890.
[34] Páramo, p. 136.—Boletin, XV, 462.
[35] Boletin, XV, 475.
[36] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, I, 37.
[37] Instrucciones de 1484, § 26 (Arguello, fol. 8).
[38] Archivo gen. de la C. de Aragon, Registro 3684, fol. 76, 92, 97.
[39] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias, fol. 3.—No such clause appears in later commissions.
[40] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 1.
[41] Ibidem, Lib. 3, fol. 27, 28, 62, 63, 72, 73, 186, 204, 242, 336.
[42] Ibidem, Lib. 939, fol. 69.
[43] Archivo de Simancas, Patronato real, Inquisicion, Leg. único, fol. 43.
[44] Pragmáticas y altres Drets de Cathalunya, Lib. I, Tit. viii, cap. 1; Capitols concedits, § 26; Ibidem, cap. 2 (Barcelona, 1569, pp. 16,19).—Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias, fol. 219.
[45] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 939, fol. 69, 118.
[46] Bibl. pública de Toledo, Sala 5, Estante II, Tab. 3.
[47] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 76, fol. 360; Lib. 77, fol. 30; Lib. 939, fol. 104.
[48] Bibl. pública de Toledo, loc. cit.
[49] MSS. penes me.
[50] Córtes de Madrid del año de MDLII, Pet. lix (Valladolid, 1558, fol. xiv).
[51] Archivo de Simancas, Patronato real, Inquisicion, Leg. único, fol. 76.
[52] Ibidem, Visitos de Barcelona, Leg. 15, fol. 2.
[53] MSS. of Library of Univ. of Halle, Yc, 20, Tom. III, XI.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 939, fol. 69.
[54] MSS. of Library of Univ. of Halle, Yc, 20, Tom. VII.
[55] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 82, fol. 93.
[56] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 9, n. 1, fol. 261, 275; Leg. 9, n. 2, fol 342.
[57] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Sala 39, Leg. 52, fol. 2.
[58] Ibidem, Lib. 876, fol. 1, 17, 30, 41, 42, 46.—Archivo de Alcalá, Estado, Leg. 2843.
[59] Discusion del Proyecto sobre la Inquisicion, p. 449 (Cadiz, 1813).
THE FORUM OF CONSCIENCE
Under the Restoration greater attention seems to have been paid to episcopal concurrence and the adherence to strict formalities is shown in a duplicate trial of Juan Antonio Manzano, a physician of Lumbrales in the diocese of Ciudad-Rodrigo and inquisitorial district of Llerena. In 1817 he was tried for heretical propositions by the tribunal of Logroño, which inquired of the Suprema whether the Ordinary of its own diocese could act and was told that the authority of the culprit’s own bishop was imperative and that the Bishop of Ciudad-Rodrigo must appoint a representative. The next year Manzano was again arrested, for the same offence, by the tribunal of Llerena and was transferred to Seville because Llerena had no prison. April 17, 1819, the Seville tribunal asked whether its own Ordinary could join in the sentence and received the same answer—that it must apply to the Bishop of Ciudad-Rodrigo to make an appointment.[60] It was all the merest technicality, for by this time the Suprema decided all cases, irrespective of how the consulta de fe might vote and thus the incontestable episcopal jurisdiction over heresy was practically abolished.
As regards the internal forum, or forum of conscience, the Inquisition claimed and enjoyed a still more absolute jurisdiction than in the external forum for which it had been primarily instituted. While in a formal and perfunctory manner it recognized the episcopal claims in the judicial forum, it so employed its delegated papal authority as to vindicate with the utmost jealousy exclusive control over the forum of conscience in matters of heresy. Bishops, in fact, had long before been ousted from this by the invention of papal reserved cases—cases in which sacramental absolution could only be had from the Holy See, thus creating a profitable market for its indulgences, confessional letters and the absolutions of its Penitentiary. Heresy was the chief sin anathematized in the early form of the bull, subsequently known as in Cœna Domini, from its annual publication on Holy Thursday and, in 1364, Urban V placed all the offences enumerated in it under the jurisdiction of the papal chamberlain.[61] The papacy thus assumed exclusive control over the sin of heresy, for which no absolution could be granted save by papal delegation, and Paul II, in 1469, and Sixtus IV, in 1478, issued further decrees to the effect that special licence was necessary for this, as no general commissions were held to cover it.[62] The Council of Trent, in 1563, timidly endeavored to revendicate a fraction of episcopal rights by asserting that bishops, in the forum of conscience only, could personally absolve for secret or occult heresy, but the Roman Inquisition, by repeated decisions based on the utterances of St. Pius V and Gregory XIII, overrode the conciliar decree and deprived them of that slender remnant of their functions.[63]
This strict reservation of the sin of heresy was imperfectly understood in Spain and so little was known of the laws of persecution that at first the New Christians, who apprehended arrest, endeavored to escape by sacramental confession and absolution, ignorant that already in the thirteenth century it had been decided that the pardon of the sin, in the forum of conscience, did not cover the crime in the judicial forum. This method of evasion could not be allowed and yet the Inquisition was uncertain how to act. A brief was therefore procured, November 10, 1487, from Innocent VIII, addressed to all the inquisitors and Ordinaries in Spain, reciting their doubts about proceeding against those who assert that they have secretly confessed and abjured to their confessors. To overcome this it was asserted that the decrees of the fathers required such abjurations to be accompanied by an oath, taken before an Ordinary, in presence of a notary and witnesses, never to return to the abjured heresy, wherefore the inquisitors were empowered to proceed against all who had not observed this rule.[64] If such a rule had ever existed, which is doubtful, it had long been forgotten and was wholly unknown in Spain, so that all who had had recourse to this device were brought under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.
OCCULT HERESY
The New Christians were not long in realizing the futility of such attempts and we hear little of them in the later periods. Yet there were cases of occult heresy concerning which the functions of the Inquisition seem to have varied. In the earlier times the Edicts of Grace brought these to the tribunals and the Instructions of 1484 permit the inquisitor to admit them to secret reconciliation and abjuration and do not contemplate his delegating his power to another.[65] There must have been doubts as to his faculties for this, since, in 1530, Clement VII delegated powers to inquisitors to absolve and reconcile for occult heresy, with the imposition of appropriate penance.[66] This evidently contemplates his administering sacramental absolution and yet not long afterwards he was told that he was judge in the external and not in the internal forum and that it was not his business to hear sacramental confessions.[67] In fact, the inquisitor was by no means necessarily in priests’ orders and, when acting in his judicial capacity, sentencing a culprit and hearing his abjuration, he simply granted licence to any approved confessor to absolve him from excommunication and to impose salutary penance.[68]
There was, however, a class of cases, by no means infrequent, demanding sacramental rather than judicial ministration, which gave rise to some debate before their treatment was settled. These consisted of good Christians, who were assailed by secret doubts or indulged in erroneous speculations and who brought their spiritual troubles to the confessional. Over these, priest and bishop had been deprived of jurisdiction, and to make sure of this there was a clause in the annual Edict of Faith prohibiting confessors from granting absolution in any case touching the Inquisition and ordering the penitent to be sent to the tribunal.[69] If he refused to go, the only alternative was for the confessor to obtain from the inquisitor a licence to absolve him, for the confession was covered by the seal and prosecution was out of the question, but as to this, even in the middle of the sixteenth century, there were doubts. Bishop Simancas says that the power of the inquisitor to grant licences is doubtful and he can only suggest reference of each case to the Suprema.[70] A body of practice, of uncertain date, asserts that when a confessor reports that a penitent has confessed heresies and asks for a licence to absolve him, it cannot be given. He must be ordered to induce the penitent to come to the tribunal; in case of necessity, or of persons in high station, the inquisitor may go with a notary to receive the confession, which is examined in the tribunal and the consequent absolution or abjuration is performed in secret. In the case of nuns, who could not be induced to discharge their consciences before a commissioner and a notary, there was a concession that the confessor might reduce the confession to writing and send it to the tribunal which would consult the Suprema, and frailes were to be compelled to seek the tribunal, where they were treated as espontaneados, or spontaneous self-denouncers and were absolved or reconciled secretly with spiritual penances.[71]
The indisposition to license confessors to absolve for heresy in the forum of conscience is easily explicable. By compelling the penitent to come to the tribunal, a record was made for use in case of relapse; if he had accomplices he could be forced to reveal them and their prosecution followed, and there was an opportunity of inflicting pecuniary penances, although confiscation was waived in such cases.[72] These same reasons operated in a contrary sense with the penitent, besides the horror which all men felt as to falling into the hands of the Inquisition. When he was obstinate, the tribunal was powerless, for the seal of confession shielded his identity; it finally yielded the point and no longer pretended that licenses could not be given to confessors. In 1562 a case was referred to the Suprema of a person who had confessed sacramentally to certain heresies, without having been taught them by any one, when the inquisitor-general empowered the inquisitors to absolve him in such way as they thought best and they empowered the confessor.[73] Finally it became the rule that the confessor sought to induce the penitent to apply to the Inquisition; if he resolutely refused the confessor applied for a faculty, which was granted or not, according to the temper of the tribunal.[74]
OCCULT HERESY
A case in 1754 shows the Inquisition in a favorable light and has interest also as illustrating the tortures of a soul which rejects belief and yet holds belief to be essential to salvation. Fray Thomas de Sos reported to the Toledo tribunal that, while on a mission at Ajofrin, a penitent had asked him to obtain a commission to absolve her for heresies internal and external, which yet were occult, as she had never expressed them except to her aunt. She said that, on a previous occasion, a confessor had done this for her and she wished to avoid the disgrace of personal appearance before the Inquisition. He was ordered to ascertain all details and reported that the penitent was a poor woman named María Lara, living with an aunt aged eighty. Her heresies were only of a few months’ standing, occasioned by intense grief at the ingratitude of one whom she had benefited; she disbelieved in the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Law of God, the Virgin, hell and the devil and at the same time felt herself lost beyond the hope of salvation. She could not say how much of this she had uttered to herself or before her aunt and the importance attached to this point indicates the weight attributed to the distinction between internal and external heresy. The aunt was examined, the cura of Ajofrin was called in, the registers were searched and finally, after six weeks had been consumed, a commission was issued which the good fraile, eager to heal a despairing soul, at an hour’s notice bore to Ajofrin and absolved her.[75]
These cases gave the Inquisition considerable concern and, in 1772, the Suprema called upon all the tribunals to report what was their practice. After carefully weighing their answers, it issued, November 9, 1772, instructions that, when a confessor reported such a case, he was to be ordered to use every effort to induce the penitent to denounce himself, assuring him of merciful treatment and showing him that he would thus be saved in case of denunciation by others. He could make this denunciation to the tribunal or to a commissioner, or could even authorize the confessor to denounce him, giving all details under oath. If, however, the penitent obstinately refused, then the confessor could absolve him, explaining that it was only in the forum of conscience.[76] If we may believe Lorenzo Villanueva, however, this liberal concession was by no means put in practice, at least by all tribunals.[77]
Confession of formal heresy was not so leniently treated and, as it inferred accomplices, every effort was made to secure their denunciation. The confessor was ordered to persuade, if possible, the penitent to come to the Inquisition and confess as to himself and others, promising secret absolution without confiscation. This was virtually the offer made to those who came forward under an Edict of Grace and did not exclude arbitrary pecuniary penance; it was not likely to attract self-denunciation, especially as it included betraying kindred and friends, although power to absolve was not granted in case of refusal. This led to a dead-lock and possibly in such cases the confessor was expected to violate the seal of confession under the old rule that it did not cover heresy. At least this may be inferred from a case occurring in Lima about 1580, when Padre Luis López, S. J. reported that a penitent in confession had admitted to have Judaized and on being told to go to the Inquisition had refused. The matter was regarded as so grave that it was referred to the Suprema which sent orders to deliver López to the viceroy for shipment to Spain—apparently one who would not violate the seal was too dangerous to be left in Peru.[78] Simancas, however, characterized this as a most pernicious doctrine and argues that infraction of the seal is much worse than allowing a heretic to escape punishment.[79]
When the Inquisition was re-established in 1814, under the Restoration, it recognized the impossibility of investigating and punishing the innumerable heresies disseminated in the licence of years of warfare and exposure to foreign armies. In its zeal for the salvation of souls it therefore, by edict of January 2, 1815, granted for a year, to all confessors, faculties to absolve for heresy external or mixed. The confessor, in fact, was made a quasi-inquisitor and the procedure formidably resembled that of the tribunals. The penitent had a pledge of secrecy, but his confession had to be minute and comprehensive; it was reduced to writing, signed and sworn to, and was then forwarded to the tribunal to be filed among its records. This relieved him from prosecution in case of denunciation by others, while, if he refused to do this, he was to be absolved, but only in the forum of conscience; he was to be reported to the tribunal and remained liable to the external forum.[80]
CRUZADA AND JUBILEE INDULGENCES
In view of the recognized principle that sacramental absolution does not affect the external forum, it shows the watchful jealousy with which the Inquisition guarded its jurisdiction that it remonstrated against the papal indulgences of the Santa Cruzada and the jubilee. The former granted an indulgentia plenissima; it was a state affair, managed by the Government and bringing in a large revenue of which a portion accrued to the Holy See; its sale was pushed in every quarter with the utmost vigor and the Inquisition punished severely any utterances calculated to diminish the demand. Only extreme sensitiveness as to its jurisdiction could have led the Inquisition to cast any doubt as to the unlimited efficacy of the indulgence but, when St. Pius V, in 1571, after an interval of five years, renewed the concession of the Cruzada, it took the alarm. In cartas acordadas of May 30 and June 13, 1572, the Suprema informs the tribunals that in some places it is asserted that the Cruzada bulls grant faculties for the absolution of heresy; this is not the case and, if it were, the pope would be asked to withdraw them; the assertion must be contradicted everywhere and the prelates are to be asked to give corresponding instructions to confessors.[81] A more effective step was taken, in 1576, by procuring from Gregory XIII a brief declaring that it never was the papal intention that the indulgence should include heresy and to make this known he authorized the Commissioner of the Cruzada to translate the brief into the vernacular and publish it wherever the Cruzada was preached. The Suprema did not trust the Commissioner, but sent copies of the brief to all the tribunals, with instructions to notify the Ordinaries and the prelates of the Orders, so that confessors might be duly informed. A month later, in January, 1577, it ordered the brief to be published in all the churches.[82] Eventually, however, its anxieties were removed by a clause in the bulas of the Cruzada specifically excepting heresy from the faculties granted to confessors, a form which they have retained to the present day, long after the extinction of the Holy Office.[83]
The Cruzada indulgence was a special financial favor to the Spanish monarchy which it could virtually control, but it was otherwise with the jubilee indulgences which, about this period, the popes began to publish—plenary remissions of sins such as were obtainable by pilgrimage to Rome at the jubilees celebrated every twenty-five years. St. Pius V set the example of this, on his accession in 1566, which has since been followed by his successors, together with special jubilees decreed at decreasing intervals. The jubilee published in 1572, on the accession of Gregory XIII, excepted heretics and readers of prohibited books and added a positive declaration that in it and all that might be subsequently issued the absolution was only in the forum of conscience and did not affect the judicial forum.[84] Taking advantage of this, when another jubilee indulgence appeared, in 1578, the Suprema ordered it to be published with the omission of all that concerned the Inquisition, in accordance with the declarations of Gregory.[85] Subsequent jubilees, however, of 1589, 1592 and 1595 included heresy and called forth unavailing protests from Spain until finally, in the latter year, preachers were ordered to declare, as of their own motion, that, under the general clause of the jubilee, absolution could not be had for heresy.[86] While the Roman Inquisition made no protest against these indulgences, the Spanish persistently objected to them and it seemed impossible to harmonize the conflict. When Alexander VII, on his accession, in 1655, published a jubilee, it contained the obnoxious clause; Cabrera, the agent of the Suprema in Rome, warmly remonstrated with him and he promised in future to except heresy; this did not satisfy Cabrera who asked for a constitution excepting heresy from all jubilees. Alexander promised to investigate the matter, but apparently his investigations were resultless for the subject continued till the end of the century to furnish occasion for repeated discussion.[87]
SECRECY AND EXCLUSIVENESS
Heresy was an elastic term and the Inquisition stretched it to extend its exclusive jurisdiction in all directions. It did the same to shield itself from investigation and restraint. We are told that, in the numerous cases of appeal to the throne for injustice suffered at its hands, if the king ordered the inquisitor-general to report on the subject so that it might be submitted to a junta composed of members of the Suprema and Royal Council, the first business of the Suprema was to examine whether the question arose from a matter of faith, or was in any way dependent upon faith, or concerned the free exercise of the duties of the Holy Office. There were not many things that could not be brought within this charmed circle and then a consulta was addressed to the monarch protesting that he could not refer it to a junta, because its nature precluded its consideration by laymen and it would be a violation of the secrecy of the Inquisition, so that it had to be submitted to the Suprema alone, which would make a verbal report to him. It was on record that, in a case of this kind, Philip II pledged his royal word that he and Don Cristóval de Mocera alone should be admitted to the confidence and, in 1645, Philip IV could only obtain from Arce y Reynoso a verbal explanation.[88] Thus between exclusive cognizance and inviolable secrecy the Inquisition realized the ideal of spiritual jurisdiction—it judged all and was judged by none.
CHAPTER II.
THE REGULAR ORDERS.
OVER the laity the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was complete. No one was so high-placed as to be exempt, for heresy was a universal leveller. Theoretically the king himself was subject to it, for it was based on the principle of the supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal power. The piety of the Spanish monarchs prevented occasion for putting this to the test, for we may safely reject as fables the stories concerning Juana la loca and Don Carlos, but no station exempted him who was suspect in the faith from prosecution and from punishment if he was found guilty. In Valencia, nobles who sought to protect their Morisco vassals from the raids of the Inquisition were tried as fautors of heresy, the most conspicuous of these being Don Sancho de Córdova, Admiral of Aragon and allied to the noblest blood of Spain. At the age of 73 he was compelled to abjure for light suspicion of heresy, he was fined and confined in a convent, where he died.[89] We shall have occasion to consider in detail the still more remarkable case of Don Gerónimo de Villanueva, Prothonotary of Aragon and favorite of both Olivares and of Philip IV and, even when the Inquisition was far gone in its decline, we shall see how it took steps to assail Don Manuel de Godoy, Prince of the Peace and all powerful favorite of Carlos IV.
With the exception of bishops, of whom more hereafter, the secular clergy were equally at the mercy of the Holy Office. Even when, as we have seen, in the bitter quarrels between the tribunal of Majorca and the clergy of the islands, the latter obtained the protection of special papal briefs, these exempted them only from the royal jurisdiction of the Inquisition and did not affect their liability in matters of faith, against which they raised no protest. The regular clergy, however—the members of the religious Orders—made long and persistent struggles to escape subjection, preferring the milder discipline of their own prelates. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the monastic establishments had, for the most part, obtained exemption from episcopal jurisdiction and were amenable only to the Holy See. When the Mendicant Orders were organized, in the thirteenth century, they were likewise subject immediately to the pope. It is true that, in 1184, Lucius III, in his Verona decree, had abolished this immunity in matters of faith and had remanded, in so far, the regulars back to episcopal jurisdiction, for as yet the Inquisition had not been thought of,[90] but, when the Mendicants claimed that this did not apply to their subsequently founded Orders, Innocent IV, in 1254, subjected them to the Inquisition, which by that time was in full operation. Boniface VIII emphatically confirmed this, even declaring that for heresy they were to be punished more severely than laymen, as the Spiritual Franciscans found to their cost under John XXII.[91] As inquisitors acted under delegation from the pope, there would be no question as to their jurisdiction over the regulars, but, in the case of the Dominican Master Eckart, tried, in 1327, by the Archbishop of Cologne, it was settled that the episcopal Inquisition also had cognizance.[92] Yet, about 1460, Pius II granted to the Franciscans the privilege of being tried only by the vicar-general of their Order and, in 1479, Sixtus IV, in view of the inveterate hostility between Franciscans and Dominicans, from which Orders nearly all inquisitors were drawn, prohibited those of one Order from prosecuting members of the other.[93]
FLUCTUATING POLICY
Such was the situation when the Spanish Inquisition was founded. Conversos were numerous in the Orders and many were prosecuted. Under Torquemada, himself a Dominican, the inquisitors were largely Dominicans and the Franciscans naturally claimed the privileges of the papal decrees of 1460 and 1479; when, in 1487, some Observantine Franciscans were prosecuted, Innocent VIII ordered their release and repeated the provisions of 1479.[94] In the following year, however, by a motu proprío of May 17, 1488, he declared that none of the Orders were exempt and specially mentioned the Cistercians, Dominicans and Franciscans.[95] Even before this, Torquemada had treated the regulars as under his jurisdiction for, though he had granted to the Geronimite prelates power to try some of their frailes he revoked this, May 3, 1488, and commissioned the inquisitors of Toledo to prosecute them.[96] In Rome the influence of the regular Orders was great; that of the growing Spanish power was steadily increasing, and the contest between these opposing forces is seen in the fluctuating policy of the Holy See. The motu proprio of 1488 remained in force for a considerable time, but, after the death of Ferdinand, the Franciscans in 1517 obtained from Leo X the renewal of their old privileges, which probably also included the Dominicans.[97] The Augustinians soon followed, for a letter of the Suprema, May 7, 1521, directs the tribunals, in view of their privileges to be tried by their prelates, to obtain from the superiors delegated power to act in their cases, or to get a fraile assigned to sit as assessor, or to remit the cases to the Suprema as they may deem best.[98] Apparently these exemptions were not always respected, for Clement VII, by a brief of January 18, 1524, emphatically confirmed the Franciscan privileges and ordered all their cases pending in the tribunals to be transferred within six days to the prelates of the accused.[99] So when, in a brief of March 19, 1525, he prohibited descendants of Jews and heretics from acquiring dignities in the Observantine branch of the Order, he gave as a reason that the provincials are judges of their subjects.[100]
It required but a few months to change all this. The Inquisition was restive under this restriction on its jurisdiction. Inquisitor-general Manrique, in a letter of June 30, 1524, asserted that a revocation of the Augustinian privileges would be procured and he proved a true prophet.[101] The services of Charles V in stemming the tide of the Lutheran revolt were indispensable and his demands could not be refused. A brief of April 13, 1525, subjected the frailes again to the Inquisition, but softened the blow by providing that the provincials should appoint assessors to sit with the tribunals in their cases. This did not satisfy Spain and, two months later, a brief of June 16th subjected them absolutely to the inquisitor-general.[102] That the Inquisition thus obtained and exercised jurisdiction over the regulars is seen in an order by the Suprema, July 18, 1534, requiring that it should be consulted and the testimony be submitted to it, before proceedings were instituted against a fraile—an order repeated, June 10, 1555, and subsequently extended to all ecclesiastics.[103]
JURISDICTION OBTAINED
In issuing this the Suprema evidently was unaware that some three weeks earlier there had occurred another shifting of the scales. The frailes had not been idle; the Franciscans, and presumably the other Orders, had won a victory. A brief of Clement VII, June 23, 1534, recites the various exemptions granted by preceding popes to the Franciscans, while numerous complaints showed that some inquisitors continued to prosecute them, to their great perturbation and scandal, wherefore it was ordered that whenever any of the frailes were suspected of heresy they must be remitted to their superiors for punishment, notwithstanding all privileges granted to the Holy Office. Confirmation of this was procured from Paul III, November 8th of the same year, but apparently these commands received slender attention, for another confirmation was obtained, December 15, 1537, with the addition that all cases pending in the Inquisition must be surrendered to the superiors of the Order within six days and all sentences in derogation of this were declared invalid.[104] Even this did not keep the Inquisition in check and Paul issued, March 6, 1542, another decree reciting cases in contempt of his orders, wherefore all inquisitors, in every part of the world, were commanded, under penalty of excommunication, deprivation of benefice and disability for preferment, not to proceed against the frailes and to deliver up any who might be imprisoned. All bishops and prelates were made executors of the brief, with power to invoke the aid of the secular arm.[105]
The rigor of these provisions is the measure of the resistance encountered and, in singular contrast to them is the fact that, but a fortnight later, Paul, by a brief of March 21st, annulled all the exemptions of the Mendicant Orders in Upper Italy and the Island of Chios, and subjected their members, with the exception of bishops, to the Inquisition, in matters of faith.[106] This put the Spanish Inquisition at a disadvantage in comparison with the newly organized Roman Congregation, although its order of June 10, 1555, above referred to, would indicate that it paid but little attention to the papal utterances. It fully recovered its lost ground, however, when the Holy See recognized that it was the only tribunal that could be relied upon to check the prevalent vice of “solicitation” or seduction in the confessional—the principal offenders being frailes. When, as an experiment, Paul IV, in 1559, empowered the tribunal of Granada to prosecute these cases, he withdrew all privileges and exemptions, not only in this offence but in all heretical crimes; he authorized the inquisitors to degrade the culprits and to deliver them to the secular arm for execution and the provisions of this brief were extended by Pius IV, in 1561, to all the tribunals in the Spanish dominions.[107] This rendered the Inquisition master of the situation, while, at the same time, the inclusion of solicitation among heretical crimes made the regular Orders still more solicitous to escape from its jurisdiction.
The development of the Society of Jesus and the unbounded favor which it enjoyed with the Holy See introduced a new factor in the struggle. In 1587 the Inquisition discovered that the Jesuits claimed exemption. The Compendium of their privileges stated that Gregory XIII, vivæ vocis oraculo, on March 18, 1584, had conferred on their General, with power of subdelegation, faculty for absolving his subjects from heresy, even in cases of relapse; any one knowing the heresy of another was therefore to denounce him to his superior and not to the Inquisition and it was broadly asserted that the members were subject to no judge, episcopal or inquisitorial.[108] It was impossible for the Inquisition to overlook such denial of its authority and it promptly ordered the suppression of the Compendium and of all regulations incompatible with its jurisdiction, giving rise to considerable correspondence with Rome.[109]
The case which led to this proceeding is too suggestive not to deserve relation in some detail. Solicitation being subjected to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Inquisition it became, under the Edict of Faith, the duty of every one, under heavy penalties, to denounce to the nearest tribunal any case coming to his knowledge. In 1583, the Jesuits of the college of Monterey, in Galicia, learned that one of their number, the Padre Sebastian de Briviesca, had been guilty of it with certain beatas and also of some Illuminist practices. Padre Diego Hernández was sent to Segovia to report the matter to Antonio Marcen, the Provincial of Castile. To avert from the Society the disgrace of the prosecution of a member, Hernández was ordered to return and get the evidence in legal shape, so that Briviesca could be secretly tried and punished, but Marcen warned him that all consultation and action must be under pretext of confession, so as to be covered by the seal. Hernández went back to Monterey and consulted with Padres Francisco Larata and Juan López, who said it was a dangerous business; the case belonged to the Inquisition and but for the seal of confession, they would be bound to denounce Briviesca, however damaging it might be to the Society. Profound secrecy was enjoined on the beatas; Hernández took the evidence to Marcen, gave it to him under the seal and was sent with it to Salamanca, where it was submitted, without names, to the theologians of the Jesuit college. They reported that the culprit must be denounced to the Inquisition and that the beatas could not be absolved unless they denounced him but, on being told that the Society was involved, they reversed their opinions. Hernández was sent to Monterey, where he absolved the beatas, while Marcen imprisoned Briviesca, obtained a partial confession, gave him dismissory letters and the habit of a secular priest, and sent him with a companion to Barcelona, where he was shipped to Italy. He had previously been guilty at Avila of the same practices.
EFFORTS TO EVADE IT
Hernández had dutifully obeyed orders, but he was becoming thoroughly frightened. He begged Marcen to allow him to denounce the matter to the Inquisition and was told that if through him harm came to the Society he would be imprisoned for life in chains. He persisted and then reports were spread that he was insane and possessed by the devil; he was sent to the college at Oviedo, where there was no Inquisition and no means of communicating by post, and for a year he was unable to discharge his conscience, for the confessors were forbidden to absolve him unless he pledged submission to his superiors. Then promises were tried and he was told that whatever he asked for would be obtained for him from the General, and he was further informed that the beatas had retracted their testimony.
How the Inquisition obtained knowledge of the affair is not stated, but it was probably through the garrulousness of the beatas who could not be kept from talking. As soon as it obtained sufficient evidence it acted vigorously. Marcen, Larata and López were imprisoned and put on trial, in 1585; in the progress of the case it was found that this was by no means the first time that Marcen had defrauded the Inquisition of its culprits. Padre Cristóbal de Trugillo had been guilty of the same offence and Marcen had simply dismissed him from the Society. Also Padre Francisco de Ribera had repeatedly uttered heretical propositions for which some of the brethren demanded that he should be denounced to the Inquisition, but Marcen dismissed him from the Society and gave him money to betake himself to Italy, for all of which his defence was that he only obeyed the orders of the General.[110]
The case was a clear one; Marcen and his colleagues were convicted, but the Inquisition had not the satisfaction of punishing them. The Society did not venture to question the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, but its influence at Rome was great and it probably had little difficulty in convincing Sixtus V that the interests of religion required the suppression of the scandal, for which he had only to exercise his right of evoking the case to himself. He did so, in 1587, and when the Suprema tried its usual dilatory tactics, the impetuous pontiff notified Cardinal Quiroga that, if the prisoners and the papers were not surrendered forthwith, he would be deprived of both the cardinalate and the inquisitor-generalship. Sixtus was not a man to be trifled with and the surrender was made.[111] The treatment of Briviesca, Trugillo and Ribera serve to explain why the frailes were so anxious to avoid the inquisitorial jurisdiction of which the familiars were so eager to avail themselves.
The ascription to the Inquisition of the crime of solicitation naturally stimulated the desire of the frailes to recover their exemption and Marcen’s case rendered the Jesuits especially active. A prolonged agitation in Rome was the result, which finally took the shape of submitting to the Congregation of the Inquisition the question whether, in this crime, the jurisdiction of the Holy Office was exclusive or whether it was cumulative with that of the prelate, depending on the first possession of a case. The decision was made, December 3, 1592, in the presence of Clement VIII, declaring that the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was exclusive, that the prelates could not exercise it and that all members of the Orders were bound to denounce offenders to the tribunals. The victory of the Inquisition was complete, but the pope expressed to the Suprema, through a cardinal, his desire that the inquisitors would exercise their functions with the prudence, circumspection and moderation that would preserve the cult due to the sacrament of penitence and, at the same time, the good repute of the frailes.[112]
Still the regulars could not be brought to submit to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and Paul V, by a brief of September 1, 1606, evoked to himself all pending cases and committed them to it, at the same time decreeing that it should have exclusive jurisdiction in all cases of suspected heresy; whenever, during a visitation, any member of an Order was found to be suspected he was at once to be denounced and any superior refusing obedience was threatened with deprivation and perpetual disability. Moreover this decree was to be read in all chapters of the Orders. Even this was deemed insufficient and was supplemented, November 7th, with another prohibiting superiors, under any pretext or custom, from receiving denunciations or taking cognizance in any way of cases pertaining to the Inquisition. Every member, whether superior or subject, was required, without consulting any one, to denounce to the Inquisition or to the Ordinary all who were suspected, however lightly, of heresy.[113]
JURISDICTION CONFIRMED
Some details in this would seem to point to the Society of Jesus as the chief recalcitrant and this is confirmed by a brief of Alexander VII, July 8, 1660, which condemns, as pernicious and rash, opinions calling in doubt the obligation to denounce and the pretexts employed of fraternal correction to prevent denunciation. Even the Company of Jesus is ordered to obey the constitution of Paul V; no superiors are to molest or oppress their subjects for performing this duty but must exhort them to it. Disobedience is threatened not only with the penalties provided by Paul V but with deprivation of office, the right of voting and being voted for, perpetual disability and other punishments at the discretion of the pope and removable only by him. The decree is to be read annually on March 1st at the public table and notarial attestation of the fact is to be sent to the nearest tribunal or to Rome and a copy is to be posted where all can read it. The Inquisition lost no time in publishing this and the decree of November 7, 1606, in an edict commanding their observance and pointing out that the alternative of denunciation to the Ordinary was invalid in Spain, where the Inquisition had exclusive jurisdiction. It further ordered that in all books where contrary opinions were taught there should be noted in the margin “This opinion is condemned as pernicious and rash by our Holy Father, Alexander VII.”[114]
No further papal utterances seem to have been asked for; indeed there was nothing that the Holy See could add to these comprehensive decrees. In time, however, they seem to have been conveniently forgotten for, in 1732, Inquisitor-general Juan de Camargo reissued them in an edict saying that some persons were ignorant, or affected ignorance, of the doctrines expressed in them, wherefore he ordered them to be posted in the sacristies of all churches, with the announcement that all contraventions would be punished with the utmost rigor.[115] Of course it is impossible to say how many frailes may have escaped prosecution through the indisposition of the Orders to recognize the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, but, from the numbers who appear in the registers of the tribunals, it is charitable to assume that evasion in this way was exceptional.
The completeness of the domination assumed by the Inquisition over the religious Orders is illustrated by its intervention in a matter which would appear wholly beyond any possible definition of its jurisdiction. The internecine strife between the different bodies had long been an inextinguishable scandal. The old hatred between Franciscans and Dominicans was inflamed to white heat by the quarrel over the Immaculate Conception. The immense success of the Jesuits brought upon them the virulent enmity of the older communities, which regarded them as upstarts and were repaid with interest. The new Moral Philosophy of the Probabilists was a fresh source of active discord. These mutual antagonisms found free expression in the press, the pulpit and the professorial chair, where the rivals derided and insulted each other, to the grief of the faithful and the amusement of the godless. The Inquisition appeared to be the only authority that could restrain the expression of the mutual wrath of the good fathers, though it might not be easy to define on what grounds it could claim authority on such a matter. Scruples as to this, however, rarely gave it concern and it undertook to effect what popes had repeatedly failed to accomplish.
March 9, 1634, the Suprema issued a decree which it printed and sent to all superiors with instructions to publish and make it known. This recited the evils arising from the discord and rivalry between the Orders, scandalous to the Christian people and dangerous as arising from the difference in the manners and customs of the various organizations. To bring about peace and concord the inquisitor-general proposed to assemble a council of the superiors of all the Orders and meanwhile rigorous proceedings were threatened against all who should provoke or foment these discords. Any religious who, by writing or words or in sermons or lectures, should insult another Order, or any of its members, would incur major excommunication and be recluded in a convent in another district, for a time proportioned to the gravity of the offence and moreover be incapable of holding any position in the Holy Office. Superiors were charged to expurgate all offensive expressions in books written by their subjects, before according the necessary licence to print or, if they had not authority to do this, they must refer the objectionable matter to the Suprema, and this was binding on those deputed to examine the MSS. The decree closed with a threat of rigorous punishment for all contravention of its provisions.[116]
[60] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libros 559, 890.
[61] Urbani PP. V, Bull. Apostolatus (Bullar. Roman. I, 261).
[62] Cap. 3, 4, Extrav. Commun. Lib. V, Tit. ix.
[63] Concil. Trident. Sess, XXIV, De Reform, cap. 6.—Pegnæ Comment CXLI n Eymerici Director. P. III.
[64] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I, fol. 92.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 926, fol. 260.
[65] Instrucciones de 1484, § 5 (Arguello, fol. 4).
[66] Clement. PP. VII, Bull. Cum sicut (Pegnæ Append, ad Eymerici Director.).
[67] Eymerici Director. P. III, n. 59 cum Pegnæ Comment, xii.—Locati Opus Judiciale, s. v. Absolvere n. 7 (Romæ, 1570).
[68] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 498.—“Por la presente damos licencia a qualquiera sacerdote secular ó regular para que en forma de la santa Madre Iglesia pueda absolver y absuelve á F. de la excomunion por nos puesta á pedimiento de F., imponiendole penitencia saludable á su anima y conciencia.”
[69] MSS. of Royal Library of Copenhagen, 214 fol.—MSS. of Bodleian Library, Arch Seld A, Subt. 15.
[70] Simancæ de Cath. Institt., Tit. III, n. 5.
[71] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 299, fol. 80.
[72] Simancæ de Cath. Institt., Tit. XIII, n. 22.
[73] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 939, fol. 126.
[74] Corella, Praxis confessionale, P. I, Tract, i, Cap. 1, n. 8.
[75] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 111, n. 42.
[76] Ibidem, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 15, n. 11, fol. 17.
[77] Discusion del Proyecto sobre la Inquisicion, p. 446 (Cadiz, 1863).
[78] MSS. Bibl. nacional de Lima, Protocolo 223, Expediente 5270.
[79] Simancæ de Cath. Institt., Tit. XLII, n. 14.
[80] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 559.
[81] Archivo de Simancas, Lib. 82, fol. 89; Lib. 939, fol. 126.
[82] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. III, fol. 464.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 83, fol. 30; Lib. 939, fol. 126; Lib. 941, fol. 3.
[83] See the Author’s “History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences,” Appendix to Vol. III.
[84] Pegnæ Comment. XXV in Eymerici Director. P. II.
[85] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 939, fol. 126.
[86] Hinojosa, Los Despachos de la Diplomacia Pontificia, I, 330.—Danvila y Collado, La Expulsion de los Moriscos, p. 223.—Bibl. nacional, MSS, D, 118, fol. 243.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 940, fol. 12.
[87] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 54, fol. 176.—Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 10, n. 2, fol. 39, 40, 52, 75, 114, 118.
[88] MSS. of Royal Library of Copenhagen, 218b, pp. 326-7, 337.
[89] Danvila y Collado, La Expulsion de los Moriscos, pp. 126, 129, 181, 183, 194.
[90] Lucii PP. III Epist. 171 (Migne’s Patrol., CCI, 1299).
[91] Ripoll, Bullar. Ord. Prædic. I, 252.—Eymerici Director. Inquis. P. III, Q, xxviii.—Hist. of Inquisition of Middle Ages, III, 71 sqq.
[92] Raynald. Annal. ann. 1329, n. 70-2.
[93] Pegnæ Comment. LXXVII in Eymerici Director. P. III.—Bullar. Roman. I, 420.
[94] Ripoll, Bullar., IV, 22.—Wadding, Annal. Minor. ann. 1487, n. 8.
[95] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I, fol. 94.—Archivio Vaticano, Innocent. VIII, Regist. 686, fol. 103.—Boletin, XV, 582.
[96] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 939, fol. 106.
[97] Wadding, op. cit. T. VIII, Regest., n. xxi.
[98] Archivo de Simancas, ubi sup.
[99] Wadding, ann. 1524, n. xxiii.
[100] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias, fol. 115.
[101] Archivo de Simancas, ubi sup.
[102] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias, fol. 79, 96.—Páramo, p. 607.
[103] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 939, fol. 106.
[104] Wadding, op. cit., Tom. VIII, Regest. pp. 225-6.
[105] Fontana, Documenti Vaticani contro l’Eresia Luterana, p. 122 (Roma, 1892).
[106] Pauli PP. III Bull. In Apostolici, 21 Mart. 1592 (Pegnæ Append. ad Eymerici Director. p. 109).
[107] Pauli PP. IV Bull. Cum sicut nuper, 16 Apl. 1559 (Bullar. Roman. II, 48).
[108] Bibl. Vaticana, MS. Ottoboniano Lat. 495, p. 7.
[109] Hinojosa, Los Despachos de la Diplomacia Pontificia, I, 326, 332.
[110] Bibl. Vaticana, MS. Ottoboniano Lat. 495, fol. 50.
[111] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisición, Lib. 53, fol. 20; Gracia y Justicia, Leg. 621, fol. 116.
[112] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. IV, fol. 109, 111.—Páramo, p. 885.
[113] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. IV, fol. 149; Lib. V, fol. 77.
[114] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Libro V, fol. 73, 77.
[115] Ibidem, Lib. V, fol. 78.
[116] A copy of this edict, printed as a broadside, is in the Bodleian Library, Arch. S, 130.
QUARRELS BETWEEN THE ORDERS
Whether the council indicated was ever assembled or whether any offender was ever punished under this decree does not appear, but any effect which it may have produced was transient. The old passions and hatreds remained as vehement as ever and the controversy over the claims of the Carmelites to have been founded by Elijah furnished fresh material for acrimonious debate. In spite of this failure, the Inquisition maintained its claim to intervene and Inquisitor-general Valladares, June 24, 1688, issued another edict, incorporating that of 1634 and deploring that the old quarrels had become more virulent than ever. It was doubtful, he said, whether the previous utterances had been communicated to the Orders outside of Madrid, so a copy was ordered to be sent to every convent in Spain, with orders to be posted in a conspicuous place and the threat that it would be rigidly enforced. The belligerent ebullitions of the holy men were as little checked by this as by its predecessor and Inquisitor-general Rocaberti, October 19, 1698, took a further step by an edict in which he reprinted the previous ones and sent it to the tribunals with orders to publish it in all towns and have it posted on all church doors, thus taking the public into confidence and proclaiming to it not only the disreputable conduct of the frailes but the powerlessness of the Inquisition to reduce them to order and decency.[117] In fact, the Inquisition eradicated Judaism, it virtually expelled the Moriscos, it preserved Spain from the missionary zeal of Protestantism, but it failed ignominiously when it undertook to restrain the expression of aversion and contempt mutually entertained by Dominican and Franciscan, Jesuit and Carmelite.
CHAPTER III.
BISHOPS.
THERE was, in Spain, but one class over which the Inquisition had no jurisdiction. Boniface VIII, at the close of the thirteenth century, had decreed that, when a bishop was suspect of heresy, the inquisitor could not prosecute. The most that he could do was to gather evidence and send it to the Holy See, which reserved to itself judgement on the episcopal Order.[118] This was embodied in the canon law and remained in force, although of course the pope could delegate his power or could enlarge inquisitorial commissions, as when, in 1451, Nicholas V responded to the request of Juan II and included bishops among those subjected to the inquisitors whom he appointed.[119] During the middle ages the question was one of scarce more than academic interest, but in Spain, where the conversos had attained so many lofty positions in the Church and where all of Jewish blood were regarded with suspicion, it might at any moment become of practical importance.[120] The influence and power of the Inquisition would manifestly be increased if it should be granted faculties to prosecute bishops and Torquemada seems to have applied for this, in 1487, intimating that there were suspects among the bishops. Innocent VIII, however, was not disposed to subject the whole episcopate of Spain to the Holy Office and replied, September 25th, reciting the decree of Boniface and telling him to examine carefully all the evidence collected by the inquisitors and, if in it he found what incriminated prelates or showed that they were defamed or suspected of heresy, he should send it in legal shape and carefully sealed to Rome, where it would be duly weighed and proper action be taken.[121]
THE ACCUSED SENT TO ROME
If Torquemada failed in obtaining the desired jurisdiction over the Spanish episcopate, he could at least strike terror by accusing some of them to the Holy See, where their condemnation would be followed by that of their ancestors and large confiscations would result. Two of those of Jewish blood, Dávila of Segovia and Aranda of Calahorra, were selected for attack. In the existing popular temper it could not have been difficult to collect evidence that they were regarded as suspect and were defamed for heresy. Presumably this was sent to Rome and the matter was regarded as of sufficient moment to induce the despatch of Antoniotto Pallavicini, then Bishop of Tournay, as a special nuncio to confer with Torquemada.[122] He returned to Rome with evidence deemed sufficient to justify their summons thither. In 1490, Dávila went to Rome, in his eightieth year. Since 1461 he had been Bishop of Segovia and, in spite of Jewish descent, his family was one of the most influential in Castile, intermarried with its noblest blood.[123] He had given ample proof of pitiless orthodoxy, in 1468, when, at Sepúlveda, the rabbi, Solomon Pico and the leaders of the synagogue were accused of crucifying a Christian boy during Holy Week. Bishop Dávila promptly arrested sixteen of those most deeply implicated, of whom seven were burnt and the rest were hanged, except a boy who begged to be baptized—although this did not satisfy the pious Sepúlvedans, who slew some of the remaining Jews and drove the rest away.[124] He had given cause of offence, however, for, when the Inquisition was introduced in Segovia, he drove the inquisitors from his diocese and remonstrated boldly with the sovereigns and, when this proved fruitless, it was in evidence that he dug up at night, from the cemetery of the convent of la Merced, the bones of his ancestors and concealed them, in order to destroy the proof of their interment in the Jewish fashion.[125] In Rome he seems to have found favor with Alexander VI who, in 1494, sent him to Naples in company with his nephew, the Cardinal of Monreale. His case was protracted and he died in Rome, October 28, 1497; the result is not positively known, but it must have been favorable as otherwise his pious legacies would have been fruitless and Colmenares, the historian of Segovia, would not have dared to call him one of the most useful prelates that the see had enjoyed, nor would Galindez de Carvajal have said that his errand to Rome was merely to defend the bones of his father.[126]
Pedro de Aranda of Calahorra was a man of equal mark who, in 1482, acquired the high position of President of the Council of Castile. His father, Gonzalo Alonso, had been baptized with the famous Pablo de Santa María and had been ennobled. The Valladolid tribunal prosecuted his memory, with the result of a discordia, or disagreement, and the bishop went to Rome in 1493, where he gained papal favor and procured a brief transferring the case to the Bishop of Córdova and the Benedictine Prior of Valladolid. He remained in Rome, when Alexander VI, in 1494, sent him to Venice as ambassador and subsequently made him Master of the Sacred Palace. Since 1488, however, Torquemada had been collecting evidence against him. It was sent to Rome and, on the night of April 21, 1498, he was ordered to keep his room in the palace as a prison; on the 26th he was brought before the pope and had a hearing, after which he was taken to other rooms and kept under guard until September. Meanwhile Alexander seized his property and Sanuto intimates that his real crime was his abundance of ready money, while Burchard tells us that he was accused of heresy and marrania and that he had many enemies. Three bishops of the curia were commissioned as his judges; they heard many witnesses presented by the fiscal and a hundred and one by the accused, but all of these testified against him. The points against him were that he said the Mosaic Law had one principle, the Christian three; in praying he said Gloria Patri, omitting Filio et Spiritui Sancto; he celebrated mass after eating; he ate meat on Good Friday and other prohibited days; he declared that indulgences were useless and had been invented by the Fathers for gain; that there was neither hell nor purgatory but only paradise, and much more of the same nature. On November 16th the judges laid the evidence before the pope in secret consistory when, by the advice of the cardinals, Aranda was deposed and degraded from Orders; he was confined in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo, where he was given a good room and he died there, apparently in 1500.[127]
Pope Alexander seems to have felt that it was necessary to guard his jurisdiction against the encroaching tendencies of the Spanish Inquisition, for in granting to the Bishop of Avila appellate powers, in his brief of November 4, 1594 (Vol. I, p. 179), he was careful to except the venerable brethren, the archbishops and bishops, whose cases by law were reserved to the Holy See.[128] It was well understood by this time, however and, in the case of Archbishop Talavera of Granada, it will be remembered that Lucero made no attempt to do more than gather evidence to be sent to Rome and, when papal authority was obtained, it was granted not to the Inquisition but to prelates specially commissioned.[129]
TEMPORARY JURISDICTION GRANTED
Half a century was to elapse before there was another case involving the episcopal Order. It has been sometimes thought that the Inquisition was concerned in the trial and execution of Antonio de Acuña, Bishop of Zamora, but such was not the fact, although the case illustrates the difficulty of holding a bishop accountable for his misdeeds. That turbulent prelate, somewhat absurdly styled a second Luther by Leo X, was an active leader in the Comunidades, who, after the defeat at Villalar, April 21, 1521, fled in disguise but was caught at Villamediana, on the Castilian border. Episcopal immunity rendered him a doubtful prize; Charles V was resolved on his death, but there was considerable doubt as to how he was to be punished. The Inquisition was not brought into play but, after some negotiation, Leo X was induced to issue a commission to Cardinal Adrian and the nuncio to take testimony and forward it for judgement by the pope in consistory. On Adrian’s accession to the papacy he transferred the commission to the Archbishop of Granada and the Bishop of Ciudad-Rodrigo, but gave no authority to employ torture. Then Clement VII, by a brief of March 27, 1524, granted faculties to proceed to extremities, under which the trial went on, but apparently died out when carried to Rome. Wearied with five years’ confinement in the castle of Simancas, Acuña made a fruitless attempt to escape, in which he killed the alcaide, Mendo Noguerol. Charles then sent to Simancas his alcalde de casa y corte, Rodrigo Ronquillo, with instructions to torture Acuña and put him to death—instructions faithfully executed, March 23, 1526. This violation of the immunities of the Church caused no little scandal. Charles speedily obtained for himself, from Clement, absolution from the ipso facto excommunication incurred, but that which he had promised to procure for his subordinates was granted with difficulty and only after delay of more than a year, the final ceremony not taking place until September 8, 1527. At Valladolid a tradition was long current that Ronquillo came to an evil end, being carried off by demons.[130]
As the Lutheran revolt grew more threatening and the dread of its extending to Spain increased, a certain limited jurisdiction over bishops was conferred on Cardinal Manrique by a brief of Clement VII, July 15, 1531. He was empowered to inquire against them if suspected of favoring Lutheran doctrines or of aiding those who held them; he was not permitted, however, to arrest and imprison, although he could punish them according to the canons and he was granted the fullest faculties of absolving and rehabilitating those who abandoned their errors and asked for forgiveness.[131] It is not likely that any occasion arose for the exercise of these faculties, but if there was it has left no trace.
This evidently was a personal delegation, expiring with Manrique, for no reference to it was made in the next case—that of Bartolomé de Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo. This was, perhaps, the most important affair during the career of the Inquisition. It attracted the attention of all Catholic Europe and illustrates in so many ways, not only inquisitorial methods but the conflict between orthodoxy and reform that it merits consideration in some detail.[132]
VALDÉS OUT OF FAVOR
Inquisitor-general Valdés, who was also Archbishop of Seville and whose name often comes before us, was perilously near disgrace in 1557. Philip II was in desperate straits for money; the glories of Saint-Quentin and Gravelines were not acquired cheaply and the war forced upon him by Paul IV was exhausting his Italian possessions. From Flanders he sent Count Melito to Spain with orders to raise forced loans from nobles and prelates, and the Princess Juana, then Governor, called among others on Valdés for a hundred and fifty thousand ducats. The Bishop of Córdova when approached, promptly furnished a hundred thousand and promised more if he could raise it: the Archbishop of Saragossa, who was asked for a hundred thousand, only gave twenty thousand. Valdés was even more niggardly, and supplied nothing, although it was observed about this time that six loads of money reached Valladolid for him. Charles V, from his retirement of Yuste, wrote to him, May 18th, expressing surprise that he, the creature of imperial favor, should hesitate to repay the benefits conferred, especially as he could have what security he desired for the loan. This letter, with one from Juana, was conveyed to him by Hernando de Ochoa, whose report to Charles, May 28th, of the interview, showed how little respect was felt for the man. Ochoa reproached him with having promised to see what he could do, in place of which he had gone into hiding at San Martin de la Fuente, fourteen leagues from the court at Valladolid, where he had lain for two months, hoping that the matter would blow over. “He said to me, before a consecrated host, that the devils could fly away with him if ever he had 100,000 or 80,000, or 60,000, or 30,000 ducats, for he had always spent much in charities and had made dotations amounting to 150,000.” Ochoa pressed him hard; he admitted that his archbishopric, which he had held since 1546, was worth 60,000 ducats a year and Ochoa showed that, admitting his claims for charities and expenses, he had laid aside at least 30,000 a year “which you cannot possibly have spent, for you never have any one to dine in your house and you do not accumulate silver plate, like other gentlemen; all this is notorious, and the whole court knows it.... This embarrassed him, but he repeated with great oaths that he had no money, that it was not well thus to oppress prelates, nor would money thus obtained be lucky for war; God would help the king and what would Christendom say about it.” The honest Ochoa still urged him to return to the court and save his honor, intimating that the king might take action that would be highly unpleasant, but it was to no purpose. Valdés was obdurate and clung resolutely to his shekels.[133]
Philip had sent instructions as to the treatment of recalcitrants—probably relegating bishops to their sees and nobles to their estates—but there was hesitation felt as to banishing Valdés from the court, although the continued pressure of Charles and Juana only extorted a promise of fifty thousand ducats. Yet it was desired to remove him and plans were tried to offer him a pretext for going. In March, 1588, Juana ordered him to accompany the body of Queen Juana la loca to Granada for interment, from which place he could visit his Seville church; he made excuses but promised to go shortly. Then, when she repeated the order, he offered many reasons for evading it, including the heresies recently discovered in Seville and Murcia; the translation of the body could wait until September and everybody, he said, was trying to drive him from the court. She referred the matter to the Royal Council, which decided that his excuses were insufficient and that, even if the interment were postponed he could properly be ordered to reside in his see.[134]
It was evident to Valdés that something was necessary to strengthen his position and he skilfully utilized the discovery of a few Protestants in Valladolid, of whom some were eminent clerics, like Augustin Cazalla and Fray Domingo de Rojas, and others were persons of quality, like Luis de Rojas and Doña Ana Enríquez. We shall have occasion to note hereafter the extraordinary excitement caused by the revelation that Protestantism was making inroads in court circles, the extent of which was readily exaggerated, and it was stimulated and exploited by Valdés, who magnified his zeal in combating the danger and conjured, at least for the moment, the storm that was brewing. Philip wrote from Flanders, June 5, 1558, to send him to his see without delay; if he still made excuses he was to be excluded from the Council of State and this would answer until his approaching return to Spain, when he would take whatever action was necessary. Ten days later, on receiving letters from Valdés enumerating the prisoners and describing the efforts made to avert the danger, he countermanded the orders.[135] Still, this was only a respite; we chance to hear of a meeting of the Council of State, in August or September, in which Juan de Vega characterized as a great scandal the disobedience of a vassal to the royal commands, in a matter so just as residence in his see, and he suggested that, when the court moved, no quarters should be assigned to Valdés, to which Archbishop Carranza replied that it was no wonder that the orders of the king were unable to effect what the commandments of God and the Church could not accomplish.[136]
Something further was necessary to render him indispensable—something that could be prolonged indefinitely and if, at the same time, it would afford substantial relief to the treasury, he might be forgiven the niggardness that had resisted the appeals of the sovereign. He had for some time been preparing a scheme for this, which was nothing less than the prosecution of the Primate of the Spanish Church, the income of whose see was rated at from 150,000 to 200,000 ducats. To measure the full audacity of this it is necessary to appreciate the standing of Archbishop Carranza.
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
Bartolomé de Carranza y Miranda was born in 1503. At the age of 12 he entered the university of Alcalá; at 18 he took the final vows of the Dominican Order and was sent to study theology in the college of San Gregorio at Valladolid, where, in 1530, he was made professor of arts, in 1533 junior professor of theology and, in 1534, chief professor as well as consultor of the tribunal of Valladolid. In 1540 he was sent as representative of his Order to the General Chapter held in Rome, where he distinguished himself and was honored with the doctorate, while Paul III granted him a licence to read prohibited heretic books. On his return to Spain his reputation was national; he was largely employed by the Suprema in the censorship of books, especially of foreign Bibles, while the Councils of Indies and Castile frequently submitted intricate questions for his judgement. In 1542 he was offered the see of Cuzco, esteemed the wealthiest in the colonies, when he replied that he would willingly go to the Indies on the emperor’s service but not to undertake the cure of souls.[137] On the convocation of the Council of Trent, in 1545, Charles V selected him as one of the delegates and, during his three years’ service there, he earned the reputation throughout Christendom of a profound theologian. When, in 1548, Prince Philip went to join his father in Flanders, they both offered him the position of confessor which he declined, as he did the see of Canaries which was tendered to him in 1550. In this latter year he was elected provincial of his Order for Castile and, in 1551, he was sent to the second convocation of the Council of Trent by Charles and also as the representative of Siliceo, Archbishop of Toledo. As usual, he played a prominent part in the Council and, after its hasty dissolution, he remained there for some time employed in the duty of examining and condemning heretical books. In 1553 he returned to his professorship at Valladolid and when, in 1554, Prince Philip sailed for England to marry Queen Mary and restore the island to the unity of the Church, he took Carranza with him as the fittest instrument for the work.[138]
Carranza subsequently boasted that, during his three years’ stay in England, he had burnt, reconciled, or driven from the land thirty thousand heretics and had brought two million souls back to the Church. If we may believe his admiring biographers he was the heart and soul of the Marian persecution and Philip did nothing in religious matters without his advice. When, in September, 1555, Philip rejoined his father in Flanders, he left Carranza as Mary’s religious adviser, in which capacity he remained until 1557. Regarded by the heretics as the chief cause of their sufferings he barely escaped from repeated attempts on his life by poison or violence.[139] It is true that English authorities of the period make little mention of him, but the continued confidence of Philip is ample evidence that his persecuting zeal was sufficient to satisfy that exacting monarch.
When, in 1557, Carranza rejoined Philip in Flanders he was probably engrossed in the preparation and printing of his large work on the Catechism, of which more hereafter, but he still found time to investigate and impede the clandestine trade of sending heretic books to Spain.[140] That he had completely won Philip’s esteem and confidence was seen when Siliceo of Toledo died, May 1, 1557, and Philip appointed him as successor in the archbishopric. He refused the splendid prize and suggested three men as better fitted for the place. Philip persisted; he was going to a neighboring convent to confess and commune prior to the opening of the campaign and ordered Carranza to obey on his return. When he came back he sent the presentation written in his own hand; Carranza yielded, but on condition that, as the war with the pope would delay the issue of the bulls, the king in the interval could make another selection. This effort to avoid the fatal gift was fruitless. On his return from the campaign, Philip in an autograph letter summoned him to fulfil his promise and made the appointment public. So high was Carranza’s reputation that, when the presentation was laid before the consistory in Rome, on December 6th, it was at once confirmed, without observing the preconization, or the customary inquiry into the fitness of the appointee, or a constitution which prohibited final action on the same day.[141]
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
The elevation of a simple friar to the highest place in the Spanish Church was a blow to numerous ambitions that could scarce fail to arouse hostility. Valdés himself was said to have aspirations for the position and to be bitterly disappointed. Pedro de Castro, Bishop of Cuenca, had also cherished hopes and was eager for revenge. Carranza, moreover, was not popular with the hierarchy. He was that unwelcome character, a reformer within the Church and, while everyone acknowledged the necessity of reform, no one looked with favor on a reformer who assailed his profitable abuses. As far back as 1547, while in attendance on the Council of Trent, Carranza had preached a sermon on one of the most crying evils of the time, the non-residence of bishops and beneficiaries, and had embodied his views in a tractate as severe as a Lutheran would have written on this abuse and the kindred one of pluralities, to which possibly the stringent Tridentine provisions on the subject may be attributed.[142] Such an outburst was not calculated to win favor, seeing that the splendor of the curia was largely supported by the prelacies and benefices showered upon its members and that in Spain there was scarce an inquisitor or a fiscal who was not a non-resident beneficiary of some preferment.
Carranza had, moreover, a peculiarly dangerous enemy in a brother Dominican, Melchor Cano, perhaps the leading Spanish theologian of the time when Spanish theology was beginning to dominate the Church. Learned, able, keen-witted and not particularly scrupulous, he was in intellect vastly superior to Carranza; there had been early rivalry, when both were professors of theology, and causes of strife in the internal politics of the Order had arisen, so that Cano could scarce view without bitterness the sudden elevation of his brother fraile.[143] His position at the time was somewhat precarious. When, in 1556, Paul IV forced war on Philip II, that pious prince sought the advice of theologians as to the propriety of engaging in hostilities with the Vicegerent of God, and the parecer, or opinion which Cano drew up, was an able state paper that attracted wide attention. He defended uncompromisingly the royal prerogatives, he virtually justified the German revolt when the Centum Gravamina of the Diet of Nürnberg, in 1522, were unredressed and he described the corruption of Rome as a disease of such long standing as to be incurable.[144] This hardy defiance irritated Paul in the highest degree. April 21, 1556 he issued a brief summoning that son of perdition, Melchor Cano, to appear before him within sixty days for trial and sentence, but the brief was suppressed by the Royal Council and Cano was ordered not to leave the kingdom. The Spanish Dominicans rallied to his defence; in the chapter of 1558 he was elected provincial and deputy to the general chapter to be held in Rome, but Paul ordered the election to be annulled and Cano to be deprived of his priorate of San Esteban. Cano complained of lukewarmness in his defence on the part of both Philip and Carranza and it is easy to understand that, feeling keenly the disgrace inflicted on him, he was in a temper to attack any one more fortunate than himself.[145]
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
At this inauspicious moment Carranza presented himself as a fair object of attack by all who, from different motives, might desire to assail him. If we may judge from his writings, he must have been impulsive and inconsiderate in his speech, given to uttering extreme views which made an impression and then qualifying them with restrictions that were forgotten. He was earnestly desirous of restoring the Church to its ancient purity and by no means reticent in exposing its weaknesses and corruption. He had been trained at a time before the Tridentine definitions had settled points of faith which, since the twelfth century, had been the subjects of debate in the schools, and even in his maturity the Council of Trent had not yet been clothed with the awful authority subsequently accorded to it, for the inglorious exit of its first two convocations, in 1547 and 1552, gave little promise of what lay in the future. The echo of the fierce Lutheran controversies had scarce penetrated into Spain and comparatively little was there known of the debates which were shaking to its centre the venerable structure of the Church. Carranza’s very labors in condemning heretic books and converting heretics had acquainted him with their doctrines and modes of expression; he was a confused thinker and his impulsive utterances were liable to be construed in a sense which he did not anticipate. As early as 1530 he had been denounced to the Inquisition by Fray Juan de Villamartin as a defender of Erasmus, especially in the matter of confession and the authorship of the Apocalypse and, during his persecuting career in England, he more than once gave opportunity, in his sermons, to unfavorable comment.[146] It was also in evidence that when in Rome, in 1539, he had written to Juan de Valdés in Naples, asking what authors should be studied for understanding Scripture, as he would have to teach that subject, and that Valdés replied in a letter which Carranza circulated among his students in Valladolid—a letter highly heretical in its teachings which Valdés subsequently included in his “One hundred and ten Divine Considerations.”[147] It is true that, in 1539, Juan de Valdés was not reckoned a heretic, but, if the letter was correctly identified with the “Consideration” in question its circulation was highly imprudent, for it asserted that the guides for the study of Scripture are prayer inspired by God and meditation based on spiritual experience, thus discarding tradition for private interpretation, and it further dwelt upon the confidence which the soul should feel in justification through Christ. In the death-struggle with Protestantism the time had passed for easy-going latitude of opinion and, in the intricate mazes of scholastic theology, it was necessary to walk warily, for acute censorship could discover heresy in any unguarded expression. The great services rendered by Cardinal Morone and Cardinal Pole did not save them from the prosecuting zeal of Paul IV and Contarini and Sadoleto were both suspect of heresy.[148] Under such conditions a rambling inconsequential thinker like Carranza was peculiarly open to attack.
He had unquestionably been more or less intimate with some of the prominent personages whose arrest for Lutheranism, in the spring of 1558, produced so immense a sensation. It was not unnatural that, on their trials, they should seek to shield themselves behind his honored name, but the detached fragments of conversation which were cited in support of vague general assertions, even if correctly reported, amount to nothing in the face of the emphatic testimony by Fray Domingo de Rojas, for the discharge of his conscience, a few hours before his execution, that he had never seen in Carranza anything that was not Catholic in regard to the Roman Church and all its councils, definitions and laws and that when Lutherans were alluded to he said their opinions were crafty and deceiving; they had sprung from hell and the incautious could easily be deceived by them.[149] The credence due to the evidence of the Lutherans, on which so much stress was laid, can be gauged by a subsequent case illustrative of the tendency to render Carranza responsible for all aberrations of belief. A certain Gil Tibobil (de Bonneville) on trial in 1564 for Lutheranism, in Toledo, sought to palliate his guilt by asserting that he had heard Carranza preach, in the church of San Agustin, against candles and images and that confession was to be made to God and not to the priest. This was too crude to be accepted and he was sternly told that it cast doubt on the rest of his confession for, if Carranza had thus preached publicly, it would have come to the knowledge of the Inquisition and he would have been punished.[150]
Whether the testimony acquired in the trials of the Lutherans was important or not, Inquisitor-general Valdés lost no time in using it to discredit Carranza in the opinion of the sovereigns. As early as May 12, 1588, in a report to Charles V at Yuste, his assistance is asked in obtaining the arrest of a fugitive, whose capture would be exceedingly important; he had been traced to Castro de Urdiales, where he was to embark for Flanders to find refuge with Carranza or with his companion Fray Juan de Villagarcia, where he was sure of being well received. That the real motive was to injure Carranza with Charles appears from Valdés repeating the story to him in a report of June 2, adding that the fugitive had escaped and that information had been sent to Philip in order that he might be captured.[151] It is reasonable to assume that whatever incriminating evidence could be obtained from the prisoners was promptly brought to the notice of the sovereigns and that inferences were unscrupulously asserted as facts.
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
At this critical juncture, Carranza delivered himself into the hands of his enemies. In England and Flanders he had employed the intervals of persecution in composing a work which should set forth the irrefragable truths of the Catholic faith and guard the people from the insidious poison of heretical doctrine. This was a task for which, at such a time, he was peculiarly unfitted. He was not only a loose thinker but a looser writer, diffuse, rambling and discursive, setting down whatever idea chanced to occur to him and wandering off to whatever subjects the idea might suggest. Moreover he was earnest as a reformer within the Church, realizing abuses and exposing them fearlessly—in fact, he declared in the Prologue that his object was to restore the purity and soundness of the primitive Church, which was precisely what the heretics professed as their aim and precisely what the ruling hierarchy most dreaded.[152] Worst of all, he did this in the vulgar tongue, unmindful of the extreme reserve which sought to keep from the people all knowledge of the errors and arguments of the heretics and of the contrast between apostolic simplicity and the splendid sacerdotalism of a wealthy and worldly establishment.[153] This he cast into the form of Commentaries on the Catechism, occupying a folio of nine hundred pages, full of impulsive assertions which, taken by themselves, were of dangerous import, but which were qualified or limited, or contradicted in the next sentence, or the next page, or, perhaps, in the following section.
No one, I think, can dispassionately examine the Commentaries without reaching the conviction that Carranza was a sincere and zealous Catholic, however reckless may seem many of his isolated utterances. Nor was his orthodoxy merely academic. He belonged to the Church Militant and his hatred of heresy and heretics breaks out continually, in season and out of season, whether apposite or not to his immediate subject. Heretic arguments are not worthy of confutation—it is enough to say that a doctrine is condemned by the Church and therefore it is heretical. The first duty of the king is to preserve his dominions in the true faith and to chastise those who sin against it. Even if heretics should perform miracles, their disorderly lives and corrupted morals would be sufficient to guard the people from listening to them or believing them. If they do not admit their errors they are to be condemned to death; this is the best theology that a Christian can learn and it was not more necessary in the time of Moses than it is at present.[154]
Even in that age, when theology was so favorite a topic, few could be expected to wade through so enormous a mass of confused thinking and disjointed writing, and it was easy for Carranza’s enemies to garble isolated sentences by which he could be represented to the sovereigns as being at least suspect in the faith, and suspicion of heresy was quite sufficient to require prosecution. Carranza himself, after his book was printed, seems to have felt apprehension and to have proceeded cautiously in giving it to the public. A set of the sheets was sent to the Marchioness of Alcañizes and a dozen or more copies were allowed to reach Spain, where they were received in March, 1558. Pedro de Castro, Bishop of Cuenca, obtained one and speedily wrote to Valdés, denouncing the writer as guilty of heretical opinions. Valdés grasped the opportunity and ordered Melchor Cano to examine the work. Cano took as a colleague Fray Domingo de Cuevas and had no difficulty in discovering a hundred and one passages of heretical import. The preliminaries to a formal trial were now fairly under way, the result of which could scarce be doubtful under inquisitorial methods, if the royal and papal assent could be obtained, necessary even to the Inquisition before it could openly attack the Primate of the Spanish Church.
Despite the profound secrecy enveloping the operations of the Inquisition, it was impossible that, in an affair of such moment, there should not be indiscretions and Carranza in Flanders was advised of what was on foot. His friends urged him not to return to Spain but to take refuge in Rome under papal protection, but he knew that this would irrevocably cost him the favor of Philip, for exaggerated jealousy of papal interference with the Inquisition was traditional since the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, and he virtually surrendered his case at once by instructing his printer, Martin Nucio, not to sell copies of the Commentaries without his express orders, thus withdrawing it from circulation.[155]
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
But little adverse impression seems as yet to have been made on Philip. When Carranza was about to leave Flanders, the king gave him detailed instructions which manifest unbounded confidence. He was to go directly to Valladolid and represent the extreme need of money; then he was to see Queen Mary of Hungary, Charles’ sister, and persuade her to come to Flanders; then he was to hasten to Yuste where Philip, through him, unbosomed himself to his father, revealing all his necessities and desires in family as well as in state affairs. In short, Carranza was still one whom he could safely entrust with his most secret thoughts.[156]
Carranza, with his customary lack of worldly wisdom, threw away all the advantages of his position. Landing at Laredo on August 1st, he passed through Burgos, where he was involved in an unseemly squabble with the archbishop over his assumed right to carry his archiepiscopal cross in public. He did not reach Valladolid until the 13th and there he tarried, busied ostensibly with a suit between his see and the Marquis of Camarasa over the valuable Adelantamiento of Cazorla, but doubtless occupied also with efforts to counteract the intrigues of Valdés. Then he performed his mission to Mary of Hungary and it was not until the middle of September that he set out on a leisurely journey to Yuste. Valdés had taken care to forestall his visit. An autograph letter of the Princess Juana to Charles, August 8th, says that Valdés had asked her to warn him to be cautious in dealing with Carranza, for he had been implicated by the Lutheran prisoners and would already have been arrested had he been anyone else. Charles was naturally impatient to see him, not only to obtain explanations as to this, but also to receive the messages expected from Philip, for which he was waiting before writing to Flanders. Carranza’s delay, in spite of repeated urgency from Yuste, could not but create a sinister impression and all chance of justification was lost, for Charles was prostrated by his fatal illness before Carranza left Valladolid and the end was near when he reached Yuste about noon on September 20th. Charles expired the next morning at half-past two, Carranza administering to him the last consolations, his method in which formed one of the charges against him on his trial. He had thrown away his last chance and the unexpected death of Charles deprived him of one who might possibly have stood between him and his fate.[157]
The plans of Valdés were now sufficiently advanced for him to seek the papal authorization which alone was lacking, and his method to obtain this was characteristically insidious. The Suprema addressed, September 9th, to Paul IV a relation of its labors in discovering and prosecuting the Lutheran heretics. There was skilful exaggeration of the danger impending from a movement, the extent of which could not be known, and it was pointed out that sympathy with the sectaries might be entertained by officials of the Inquisition itself, by the Ordinaries and the consultors; so that extraordinary powers were asked to arrest and judge and relax those suspected or guilty, even though they were persons holding a secular or pontifical and ecclesiastical dignity or belonging to any religious or other Order.[158] As the Inquisition already had jurisdiction over all but bishops (it had not hesitated to arrest and try the Dominican Fray Domingo de Rojas) the self-evident object of this was to obtain surreptitiously, under cover of the word “pontifical,” some general expression that might be used to deprive Carranza of his right to trial by the pope. The Dean of Oviedo, a nephew of Valdés, was sent to Rome as a special agent to procure the desired brief; whether royal sanction for this application was obtained does not appear, but it probably was not, at least at this stage.
[117] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 1, n. 4, fol. 148.
[118] Cap. 16 in Sexto, V, 3.—Mich. Alberti Repertor. Inquisit. s. v. Episcopus.
[119] See Vol. I, p. 147.
[120] Among the leading bishops of Jewish descent, at the time, Amador de los Rios enumerates (op. cit. III, 241) Alonso of Burgos, Juan de Malvenda of Coria, Alfonso de Valladolid of Valladolid, Alonso de Palenzuela of Ciudad-Rodrigo, Pedro de Aranda of Calahorra, Juan Arias Dávila of Segovia and Hernando de Talavera of Granada.
[121] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I, fol. 36.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 930, fol. 18.
[122] Páramo, p. 151.
[123] Amador de los Rios, III, 129-30.
[124] Colmenares, Historia de Segovia, cap. xxxiii, § 2; cap. xxxv, §§ 7, 13.
[125] Bergenroth, Calendar of Spanish State Papers, I, xlv.
[126] Coleccion de Documentos, XVIII, 290.
[127] Llorente, Añales, I, 212, 242.—Boletin, XV, 578, 590.—Burchardi Diarium, II, 409, 459, 494-5; III, 13 (Ed. Thuasne).
[128] Archivo de Simancas, Patronato Real, Inquisition, Leg. único, fol. 22.
[129] There is a somewhat mysterious case of a summons issued, in 1516, to the “Bishop of Daroca,” then in Burgos, to present himself to Ximenes, within fifteen days, under pain of loss of temporalities and citizenship. It was enclosed to the corregidor of Burgos with instructions to serve it in presence of a notary and, if the bishop did not obey, he was to be sent to the court under secure guard. Daroca is a town near Saragossa, which never was the seat of an episcopate, but the summons was signed by Cardinal Adrian, then Inquisitor-general of Aragon, and by Calcena in the name of the governors and was countersigned by the members of the Suprema.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. III, fol. 448.
[130] Dormer, Añales de Aragon, Lib. I, cap. xxvii; Lib. II, cap. xx.—Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. III, fol. 521.—Gachard, Correspondance de Charles-quint et d’Adrian VI, p. 171.—Ferrer del Rio, Comunidades de Castilla, pp. 300-2, 393, 397, 399.—Constantin v. Höfler, Don Antonio de Acuña, p. 79.
[131] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias, fol. 98.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 930, fol. 98.
[132] The documents of the trial of Carranza, covering some forty thousand pages, are preserved in twenty-two folio volumes in the library of the Real Academia de la Historia and even from these there is a volume missing. The only writers whose accounts are based on these original sources are Llorente (Hist. crít. cap. xxxii-iv) and Menéndez Pelayo (Heterodoxos españoles, II, 359-415)—the one a defender of the accused and the other of the Holy Office. I have not had the opportunity of consulting these documents, but many of the more important have been printed and there are sources, aside from the inquisitorial records, which throw light on the motives which occasioned and controlled the events. These were not accessible to Llorente and appear to have escaped the attention of Menéndez Pelayo.
[133] Gachard, Retraite et Mort de Charles-quint, II, 187, 188, 191, 202.
[134] Gachard, op. cit., II, 195, 199, 354.
[135] Gachard, op. cit., pp. 417, 418.
[136] Menéndez Pelayo, Heterodoxos, II, 395.
[137] In 1608 the see of Cuzco was estimated to be worth 40,000 ducats per annum.—Cabrera, Relaciones, p. 346.
[138] Salazar de Mendoza, Vida de Fray D. Bartolomé de Carranza y de Miranda, cap. I-VII.—Salazar was a penitentiary of the cathedral of Toledo and wrote this work at the request of Carranza’s successor, the Inquisitor-general Quiroga. It was not printed until Valladares issued an edition in 1788. This I have not seen and my references are to a MS. copy.
[139] Bzovii Annal. Eccles. ann. 1566, n. 89.—Salazar, op. cit., cap. VIII-X.
[140] Salazar, cap. XI.—Coleccion de Documentos, V, 528.
[141] Salazar, cap. XII.
[142] Controversia de necessaria Residentia personali Episcoporum et aliorum inferiorum Pastorum. Lugduni, 1550. The first edition was of Venice, 1547; there was a third, Antwerp, 1554, and a reprint as late as 1767, in Madrid.
[143] Caballero, Vida de Fray Melchor Cano, p. 624 (Madrid, 1871).
[144] Philip’s consulta and Cano’s parecer were printed by Usoz y Rio in his “Reformistas antiguos españoles” (Dos Informaziones, Append. p. 27, Madrid, 1857) and more recently by Caballero, Vida de Melchor Cano, p. 512.
[145] Caballero, pp. 502, 507, 508, 527-9, 530-2, 534-5.
[146] Llorente, Hist. crít. cap. XXXII, Art. 1, n. 3.—Salazar, cap. VIII.—Menéndez Pelayo, II, 378.
[147] Schäfer, Beiträge zur Geschichte des spanischen Protestantismus, III, 785-88, 791.
[148] Döllinger, Beiträge zur politischen, Kirchlichen u. Cultur-Geschichte, I, 574.—Pallavicini, Hist. Conc. Trident. Lib. XIV, cap. lii, n. 4-6.—Bzovii Annal. ann. 1566, n. 90.
[149] Schäfer, Beiträge, III, 792.—See in general pp. 727-812.
[150] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 112, n. 64, fol. 2.
[151] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Sala 40, Libro 4, fol. 228.—Gachard, Retraite et Mort, II, 422.
[152] Comentarios, Prologo, fol. 2b.
[153] The policy of the Spanish Church is forcibly expressed by the Council of Salamanca, in 1565. “The very name of heretics should be so hateful to the faithful that it should never pass our lips if it can possibly be avoided. Preachers should propound the doctrines of the faith and give the reasons and authorities for them, but should never allude to the sects of the heretics or to their arguments. In scholastic disputations no heretical, or dangerous, or erroneous assertions should be introduced, even for the purpose of exercise, but only those approved by the customs of each university.”—Concil. Salmanticens. ann. 1655, Decr. xxxii (Aguirre, V, 453).
[154] Comentarios, fol. 219ª, 162ª.
[155] Bzovii Annal. ann. 1566, n. 89.—Coleccion de Documentos, V, 518.
[156] Gachard, op. cit., II, 427.
[157] Salazar, cap. XIV, XV.—Gachard, I, 319, 321, 344, 348, 355, 356, 364, 374, 381, 385, 387, 389, 406, 410; II, 43-5, 469, 475, 477, 484, 491, 492, 494.—Sandoval, Carlos V en Juste, § xvi.—Coleccion de Documentos, V, 423.
[158] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Sala 40, Lib. 4, fol. 232.—“Aunque fuesen personas constituidas en qualquier dignidad seglar ó pontifical y eclesiastica y de qualquier orden, habito y religion y estado.”
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
Carranza meanwhile had been vainly endeavoring to get copies of the censures on his book in order to answer them. He appealed earnestly to his friends in Philip’s court and in Rome but, without awaiting their replies, he pursued his policy of submission and, on September 21st, the day of Charles’s death, he wrote to Sancho López de Otálora, a member of the Suprema, that he consented to the prohibition of his work, provided this was confined to Spain and that his name was not mentioned.[159] In this and what followed he has been accused of weakness, but it is difficult to see what other course lay open to him. He doubtless still considered his episcopal consecration a guarantee for his personal safety, while his reputation for orthodoxy could best be conserved by not entering into a fruitless contest with a power irresistible in its chosen field of action—a contest, moreover, which would have cost him the royal favor that was his main reliance.
In pursuance of this policy he even descended to attempting to propitiate Melchor Cano by offering to do whatever he would recommend. Cano subsequently asserted, with customary mendacity, that Carranza would have averted his fate had he adopted any of the means which he devised and advised to save him, but it is difficult to imagine what more he could have done.[160] Towards the close of November he wrote to Valdés and the Suprema and to other influential persons professing his submission. He explained the reasons which had led him to write his book in the vernacular after commencing it in Latin; it could readily be suppressed for, on reaching Valladolid, he had withdrawn the edition from the printer; there were no copies in the bookshops and what he had brought with him he would surrender, while the dozen or so that had been sent to Spain could easily be called in as the recipients were all known. Then, on December 9th, he proposed to the Suprema that the book should be prohibited in Spanish and be returned to him for correction and translation into Latin.[161] Had the real object of Valdés been the ostensible one of preserving the faith, this would have amply sufficed; the book would have been suppressed and the public humiliation of the Archbishop of Toledo, so distinguished for his services to religion, would have been an amply deterrent warning to all indiscreet theologians. It was a not unnatural burst of indignation when, in a letter to Domingo de Soto, November 14th, he bitterly pointed out how the heretics would rejoice to know that Fray Bartolomé de Miranda was treated in Spain as he had treated them in England and Flanders and that, after he had burnt them to enforce the doctrines of his book, it was pronounced in Spain unfit to be read.[162] Carranza’s submission brought no result save to encourage his enemies, who put him off with vague replies while awaiting the success of their application to the pope.
Meanwhile he had reached Toledo, October 13th, and had applied himself actively to his duties. He was rigid in the performance of divine service, he visited prisons, hospitals and convents, he put an end to the sale of offices and charging fees for licences, he revised the fee-bill of his court, he enforced the residence of parish priests and was especially careful in the distribution of preferment—in short he was a practical as well as theoretical reformer. His charity also was boundless, for he used to say that all he needed was a Dominican habit and that whatever God gave him was for the poor. Thus during his ten months of incumbency, he distributed more than eighty thousand ducats in marrying orphans, redeeming captives, supporting widows, sending students to universities and in gifts to hospitals.[163] He was a model bishop, and the resolute fidelity with which the chapter of Toledo supported his cause to the end shows the impression made on a body which, in Spanish churches, was usually at odds with its prelate.
He had likewise not been idle in obtaining favorable opinions of his book from theologians of distinction. In view of the rumors of inquisitorial action, there was risk in praising it, yet nearly all those prominent in Spanish theology bore testimony in its favor. The general view accorded virtually with that of Pedro Guerrero, Archbishop of Granada, than whom no one in the Spanish hierarchy stood higher for learning and piety. The book, he said, was without error and, being in Castilian, was especially useful for parish priests unfamiliar with Latin, wherefore it should be extensively circulated. It was true that there were occasional expressions which, taken by themselves, might on their face seem to be erroneous, but elsewhere it was seen that they must be construed in a Catholic sense. To this effect recorded themselves Domingo and Pedro de Soto, men of the highest reputation, Garrionero Bishop of Almería, Blanco of Orense, Cuesta of Leon, Delgado of Lugo and numerous others.[164] If some of these men belied themselves subsequently and aided in giving the finishing blow to their persecuted brother, we can estimate the pressure brought to bear on them.
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
Valdés speedily utilized the power of the Inquisition to check these appreciations of the Commentaries. When, at the University of Alcalá, the rector, the chancellor, and twenty-two doctors united in declaring the work to be without error or suspicion of error, save that some incautious expressions, disconnected from the context, might be mistaken by hasty readers, Valdés muzzled it and all other learned bodies and individuals by a letter saying that it had come to his notice that learned men of the university had been examining books and giving their opinions. As this produced confusion and contradiction respecting the Index which the Inquisition was preparing, all persons, colleges and universities were forbidden to censure or give an opinion concerning any book without first submitting it to the Suprema, and this under pain of excommunication and a fine of two hundred ducats on each and every one concerned.[165] It was impossible to contend with an adversary armed with such weapons. Not content with this, the rector of the university, Diego Sobaños, was prosecuted by the tribunal of Valladolid for the part he had taken in the matter; he was reprimanded, fined and absolved ad cautelam. Similar action was taken against the more prominent of those who had expressed themselves favorably and who, for the most part, were forced to retract.[166] The Inquisition played with loaded dice.
Dean Valdés of Oviedo meanwhile had succeeded in his mission to Rome, aided, as Raynaldus assures us, by the express request of Philip, though this is more than doubtful. The brief was dated January 7, 1559; it was addressed to Valdés and recited that, as there were in Spain some prelates suspected of Lutheranism, he was empowered for two years from the receipt of the brief, with the advice of the Suprema, to make investigation and, if sufficient proof were found against any one and there was good reason to apprehend his flight, to arrest and keep him in safe custody, but as soon as possible the pope was to be informed of it and the prisoner was to be sent to him with all the evidence and papers in the case.[167] With the exception of the provision against expected flight, this was merely in accordance with the received practice in the case of bishops, but it was the entering wedge and we shall see how its limitations were disregarded.
The brief was received April 8th. In place of complying with it and sending Carranza to Rome with the evidence that had been collecting for nearly a year, a formal trial was secretly commenced. The fiscal presented a clamosa or indictment, on May 6th, asking for Carranza’s arrest and the sequestration of his property, “for having preached, written and dogmatized many errors of Luther.” The evidence was duly laid before calificadores, or censors, who reported accordingly and, on the 13th, there was drawn up a summons to appear and answer to the demand of the fiscal. Before proceeding further, in an affair of such magnitude, it was felt that the assent was required of Philip, who was still in Flanders.[168] As recently as April 4th he had replied encouragingly to an appeal from the persecuted prelate. “I have not wanted to go forward in the matter of your book, about which you wrote to me, until the person whom you were sending should arrive; he has spoken with me today. I had already done something of what is proper in this business. Not to detain the courier who goes with the good news of the conclusion of peace, I do not wish to enlarge in replying to you, but I shall do so shortly and meanwhile I earnestly ask you to make no change in what you have done hitherto and to have recourse to no one but to me, for it would be in the highest degree disadvantageous.”[169] Philip evidently thought that only Carranza’s book and not his person was concerned, that the affair was of no great importance and his solicitude was chiefly to prevent any appeal to Rome, a matter in which he fully shared the intense feeling of his predecessors. When Carranza ordered his envoy to Flanders, Fray Hernando de San Ambrosio, to proceed to Rome and secure an approbation of the Commentaries, he replied, April 19th, that all his friends at the court earnestly counselled against; it had been necessary to assure Philip of the falsity of the reports that he had done so, whereupon the king had expressed his satisfaction and had said that any other course would have displeased him.[170]
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
Advantage, for which Carranza foolishly offered the opportunity, was taken of this extreme jealousy to win him over. When the Dominican chapter met, in April, 1559, there was open strife between him and Cano, over a report that Cano had styled him a greater heretic than Luther and that he favored Cazalla and the other prisoners. Carranza demanded his punishment for the slander and sought to defeat his candidacy for the provincialate. In this he failed. Cano’s assertion that he had been misunderstood was accepted; he was again elected provincial and Carranza unwisely carried his complaint to Rome.[171] There it became mixed up with the question of Cano’s confirmation, for Paul IV naturally resented the repeated presentation of that “son of iniquity.” Philip, on the other hand, could not abandon the protection of one whose fault, in papal eyes, was his vindication of the royal prerogative, and he interested himself actively in pressing the confirmation. Paul equivocated and lied and sought some subterfuge which was found in Cano’s consecration, in 1552, as Bishop of Canaries (a post which he had resigned in 1553) which was held to render him ineligible to any position in his Order, and a general decree to that effect was issued in July.[172]
All this was skilfully used to prejudice Philip against Carranza. In letters of May 16th to him and of May 22nd and 25th to his confessor Bernardo de Fresneda, Cano with great adroitness and small respect for veracity represented himself as subjected to severe persecution. He had always been Carranza’s friend; he had withheld for seven months his censure of the Commentaries and had yielded only to a threat of excommunication and now Carranza was repaying him by intriguing against the confirmation in Rome—the truth being that it was not until the end of June that Carranza’s agent reached there. It was a terrible thing, Cano added, if the archbishop, through his Italian General, could thus wrong him and he could not defend himself. He was resolved to suffer in silence, but the persecution was so bitter that if the king did not speedily come to Spain he would have to seek refuge in Flanders.[173] What, in reality, were his sufferings and what the friendly work on which he was engaged, are indicated by a commission issued to him, May 29th, granting him the extraordinary powers of a substitute inquisitor-general and sending him forth on a roving expedition to gather evidence, compelling everyone whom he might summon to answer whatever questions he might ask.[174] The Suprema and Valdés, moreover, in letters of May 13th and 16th to Philip, adopted the same tone; Cano’s labors throughout the affair had been great and it was hoped that the king would not permit his persecution for the services rendered to God and his majesty; there need be no fear of injustice to Carranza, for the investigation was impartial and dispassionate.[175]
Philip had already been informed by Cardinal Pacheco, February 24th and again May 13th, that Carranza had sent to the pope copies of the favorable opinions of his book, asking that it be judged in Rome and that his episcopal privilege of papal jurisdiction be preserved.[176] Whatever intentions he had of befriending Carranza were not proof against the assertions that to his intrigues was attributable the papal interference with Cano’s election. On June 26th he wrote to Cano, expressing his satisfaction and assuring him of his support in Rome and, on the same day, to the Suprema approving its actions as to the Commentaries and expressing his confidence that it would do what was right.[177] In thus authorizing the prosecution he ordered the archbishop’s dignity to be respected and he wrote to the Princess Juana that, to avoid scandal, she should invite him to Valladolid to consult on important matters, so that the trial could proceed without attracting attention.[178]
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
Philip’s letters were received July 10th, but there was still hesitation and it was not until August 3d that the princess wrote, summoning Carranza in haste to Valladolid, where she would have lodgings prepared for him. This she sent, with secret instructions, by the hands of Rodrigo de Castro, a member of the Suprema.[179] Carranza was at Alcalá de Henares, whither Diego Ramírez, inquisitor of Toledo, was also despatched, under pretext of publishing the Edict of Faith. Carranza, who suspected a snare, was desirous of postponing his arrival at Valladolid until Philip, on whose protection he still relied, should reach Spain. Accordingly he converted the journey into a visitation, leaving Alcalá on the 16th and passing through Fuente el Saz and Talamanca to Torrelaguna, which he reached on the 20th. On the road he received intimations of what was in store and at Torrelaguna Fray Pedro de Soto came with the news that emissaries had already started to arrest him, which elicited from him a despairing and beseeching letter to Fresneda, the royal confessor.[180]
De Soto’s report was true. Valdés dreaded as much as Carranza desired Philip’s arrival; the delay on the road risked this if the device of the invitation to Valladolid was to be carried out. For his plans it was essential that an irrevocable step should be taken in the king’s absence—a step which should compromise Carranza and commit the Inquisition so fully that Philip could not revoke it without damaging the Holy Office in a way that to him was impossible. To allow Carranza to be at liberty while investigating the suspicion of his heresy, as Philip had ordered, would leave the door open to royal or papal intervention; to seize and imprison him would leave Philip no alternative but to urge forward his destruction, while his dilatory progress could be assumed to cover preparations for flight. Accordingly, on August 17th the Suprema issued a commission, under the papal brief of January 7th, to Rodrigo de Castro to act with other inquisitors in the case, while, as justice required Carranza’s arrest, Valdés commissioned de Castro, Diego Ramírez and Diego González, inquisitor of Valladolid, to seize the person of the archbishop and convey him to such prison as should be designated, at the same time sequestrating all his property, real and personal and all his papers and writings. Simultaneously Joan Cebrian, alguazil mayor of the Suprema, was ordered to coöperate with the inquisitors in the arrest and sequestration.[181]
Cebrian started the same day for Torrelaguna, where he kept his bed through the day and worked at night. The inquisitors came together; a force of familiars and others was secretly collected and, by day-break on the 22nd the governor, the alcalde and the alguaziles of Torrelaguna were seized and held under guard, the house where Carranza lodged was surrounded, de Castro, Ramírez, Cebrian and a dozen men ascended the stairs and knocked at the door of the antechamber. Fray Antonio de Utrilla asked who was there and the dread response came “Open to the Holy Office!” It was the same at the door of Carranza’s chamber; de Castro knelt at the bed-side, where Carranza had drawn the curtains and raised himself on his elbow; he begged Carranza’s pardon with tears in his eyes and said his face would show his reluctance in performing his duty. Cebrian was called in and read the order of arrest. Carranza replied “These señores do not know that they are not my judges, as I am subject directly to the pope.” Then de Castro produced the papal brief from the bosom of his gown and read it. Some say that Carranza fell back on his pillow, others that he remained imperturbable. He ordered out all the rest and remained for a considerable time alone with de Castro and Ramírez.[182]
He was at once secluded in the most rigid manner, all his people being excluded, except Fray Domingo Ximenes, who was required to assist in the sequestration and inventory. At table he was served by de Castro and Ramírez, who treated him with the utmost respect and endeavored to console him, for by this time his fortitude had given way and he was overwhelmed. His attendants were all dismissed and given money to find their way whither they chose and their grief we are told moved every one to compassion. Only the cook and steward and a muleteer were retained to serve the party. At nine in the evening proclamation was made throughout the town that until daylight no one was to leave his house or look out of a window. At midnight Cebrian assembled forty horsemen; de Castro and Ramírez brought Carranza down and stationed themselves on either side of his mule as the cavalcade rode forth in the darkness and then Salinas, the owner of the house, was allowed to come out to close his door. The heat was overpowering and when, by ten in the morning they reached Lozoya, they rested for a day and a night. On the 27th they arrived at Laguna del Duero, near Valladolid, where de Castro and Ramírez left the party and rode forward for instructions, returning the same day and, at two in the morning of the 28th, Carranza was brought to the city and lodged in the house of Pedro González de Leon, in the suburb of San Pedro beyond the walls, which had been taken by the Inquisition.[183]
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
Carranza thus disappeared from human sight as completely as though swallowed by the earth. It is a forcible illustration of inquisitorial methods, but conspicuous only by reason of the dignity of the victim, for it rested with the discretion of the officials whether thus to spirit away and conceal their prisoners or to cast them publicly into the secret prison. Morales tells us that it was years before the place of Carranza’s incarceration was known, although every one said that he had been seized by the Holy Office. Even to say this, however, was not unattended with danger, for, in the trial, in September, by the tribunal of Toledo, of Rodrigo Alvárez, one of the charges against him was that, about September 5th, he had remarked to a casual fellow-traveller, that he came from Valladolid and was quite certain that the archbishop was imprisoned.[184]
There could be no doubt about it in Toledo, where the news of the arrest was received on the 24th. On the 26th the chapter assembled in sorrow to take what measures they could, in aid of their beloved prelate, but they were powerless save to delegate two of their number to reside in Valladolid and render such assistance as was possible. It amounted to little save a testimony of sympathy, for no communication was allowed, but they advised with his counsel and performed what service they were able. This faithful watch was kept up during the long and weary years of the trial and when it was adjourned to Rome they went thither and remained to the end. The chapter also, almost monthly, sent memorials to Philip praying for a speedy and favorable end of the case. The great Dominican Order also felt keenly the disgrace inflicted on its distinguished member and exerted itself in his favor as far as it could. The Spanish episcopate also was greatly perturbed, not knowing where the next blow might fall and the scandal throughout the land was general.[185]
Philip had disembarked at Laredo on August 29th. Valdés evidently felt that some excuse was necessary for action so much more decisive than that prescribed by the king and, in a letter of September 9th, explained to him that Carranza was delaying his movements in order to meet him on his arrival at Laredo; that he was working in Rome to impede the matter; that the infamy of his position was daily spreading and that the auto de fe prepared for the Lutherans could not take place while he was at liberty. Seeing that the effort to entice him to Valladolid had failed, it was resolved to bring him there, which was done quietly and without disturbance. He had been well treated and would continue to be so and the king might rely on the affair being conducted with all rectitude. An intimation, moreover, that all his property had been sequestrated indicates that the financial aspect of the matter was deemed worthy of being called to the royal attention and the whole tone of the letter shows that Carranza’s imprisonment was predetermined. The allusion to his design of meeting the king at Laredo disposes of the plea that he was suspected of flight and the fact that the auto de fe of the Lutherans did not take place until October 8th is a test of the flimsiness of the reasons alleged.[186]
Carranza’s treatment was vastly better than that of ordinary prisoners confined in the cells of the secret prison. He was asked to select his attendants, when he named six, but was allowed only two—his companion, Fray Alonso de Utrilla and his page, Jorje Gómez Muñoz de Carrascosa.[187] Two rooms were allotted to the party—rooms without provision for the needs of human nature, with windows padlocked and shutters closed, so that at times the stench became unendurable. The foul atmosphere brought on a dangerous illness in which Carranza nearly perished; the physicians ordered the apartment to be ventilated, morning and evening, but all that the Suprema would permit was a small grating in the door, though at times it was left ajar with a guard posted at it.[188] Communication with the outside world was so completely cut off that when, in 1561, a great conflagration ravaged Valladolid, raging for thirty hours, destroying four hundred houses and penetrating to the quarter where the prison stood, the prisoners knew nothing of it until after reaching Rome.[189] The inquisitorial rule that all consultation with counsel must be held in the presence of an inquisitor was rigidly observed and also that which denied to prisoners the consolation of the sacraments.
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
Diego González, one of the inquisitors of Valladolid, was assigned to the special charge of Carranza who, in a long and rambling memorial to the Suprema represents him as treating him without respect, insulting him, suppressing his communications with the Suprema, fabricating answers, throwing every impediment in the way of his defence and aggravating, with malicious ingenuity, the miseries of his position. Some details as to the parsimony with which he was treated are almost incredible when we reflect that the Inquisition and Philip were enjoying the enormous sequestrated revenues of their prisoner.[190]
Although the papal brief only authorized the collection of evidence and its transmission to Rome with the person of the accused, the trial was conducted as though the Inquisition had full jurisdiction. It was commenced September 4th; as Carranza could not be taken to the Inquisition, Valdés and the Suprema came to his place of confinement, administered the customary oath and, according to routine procedure, gave him the first monition to discharge his conscience and confess freely. He replied by recusing Valdés as his judge on the score of enmity, to whom he subsequently added two members of the Suprema, Andrés Pérez, Bishop of Ciudad-Rodrigo and Diego de Cobos, Bishop of Jaen.[191] This recusation excited no little debate. There were some who pronounced it frivolous, others that it should be referred to the pope and others again that it should be decided by arbitrators. The latter opinion prevailed; Carranza and the fiscal named their arbitrators who rendered a decision in Carranza’s favor on February 23, 1560. A new judge thus became necessary; Carranza’s friends and the Dominicans were busy in Rome to have the case transferred thither, but at that time Philip’s will was substantially law to Pius IV and, on May 4th a brief was obtained authorizing the king to appoint one or more bishops, or other just and experienced ecclesiastics, to hear the case and bring it to a proper conclusion. This conferred full jurisdiction and placed Carranza in a worse position than before. Strenuous representations must have been made to Pius for, on July 3rd he issued another brief defining his intention to be that the judges should conduct the case up to the point of sentence and then send the papers under seal to Rome, where he, in secret consistory, would decide it as a matter specially reserved to the Holy See.[192] This revendicated the papal jurisdiction, but at the same time it confirmed the usurpation of Valdés in formally trying Carranza in lieu of merely collecting testimony for a trial in Rome.
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
Philip leisurely postponed for a year the nomination of new judges. It may seem harsh to attribute this to the repulsive motive of prolonging the trial in order to enjoy the benefit of the sequestrated revenues of Toledo, but his financial needs were extreme and the temptation was great. In violation of the rule of the Inquisition that sequestrations were held for the benefit of the owner, to be accounted for unless confiscation was imposed, Philip had appointed Tello Giron administrator of the archbishopric, had procured his confirmation from Pius IV, in spite of the earnest remonstrances of the chapter, and was quietly absorbing the revenues, except such portion as the Suprema claimed for the expenses of Carranza and of the trial.[193] We happen to have evidence of this in the promise of a pension of twelve thousand cruzados on the see of Toledo, by which he won over Cardinal Caraffa to the Spanish interest, during the long conclave which resulted in the election of Pius IV[194], and the acquiescence of that pope in his enjoyment of the revenues was probably purchased by the promise of a similar pension of twelve thousand crowns to his favorite nephew, St. Charles Borromeo—a promise which he neglected to fulfil although, in 1564, it was reckoned that he had already received from the see some eight hundred thousand crowns. When he quarrelled with Pius for deciding the question of precedence in favor of France, the pope threatened to make him disgorge, but without success.[195] It is therefore easy to understand why the case promised to be interminable. The two years of the original brief expired in April, 1561; Pius extended it for two years more; then, by a brief of April 4, 1563, he renewed it for another year, at the same time prescribing that Carranza should be more mercifully treated; then, August 12, 1564, it was extended until January 1, 1565, and for another year still before the matter passed into the sterner hands of St. Pius V.[196] These delays it was the fashion to impute to Carranza. Bishop Simancas, who hated him for the proverbial reason odisse quem læseris, asserts that he was constantly employing devices to prevent progress, but this is absurd.[197] It was Carranza’s interest to be released from his dreary incarceration and to be sent to Rome, where he felt confident of favor; the cumbrous estilo of the Inquisition enabled it to retard action at will, while the accused could do little either to hasten or to impede.
When Philip at last acted on the power to name Carranza’s judges he appointed, March 13, 1561, Gaspar Zuñiga, Archbishop of Santiago who, on May 2nd, subdelegated the work to Bishops Valtodano and Simancas, both members of the Suprema and hostile to the prisoner. Carranza, as the result of his recusation, thus found himself practically remanded to Valdés, who was moreover shielded from direct responsibility. Carranza naturally recused his new judges, on the ground that they had voted for his arrest, but Philip airily dismissed the recusation, saying that if this were just cause no judge could try a culprit whose apprehension he had ordered.[198] In the following June Carranza was allowed to select counsel—a special favor for, as a rule, the accused was restricted to one or two lawyers who held appointments under the tribunal. He chose Martin de Azpilcueta and Alonso Delgado and also Doctors Santander and Morales, though of these latter we hear nothing subsequently. Azpilcueta, known also as Doctor Navarro, was one of the leading canonists of the time and a man of the highest reputation. He served faithfully to the end and probably thereby ruined his career in Spain, for he remained in Rome as a papal penitentiary.
After nearly two years of imprisonment the formal trial began July 30th and proceeded in most leisurely fashion. The rules of the Inquisition required three monitions to be given within ten days after arrest, but Valtodano and Simancas administered the first monition to discharge his conscience by confession on July 30th, the second on August 25th and the third on August 29th. He replied that for two years he had been desirous of learning the cause of his arrest and begging to be informed, which showed how ignorant he was of inquisitorial practice, for this was sedulously concealed from the accused, who was sternly ordered to search his conscience and earn mercy by confession. Then, on September 1st, the fiscal presented the accusation, in thirty-one articles, to each of which the accused was required to make answer on the spot. After this a copy was given to him on which to frame a more formal defence and for this he asked to have access to his papers—a fruitless request, for it was not the style of the Inquisition to allow the accused to have means of justifying himself.[199]
The articles of accusation were drawn not only from the Commentaries but from the confessions of the Lutheran heretics, the gossip and hearsay evidence industriously collected, and from the mass of papers seized when he was arrested. Many of these were not his own, but essays of others. There were extracts from heretic books which he had made at Trent for the purpose of refuting them; there were essays written when as a youth he had entered the Dominican Order, forty years before; there were notes of sermons taken down for practice when he was a student, and sermons preached in the refectory as required by the Rule of his Order; scattered thoughts jotted down for consideration and development; memoranda made when examining heretic Bibles and their comments for the Inquisition—in short all the vast accumulation of a man who for forty years had been busily studying and teaching and preaching and writing and wrangling on theology.[200] All the intellectual sins of youth and manhood had been scrutinized by malevolent eyes and he was called upon to answer for them without being allowed to know from what sources the charges were brought. There was in this no special injustice inflicted on him—it was merely the regular inquisitorial routine.
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
Thus a year passed away and, on June 5, 1562, the fiscal presented a second accusation, for there was no limit to these successive charges, each of which could be made to consume time. These new articles were mostly based on rumors and vague expressions of opinion, for all who were inimical, secure in the suppression of their names, were free to depose as to what they thought or imagined and it was all received as evidence. These he answered as best he could and he succeeded in identifying the names of some of the adverse witnesses. Then he presented a defence, doubtless drawn up as customary by his counsel, for it was clear and cogent, bearing little trace of his discursive and inconclusive style. In support of this he handed in a long list of witnesses to be examined, including Philip II and the Princess Juana, but the fiscal, passing over the royalties, objected to the rest on the ground that they were friends of Carranza—hostile testimony was admitted from any source, but that which was suspected of favorable partiality was rejected. As a principle, this was recognized in inquisitorial practice, but it was not habitually applied with so much rigor.[201]
On August 31, 1562, Carranza addressed an earnest appeal to Philip, reminding him of his command, in April, 1559, to trust in him alone. Three years had passed in prison, his case had scarce more than begun and promised to be interminable. His judge, the Archbishop of Santiago, had not delegated full powers to Valtodano and Simancas; questions arose which they could not or would not decide and, when these were submitted to the archbishop, months elapsed before an answer was received. On January 19th his counsel had issued a requisition on the archbishop to come and hear the case personally or to grant full powers to his delegates, but up to the present time no reply had come. Never in the world, he said, was justice administered in this fashion, and he despairingly entreated Philip to expedite the case or to permit him to appeal to the pope.[202] Whether or not this cry from the depths reached Philip, it produced no effect.
By this time the affair had become a European scandal. The bishops assembled at the third convocation of the Council of Trent felt it acutely, both as an opprobrium to the Church and an attack on the immunities of their order. Philip was aware of this and, in letters of October 30th and December 15, 1562, to his representative at Trent, the Count of Luna, and to Vargas, his ambassador at Rome, he gave instructions to prevent its discussion and to ask the pope to order his legates to see that the Council kept its hands off from the Spanish Inquisition.[203] It was with difficulty that the council could be restrained. In the early months of 1563 the legates repeatedly reported that it ardently desired him to evoke the case and order the papers sent to Rome. In reply Pius earnestly disclaimed indifference; he had urged the matter until Philip’s temper showed that further pressure would disrupt the concord so necessary to the universal good. This did not satisfy the bishops, who persisted till Pius assured them that he had seen the earlier papers in the case and could affirm that Carranza’s imprisonment was not unjust; he promised that he would not permit delay beyond April, 1564, and that he would render a just judgement.[204] If the bishops could not help their captive brother, they could at least provide for their own safety and this they did by a decree which greatly strengthened a declaration adopted in 1551 concerning the exclusive papal jurisdiction over bishops.[205]
There was another way in which the council sought to aid Carranza. It had a standing congregation employed in compiling an Index of prohibited books. The Commentaries came legitimately before it and, after examination, it was pronounced, June 2, 1563, to be good and Catholic and most worthy to be read by all pious men. The secretary of the congregation, Fra Francesco Forerio, issued a certificate of this, conferring licence to print it, and Pius followed, June 23rd, with a papal licence to the same effect. The Count of Luna was greatly exercised at this and was aided by the celebrated scholar, Antonio Agustin, then Bishop of Lérida. Matters went so far that the Legate Morosini dreaded the disruption of the council and peace was only restored by withdrawing the certificate of approbation. A copy had been given to Carranza’s friends which they were forced to surrender.[206] Philip’s indignation at this, as expressed in a letter to Luna, of August 2nd, was too late to be of service and is important only from its statement that he considered the affair of Carranza to be the most momentous that he had in connection with the council.[207]
Meanwhile the case was dragging on, one series of charges being presented after another, until the aggregate was over four hundred, each of which furnished opportunity for discussion and procrastination.[208] Besides the financial motive for this delay, Philip was now engaged in a struggle with Rome to protect the Inquisition from the consequences of its own evil work. There was nothing in his eyes more important than to preserve and augment its privileges, and his jealousy of any attempt at interference by the Holy See was an overmastering passion. His secret object was to arrogate to it complete jurisdiction over bishops and prevent the final submission of the case to papal decision.
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
Pius IV, to do him justice, felt keenly the humiliating position in which he was placed by the overbearing determination of Philip, but each attempt at self-assertion only rendered more evident the contempt in which he was held. More than once he wrote to the Archbishop of Santiago rebuking him for the long delay which kept Carranza in prison while the case made no advance. He named January 1, 1564, as the limit of the archbishop’s commission, after which the process, whether completed or not, was to be forwarded to Rome. The limit passed without obedience to his commands and he wrote again, expressing high displeasure at the contumacy which doomed such a man to grow old in the squalor of a prison without law or justice. Again he ordered the case, whether completed or not, to be sent to Rome; if there were delay, all concerned were ipso facto anathematized, deprived of all dignities and functions and rendered infamous and incapable of restoration; all letters granting jurisdiction were revoked and the case was evoked to Rome for decision. Carranza himself was to be delivered forthwith to the nuncio, who was empowered either to keep him in honorable custody or to liberate him on bail. These were brave words, but there was no heart to back them up with action and, when they were disregarded, he extended, on August 12th the Archbishop’s commission until January, 1565, after which, as previously ordered, the case was to be transmitted to Rome, and there was a significant absence of the minatory tone so prominent in the previous briefs.[209]
Encouraged by this evidence of weakness, on November 24, 1564, Philip sent Rodrigo de Castro to Rome on a mission to have Carranza abandoned to the Inquisition, significantly instructing him not to disdain whatever means he might find necessary to win over everybody of influence. Even the unlimited bribery thus planned failed of success, although the secondary object of procrastination was effected. Castro commenced by demanding, in a private audience, that the case be abandoned to the Inquisition, but refused to put the demand in writing. Then he lowered his tone and the pope agreed to send a special legate to Spain to review the case and pronounce sentence, but Castro insisted that the Suprema and such prelates as the king might select should be adjoined to the legate. This the pope refused, but there was some misunderstanding about it, and when Castro saw the commission drafted for the legate he was furious. He sought an audience and accused the pope of breaking his word; Pius lost his temper and said that in this whole business he had been treated like an ass; the affair was his and he would do as he pleased. Thus rebuffed, Castro poured forth his griefs to Cardinal Borromeo and declared that, if the legate went to Spain with such a commission, he would not get a real. This assertion may seem enigmatical to modern ears, but it is explained by the remark of the shrewd French ambassador, when reporting to Charles IX the arrival of the legate, that the case of Carranza and the use of his legatine faculties would bring him much money.[210]
The Holy See has rarely sent abroad a body so distinguished as this legation, predestined to failure. The special legate a latere was Cardinal Buoncompagni, afterwards Gregory XIII, accompanied by Archbishop Rossano, subsequently Urban VII, Fra Felice Perretti, afterwards Sixtus V and Giovanni Aldobrandini, subsequently cardinal and brother of Clement VIII. The legate had been given discretional power as to admitting Spanish associates, but he found on arrival at Madrid, in November, 1565, that the demand made on him was the impossible one which Pius had refused to Castro—the whole Suprema and prelates, amounting in all to fifteen Spaniards. He offered to admit two as against two of his associates, but he would do no more. As he wrote to Pius, the terror inspired by the Inquisition was beyond belief; to admit a majority of Spaniards would be to invite injustice, for the acquittal of Carranza would be the conviction of the Inquisition and any one who had the courage to bring this about would be exposed to lifelong persecution.[211] Of course Philip was firm, as his object was to baffle the legate, but discussion was cut short when the news came of the death of Pius IV, December 9th. Buoncompagni departed in haste to participate in the conclave; he was met at Avignon with the intelligence of the election of Pius V, January 7, 1566, in spite of which he continued his journey to Rome.[212]
[159] Llorente, Hist. crít. cap. XXXII, Art. iii, n. 12.—Menéndez Pelayo, II, 386.
[160] Caballero, p. 651.
[161] Llorente, loc. cit.—Coleccion de Documentos, V, 518.
[162] Caballero, p. 627.
[163] Salazar, cap. XVII, XVIII, XXXVI.
[164] Coleccion de Documentos, V, 508-17.
[165] Coleccion de Documentos, V, 515, 521.
[166] Llorente, Hist. crít. cap. XXV, Art. i, n. 11, 31, 57, 66, 77, 78, 95, 103; Art. ii, n. 13; cap. XXIX, Art. i, n. 4, 6, 8, 11, 12.—Cf. Danvila y Collado, Expulsion de los Moriscos, p. 156.
[167] Raynald. Annal. ann. 1559, n. 19.—It is worthy of note that a copy of this brief in the archives of the Inquisition (Simancas, Lib. 930, fol. 24) extends the term of two years to three and adds to the condition of expected flight the phrase “aut alias tibi videtur expedire,” thus giving Valdés full discretion to arrest. These frauds were requisite to justify his action. As Raynaldus drew from the papal registers, his version of the brief is of course correct.
[168] Menéndez Pelayo, II, 386.
[169] Coleccion de Documentos, V, 522.
[170] Ibidem, p. 504.
[171] Caballero, pp. 617-18.
[172] Ibidem, pp. 616, 618, 619, 621, 624-7.
[173] Ibidem, pp. 620, 621, 624.
[174] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Sala 40, Lib. 4, fol. 234.
[175] Döllinger, Beiträge, I, 256.
[176] Ibidem, p. 254.—Caballero, p. 615.
[177] Caballero, pp. 624, 625.
[178] Menéndez Pelayo, II, 387.
[179] The details of the arrest of Carranza are contained in an official narrative by Ambrosio de Morales, chronicler of Philip II, drawn up by order of the king to be deposited in the library of the Escorial. A recension of this, so modernized as not wholly to be trustworthy, is printed in the Coleccion de Documentos, V, 465 sqq. I have preferred to use a MS. in Bibl. nacional, Mm, 475. It will be referred to as “Morales.”
[180] Morales, loc. cit.—Salazar, cap. XXIII.
[181] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Sala 40, Lib. 4, fol. 239.
[182] Morales says that Carranza heard his name in the brief. If so, it must have been interpolated, for the warrant was issued under that of January 7th, which was general in its terms.
[183] Morales, op. cit.—Salazar, cap. XXI.
[184] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 108, n. 3.
[185] Salazar, cap. XXV, XXVII.—Morales, loc. cit.
[186] Salazar, cap. XXIV.
[187] Llorente, cap. XXXIII, Art. iii, n. 2.
[188] Coleccion de Documentos, V, 415.
[189] Salazar, cap. XXVI.
[190] Coleccion de Documentos, V, 533-53.
[191] Salazar, cap. XXI.—Menéndez Pelayo, II, 395.
[192] Raynald. Annal, ann. 1560, n. 22, 23.—Döllinger, Beiträge, I, 329, 335-6.
[193] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. III, fol. 72.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Sala 40, Lib. 4, fol. 236, 237, 239, 240, 242, 246.—Salazar, cap. XXVII.
[194] Corpo Diplomatico Portugues, VIII, 248, 252.
[195] Relazioni Venete, Serie I, T. V, pp. 94-5.
[196] Bibl. nacional, MSS., X, 157, fol. 244.—Archivio Vaticano, Nunziatura di Spagna, Tom. I, carte 6, 8.
[197] Adolfo de Castro, Protestantes españoles, p. 221.
[198] Bibl. nacional, loc. cit.—Salazar, cap. XXV.
[199] Coleccion de Documentos, V, 553-82.
[200] Ibidem, pp. 438, 443.—Menéndez y Pelayo, II, 402-3.
[201] Coleccion de Documentos, V, 424-38.
[202] Ibidem, p. 523.
[203] Llorente, cap. XXXIV, Art. iv, n. 1.—Döllinger, Beiträge, I, 472.
[204] Pallavicini, Hist. Conc. Trident. Lib. XXI, cap. vii, n. 7.
[205] C. Trident. Sess. XIII, De Reform. cap. viii; Sess. XXIV, De Reform. cap. v.
[206] Lettere di Calini (Balus. et Mansi, IV, 314).—Salazar, cap. XXII.—Simancas (Adolfo de Castro, op. cit., pp. 214-15).—Raynald. Annal. ann. 1563, n. 137.—Bzovii Annal. ann. 1566, n. 91.—Coleccion de Documentos, V, 501.
[207] Llorente, cap. XXXIII, Art. iv, n. 9.
[208] Coleccion de Documentos, V, 495.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 976, fol. 49.
[209] Archivio Vaticano, Nunziatura di Spagna, T. I, carte 4, 5.
[210] Archivio Vaticano, Nunziatura di Spagna, T. I, carte 12, 13, 14, 15.—Dépêches de M. de Fourquevaux, I, 11 (Paris, 1896).
[211] Archivio Vaticano, Nunziatura di Spagna, T. I.
[212] Bibl. nacional, MSS., X, 157, fol. 244.—Salazar, cap. XXVIII.—Menéndez Pelayo, II, 404.—Dépêches de Fourquevaux, I, 19, 37, 46.
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
Pius IV had carried to an extreme his subservience to Philip. Pedro de Avila, one of Philip’s agents, wrote, August 23, 1565, that Cardinal Borromeo assured him that the pope had done and was doing more than he had power to do in order to gratify the king; he had gone against the canons, the councils and the cardinals and, when recently he thought himself to be dying, nothing weighed on his conscience more heavily than this.[213] His successor was a man of different stamp. To few popes does Catholicism owe more than to St. Pius V, for, while pitiless in his persecution of heresy, his recognition of the need of reform and his unbending resolution to effect it, regained for the Church much of the respect which it had forfeited. The Spanish agents speedily found that in the matter of Carranza he was incorruptible and intractable. As the ambassador Zuñiga plaintively reported to Philip, February 23, 1566, “He is certainly well-intentioned but, having no experience in affairs of state and no private interests, which are the two things that ordinarily make popes yielding, he fixes his eyes on what he deems just and is immovable.”[214] As cardinal-inquisitor and Dominican he had been favorably inclined to Carranza, whose friends received with hope the news of his accession. They conveyed this by means of an arrow aimed at one of his window-shutters and he responded by casting out a paper, picked up by a person stationed for the purpose, in which he addressed the new pope in the words of Peter, “Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water” (Matt. xiv, 28).[215]
Pius did not need urging. One of his first acts was to despatch a messenger to Buoncompagni ordering him to remain and bring the affair to a conclusion, but the legate’s Spanish experience did not incline him to return from Avignon. Doubtless his report brought conviction that justice was not to be expected in Spain, for Pius speedily made a demand for the person of Carranza and the papers so that he might decide the case. Accustomed to browbeat popes, Philip replied that the demand was offensive and contrary to the royal prerogative, as an attempt to change a matter unalterably fixed by the Holy See, and that it would not be entertained; the pope could commit the case to such persons as he pleased, provided they were Spaniards, otherwise, if Carranza should linger in prison until he died, the responsibility would not be with those who had offered every possible alternative. This audacious answer only strengthened the determination of Pius, who summoned Zuñiga and told him to tell his master that he exposed himself to all the indignation of the Holy See, for the pope was resolved to carry the matter to a conclusion. Zuñiga was silenced and could only report to Philip the terrible earnestness of Pius, from which there was no hope of diverting him.[216]
That he was in deadly earnest is apparent in his brief of July 30th, which he caused to be privately printed and sent copies to the nuncio Rossano, with an autograph letter of August 3rd, commanding its rigid execution. After dwelling on the injustice and scandal of the treatment of Carranza, he deprived Valdés, the Suprema and all concerned of jurisdiction in the case. Under pain of excommunication and suspension of functions, Carranza was to be set at liberty and, after appointing a vicar for his see of Toledo, was at once to present himself to the pope for judgement. Under pain of the indignation of God and of the apostles Peter and Paul and of excommunication, all the papers in the case were to be delivered in Rome within three months, and any one impeding the execution of these commands incurred excommunication and suspension from office.[217]
By this time Pius was known as a man who was not to be trifled with, but Valdés and the Suprema were ready to risk a rupture with the Vicegerent of Christ rather than to remit their victim to his judgement. When Philip consulted them they urged him not to permit even a copy of the process to be sent to Rome, much less Carranza’s person, lest he should impair his prerogatives. They asserted that the papal brief had given ample power both to prosecute and to sentence and that, having been granted, it could not be withdrawn; that, under the papal concessions to Ferdinand and Isabella, the Spanish Inquisition was wholly independent of Rome and that, if the episcopal character were successfully urged in this case, some other excuse would be found in other cases.[218]
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
Valdés might be willing to risk a schism, but Philip drew back; it was not to be thought of that the Catholic king should incur excommunication, and he recognized what strength the heretic cause throughout Europe would derive from such a quarrel in such a cause. Still he dallied, until Pius forced Valdés to resign and threatened to lay all Spain under interdict.[219] He had encountered a will stronger than his own and Antonio Tiepolo, the Venetian envoy, is doubtless correct in saying that no other pope but Pius could have carried his point.[220] The pressure became irresistible and he yielded. Carranza, under charge of the hated inquisitor Diego González and guarded by a body of troops, left Valladolid December 5th, reaching Cartagena on the 31st, where he was confined in the castle until April 27, 1567, awaiting the arrival of the voluminous papers of the case, when he was placed on the admiral’s ship which was conveying the Duke of Alva on his fateful way to Flanders. Civita Vecchia was reached May 25th and Rome May 28th, where he was confined in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo—a second imprisonment that was to last for nine years. It was much less harsh than the previous one; besides his two faithful attendants he was allowed two others; he was assigned apartments in the quarters reserved for archbishops, he was sometimes permitted to leave his room under guard and enjoy the landscape, and at the first jubilee he was admitted to confession, although communion was still denied.[221]
The case promised to be as interminable in Rome as it had been in Spain. The anxiety of Pius for a thorough investigation caused endless delays, which were skilfully improved by the agents of the Inquisition. The enormous mass of papers reached Rome in the utmost confusion and some portions were lacking which had to be sent for. Then they had to be translated, as well as the voluminous Commentaries, which consumed a year. Philip was frequently sending new opinions and statements and Pius ordered all of Carranza’s writings, and even notes of his lectures taken by students, to be searched for and brought to Rome. He formed a special congregation of seventeen consultors, including four of the Spaniards who had been concerned in the case, with Ramírez as the fiscal. When all was ready the congregation met weekly under the presidency of the pope; the Spaniards insisted on his presence and, as his other duties frequently prevented this, the affair dragged on from year to year. Philip followed it with intense anxiety, as shown in his correspondence with Zuñiga. Thus a long letter of instructions, June 6, 1570, tells the ambassador to assure the pope that everything had been done in Spain with the most minute deliberation; there is an almost childish insistence on the opinions of some obscure theologians as to Carranza’s guilt, and it is pointed out that, if he is acquitted, he will teach and preach with greater authority than before and the whole prosecution will have been a blunder. All this, he says, should have weight with the pope, who is moreover to be threatened with what the king may find it necessary to do if the sentence is warped by personal considerations. Foolish communications of this kind were reiterated until, August 12, 1571, Pius, in an autograph letter, alluded to the repetition of these insinuations, which he declared to be groundless and, in dignified terms, warned Philip not to let his pious zeal get the better of his discretion.[222]
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
The Spanish tactics of delay were successful. Pius V died, May 1, 1572, without having published a sentence. Whether one was framed or not is a disputed question. Salazar tells us that it was drawn up, but that Pius, before publication, desired to submit it to Philip and sent it by his chief chamberlain, Alessandro Casale, who was detained by bad weather and other accidents until after the death of the pope. Llorente gives the details of the sentence as absolving Carranza of the charges but maintaining the prohibition of the Commentaries in the vernacular, with permission to translate it into Latin after removing the doubtful expressions. Simancas, who was one of the inquisitors employed on the case in Rome, says positively that Pius died without framing a sentence; that when Carranza’s friends claimed that he had done so, and urged his successor, Gregory XIII, to publish it, the latter offered twenty thousand crowns to any one who would produce it and thus save him the task of reviewing the case.[223] However this may be, Pius was convinced of Carranza’s innocence. He allowed the Commentaries to be publicly sold in Rome; when the fiscal Salgado petitioned for its suppression, he made no answer and, when Salgado insisted upon it in the congregation, he replied angrily that he did not consider it subject to suppression and that they had better not by persistence force him formally to approve it by a motu proprio.[224]
Gregory XIII was not liable to the reproach bestowed by Zuñiga on Pius V of indifference to personal and worldly considerations. He was quite accessible to them and realized fully the importance to the Holy See of keeping on good terms with the Spanish master of Italy. His experience as the Legate Buoncompagni had sufficiently acquainted him with Philip’s temper and, when Carranza’s friends naturally expected him to take the matter up where the death of Pius had left it, he insisted on going over it personally from the beginning. As he could give but fragmentary attention to it he was thus able to postpone committing himself for some years. This gave Philip opportunity to gather fresh testimony. By means not the most gentle, the survivors of Carranza’s friends, who had approved of the Commentaries, were induced to retract. The three bishops, Guerrero, Blanco and Delgado condemned propositions by the hundred, drawn from works submitted to them as Carranza’s and they exculpated themselves from their approval of the Commentaries by saying that they had not then seen his MS. writings and, in view of his reputation, they had sought to give a Catholic sense wherever possible. Other opinions were industriously collected; Gregory made a decent show of resistance to admitting fresh testimony at this late day, but yielded to Philip’s threats of what he might find necessary to do in case his desires were thwarted, and thus excuses, if not reasons, were afforded for reaching a different conclusion from that of Pius V.[225]
As the time approached at which it was understood that the long protracted case would be terminated, Philip’s anxiety increased. An autograph letter of February 16, 1575, to Pope Gregory, strongly urged Carranza’s speedy condemnation, in view of the dangers which he had represented to Pius, and asked the fulfilment of a promise to communicate to him the sentence before publication. Whether such promise was made or not, Gregory refused to submit it to him, but intimation of what it was to be reached him and, on April 20th, he wrote vigorously to Zuñiga expressing surprise that the pope did not keep his word. As for Carranza, he was so thoroughly convicted of heresy that, according to inquisitorial routine, he ought to be burnt, or at least reconciled after abjuring all kinds of heresy. To allow him to abjure for vehement suspicion of heresy, with temporary suspension from his see, assumes that in time he will return to occupy the primatial church of Toledo, which would cause disturbance and scandal impossible to contemplate. The pope can well conceive the dangers which may follow, in Spain and elsewhere, by the mere example of such a criminal in such a position. Even if the suspension were perpetual yet, if God should remove his Holiness, a successor might lift the suspension unless Carranza is wholly deprived.[226]
This was passion and eloquence wasted, for the sentence had been pronounced six days before, on April 14, 1576. Whatever promise Gregory had made was kept to the letter but not to the spirit by announcing it to him on April 11th. Its provisions were shrewdly framed to turn the whole affair to the advantage of the Holy See, by keeping Carranza as a potential sword of Damocles hanging over Philip’s head and meanwhile absorbing the revenues of the see of Toledo. The tenor of the articles was, as communicated to Philip:—
The Archbishop of Toledo will be declared vehemently suspect of sundry errors and as such will be required to abjure them.
He will be suspended and removed from the administration of his church for five years and subsequently at the pleasure of the pope and the Holy See.
During this time he will be recluded in a monastery in Orvieto, and not allowed to depart without special licence of the pope and the Holy See.
The pope will appoint an administrator of the church of Toledo, with disposition of all the fruits since the date of sequestration and during the suspension, which he will convert to the benefit of the Church and other pious uses, after deducting pensions, expenses and debts.
For the support of the archbishop there shall be assigned a monthly allowance of a thousand gold crowns.
Some salutary penances will be imposed on him.
ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA
His Catechism will be prohibited to be possessed, read, or printed.[227]
The errors of which he was declared vehemently suspect amounted to sixteen, professedly drawn from his writings. As they were merely the peg on which to hang the sentence they need not be recapitulated here and it suffices to say that on April 12th they were taken, with the abjuration, by Giantonio Fachinetti (afterwards Innocent XI) to the Castle of Sant’ Angelo, where Carranza obediently signed the abjuration.[228]
The publication of the sentence was made with a solemnity befitting the conclusion of a case which, for seventeen years, had occupied the attention of Christendom. On April 14th, Carranza was brought from his prison to the Hall of Constantine, where Gregory occupied the papal throne under a canopy, the cardinals sat on benches and about a hundred other spectators stood around. After the opening formalities, Gregory handed a roll containing the sentence to Alonso Castellon, the secretary in the case, who read it aloud. It was very long, reciting the vicissitudes of the affair from the beginning and concluded with the articles as stated above. Then Carranza read his abjuration, as Simancas tells us, with impassive indifference, as though it related to another, after which he was led to the feet of the pope who expatiated on the mercy shown to him and told him he might expect more if he lived as he ought. He was then handed to the captain of the guard to be conveyed to the Dominican convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva and, as he was led out, in passing Cardinal Gambara, he quietly asked him to have his effects transferred to the convent. Evidently there was no sense of guilt or humiliation.[229] It was a fitting end to Gregory’s disgraceful part in the tragedy that when, on April 20th, he formally notified Philip and the chapter of Toledo of the result, he mournfully expressed his regret that he had been compelled to condemn in place of acquitting, as he had hoped.[230]
As a penance, the pope ordered Carranza to visit the seven churches on Saturday of Easter week (April 28th) and offered him his own litter and horses for his servants, which he declined. It was noised abroad and the whole population was stirred to accompany him, for the compassion felt for him was universal. To avoid such a demonstration Gregory changed the day to Monday the 23rd, but notwithstanding this the throng of coaches and crowds of people changed the penance into a triumph. In the churches he was received with all honor and at the Lateran he celebrated mass but, towards the end of the day, a strangury commenced and, on his return to the convent, he took to his bed, never to leave it. The disease made rapid progress, during which the pope repeatedly sent consolatory messages and, on April 30th, his apostolic benediction, with an indulgence a poena et a culpa. The same day Carranza made a solemn declaration before his secretaries, affirming his unbroken adhesion to the faith; he received with fervor the last consolations of religion and passed away at 3 A.M. on May 2nd. He had entered his prison a vigorous man of 56 and had left it to die, a broken old man of 73.[231]
ABCHBISHOP CARRANZA
That an autopsy should have been ordered indicates that immediately doubts had arisen whether the death had been natural. The physicians reported some slight ulcers in one kidney and three stones in the gall-bladder, but in a position to do no harm and they attributed the retention to some “carnosities.”[232] If suspicions existed of poison, they found no public utterance that has reached us, yet, in an age when the removal of an impediment was a recognized resource of state policy, the opportune and sudden death of Carranza is at least suggestive. We have seen how energetically Philip remonstrated against his being left in a position in which his return to Toledo was possible. His resumption of his see would have inflicted an incurable wound on the authority and influence of the Inquisition and have covered the monarch with mortification; it would have led to complications which, in the temper of the age, would have been insoluble. The injustice meted out to Carranza had rendered his death a necessity, if he was not branded as a heretic or disqualified as a bishop. Philip and he could not exist together in Spain. Besides, so long as Carranza lived, he was a dangerous weapon, in the hands of the papacy, to thwart Spanish policy by threats of removing the suspension or to extort concessions as the price of maintaining it. To attribute his sudden death to the zeal of Spanish agents in Rome, or to secret orders sent in advance, would do no injustice to a prince who did not shrink from the executions of Montigny and Lanuza or the assassinations of Escobedo and of William the Silent. It suited him, however, to accept it piously as a special dispensation of Providence. June 11th he replied to Gregory’s letter of April 11th and 16th conveying copies of the sentence and abjuration. To persons, he said, of great learning and experience in Spain, the sentence was too lenient, but he recognized the pope’s holy zeal and that God’s hand had applied the proper remedy to avert greater evils.[233] Yet subsequently Morales, writing by Philip’s order, concludes his account “They say that he apparently died as a saint, which I believe and that it was really so.... The Lord reserved him for the other life, a signal mercy which he grants to those whom it pleases him.”[234]
In one respect the Inquisition was triumphant. The Commentaries, which had been approved by the Council of Trent and by Pius IV and Pius V, was condemned and prohibited with a callous disregard of consistency. The work remained in the successive issues of the Spanish Index until 1747, but was dropped in the latest one of 1790. Rome was even more persistent and retained it until 1899, though it disappeared, with much other antiquated lumber, in the recension of 1900. Yet Carranza’s reputation as an orthodox champion of the Church seems to have suffered little from his prosecution and condemnation. Cardinal Quiroga, the inquisitor-general, who in 1577 succeeded him in the see of Toledo, caused his portrait to be placed with those of his predecessors, erected a tomb to his memory and, in June, 1578, performed solemn obsequies for him which lasted for a fortnight.[235] Odoricus Raynaldus, the official annalist of the Holy See, and Cardinal Pallavicini, the official historian of the Council of Trent, unite in saying that nothing serious was found against him, only vehement suspicion, and that on his death-bed he gave evidence not only of uncorrupted faith but of singular piety.[236] Nicholás Antonio tells us that for some mere presumptions, in the absence of legitimate proof of admitted impiety, he was ordered by abjuration to purge all suspicion of guilt.[237] Balmés, the champion of Catholicism, while admitting that, on the delicate subject of justification, his expressions lacked clearness, asserts that beyond doubt, in his own conscience before God, he was wholly innocent.[238] The dispassionate judgement of posterity has condemned the Inquisition in acquitting its victim.
If Philip failed to blast the memory of Carranza he at least succeeded in one of his objects. For seventeen years he had wrongfully enjoyed Carranza’s sequestrated revenues, which, allowing for all deductions, must have yielded him two or three millions of ducats. Much must have been spent in the endeavor to convict the rightful possessor but, when the case was concluded, outstanding engagements were repudiated. During the trial in Rome, Don Lope de Avellaneda had borrowed twenty-six thousand ducats to pay the salaries of the parties employed in the notoriously expensive litigation of the curia, but the bills of exchange drawn to satisfy the indebtedness were returned dishonored. The Roman bankers were too important an adjunct of the curia not to be efficiently protected; on April 10, 1577, Gregory wrote to the inquisitors (probably of Toledo) to collect the amount, with interest up to the date of payment, from the revenue of the archiepiscopal table of Toledo, enforcing the demand, if necessary, by excommunication, interdict and the invocation of the secular arm.[239] Philip evidently maintained his hold on the revenues until the consecration of Archbishop Quiroga, in December, 1577, and his administrator would allow no diversion of the funds. Gregory, in the sentence had endeavored to provide for an accounting to him of the accumulations, but the effort was a failure. Like Philippe le Bel, in the analogous case of the Templars, Philip had a grip on the spoils which nothing could loosen. When, in 1581, Gregory sought to stimulate him to undertake an expedition against Queen Elizabeth, and promised him financial assistance towards so pious an enterprise, it turned out that this aid was merely the mesne profits of the see of Toledo which he had collected and had long since consumed.[240]
JURISDICTION CLAIMED
The affair of Carranza seems to have been regarded as weakening the position of bishops and, with the customary audacity of the inquisitors in extending their jurisdiction, the tribunal of Cuenca boasted or threatened that it would arrest the bishop. The services of the incumbent, Pedro de Castro, in furnishing evidence against Carranza, had been too recent to permit him to be hoisted by his own petard and Valdés, in a letter of June 17, 1560, rebuked the tribunal for its superserviceable zeal.[241] We have seen how the bishops, at the Council of Trent, endeavored to protect themselves by reserving to the pope exclusive right to pronounce sentence, but this was of small avail when he assumed the right to delegate his power as he pleased. When Sixtus V, January 25, 1586, issued a commission to the Cardinal Archduke Albert of Austria, as inquisitor-general of Portugal, it specifically subjected archbishops, bishops and patriarchs to his jurisdiction and that of his subdelegates.[242] As Portugal was under the Spanish crown, this served as a precedent when in December, 1629, the Inquisition desired to prosecute Gavino Mallani, Archbishop of Oristano in Sardinia, against whom it had gathered evidence that, since his consecration, in 1627, he had never been to confession or had celebrated mass, that he was a blasphemer, that he had a familiar demon confined in a ring, etc. The Suprema submitted to Philip IV the Portuguese commission and asked him to instruct his ambassador to procure a similar one for Spain or, failing this, to obtain a special brief for the case of Mallani. Philip ordered the necessary letter to be drafted for his signature, but the effort failed. Mallani was probably sent to Rome with the evidence, for he was deposed, being succeeded, in 1635, by Pedro Vico, while he did not die until 1641.[243] In spite of this recognition of lack of jurisdiction over bishops, we have seen (Vol. I, p. 501) that, in the quarrel with Manjarre de Heredia, Bishop of Majorca, in 1668, Inquisitor-general Nithard claimed that the Inquisition could prosecute him criminally. He had the effrontery to assert, in a consulta of February 5, 1668, that its possession of this power was so notorious and so completely established in practice as to require neither argument nor demonstration, and the infatuated queen-regent sustained him in summoning the bishop to appear for trial. In spite of an adverse decision in Rome, the Inquisition continued the prosecution, even after the expulsion of Nithard, and proceedings ceased only with the death of the bishop.[244]
The next case in which the Inquisition had to deal with a bishop was one which attracted much attention at the time—that of José Fernando de Toro, Bishop of Oviedo. We shall have to consider it hereafter in its relation with Illuminism and Molinism and need only say here that he was an adept in the dangerous mysticism which mistook the promptings of the senses for divine impulses and taught that union with God conferred impeccability. There was no doubt of his guilt, for he confessed freely when arraigned, and the Inquisition raised no question as to the exclusive papal jurisdiction. After elaborate investigation, Inquisitor-general Ibañez de la Riva Herrera put the mass of testimony into shape and sent it to Clement XI, November 27, 1709. On June 7, 1710, Clement authorized the imprisonment of Toro and the prosecution of the case, the results to be sent to him. After the death of Ibañez, a fresh commission was sent to his successor Giudice; in 1714 Clement granted permission to Toro to come to Rome, but this was not carried out until 1716, when he was confined in the Castle of Sant Angelo and his trial dragged on until 1719. Sentence was pronounced July 27th, with the same ceremonies as that of Carranza, the records of which were examined for the purpose.[245]
JURISDICTION ASSERTED
While the Inquisition thus freely admitted its incompetence to sit in judgement on bishops yet, in the next case that occurred, it asserted complete jurisdiction. Manual Abad Queipo was bishop-elect of Mechoacan (Valladolid) in Mexico where, although not consecrated, he was accepted by the chapter and governed the diocese as bishop, fulminating, in 1810, excommunication against Hidalgo and his followers, which was confirmed by the archbishop, Ligama y Beaumont.[246] He was thus fully recognized as bishop and it was probably the disturbed state of the land, during the rebellion of Hidalgo and Morelos, that prevented the assembling of bishops for his consecration. In the turbulence of the period he made enemies and an anonymous denunciation was lodged against him with the Mexican tribunal. It collected evidence and forwarded it, August 31, 1814, to the Suprema which referred it to the Madrid tribunal for investigation and report.
The question as to the liability of bishops-elect is rather intricate, dependent on whether there has been presentation by the king or election by the chapter and confirmation by the pope,[247] but it would seem that Queipo was not subject to the Inquisition, nor were the charges matters of heresy. The Madrid tribunal recognized this in its report, October 27, 1814, saying that he should be cited to answer, provided his office did not stand in the way, at the same time admitting that the charges were the work of enmity and that at most he had been careless in conduct and ministration. Queipo returned to Spain and, on February 12, 1816, the Suprema ordered the tribunal to proceed. He refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction; the tribunal, May 16th, pronounced his reasons invalid and the Suprema, September 2nd took the high ground that no one could question its acts; when it has once declared itself a competent judge no private person could dispute it or impede the execution of its decrees. This could only be done by an authority feeling its jurisdiction invaded and, as there was none such in the kingdom, he was only prejudicing his case, which otherwise he could expedite and preserve the right of maintaining his claims by a protest which would be admitted. Queipo offered to answer the charges extra-judicially, but this was refused and he was told that if he did not present himself to answer them fully within three days, he would be prosecuted in contumacy. He yielded under protest and was spared the humiliation of appearing in the Inquisition, for Inquisitor Zorilla was ordered to conduct the audiences in the convent where he was residing, but during them he was ordered not to leave it and when they were over he was set at liberty, under command to present himself at the house of the fiscal whenever summoned. Thus, at the end of its career, the Inquisition successfully asserted its jurisdiction over a bishop, but he had his revenge. It was evidently no accident that, in the revolution of 1820, Queipo was made a member of the Provisional Junta of March 9th which, on the same day, caused Fernando VII to decree the extinction of the Holy Office.[248]
CHAPTER IV.
THE EDICT OF FAITH.
OCCASIONAL allusions have been made above to the Edicts of Faith, whereby the tribunals obtained knowledge of offences coming within their jurisdiction. This was one of the most efficient methods by which that jurisdiction was exercised and was brought home to the consciences of the people as an ever-present power. It rendered every individual an agent of the Inquisition, bound under fearful penalties spiritual and temporal, to aid it in maintaining the purity of the faith and, at the same time, it made every man conscious that his lightest word or act might subject him to prosecution by that terrible court whose very name inspired dread. No more ingenious device has been invented to subjugate a whole population, to paralyze its intellect and to reduce it to blind obedience. It elevated delation to the rank of high religious duty, it filled the land with spies and it rendered every man an object of suspicion, not only to his neighbor but to the members of his own family and to the stranger whom he might chance to meet. Continued through generations, this could not fail to leave its impress on the national character. Even Mariana, in enumerating the results of the Inquisition, ventures to allude to the cautious reserve which it rendered habitual among Spaniards.[249]
A somewhat crude prototype of the Edict of Faith is found in the old Inquisition, when inquisitors visited their districts and, at each town, summoned an assembly of the people, preached to them and caused to be read an edict calling upon all the inhabitants to come forward within a specified time and reveal anything that might tend to the suspicion that any one was a heretic, under pain of ipso facto excommunication, removable only by them or by the pope.[250] While this was nominally preserved in the Aragonese Inquisition, that institution had become so inert that we may assume that the inquisitors no longer visited their districts or had occasion to issue edicts. In Castile, when the Inquisition was founded, this practice was evidently unknown, for the Instructions of 1484 merely order that when the inquisitors open their tribunal in any town, after the sermon they shall publish a monition with censures against all who resist or contradict them.[251] By 1500, however, the efficacy of what became known as the Edict of Faith had been discovered, and Inquisitor-general Deza, in ordering yearly visitations of the districts, specifies that, on arriving at every town or village, a general edict shall be issued, summoning those who know anything of heresy to come forward and reveal it.[252] The form of this was probably the same as that which, in the same year 1500, the inquisitors of Sicily, Dr. Sgalambro and Montoro Bishop of Cefalù, issued, requiring all cognizant of heresy to denounce it within fifteen days, promising secrecy to the informer and threatening with prosecution, as fautors of heresy, those who failed to do so.[253] In Catalonia, the Concordia of 1512, in alluding to the edict requiring the denunciation of all offences against the faith, shows that it was already an established custom,[254] while, in 1514, the Instructions of Inquisitor-general Mercader prove that the various offences included in the expanding jurisdiction of the Inquisition were specifically enumerated, for the general term of heresy no longer sufficed.[255] The effect on the people of these proclamations, with their threats and anathemas, is vividly expressed in the description of the terror excited by the publication of the edict, when the tribunal of Jaen made a raid on Arjona.[256]
DETAILS OF THE EDICT
As, in the course of time, new fields of activity were opened to the Inquisition the enumeration of offences requiring denunciation grew to be a long and detailed catalogue, in which all the acts by which they could be recognized were specified so that there could be no excuse for omission. The simplest and oldest formula which I have met is that published in Mexico at the installation of the Inquisition, in 1571, and, in view of its comparative brevity, it is given in the Appendix. Subsequently the edict grew to portentous dimensions, the purport of which can be gathered from an abstract of that of 1696.
It begins by reciting that the fiscal has represented that for some time there has been no visitation or inquest made in many places of the province, whereby numerous crimes against the faith remain unpunished. Seeing this complaint to be justified, the edict is addressed to every one individually, so that, if he has known or heard say that any one, living or dead, present or absent, has done or uttered or believed any act, word or opinion, heretical, suspect, erroneous, rash, ill-sounding, scandalous or heretically blasphemous, it must be revealed to the tribunal within six days. Then follows an enumeration of all Jewish rites and customs; then similar lists concerning Mahometanism, Protestantism and Illuminism; then, under the heading of “Diversas Heregias,” follow blasphemy, with specimens of heretical oaths; keeping or invoking familiar demons; witchcraft; pacts tacit or expressed with the devil; mixing for this purpose sacred and profane objects and attributing to the creature that which belongs to the Creator; marrying in Orders; solicitation of women in confession; bigamy; saying that there is no sin in simple fornication, or usury, or perjury, or that concubinage is better than marriage; insulting or maltreating crucifixes or images of saints; disbelieving or doubting any article of faith; remaining a year under excommunication or despising the censures of the Church; having recourse to astrology, which is described at length and pronounced fictitious; being guilty of sorcery or divination, the practices of which are described with instructive profusion; possessing books condemned in the Index, including Lutheran and Mahometan works and Bibles in the vernacular; neglecting to perform the duty of denouncing what has been seen or heard, or persuading others to omit it; giving false witness in the Inquisition; concealing or befriending heretics; impeding the Inquisition; removing sanbenitos placed by the Inquisition; throwing off sanbenitos or non-performance of penance by reconciled penitents, or their saying that they confessed in the Inquisition through fear; saying that those relaxed by the Inquisition were innocent martyrs; non-observance of disabilities by reconciled penitents, their children or grandchildren; possession by scriveners or notaries of papers concerning the above-enumerated crimes. Confessors, moreover, were ordered, under the same penalties, to withhold absolution from penitents who had not denounced all offences coming to their knowledge.[257] This was a tolerably searching grand inquest in which the whole population was summoned to assist, and the ceremonies of its publication were designed to render it as impressive as possible.
On the Saturday previous, a proclamation was made by the inquisitors, requiring all persons over the age of twelve (or of fourteen in some texts) to assemble to hear the edict and, on the following Sundays to hear the anathema, under pain of excommunication and of fifty ducats.[258] In the smaller towns this proclamation was made by the town-crier or, if there were none, by house-to-house notification. The next day, at the offertory in the mass, the edict was to be read slowly, distinctly and in a loud voice, after which the priest was to explain the obligation to denounce whatever was known of the living and of the dead, of themselves or of others, and the peril of omitting it; it was not to be talked about but was to be done directly, even if it was known that others had done so, otherwise the penalty was incurred.[259]
In larger cities, especially the seats of tribunals, the ceremonies were more imposing. In Seville, for instance, on the afternoon of Saturday before the second Sunday of Lent, the familiars assembled on horseback at the castle of Triana, where they formed a procession with drummers and trumpeters and the town-crier to escort the alguazil mayor and one of the secretaries of the Inquisition. This wound through the city, stopping at eight principal places, to publish the proclamation and to order that there should be no sermons in other churches on the days of the publication and anathemas. Then, on those Sundays, other processions were timed to meet the inquisitors at the doors of the cathedral and San Salvador—the churches designated for the ceremonies. Inside, the secretary, at the proper time, mounted the pulpit and read the edict; the sermon followed and then the mass was resumed.[260]
[213] Döllinger, Beiträge, I, 628.
[214] Coleccion de Documentos, LXVIII, 456.
[215] Morales (Coleccion de Documentos, V, 478).—Salazar, cap. XXIX.
[216] Morales, ubi sup.
[217] Laderchii Annales, ann. 1566, n. 484.—Archivio Vaticano, Nunziatura di Spagna, T. I, carte 1.
[218] Morales (Coleccion de Documentos, V, 480).
[219] Menéndez Pelayo, II, 405.
[220] Relazioni Venete, Serie I, T. V, p. 144.
[221] Salazar, cap. XXVIIbis, XXIX.
[222] Coleccion de Documentoa, LXVIII, 460-2.
[223] Salazar, cap. XXXI.—Llorente, cap. XXXIV, Art. 11, n. 1.—Adolfo de Castro, op. cit. p. 229.
[224] Simancas (Adolfo de Castro, p. 227).
[225] Salazar, cap. XXXI.—Coleccion de Documentos, LXVIII, 465-71.—Archivo de Alcalá, Hacienda, Leg. 1049.—Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. III, fol. 158.—Llorente, cap. XXV, n. 11, 31; cap. XXIX, Art. 1, n. 4, 6, 7.—Menéndez Pelayo, II, 406.
[226] Coleccion de Documentos, LXVIII, 472, 473.
[227] Coleccion de Documentos, LXVIII, 478.
[228] Salazar, cap. XXXIII.—Morales (Coleccion de Doc. V, 490).—Archivo de Simancas, Lib. 976, fol. 52.
[229] Salazar, cap. XXXIII.—Adolfo de Castro, p. 233.
[230] Theiner, Annal. Ecclesiast. II. 244.
[231] Salazar, cap. XXXIV.—Simancas (Adolfo de Castro, p. 234).
[232] Salazar, cap. XXXV.
[233] Coleccion de Documentos LXVIII, 479.
[234] Bibl. nacional, MSS. Mm, 475.
[235] Salazar, cap. ult.
[236] Raynald. Annal. ann. 1560, n. 23.—Pallavicini Hist. Conc. Trident. Lib. XIV, cap. 12, n. 4.
[237] Bibliotheca nova, s. v. Bartholomaus Carranza.
[238] El Protestantismo comparado con el Catolicismo, II, 301, 306 (Barcelona, 1844). See also Tournon, Hommes illustres de l’Ordre de Saint Dominique, IV, 438. It should be added that Menéndez Pelayo (II, 376), after an examination of the testimony, asserts that it was sufficient to justify the prosecution. This may be so, according to inquisitorial methods, but not the persistent persecution that followed.
[239] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. IV, fol. 68.
[240] Hinojosa, Los Despachos de la Diplomacia pontificia, I, 303.
[241] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 939, fol. 63.
[242] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. IV, fol. 91.
[243] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 20, fol. 38; Lib. 52, fol. 21.
[244] Archivo de Simancas, Lib. 25, fol. 66; Lib. 52, fol. 100, 125, 335.
[245] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. V, fol. 141, 144, 150.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Legajos 418, 419, 1577.
[246] Coleccion de los escritos mas importantes etc. de D. Manuel Abad Queipo, Obispo electo de Mechoacan, Mexico, 1813.—I have a copy of an edict issued by him October 8, 1810, as bishop-elect, in which he alludes to two previous ones excommunicating Hidalgo and his followers.
[247] Simancæ de Cath. Institt. Tit. XXV, n. 11.—Trimarchi de Confessore abutente Sacramento Pœnit., p. 172 (Genuæ, 1636).—Coleccion de Documentos tocantes á la Persecution del Obispo de Asuncion, I, ix (Madrid, 1768).—Cf. Recop. de las Indias, Lib. I, Tit. vii, ley 51.
[248] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 877, fol. 266; Libro 890.—Rodrigo, Hist. verdadera, III, 492.
[249] Mariana, Historia de España, Lib. XXIV, cap. xvii.
[250] Eymerici Director, P. III, n. 52, 53.
[251] Instrucciones de 1484, § 2 (Arguello, fol. 3).
[252] Instructiones de 1500, § 12 (Arguello, fol. 13).
[253] La Mantia, L’Inquisizione in Sicilia, p. 26.
[254] Pragmáticas y altres Drets de Cathalunya, Lib. I, Tit. viii, cap. 1.
[255] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 933.
[256] Ibidem, Patronato Real, Inquisicion, Leg. único, fol. 43.
[257] Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, p. 148. See also Llorente, Hist. crít. Append., XI.
[258] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 498; Inquisicion de Valencia, Lib. VII de Autos, Leg. 2, fol. 61.
[259] Ibidem, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 251.
[260] MSS. Archivo municipal de Sevilla, Seccion especial, Siglo XVIII, Letra A, Tomo IV, n. 44.—Cf. Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Leg. 1475, fol. 52; Leg. 1478, fol. 106.
THE ANATHEMA
When the six days allowed for denunciation or confession had elapsed, a second proclamation was made, reciting the former one and adding that the fiscal complained that many had not complied with it and he demanded the fulmination of the censures in the most aggravated form. An edict was therefore addressed to all priests requiring them at high mass, when the people were assembled, to denounce as publicly excommunicated and anathematized all who had not obeyed the first edict, sprinkling holy water to drive away the demons who kept them in their toils and praying Christ to bring them back to the bosom of the Church. If they persisted in contumacy, all faithful Christians were ordered within three days to withdraw from all intercourse with them, under pain of similar excommunication. Both those who should have confessed and those who should have denounced, but who continued contumacious, were involved in the anathema pronounced on the third Sunday.
This was an awe-inspiring solemnity. The clergy marched in procession; the cross was covered with black and two flaming torches were on the altar, where the priests stood in profound silence during the reading of the curse.—“We excommunicate and anathematize, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, in form of law, all apostate heretics from our holy Catholic faith, their fautors and concealers who do not reveal them, and we curse them that they may be accursed as members of the devil and separated from the bosom and unity of the holy Mother Church. And we order all the faithful to hold them as such and to curse them so that they may fall into the wrath and indignation of Almighty God. May all the curses and plagues of Egypt which befell King Pharaoh come upon them because they disobey the commandments of God! May they be accursed wherever they be, in the city, or in the country, in eating and in drinking, in waking and in sleeping, in living and in dying! May the fruits of their lands be accursed and the cattle thereof! May God send them hunger and pestilence to consume them! May they be a scorn to their enemies and be abhorred of all men! May the devil be at their right hand! When they come to judgement may they be condemned! May they be driven from their homes, may their enemies take their possessions and prevail against them! May their wives and children rise against them and be orphans and beggars with none to assist them in their need! May their wickedness ever be remembered in the presence of God! May they be accursed with all the curses of the Old Covenant and of the New! May the curse of Sodom and Gomorrha overtake them and its fire burn them! May the earth swallow them alive, like Dathan and Abiram for the sin of disobedience! May they be accursed as Lucifer, with all the devils of hell, where may they remain with Judas and the damned forever, if they do not acknowledge their sin, beg mercy and amend their lives!” Then the people responded Amen! while the clergy again marched in procession, chanting the Psalms Deus laudem meam and Miserere, to the chapel or altar. The great bells tolled as for a death and the bearers of the torches extinguished them in the font of holy water saying “As these torches die in the water, so will their souls in hell!” and the procession was resumed to the sacristy. After this, the edict continues, any one knowing these things and not revealing them, and remaining contumaciously and persistently thus for a year, is held suspect in the faith and shall be prosecuted with all the rigor of the law.[261]
Thus all the resources of religious terrorism were exhausted to impress upon the popular conscience the supreme duty of denouncing kindred and friends for the slightest act or word which might be held to infer suspicion of heresy or of the varied classes of offences over which the Inquisition had succeeded in extending its jurisdiction. It is true that the constant abuse of anathemas in the pettiest quarrels with officials, lay and clerical, must have somewhat blunted their effect. It is also true that casuistry, early in the seventeenth century, had no difficulty in proving that, when the obligation to denounce involved danger to life or reputation, the natural law of self-protection overrode the positive law of denunciation, with its threat of excommunication.[262] Still, to those not trained in such subtilties and who piously believed in the power of the keys, it was impossible that this terrible cumulation of curses, temporal and spiritual, should not overcome natural affection and human kindliness. It was not the fault of the Inquisition if Spain was not converted into a nation of spies and informers, in which no man could trust those nearest and dearest to him.
ITS DISTRIBUTION
The Edict of Faith was published annually, on a Sunday in Lent, in cities which were the seat of a tribunal and, during the earlier times, elsewhere, when the inquisitors went on their visitations; indeed, we are told, in 1560, that it was of little service unless the inquisitors visited their districts, for people would not incur the labor and expense of coming from a distance and the publication was regarded as the chief object of the visiting inquisitor who was directed to see that it was made in the monasteries as well as in the churches.[263] Visiting their districts, as we shall see, was the duty most disliked by the inquisitors, which they shirked whenever possible, and, with the development of postal communication, it was easier and more speedy to send the printed edicts to commissioners for distribution. What was the total number thus annually showered upon the land we have no means of knowing, but it must have been large. In 1595, the Inquisitor Arevalo de Zuazo, reporting his visitation of the mountainous dioceses of Urgel, Vich and Solsona, states that he distributed six hundred copies among the parish churches, besides personally publishing it in all the towns. From a printer’s bill of June 7, 1759, when the custom was declining, it appears that in Valencia the edition printed was four hundred and a list of churches in the city, in which it was posted, amounted to sixty-three.[264]
This device was not confined to Spain, though Rome was somewhat tardy in adopting it. The Congregation of the Inquisition issued, January 3, 1623 a brief edict, commanding the denunciation, within twelve days, of all heretics, under pain of excommunication removable only by it or by the pope.[265] This was followed, January 10, 1666, by one more in detail, specifying the offences to be denounced. It was universal in its character and therefore applied to Spain, but as usual the Spanish Inquisition maintained its independence and continued to employ its own more elaborate formulas.[266]
Although the annual publication remained the rule, there were occasional intermissions. In 1638, for instance, it was suspended without a reason being assigned and again in 1689 on account of the death of María Luisa, wife of Carlos II.[267] Local causes, also, sometimes interfered with it, especially when questions of etiquette arose, as that which we have seen at Valladolid, in 1635, over the point whether, at its reading, a bow should be made to the sacrament or to the inquisitors. Sixteen years later, we are told that since then there had been no reading of the edict at Valladolid and that in consequence, during the visitations of the inquisitors, other places refused to have it read, on the ground that this was not done in the city where there was a full tribunal.[268] A similar trouble arose at Quito, because the Audiencia refused to allow the commissioner of the Inquisition a seat with a cushion during the reading; for this, in 1699 and again in 1700, he appealed to the viceroy, stating that, in consequence of this, it had been many years since the edict had been published there.[269]
With the decline in the activity of the Inquisition, towards the close of the eighteenth century, there grew to be negligence in the annual publication. In 1775 the Suprema ordered that there should be no change with regard to it. A document of 1777 indicates that it was still customary, but on inquiry, in 1784, by the Suprema of the tribunals, whether or not it had been suspended, shows that it was falling into desuetude, and another of 1806, asking how long it had been since the publication ceased, indicates that it had become obsolete.[270]
ITS INFLUENCE
The efficacy of the Edict of Faith is incontestable, although, in 1578, the Inquisitor Francisco de Ribera, in reporting his visitation of the dioceses of Gerona and Elne and his publication of it in places which had never before been visited, complains that it did not render the people disposed to make denunciations, which he attributes to their limited intelligence.[271] In more enlightened centres its effectiveness is seen in the frequency with which accusers preface their charges with the statement that their attention has been called to the duty by the publication of the edict. It naturally set men to searching their memories for what they had seen or heard respecting the various offences so elaborately enumerated and described. For instance, the edict was published in Madrid on September 4, 1569 and, the next day, Hans de Evalo appeared before the inquisitor to denounce Hans Brunsvi and Costancio, two members of the royal Guarda Tudesca, for things which he had heard and known of them, but of which he had thought nothing until he heard the edict read.[272] It was the same in stimulating self-denunciation, whether through pricks of conscience or fear of accusation by others. Thus, in 1581 we have two cases following each other, in which Juan González and Bartolomé Benito accuse themselves of having, in conversation with their wives, asserted that fornication is no sin, for which both were duly penanced and fined. The wives were sent for and confirmed the confessions, which we may safely attribute to the fear that the spouses might be led to denounce them.[273]
The habit of delation in which the Spaniard was thus trained continued after the Edict of Faith ceased to be published and was stimulated by the assurance of immunity through the profound secrecy which denied to the accused all knowledge of his accuser. The records of the tribunals show how these were welcomed, no matter how flimsy was the evidence, nor through how many months it had passed. Thus, January 5, 1816, the Dominican Fray Vicente Manendo writes to the tribunal of Barcelona that he had heard Joseph Castellar of Manlleu say that, on Easter day, 1815, he had been discussing some pending suits with the advocate Balderich when the time came for hearing mass and he said “Let us go to mass” to which Balderich replied by a contemptuous expression. Instructions were therefore forthwith sent to the commissioner at Panelada to put the denunciation into formal legal shape for prosecuting Balderich. Informers thus were not put to the trouble of coming forward personally and facilities for delation were brought to every man’s door. Thus on June 28, 1807 Dr. Pedro Reguart of Suria writes to the tribunal of Barcelona that he has a denunciation to make and asks that a commission be sent to some one in Suria to receive it. Full instructions were accordingly sent to the parish priest of Suria, when deposition was made to the effect that, eighteen months before, at the clinic in Barcelona, Reguart had seen, in the possession of a student named Pedro Sitzas, a book entitled Eusebio, which he understood to be prohibited, and a year ago he had also seen a copy in the hands of another student named Jaime Coll. In this case the tribunal, with rare moderation, only ordered its apparitor to seize the books in the hands of the students.[274] So carefully were accusers protected against recognition that when, in 1818, Don Francisco de Mora, a retired lieutenant of artillery, accused Don Thomas Sans, of the same corps, to the tribunal of Valencia, because, in a loose conversation between them, he had asserted that there was no sin in fornication, and when Mora found himself obliged to testify that another officer, Manuel Moreno was present, the tribunal dropped the case at his request because Moreno would have identified the source of the accusation.[275]
The very triviality of these cases is the measure of their importance. It was not merely the Judaizing converso or the secret Protestant, but the whole body of the Catholic nation that was exposed to prosecution and infamy for a thoughtless word, the denunciation of which was commanded by the Edict of Faith and invited by the impenetrable secrecy of the tribunal. The shadow of the Holy Office lay over the land and no one could feel sure that a trusted comrade might not at any moment become a spy and an informer, or might not repeat an incautious word until it reached some one who recognized the inexorable duty imposed on all—a duty more deeply felt by the conscientious than by those of easy morals.
ITS INFLUENCE
There was, moreover, the fatal facility afforded for the safe gratification of malice, as in the case of Don Joseph del Campillo, whose merits raised him from obscurity to the position of finance minister under Philip V, in 1740. In 1726, when holding a responsible office in the administration of the navy, he had a quarrel with a Gerónimite fraile over the occupancy of a house. The fraile forthwith collected gossip about him, especially from a dissolute chaplain whom he had dismissed from the service, and all this was welcomed by the tribunal of Logroño, which commenced to gather testimony against him with a view to prosecution. It came to his ears through the boasts of the frailes as to what they had done, and the profound horror which seized him at the prospect of being dishonored for life, by the mere suspicion that he was liable to prosecution, shows how terrible a weapon the system placed at the service of malignity.[276]
In the life of a nation, outward calamities can be survived and recovery from their effects is but the work of time. Far more lasting and benumbing are the results of the perpetual and unrelaxing vigilance which seeks to penetrate into the secret heart of every man, to control his thoughts, to stifle their expression, to repress every effort to move out of a beaten and prescribed track, to destroy mutual confidence and to lead each individual to regard his fellows as the possible destroyers of his reputation and career. Such was the system imposed on Spain by the Inquisition, and its appropriate expression is found in the Edict of Faith.
CHAPTER V.
APPEALS TO ROME.
SO long as the acts of the Spanish Inquisition were not final but were subject to revision by the Roman curia, its jurisdiction was incomplete. To emancipate itself from this it struggled for more than two centuries, aided unreservedly by all the power of the Spanish crown. This long-protracted and intricate contest is full of interest and merits a somewhat detailed investigation.
Soon after the Inquisition commenced its work, complaints of its remorseless cruelty poured in upon the sovereigns. They sent around, as we are told, certain conscientious prelates to investigate and report, who informed them that four thousand houses had been abandoned in Andalusia, but this seems only to have inflamed Isabella’s ardor and the business of vindicating the faith was prosecuted with undiminished energy.[277] The only refuge of the victims was the Holy See, which had always been open to appeals from the sentences of the Inquisition.
APPEALS TO ROME
Papal predominance had its foundation in the universal supreme jurisdiction, original and appellate, of Rome in all matters of faith and the unlimited area of affairs contingent on faith. This had been gradually acquired during the dark ages and was strenuously upheld, as it was the source of wealth as well as of power, and without it the Bishop of Rome would speedily shrink to his original primacy of honor. That he should divest himself of it was not to be expected, especially for the benefit of inquisitors, whose jurisdiction was a delegation from him and whose claim to superiority over bishops was based on the functions of the latter being merely “ordinary” while theirs were “apostolic.” It is true that Nicholas V, in his projected Castilian Inquisition of 1451, had granted jurisdiction without appeal, but this could have been withdrawn at any time and the whole attempt had been so soon forgotten that no allusion was ever made to it in the subsequent controversy. In the Old Inquisition, appeals to the pope were recognized, but it was an intricate and costly process, only possible to those familiar with canon law and, as the victims then were mostly peasants or ascetic missionaries, it was rarely employed and still more rarely successful.
Now, however, the situation was wholly different. The class assailed consisted largely of men of wealth or learning—merchants, bankers, lawyers, high officials, theologians and prelates, able to command the services of skilful canonists and ready to sacrifice a portion of their fortunes to save their persons from the stake and their estates from confiscation. The curia of the period, moreover, was notorious for shameless venality—a place where everything was for sale, from cardinalates to pardons, and where the supreme jurisdiction of the papacy was exploited to the utmost. It did not take long for the keen-witted Conversos to recognize that the mercy denied them in Spain could be bought in the open market of Rome and the curia, which had mourned the lost opportunity of sharing in the confiscations, welcomed the prospect of selling exemptions from confiscation.
Everything therefore pointed to an exercise of the supreme appellate jurisdiction of the Holy See which would seriously limit the activity of the Spanish Inquisition, or at least would confine it to those whose poverty rendered them unprofitable subjects of persecution. Ferdinand soon became alive to the situation and manifested little reverence for the papacy in his resolute resistance to the protection which it sold to all applicants.
CONFESSIONAL LETTERS
The earliest recourse was naturally to the papal Penitentiary. It had long been in the habit of selling confessional letters, empowering any confessor, whom the purchaser might select, to absolve him from all sins, including those reserved to the Holy See. Originally these were understood to be good only in the forum of conscience, but the further step was easily taken of making them effective also in the judicial forum, thus anticipating or annulling the action of the courts and selling immunity for crime as well as pardon for sin.[278] There was no difficulty in obtaining such letters for anyone, and they were sought by the Conversos as a means of protection in advance and of setting aside sentences after conviction. In the Appendix will be found a specimen, issued December 4, 1481, by the Major Penitentiary, to Francisco Fernández of Seville and his wife and mother. It purports to be granted by the direct command of the pope and authorizes the recipient to select any confessor who, after secret abjuration, can absolve him for all acts of heresy, apostasy, relapse and dogmatism and annul all sentences by whomsoever pronounced after trial and conviction, redintegrating him into the Church, removing all stain of heresy, restoring him to all his rights and releasing him from all punishment, only imposing on him salutary penance—which, at that period, was understood to be a money payment for the benefit of the poor, i. e. the Church or its members. A final clause grants the further faculty of overcoming all opposition by the use of censures under papal authority.
It was impossible for Ferdinand and Torquemada to allow the Inquisition to be reduced to impotence by the speculative activity of the curia in selling such exemptions, which were not only good for the future but had a retroactive effect in annulling its acts. No reverence for the Holy See could restrain them from visiting their wrath on all who were concerned in rendering effective this purchasable clemency. We have a glimpse at the methods adopted by both sides, in a notarial act, evidently part of a process to set aside a papal letter of a somewhat different kind, and to punish those engaged in its use, the narrative showing that all concerned felt that they were incurring serious perils. The notary, Anton Peláez, deposes that in Xeres de la Frontera he received from the Duke of Medina Sidonia a letter of April 16, 1482, calling him to San Lucar de Barrameda to draw certain business papers. He went and, while engaged on them in the house of Juan Matheos, on April 20th, at 2 P.M. a messenger summoned him to the duke, whom he found in company with the duchess, the Teniente de Bora, Fray Thomas, prior of the Order of Santa María de Barrameda, and others. Then entered Juan Ferrández of Seville, the duke’s contador, or auditor, carrying a bull with a lead seal, said to be from the pope, Sixtus IV, and ordered Peláez to read it to the prior. He was alarmed and refused, but finally yielded to the entreaties of the duke and duchess. Then Fray Thomas refused to accept it, as he had been inhibited verbally by the inquisitors, and promised to produce the inhibition in writing within eight days. The duchess left the room in anger, but, in a quarter of an hour, Ferrández brought Fernando de Troxillo, prior of the universidad of Xeres and not of the church of San Salvador, as described in the bull. The duke told him that this made no difference and urged him to accept it, throwing his arms around him and promising that he would expose his whole rank and dignity to make good whatever he might suffer in person or property. Troxillo accepted the bull with the greatest reverence and kissed it. Then, as apostolic judge under it, he ordered Juan Matheos, cura and vicar of San Lucar, to absolve Ferrández and his wife of any sentence of excommunication, interdict, suspension etc. placed on him by the inquisitors, on his giving security, which was promptly furnished by Gonzalo Peráez, Ruy Perráez and Ferrand Riquel, swearing that Ferrández would stand to the mandates of the Church, as required in the bull. Thereupon Troxillo, as apostolic judge, ordered Juan Matheos to absolve Ferrández and his wife, which was duly performed. The duke’s lawyers drew up an inhibition to the inquisitors, which the deponent engrossed; the duke wanted Troxillo to sign it, but the deponent privately advised him not to do so until he should consult his counsel at Xeres and, whether he did so or not, the deponent could not say.[279]
POWER OF THE PENITENTIARY
This gives us an inside view of the struggle to escape the Inquisition which was going on in every corner of the land. It was useless, for these papal letters were disregarded and the purchasers could look for no redress from the curia, for Pope Sixtus had no scruple in abandoning his customers. It was a lucrative business, this disposing of exemptions and then allowing them to be annulled for a consideration. Both sides thus contributed to the papal treasury and, as it all came from the Conversos in the end, the curia indirectly got its share of the confiscations, and the Inquisition was but nominally restricted. One device for accomplishing this is revealed in a cruzada indulgence, granted March 8, 1483, ostensibly in aid of the war with Granada, but, as Sixtus bargained for one-third of the proceeds, his share was sufficient inducement for sacrificing the purchasers of his confessional letters. A special clause of the indulgence empowered any confessor to absolve the possessor of it—the price being six reales—for killing or despoiling those seeking the Roman court, or for preventing the execution of papal letters, or for forbidding notaries to draw up acts concerning such letters, or for detaining them from those to whom they belonged,—all of which was evidently framed to allow the sovereigns to annul the papal briefs in any way they deemed best.[280]
Yet while Sixtus thus was content, for a moderate compensation, to permit those who were seeking his court to be detained or slain and to have his letters contemptuously annulled, yet when their market was threatened by the assertion that the Penitentiary was only a court of conscience and its absolutions were good only in the interior forum, his indignation burst forth in a bull of May 9, 1484, stigmatizing all such opinions as contumacious and sacrilegious. The Penitentiary, he declared, could grant absolutions good in either forum and those for the judicial forum were good in both spiritual and secular courts. This monstrous assumption, which claimed for the Penitentiary the power to anticipate or set aside the judgement of every criminal court in Europe, for the benefit of culprits who could pay the moderate fee demanded for its letters, was not merely a temporary policy adopted by Sixtus for this occasion. Having once been asserted, it was persisted in. Paul III, July 5, 1549, confirmed the bull of 1484 and subjected to the anathemas of the bull in Coena Domini all who called in question the validity of such letters; when confined to the forum of conscience they were sealed and addressed to the confessor, when intended for the judicial forum they were patent. As Paul died, November 10, 1549, before the publication of this brief, it was confirmed and issued, February 22, 1550, by Julius III.[281] It was the settled purpose of the Holy See of the period to continue this profitable business of selling pardons so long as purchasers could be found for them; they continued to plague the Inquisition and we shall see what stern measures Ferdinand found necessary for their suppression. Yet Ferdinand was justified and the curia was self-condemned for, when the Roman Inquisition was reorganized and found its operations similarly impeded by the letters of the Penitentiary, it ordered, September 26, 1550, its subordinates to pay no attention to them.[282]
Meanwhile the struggle continued in Spain. Isabella applied in 1482 to Sixtus to give her inquisitors power to pronounce final judgements that should not be subject to revision or appeal. He replied, February 23, 1483, that he would take counsel with the Sacred College, the result of which was a bull of May 25th, in which he conferred on Iñigo Manrique, Archbishop of Seville, appellate jurisdiction from the inquisitors, deputizing him in place of the pope for the Spanish dominions.[283] This expedient brought no relief to the Conversos. The inquisitors paid no respect to it and would-be appellants found that it was not safe to go to Seville for revision of their cases by the archbishop. It was the same with the letters of absolution that continued to be issued; they were disregarded and many fugitives who had procured them found on their return that they had been burnt in effigy during their absence and that the document on which they relied was of no avail. They needed something more and Sixtus was nothing loath to grant it. As early as August 2nd, he followed the bull of May 25th with another, for which we may safely assume that the Conversos paid roundly, for in it he evoked to Rome all pending cases of appeal, he ordered the Spanish bishops to protect at all hazards the bearers of papal letters of absolution, even to the invocation of the secular arm, and he entreated Ferdinand and Isabella to show mercy to their subjects as they hoped for mercy from God.[284]
STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA
Whatever was paid for this was money vainly thrown into the bottomless sea of the curia. Eleven days later, with shameless effrontery, Sixtus wrote to the sovereigns that it had been issued without proper deliberation and that he suspended it. This reinstated Manrique as appellate judge, and Juan of Seville, who had carried the previous brief to the Bishop of Evora for multiplying, was brought, with his companions, before the archbishop, who condemned them.[285] The gold of the victims was vainly pitted against the unalterable will of the sovereigns, for the Holy See had no scruple in selling exemptions and abandoning the purchasers. The delegation to Archbishop Manrique by no means inferred that Sixtus relinquished his own profitable appellate jurisdiction and, to encourage appeals, it was necessary to manifest indignation when the inquisitors rated the papal action at its true value. How little they respected it is manifested in a brief of July 4, 1484, addressed to the inquisitors Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martin, reciting that the Dean of Mondoñedo, two canons of Seville and several others, whom they were prosecuting and whose property they had sequestrated, had appealed from them; that Sixtus had referred the cases to the Bishop of Terracina and some auditors of the Sacred Palace, at whose instance the inquisitors had been ordered to cease proceedings, to grant absolution ad cautelam and to lift the sequestration which deprived the parties of the means to carry on the appeal; that the inquisitors had not only flatly refused obedience and had kept possession of the property, but had constrained the appellants under oath and threat of censures not to prosecute the appeal or even to write to Rome, on the ground that they had the jurisdiction and would render judgement. Wherefore Sixtus now pronounces null and void all proceedings since the issue of the inhibitory order and prohibits further action under threat of excommunication; the sequestration is to be lifted and all the papers are to be sent to Rome.[286] There was no reason why this should command obedience more than the previous order and we may feel sure that the appellants fared no better in consequence. The case has interest only as a specimen of innumerable others which were bringing an abundant harvest to the officials of the curia, without affording relief to the victims, who were like a shuttlecock between two battledores, yielding sport to the players, as they were driven from one to the other.
Archbishop Manrique’s position as appellate judge must also have been lucrative for, on his death in 1485, the succession was eagerly sought for and was obtained by the papal vice-chancellor, Rodrigo Borgia, but Ferdinand had had experience of him in Valencia and the sovereigns remonstrated so effectually that he was obliged to withdraw in favor of their nominee, Cardinal Hurtado de Mendoza, Bishop of Palencia.[287]
Sixtus IV had died, August 12, 1484, to be succeeded by Innocent VIII. The Inquisition might hope for an improvement, but was resolved to resist with greater energy than before, if the new pope should imitate his predecessor. In a series of instructions, issued December 6, 1484, Torquemada provided for a resident agent in Rome, whose expenses were to be defrayed from the confiscations; he complained of the extraordinary and illegal letters so profusely granted by Sixtus and announced that the sovereigns would suspend the operation of such letters, but that action would be withheld until it should be seen whether Innocent continued a practice so prejudicial.[288] Innocent must already have given evidence that his methods were the same as those of Sixtus, for, in less than ten days, Ferdinand issued, December 15th, a savage pragmática far more decisive than Torquemada had forecast, for it decreed death and confiscation for all who should use such letters, whether emanating from the pope or his subordinates, unless they should have received the royal exequatur, and all notaries and scriveners who should act under them or make transcripts of them were deprived of their offices.[289]
STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA
As a matter of course the change of pontiffs worked no change in the lucrative business, except that perhaps under Innocent the practice of taking money and betraying those who paid it became more unblushing than before and promises to both sides were made and broken with still greater facility. To this end, care was taken to maintain the papal jurisdiction, for when the new pope was asked to confirm or renew Torquemada’s commission and power was asked for him to disregard the exemptions issued in blank for names to be filled in and absolutions granted on false confessions, and other abuses impeding in every way the Inquisition, Innocent turned a deaf ear and the commission was only renewed, not enlarged.[290] Then the sovereigns assumed the power denied to Torquemada and issued circular letters, July 29, 1485, addressed to all the ecclesiastical authorities, reciting how, to the scandal of religion, disregard of the royal pre-eminence and damage to the fisc, certain parties obtained bulls, rescripts, provisions and confessional letters, from Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII, to protect themselves in their crimes. As it is not to be supposed that the popes would do this knowingly, all such letters are suspended until the papal intention, after due information, can be ascertained and obeyed. Meanwhile no such briefs are to be enforced until after submission to the sovereigns for their approval.[291]
It is not easy to follow the rapid tergiversations of the pope, for the pledges given to either side were impartially violated almost as soon as given, the only explanation being that both sides could get what briefs they desired provided they were willing to pay what was demanded. For awhile the influence of Ferdinand and Isabella prevailed and, in a solemn repetition of Torquenada’s commission, April 24, 1486, Innocent directed that all appeals should be made to him and not to the Holy See.[292] Still more emphatic was a disgraceful brief of November 10, 1487, by which he declared inoperative all the letters issued by the Penitentiary, whose purchasers he thus surrendered to the inquisitors, whom he authorized to proceed in spite of the inhibitions contained in them.[293] Possibly he may have recognized that this breach of faith was likely to damage the market by destroying confidence, for the ink was scarce dry on this brief when he issued another, November 27th, ordering that, when such letters were produced, they, or authentic copies of them, should be sent, with details of the case, and that, until his decision was announced, proceedings should be suspended.[294]
Ferdinand thereupon forbade the inquisitors to accept such letters, notwithstanding which their issue continued without intermission for, on May 17, 1488, Innocent declares that they should be invalid unless presented within a month of that date.[295] Simultaneous with this was an elaborate bull of the same date, doubtless procured by the Converses of Aragon, addressed to the Bishop of Majorca, reciting the daily appeals from the kingdoms of Aragon which were committed to judges in the curia who issued inhibitions to the inquisitors. As this impeded the Inquisition the pope evoked to himself all pending cases and committed them to the bishop to be decided without appeal, his commission continuing during the papal pleasure.[296] We may reasonably doubt whether Ferdinand permitted the bishop to exercise these functions; even if he did so the Conversos profited little, for the good bishop died in about six months and there is no trace of the appointment of a successor.
Yet when Ferdinand wanted to save those whom he favored from the Inquisition, he sometimes had recourse to procuring for them papal letters to which he granted his exequatur. He did this for his treasurer, Gabriel Sánchez and for the vice-chancellor of Aragon, Alonso de la Caballería; Gabriel Sánchez also obtained letters for his brothers Alonso and Guillen, which Ferdinand approved and had some difficulty, in 1498, in preventing the tribunal of Saragossa from seizing and suppressing them.[297] There was an even more significant recognition of the appellate power of the Holy See in the case of Gonsalvo Alfonsi, defunct, in 1493. The consulta de fe was unable to reach unanimity and, in place of referring it to the Suprema, the consultors referred it to Alexander VI, who, by brief of August 13th, appointed the Bishop of Córdova and the Benedictine Prior of Valladolid to decide the case, at the same time inhibiting the inquisitors from further cognizance.[298]
STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA
The year 1492 saw the conquest of Granada achieved and the death of Innocent VIII. The one event greatly increased the reputation and influence of Ferdinand and the other placed in the papal chair Rodrigo Borgia, better known as Alexander VI. Both men were unscrupulous, but the political situation brought them into close relations and the services rendered by the king to the pope—or still more, perhaps, the disservice which he could render—made the latter eager to gratify him. In 1494 he confirmed and enlarged the letters of Innocent VIII prescribing that appeals should be made to the inquisitor-general and not to the Holy See.[299] To render this effective he commissioned, as we have seen, one of the inquisitors-general, Francisco de la Fuente, as appellate judge to hear all cases. The brief of appointment, November 4, 1494, shows in what a tangled condition these matters had been brought by the shifting and shiftless papal policy, governed alone by the expectation of profit. It recites that Innocent VIII, at the instance of Spanish suspects of heresy, had committed their cases, both original and appellate, to various auditors of the Sacred Palace, where they remained pending for lack of evidence not obtainable in Rome, wherefore Innocent had evoked them all to himself, but had appointed no judge to hear them and no further progress was made. Besides, under their commissions, the said auditors had issued letters compulsory, inhibitory and citatory on inquisitors and other officials, in consequence of which they were under excommunication and against this they appealed. To put an end to these dangers and scandals, Alexander therefore evoked anew all these cases to himself and committed them to la Fuente, together with all arising in future, granting him full power for their final determination.[300]
Still the lucrative business of issuing letters of absolution and redintegration went on unchecked, until pressure from Spain, which was insufficient to restrain their manufacture and sale, at least induced Alexander to betray those who had bought them. On August 29, 1497, he issued a bull reciting how heretics, who had been burnt in effigy, had obtained from him absolution, rehabilitation and exemption from inquisitorial jurisdiction, to the scandal of the faithful, wherefore, at the request of Ferdinand and Isabella, he now withdraws and annuls all these letters, except in the forum of conscience.[301] Even this did not satisfy Ferdinand who, under the pretext that a papal secretary named Bartolommeo Florido had issued false ones, ordered the inquisitors to seize them when presented and send them to him in order that he might communicate with the pope about them. This was followed by decrees of the Suprema, January 8 and February 12, 1498, commanding all who had obtained absolutions and dispensations from Rome to deliver them within a given time to the inquisitors, who would forward them to the inquisitor-general for verification of their genuineness, thus obtaining possession of all letters, to the general terror of the owners. Ferdinand, as we have seen, was obliged to write to Saragossa to protect Alonso de la Caballería and the brothers Sánchez, while Isabella interceded, June 26th, for a servant of hers who had procured such a letter and could not produce it.[302] Then Alexander was called upon for a more absolute surrender of those who had dealt with him and, on September 17th, he addressed a brief to the Spanish inquisitors empowering them to proceed against all heretics, notwithstanding all letters of absolution and redintegration heretofore or hereafter issued, for all such letters were to be held as having been granted inadvertently.[303] What with Spanish fanaticism and papal faithlessness the Conversos were between the hammer and the anvil.
[261] Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, p. 79; S, 294, fol. 21, 74.—MSS. Archivo municipal de Sevilla, Seccion especial, Siglo XVIII, Letra A, Tomo IV, n. 43.—Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Lib. VII de Autos, Leg. 2, fol. 64; Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 251.
[262] Sayri Clavis Regia Sacerdotum, Lib. XII, cap. xiv, n. 32-34.
[263] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 939, fol. 84, 140; Visitas de Barcelona, Leg. 15, fol. 2.—Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 2, n. 16, fol. 272.
[264] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Visitas de Barcelona, Leg. 15, fol. 4,—Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 309, Cuentas, fol. 3; Leg. 299.
[265] Bordoni Sacrum Tribunal, cap. XXX, 481, 506-10 (Romæ, 1648).
[266] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. V, fol. 89.
[267] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 9, n. 1, fol. 329; Leg. 10, n. 2, fol. 110.
[268] Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, fol. 261, n. 69.
[269] MSS. of White Library, Cornell University, n. 616, fol. 60, 61.
[270] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 15, n. 10, fol. 92; Leg. 16, n. 6, fol. 41; Leg. 17, n. 3, fol. 21.—Archivo de Alcalá, Estado, Leg. 2843.
[271] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Visitas de Barcelona, Leg. 15, fol. 4.
[272] Proceso contra Hansz Brunsvi (MSS. of Library of Univ. of Halle, Yc, 20, Tom. III).
[273] Ibidem, Yc, 20, Tom. I.
[274] MSS. of Am. Philos. Society.
[275] Proceso contra Don Thomas Sans (MS. penes me).
[276] Valladares, Semanario erudito, XXIV, 194-204.
[277] Pulgar, Chronica, P. II, cap. lxxvii.
[278] Of course the price for these varied according to circumstances. A contemporary document (Summaria Declaratio Bullæ Indulgentiarum Ecclesiæ Xanctonensi concessarum, 1482) tells us that the price in Rome for those in the ordinary form was nearly three florins. In Germany, early in the sixteenth century, the Beichtbriefe were sold at a quarter of a gulden apiece (Gröne, Tetzel und Luther, p. 196).
[279] Archivo de Simancas, Patronato Real, Inquisicion, Leg. único, fol. 1.
[280] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 185, n. 820.
[281] Sixti PP. IV, Bull. Quoniam nonnulli, §§ 4, 6.—Julii PP. III, Bull. Rationi congruit (Bullar. Roman. I, 428, 786).
[282] Collectio Decretorum Sacræ Congregationis Sti Officii, p. 245 (MS. penes me).
[283] Llorente, Hist. crít., Append. n. 3.—Páramo, p. 137.—Boletin, XV, 472, 474.
[284] Printed by Llorente, Append. n. 4. That this was procured, and of course paid for, by the Conversos is evident from the fact that the original was presented, January 4, 1484, to Garcia de Meneses, Bishop of Evora in Portugal, by Juan de Sevilla, who asked, as it provided that full faith should be given to all notarial transcripts, authenticated by the seal of a bishop, that he would authorize the notary, Nuñez Lorenzo, to make transcripts and attach the seal, to which the bishop assented.—Archivo de Simancas, Patronato Real, Inquisicion, Leg. único, fol. 20.
[285] Boletin, XV, 489.—Llorente, Hist. crít. cap. V, Art. iv, n. 20.
[286] Archivio Vaticano, Sisto IV, Registro 677, Tom. XVIII, fol. 498.
[287] Pulgar, Chronica, III, xxxviii.
[288] See Vol. I, Appendix, p. 572.
[289] Archivo gen. de la C. de Aragon, Regist. 3684, fol. 33
[290] Archivo gen. de la C. de Aragon, Regist. 3684, fol. 45.—Páramo, p. 137.
[291] Informe de Quesada (Bibl. nacional, MSS., Tj, 28).
[292] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I, fol. 8.—Cf. Somoza de Salgado de Retentione Bullarum, P. II, cap. xxxiii, n. 85, 86.
[293] Boletin, XV, 579.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 926, fol. 260.
[294] Boletin, XV, 581.
[295] Somoza, loc. cit., n. 127.—Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I, fol. 94.—Archivio Vaticano, Innoc. VIII, Regist. 686, fol. 103. (See Appendix).
[296] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago. Lib. I, fol. 44.—Archive de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 926, fol. 274.—Llorente, Añales, I, 146.
[297] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisition, Lib. I.
[298] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias, fol. 46.
[299] Somoza, op. cit., P. II, cap. xxxiii, n. 85, 86.
[300] Archivo de Simancas, Patronato Real, Inquisicion, Leg. único, fol. 22.
[301] Boletin, XV, 572.
[302] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 1; Lib. 939, fol. 114.
[303] Boletin, XV, 597.
STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA
Their only recourse was exile. Many abandoned Spain and a portion of these found in Rome a refuge, for Alexander welcomed them in view of the heavy imposts which they paid for safety and toleration. They also furnished him with material for a speculative outburst of persecution when, in 1498, he was in need of funds to furnish forth the magnificent embassy of his son Cæsar, sent to bear to Louis XIII the bull of divorce from Queen Jeanne. He appointed as inquisitors Cardinal Pietro Isuali and the Master of the Sacred Palace, Fra Paolo de Monelia, who proclaimed a term of grace during which the Spaniards suspect of heresy could come forward. Two hundred and thirty presented themselves; the form of receiving and examining their confessions was gone through with; they were admitted to mercy and a salutary penance was imposed in lieu of the penalties that might have been inflicted in Spain. What was the amount of this cannot be known, but it must have been considerable, for the inquisitors could ransom them at discretion. A solemn auto de fe was celebrated in St. Peter’s, July 29th, in the presence of Alexander and his cardinals. The penitents were marched thither in pairs, were reconciled to the Church, abjured their heresies and were sentenced to wear the sanbenito and to undergo penance, after which they were taken in procession to Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where they were relieved of the sanbenitos and discharged. The performance evidently was expected not to be pleasing to the Spanish sovereigns, for part of the penance assigned was to furnish a notarial attestation that they would not return to Spain without licence from the Catholic kings under pain of relaxation as relapsed.[304]
There were doubtless intimations of Ferdinand’s displeasure which drew from these impromptu inquisitors a letter of September 10th to their Spanish brethren and one of October 5th from Alexander to the sovereigns, in which the provision respecting return to Spain was emphasized. Ferdinand however was not to be thus placated; indeed he had already, on August 2nd, issued an edict, designed to frustrate further attempts by the papacy to share in the profits of persecution. In this he ordered the execution, without trial, of all who had fled from condemnation by the Inquisition and who should venture to return, no matter what exemptions, reconciliations, safe-conducts or privileges they might allege. Any property they might possess was apportioned in thirds to the informer, the official and the fisc and any one harboring them and any official neglecting to execute the edict was threatened with confiscation.[305] The prevention of further speculative performances of the kind was doubtless the motive for the stringent regulations, which we have seen above, in 1499 and 1500, to prevent the escape of Conversos.[306]
Ferdinand sometimes recognized the papal letters as in the case of some parties named Beltram, in 1499, which he permitted to be heard by the commissioners appointed by the pope,[307] but there was too much at stake for him to abandon the struggle and the papacy followed its practice of sacrificing those who sought its protection, while never failing to promise it. Early in 1502, the sovereigns remonstrated forcibly as to the great damage to the faith resulting from these letters transferring cases to special commissioners, and Alexander promptly responded by a bull evoking to himself all such cases and committing them to Inquisitor-general Deza, to be decided by him personally or with assessors whom he might call in. To this Ferdinand objected, under pretext of the hardship which it would inflict on the appellants, as Deza had to follow the migratory court and Alexander, with his usual pliancy, empowered Deza, August 31st, to appoint deputies to decide cases. Deza availed himself of this to restore the cases to the tribunals, instructing them to proceed to final judgement without regard to any papal letters that might be presented, and thus again the unlucky appellants were delivered back to their persecutors without recourse.[308]
Julius II was elected November 1, 1503, and the next day, even before his coronation, he issued a motu proprio to Ferdinand and Isabella, confirming all graces and privileges granted by his predecessors and especially those to the Inquisition. Still, appeals to the Holy See continued to pour in and to be welcomed and, in 1505, Ferdinand remonstrated energetically, asking a recall of all commissions and drawing a doleful picture of the religious condition of Spain, which was saved only by the Inquisition from a schism worse than that of Arius.[309] Philip of Austria, however, in his eagerness to win papal support, abandoned the claims of the Inquisition and admitted to the Holy See that it could not refuse to entertain the appeals of those who sought its protection.[310] Julius had no intention of divesting himself of the supreme jurisdiction which was so profitable and he took care to assert it in the commissions issued, in 1507, to Ximenes and Bishop Enguera, as inquisitors-general respectively of Castile and Aragon, by evoking to himself all cases pending in the tribunals and committing them to the new incumbents and those whom they might deputize.[311]
STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA
Like his predecessors, Julius, with one hand, sold letters of absolution and inhibition while, with the other, he declared them invalid. A brief of November 9, 1507, recites that some persons, pretending to be aggrieved, have appealed to the Holy See, whereby the Inquisition is impeded; therefore he decrees that all appeals must be to the inquisitor-general, while those to Rome are to be regarded as null; the inquisitors are to disregard them and not to delay on account of them.[312] Still, the output of these letters was unchecked and for awhile Ferdinand fluctuated in his policy with regard to them. Sometimes, as in a Sardinia case, in 1508, he orders the inquisitor to arrest and punish severely those concerned in procuring them, assuring him of the royal protection against the indignation of Rome.[313] Sometimes, as in a Valladolid case, in 1509, he assumes the current convenient fiction that the letters are issued surreptitiously, that the pope, on better information, will withdraw them, and meanwhile they are held suspended; the trial is to go on and the sequestrations are not to be lifted.[314] Finally, in a pragmática of August 31, 1509, a definite policy was adopted combining both methods and based on the principle that, if the letters were surreptitious, those who obtained them deserved condign punishment. This required all such briefs to be submitted to the Suprema for examination and reference back to Rome; if found to be rightly issued, exequatur would be granted, but without this any one presenting such letters to inquisitors incurred, as in the pragmática of December 15, 1484, irremissible death and confiscation; notaries acting under them were deprived of office, while secular officials were commanded to execute the edict under pain of five thousand florins and ecclesiastics under seizure of temporalities and perpetual exile.[315]
The ferocity of this, after a constant struggle with the curia for twenty-five years, shows the importance attached by Ferdinand to the autonomy of the Inquisition and his determination to suppress all papal interference. Still that interference continued and Ferdinand could not but recognize that it was legal. In a case occurring in 1510, when a certain Augustinian Fray Dionisio, on trial before the tribunal of Seville, obtained letters committing the case to a judge who inhibited the tribunal, Ferdinand requested the pope to evoke the case and commit it to Cardinal Ximenes and further that all future cases of the kind should be similarly treated.[316]
In all this long wrangle the diplomatic reserve is observable which assumed that the Holy See was actuated by motives that, if mistaken, were at least disinterested. The financial element underlying its action was fully recognized, however, and, when the Spanish delegates were sent to the Lateran Council in 1512, among the instructions which they bore was one which said that Rome must not in future defend, as it had been defending, the apostates of Jewish race who were burnt in effigy at home while they purchased for money dispensations in the curia. In fact, Charles V, in a letter of April 30, 1519, to his ambassador Luis Carroz, openly asserted that the briefs issued in the time of Ferdinand had been obtained by the Conversos through the payment of heavy sums.[317]
The delegates to the Lateran council of course effected nothing, and Leo X, while his penitentiaries and auditors were as busy as ever, was even more regardless than his predecessors of the papal dignity, in annulling their acts after the fees had been paid. In a motu proprio of May 31, 1513, he alludes to the letters negligently granted by Julius II and himself, through which the business of the Inquisition was impeded, wherefore he empowers Ximenes to inhibit, under excommunication and other penalties, all persons, even of episcopal rank, from using such letters of commission to entertain appeals.[318]
STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA
In the kingdoms of Aragon, the Córtes of Monzon, in 1510, agreed that no one should appeal from the tribunals to the pope, but only to the inquisitor-general.[319] Possibly this may have led to the invention of a method of reprisals which was infinitely annoying and difficult to meet. A certain Baldiri Meteli procured from Rome a citation to appear addressed to Mossen Coda, the judge of confiscations in Barcelona, and some other officials. This completely nonplussed the tribunal and Ferdinand was driven to instructing, November 2, 1510, his Lieutenant-general of Catalonia to consult with Inquisitor-general Enguera as to the best mode of inducing Meteli to withdraw the citation. He was obstinate, especially as he had meanwhile procured citations on other officials, and Ferdinand could find no other remedy than notifying the diputados that the agreement of Monzon was a totality and that, if the clause respecting appeals was violated, Enguera would disregard the rest.[320] What was the result the documents fail to inform us, but an even more troublesome case occurred in Saragossa when Sánchez de Romeral on being prosecuted fled to Rome. March 11, 1511, Ferdinand wrote to his ambassador to request the pope to send him back to the inquisitor-general, but the pope declined and Ferdinand was moved to lively wrath, in 1513, on learning that Romeral, who had meanwhile been burnt in effigy, had procured citations on all the officials, from inquisitors down, including even the consultors who had acted in the consulta de fe, and that he had managed to get the citations published in Tudela and Cascante. Ferdinand wrote to Rome in terms of vigorous indignation and ordered the Archbishop of Saragossa, the Captain-general of Navarre and the inquisitors to consult with lawyers as to the best means of punishing this audacious attack on the Inquisition. Apparently there were no means of parrying such an attack save coming to terms with the other side, so long as the curia was willing to lend itself to this guerrilla warfare. This was seen in a somewhat similar case in Sicily, in 1511, when a certain Cola de Ayelo, condemned to perpetual imprisonment by Inquisitor Belorado, managed to escape; he took himself to Rome as a penitent and there commenced suit against Belorado and his colleague the Bishop of Cefalù. The bishop was obliged to obey a summons to Rome; the affair was protracted and gave so much trouble that, when Ayelo wanted to return to Sicily and offered to withdraw the suit, Ferdinand agreed to let him come back, pardoned his offences, including gaol-breaking, and gave him a safe-conduct against further prosecution. This method of fighting the Inquisition would probably have been more frequently adopted but for the risk to which were exposed the notaries and scriveners whose ministrations were essential. In the present case the one who sent the citation to the bishop was seized by the viceroy, tortured and probably punished severely.[321]
One or two cases will illustrate the chaotic condition produced by these contending elements, especially after the death of Ferdinand, January 23, 1516, had removed from the scene of action his resolute will and ceaseless activity. Miguel Vedreña, suspected of complicity in the murder of Bernardo Castelli, assessor of the tribunal of Balaguer, appealed to the pope from the prison of the tribunal of Barcelona. The Suprema of Aragon vainly instructed its Roman agent to make every effort to defeat the appeal. Leo X committed the case to the Bishop of Ascoli, who ordered the tribunal to release Vedreña on his giving security to constitute himself a prisoner in Rome. The inquisitors had lost all respect for papal letters and refused obedience, whereupon the bishop appointed certain local prelates as commissioners to prosecute them and inflict censures. The Suprema inhibited these commissioners from acting, but not before they had excommunicated the inquisitors, who applied to Leo for relief. Leo had already, at least in appearance, abandoned Vedreña, in a brief of May 5, 1517, addressed to Cardinal Adrian, then Inquisitor-general of Aragon, styling Vedreña “that son of iniquity,” evoking the case to himself and committing it to Adrian. But accompanying this brief and of the same date was another of private instructions, in which Vedreña was alluded to as his dearest son and Adrian was told that the case was committed to him in order that his dexterity might compound it; the evidence was doubtful and Vedreña had purged it sufficiently; it would seem that he should rather be acquitted than condemned but if Adrian thought otherwise he was to send a statement, when Leo would give final orders. Some three months later there was another brief to Adrian about the excommunicated inquisitors; if the censures were subsequent to the withdrawal of the case from the Bishop of Ascoli, they were invalid, but the whole matter was left to Adrian.[322] We have no means of knowing what was the final outcome of the case, but it sufficiently indicates the entanglements caused by the conflicting jurisdictions and the contradictory actions of the pope as his officials were bought by one side or the other.
STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA
Another aspect of these affairs is exhibited in the case of the heirs of Juan Enríquez de Medina, whose bones were condemned, by the tribunal of Cuenca, to be exhumed and burnt. The heirs appealed to Ximenes, who commissioned judges to revise the sentence, but these refused to the heirs a copy of the proceedings, by which alone they could rebut the evidence. Then they appealed to Pope Leo, who appointed three commissioners to hear the case and communicate the proceedings to the heirs, on their giving security not to harm the witnesses. The parties appointed, doubtless fearing to incur the enmity of the Inquisition, declined to serve and the last we hear of the case is a brief of May 19, 1517, threatening them with excommunication for persistence.[323]
With the appointment of Cardinal Adrian, as inquisitor-general of Castile as well as of Aragon, Leo, in 1518, confirmed the decrees of Innocent VIII and Alexander VI, granting to him exclusive appellate jurisdiction and Adrian, when pope, repeated this in 1523, in favor of Manrique.[324] Yet this in no way interfered with the reception in Rome of the multitudinous applications, both appellate and in first instance, which Charles V, in a letter of October 29, 1518, to Cardinal Santiquatro, broadly hinted was accomplished by the free use of money.[325] How recklessly, indeed, the papal jurisdiction was prostituted at the service of the first comer, is evidenced in the case of a mill in Paterna, purchased by Juan Claver from the confiscated estate of Jufre Rinsech. The Infante Enrique laid claim to it; the tribunal of Valencia decided in favor of Claver and imposed perpetual silence on Enrique. On the death of Claver, Enrique brought suit against his heir before a judge of his own selection, whom the tribunal promptly inhibited. Enrique then procured a papal brief inhibiting the tribunal and committing the case to this judge. Then Charles V intervened, October 29, 1518, ordering Enrique to bring his suit before the tribunal.[326] Papal letters issued after such fashion had no moral weight and were lightly disregarded. The contempt felt for them was increased by Leo’s perpetual vacillations. A brief of September 9, 1518, to Adrian states that, in view of the iniquity and injustice of the tribunal of Palermo and some others, he had placed all such matters in the hands of his vicar, the Cardinal of S. Bartolommeo in Insula, with faculties to decide them and coerce the inquisitors with censures and fines, but now he thinks it better that these affairs shall be confided to Adrian, to whom he commits them with full powers.[327]
STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA
A contemporary case, which attracted much attention at the time, shows Leo in a more favorable light. Blanquina Díaz was an octogenarian widow of Valencia, whose orthodoxy had never been suspected, but in 1517 she was denounced for Judaism and thrown into the secret prison. An appeal to the pope brought orders that she be released on good security, be allowed defence and the case be speedily tried. This brief never reached the tribunal, being apparently suppressed by the Suprema, whereupon Leo issued a second one, March 4, 1518, evoking the case to himself and committing it to two ecclesiastics of Valencia, Blanquina being meanwhile placed in a convent and Cardinal Adrian being especially prohibited from intervening, anything that he might do being declared invalid. It was probably before this was received that the tribunal submitted the case to Adrian, who assembled a consulta de fe and condemned Blanquina to perpetual imprisonment and confiscation. The papal intervention seems to have aroused much feeling; Charles was ready to sign anything drawn up for him by Adrian, and, in two letters, of May 18th and June 18th to his Roman agent Luis Carroz, he ordered the latter to disregard all other business in the effort to procure the withdrawal of the two briefs. If the safety of all his dominions had been at stake he could not have been more emphatic; such interference with the Inquisition was unexampled; unless the pope would revoke the briefs and promise never to issue similar ones, the Holy Office would be totally destroyed, and heresy would flourish unpunished, for every one would seek relief at the curia and the service of God would become impossible. He also wrote to the pope and the cardinals, while Adrian and the Suprema sent pressing letters. Leo, however, was firm in substance, though he yielded in form. In briefs of July 5th and 7th to Adrian he ordered that everything done since his letters of March 4th should be annulled, Blanquina being restored to her good fame, her sanbenito being removed and she being placed, under bail, in a convent or in the house of a kinsman. As the evidence against her consisted of trifles committed in childhood, he again evoked the case to himself and committed it to Adrian. There had been active work on both sides in Rome, for the brief of July 5th gave Adrian full power to decide the case while that of the 7th limited him to sending the results to Leo and awaiting instructions as to the sentence. Leo thus kept Blanquina’s fate in his hands; Adrian was only his mouthpiece and the sentence pronounced her to be lightly suspect of heresy and discharged her without imprisonment or confiscation.[328]
A further instance of Leo’s vacillation is the coincidence that the brief of March 4th in Blanquina’s favor was dated the same day as Adrian’s commission as inquisitor-general of Castile, in which Leo evoked to himself all pending cases, whether in the tribunals or the curia, and committed them to Adrian with full power to inhibit all persons from assuming cognizance of them.[329] With this before him it is scarce a subject of surprise that Charles V on April 30th instructed his ambassador to tell the pope that no letters prejudicial to the Inquisition would be admitted.[330] This threat he carried out in a contemporaneous case which for some years embroiled the Inquisition with the curia. Bernardino Díaz had been tried and discharged by the tribunal of Toledo, after which he had a quarrel with Bartolomé Martínez, whom he accused of perjury in his case, and killed him. Díaz fled to Rome, while the tribunal not only burnt him in effigy but seized his wife and mother and some of his friends as accomplices in his escape. In Rome he secured pardon in both the interior and exterior forum on condition of satisfying the kindred of Martínez, to the great indignation of Charles, who complained, not without reason, of this invasion of jurisdiction. Díaz also procured a brief ordering the liberation of the prisoners and the release of their property, but when the executors named in it endeavored to enforce it, the Toledo tribunal seized their procurator and compelled its surrender. This realization of Charles’s threat exasperated the curia and the auditor-general of the Camera summoned the inquisitors to obey the brief or answer personally in Rome for their contumacy; they did neither and were duly excommunicated. Charles wrote repeatedly and bitterly about this unexampled persecution of those who had merely administered justice; the case dragged on for some three years and its ultimate outcome does not appear, but the family of Díaz were probably released for, in 1520, we hear of the removal of the excommunication in connection with the revocation by the inquisitors of their proceedings against Juan de Salazar, a canon of Toledo, residing in Rome in the papal service, whom they had deprived of citizenship and temporalities for some action of his in prejudice of the Inquisition.[331]
STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA
Another person who, about this time, gave infinite vexation to Charles and Adrian was Diego de las Casas of Seville, the agent who bore to Rome the contested proceedings of the Córtes of Aragon and labored for their confirmation. He was well supplied with funds and naturally was a persona grata to the curia. The Inquisition speedily attacked him, in its customary unscrupulous manner, by not only prosecuting him in absentia but by seizing his brothers, Francisco and Juan, and their wives. To meet this he procured a brief committing the cases to Adrian and to Ferdinand de Arce, Bishop of Canaries, with a provision that the parties should present themselves to Adrian and Arce and keep such prison as might be designated for them, and further permitting them to select advocates for their defence. Equitable as were these provisions, the brief excited hot indignation. When laid before the royal council it was pronounced scandalous and of evil example and its execution was refused. Charles wrote in haste to Leo, April 30, 1519, that it was scandalous and would destroy the Inquisition; he instructed his agents to procure its revocation to be forwarded by the next courier and he invoked by letters the cardinals in the Spanish interest to bring what pressure they could upon the pope. His urgency was fruitless and when, in September, he sent Lope Hurtado de Mendoza to Rome, as special ambassador in the quarrel with Aragon, his instructions were to represent to the pope the impropriety of harboring in Rome fugitives from the Inquisition, especially Diego de las Casas and his colleague Juan Gutiérrez, whose parents and grandparents and kindred had been reconciled or burnt; they should be expelled, and Mendoza was to labor for the revocation of their briefs and all other exemptions and commissions in favor of Conversos. Mendoza exerted all his diplomatic ability, but, although Leo admitted, in a brief of July 13, 1520, to Adrian that the evocation of cases to Rome, both on appeal and in first instance, led to delays, impunity for offenders and encouragement of offences, still he would not abandon Diego de las Casas. The grant by Sixtus IV of appellate jurisdiction to the inquisitor-general, he admitted had been beneficial and, in hopes that Adrian would use it with integrity and justice, he evoked to himself all cases pending in the Roman courts and committed them to Adrian with full powers, but he made no promises as to the future and he especially excepted his physician, Ferdinand de Aragon and his wife, Diego de las Casas, Juan Gutiérrez and the deceased Juan de Covarrubias, whose cases had long been in dispute.
To all these, and to their kindred to the third degree and their property, Leo granted letters exempting them from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and committing them to the Archbishop of Saragossa and certain other ecclesiastical dignitaries. Complaints soon arose as to the manner in which these commissioners exercised their powers to the dishonor of the Inquisition; Leo yielded by a brief of January 8, 1521, in which he substituted Adrian and the nuncio Vianesio de’ Albergati, with full power to inhibit their predecessors. Then, in a more formal brief of January 20th he deprecated the evil caused by the cases which were daily brought to Rome and committed them all to Adrian, saving those of the five exempts, in which the nuncio was to be conjoined with him, and at the same time he revoked the letters exempting them and their kindred and empowering them to select judges for themselves.[332] It was a practical surrender, although Leo distinguished las Casas and Gutiérrez by styling them his beloved children.
These cases will suffice to show how the traditional policy of the curia continued, of taking the money of the refugees and appellants for protecting briefs, and then abandoning them by revocations issued, without even a sense of shame, when their funds were exhausted in the protracted struggle. Yet, undeterred by this, there was a constant succession of new applicants, who had no other refuge on earth, and the valueless briefs were granted with unfailing readiness. It was a source of perpetual irritation and Charles was untiring in his efforts to counteract it, not always observing due courtesy, as when, March 25, 1525, he wrote to Clement VII, in violent language, to revoke and erase from the registers a brief granted to Luis Colon and to order his officials not to issue such letters, as they were scandalous.[333] He no longer had the excuse of his youthful tutelage under Adrian and yet his subserviency to the Inquisition was complete. This was manifested in the case of Bernardo de Orda, a servant of Cardinal Colonna, who had a suit against Doctor Saldaña about the treasurership of the church of Leon. Saldaña was a member of the Suprema and, when Orda came to Spain, it was not difficult to have him charged with heresy and arrested by the tribunal of Valladolid. He escaped to Rome and the prosecution was continued against him in absentia, whereupon Charles demeaned himself by writing to Colonna, July 30, 1528, asking him to prevent Orda from obtaining a brief of exemption, as it would be an injury to the faith, and also not to favor him in his suit with Saldaña.[334]
STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA
Meanwhile the popes continued to propitiate Charles’s growing power by granting, with as much facility as ever, what was nominally exclusive appellate jurisdiction to the inquisitor-general. In 1523, Adrian VI, as we have seen, confirmed in favor of Manrique the bulls of Sixtus IV and Alexander VI. Clement VII went even farther for, in a bull of January 6, 1524, he not only evoked all pending cases and committed them to Manrique but decreed that any commissions which he might thereafter issue should be invalid without the express assent of Charles, while all appeals were to be made to the inquisitor-general and not to the Holy See, and this he repeated, June 16, 1525. Still appeals continued to be made to Rome and briefs to be granted requiring repeated confirmations of the bulls of 1524 and 1525 with inclusion of the letters obtained in the interval, of which we have examples in 1532 and 1534.[335] Charles was thus justified in enforcing Ferdinand’s pragmática of 1509, as when, in 1537, he ordered the corregidor of Murcia to prevent the publication of certain letters understood to have been procured from the pope against the Inquisition; if presented they were to be sent to the Council of Castile for its action, and parties endeavoring to use them were to be arrested and dealt with as might be deemed most advantageous to the Holy Office.[336]
The position of Charles, as the master of Italy and the protagonist of the Church in its struggle with Lutheranism, had thus enabled him to obtain for the Inquisition virtual, though not acknowledged, independence of Rome. There is a very striking illustration of this, in 1531, when Clement VII intervened in favor of Fray Francisco Ortiz, a celebrated Observantine preacher, prosecuted for audaciously criticizing the Inquisition from the pulpit. He had lain in prison for more than two years, obstinately refusing to retract, when the interposition of Clement was sought. He did not evoke the case but, in terms of remarkable deference, July 1, 1531, he suggested to Manrique that, if nothing else was alleged against Ortiz, he might be held as sufficiently punished by his long imprisonment and might be restored to liberty, in view of his blameless life and the profit to souls to be expected from his preaching. This Clement asked as a favor, moved only by Christian charity and zeal for the salvation of souls.[337] To this carefully guarded request the Inquisition turned a deaf ear. If the trial of Ortiz came to an end in February, 1532, it was because he voluntarily submitted himself completely and his sentence was by no means light, including public penance, which was rarely inflicted on an ecclesiastic.[338] Paul III was more decided when his intervention was asked by Charles V, who, in spite of his bitter protests against papal interference, found himself obliged to appeal in behalf of his favorite preacher, Fray Alonso Virues. The Seville tribunal had prosecuted the latter on a charge of Lutheranism, had kept him imprisoned for four years and had sentenced him to reclusion in a convent for two years and suspension from preaching for two more. Charles, who had vainly sought to protect him during his trial, supported an appeal to the pope and obtained a brief of May 29, 1538, which not only annulled the sentence but forbade his future molestation.[339]
When, in 1542, Paul III reorganized the moribund papal Inquisition by forming a congregation of cardinals as inquisitors-general for all Christendom, there was a not unnatural apprehension that this, even if not so intended, might interfere with the independence of the Spanish Holy Office. To representations of this he responded by a brief of April 1, 1548, in which he characterized such fears as baseless; he declared that it was not designed to interfere with the authority of inquisitors in Spain and he formally revoked anything to their prejudice that might be found in the decree establishing the Congregation.[340] This brief remained to the end the charter to which the Spanish Inquisition appealed in its frequent collisions with the Roman Congregation and, but for such a declaration, it would probably have been subordinated.[341]
This in no way affected the continual applications to Rome for relief, nor the effort of the Inquisition to suppress them. It was a singular departure from the settled policy of the government in this matter which led the Suprema, in 1548, to utter a bitter complaint to Charles V, setting forth the facility with which citations and inhibitions and commissions were granted in Rome and the daily royal cédulas despatched to prevent them, and yet when recently a Converso presented to the Royal Council a petition stating that he did not dare to notify the inquisitor-general of letters concerning a case which had been decided, the Council issued an order permitting any notary to serve the papers and testify to the service, with penalties for impeding it.[342] The popes were more consistent in their inconsistency. We have seen how Paul III, in 1549 and Julius III in 1551, confirmed the 1484 bull of Sixtus IV insisting on the validity of papal letters in both the interior and judicial forum and threatening the curses of the bull in Cæna Domini on all who should impede them, yet in 1550 a case in which papal letters were obtained led to vigorous remonstrance and Julius, by a brief of December 15, 1551, confirmed those of Clement VII and Paul III, besides evoking all pending cases and committing them to Inquisitor-general Valdés.[343]
STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA
Yet the very fact of doing this inferred the papal possession of supreme jurisdiction which it merely delegated, a point of which the Holy See never lost sight. The commissions to the successive inquisitors-general during the century contains a clause by which all unfinished business was evoked and committed to the appointee. It is true that there was also a provision that no appeals from the tribunals should lie except to the inquisitor-general, all other appeals, even to the Holy See, being invalid and referred back to him, who was empowered to use censures to prevent interference even by cardinals.[344] The popes could afford to be thus liberal in their grants, for their irresponsible power enabled them to disregard or to modify these delegated faculties at discretion, and these provisions never prevented them from entertaining appeals.
This was shown in the friction which continued throughout the long reign of Philip II, who was no less earnest than his father in maintaining the independence of the Inquisition, although his attitude was more deferential. In 1568 we find him complaining to his ambassador, Juan de Zuñiga, that appeals were made from Sardinia to Rome, not only in cases of faith, but in matters of confiscation, and in civil cases concerning familiars and officials, all of which was damaging to the Inquisition and in derogation of the royal jurisdiction. Zuñiga was therefore ordered to supplicate the pope to refuse admission to all such appeals, while the viceroy of Sardinia was instructed to prevent testimony from being taken in such cases.[345] This effort was fruitless as likewise was that of Abbot Brizeño, sent in 1580 as special commissioner on the subject to Gregory XIII, to remonstrate with the utmost earnestness against the reception accorded in Rome to fugitives from the Inquisition.[346]
Soon after this a case occurred which strained the relations between the courts. Jean de Berri, a Frenchman on trial by the tribunal of Saragossa, managed to escape to Rome, whereupon he was condemned in contumacy and burnt in effigy. He presented himself to the Congregation of the Inquisition which admitted him to bail and he went to reside in Orbitello. The case must have been the subject of active recrimination for Juan de Zuñiga, at that time Viceroy of Naples, with superabundant zeal, kidnapped him and despatched him to Spain. Instantly the papal court was aflame; Zuñiga was promptly excommunicated, but the censure was suspended for four months to allow him to return the fugitive. A rupture seemed imminent and Zuñiga, conscious of his mistake, on learning that the galeasses had been driven back to Palermo, sent thither in hot haste, but his messenger was too late and Jean de Berri was carried to Spain. Papal despatches couched in vigorous language were forthwith sent to the nuncio, to Philip, to Inquisitor-general Quiroga and to the Saragossa tribunal, the nuncio being ordered to prosecute Quiroga if the prisoner was not remanded. Philip had no alternative; Quiroga, in a letter of September 12, 1582 to Gregory announced Berri’s departure, at the same time remonstrating against the asylum to fugitives offered by Rome. Berri was duly delivered to the Roman Inquisition, but there was probably a secret understanding for, at a meeting of the Congregation, June 13, 1583, presided over by Gregory, it was decreed that he should be placed in the hands of Quiroga, who should judge his case. Quiroga did nothing of the kind; he was sent to Saragossa and the last we hear of him is a letter of the Suprema, August 3rd, to that tribunal ordering it to do justice—the customary formula for confirming a sentence.[347] As usual, the curia abandoned those whom it had undertaken to protect.
STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA
From 1582 to 1586, the nuncio, Taberna Bishop of Lodi, was largely occupied with the question of these appeals.[348] It formed one of several grievances arising from the exercise of papal jurisdiction in Spain—a jurisdiction which was becoming an anachronism in the development of absolute monarchy, but, as the faculties of the Inquisition were solely a delegation from the Holy See, papal control of its operations was unassailable and had to be endured. Philip gained nothing by instructing his ambassador Olivares, November 10, 1583, that it was highly important to represent to the pope that appeals should not be entertained but should be remitted back to the inquisitor-general.[349] We have seen how little ceremony was used by Sixtus V, in 1585, when he evoked the case of the Jesuit Provincial Marcen and his colleagues, and how the Suprema was forced to submit.
While Philip thus was unable to dispute the papal right of intervention, he had as little scruple as his predecessors in disregarding papal letters. In 1571 he ordered the surrender of all briefs evoking cases to the Holy See. Some years later the Suprema instructed the tribunal of Lima that, if apostolic letters were presented, it was to “supplicate” against them—that is, to suspend and disregard them—and this was doubtless a circular sent to all tribunals.[350] They were practically treated as a nullity and it is a singular fact that, after so long an experience, the curia still found purchasers credulous enough to seek protection in them. In a Toledo auto de fe of 1591 there appeared twenty-four Judaizers of Alcázar, detected by Inquisitor Alava during a visitation. Among them was Francisco de Vega, a scrivener who, on hearing that the inquisitor was coming, had sent to Rome and procured absolutions for himself, his mother and his sister, thinking to find safety in them, but they were treated with contempt and all three culprits were reconciled with the same penalties as their companions.[351]
While thus the supreme jurisdiction of the Holy See was admitted and evaded, the Inquisition sought to create the belief that it had been abandoned. Zurita who, as secretary of the Suprema, unquestionably knew better, makes such an assertion and Páramo, whose experience as inquisitor in Sicily had taught him the truth, does not hesitate, in 1598, to say that, since Innocent VIII decreed that appeals should be heard by the inquisitor-general, no pope had permitted cases to be carried to the Apostolic see.[352] It is a fair example of the incurable habit of the Inquisition to assert its possession of whatever it desired to obtain.
Under Philip III, the papal supremacy continued to be exercised and was submitted to as reluctantly as ever. In 1602 a Doctor Cozas, under prosecution by the tribunal of Murcia, managed to escape to Rome and to have his case tried there. Philip labored strenuously and persistently to have him remanded, first through his ambassador the Duke of Sesa and then through the succeeding envoy, the Duke of Escalona, to whom, on April 1, 1604 he sent a special courier, urging him to renew his efforts, for every day the Roman Inquisition was intervening in what the popes had granted exclusively to the inquisitor-general, thus threatening the total destruction of the Spanish Inquisition.[353] In 1603 a Portuguese appealed to the Roman Inquisition, alleging that his wife was unjustly held in prison; he obtained an order on the inquisitor-general to transmit the papers and meanwhile to suspend the case; Acevedo demurred, eliciting from Clement VIII a still more peremptory command, whereupon the documents were sent and, while the case was under consideration in Rome, the woman was discharged.[354] It was preferable to let an assumed culprit go free than to allow the Roman Holy Office to exercise jurisdiction.
[304] Archivo de Simancas, Patronato Real, Inquisicion, Leg. único, fol. 15.—Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. III, fol. 95.—Burchardi Diarium (Ed. Thuasne, II, 491).—Villari, Niccolò Machiavelli, I, 249, 279 (Milano, 1895).
[305] Llorente, Hist. crít., Appendix VII.—Nueva Recop. Lib. VIII, Tit. ii, ley 2.
[306] Yet licence to return could doubtless often be had for a consideration. Compromises and commutations, as we shall see, were a recognized source of revenue and a document of this period contains an offer, from certain parties who had been absolved in Rome, of seven thousand ducats and some houses, for permission to reside in Spain and present themselves to the Inquisition for salutary penance.—Archivo de Simancas, Patronato Real, Inquisition, Leg. único, fol. 5.
[307] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 1.
[308] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I, fol. 47; Lib. 3, fol. 32.—Archivo da Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 933.
[309] Bibl. nacional, MSS., X, 157, fol. 244; D, 118, fol. 39, 41, 104.
[310] Gachard, Voyages des Souverains des Pays-Bas, I, 548.
[311] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I, fol. 13, 15.
[312] Bulario, Lib. I, fol. 50.
[313] Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, fol. 104.
[314] Somoza, op. cit., P. II, cap. xxxiii, n. 50.
[315] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 3, fol. 7.—Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 2, n. 16, fol. 296.
[316] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 3, fol. 71, 75, 77.
[317] Döllinger, Beiträge zur politischen, kirchlichen u. Cultur-geschichte, T. III, p. 204.—Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, n. 2, fol. 8.
[318] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias fol. 50.
[319] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Leg. 1465, fol. 28.
[320] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 3, fol. 133.
[321] Ibidem, Lib. 3, fol. 149, 274.
[322] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. II, fol. 19, 21.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 72, fol. 61; Lib. 74, fol. 56, 62.
[323] Llorente, Añales, II, 106.
[324] Somoza, P. II, cap. xxxiii, n. 85, 86.
[325] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 9, fol. 15.
[326] Ibidem, Lib. 9, fol. 16.
[327] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias, fol. 59.
[328] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias, fol. 55-58.—Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, n. 2, fol. 31, 104.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 14, fol. 17, 18.—Llorente, Hist. crít. cap. XI, Art. v, n. 9.
[329] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias, fol. 23.
[330] Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, fol. 104.
[331] Llorente, Añales, II, 181, 208, 227.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 4, fol. 9; Lib. 9, fol. 14; Leg. 1465, fol. 28.—Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, n. 54, fol. 104; fol. 177.—Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 2, n. 16, fol. 196.
[332] Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, n. 54, fol. 8, 104, 177.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 14, fol. 55-7.—Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias, fol. 65, 68, 72.—Llorente, Añales, II, 207, 216, 243.
[333] Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, fol. 104.
[334] Ibidem, fol. 39, n. 17.
[335] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias, fol. 26, 74, 81, 83, 85.—Páramo, p. 607.
[336] Somoza, op. cit., P. II, cap. xxxiii, n. 41.—Llorente, Añales, II, 334, 335.
[337] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. III de copias, fol. 133.
[338] Böhmer, Francisca Hernández und Francisco Ortiz, pp. 174-5 (Leipzig, 1865).
[339] Llorente, Hist. crít. cap. XIV, Art. ii, n. 4-10.
[340] Somoza, op. cit., P. II, cap. xxxiii, n. 87.
[341] Juan de Zuñiga, the ambassador at Rome, states that when, in 1572, the commission of Pedro Ponce de Leon as inquisitor-general was drafted, Gregory XIII had strong desire to limit his faculties so as to make the Spanish Inquisition subordinate to the Roman Congregation and that it required infinite labor to obtain it in the customary form. Possibly the case of Carranza may have suggested the innovation.—Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. IV, fol. 77.
[342] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 13, fol. 21.
[343] Ibidem, Lib. 79, fol. 99.—Somoza, P. II, cap. xxxiii, n. 112.
[344] Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias, fol. 32, 35, 39; Libro IV, fol. 2.
[345] MSS. of Royal Library of Copenhagen, 214 fol.
[346] Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, n. 55, fol. 175.
[347] Archivo de Simancas, Gracia y Justicia, Inquisicion, Leg. 621, fol. 171.—Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, n. 12, fol. 442.—Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. IV, fol. 77, 81, 83, 87; Lib. III, fol. 442.—Theiner, Annal. Ecclesiast. III, 361-2.
[348] Hinojosa, Despachos de la Diplomacia Pontificia, I, 252-4, 358.
[349] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Leg. 1465, fol. 28.
[350] Somoza, op. cit., P. II, cap. xxxiii, n. 138.—MSS. Bibl. nacional de Lima, Protocolo 223, Expediente 5270.
[351] MSS. of Library of Univ. of Halle, Yc, 20, Tom. I.
[352] Zurita, Añales de Aragon, Lib. XX, cap. xlix.—Páramo, p. 151.
[353] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 939, fol. 285.
[354] Ibidem, Gracia y Justicia, Inquisicion, Leg. 621, fol. 139.
STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA
The subserviency of Philip IV to his inquisitors-general was even more marked, and we have seen how vigorously he supported the Inquisition in its extension of its jurisdiction over matters foreign to the faith, leading the clergy of Majorca to procure papal briefs exempting them from it in such cases. The chapter of Valencia was less fortunate and was exposed to the full force of the royal indignation in 1637. Inquisitor-general Sotomayor had obtained a pension of nine hundred ducats on the archdeaconry of Játiva and one of three hundred and forty ducats on a prebend vacated by the death of the canon Villarasa. The chapter refused payment; Sotomayor sued them in the tribunal and of course obtained a decision in his favor. The aggrieved chapter revenged itself by ceasing the customary courtesy of sending two canons to receive the inquisitors at the door of the cathedral on the occasion of publishing the edict; this continued for two years and, on the second, the door of the great chapel was locked and the inquisitors had to await its opening. For this disrespect they prosecuted the chapter, which then appealed to Rome on both suits and obtained briefs committing the cases to a special commission of the Roman Inquisition, granting a faculty to relieve them from any excommunication and citing Sotomayor to appear in Rome. The case was assuming a serious aspect and the Suprema, November 30, 1637, presented to Philip a consulta with letters for his signature, addressed to his ambassador, to the pope, to the viceroy, the archbishop, and the chapter. Philip was in the full ardor of a contest with the pope over the jurisdiction of the nuncio and the Roman condemnation of books supporting the royal prerogative; he was not content with the measures proposed and returned the consulta with the comment that much more vigorous methods were required, nor did it comport with the royal dignity to ask for what he could legally enforce. He had therefore ordered the Council of Aragon to write to the chapter, through the viceroy, expressing his displeasure and his determination to resort to the most extreme steps. Letters were also to be written to the viceroy and the archbishop commanding the prosecution of the chapter in the Banco Real unless the briefs were forthwith surrendered; the Inquisition was not to appear in the matter, but only the archbishop, and a minister of justice was to be at hand when the demand was made, so as to seize the briefs as soon as they were produced. This violent program was duly carried out; Canon Oñate, the custodian of the briefs, was forced to surrender them; through the hands of the Council of Aragon they were passed to Sotomayor and were carefully preserved as trophies in the archives of the Suprema.[355]
If this inspired in ecclesiastics the terror desired it did not influence defendants under trial, who continued to appeal to Rome, for a carta acordada of August 3, 1538, orders the tribunals, when such cases occur, to send reports not only to it but direct to the Roman agent of the Inquisition, in order that no time should be lost by him in working for their withdrawal.[356] A few years later there followed the most bitter and stubborn conflict that had yet occurred between Madrid and Rome on the subject of appeals—the case of Gerónimo de Villanueva, which is so illustrative in various ways that it merits a somewhat detailed examination.
APPEALS TO ROME
Gerónimo de Villanueva, Marquis of Villalba, belonged to an ancient family of Aragon, of which kingdom he was Prothonotary, or secretary of state; while his brother Agustin was Justicia. He won the favor of Olivares, as well as of Philip, and accumulated a plurality of offices, rendering him at last one of the most important personages of the state, for he became a member of the Councils of Aragon, War, Cruzada and Indies, of the Camara of the Council of Indies, Secretary of State and of the “Despacho universal de la Monarquia.”[357]
VILLANUEVA’S CASE
In 1623 there was founded in Madrid, with the object of restoring the relaxed Benedictine discipline, a convent under the name of La Encarnacion bendita de San Placido, with funds furnished by Villanueva and by the family of Doña Teresa de Silva (also called Valle de la Cerda), who was elected abbess. She had for some years been under the direction of Fray Francisco Garcia Calderon, a Benedictine of high reputation, who was inclined to mysticism. Villanueva had an agreement with the superiors of the Order giving him the appointment of spiritual directors and he naturally placed Calderon in charge. Before the year was out, one of the nuns became demoniacally possessed; the contagiousness of the disorder is well known and soon twenty-two out of the thirty were similarly affected, including Teresa herself. Calderon was reckoned a skilful exorcist, but he was baffled, as was likewise the Abbot of Ripel, who was called in. At the suggestion of the latter, the wild utterances of the demoniacs were written down, and a mass accumulated of some six hundred pages, for it was a current belief that demons were often compelled by God to utter truths concealed from man. These largely took the shape of announcing that the convent would be the source of a reformation, not only of the Order but of the whole Church; eleven of the nuns were to be the apostles of a New Dispensation, one having the spirit of St. Peter, another that of St. Paul and so forth, while Calderon represented Christ. They would go forth to redeem the world; when Urban VIII should die he would be succeeded by Cardinal Borgia, who would bestow the cardinalate on Calderon; then Calderon would be pope for thirty-three years and Villanueva, who would be made a cardinal, would have a share in the great work.
For three years this went on, to the despair of the exorcists; people began to suspect some underlying evil and Fray Alonso de Leon, who had been associated with Calderon in the direction and had quarrelled with him, denounced the affair to the Inquisition in 1628. Calderon’s prosecution was ordered: he endeavored to escape to France but was caught at Gerona and brought back to Toledo for trial. The nuns were all cast into the secret prison, where it was not difficult to extort from their fears such evidence as was wanted. Calderon endured without confession three rigorous tortures, but nevertheless he was condemned as an Alumbrado, guilty of teaching impeccability and the other heresies ascribed to Illuminism. April 27, 1630 he was sentenced to a living death in a cell of the convent designated to receive him. Doña Teresa was relegated to a convent for four years and the nuns were scattered in different houses.[358]
Apart from Illuminism, there were the consultation of demons and the prophecies of a renovation of the Church through a new apostolate. The latter was qualified as a heresy; the former was a debatable point. The six censors appointed by the Suprema held that belief in prophecies made by demons was superstitious divination, aggravated by the character of the prophecies and the practice of writing them out; it was no excuse to say that the demon acted as the minister of God, for this could be made to justify all heresies, and even to believe the demon to be the minister of God was superstitious divination.[359]
In all this Villanueva was compromised. His house adjoined the convent and he was much there, especially at night, after his official duties were over. The conventual discipline became inevitably relaxed and, in the subsequent proceedings, it was in evidence that he had been seen sitting in Teresa’s lap while she cleaned his hair of insects. He took much interest in the demonic prophecies, especially those which foretold his importance in the Church, and he treasured a picture which was drawn of his guardian angel, in which he was represented as a pillar sustaining the Church. He took part in interrogating the demons and writing what they said and he kept these writings in his house. This appeared in the evidence taken in the trial of Teresa and the nuns and, according to inquisitorial practice, the portions relating to him were extracted and submitted to censors who reported, March 12, 1630, unfavorably; he was an accomplice or, if not, he was at least a fautor of the heresies. Then other censors were called in and a junta was held, March 20th, which reduced the finding to his being moderately suspect of having incurred the above censure.[360]
There was evidently no desire to attack so influential a personage who was supported by the favor of Olivares, and the Inquisition carried the matter no further, but doubtless Villanueva felt the danger of his position and possibly hints may have reached him of the evidence collected which might at any time be used for the furtherance of some court intrigue. He seems to have hesitated long but finally on January 7, 1632, he presented a self-denunciation to Fray Antonio de Sotomayor, confessor of the king, not as yet inquisitor-general, but a member of the Suprema. In this he naturally extenuated matters; he alleged his misplaced confidence in Calderon and Alonso de Leon and professed that, being unable to judge the import of it all, he made the statement in order that the proper remedy might be applied. Six months elapsed without action but, in July, five different groups of censors were consulted, whose opinions varied from holding him as an accomplice to declaring him guilty of no mortal sin. July 30th the Suprema considered the case and decided that there was no ground for prosecution—one member, however dissenting and voting for further consultation with competent theologians. The majority opinion governed and, on November 22nd, a certificate was duly given to Villanueva.[361]
VILLANUEVA’S CASE
He might well congratulate himself on his escape and turn his attention to rehabilitating the unfortunate nuns of San Placido. It was well-nigh unexampled that the Inquisition should confess fallibility by revoking a judgement and to accomplish it demanded time and perseverance. When all was ready, on February 5, 1638, Fray Gabriel de Bustamente, in the name of the Benedictine Order, petitioned the Suprema to revise the case and that the nuns be set free and restored to their honor. This was referred to nine censors, who reported, April 14th, that the nuns were innocent of anything rendering them amenable to the Inquisition; they had merely obeyed their spiritual director and what was guilty in him was innocent in them. To save appearances, however, they added that, if they had acted on the evidence laid before their predecessors, their conclusions would have been identical. The Suprema delayed action until October 2nd, when it decided that the imprisonment of the nuns and their sentences should not affect their good name and repute or that of their kindred, monastery, or Order. They were thus rehabilitated, the convent was reorganized and, to erase from human memory all that had occurred, in November an edict was published requiring, under severe penalties, the surrender of all relations and copies of the former sentence, many of which were fabulous.[362] As though to secure the future of San Placido, a new building was commenced for it by Villanueva, in 1641, the cornerstone of which was laid with much ceremony.
It was never safe to reckon upon the Inquisition. If it could reverse a condemnation, it could reverse an acquittal, especially as St. Pius V had decreed that no acquittal for heresy should be held to be res judicata and permanent, whether pronounced by inquisitors, bishops, popes or even the Council of Trent.[363] For awhile, matters were quiescent. Villanueva was receiving fresh proofs of the royal favor. October 27, 1639 Philip gave him a seat in the Council of War and, on January 16, 1640, granted him additional graces in reward of services performed in Aragon. Even the fall of his protector Olivares, in February, 1643, did not affect his position, for his membership in the Council of Indies was bestowed on April 23d of that year.[364] Yet the disgrace of the chief favorite opened the way to many intrigues and especially to those directed against his return to power, of which, at one time, there seemed much probability. It would be impossible now to assert with absolute certainty what was the direct object sought for in Villanueva’s ruin, but we may feel confident that, in addition to the desire to divide his spoils, a powerful motive was the wish to get possession of his papers, in the hope of finding in them compromising material for use against Olivares.
The first attack was skilfully directed against San Placido and not against Villanueva. Sotomayor, the aged inquisitor-general, was forced, as we have seen, to resign on June 20, 1643, although he continued nominally in office until his successor, Arce y Reynoso, took possession, November 14th. Arce had already been designated for the post and, on July 13th, a royal letter informed him that Sotomayor had promised to subdelegate to him any cases that the king desired. Philip went on to say that the affair of San Placido had never ceased to give him concern; the truth had never been ascertained and, as it concerned so greatly the Catholic religion, it required a searching and impartial investigation, such as it would receive at Arce’s hands, wherefore, as soon as he received power from Sotomayor, he must undertake it in such wise as would give public satisfaction. The commission from Sotomayor followed the same day and comprehended not only the nuns but all persons concerned, whether lay or clerical.[365]
The letter was evidently drawn up by Arce for the signature of Philip, who was but a tool in the hands of the intriguers. With the existence of the monarchy imperilled by three wars at once and the affairs of state disorganized by the sudden removal of the minister who had managed them for twenty years, it is absurd to suppose that he could spontaneously have given a thought to the concern of the little nunnery, the settlement of which had been acquiesced in for five years, or that he had the slightest inkling of what was to follow. That this action was but a pretext is shown by the fact that, although there were some proceedings taken against the nuns, which for several years gave them anxiety, they were allowed without protest to appeal to the pope who, in 1648, committed the case to the Bishop of Avila, after which it seems to have been dropped, for in 1651 we find them in full enjoyment of their honor.[366]
VILLANUEVA’S CASE
Arce had evidently been preparing in advance for the attack on Villanueva; on July 15, 1643, he acknowledged the royal commands which he was ready to obey; on July 24th the king sent him an order for all the papers in the case, expressing confidence that he would act as expected from his zeal, rectitude and prudence, and, only two days later, July 26th he wrote to the king that the case of one of the accomplices was ready for definite sentence but, as it involved confirming or setting aside a judgement of the Suprema, he hesitated to take the responsibility. He suggested various methods and invoked the angel of the kingdom to bring light from God to aid the king in solving so difficult a problem. To this Philip, in total ignorance of what was on foot, replied that he had placed the matter absolutely in Arce’s hands, who then concluded to let it take the form of an ordinary trial. Matters were already so far advanced that although the papers amounted to the enormous bulk of 7,500 folios, by August 27th the fiscal already had his clamosa or indictment prepared and presented. This displays the animus of the matter in being directed, not against the nuns but exclusively against Villanueva and the proceedings of 1632 which had acquitted him. Then, on September 18th the fiscal asked for the examination of new witnesses and, on January 13, 1644, he demanded that the affair should be submitted to new censors. He recapitulated the charges which we have seen, that Villanueva wrote down the utterances of the demons and kept them in his own house, his enquiring into future events dependent upon human free-will, his belief in the demons after experiencing their mendacity, his treasuring the picture of the angel, etc.[367] There was nothing new in all this, but at a time when the Inquisition was daily trying and penancing old women for fortune-telling and divination and superstitious practices, which were held to imply what was called a pact with the demon, there was technical ground for Villanueva’s prosecution, although not for the manner in which it was carried on.
The new censors were selected—learned men, we are told, and eminent theologians, many of them professors in Toledo and Alcalá de Henares. A formidable array of twenty-one articles was submitted to them, including not only Villanueva’s dealings with the demons of San Placido but his subsequent dabbling in astrology, through which he used to predict the result of campaigns. The censors could not well hesitate in pronouncing him vehemently suspect in the faith and some even held that those who had signed the exculpation of 1632 should be prosecuted.[368] All this was conducted with the inviolable secrecy of the Inquisition, both the king and the intended victim being kept in profound ignorance of what was on foot.
VILLANUEVA’S CASE
The opinions of the censors were furnished at various times up to May 15, 1644 and then the Suprema took three and a half months to consider them, until Philip was conveniently absent, conducting the campaign in Catalonia. After much prayerful thought, we are told, and supplication to God, a sentence of arrest was adopted, August 31st, and executed the same day. Two inquisitors, Juan Ortiz and Calaya, went to Villanueva’s house about 2 P.M., woke him from his siesta, placed him in a coach and hurried him off to Toledo, where he was thrust into a narrow cell with a little cot, and kept as usual, strictly incomunicado. Six keys were found on him, which he said covered papers belonging to the king. He declined to give orders as to his own papers and we are informed that large quantities were found concerning San Placido, but there is discreet silence about other matters. That same day and the next there came for him important despatches from the king, which had to be opened by his principal secretary. Arce at once wrote to Philip announcing the arrest and assuring him that the case would be prosecuted with the utmost desire for the greater service of God. Philip’s reply is the most abject expression of weakness; the mere assumption that the faith is concerned seems to paralyze his intellect and deprive him of all power of self-assertion. He was completely taken by surprise and expressed his astonishment at such action without consulting him or the queen. Villanueva was a minister in two tribunals and also secretary of state, having in his hands papers of the utmost consequence to the kingdom; there was no risk of his flight, nor would Philip have interfered had it been his own son, wherefore it was a matter for prior consultation. As it is done, however, he can only order the Suprema to act with the sole object of the service of God and exaltation of the holy Catholic faith, which are his chief desire and the only purpose of its existence. Arce answered this, September 21st, in a tone almost contemptuous. The inviolable secrecy of the Inquisition required that no one but the king should be informed of the commencement of the trial of one of the accomplices in the case of the nuns of San Placido, which was revived by his command. As to the queen, the arrest was made between one and two o’clock, which was an hour inconvenient for intrusion on her. This would appear sufficient as to giving notice to the king and queen, besides the disadvantage of delay and the risks of correspondence. Promptitude was essential and the king’s holy zeal always desires that there should be no delay in the affairs of God and the holy faith. When the king returns he can give orders about the papers, which are under lock and key.[369] These were all the reasons that Arce deigned to give his sovereign for increasing the confusion of that terrible time by suddenly imprisoning a principal minister of state, for the furtherance of a court intrigue.
The arrest of course created much excitement. The Council of State promptly presented a consulta, which Arce, in his letter to the king, characterized as very remarkable, and it was followed by similar appeals from the other councils of which Villanueva was a member—War, Indies, Aragon, and Cruzada. The kingdom of Aragon remonstrated with the king in a memorial setting forth the long and faithful services of Villanueva, his sudden imprisonment, without allowing time to settle official and personal affairs, and the infamy cast upon all his kindred; in view of the nature of the charges and his character it would have sufficed to assign as a prison his house or a convent, as was frequently done with those of much lower rank. The kingdom begged, for the sake of a family which had so long served it, that while his case was pending he might be restored to his home under sufficient guard and that he might have the benefit of the royal clemency and justice. Temperate as was this appeal, it aroused Arce’s wrath and he expressed to Philip a doubt whether it could be genuine, it being so extraordinary and amounting to fautorship, for which the parties should be prosecuted, although the Inquisition had not yet done so. Appeals to Philip’s humanity were in vain. Although he was speedily recalled to Madrid by the illness of the queen, who died October 9th, he made no remonstrance against the unnecessary cruelty shown to Villanueva, who was left in his cell, cut off from the world. In September he fell seriously ill and was allowed to have a servant, a youth of his chamber much attached to him, who was not allowed to leave the cell until the trial was concluded.[370]
The case followed the ordinary routine, the only new matter introduced being a little book found in his desk, setting forth fortunate and unfortunate days for him as deduced from the letters of his name. Over this the censors differed, two of them pronouncing it innocent, while five held it to be included in the prohibitions of the Ars Notoria as a tacit pact with the demon. Villanueva in his defence pleaded his former acquittal and there was a learned discussion, between his advocate and the fiscal, as to the applicability to the case of the bull Inter multiplices which defined that in heresy there could never be a final decision in favor of the accused. Philip urged despatch on the tribunal but it proceeded with the customary exasperating deliberation. After eighteen months had passed, when Philip was holding the Córtes of Saragossa, the deputies presented, January 18, 1646 an appeal in the name of the kingdom, expressing entire confidence in Villanueva’s innocence and urging that a period be put to the cruel suspense by the early conclusion of the trial. This was as fruitless as all previous efforts had been; it was not until he had passed two dreary years in his cell that a vote was taken in the case, August 3, 1646. There was general agreement that his sentence, with full details of his offences, should be read in the audience-chamber and not in a public auto de fe, that he should be severely reprimanded and be forbidden to occupy the house which he had built alongside of the convent, but there was discordia as to the number of persons to be present, as to whether or not he should be required to abjure de levi—for light suspicion of heresy—and as to banishing him, and there were some who voted for fining and suspending him from office for two years. Evidently, at the worst, there was no serious culpability proven and there were probably few courtiers of Philip IV against whom superstitions as grave could not have been alleged.[371]
VILLANUEVA’S CASE
In the estilo of the Inquisition, when there was discordia in the consulta de fe, the case was referred to the Suprema, which thus became the judge. September 1st, Villanueva recused one of the members, Antonio de Aragon, and the recusation was admitted after a hearing. Finally, on February 7, 1647, the Suprema pronounced sentence; there were to be present in the audience-chamber four ecclesiastics, four frailes, and four laymen; Villanueva was to be severely reprimanded and warned, he was to abjure de levi, be prohibited from communicating with the nuns or living in the adjoining house and be banished for three years from Toledo and Madrid and from twenty leagues around them.[372]
This sentence may not appear severe but, to understand the rest of the story it must be borne in mind that to be penanced by the Inquisition and be required to abjure for even light suspicion of heresy inflicted an ineffaceable stigma, not only on the culprit but on his kindred and posterity. The whole race was involved in infamy and no temporal punishment, however severe, could be so disastrous in its effect upon the honor of a noble family as the blot on its limpieza, or purity of blood, resulting from such a sentence. The extreme length to which this was carried will be considered hereafter; at present it suffices to point out that, while Villanueva’s worldly career was ruined already and his wanton incarceration in the secret prisons had been a severe infliction on him and his kindred, there had still been hope that this might yet be at least partially effaced by an acquittal. Penance and abjuration destroyed this hope and, to the Spanish noble, no effort was too great to avert so crushing a misfortune.
The nature of the sentence must have leaked out, for before its publication by the tribunal of Toledo, to which it was sent, the brother and sister of Villanueva, Agustin the Justicia and Ana, now abbess of San Placido, with Luis de Torres as proctor of Gerónimo, presented an appeal from it to the pope and a recusation of Arce y Reynoso and of others of the judges. The appeal was not admitted and they were told that the Inquisition did not listen to kindred in matters of faith. Then, on March 18th, Torres, in the name of Gerónimo, presented to the tribunal of Toledo a recusation of all the inquisitors and fiscals of Spain as being dependents of the inquisitor-general. It was all in vain. On March 23d Villanueva was brought into the audience-chamber to hear the sentence, but he acted in a manner so disorderly and made such outcries that the publication was suspended—a thing, we are told, unexampled in the history of the Inquisition—and the presiding inquisitor ordered the alcaide to take that man back to his cell. He recused every one who had acted as judge and appealed to the pope, to the king, and to any other competent judge.[373]
The tribunal consulted the Suprema and was ordered to execute the sentence. Another attempt was made on March 29th, but Villanueva refused to abjure and this was repeated on several subsequent occasions, in spite of warnings of the excommunication that would follow persistent obstinacy. At length, on June 7th, he offered to abjure under a protest, which he presented in writing, to the effect that he did so through fear of the censures and without prejudice to his appeal or other recourse that he might take and, on this protest being publicly read, he made the abjuration.[374] He was not set at liberty, but was transferred from the secret prison to the Franciscan convent, the tribunal giving as a reason his outcries and the disturbance that he made. This leniency the Suprema disapproved and, in a few days, he was remanded to the secret prison, where he was treated with much rigor. On June 18th he was notified that the fiscal accused him of contumacy for not complying simply with his sentence and, on July 18th, he made the abjuration and was released. There is an intimation that he withdrew the recusation and appeal, but the statement is not clear, though it is quite possible that means were found to effect it. John Huss was burnt for refusing to abjure; a bull of Martin V, quoted by the Inquisition, authorized the prosecution and relaxation of suspects who refuse to abjure and there is probably truth in a contemporary statement that the fiscal of the Suprema went to Toledo and threatened Villanueva that he would be publicly stripped of his habit as a knight of Calatrava and be relaxed to the secular arm for burning.[375] He was helpless in the hands of those who would shrink from nothing to accomplish their ends; they had gone too far to hesitate now and his power of endurance was exhausted.
VILLANUEVA’S CASE
Meanwhile his brother Agustin had not been idle. In several interviews with the king he had presented memorials which Philip forwarded to Arce, March 27th, exhorting him to observe justice but to take care that the severity and authority of the Inquisition do not suffer. He added that the memorials showed that the secrecy of the Inquisition had been violated; this must be investigated and exemplary punishment be administered.[376] There was no hope of justice in this quarter and Agustin turned to Rome as a last resort. Don Joseph Navarro, who is spoken of as secretary, a devoted follower of Villanueva, was despatched thither to procure a brief and was doubtless well provided with funds. His errand soon was known and, on June 7th, Philip wrote to his ambassador, the Count of Oñate, to use every means to prevent the granting of the brief and, if issued, to procure its revocation; a personal note to the pope, at the same time, pointed out the irreparable injury which the admission of the appeal would cause to the holy Catholic faith and the free exercise of the Inquisition. Communications were slow for, on July 26th, Oñate reported the arrival of Navarro and asked for instructions.[377]
Navarro found little difficulty in obtaining the desired brief, in spite of Oñate’s efforts. Villanueva seems to have awaited it, while recuperating in retirement from his three years’ incarceration and final struggles. When it arrived he went to Saragossa, which he reached August 31st. His coming aroused many fears, for people thought it might be the prelude to a bloody drama, like that of Antonio Pérez. On September 2nd he presented himself at the prison of Manifestacion, where bail was entered for him by the sons of his brother Agustin and of the Count of Fuentes, after which he applied for a firma, to protect him from molestation during the course of his appeal, which was duly granted. He was given the city—or as some said the kingdom—as a prison and, on September 4th the Bishop of Málaga, who was captain-general, reported to the Count of Haro, Philip’s new minister, that the city was quiet and there was nothing to fear. The bishop enclosed a letter of September 1st from Villanueva to the king, announcing that, during his imprisonment, his representatives, without his knowledge, had appealed to the pope, who had granted a brief empowering either the Bishop of Cuenca, Segovia or Calahorra, to hear the case in appeal and to render a final decision. While anxious for this means of obtaining justice, he would desist from it if such were the royal pleasure; the brief had not been presented to either of the prelates, nor would it be without the royal licence.[378]
Arce had already been informed of the brief and had lost no time in taking steps to neutralize it. On September 3rd orders were sent to the Bishop of Calahorra—and doubtless to the others—ordering him not to receive it. He promptly replied that it had not been presented, but that if it should come he would refuse to accept or to execute it, trusting to the royal protection against all penalties that it might contain; he had been connected with the Inquisition and knew its justice with regard to Villanueva and, if these appeals to Rome were allowed, the consequences to the Catholic religion would be lamentable.[379] Apparently the Spanish episcopate had small reverence for the Vicegerent of God.
VILLANUEVA’S CASE
The leading statesmen of Spain took a different view. A junta had been assembled to consider the situation, of which five members out of six (including the President of Castile and the Commissioner-general of the Cruzada) united in a consulta of September 15th. This set forth that when the Toledo tribunal sentenced Villanueva he had a right of appeal to the Suprema; he presented reasons for recusing the inquisitor-general and some of the members and was denied a hearing; he was seized again for the protest and appeal and held until he accepted the sentence and renounced all defence. He was thus forced to have recourse to the pope, whose jurisdiction is supreme in matters of faith and is the source of that of all inquisitors. In ordinary cases three decisions in conformity [through appeals] are required to render a sentence conclusive, while here, in a case involving the honor of a whole family, the single sentence of an inferior tribunal is all that has been allowed. Villanueva did not violate his sentence in going to Saragossa, for it required him not to come within twenty leagues of the court, and he had gone away fifty leagues. He was justified in applying for the firma, for the right of appeal includes the means necessary to enjoy the appeal. The inquisitor-general should be instructed not to order his arrest for, besides that no man should be deprived of his defence, it might cause some disturbance in Saragossa, under pretext of a violation of the fueros, for it is notorious that he was discharged by the Inquisition. There are two courses open—one to solicit the pope to withdraw the brief; the other that the fiscal of the Suprema apply for it and then retain it; but these raise the scruple that a man struggling for his honor and that of his family is denied all defence, after he has been forced to seek it beyond the kingdom and moreover, in the disturbed condition of Naples [then in revolt under Masaniello], it is well not to offend the pope, who might cause the loss of the Italian possessions of Spain. The sixth member of the junta, the Licenciado Francisco Antonio de Alarcon, denounced Villanueva as guilty for going to another kingdom [Aragon]; he was impeding the Inquisition and inviting the papal interference which would destroy its usefulness; the fiscal should demand the papal brief and the Council should retain it.[380]
The opinion of the junta doubtless prevented the re-arrest and renewed prosecution of Villanueva, which was evidently contemplated, but otherwise all reasons of justice and reasons of state were wasted on Philip, who was completely under the domination of Arce y Reynoso and ready to rush blindly into a contest with Rome. Equally fruitless was an appeal, made September 23rd, by Agustin Villanueva, who furnished a list of cases in which appeals to the pope had been admitted.[381] A warning came from Oñate, who wrote, December 17th and again February 12, 1648, that Navarro was busily utilizing the impediments thrown in the way of the brief to procure another, that the curia attributed all the trouble to Arce, that the delay was producing a bad impression and that there was serious talk in the Congregation of the Inquisition of disciplining him for it. This brought from Philip, March 17th, a rambling and inconsequential letter, scolding Oñate for his lack of success and urging him to fresh efforts; the brief was invalid as being obreptitious and surreptitious; Navarro was ordered home and Oñate must see that he left Rome forthwith. Letters, moreover, to the pope and the cardinals in the Spanish interest, drawn up by the Suprema and signed by Philip, manifest how every influence that Spain possessed was employed to deprive Villanueva of his last resource.[382]
Innocent X, in fact, had grown indignant at the opposition to his brief and had transmitted through his nuncio another to Arce, forbidding all further resistance under pain of deprivation of the inquisitor-generalship, suspension of all functions and interdiction from entering a church, while other officials would be removed from office and excommunicated. To this Arce replied, March 12th, assuring the pope that the case had been suspended awaiting the papal decision, and representing, what he knew to be also false, that for a hundred and fifty years the popes had refused to entertain appeals or had revoked the briefs and remanded the cases to the inquisitor-general. The authority of the Inquisition, he argued, was now more necessary than ever, in consequence of the spread of Judaism and heresy. Villanueva had been treated with extreme kindness and benignity, as would be learned from a person about to be sent to inform the pope, wherefore he begged that the case be remitted to him and the Suprema.[383]
This was a typical specimen of inquisitorial methods of mis-representation and of evasion—of practical but not open disobedience. Innocent, however, was not to be thus juggled with. He had substituted the Bishop of Sigüenza for him of Cuenca. Then the Bishop of Segovia died and Calahorra was transferred to Pampeluna, whereupon further letters commissioned Sigüenza, Pampeluna and the Bishop-elect of Segovia, but Pampeluna died and was replaced by the Bishop of Avila, so finally a brief of April, 1648 ordered Avila, Sigüenza and Segovia to act, on their obedience and under penalty of suspension from all functions and of ingress to their churches. They all refused the dangerous office, under various excuses, but the nuncio brought great pressure to bear on Avila and he finally accepted. It is noteworthy, however, that Villanueva never presented himself before the bishop, either in person or by procurator, to have the case reopened.[384]
VILLANUEVA’S CASE
The matter was evidently growing serious and juntas were held, July 14th and August 27th, to consider the situation. As the latter was presided over by Arce, whom Philip had made President of Castile, so as to increase his powers of evil, it decided that the king should not submit to the abuses of the curia in a matter in which the Catholic religion was at stake.[385] Philip scarce needed urging, but it was not until November 5th that he took the offensive by sending Don Pedro de Minerbe, of the Royal Council, to seize the brief, in whomsoever’s hands it might be, and any others that Villanueva might have procured, together with all papers relating to it. These were to be considered by a junta to be assembled for the purpose so that, if they did not contravene the privileges of the Inquisition, they might be executed and, if otherwise, that his Holiness should be advised of it and be supplicated to revoke them. Any notaries who had served the briefs were to be arrested and imprisoned with a view to their prosecution.[386]
Minerbe fulfilled his mission, but the time had passed when Ferdinand and Charles V had treated papal letters thus irreverently. Philip IV was a prince of very different caliber and his tottering monarchy inspired but little respect. Arce felt the danger of his position, for Innocent had threatened him with deposition if the execution of the brief was impeded and an explosion of papal wrath was inevitable. He sought shelter in playing a double game and, on January 19, 1649, he presented to Philip a report as to cases which had been evoked by the pope. In this, after citing a number, he added that there were many more recent ones in which the cases and papers had been demanded and the demands had been obeyed, notably in 1626 and 1627; these proved the subordination of the Spanish Inquisition to Rome and even without them the papal supremacy was incontestable; Villanueva’s appeal was directly to the pope, whom all the faithful were bound to obey.[387] Having thus placed himself on the record, doubtless with the royal connivance, he felt free to repeat his assertions that papal interference was unprecedented and to urge his master to stand fast.
The Suprema had sent its fiscal Cabrera to Rome on this business and his efforts, added to those of Oñate, were inclining Innocent to yield, when the news came of the seizure of the briefs. The papal displeasure was extreme and there was no hesitation in taking up the gage of battle. It had become a struggle for independence on the one side and for supremacy on the other, which had to be fought out, for there was no ground for compromise. All the advantage was on the side of the curia in the contest thus rashly provoked; it knew this and its next move showed that it felt assured of victory. A brief of March 1st recited the preliminaries of the case and then evoked it from the Inquisition and the bishops to the Apostolic See. Perpetual silence was imposed on the Inquisition, the inquisitor-general and other officials, any action by whom would bring upon them, ipso facto and without further sentence, perpetual and irrevocable suspension from divine service, the exercise of pontifical functions and ingress into churches, together with deprivation of their offices and ecclesiastical revenues. Moreover, within three months after notice of this, they were to transmit to Rome all papers and documents, public and private, concerning Villanueva, under the same penalties, and finally all bulls, from those of Alexander VI onward, concerning appeals were derogated.[388]
The Suprema might well characterize to Philip this document as containing extraordinary and unusual clauses and it could only suggest to him the favorite Spanish formula, obedecer y no cumplir—to obey and not to execute. The first thing done was the customary supplication to the pope to withdraw it, based on the laws of the kingdom and the high deserts of the Holy Office. This was done in such haste that there was no time to make a clean copy and it was despatched by a courier, April 24th. This gave breathing time, and more was gained by representing that it was impossible to trust the originals of the documents to the risks of transportation and that the copying of them would consume much more than the three months allowed, as the secretaries were busy and the records so voluminous that they occupied more than eight thousand pages—a gross exaggeration for when copied they amounted only to forty-six hundred. This served for the present, however, and successive postponements were obtained.[389]
[355] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 25, fol. 56; Lib. 52, fol. 186; Gracia y Justicia, Inquisicion, Leg. 621, fol. 102.—Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. V, fol. 51, 52.
[356] MSS. of Royal Library of Copenhagen, 213 fol., p. 145.
[357] Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 1, n. 4, fol. 23.
[358] Two copies of the sentence of Calderon are in the Bodleian Library, Arch. Seld. 130 and A. Subt. 11. It has also been printed by Eyssenhardt, Mittheilungen aus der Stadtbibliothek zu Hamburg, 1886.
[359] Relacion, fol. 258, 297.
[360] Relacion, fol. 259-60, 290.
[361] Ibidem, fol. 261-7.—“Que por lo que tocava á Don Gerónimo no tocava al santo oficio el proceder en esta causa, por no tener calidad de oficio lo contra el testificado.”
[362] Relacion, fol. 267-8.—Bibl. nacional, MSS., S, 294, fol. 387.—Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Lib. VII de Autos, Leg. 2, fol. 27.
[363] Pii PP. V, Bull. Inter multiplices (Lib. V, in Septimo, ii, 10).
[364] Archivo de Simancas, Gracia y Justicia, Inquisicion, Leg. 621, fol. 156-60.
[365] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisition, Lib. 53, fol. 54, 60.
[366] Relacion, fol. 291.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 53, fol. 81; Gracia y Justicia, Inquisicion, Leg. 621, fol. 135, 137, 171, 188.
[367] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 53, fol. 53, 55, 60-2.—Relacion, fol. 268-9.
[368] Relacion, fol. 270-89.
[369] Relacion, fol. 289.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 53, fol. 63-4.—Pellicer, Avisos históricos (Semanario erúdito, XXXIII, 225).
[370] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 53, fol. 64; Lib. 54, fol. 411.—Pellicer (Semanario, XXXIII, 231, 250).
[371] Relacion, fol. 290, 291.—Cartas de Jesuitas (Memorial hist. español, XVIII, 39).—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 53, fol. 86, 92, 104.
[372] Relacion, fol. 292.
[373] Relacion, loc. cit.—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 54, fol. 409.—Cartas de Jesuitas (Memorial hist. español, XVIII, 473).
[374] Relacion, fol. 293.—Cartas de Jesuitas (Memorial, XIX, 5).
[375] Relacion, fol. 293.—Martin. PP. V Bull Inter cunctas, 22 Feb. 1418 (Pegnæ Append, ad Eymeric., p. 76).—Cartas de Jesuitas (XIX, 5-7).
[376] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Legajo 1495, fol. 73.
[377] Ibidem, Gracia y Justicia, Inquisicion, Leg. 621, fol. 111, 131, 132.—Bibl. nacional, MSS., X, 157, fol. 244.
[378] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 54, fol. 128; Gracia y Justicia, Inquisicion, Leg. 621, fol. 112. 114.
[379] Bibl. nacional, MSS., S, 291, fol. 214.
[380] Archivo de Simancas, Gracia y Justicia, Inquisicion, Leg. 621, fol. 115.
[381] Ibidem, fol. 116.
[382] Ibidem, fol. 118, 122, 130, 131, 132, 133, 151.
[383] Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 54, fol. 416.
[384] Ibidem, Gracia y Justicia, Inquisicion, Leg. 621, fol. 154, 171.
[385] Ibidem, Leg. 621, fol. 134, 135.
[386] Archivo de Simancas, Gracia y Justicia, Inquisicion, Leg. 621, fol. 136, 184.
[387] Ibidem, fol. 139.
[388] Archivo de Simancas, Gracia y Justicia, Leg. 621, fol. 154, 197.
[389] Ibidem, fol. 164, 141, 171.
