FERDINAND’S BIGOTRY
At the same time it was inevitable that power so irresponsible would be frequently and greatly abused, and it is interesting to observe that, when no resistance was made, Ferdinand was, as a general rule, prompt to intervene in favor of the oppressed. Thus January 28, 1498, he writes to the inquisitors-general that recently some officials of the Inquisition of Valencia went to the barony of Serra to arrest some women who wore Moorish dress and, as they were not recognized, they were resisted by the Moors, whereupon the inquisitors proceeded to seize all the Moors of Serra who chanced to come to Valencia, so that the place was becoming depopulated. He therefore orders the inquisitors-general to intimate to their subordinates that they must find some other method whereby the innocent shall not suffer for the fault of individuals and, not content with this, he wrote directly to the Inquisitor of Valencia, instructing him to proceed with much moderation. In another case where opposition had been provoked he writes, January 18, 1499, “We have your letter and are much displeased with the maltreatment which you report of the inquisitor and his officials. It will be attended to duly. But often you yourselves are the cause of it, for ifeach of you would attend to his duties quietly and carefully and injure no one you would be held in good esteem. Look to this in the future, for it will displease us much if you do what you ought not, with little foundation.” At the same time he charges the inquisitor not to make arrests without good cause, “for in such things, besides the charge on your conscience, the Holy Office is much defamed and its officials despised.” So in a letter of August 15, 1500, to the inquisitors of Saragossa, he tells them that he has received a copy of an edict which they had issued at Calatayud; it is so sharp that if it is enforced no one can be safe; they must consider such things carefully or consult him; in the present case they will obey the instructions sent by the inquisitors-general and must always bear in mind that the only object of the Inquisition is the salvation of souls. Again, when the inquisitors of Barcelona imperiously placed the town of Perpiñan under interdict, in a quarrel arising out of a censal or ground-rent on Carcella, Ferdinand writes to them, March 5, 1501, that the town is poor and must be gently treated, especially as it is on the frontier, and he sends a special envoy to arrange the matter.[520]The wearing delays, which were one of the most terrible engines of oppression by the Inquisition, were especially distasteful to him. January 28, 1498, he writes to an inquisitor about the case of Anton Rúiz of Teruel, who had been imprisoned for five months without trial for some remarks made by him to another person about the confiscation of the property of Jaime de Santangel, though application had been made repeatedly to have the case despatched. Ferdinand orders that it be considered at once; the prisoner is either to be discharged on bail or proper punishment is to be inflicted. So, January 16, 1501, he reminds inquisitors that he has written to them several times to conclude the case between the heirs of Mossen Perea and the sons of Anton Rúiz and deliver sentence; the case has been concluded for some time but the sentence is withheld; it must be rendered at once or the case must be either delegated to a competent person or be sent to the Suprema. At the same time, whenever there was the semblance of opposition to an injustice, on the part of the secular authorities, he was prompt to repress it. The action of the Inquisition of Valencia, in confiscating the property of a certain Valenzuola, excited so much feeling thatthe governor, the auditor-general, the royal council and the jurados met to protest against it and in so doing said some things unpleasing to the inquisitors, who thereupon complained to Ferdinand. He wrote to the offenders, March 21, 1499, rebuking them severely; it was none of their business; if the inquisitors committed an injustice the appeal lay to the inquisitor-general, who would rectify it; their duty was to aid the Inquisition and he ordered them to do so in future and not to create scandal.[521]He was more considerate when the frontier town of Perpiñan was concerned, for in 1513, when the deputy receiver of confiscations provoked antagonism by the vigor of his proceedings and the consuls complained that he had publicly insulted Franco Maler, one of their number, Ferdinand ordered the inquisitor of Barcelona to investigate the matter at once and to inflict due punishment.[522]
His whole correspondence shows the untiring interest which he felt in the institution, not merely as a financial or political instrument, but as a means of defending and advancing the faith. He was sincerely bigoted and, when he had witnessed an auto de fe in Valladolid, he wrote, September 30, 1509, to the inquisitor Juan Alonso de Navia to express the great pleasure which it had given him as a means of advancing the honor and glory of God and the exaltation of the Holy Catholic faith.[523]Inquisitors were in the habit of sending him reports of the autos celebrated by them, to which he would reply in terms of high satisfaction, urging them to increased zeal. On one occasion, in 1512, and on another in 1513, he was so much pleased that he made a present to the inquisitor of two hundred ducats and ordered fifteen ducats to be given to the messenger.[524]
A quarter of a century elapsed before there was, in the Castilian kingdoms, any serious resistance to the Inquisition. The trouble which then occurred was provoked by the excesses of an inquisitor named Lucero at Córdova, which were brought to light only by the relaxation of Ferdinand’s stern rule during the brief reign of Philip of Austria and the subsequent interregnum. As this affords us the only opportunity of obtaining an inside view of what was possible, under the usually impenetrable mantle ofsecrecy characteristic of inquisitorial procedure, it is worthy of investigation in some detail.
Córdova was somewhat unfortunate in its inquisitors; whether more or less so than other communities it would now be impossible to say. Lucero’s predecessor was Doctor Guiral, Dean of Guadix, who was transferred from there to Avila, in 1499. Falling under suspicion for irregularities, a papal brief was procured commissioning the Archbishop of Toledo to investigate him—and it is noteworthy that, although the inquisitor-general had full power of appointment, punishment and dismissal, papal intervention was deemed necessary in this case. The result showed the ample opportunities offered by the position for irregular gains and for oppression and injustice. He had received 150,000 maravedís by selling to penitents exemptions from wearing the sanbenito, or penitential garment. A large amount was secured in various ways from the receiver of confiscations, who was evidently an accomplice and who, of course, received his share of the spoils. Pilfering from sequestrated property yielded something, including ninety-three pearls of great value. Through his servants he gathered rewards or percentages offered, as we shall see, for discovering concealed confiscated property. He pocketed the fines which he imposed on reconciled penitents and was therefore interested in aggravating them. He negotiated for the Conversos of Córdova an agreement under which they compounded with 2,200,000 maravedís for confiscations to which they might become liable, and for this he received from them nearly 100,000, to which he added 50,000 by enabling two of the contributors to cheat their fellows by escaping payment of their assessments to the common fund. When transferred to Avila his field of operations was less productive, but he made what he could by extorting money from the kindred of his prisoners, and he did not disdain to take ten ducats and an ass from an official of the prison for some offence committed. As the royal fisc suffered from his practices he was arrested and tried, but, unfortunately, the documents at hand do not inform us as to the result.[525]
EXCESSES OF LUCERO
His successor at Córdova, Diego Rodríguez Lucero, was a criminal of larger views and bolder type, who presents himself to us as the incarnation of the evils resultant from the virtuallyirresponsible powers lodged in the tribunals. Our first glimpse of him is in 1495, when he figures as inquisitor of Xeres and the recipient from Ferdinand and Isabella of a canonry in Cadiz.[526]This shows that he had already gained the favor of the sovereigns, which increased after his promotion to Córdova, September 7, 1499, where, by the methods which we shall presently see, his discoveries of apostate Judaizers were very impressive. A royal letter of December 11, 1500, cordially thanked him for the ample details of a recent despatch relating how he was every day unearthing new heretics; he was urged to spare no effort for their punishment, especially of those who had relapsed, and to report at once everything that he did. His zeal scarce required this stimulation and his lawless methods are indicated by a letter of February 12, 1501, of Ferdinand and Isabella to their son-in-law Manoel of Portugal, expatiating on the numerous heretics recently discovered in Córdova, of whom two heresiarchs, Alfonso Fernández Herrero and Fernando de Córdova had escaped to Portugal, whither Lucero had despatched his alguazil to bring them back without waiting to obtain royal letters. This was an unwarrantable act and, when the alguazil seized the fugitives, Manoel refused license to extradite them until he should have an opportunity of seeing the evidence against them. Ferdinand and Isabella declare that this would be a grievous impediment to the Holy Office and disservice to God and they affectionately entreat Manoel to surrender the accused for the honor of God and also to protect from maltreatment the officials who had aided in their capture.[527]
We may not uncharitably assume that a portion, at least, of the favor shown to Lucero may have been due to the pecuniary results of his activity. By this time the confiscations, which at first had contributed largely to the royal treasury, were considerably diminished and at some places were scarce defraying the expenses of the tribunals. To this Córdova was now an exception; that its productiveness was rapidly growing is manifest from a letter of Ferdinand, March 12, 1501, to the receiver, Andrés de Medina, stating that he learns that there is much to be done and authorizing the appointment of two assistants at salaries of 10,000 maravedís and, on January 12 and 13,1503, orders were drawn on Córdova for 500,000 maravedís to defray inquisitorial salaries elsewhere. On the same date we have another illustration of Lucero’s activity in the sudden arrest of four of the official public scriveners. As they were the depositaries of the papers of their clients, the sequestration of all their effects produced enormous complications, to relieve which Ferdinand ordered all private documents to be sorted out and put in the hands of another scrivener, Luis de Mesa. This shows how the operations of the Inquisition might at any moment affect the interests of any man and it illustrates another of the profits of persecution for, when these delinquents should be burnt or disabled from holding public office, there would be four vacancies to be eagerly contended for by those who had money or favor for their acquisition.[528]
SECRETARY CALCENA
As early as 1501 there is evidence of hostility between Lucero and the Córdovan authorities. When the receiver of confiscations, accompanied by Diego de Barrionuevo, scrivener of sequestrations, was holding a public auction of confiscated property, the alguazil mayor of the city, Gonzalo de Mayorga, ordered the town-crier, Juan Sánchez, who was crying the auction, to come with him in order to make certain proclamations. The scrivener interposed and refused to let Sánchez go; hot words passed in which Mayorga insulted the Inquisition and finally struck the scrivener with his wand of office, after which the alcalde mayor of the city, Diego Rúiz de Zarate, carried him off to prison. The inviolability of the officials of the Inquisition was vindicated by a royal sentence of September 6th, in whichMayorga, in addition to the arbitrary penance to be imposed on him by Lucero, was deprived of his office for life, was disabled from filling any public position whatever, and was banished perpetually from Córdova and its district, which he was to leave within eight days after notification. Zarate was more mercifully treated and escaped with six months’ suspension from office.[529]This severity to civic officials of high position was a warning to all men that Lucero was not to be trifled with.
The unwavering support that he received from Ferdinand is largely explicable by the complicity of Juan Róiz de Calcena, a corrupt and mercenary official whom we shall frequently meet hereafter. He was Ferdinand’s secretary in inquisitorial affairs, conducting all his correspondence in such matters, and was also secretary to the Suprema, and thus was able in great degree to control his master’s action, rendering his participation in the villainies on foot essential to their success. How these were worked is displayed in a single case which happens to be described in a memorial from the city of Córdova to Queen Juana. The Archdeacon of Castro, Juan Muñoz, was a youth of seventeen, the son of an Old Christian mother and a Converso hidalgo. His benefice was worth 300,000 maravedís a year and he was a fair subject of spoliation, for which a plot was organized in 1505. His parents were involved in his ruin, all three were arrested and convicted and he was penanced so as to disable him from holding preferment. The spoils were divided between Cardinal Bernardino Carvajal, for whom bulls had been procured in advance, Morales the royal treasurer, Lucero and Calcena. The governor and chapter of Córdova gave the archdeaconry to Diego Vello, chaplain of the bishop, but the Holy See conveniently refused confirmation and bestowed it on Morales; Lucero obtained a canonry in Seville and some benefices in Cuenca, while Calcena received property estimated at 4,000,000 maravedís—doubtless an exaggerated figure representing the aggregate of his gains from complicity throughout Lucero’s career.[530]
It was probably in 1501 that the combination was formed which emboldened Lucero to extend his operations, arresting and condemning nobles and gentlemen and church dignitaries, many of them Old Christians of unblemished reputation andlimpios de sangre. It was easy, by abuse and threats, or by torture if necessary, to procure from the accused whatever evidence was necessary to convict, not only themselves but whomsoever it was desired to ruin. A great fear fell upon the whole population, for no one could tell where the next blow might fall, as the circle of denunciation spread through all ranks. Apologists from that time to this have endeavored to extenuate these proceedings by suggesting that those compromised endeavored to secure allies by inculpating in their confessions men of rank and influence, but in view of Lucero’s methods and the extent of his operations such an explanation is wholly inadequate to overthrow the damning mass of evidence against him.[531]
LUCERO’S REIGN OF TERROR
His views expanded beyond the narrow bounds of Córdova, and he horrified the land by gathering evidence of a vast conspiracy, ramifying throughout Spain, for the purpose of subverting Christianity and replacing it with Judaism, which required for its suppression the most comprehensive and pitiless measures. In memorials to Queen Juana the authorities, ecclesiastic and secular, of Córdova described how he had certain of his prisoners assiduously instructed in Jewish prayers and rites so that they could be accurate in the testimony which, by menaces or torture, he forced them to bear against Old Christians of undoubted orthodoxy. In this way he proved that there were twenty-fiveprofetissaswho were engaged in traversing the land to convert it to Judaism, although many of those designated had never in their lives been outside of the city gates. Accompanying them were fifty distinguished personages, including ecclesiastics and preachers of note.[532]Of course, these stories lost nothing in passing from mouth to mouth, and it was popularly said that some of these prophetesses, in their unholy errand, travelled asdrunken Bacchantes and others were transported on goats by the powers of hell.[533]A single instance, which happens to have reached us, illustrates the savage thoroughness with which he protected the faith from this assault. A certain Bachiller Membreque was convicted as an apostate Judaizer who had disseminated his doctrines by preaching. Lists were gathered from witnesses of those who had attended his sermons and these, to the number of a hundred and seven, were burnt alive in a single auto de fe.[534]The inquisitorial prisons were filled with the unfortunates under accusation, as many as four hundred being thus incarcerated, and large numbers were carried to Toro where, at the time, Inquisitor-general Deza resided with the Suprema.
The reign of terror thus established was by no means confined to Córdova. Its effects are energetically described by the Capitan Gonzalo de Avora, in a letter of July 16, 1507, to the royal secretary Almazan. After premising that he had represented to Ferdinand, with that monarch’s assent, that there were three things requisite for the good of the kingdom—to conduct the Inquisition righteously without weakening it, to wage war with the Moors, and to relieve the burdens of the people—he proceeds to contrast this with what had been done. “As for the Inquisition,” he says, “the method adopted was to place so much confidence in the Archbishop of Seville (Deza) and in Lucero and Juan de la Fuente that they were able to defame the whole kingdom, to destroy, without God or justice, a great part of it, slaying and robbing and violating maids and wives to the great dishonor of the Christian religion.... As for what concerns myself I repeat what I have already written to you, that the damages which the wicked officials of the Inquisition have wrought in my land are so many and so great that no reasonable person on hearing of them would not grieve.”[535]When a horde of rapacious officials, clothed in virtual inviolability, was let loose upon a defenceless population, such violence and rapine were inevitable incidents, and the motive of this was explained, by the Bishop of Córdova and all the authorities of the city, in a petition to the pope, to be the greed of the inquisitors for the confiscations which they habitually embezzled.[536]
It was probably in 1505, after the death of Isabella, November 16, 1504, that the people of Córdova first ventured to complain to Deza. He offered to send the Archdeacon Torquemada who, with representatives of the chapter and the magistrates, should make an impartial investigation, but when the city accepted the proposition he withdrew it. A deputation consisting of three church dignitaries was then sent to him asking for the arrest and prosecution of Lucero. He replied that if they would draw up accusations in legal form he would act as would best tend to God’s service, and, if necessary, would appoint judges to whom they could not object.[537]This was a manifest evasion, for the evidence was under the seal of the Inquisition and Deza alone could order an investigation. Apparently realizing that it was useless to appeal to Ferdinand, whose ears were closed by Calcena, their next recourse was to Isabella’s daughter and successor, Queen Juana, then in Flanders with her husband Philip of Austria. Philip was eager to exercise an act of sovereignty in the kingdom, which Ferdinand was governing in the name of his daughter and, on September 30, 1505, a cédula bearing the signatures of Philip and Juana was addressed to Deza, alleging their desire to be present and participate in the action of the Inquisition and meanwhile suspending it until their approaching arrival in Castile, under penalty of banishment and seizure of temporalities for disobedience, at the same time protesting that their desire was to favor and not to injure the Holy Office. Although a circular letter to all the grandees announced this resolution and commanded them to enforce it, no attention was paid to it. Don Diego de Guevara, Philip’s envoy, in fact wrote to him the following June that his action had produced a bad impression, for the people were hostile to the Conversos and there was talk of massacres like that of Lisbon.[538]
ARCHBISHOP TALAVERA
The next step of the opponents of Lucero was to recuse Deza as judge and to interject an appeal to the Holy See, leading to an active contest in Rome between Ferdinand and his son-in-law. A letter of the former, April 22, 1506, to Juan de Loaysa, agent of the Inquisition in Rome, described the attempt as an audacious and indecent effort to destroy the Inquisition which was morenecessary than ever. Loaysa was told that he could render no greater service to God and to the king than by defeating it; minute instructions were given as to the influences that he must bring to bear, and he was reminded that Holy Writ permits the use of craft and cunning to perform the work of God. The extreme anxiety betrayed in the letter indicates that there was much more involved than the mere defence of Lucero and Deza; it was with Philip and Juana that he was wrestling and the stake was the crown of Castile. On the other hand, Philip, doubtless won by the gold of the Conversos, had fairly espoused their cause and was laboring to obtain for them a favorable decision from the pope. His ambassador, Philibert of Utrecht, under date of June 28th, reported that he had urged Julius II not to reject the appeal of the Marranos but the politic pontiff replied that he must reserve his decision until Ferdinand and Philip had met.[539]
Undeterred by the mutterings of the rising storm, Lucero about this time saw in Isabella’s death a chance to strike at a higher quarry than he had hitherto ventured to aim at. The Geronimite Hernando de Talavera had won her affectionate veneration as her confessor and, on the conquest of Granada, in 1492, she had made him archbishop of the province founded there. He had a Jewish strain in his blood, as was the case in so many Spanish families; he was in his eightieth year, he was reverenced as the pattern and exemplar of all Christian virtues and he devoted himself unsparingly to the welfare of his flock, spending his revenues in charity and seeking by persuasion and example to win over to the faith his Moorish subjects. Yet he was not without enemies, for he had been the active agent in the reclamation by Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1480, of royal revenues to the amount of thirty millions of maravedís, alienated by Henry IV to purchase the submission of rebellious nobles and, although a quarter of a century had passed, it is said that the vengeful spirit thus aroused was still eager to encompass his ruin.[540]
Whatever may have been Lucero’s motive, inquisitorialmethods afforded abundant facilities for its accomplishment. He selected a woman whom he had tortured on the charge of being a Jewish prophetess and maintaining a synagogue in her house. He threatened her with further torture unless she should testify to what she had seen in a room in Talavera’s palace and on her replying that she did not know, he instructed her that an assembly was held, divided into three classes; in the first was the archbishop, with the bishops of Almería, Jaen and others; in the second, the dean and the provisor of Granada, the treasurer, the alcaide and other officials; in the third the prophetesses, the sister and nieces of Talavera, Doña María de Peñalosa and others. They agreed to traverse the kingdom, preaching and prophesying the advent of Elias and the Messiah, in concert with the prophets who were in the house of Fernan Alvárez of Toledo, where they were crowned with golden crowns.[541]All this was duly sworn to by the witness, as dictated to her by the fiscal, and formed a basis for the prosecution of Talavera and his family, doubtless supported by ample corroborative evidence, readily obtainable in the same manner. The occurrence of the name of the Bishop of Jaen suggests a further political intrigue; he was Alfonso Suárez de Fuentelsaz, the former colleague of Deza as inquisitor-general and was no doubt known as inclining to the Flemish party, as he subsequently accepted from Philip the presidency of the Royal Council.
PHILIP AND JUANA
Impenetrable secrecy was one of the most cherished principles of inquisitorial procedure, but Lucero probably desired to prepare the public for the impending blow and whispers concerning it began to circulate. Peter Martyr of Anghiera, who was attached to the royal court, wrote on January 3, 1506, to the Count of Tendilla, Governor of Granada, that Lucero, by means of witnesses under torture, had succeeded in imputing Judaism to the archbishop and his whole family and household; as there was no one more holy than Talavera, he found it difficult to believe that any one could be found to fabricate such a charge.[542]The attack commenced by arresting, in the most public and offensive manner, Talavera’s nephew, the dean and the officials of his church, during divine service and in his presence, evidently with the purpose of discrediting him. The arrest followed of his sister, his nieces and his servants, and we can readily conceivethe means by which even his kindred were compelled to give evidence incriminating him, as we gather from a letter of Ferdinand, June 9, 1506, to his ambassador at Rome, Francisco de Rojas, in which he says that the testimony against Talavera is that of his sisters and kindred and servants.[543]Before he could be arrested and prosecuted, however, special authorization from the Holy See was requisite, for, by a decree of Boniface VIII, inquisitors had no direct jurisdiction over bishops. For this, Ferdinand’s intervention was necessary and, after some hesitation, he consented to make the application. The inculpatory evidence given by Talavera’s family was sent to Rome; Francisco de Rojas procured the papal commission for his trial and forwarded it, June 3, 1506.[544]
Before it was despatched, however, Ferdinand’s position had changed with the arrival in Spain of his daughter Juana, now Queen of Castile, and her husband Philip of Austria. Eager to throw off Ferdinand’s iron rule and to win the favor of the new sovereigns, most of the nobles had flocked to them and with them the Conversos, who hoped to secure a modification in the rigor of the Inquisition. They had been aroused by the sufferings of their brethren in Córdova, whose cause was their own, and they were becoming an element not to be disregarded in the political situation; they had already secured a hearing in the Roman curia, always ready, as we shall see hereafter, to welcome appellants with money and to sacrifice them after payment received; they had obtained from Julius II commissions transferring from the Inquisition cognizance of certain cases—commissions which Ferdinand repeatedly asked the pope to withdraw and doubtless with success, as they do not appear in the course of events; they had even approached Ferdinand himself, while in Valladolid, with an offer of a hundred thousand ducats if he would suspend the Inquisition until the arrival of Juana and Philip. This offer, he says in a letter of June 9, 1506, to Rojas, he spurned, but we may perhaps doubt his disinterestedness when he adds that, as Philip has disembarked and is unfamiliarwith Spanish affairs, he had secretly ordered Deza to suspend the operations of all the tribunals—the motive of which evidently was to create the belief that Philip was responsible for it. As for Talavera, he adds, as it would greatly scandalize the new converts of Granada, if they thought there were errors of faith in him whom they regarded as so good a Christian, he had concluded to let the matter rest for the present and would subsequently send instructions.[545]He evidently had no belief in Lucero’s fabricated evidence, a fact to be borne in mind when we consider his attitude in the ultimate developments of the affair. This despatch, of course, reached Rojas too late to prevent the issuing of the commission to try Talavera, but it explains why that document was suppressed when it arrived. Deza denied receiving it; it disappeared and Talavera, in his letter of January 23, 1507, to Ferdinand, manifests much anxiety to know what had become of it, evidently dreading that it would be opportunely found when wanted.
THE INQUISITION SUCCUMBS
By the agreement of Villafáfila, June 27, 1506, Ferdinand bound himself to abandon Castile to Philip and Juana; he departed for Aragon and busied himself with preparations for a voyage to Naples, whither he set sail September 4th. Philip assumed the government and disembarrassed himself of his wife by shutting her up as unfit to share in the cares of royalty. He was amenable to the golden arguments of the Conversos and doubtless had not forgotten the contempt with which had been treated his order of the previous year to suspend the Inquisition. He therefore naturally was in no haste to revive its functions. Ferdinand’s secretary Almazan writes to Rojas, July 1st, that the king and the grandees have imprisoned Juana and no one is allowed to see her; he has in vain sought to get some prelates to carry letters from her to her father, but no one ventures to do so; the grandees have done this to partition among themselves the royal power, the Conversos to free themselves from the Inquisition, which is now extinct.[546]
The people of Córdova made haste to take advantage of the situation. They sent a powerful appeal to Philip and Juana, stating that their previous complaints had been intercepted through Deza’s influence and accusing Lucero of the most arbitrary iniquities.[547]They asked that all the inquisitorial officials at Córdova and Toro should be removed and the whole affair be committed to the Bishop of Leon. Philip referred the matter to the Comendador mayor, Garcilasso de la Vega and to Andrea di Borgo, ambassador of Maximilian I, two laymen, to the great scandal, we are told, of all ecclesiastics.[548]The Conversos were triumphant and the Inquisition succumbed completely. The Suprema, including Deza himself, hastened to disclaim all responsibility for Lucero’s misdeeds in a letter addressed to the chapter of Córdova, in which it said that the accusations brought against him seemed incredible, for even highwaymen, when robbing their victims, spare their lives, while here not only the property but the lives of the victims were taken and the honor of their descendants to the tenth generation. But, after hearing the narrative of the Master of Toro there could no longer be doubt and to tolerate it would be to approve it. Therefore, the chapter was instructed to continue to prevent these iniquities, and their majesties would be asked to apply a remedy and to punish their authors.[549]The remedy applied was to compel Deza to subdelegate irrevocably to Diego Ramírez de Guzman, Bishop of Catania and member of the Council of State, power to supersede Lucero and revise his acts, which was confirmed by a papal brief placing in Guzman’s hands all the papers and prisoners in Córdova, Toro and Valladolid.[550]Lucero endeavored to anticipate this by burning all his prisoners so as to get them out of the way, but after the auto de fe was announced there came orders from the sovereigns which fortunately prevented the holocaust.[551]
The relief of the sufferers seemed assured, but the situation was radically changed by the sudden death of Philip, September 25, 1506, for although Juana was treated nominally as queen, she exercised no authority. Deza promptly revoked Guzman’s commission, of which the papal confirmation seems not to have beenreceived; he took possession of the prisoners at Toro and sent the Archdeacon of Torquemada to Córdova to do the same, but Francisco Osorio, the representative of Guzman, refused to obey. The people of Córdova were in despair. It was in vain that they sent delegations to Deza and petitioned the queen to save them. Deza was immovable and the queen refused to act in this as in everything else. The chapter, every member of which was an Old Christian, proud of hislimpieza, assembled on October 16th to consider the situation. Some of the most prominent dignitaries of the Church had already been arrested by Lucero and had been treated by him as Jewish dogs; he had asserted that all the rest, and most of the nobles and gentlemen of the city and of other places, were apostates who had converted their houses into synagogues; in view of the impending peril, it was unanimously resolved to defend themselves, while the citizens at large declared that they would sacrifice life and property rather than to submit longer to such insupportable tyranny.[552]
PERSECUTION RENEWED
If the eclipse of the royal authority had enabled Deza to restore Lucero to power it also afforded opportunity for forcible resistance. The grandees of Castile were striving to recover the independence enjoyed under Henry IV, and a condition of anarchy was approaching rapidly. The two great nobles of Córdova, the Count of Cabra, Lord of Baena and the Marquis of Priego, Lord of Aguilar and nephew of the Great Captain, were nothing loath to listen to the entreaties of the citizens, especially as the marquis had been summoned by Lucero to appear for trial. Meetings were held in which formal accusations of Lucero and his promotor fiscal, Juan de Arriola, were laid before Padre Fray Francisco de Cuesta, comendador of the convent of la Merced, who seems to have assumed the leadership of the movement. He pronounced judgement, ordering Lucero and the fiscal to be arrested and their property to be confiscated. Under the lead of Cabra and Priego the citizens arose to execute the judgement. On November 9th they broke into the alcázar, where the Inquisition held its seat, they seized the fiscal and some of the subordinates and liberated the prisoners, whose recital of their wrongs excited still more the popular indignation, but no blood was shed and Lucero saved himself by flight.[553]The whole proceedingappears to have been orderly: a commission of ecclesiastics and laymen was appointed, to which the kinsmen and friends of the prisoners gave security that they should be forthcoming for trial as soon as there should be a king in the land to administer justice. This engagement was duly kept and their temporary liberation under bail was justified on the ground that many of them had been incarcerated for six or seven years and that all were in danger of perishing by starvation, for they were penniless, their property having been confiscated and Deza having ordered the receiver of confiscations not to provide for them.[554]
When the news of this uprising reached Deza he promptly, November 18th, commissioned his nephew, Pedro Juárez de Deza, Archbishop-elect of the Indies, to prosecute and punish all concerned, while by his orders the tribunal of Toledo intercepted and threw into prison Doctor Alonso de Toro, sent by the city to present its case to the queen. Other envoys, however, bore instructions to ask for the removal of Deza and the prosecution of Lucero and his officials, coupled with the intimation that steps had been taken to convoke all the cities of Andalusia and Castile to devise measures of protection against the intolerable tyranny of the Inquisition.[555]This plan seems to have been abandoned but, early in January, 1507, the Bishop of Córdova, Juan de Daza, in conjunction with the clerical and secular authorities, sent a solemn appeal to the pope, asking him to appoint Archbishop Ximenes and the Bishop of Catania or of Málaga, with full power to investigate and to act, and this they accompanied, January 10th, with a petition to Ferdinand, who was still in Naples, to support their request to the pope.[556]Deza, however, continued to command Ferdinand’s unwavering support and the result was seen in the prompt and uncompromising action of Julius II. He wrote to Deza that the Jews, pretending to be Christians, who had dared to rise against the Inquisition, must be exterminated root and branch; no labor was to be spared to suppress this pestilence before it should spread, to hunt up all who had participated in it and to exercise the utmost severity in punishing them, without appeal, for their crimes.[557]
Thus stimulated and encouraged, Lucero resumed his activity and the liberated prisoners were surrendered to him. Peter Martyr writes from the court, March 7, 1507, to Archbishop Talavera, that his sister and his nephew the Dean of Granada, Francisco Herrera—who had doubtless been released in the rising of November 9th—had been thrown in prison in Córdova. Talavera himself, moreover, was put on trial before the papal nuncio, Giovanni Ruffo, and assessors duly commissioned by the pope, showing that Ferdinand’s scruples as to scandalizing the people of Granada had vanished in the fierce resolve to vindicate Lucero and that the missing papal brief had been duly found. Peter Martyr describes his earnest efforts to convince the judges of Talavera’s holy life and spotless character, to which they replied that all this might be true but their business was to ascertain the secrets of his heart.[558]By the time the evidence was sent to Rome, however, his conviction was no longer desired; the testimony was pronounced to be worthless and Pascual de la Fuente, Bishop of Burgos, who was in attendance on the curia, was an earnest witness in his favor.[559]The papal sentence was acquittal and this apparently carried with it the exoneration of his kindred—but it came too late. On May 21st Peter Martyr exultingly writes to him that the dean and his sister with their mother and the rest of his innocent household had been set free, but already he had gone to a higher tribunal. On Ascension-day (May 13th) he had walked, bareheaded and barefooted, in the procession through the streets of Granada, when a violent fever set in and carried him off the next day. He had accumulated no treasure, having spent all his revenues on the poor; he left no provision for his family and the Bishop of Málaga charitably gave to his sister a house in Granada to shelter her old age. His reputation for sanctity is seen in the accounts which at once were circulated, with universal credence of the miracles wrought by him in curing the sick.[560]
POLITICAL INTRIGUES
The reaction in favor of the Inquisition, led by Ferdinand and Julius II, had evidently been short-lived, for the political situation dominated everything and king and pope found it advisable to yield. Juana was keeping herself secluded with the corpse of her husband and was refusing to govern. The rival factions of the two grandfathers of Charles V, Maximilian I and Ferdinand, each striving for the regency during his minority, were both desirous of the support of the Conversos and thus the question of the Córdovan prisoners attained national importance as one on which all parties took sides. Ximenes, the Duke of Alva and the Constable of Castile, the heads of Ferdinand’s party, held a conference at Cavia and listened to the complaints against Deza, for which they promised to find a remedy. The friends of the prisoners, however, seemed more inclined towards the faction of Maximilian; they offered money to defray the expenses of troops to be sent to Spain to resist Ferdinand’s return and it was currently rumored that four thousand men were gathered in a Flemish port ready to embark. It is not easy to penetrate the secret intrigues culminating in the settlement which gave the regency to Ferdinand, but Ximenes, who represented him, took advantage of the situation, with his usual skill, to further his own ambition, which was to gain the cardinal’s hat and Deza’s position as inquisitor-general.[561]For the former of these Ferdinand had made application as early as November 8, 1505, and had repeated the request October 30, 1506; it was granted in secret consistory, January 4, 1507, and was published May 17th.[562]For the latter, the complaints of the Conversos afforded substantial reasons; we have seen that Córdova had petitioned the pope to commission Ximenes as its judge and his appointment would help to pacify the troubles. Ferdinand at length recognizedthat Deza’s sacrifice was inevitable, and the way was made easy for him, as he was allowed to resign. On May 18th Ferdinand writes to Ximenes from Naples that he had received Deza’s resignation and had taken the necessary steps to secure for him the succession; he has two requests to make—that he shall foster piety and religion by appointing only the best men and that he shall exercise the utmost care that nothing shall be allowed to impair Deza’s dignity.[563]The commission as inquisitor-general was duly issued on June 5, 1507.
LUCERO’S VICTIMS RELEASED
The hatred excited by Lucero had been too wide-spread and the friends of the prisoners were too powerful to be satisfied with the mere substitution of Ximenes for Deza, and there was evidently an understanding that the matter was not to be dropped. As early as May 1st, Peter Martyr writes that it is reported that the imprisoned witnesses, corrupted by Lucero, are to be released and that he will expiate with due punishment his unprecedented crimes.[564]Some such promise was probably necessary for the pacification of the land, but the delay in its performance is significant of protection at the fountain-head of justice. It assumed at first the shape of an action brought by the chapter and city of Córdova before the pope, charging Lucero with the evil wrought by his suborning some witnesses and compelling others by punishment to testify that the plaintiffs were heretics. Julius II commissioned Fray Francisco de Mayorga as apostolic judge to try the case, and, on October 17, 1507, he decreed that Lucero be imprisoned and held to answer at law. Nothing further was done, however, and the impatient citizens addressed a memorial to Queen Juana, asking her to send some one to inform himself about it and report to her.[565]The action of the apostolic judge seems to have been regarded as a mere formality; the months passed away and it was not until May 18, 1508, that the Suprema took independent cognizance of the matter, when Ximenes and his colleagues, except Aguirre, all voted that Lucero should be arrested.[566]Peter Martyr intimates more thanonce that numbers of the Suprema were suspected of complicity with Lucero and assures us that the Council did not act without thorough investigation of numerous witnesses and interminable masses of documents, revealing an incredible accumulation of impossible and fantastic accusations contrived to bring infamy on all Spain.[567]
It was apparently the first time that an inquisitor had been thus publicly put on trial for official malfeasance and the opportunity was improved to render the spectacle a solemn one, fitted not only to satisfy the national interest felt in the case but to magnify the office of the accused by the scale of the machinery employed to deal with him. Lucero was carried in chains to Burgos, where the court was in residence, and was confined in the castle under strict guard. Ximenes assembled aCongregacion Católica, composed of twenty-one members besides himself, including a large portion of the Royal Council, the Inquisitor-general of Aragon and other inquisitors, several bishops and various other dignitaries—in short, an imposing representation of the piety and learning of the land.[568]After numerous sessions, presided over by Ximenes, sentence was rendered July 9, 1508, and was published August 1st, at Valladolid, whither the court had removed, in presence of Ferdinand and his magnates and a great concourse assembled to lend solemnity to this restoration of the honor of Castile and Andalusia, which had been so deeply compromised by the pretended revelations extorted by Lucero. This weighty verdict declared that there were no grounds for the asserted existence of synagogues, the preaching of sermons and the assemblies of missionaries of Judaism or for the prosecution of those accused. The witnesses—or rather prisoners—were discharged and everything relating to these fictitious crimes was ordered to be expunged from the records. To complete the vindication of the memory of the victims, Ferdinand ordered the rebuilding of the houses which had beentorn down under the provisions of the canon law requiring the destruction of the conventicles of heresy.[569]By implication, the acquittal of the prisoners convicted Lucero, but all this was merely preliminary to his trial.