FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE
The growth of control over income and of virtual financial independence was gradual and irregular. Even Ferdinand, in his watchful care over his receivers of confiscations, felt the need of some central auditor and it seemed natural that he should be an official of the Suprema. Accordingly as early as 1509 we find a “contador general” in that position. In 1517 there are two officers, a contador and a receiver-general and, in 1520, the two are merged into one.[815]When, in 1513, Bishop Mercader was made inquisitor-general of Aragon he desired a statement from all receivers of their receipts and payments and of the property remaining in their hands and Ferdinand ordered them to comply, alluding to it as usual on the entrance of a new inquisitor-general.[816]This inevitably ripened into the transfer to that official of the control over receivers which Ferdinand had exercised, so that in place of being royal officials they became virtually officers of the Inquisition and eventually were designated as treasurers. By 1544 we find the Suprema to be the final courtof revision of all the receivers of the local tribunals, whose accounts were rendered to it and audited by it.[817]
Still, in theory the money belonged to the crown and its disbursement could only be made under royal authority. The order for the payment of theayuda de costaof the Suprema, July 21, 1517, was drawn in the name ofla reyna y el rey—Juana and Charles.[818]After Charles reached Spain, in September of that year he made grants from the confiscations with a profusion that threatened to bankrupt the Inquisition, and if we find Adrian and the Suprema also occasionally issuing orders for payments it was undoubtedly under powers granted by Charles.[819]When Charles left Spain, May 20, 1520, he gave Adrian a general faculty for this purpose, but it seems to have been called in question, for he found it necessary to send from Brussels, September 12th, a cédula to all receivers confirming it and stating that Adrian’s orders, signed by members of the Suprema, would be received as vouchers by the auditor-general. Under this the Suprema exercised full authority over the funds collected by all the receivers and disposed of them at its pleasure. When Charles returned he presumably resumed control and, after his marriage with Isabel of Portugal, during his frequent absences, he left the power in her hands until her death May 1, 1539.[820]When he saw fit, moreover, he claimed and received a share of the spoils. A letter of Cardinal Manrique, June 17, 1537, shows that a portion of the proceeds of a certain auto de fe had been paid to him and another of October 11th, of the same year, addressed to him at the Córtes of Monzon, reinforces an appeal not to sacrifice the interests of the Inquisition to the Aragonese demands, with the welcome news that the receiver of Cuenca had arrived with the ten thousand ducats for which he had asked from the confiscations of that tribunal.[821]
Charles’s hasty departure in November, 1539, to quell the insurrection of Ghent left matters in some confusion. The Suprema, on March 20, 1540, wrote to Chancellor Granvelle that cédulas for the salaries, under the crown of Aragon, were always signed by the emperor and that the inquisitor-general could not do it;they had sent him a power for execution similar to that given to Cardinal Adrian but he had refused to sign it, saying that they could do as under Cardinal Manrique, forgetting that there had been the empress who always signed the cédulas, wherefore they ask him to get the emperor to sign the power. He doubtless did so, for an order, June 12th, on the receiver of Valencia to send fifteen hundred ducats for the salaries of the Suprema purports to be by virtue of a special power granted by their majesties. On Charles’s return he again assumed control and when he went to Italy, in 1543, he left Philip as regent, while during the absence of Philip there were successive regents who signed cédulas as called for by the Suprema.[822]
Yet, in spite of these formalities, the control of the crown was becoming scarcely more than nominal. It is true that, in 1537, Cardinal Manrique declared that he could not increase salaries without the royal assent but, when the crown undertook any exercise of power, the little respect paid to its commands is seen in the fate of an application made in 1544, by Juan Tomás de Prado, notary of the tribunal of Saragossa, to Prince Philip for anayuda de costaof three hundred ducats. Philip ordered his prayer to be granted, but the death of Inquisitor-general Tavera served as a convenient pretext for disregarding the command. It was repeated, for the same amount, January 11, 1548, and finally, on June 4th, Inquisitor-general Valdés authorized the payment of a hundred ducats.[823]
FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE
To perfect the absolute control of the confiscations, thus gradually assumed, it was necessary to keep the crown in ignorance of their amount. Its right to them was incontestable, and the Inquisition deliberately abused the confidence reposed in it when their collection was left in its hands. The less the king was allowed to know, the less likely he was to claim his share and the policy was adopted of deceiving him. As early as 1560 we have evidence of this in a letter to the inquisitors of Sicily instructing them, when reporting autos de fe to the king, to suppress all statements as to the confiscations, but to reportthem to the Suprema so that it may determine how far to inform him. This was doubtless a general mandate to all the tribunals; it was repeated in instructions of 1561 and we shall see that it became a settled practice.[824]This systematic concealment was the more indefensible from the fact that the Inquisition was now obtaining funds from other sources than confiscations. We shall see hereafter how it utilized the scare caused by the discovery of Protestantism in Valladolid and Seville in 1558, with the plea of additional expenses thus caused, to obtain from Paul IV a levy of a hundred thousand gold ducats on the revenues of the clergy and the more permanent endowment of a canonry to be suppressed for its benefit in every cathedral and collegiate church. A large portion of the inquisitors, moreover already held canonries and other benefices for which, under a brief of Innocent VIII, February 11, 1485, they were dispensed for non-residence.[825]The burden of the Holy Office was thus thrown largely on the ecclesiastical establishment, which remonstrated and resisted but was compelled to submit. It could thus look with equanimity on the shrinkage of the confiscations. In Valencia, an agreement was reached, in 1571, by which the Moriscos compounded for them with an annual payment to the tribunal of twenty-five hundred ducats.[826]The Judaizing heretics had been largely eliminated, especially the more wealthy ones, and it was not until some years after the conquest of Portugal, in 1580, that the influx of Portuguese New Christians brought a new and profitable harvest.
All this tended to the financial independence of the Inquisition although the crown by no means abandoned its claim on the confiscations. A book of receipts given by the royal representative in Valencia for the proceeds of the confiscations in 1593 shows that, under the financial pressure of the time, Philip II was reasserting his rights.[827]The treasury was empty when Philip III succeeded to the throne in 1598 and, among his expedients to raise money, he ordered the receivers of the tribunals to send to him all the funds in their hands, promising speedy repayment. The Suprema had no faith in the royalword and instructed the tribunals to retain enough to meet their own wants. The obedience of the tribunals was by no means prompt and the Suprema was obliged to order Valencia to comply with the royal demand and to furnish an oath that no money was left.[828]
In the earlier years of Philip IV the tendency of the Inquisition to emancipate itself from royal control grew rapidly. We shall see hereafter that when, in 1629, the king called for a statement of salaries and perquisites the Suprema equivocated and suppressed nearly all the information required. Still more significant was its attitude respecting the colonial tribunals, which the king supported under an annual expenditure of thirty thousand pesos, with the understanding that this should cease when the confiscations should become sufficient. These, which had been small at first, rapidly increased in the seventeenth century and were enormous between 1630 and 1650, when the whole trading communities of Peru and Mexico were shattered, enabling the tribunals to make permanent investments that rendered them wealthy, besides sending heavy remittances to the Suprema, which moreover seized the goods and credits in Seville of the colonial Judaizers. In addition to this, in 1627, a prebend in each cathedral was suppressed for the benefit of the tribunals. Yet the salaries were still demanded of the royal treasury and the repeated efforts of Philip III and Philip IV, from 1610 to 1650, to obtain statements of the receipts from confiscations and pecuniary penances were completely baffled. That was an inviolable secret which no royal official was allowed to penetrate. It is true that the colonial tribunals, on their side, adopted the same policy in concealing, as far as they could, from the Suprema the extent of their own gains.[829]
DEMANDS OF THE CROWN
Yet, in the ever-increasing distress of the crown, demands were made upon the Inquisition, as on all other departments of government, demands which it was forced to meet. Thus, for the ten years, 1632 to 1641 inclusive, an annual sum of 2,007,360 mrs. was required of it, to aid in defraying the cost of garrisons and fleet, and a statement of October 11, 1642, shows that it had paid the aggregate of 11,583,110 in vellon and 18,700 in silver,leaving a balance still due of 8,474,790.[830]Evidently there was good reason for concealing its revenues. In the frightful confusion of the finances which followed the revolution of Portugal and the revolt of Catalonia, in 1640, while Spain was heroically battling for existence against France and its rebellious subjects, the demands were varied and incessant—sometimes for sums so small as to reveal the absolute penury of the State—and Philip’s impatient urgency, as he chafed under the dilatoriness of the responses, shows the desperate emergencies in which he was involved. In 1643 a royal decree of February 16th ordered all officials to send their silver plate to the mint, a watch being kept and a report made so as to see that each sent a quantity proportioned to his station. To a complaint of delay in performance the Suprema replied that those who had sent in their silver could get no satisfaction from the mint—the delays were such that the promptitude required by the king was impossible.[831]
Even more arbitrary was the seizure, in 1644 at Seville, of a remittance of 8676 ducats in silver, a remittance from the colonial tribunals to the Suprema. In protesting against this the Suprema, February 29th, gave a deplorable account of its condition, owing to the demands made upon it by the king. On the 10th he had called upon it for 16,000 ducats which it would be wholly unable to raise if deprived of the silver that had been seized. It was already short in 7,724,843 mrs. of its annual expenses and the provincial tribunals were short 5,318,000, for it had impoverished them to meet the royal demands. Last year it had sold a censo of 18,000 ducats belonging to the tribunal of Saragossa, which was beseeching its return. It had also given the king 10,000 ducats for the cavalry and to raise this amount it had taken the sequestrations in the tribunal of Seville—a sacred deposit—including 20,000 ducats’ worth of wool, the owners of which, having been acquitted, were besieging it for their money. This dolorous plaint was effective in so far that the seizure at Seville was credited on account of the demand for 16,000 ducats.[832]How much of it was true we can only guess, for the Inquisition had means of raising money outside of its judicial functions. When, in 1640, the king summonedits familiars and officials to render military service like the nobles, the Suprema arranged that they should buy themselves off, and from this source was chiefly raised 40,000 ducats expended on two companies of horse, in return for which, by a cédula of September 2, 1641, the king promised to maintain inviolate the privileges and exemptions of the familiars and officials.[833]
These instances, out of many, will suffice to show how the crown, in its days of distress, was recouping itself for abandoning the spoils of the heretics. In time these special and arbitrary demands were systematized into an annual requirement of fifty horses, estimated at an outlay of about 5500 ducats and the raising and equipping of two hundred foot, costing 8000 ducats. The Suprema was in no wise prompt in meeting these demands; a cédula of June 24, 1662, tells it that what is due for the present year as well as the previous arrears, must be paid at once, otherwise an inventory of its property must be given to the president of the treasury, who will raise the money on it.[834]Subsequently there was a feeble attempt to return some of these contributions and, in each of the years 1673 and 1674, a trifling payment was made of 10,000 reales vellon, but, in 1676, the Suprema stated to Carlos II that in all it had furnished for remounts of horses 90,000 ducats vellon and 10,000 in silver and that its total assistance to the crown had amounted to no less than 800,000 pesos, equivalent to over 500,000 ducats, to accomplish which the salaries in many tribunals had been unpaid and vacancies of necessary offices had remained unfilled.[835]Still, as we shall have occasion to see, the Suprema always had money, not only for an undiminished pay-roll but for perquisites and amusements.
CLAIM ON THE CONFISCATIONS
The crown could not accept this assistance, however grudgingly rendered, without a sacrifice of its supremacy and the Inquisition came to treat with it as with an independent body. About this time the Suprema happens to mention, in a letter to the tribunal of Lima, that it had lent the king 40,000 pesos, of which 10,000 came from Peru and 30,000 from Mexico and that the Count of Medellin had become security for the return of the loan, as though it were a banker dealing with a merchant.[836]Yet all parties knew that these colonial remittances were derived from confiscations, the ownership of which the crown had never relinquished. This is the more noteworthy because, about this time, the king suddenly asserted his claims on some large sums which could not be wholly concealed. In 1678 the tribunal of Majorca unexpectedly made a successful raid on the whole New Christian population of Palma and, in the early months of 1679, there were more than two hundred penitents reconciled. As they constituted the active trading element of the place the confiscations were enormous and the affair attracted too much attention to be hidden. As soon as the news came of the arrests, the king wrote, May 20, 1678, to the viceroy to look carefully to the sequestrations because, in case of confiscation, the proceeds belonged to the treasury. The Suprema, however, made him hold his hands off with direful threats and kept control of the liquidation. After the condemnations, a consulta of July 5, 1679, shows that 50,000 pesos had already been paid to the king, but that the Inquisition was resolved to have its full share. In November the king acceded to a compromise under which 200,000 pesos were to be used to endow certain tribunals and to cancel certain loans made to him by the Inquisition—probably those just alluded to. The balance coming to him was estimated at 250,000 pesos but, in the handling of the assets and the settlements with creditors, the property melted away till the Suprema reported that it barely sufficed to meet the portion assigned to the Inquisition and finally, in 1683, the king had to content himself with 18,000 pesos spent on the fortifications of Majorca and the payment to him of 2000, which the Suprema assured him that it advanced at considerable risk to itself.[837]
The secretiveness so carefully observed undoubtedly had its advantages or it would not have been so persistently claimed as a right. In a consulta of 1696 the Count of Frigiliana states that, when he was viceroy of Valencia, he had in vain endeavored to get from the tribunal a statement of its affairs and he asked the king whether or not the Inquisition possessed the privilege of rendering no account of its assets and income.[838]At length the quarrel between Inquisitor-general Mendoza and his colleagues,in the case of Froilan Díaz, and his banishment to his see in 1703, gave opportunity for royal intervention and investigation. The War of Succession had deranged the finances of the Inquisition and it had appealed to the king for help. He required a statement of the pay-rolls, investments and revenues of all the tribunals, which was furnished March 9, 1703, after which, on May 27th, he issued a decree declaring that he must put an end to the abuses and disorders which had crept into the administration and disbursement of its property, in order to relieve the embarrassment of which it complained. He therefore annulled all commissions and appointments without obligation of service, granted by the inquisitor-general, whether within or outside of Spain. The papers of all jubilations, new places and gratuities created or granted since the time of Valladares (1695) were to be placed in his hands. In no case thereafter should the inquisitor-general jubilate any official of the Suprema or local tribunal without consulting him, and any such act issued without a previous royal order was declared void. Noayuda de costaor grant exceeding thirty ducats vellon, for a single term, was to be made without awaiting his decision and this decree was to be placed in the hands of all receivers or treasurers for their guidance. It was so transmitted June 8th, with strict orders for its observance. This was a resolute assertion of the royal control over the finances of the Inquisition and it held good, in theory at least, however much it may have been eluded in practice. About the middle of the eighteenth century a systematic writer describes it as still in force and states that no salaries can be increased without the royal approval. It so continued to the end and, under the Restoration, an order from the king, countersigned by the Suprema, was requisite for any extraordinary disbursement.[839]
FINES AND PENANCES
Philip also reasserted and made good the right of the crown to the confiscations, by claiming a percentage of the rentals of all confiscated property, but he listened to appeals from the tribunals and, in 1710, we hear of Saragossa and Valencia being practically restored to their enjoyment, a liberality which was doubtless followed with regard to the others. In 1725Valencia expressed its fear that the alliance with Austria against England, France and Prussia would result in its having to restore the confiscations, and the blow seems to have fallen for, in 1727, the suprema, in a consulta of December 9th, describing the poverty of Saragossa, attributes it to the king having taken away the confiscations which he had granted. With the gradual amelioration in the Spanish finances, this source of revenue must have been restored, for, in 1768, the Inquisition is described as enjoying the confiscations which the pious liberality of the monarchs had bestowed.[840]
There were other sources of revenue—rehabilitations or dispensations from the sanbenito and disabilities, commutations of punishment and the pecuniary penances known aspenas y penitencias. All these will be considered hereafter, but a few words may be said as to the latter in their relation with the royal authority.
The penitents who were reconciled under Edicts of Grace were not subject to confiscation, but were punished with fines under the guise of pecuniary penance, at the discretion of the inquisitor. We have seen (pp. 169-70) how numerous these were and we can conjecture how large were the sums thus exacted, for penances of a half or a third of the penitent’s property were not uncommon. Similar fines also usually accompanied sentences that did not embrace confiscation and formed a continual although fluctuating source of revenue. Sometimes there were special officials for their collection but, when this was entrusted to the receivers of confiscations, they were instructed to keep a separate account of them, as the two funds were held to be essentially different and, as a rule, were to be employed for different purposes.
In the earliest Instructions of 1484, these pecuniary penances are said to be imposed as alimosna, or alms, to aid the sovereigns in the pious work of warring with the Moors, but, in the Instructions issued a few months later by Torquemada, this is modified by ordering them to be placed in the hands of a trustworthy person and reports to be made to him or to the king, in order that they may be spent on the war or in other pious uses or inpaying the salaries of the Inquisition.[841]Both the destination and the control of these funds were thus left undetermined and they so continued for some years. In 1486 we find Ferdinand giving orders for sums from this source for various uses—for the war with Granada, to pay the salaries of a lay judge, to pay expenses of a tribunal of the Inquisition, to repay Luis de Santangel for advances made to tribunals; in one case his tone is apologetic and he asks Torquemada to confirm the order, in others his command is absolute.[842]
This indicates the uncertainty which existed both as to the use and the control of the pecuniary penances. So long as lasted the war with Granada, whatever was taken by the crown might be regarded as devoted, directly or indirectly, to that holy object, but when the conquest was achieved, in January, 1492, that excuse no longer existed and doubtless the inquisitors looked with jealousy upon the diversion to secular objects of the proceeds of their pious labors. The confiscations unquestionably belonged to the crown, but the penances were spiritual funds which for centuries had always enured to the Church. There must have been a sustained effort to withhold them from the royal acquisitiveness, to which Ferdinand was not disposed to yield, for he procured from Alexander VI, February 18, 1495, a brief directing the inquisitors to hold all such moneys subject to the control of the sovereigns, to be disposed of at their pleasure. Even this was resisted and Ferdinand and Isabella complained to the pope that they were unable to compel an accounting of the sums received or to collect the amounts, to correct which Alexander issued another brief, March 26, 1495, commissioning Ximenes, then Archbishop of Toledo, to enforce accounting and payment by excommunication and other censures.[843]
FINES AND PENANCES
This was equally ineffective. There was a privacy and simplicity in the imposition and collection of a penance very different from the procedure of sequestration and confiscation, and Ferdinand, at least for a time, abandoned the struggle. This is manifested by a clause in the Instructions of 1498, enjoining on inquisitors not to impose penances more heavily than justicerequires in order to insure the payment of their salaries,[844]and the principle was formally recognized by Ferdinand and Isabella in a cédula of January 12, 1499, reciting that, although they held a papal brief placing at their disposal all moneys arising from penances, commutations and rehabilitations, yet they grant to the inquisitors-general all collections from these sources, both in Castile and Aragon, to be used in paying salaries, disbursements being made only on their order.[845]
Ferdinand, however, was not disposed to relax, on any point, his control over the Inquisition and, on April 10th of the same year, we find him forbidding the levying of penances on the members of a town-council for fautorship of heresy—doubtless a speculative infliction for some assumed neglect in arresting suspects. In 1501 his renunciation is already forgotten and he is making grants from the penances as absolutely as ever—even empowering Inquisitor-general Deza to use those of Valencia, to the extent of a hundred ducats a year for the salary of Jaime de Muchildos, the Roman agent of the Inquisition.[846]So, in 1511, we find him granting to Enguera, Inquisitor-general of Aragon, a thousand libras out of the penances to defray the expenses of his bulls for the see of Lérida and authorizing him to pay from them anayuda de costaof two hundred ducats to Joan de Gualbes, a member of the Aragonese Suprema. Then, in 1514, he places all the penances unreservedly at the disposal of Inquisitor-general Mercader to be employed on the salaries and other necessary expenses of the Inquisition of Aragon. This seems to have been final. After his death, instructions sent to the tribunal of Sicily assume that the inquisitor-general has sole and absolute control. It was the same in Castile. Instructions issued by Ximenes, in 1516, direct the receiver-general, who was an officer of the Suprema, to collect the penances from the receivers of the tribunals, who were to keep them in a separate account and not to disburse them without an order from the inquisitor-general. After this we find the Suprema in full control.[847]
There is virtually no trace of any interference subsequentlyby the crown, and the Inquisition found itself in possession of an independent and by no means inconsiderable source of revenue which it could levy, almost at will, from those who fell into its hands. The only exception to this that I have met is that Philip IV, in his financial distress, by a decree of September 30, 1639, claimed and collected twenty-five per cent. of fines, but he scrupulously limited this to those inflicted in cases not connected with the faith—that is, in the exercise of the royal jurisdiction, civil and criminal, enjoyed by the Inquisition in matters concerning familiars and other officials.[848]
IRRESPONSIBILITY
Though, as we have seen, the independence of the Inquisition, as a self-centered and self-sustaining institution in the State, varied with the temper and the necessities of the sovereign, there was a time when it seemed as though it might throw off all subjection and become dominant. But for the prudence of Ferdinand, in insisting upon the power of appointment and dismissal, this might have happened in the temper of the Spanish people, trained to an exaltation of detestation of heresy which to us may well appear incomprehensible. There is no question that, under the canon law, kings, like their subjects, were amenable to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and that they held their kingdoms on the tenure not only of their own orthodoxy but of purging their lands of heresy and heretics. The principles which had been worked so effectually for the destruction of the Houses of Toulouse and of Hohenstaufen and under which Pius V released the subjects of Queen Elizabeth from their allegiance, in 1570, were fully recognized in Spain as vital to the faith.[849]But beyond this the Spaniards, in the exuberance of their religious ardor, boasted that their national institutions conditioned orthodoxy as necessary to their kingship. Even when the seventeenth century was well advanced, a learned and loyal jurisconsult tells us that, from the time of the sixth Council of Toledo, in 638, their monarchs had imposed on themselves the law that, if they fell into heresy, they were to be excommunicated and exterminated; that Ferdinand, in 1492, had renewed this law and that he had instituted that most severe tribunal the Inquisition and had sanctionedthat, in view of the Toledan canon, all kings in future should be subject to it.[850]Even Spanish loyalty could not have been relied upon to sustain a king suspect of heresy, against the claims of the Holy Office to try him in secret, and suspicion of heresy was a very elastic term. Impeding the Inquisition came within its definition and any effort to curb the arrogant extension of its powers could readily be so construed, as Macanaz found to his sorrow. The fact that the Inquisition possessed such power must have had its influence more than once on the mind of the sovereign when engaged in debate with his too powerful subject and perhaps explains what appears to us occasionally a pusillanimous yielding.
The monarchs had guarded the Inquisition against all supervision and all accountability to the other departments of government. Within its own sphere it was supreme and irresponsible and its sphere, owing to the exemption from the secular courts accorded to all connected with it in however remote a degree, covered a large area of civil and criminal business, besides its proper function of preserving the purity of the faith. In this self-centered independence it stood alone. Even the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church, so jealously guarded, had become subject to therecurso de fuerza, which, like the Frenchappel comme d’abus, gave to those who suffered wrong an appeal to the Council of Castile.[851]But even from this the Inquisition was exempt. A decree of Prince Philip, in 1553, was its ægis and was constantly invoked. This was addressed to all the courts and judicial officers of the land and affirmed, in the most positive terms, the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the Inquisition in all matters within its competence, civil or criminal, concerning the faith or confiscations—and faith was a convenient term covering the impeding of the Inquisition in all that it wanted to do. Philip recited that repeated cédulas of Ferdinand and Isabella and of Charles V had asserted this and now he reaffirmed and enforced it. No appeals from its tribunals were to be entertained,for the only appeal lay to the Suprema, which would redress any wrong, for it, by delegation from the crown and the Holy See, had exclusive cognizance of such matters. If therefore anything concerning the Inquisition should be brought before them they must decline to entertain it and must refer it back to the Holy Office.[852]
The Inquisition was not content to enjoy these favors as a revocable grace from the crown but, in a consulta of December 22, 1634, it advanced the claim that this decree was a bargain or compact between two powers which could not be in any way modified without mutual consent.[853]This was emphasized in a printed argument in 1642, asserting that that transaction could only become of binding force by the consent of both parties—the king and the inquisitor-general—and the king had no power to change it of his own motion, as it was an agreement. Even were it admitted to be a concession granted by the crown, this would make no difference, for a privilege conceded to one who is not a subject (as the Inquisition in the present case) and accepted by the latter becomes a contract which the prince cannot revoke.[854]
EFFORTS AT INDEPENDENCE
We shall see hereafter the use made of this by the Inquisition in its daily quarrels with all the other jurisdictions, but a single case may be cited here to indicate how it utilized this position to render itself virtually independent. There was a long-standing debate over canonries in the churches of Antequera, Málaga and the Canaries, which it claimed to be suppressed for its benefit under the brief of January 7, 1559, but which the royal Camara asserted to belong to the patronage of the king, whose rights of appointment were not curtailed by the brief. A suit on the subject, commenced in 1562, was not yet decided when, about 1611, the king filled vacancies in Málaga and the Canaries. This provoked a discussion, during which, without awaiting settlement, the inquisitors excommunicated the appointees—and an inquisitorial excommunication could be removed onlyby him who had fulminated it, by the inquisitor-general or by the pope. In 1611 the king ordered the appointees to be absolved and mandates signed by him to that effect were addressed to the inquisitors of Málaga and the Canaries. The Suprema complained loudly of this as an unheard of violation of the rights of the Holy Office and refused obedience. In 1612 it declared that, when the appointees abandoned the prebends which they had usurped, they should be absolved and not before. On February 12th, in a consulta to the king, it argued that its power had always been so great and so independent of all other bodies in the State that the kings had never allowed them to interfere with it, directly or indirectly; it determined for itself everything relating to itself, consulting only with the king and permitting no interference of any kind. Its determination prevailed over the weakness of the king who ordered the Camara to desist from its pretensions and not to despoil the Holy Office.[855]
These somewhat audacious assertions of independence were chiefly stimulated by the perpetual quarrels arising from the exclusive jurisdiction, civil and criminal, exercised by the Inquisition over its thousands of employees and familiars and their families, which kept the land in confusion. This is a subject which will require detailed consideration hereafter and is only referred to here because of its development into the exaggerated pretensions of the Inquisition to emancipate itself from all control. When Ferdinand granted thisfueroit was understood on all hands to be a special deputation of the royal jurisdiction and as such liable at any time to modification or revocation. Ferdinand himself, in a cédula of August 18, 1501, alluded to it as such—the inquisitors enjoyed it just as the corregidors did.[856]So, in the Concordia of Castile, in 1553, defining the extent of this jurisdiction, the inquisitors are specially described as holding it from the king, and Philip II, Philip III and Philip IV repeatedly alluded to it as held during the royal pleasure.[857]There was no thought of disputing this until the seventeenth century was well advanced. The Suprema itself, in papers of 1609, 1619, 1637 and 1639 freely admitted that its temporaljurisdiction was a grant from the king, while its spiritual was a grant from the pope.[858]
Apparently the earliest departure from this universally conceded position was made, in 1623, by Portocarrero in an argument on a clash of jurisdictions in Majorca, wherein he sought to prove that the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the Inquisition over its subordinates was ecclesiastical and derived from the pope.[859]About the same time, in an official paper, a similar claim was advanced, based on the papal briefs authorizing Torquemada and his successors to appoint, dismiss and punish their subordinates.[860]These were mere speculations and attracted no attention at the time. We have just seen that as late as 1639 the Suprema made no claims of the kind but two years later, in 1641, it suddenly adopted them in the most offensive fashion. There was acompetencia, or conflict of jurisdiction, between the tribunal of Valladolid and the chancillería or high royal court; the Council of Castile had occasion to present several consultas to the king, in one of which it said that the jurisdiction exercised in the name of the king by the Inquisition was temporal, secular and precarious and could not be defended by excommunication. Thereupon the Suprema assembled its theologians who pronounced these propositions to be false, rash and akin to heretical error; armed with this opinion the fiscal, or prosecuting officer, accused the whole Council of Castile, demanded that its consulta be suppressed and that its authors be prosecuted. Theoretically there was nothing to prevent such action, which would have rendered the Inquisition the dominating power in the land, but the Suprema lacked hardihood; even the habitual subservience of Philip IV was revolted and he told the inquisitor-general that he had done ill to lend himself to a question contrary to the sovereignty of the monarch and to the honor of the highest council of the nation.[861]
EFFORTS AT INDEPENDENCE
In spite of this rebuff, having once asserted the claim that its temporal jurisdiction was spiritual and not secular, the Inquisition adhered to it. The prize was worth a struggle, for it would have put the whole nation at its mercy. It would havedeprived the king of powers to check aggression and to protect his subjects from oppression for, as Portocarrero had pointed out, although princes have authority to relieve their subjects when aggrieved by other secular subjects, they have none when the oppressors are ecclesiastics, exempt by divine law from their jurisdiction.[862]To win this the Inquisition persisted in its claim. In 1642, on the occasion of acompetenciain Granada, there appeared, under its authority, a printed argument to prove that the temporal jurisdiction of the Holy Office was a grant from the Holy See, which had power to intervene in the internal affairs of States and that it had merely been acquiesced in and confirmed by the kings.[863]Again, in a notorious case occurring in Cuenca in 1645, the inquisitors argued that their temporal jurisdiction was ecclesiastical and papal, with which the king could not interfere.[864]But the audacity with which these pretensions were pushed culminated in a consulta presented by the Suprema, March 31, 1646, to Philip IV, when he was struggling against the determination of the Córtes of Aragon to curb the excesses of the Inquisition.
In this paper the Suprema asserted that the civil and political jurisdiction is inferior to the spiritual and ecclesiastical, which can assume by indirect power whatever is necessary for its conservation and unimpeded exercise, without being restricted by secular princes. The royal prerogative is derived from positive human law or the law of nations; the supreme power of the Inquisition is delegated by the Holy See for cases of faith with all that is requisite, directly or indirectly, for its untrammelled enjoyment; this is of divine law and, as such, is superior to all human law, to which it is in no way subject. The very least that can be said is that princes are bound to admit this, and though they have a right to concede no more than is requisite, the decision as to what is requisite rests with the ecclesiastical authority, which is based on divine law. Any departure from these principles, under the novel pretext that the king is master of this jurisdiction, with power to limit or abrogate, is dangerous for the conscience and very perilous as leading to the gravesterrors.[865]It would be difficult to enunciate more boldly the theory of theocracy, with the Inquisition as its delegate and the crown merely the executor of its decrees.
These pretensions were not realized and the king was not reduced to insignificance, but his power was seriously trammelled by the bureaucracy of which the Suprema was the foremost and most aggressive representative. Its quasi-independence led to emulation by the other great departments of the State and though their success was not so marked, it was sufficient in all to render the government incredibly cumbersome and inefficient and to paralyze its action by wasting its strength in efforts to keep the peace between the rival and warring bodies. In these bickerings and dissensions the power of the crown decreased and the theoretically autocratic monarch found himself unable to enforce his commands. Philip IV recognized this fatal weakness, but his efforts to overcome the evil were puerile and inefficient. October 15, 1633, he sent to the Suprema, and presumably to the other councils, a decree setting forth emphatically that the slackness of obedience and disregard of the royal commands had been the cause of irreparable damage to the State and must be checked if the monarchy were to be preserved from ruin. It was his duty, under God, to prevent this; he had unavailingly represented it repeatedly to his councillors and now he proposed to make out a schedule of penalties, to be incurred through disobedience, scaled according to the gravity of each offence. This was to be completed within twenty days and he called upon the Suprema to give him the necessary information that should enable him to tabulate the matters coming within its sphere of action.
EFFORTS AT INDEPENDENCE
This grotesque measure, calling upon offenders to define their offences for the purpose of providing condign punishment, was received by the Suprema with a cool indifference showing how lightly it regarded the royal indignation. There was nothing, it said in reply, within its jurisdiction which imperilled the monarchy, for its function was to preserve the monarchy by preserving the unity of religion. As for obedience, it was of the highest importance that the royal commands should beobeyed and the laws provided punishments for all disobedient vassals. But the canon and imperial laws and those of Spain deprived of their places judges, who executed royal cédulas issued against justice and the rights of parties, for it was assumed that such could not be the royal intention and that they were decreed in ignorance, so that they were suspended until the prince, better informed, should provide justice. Therefore when councillors opposed cédulas which would work great injury to the jurisdiction and immunities of the Holy Office, it was only to prevent innovation and it was in the discharge of duty that this was represented to the king. The Suprema therefore prayed him that, before determining matters proposed by other councils, they should be submitted to it as heretofore so that, after hearing the reasons of both sides, he might determine according to his pleasure.[866]Thus with scarcely veiled contempt the Suprema told him that it would continue to do as it had done and the very next year, as we have seen, it boldly informed him that none of his commands respecting the Inquisition would be obeyed until it should have confirmed them—commands, be it remembered, that in no case affected its action in matters of faith, for all the trouble arose from its encroachments on secular affairs.
The character of Philip IV ripened and strengthened under adversity and, in the exigencies of the struggle with Catalonia and Portugal, he developed some traits worthy of a sovereign. Although he meekly endured the insolence of the Suprema in 1646 and labored strenuously with the Córtes of Aragon to prevent the reform of abuses, he yet, as we have seen, insisted on the right to supervise appointments. He doubtless asserted his authority in other ways for the Suprema abated its pretensions that its civil and criminal jurisdiction was spiritual and papal. In an elaborate consulta of March 12, 1668, during a long and dreary contest, in which the tribunal of Majorca was involved, it repeatedly refers to its enjoying the royal jurisdiction from the king, showing that it had abandoned the attempt to render itself independent of the royal authority.[867]