CIUDAD-REAL AND TOLEDO
The one at Ciudad-Real was intended for the great archiepiscopal province of Toledo, to which city it was transferred in 1485. The reason why it was first established at the former place may perhaps be that the warlike Archbishop Alonso Carrillo,whether through zeal for the faith or in order to assert his episcopal jurisdiction over heresy and prevent the intrusion of the papal inquisitors, had appointed before his death, July 1, 1482, a certain Doctor Thomás as inquisitor in Toledo. To what extent the latter performed his functions we have no means of knowing, the only trace of his activity being the production and incorporation, in the records of subsequent trials by the Inquisition of Ciudad-Real, of evidence taken by him.[467]Be this as it may the Inquisition of Ciudad-Real was not organized until the latter half of 1483. It commenced by issuing an Edict of Grace for thirty days, at the expiration of which it extended the time for another thirty days. Meanwhile it was busily employed, throughout October and November, in making a general inquest and taking testimony from all who would come forward to give evidence. In the resultant trials the names of some of the witnesses appear with suspicious frequency and the nature of their reckless general assertions, without personal knowledge, shows how flimsy was much of the evidence on which prosecutions were based. That the inquest was thorough and that every one who knew anything damaging to a Converso was brought up to state it may be assumed from the trial of Sancho de Ciudad in which the evidence of no less than thirty-four witnesses was recorded, some of them testifying to incidents happening twenty years previous. Much of this moreover indicates the careless security in which the Conversos had lived and allowed their Jewish practices to be known to Christian servants and acquaintances with whom they were in constant intercourse. The first public manifestation of results seems to have been an auto de fe held November 16th, in the church of San Pedro, for the reconciliation of penitents who had come forward during the Term of Grace.[468]Soon after this the trials of those implicated commenced and were prosecuted with such vigor that, on February 6, 1484, an auto de fe was held in which four persons were burnt, followed on the 23d and 24th of the same month by an imposing solemnity involving the concremation of thirty living men and womenand the bones and effigies of forty who were dead or fugitives.[469]In its two years of existence the tribunal of Ciudad-Real burnt fifty-two obstinate heretics, condemned two hundred and twenty fugitives and reconciled one hundred and eighty-three penitents.[470]
In 1485 the tribunal of Ciudad-Real was transferred to the city of Toledo where the Conversos were very numerous and wealthy. They organized a plot to raise a tumult and despatch the inquisitors during the procession of Corpus Christi (June 2d) but, as in the case of Seville, it was betrayed and six of the conspirators were hanged, after which we hear of no further trouble there. Those who were first arrested confessed that the design extended to seizing the city gates and cathedral tower and holding the place against the sovereigns.[471]
PENITENTS IN TOLEDO
The inquisitor, Pedro Díaz, had preached the first sermon on May 24th, and, after the defeat of the conspiracy, the tribunal entered vigorously on its functions. The customary Term of Grace of forty days was proclaimed and after some delay we are told that many applied for reconciliation rather through fear of concremation than through good will. After the expiration of the forty days, letters of excommunication were published against all cognizant of heresy who should not denounce it within sixty days—a term subsequently extended by thirty more. Another very effectual expedient was adopted by summoning the Jewish rabbis and requiring them, under penalty of life and property, to place a major excommunication on their synagogues and not remove it until all the members should have revealed everything within their knowledge respecting Judaizing Christians. This was only perfecting a device that had already been employed elsewhere. In 1484, by a cédula of December 10th, Ferdinand had ordered the magistrates of all the principal towns in Aragon to compel, by all methods recognized in law, the rabbis and sacristans of the synagogues and such other Jews as might be named, to tell the truth as to all that might be asked of them, and in Seville we are told that a prominent Jew, Judah Ibn-Verga, expatriated himself to avoid compliance with a similardemand. The quality of the evidence obtained by such means may be estimated from the fact that when, in the assembly of Valladolid, in 1488, Ferdinand and Isabella investigated the affairs of the Inquisition, it was found that many Jews testified falsely against Conversos in order to encompass their ruin, for which some of those against which this was proved were lapidated in Toledo. Whether true or false, the Toledan Inquisition reaped by these methods a plentiful harvest of important revelations. It is easy, in fact, to imagine the terror pervading the Converso community and the eagerness with which the unfortunates would come forward to denounce themselves and their kindred and friends, especially when, after the expiration of the ninety days, arrests began and quickly followed each other.[472]
The penitents were allowed to accumulate and at the first auto de fe, held February 12, 1486, only those of seven parishes—San Vicente, San Nicolás, San Juan de la leche, Santa Yusta, San Miguel, San Yuste, and San Lorenzo—were summoned to appear. These amounted to seven hundred and fifty of both sexes, comprising many of the principal citizens and persons of quality. The ceremony was painful and humiliating. Bareheaded and barefooted, except that, in consideration of the intense cold, they were allowed to wear soles, carrying unlighted candles and surrounded by a howling mob which had gathered from all the country around, they were marched in procession through the city to the cathedral, at the portal of which stood two priests who marked them on the forehead as they entered with the sign of the cross, saying “Receive the sign of the cross which you have denied and lost.” When inside they were called one by one before the inquisitors while a statement of their misdeeds was read. They were fined in one-fifth of all their property for the war with the Moors; they were subjected to lifelongincapacity to hold office or to pursue honorable avocations or to wear other than the coarsest vestments unadorned, under pain of burning for relapse, and they were required to march in procession on six Fridays, bareheaded and barefooted, disciplining themselves with hempen cords.[473]The loving mother Church could not welcome back to her bosom her erring children without a sharp and wholesome warning, nor did she relax her vigilance, for this perilous process of confession and reconciliation was so devised as to furnish many subsequent victims to the stake, as we shall see hereafter.
The second auto was held on April 2, 1486, where nine hundred penitents appeared from the parishes of San Roman, San Salvador, San Cristóval, San Zoil, Sant Andrés and San Pedro. The third auto, on June 11th, consisted of some seven hundred and fifty from Santa Olalla, San Tomás, San Martin and Sant Antolin. The city being thus disposed of, the various archidiaconates of the district were taken in order. That of Toledo furnished nine hundred penitents on December 10th, when we are told that they suffered greatly from the cold. On January 15, 1487, there were about seven hundred from the archidiaconate of Alcaraz and on March 10th, from those of Talavera, Madrid and Guadalajara about twelve hundred, some of whom were condemned in addition to wear the sanbenito for life. While the more or less voluntary penitents were thus treated there were numerous autos de fe celebrated of a more serious character in which there were a good many burnings, including not a fewfrailesand ecclesiastical dignitaries, as well as cases of fugitives and of the dead, who were burned in effigy and their estates confiscated.[474]
TRIBUNAL OF GUADALUPE
In 1485 a temporary tribunal was set up at Guadalupe, where Ferdinand and Isabella appointed as inquisitor (under what papal authority does not appear) Fray Nuño de Arevalo, prior of the Geronimite convent there. Apparently to guide his inexperience Doctor Francisco de la Fuente was transferred from Ciudad-Real and, with another colleague, the Licentiate Pedro Sánchez de la Calancha, they purified the place of heresy with so much vigor that, within a year, they held in the cemetery before the doors of the monastery seven autos de fe in which were burnt a heretic monk, fifty-two Judaizers, forty-eight dead bodies and twenty-five effigies of fugitives, while sixteen were condemned to perpetual imprisonment and innumerable others were sent to the galleys or penanced with thesanbenitofor life. These energetic proceedings do not appear to have made good Christians of those who were spared for, July 13, 1500, Inquisitor-general Deza ordered all the Conversos of Guadalupe to leave the district and not to return.[475]The same year, 1485, saw a tribunal assigned to Valladolid, but it must have met with effective resistance, for in September, 1488, Ferdinand and Isabella were obliged to visit the city in order to get it into working condition; it forthwith commenced operations by arresting some prominent citizens and on June 19, 1489, the first auto de fe was held in which eighteen persons were burnt alive and the bones of four dead heretics.[476]Still, the existence of this tribunal would seem to have long remained uncertain for, as late as December 24, 1498, we find Isabella writing to a new appointee that she and the inquisitor-general have agreed that the Inquisition must be placed there and ordering him to prepare to undertake it, and then on January 22, 1501, telling Inquisitor-general Deza that she approves of its lodgement in the house of Diego de la Baeza, where it is to remain for the present; she adds that she and Ferdinand have written to the Count of Cabra to see that for the future the inquisitors are well treated.[477]Permanent tribunals were also established in Llerena and Murcia,of the early records of all of which we know little. In 1490 a temporary one was organized in Avila by Torquemada, apparently for the purpose of trying those accused of the murder of the Santo Niño de la Guardia; it continued active until 1500 and during these ten years there were hung in the church theinsignias y mantetasof seventy-five victims burnt alive, of twenty-six dead and of one fugitive, besides the sanbenitos of seventy-one reconciled penitents.[478]
The various provinces of Castile thus became provided with the machinery requisite for the extermination of heresy, and at an early period in its development it was seen that, for the enormous work before it, some more compact and centralized organization was desirable than had hitherto been devised. The Inquisition which had been so effective in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was scattered over Europe; its judges were appointed by the Dominican or Franciscan provincials, using a course of procedure and obeying instructions which emanated from the Holy See. The papacy was the only link between them; the individual inquisitors were to a great extent independent; they were not subjected to visitation or inspection and it was, if not impossible, a matter of difficulty to call them to account for the manner in which they might discharge their functions. Such was not the conception of Ferdinand and Isabella who intended the Spanish Inquisition to be a national institution, strongly organized and owing obedience to the crown much more than to the Holy See. The measures which they adopted with this object were conceived with their customary sagacity, and were carried out with their usual vigor and success.
ORGANIZATION
At this period they were earnestly engaged in reorganizing the institutions of Castile, centralizing the administration and reducing to order the chaos resulting from the virtual anarchy of the preceding reigns. In effecting this they apportioned, in 1480, with the consent of the Córtes of Toledo, the affairs of government among four royal councils, that of administration and justice, known as the Concejo Real de Castella, that ofFinance, or Concejo de Hacienda, the Concejo de Estado and the Concejo de Aragon, to which was added a special one for the Hermandades.[479]These met daily in the palace for the despatch of business and their effect in making the royal power felt in every quarter of the land and in giving vigor and unity to the management of the state soon proved the practical value of the device. The Inquisition was fast looming up as an affair of state of the first importance, while yet it could scarce be regarded as falling within the scope of either of the four councils; the sovereigns were too jealous of papal interference to allow it to drift aimlessly, subject to directions from Rome, and their uniform policy required that it should be kept as much as possible under the royal superintendence. That a fifth council should be created for the purpose was a natural expedient, for which the assent of Sixtus IV was readily obtained, when it was organized in 1483 under the name of theConcejo de la Suprema y General Inquisicion—a title conveniently abbreviated tola Suprema—with jurisdiction over all matters connected with the faith. To secure due subordination and discipline over the whole body it was requisite that the president of this council should have full control of appointment and dismissal of the individual inquisitors who, as exercising power delegated directly from the pope, might otherwise regard with contempt the authority of one who was also merely a delegate. It thus became necessary to create a new office, unknown to the older Inquisition—an inquisitor-general who should preside over the deliberations of the council. The office evidently was one which would be of immense weight and the future of the institution depended greatly on the character of its first chief. By the advice of the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, Pero González de Mendoza, the royal choice fell on Thomas de Torqemada, the confessor of the sovereigns, who was one of the seven inquisitors commissioned by the papal letter of February 11, 1482. The other members of the council were Alonso Carrillo, Bishop of Mazara (Sicily) and two doctors of laws, Sancho Velasco de Cuellar and Ponce de Valencia.[480]The exact date of Torquemada’s appointment isnot known, as the papal brief conferring it has not been found, but, as Sixtus created him Inquisitor of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia by letters of October 17, 1483, his commission as Inquisitor-general of Castile was somewhat antecedent.[481]
TORQUEMADA
The selection of Torquemada justified the wisdom of the sovereigns. Full of pitiless zeal, he developed the nascent institution with unwearied assiduity. Rigid and unbending, he would listen to no compromise of what he deemed to be his duty, and in his sphere he personified the union of the spiritual and temporal swords which was the ideal of all true churchmen. Under his guidance the Inquisition rapidly took shape and extended its organization throughout Spain and was untiring and remorseless in the pursuit and punishment of the apostates. His labors won him ample praise from successive popes. Already, in 1484, Sixtus IV wrote to him that Cardinal Borgia had warmly eulogized him for his success in prosecuting the good work throughout Castile and Leon, adding “We have heard this with the greatest pleasure and rejoice exceedingly that you, who are furnished with both doctrine and authority, have directed your zeal to these matters which contribute to the praise of God and the utility of the orthodox faith. We commend you in the Lord and exhort you, cherished son, to persevere with tireless zeal in aiding and promoting the cause of the faith, by doing which, as we are assured you will, you will win our special favor.” Twelve years later, Cardinal Borgia, then pope under the name of Alexander VI, assures him in 1496, that he cherishes him in the very bowels of affection for his immense labors in the exaltation of the faith.[482]If we cannot wholly attribute to himthe spirit of ruthless fanaticism which animated the Inquisition, he at least deserves the credit of stimulating and rendering it efficient in its work by organizing it and by directing it with dauntless courage against the suspect however high-placed, until the shadow of the Holy Office covered the land and no one was so hardy as not to tremble at its name. The temper in which he discharged his duties and the absolute and irresponsible control which he exercised over the subordinate tribunals can be fitly estimated from a single instance. There was a fully organized Inquisition at Medina, with three inquisitors, an assessor, a fiscal and other officials, assisted by the Abbot of Medina as Ordinary. They reconciled some culprits and burnt others, apparently without referring the cases to him, but when they found reason to acquit some prisoners they deemed it best to transmit the papers to him for confirmation. He demurred at this mercy and told the tribunal to try the accused again when the Licentiate Villalpando should be there asvisitador. Some months later Villalpando came there, the cases were reviewed, the prisoners were tortured, two of them were reconciled and the rest acquitted, the sentences being duly published as final. Torquemada on learning this was incensed and declared that he would burn them all. He had them arrested again and sent to Valladolid, to be tried outside of their district, where his threat was doubtless carried into effect.[483]When such was the spirit infused in the organization at the beginning we need not wonder that verdicts of acquittal are infrequent in the records of its development. Yet withal Torquemada’s zeal could not wholly extinguish worldliness. We are told, indeed, that he refused the archbishopric of Seville, that he wore the humble Dominican habit, that he never tasted flesh nor wore linen in his garments or used it on his bed, and that he refused to give a marriage-portion to his indigent sister, whom he would only assist to enter the order ofbeatasof St. Dominic. Still, his asceticism did not prevent him from living in palaces surrounded by a princely retinue of two hundred and fifty armed familiars and fifty horsemen.[484]Nor was his persecuting career purelydisinterested. Though the rule of his Dominican Order forbade individual ownership of property and, though his position as supreme judge should have dictated the utmost reserve in regard to the financial results of persecution, he had no hesitation in accumulating large sums from the pecuniary penances inflicted by his subordinates on the heretics who spontaneously returned to the faith.[485]It is true that the standards of the age were so low that he made no secret of this and it is also true that he lavished them on the splendid monastery of St. Thomas Aquinas which he built at Avila, on enlarging that of Santa Cruz at Segovia of which he was prior and on various structures in his native town of Torquemada. Yet amid the ostentation of his expenditure he lived in perpetual fear, and at his table he always used the horn of a unicorn which was a sovereign preservative against poison.[486]
INTERNAL QUARRELS
As delegated powers were held to expire with the death of the grantor, unless otherwise expressly defined, Torquemada’s commission required renewal on the decease of Sixtus IV. Ferdinand and Isabella asked that the new one should not be limited to the life of the pope, but that the power should continue, not only during Torquemada’s life, but until the appointment of his successor.[487]The request was not granted and, when Innocent VIII, by a brief of February 3, 1485, recommissioned Torquemada it was in the ordinary form. This apparently was not satisfactory, but the pope was not willing thus to lose all control of the Spanish Inquisition and a compromise seems to have been reached, for when, February 6, 1486, Torquemada was appointed Inquisitor-general of Barcelona and his commission for Spain was renewed, on March 24th of the same year, it was drawn to continue at the good pleasure of the pope and of the Holy See, which, without abnegating papal control, rendered renewals unnecessary.[488]This formula was abandoned in the commissions of Torquemada’s immediate successors, but was subsequentlyresumed and continued to be employed through the following centuries.[489]
Torquemada’s commission of 1485 contained the important power of appointing and dismissing inquisitors, but the confirmation of 1486 bore the significant exception that all those appointed by the pope were exempted from removal by him, indicating that in the interval he had attempted to exercise the power and that the resistance to it had enlisted papal support. In fact, at the conference of Seville, held in 1484 by Torquemada, there were present the two inquisitors of each of four existing tribunals; from Seville we find Juan de San Martin, one of the original appointees of 1479, but his colleague, Miguel de Morillo, has disappeared and is replaced by Juan Ruiz de Medina, who had been merely assessor, while but a single one, Pero Martínez de Barrio, of the seven commissioned by Sixtus IV in 1482 appears as representing the other tribunals—the rest are all new men, doubtless appointees of Torquemada.[490]There was evidently a bitter quarrel on foot between Torquemada and the original papal nominees, who held that their powers, delegated directly from the pope, rendered them independent of him, and, as usual, the Holy See inclined to one side or to the other in the most exasperating manner, as opposing interests brought influence to bear. Complaints against Torquemada were sufficiently numerous and serious to oblige him thrice to send Fray Alonso Valaja to the papal court to justify him.[491]He seems to have removed Miguel de Morillo, who vindicated himself in Rome, for a brief of Innocent VIII, February 23, 1487, appoints him inquisitor of Seville, in complete disregard of the faculties granted to Torquemada. Then amotu proprioof November 26, 1487, suspends both him and Juan de San Martin and commissions Torquemada to appoint their successors. Again, a brief of January 7, 1488, appoints Juan Inquisitor of Seville, while subsequent briefs of the same year are addressed to him concerning the business of his office as though he were discharging its duties independently of Torquemada, but his death in 1489 removed him from the scene. The quarrel evidently continued,and at one time Fray Miguel enjoyed a momentary triumph, for a papal letter of September 26, 1491, commissions him as Inquisitor-general of Castile and Aragon, thus placing him on an equality with Torquemada himself.[492]It would be impossible now to determine what part the sovereigns may have had in these changes and to what extent the popes disregarded the authority conferred on them of appointment and removal. There was a constant struggle on the one hand to render the Spanish Holy Office national and independent, and on the other to keep it subject to papal control.
FIVE INQUISITORS GENERAL
Finally the opposition to Torquemada became so strong that Alexander VI, in 1494, kindly alleging his great age and infirmities, commissioned Martin Ponce de Leon, Archbishop of Messina, but resident in Spain, Iñigo Manrique, Bishop of Córdova, Francisco Sánchez de la Fuente, Bishop of Avila, and Alonso Suárez de Fuentelsaz, Bishop of Mondonego and successively of Lugo and Jaen, as inquisitors-general with the same powers as Torquemada; each was independent and could act by himself and could even terminate cases commenced by another.[493]It is quite probable that, to spare his feelings, he was allowed to name his colleagues as delegates of his powers, for in some instructions issued, in 1494, by Martin of Messina and Francisco of Avila they describe themselves as inquisitors-general in all the Spanish realms subdelegated by the Inquisitor-general Torquemada.[494]He evidently still retained his pre-eminence and was active to thelast, for we have letters from Ferdinand to him in the first half of 1498 concerning the current affairs of the Inquisition, in which the Bishop of Lugo declined to interfere with him. The Instructions of Avila, in 1498, were issued in his name as inquisitor-general, and the assertion that he resigned two years before his death, September 16, 1498, is evidently incorrect.[495]In some respects, however, the Bishop of Avila had special functions which distinguished him from his colleagues, for he was appointed by Alexander VI, November 4, 1494, judge of appeals in all matters of faith and March 30, 1495, he received special faculties to degrade ecclesiastics condemned by the Inquisition, or to appoint other bishops for that function.[496]So long as they were in orders clerics were exempt from secular jurisdiction and it was necessary to degrade them before they could be delivered to the civil authorities for burning. Under the canons, this had to be done by their own bishops, who were not always at hand for the purpose, and who apparently, when present, sometimes refused or delayed to perform the office, which was a serious impediment to the business of the Inquisition, as many Judaizing Conversos were found among clerics.
This multiform headship of the Inquisition continued for some years until the various incumbents successively died or resigned. Iñigo Manrique was the first to disappear, dying in 1496, and had no successor. Then, in 1498, followed the Bishop of Avila, who had been transferred to Córdova in 1496. In the same year, as we have seen, Torquemada died, and this time the vacancy was filled by the appointment as his successor ofDiego Deza, then Bishop of Jaen (subsequently, in 1500, of Palencia, and in 1505 Archbishop of Seville) who was commissioned, November 24, 1498, for Castile, Leon and Granada, and on September 1, 1499, for all the Spanish kingdoms.[497]In 1500 died Martin Archbishop of Messina—apparently a defaulter, for, on October 26th of the same year, Ferdinand orders his auditor of the confiscations to pass in the accounts of Luis de Riva Martin, receiver of Cadiz, 18,000 maravedís due by the archbishop for wheat, hay, etc., which he forgives to the heirs.[498]From this time forward Deza is reckoned as the sole inquisitor-general and direct successor of Torquemada, but Fuentelsaz, Bishop of Jaen, remained in office, for, as late as January 13, 1503, an order for the payment of salaries is signed by Deza and contains the name of the Bishop of Jaen as also inquisitor-general.[499]He relinquished the position in 1504 and Deza remained as sole chief of the Inquisition until, in 1507, he was forced to resign as we shall see hereafter.
IT FRAMES ITS OWN RULES
At the time of his retirement the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon had been separated by the death of Isabella, November 26, 1504. Ferdinand’s experience with his son-in-law, Philip I, and his hope of issue from his marriage in March, 1506, with Germaine de Foix, in which case the kingdoms would have remained separate, warned him of the danger of having his ancestral dominions spiritually subordinated to a Castilian subject. Before Deza’s resignation, therefore, he applied to Julius II to commission Juan Enguera, Bishop of Vich, with the powers for Aragon which Deza was exercising. Julius seems to have made some difficulty about this, for a letter of Ferdinand, from Naples, February 6, 1507, to his ambassador at Rome, Francisco de Rojas, instructs him to explain that, since he had abandoned the title of King of Castile, the jurisdiction was separated and it was necessary and convenient that there should be an Inquisition for each kingdom.[500]He prevailed and the appointments of Cardinal Ximenes for Castile and of Bishop Enguera for Aragon were issued respectively on June 6 and 5, 1507.[501]During the lifetime of Ximenes the Inquisitions remained disunited, but in1518, after his death, Charles V caused his former tutor, Cardinal Adrian of Utrecht, Bishop of Tortosa, who in 1516 had been made Inquisitor-general of Aragon, to be commissioned also for Castile, after which there was no further division. During the interval Ferdinand had acquired Navarre and had annexed it to the crown of Castile, so that the whole of the Peninsula, with the exception of Portugal, was united under one organization.[502]
Among other powers granted to Torquemada was that of modifying the rules of the Inquisition to adapt them to the requirements of Spain.[503]The importance of this concession it would be difficult to exaggerate, as it rendered the institution virtually self-governing. Thus the Spanish Inquisition acquired a character of its own, distinguishing it from the moribund tribunals of the period in other lands. The men who fashioned it knew perfectly what they wanted and in their hands it assumed the shape in which it dominated the conscience of every man and was an object of terror to the whole population. In the exercise of this power Torquemada assembled the inquisitors in Seville, November 29, 1484, where, in conjunction with his colleagues of the Suprema, a series of regulations was agreed upon, known as theInstruciones de Sevilla, to which, in December of the same year and in January, 1485, he added further rules, issued in his own name under the authority of the sovereigns. In 1488 another assembly was held, under the supervision of Ferdinand and Isabella, which issued theInstruciones de Valladolid.[504]In 1498 came theInstruciones de Avila—the last in which Torquemada took part—designed principally to check the abuses which were rapidly developing, and, for the same purpose, a brief addition was made at Seville in 1500, by Diego Deza. All these became known in the tribunals as theInstruciones Antiguas.[505]As the institution became thoroughlyorganized under the control of the Suprema, consultation with the subordinate inquisitors was no longer requisite and regulations were promulgated by it incartas acordadas. It was difficult, however, to keep the inquisitors strictly in line, and variations of practice sprang up which, in 1561, the Inquisitor-general Fernando Valdés endeavored to check by issuing theInstruciones Nuevas. Subsequent regulations were required from time to time, forming a considerable and somewhat intricate body of jurisprudence, which we shall have to consider hereafter. At present it is sufficient to indicate how the Inquisition became an autonomous body—animperium in imperio—framing its own laws and subject only to the rarely-exercised authority of the Holy See and the more or less hesitating control of the crown.
FLIGHT OF NEW CHRISTIANS
At the same time all the resources of the State were placed at its disposal. When an inquisitor came to assume his functions the officials took an oath to assist him, to exterminate all whom he might designate as heretics and to observe and compel the observance by all of the decretalsAd abolendum,Excommunicamus,Ut officium InquisitionisandUt Inquisitionis negotium—the papal legislation of the thirteenth century which made the state wholly subservient to the Holy Office and rendered incapable of official position any one suspect in the faith or who favored heretics.[506]Besides this, all the population was assembledto listen to a sermon by the inquisitor, after which all were required to swear on the cross and the gospels to help the Holy Office and not to impede it in any manner or on any pretext.[507]
GENERAL SUBMISSION
It is no wonder that, as this portentous institution spread its wings of terror over the land, all who felt themselves liable to its animadversion were disposed to seek safety in flight, no matter at what sacrifice. That numbers succeeded in this is shown by the statistics of the early autos de fe, in which the living victims are far outnumbered by the effigies of the absent. Thus in Ciudad-Real, during the first two years, fifty-two obstinate heretics were burnt and two hundred and twenty absentees were condemned.[508]In Barcelona, where the Inquisition was not established until 1487, the first auto de fe, celebrated January 25, 1488, showed a list of four living victims to twelve effigies of fugitives; in a subsequent one of May 23d, the proportions were three to forty-two; in one of February 9, 1489, three to thirty-nine; in one of March 24, 1490, they were two to one hundred and fifty-nine, and in another of June 10, 1491, they were three to one hundred and thirty-nine.[509]If the object had simply been to purify the land of heresy and apostasy this would have been accomplished as well by expatriation as by burning or reconciling, but such was not the policy which governed the sovereigns, and edicts were issued forbidding all of Jewish lineage from leaving Spain and imposing a fine of five hundred florins on ship-masters conveying them away.[510]This was not, as it might seem to us, wanton cruelty, although it was harsh, inasmuch as it assumed guilt on mere suspicion. To say nothing of the confiscations, which were defrauded of the portable property carried away by the fugitives, we must bear in mind that, to the orthodox of the period, heresy was a positive crime, nay thegreatest of crimes, punishable as such by laws in force for centuries, and the heretic was to be prevented from escaping its penalties as much as a murderer or a thief. The royal edicts were supplemented by the Inquisition, and it is an illustration of the extension of its jurisdiction over all matters, relating directly or indirectly to the faith, that, November 8, 1499, the Archbishop Martin of Messina issued an order, which was published throughout the realm and was confirmed by Diego Deza, January 15, 1502, to the effect that no ship-captain or merchant should transport across seas any New Christian, whether Jewish or Moorish, without a royal license, under pain of confiscation, of excommunication and of being held as a fautor and protector of heretics. To render this effective two days later Archbishop Martin ordered that suitable persons should be sent to all the sea-ports to arrest all New Christians desiring to cross the sea and bring them to the Inquisition so that justice should be done to them, all expenses being defrayed out of the confiscations.[511]These provisions were not allowed to be a dead-letter, though we are apt to hear of them rather in cases where, for special reasons, the penalties were remitted. Thus, July 24, 1499, Ferdinand writes to the Inquisitors of Barcelona that a ship of Charles de Sant Climent, a merchant of their city, had brought from Alexandria to Aiguesmortes certain persons who had fled from Spain. Even this transportation between foreign ports came within the purview of the law, for Ferdinand explains that action in this case would be to his disservice, wherefore if complaint is lodged with them they are to refer it to him or to the inquisitor-general for instructions. Again, on November 8, 1500, the king orders the release of the caravel and other property of Diego de la Mesquita of Seville, which had been seized because he had carried some New Christians to Naples—the reason for the release being the services of Diego in the war with Naples and those which he is rendering elsewhere. A letter from Ferdinand to the King of Portugal, November 7, 1500, recites that recently some New Christians had been arrested in Milaga, where they were embarking under pretext of going to Rome for the jubilee. On examination by the Inquisition at Seville they admitted that they were Jews but said that they had been forced in Portugal to turn Christians; as this brought them underinquisitorial jurisdiction, the inquisitors were sending to Portugal for evidence and the king was asked to protect the envoys and give them facilities for the purpose.[512]The same determination was manifested to recapture when possible those who had succeeded in effecting their flight. In 1496 Micer Martin, inquisitor of Mallorca, heard of some who were in Bugia, a sea-port of Africa. He forthwith despatched the notary, Lope de Vergara, thither to seize them, but the misbelieving Moors disregarded his safe-conduct and threw him and his party into a dungeon where they languished for three years. He at length was ransomed and, in recompense of his losses and sufferings, Ferdinand ordered, March 31, 1499, Matheo de Morrano receiver of Mallorca to pay him two hundred and fifty gold ducats without requiring of him any itemized statement of his injuries.[513]
REPRESSION OF ABUSES
It shows how strong an impression had already been made by the resolute character of the sovereigns, and how violent was the antagonism generally entertained for the Conversos, that so novel and absolute a tyranny could be imposed on the lately turbulent population of Castile without resistance, and that so powerful a class as that against which persecution was directed should have submitted without an effort save the abortive plots at Seville and Toledo. The indications that have reached us of opposition to the arbitrary acts of the Inquisition in making arrests or confiscations are singularly few. In the records of the town-council of Xeres de la Frontera, under date of August 28, 1482, there is an entry reciting that there had come to the town a man carrying a wand and calling himself an alguazil of the Inquisition; he had seized Gonçalo Caçabé and carried him off without showing his authority to the local officials, which was characterized as an atrocious proceeding and the town ought totake steps with the king, the pope and the Inquisition to have it undone.[514]Doubtless the summary acts of the Holy Office over-riding all recognized law, created such feeling in many places as we may gather from a cédula of Ferdinand, December 15, 1484, forbidding the reception of heretics and ordering their surrender on demand of the inquisitors, and another of July 8, 1487, commanding that any one bearing orders from the inquisitors of Toledo is to be allowed to arrest any person, under a penalty of 100,000 maravedís for the rich and confiscation for others,[515]but complaints were dangerous, for they could be met by threats of punishment for fautorship of heresy. Still it required considerable time to accustom the nobles and people to unquestioning submission to a domination so absolute and so foreign to their experience. As late as the year 1500 there are two royal letters to the Count of Benalcázar reciting that he had ordered the arrest of a girl of Herrera who had uttered scandals against the faith; she was in the hands of his alcaide, Gutierre de Sotomayor, who refused to deliver her when the inquisitor sent for her. The second letter, after an interval of nineteen days, points out the gravity of the offence and peremptorily orders the surrender of the girl. She proved to be a Jewish prophetess whose trial resulted in bringing to the stake large numbers of her unfortunate disciples. There is also an anticipation of resistance in a letter, January 12, 1501, to the Prior of St. John, charging him to see that no impediments are placed in the way of the receiver of the Inquisition of Jaen in seizing certain confiscated property at Alcázar de Consuegra.[516]More indicative of popular repugnance is a letter of October 4, 1502, to the royal officials of a place not specified, reciting that the people are endeavoring to have Mosen Salvador Serras, lieutenant of the vicar, removed because he had spoken well of the Inquisition and had been charged by the inquisitors with certain duties to perform; they are not to allow this to be done and are to see that he is not ill-treated.[517]In 1509 Ferdinand had occasion to remonstrate with the Duke of Alva, in the case of Alonso de Jaen, a resident of Coria, because, when he was arrested, an agent of the duke had seized certain cows and sold them and, when he was condemned and his property confiscated, Alva had forbiddenany one to purchase anything without his permission. Ferdinand charges him to allow the sale to proceed freely and to account for the cows, pointing out that he had granted to him a third of the net proceeds of all confiscations in his estates.[518]This grant of a third of the confiscations was made to other great nobles and doubtless tended to reconcile them to the operations of the Inquisition. In this general acquiescence it is somewhat remarkable that, as late as 1520, when Charles V ordered Merida to prepare accommodations for a tribunal, the city remonstrated; everything there was quiet and peaceable, it said, and it feared a tumult if the Holy Office was established there, while if merely a visit was made for an inquest it would lend willing aid. Cardinal Adrian hearkened to the warning in Charles’s absence and in a letter of November 27, 1520, ordered his inquisitors to settle somewhere else.[519]