SALT AND BAKE-OVEN
This resulted in a compromise, agreed upon between the Suprema and the Council of Aragon, under which the city obligated itself to supply the tribunal with meat, wine and ice. It was impossible however to compel the Inquisition to observe compacts. Fresh complaints arose, the nature of which is indicated by a decree of Philip IV, June 17, 1630, requiring the Suprema to order the inquisitors to keep to the agreement and not to sell any portion of the provisions furnished and further to stop the trade carried on in some little houses in the Aljafería where the municipal supervisors could not inspect them. This resulted in a fresh agreement of December 7, 1631, under which the city bought for three thousand crowns thecasa de penitencia, or prison for penitents, and engaged to maintain in it shops tothe sale of meat and ice to the inhabitants of the Aljafería at the prices current in the town.[943]
Probably this quieted the matter, but before long the irrepressible inquisitors started another disturbance. The salt-works of Remolinos and el Castellon belonged to the royal patrimony and were farmed out under condition that no other salt should be sold or used in Saragossa and some other places under heavy fines. To enforce this there were commissioners empowered to investigate all suspected places, even churches not being exempt. In 1640 a party in the city was found to be selling salt and confessed that he obtained it from the gardener of the Aljafería. The commissioner, Baltasar Peralta, went there with a scrivener and in the gardener’s cottage they found two sacks, one empty, the other nearly full of salt, with a half-peck measure. They announced the penalty to the gardener’s wife and proceeded to enforce it in the customary manner by seizing pledges—in the present case, three horses. The inquisitor, who had doubtless been sent for, came as they were leading the horses away, forced the surrender of the horses and salt and told them that they should deem themselves lucky if they were not thrown in prison. Thereupon the royal advocate-fiscal of Aragon, Adrian de Sada, reported the case to the king, adding that it was learned that the coachman of one of the inquisitors was selling salt from the salt-works of Sobradiel. He pointed out that, if the servants of the Inquisition could sell salt freely and the royal officials be deterred by threats from investigation, the revenue would be seriously impaired, for no one would venture to farm the salt-works, and he asked for instructions before resorting to proceedings which might disturb the public peace, as had happened on previous occasions. The matter was referred to the Council of Aragon, which advised the king to issue imperative commands that the inquisitors should not obstruct the detection and punishment of frauds, for their cognizance in no way pertained to the Holy Office.[944]
The Saragossa tribunal had a still more prolonged and bitter dispute with the city over the bake-oven of the Aljafería. This belonged to the crown and, at some time prior to 1630, Philip IV made it over to the tribunal which was pleading poverty. Its use of the privilege soon brought it into conflict with the city,but a complicated arrangement respecting it was included in the agreement of December 7, 1631, requiring the baker to purchase at least seventy bushels of wheat per month from the public granary, with certain restrictions as to the places whence he could procure further supplies. In 1649 we chance to learn that the oven was farmed out for six thousand reales per annum and in 1663, a lively conflict arose because the tribunal had granted a lease which was not subject to the restrictions of 1631. Then again, in 1690, the trouble broke out afresh, each side accusing the other of violating the agreement. All the authorities, from the king and viceroy down, were invoked to settle it; there were fears of violence but, May 1, 1691, the tribunal reported to the Suprema that a compromise had been reached on satisfactory terms.[945]
The independent spirit of Aragon caused it to suffer less from the mercantile enterprises of the Inquisition than the more submissive temper of Castile. In 1623 there was a flagrant case in Toledo, arising from a butcher-shop established by the tribunal in violation of the municipal laws. Its violent methods triumphed and Don Luis de Paredes, an alcalde de corte, sent thither to settle the matter, was disgraced for attempting to restrain it. This called forth an energetic protest from the Council of Castile, which boldly told the king that he should not shut his eyes to the fact that the inquisitors were extending their privileges to matters beyond their competence, with such prejudice to the public weal that they were making themselves superior to the laws, to the government and to the royal power, trampling on the judges, seizing the original documents, forcing them to revoke their righteous acts, arresting their officials and treating them as heretics because they discharged their duty.[946]
SEIZURE OF PROVISIONS
In procuring provisions, whether for consumption or sale, besides the freedom from local imposts, the Inquisition had the further advantage of employing coercive methods on unwilling vendors and of disregarding local regulations and prohibitions. As early as 1533 the Aragonese, at the Córtes of Monzon, took the alarm and petitioned that the statutes of the towns, when short of bread-stuffs and provisions, should be binding on officials of the Inquisition, to which the emperor’s reply was the equivocatingone customary when evading confirmation.[947]The significance of this is manifested by acarta acordadaof 1540, authorizing the tribunals to get wheat in the villages for their officials and prisoners and, if the local magistrates interfere, to coerce them with excommunication. Yet inquisitorial zeal in using this permission sometimes overstepped the bounds and, in this same year, the Suprema had occasion to rebuke a tribunal which had issued orders to furnish it with wheat under pain of a hundred lashes, for it was told that, in rendering such extra-judicial sentences, it was exceeding its jurisdiction.[948]How bravely the Suprema itself overcame all such scruples was manifest when laws of maximum prices, and the heavy discount on the legal-tender spurious vellon coinage, rendered holders of goods unwilling to part with them at the legal rates. It issued, February 14, 1626, to its alcalde, Pedro de Salazar, an order to go to any places in the vicinage and embargo sheep and whatever else he deemed necessary, sufficient for the maintenance of the households of the inquisitor-general and of the members and officials, paying therefore at the rates fixed by law, to effect which he was empowered to call for aid on all royal justices, who were required to furnish all necessary aid under penalty of major excommunicationlatæ sententiæand five hundred ducats. So again, on April 11, 1630, Salazar was ordered to go anywhere in the kingdom and seize six bushels of wheat, in baked bread, for the same households, paying for it at the established price, and all officials, secular, ecclesiastical and inquisitorial, were required to assist him under the same penalties.[949]This was an organized raid on all the bakeries of Madrid, and Salazar was more scrupulous than the average official of the time if he did not turn an honest penny by taking bread on his own account at the legal rate and selling it at the current one.[950]
The tribunal of Valencia enjoyed another privilege in the important matter of salt, the royal monopoly of which rendered it so costly to the ordinary consumer. Every year the tribunal issued an order to the farmers of the salt-works, commanding them, under pain of excommunication and fifty ducats, to deliver to the receiver of confiscations twelve cahizes (about forty-two bushels) of refined salt, at the price of eight reales the cahiz, and the custom-house officials were summoned, under the same penalties, to let it pass without detention or trouble for the service of God. The salt was duly apportioned among the officials at this trivial price, each inquisitor getting four bushels down to the messengers who received two-thirds of a bushel, and evenjubiladoofficials had their portion. When or how this originated is unknown; in 1644 it seems established as of old date and it continued until 1710, when the new dynasty brought it to a sudden conclusion. The Council of Hacienda reported it to the king, as though it were a novelty just discovered, pointing out that the eight reales were less than the cost of transport from the works to the magazines; that the manufacture was a monopoly of the regalías and the price charged was in no respect a tax or impost, but was regulated by the necessities of the national defence; that no other tribunal in Spain, secular or ecclesiastic, made such a demand, while the publication of censures against royal officials was dangerous in those calamitous times. This aroused Philip, who ordered a prompt remedy. The Suprema no longer ventured an opposition or remonstrance, but wrote immediately to Valencia expressing its surprise; the demand must be withdrawn at once; if any censures had been published they must be revoked and no such demonstration should have been made without previous consultation.[951]
It would be superfluous to adduce further examples of the manner in which the tribunals abused their power for unlawful gains and benefits, and we can readily conceive the exasperation thus excited, even among those most zealous in the extermination of heresy.
BILLETING TROOPS
Few of the privileges claimed by the Inquisition gave rise to more bickering and contention than its demand that all connected with it should be exempt from the billeting of troopsand the furnishing ofbagagesor beasts of burden for transportation. The subject is one of minor importance, but it furnishes so typical an illustration of inquisitorial methods that it is worthy of examination somewhat in detail. Under the old monarchy theyantarordroit de gîte, or right to free quarters, was an insufferable burden. Almost every Córtes of Leon and Castile, from the twelfth century complained of it energetically, for it was exercised, not only by the royal court in its incessant peregrinations, but by nobles and others who could enforce it, and it was accompanied by spoliation of every kind, while the impressment of beasts of burden was an associated abuse and even the lands of the Church were not exempt.[952]The more independent Aragonese were unwilling to submit to it, and a fuero of the Córtes of Aleañiz, in 1436, provided that the courtiers and followers of the king should pay all Christians in whose houses they lodged.[953]When the Inquisition was founded and was to a great extent peripatetic, its officials apparently claimed free quarters, for a clause in the Instructions of 1498 provides that where a tribunal was set up they should pay for their accommodations and provide their own beds and necessaries.[954]When travelling, a decree of Ferdinand, October 21, 1500, repeated in 1507, 1516, 1518, 1532, and 1561, provided that they should have gratuitous lodging and beds, with food at moderate prices.[955]The frequent repetition of this indicates that it aroused opposition and, in 1601, when the inquisitor of Valencia was ordered to go at once on a visitation of Tortosa, he was told not to oppress the city by demanding free quarters but to lodge decently in a monastery or in the house of some official.[956]
Furnishing free quarters however was different from enjoying them. The old abuses gradually disappeared with the settled habitations for kings and tribunals, but the change in military organization, with standing armies, gave rise to others which, if more occasional, were also more oppressive—the billeting of troops. When Louis XIV resorted to thedragonnades—thequartering of dragoons on Huguenot families—as an effective coercion to conversion, it shows how severe was the infliction. The rebellion of Catalonia, in 1640, had for its proximate cause the outrages committed by troops quartered for the winter in places insufficient for their support, culminating in their burning the churches of Riu de Arenas and Montiró.[957]The massacre in Saragossa, December 28, 1705, of the French troops in the service of Philip V, had the same origin.[958]
As the pay of Spanish armies was habitually in arrears and the commissariat system imperfect, it can be realized how valuable was the privilege of exemption from entertaining these uninvited guests and providing them with transportation when they departed. In the war with Portugal, in 1666, Galicia suffered so seriously that we are told a company of cavalry was worth to its captain two thousand ducats in ransoms, from outrage.[959]That the Inquisition should claim such exemption was to be expected, for it was one of the privileges of hidalgos, but the earliest allusion to it that I have met occurs in 1548, when Inquisitor-general Valdés ordered that no billets must be given on houses occupied by inquisitors or officials, even though not their own or during their absence, for their clothes were in them.[960]What authority he had to issue such a command it might be difficult to say, but it indicates that the exemption was an innovation and, as it refers only to salaried officials, it infers that the numerous unsalaried ones were not entitled to the privilege, which is further proved by the fact that, in the Castilian Concordia of 1553, regulating the exemptions of familiars, there is no allusion to billeting. The action of Valdés, however, settled the matter as far as the salaried officials were concerned and even the Aragonese Córtes of 1646, which greatly limited the claims of the Inquisition, admitted that they had the same privileges as hidalgos.[961]
BILLETING TROOPS
The determination with which this was enforced is seen in a case in 1695, when Inquisitor Sanz y Múñoz of Barcelona threatened with excommunication and a fine of two hundred libras the town-councillors of Manlleu if they should assign quarters in a country-house belonging to the portero of the Inquisition, although it was occupied by a peasant who worked on the land.The councillors appealed for protection to the Audiencia, or royal court, which invited the inquisitor to settle the matter amicably in the prescribed form of a competencia, but he treated the overture with such contempt that he promptly issued a second mandate, under the same penalties, and summoned the councillors to appear before him as having incurred them. The Audiencia made another attempt at pacification to which he replied that he proposed at once to declare the councillors as publicly excommunicated. The Diputados of Catalonia thereupon protested vigorously to the king that, while all the rest of the people were patriotically united in aiding the war, and the gentry had voluntarily foregone their privilege of exemption, the officials and familiars of the Inquisition were exciting tumults and riots in their efforts to extend exemptions to those who had no claim.[962]
The chief trouble arose with the unsalaried officials, especially the multitudinous familiars, who had no claim to exemption. The Barcelona tribunal seems to have started it, for one of the complaints made to de Soto Salazar, on his visitation of 1567, was that the inquisitors forbade the quartering of soldiers in the houses of familiars; in his report he suggested that it should be done when necessary and the Aragonese Concordia of 1568 followed this idea by prohibiting inquisitors to support familiars in refusing to receive men assigned to them when there were no other houses to receive them.[963]There was evidently no recognized exemption but a steady effort to establish one, while the familiars complained that the hatred felt for them led to their being oppressed with billets when others went free. To remedy this Philip II, in a cédula of February 21, 1576, ordered that no discrimination should be made against them, but that they should be placed on an equality with justicias and regidores who were not called upon to furnish quarters until all other houses were occupied. Complaints continued and he advanced a step, February 22, 1579, by decreeing that for three years, in towns of upwards of five hundred hearths, familiars should be exempt from billeting and furnishing transportation; in smaller towns, one-half should be exempted and where there was but one he should be exempt. This was renewed frequently for three years at a time and asfrequently was overlooked, but this made little difference for we are told by an experienced inquisitor that it was always assumed to be in force and, when a familiar complained of a billet, the tribunal would issue a mandate ordering his relief within three hours under a penalty of 100,000 mrs.; if the exemption was in force, a copy of the cédula was included in the mandate, if it was not it still was quoted as existing in the archives of the tribunal.[964]
There were few questions which gave rise to more embroilment than this. Both sides were unscrupulous; the privilege excited ill-will, it was evaded by the authorities wherever possible and the tribunals were kept busy in defending their familiars with customary violence. At length, in 1634, the necessities of the state were pleaded by Philip IV as his reason for withdrawing all exemptions—a measure which he was obliged to repeat more than once.[965]It is somewhat remarkable therefore that, when the Córtes of Aragon, in 1646, succeeded in greatly abridging the privileges of familiars, they were included with the salaried officials in the exemption from billets. This did not avail them much for we are told that, in the changes effected by the Córtes, the terror felt for the Inquisition was so greatly diminished that there was scant ceremony in imposing on its officials; that the familiars were singled out to have two or three soldiers quartered on them and when they complained the tribunal ventured no more than to instruct its commissioner to use persuasion.[966]Catalonia was not so fortunate and strife continued with the usual bitterness. As a frontier province, in war time it was occupied with troops and there were abundant opportunities for friction. In 1695 the Diputados complained that, as the only mode of escaping billets was to become a familiar, many had themselves appointed, although there was already an innumerable multitude, and that even when the local magistrates were compelled to receive soldiers, the familiars refused, in contempt of the royal orders.[967]
BILLETING TROOPS
The War of Succession brought fresh necessities and the change of dynasty was unfavorable to the Inquisition in this as in so much else. A royal decree of February 11, 1706, abolished all exemptions but, as a favor to the Inquisition, four of its officials were excepted in towns and twenty in cities that were seats of tribunals. The Suprema accepted this cheerfully but, when a decree of January 19, 1712, revoked all exemptions, it remonstrated and was told that, while the king recognized the claims of the Inquisition to all the privileges granted by his predecessors, the existing urgency required the withdrawal of all exemptions and, as the law was absolute, he could make no exceptions. Although this covered the salaried officials, it seems to have been the familiars who complained the loudest; possibly now that the tribunals could no longer protect them they were exposed to special discrimination. It was a question of money, however, rather than of hardship, for a system of composition had been developed under which by paying thecuartelorutensilio—an assessment proportioned to the wealth of the individual—the billet was escaped.[968]When the urgency of immediate peril was passed these decrees were either withdrawn or became obsolete. The claim of exemption revived and with it the active efforts of the tribunals to protect those whose exemptions were disregarded and to punish the officials who disregarded them.[969]
In 1728 Philip V made a well-intentioned attempt to relieve the oppression of the poor arising from the numerous classes of officials who claimed exemption from the common burdens, including the billeting of troops. As for the familiars, he says, who all claim exemptions and give rise to disturbances, attacks on the local magistrates, with excommunications and other penalties, and perpetual competencias, all this must cease. Yet he admits their exemption and only insists that it must be confined to the number allowed by the Concordia of 1553; that limitation had never been observed and the inquisitors had appointed large numbers in excess of it, in spite of perpetual remonstrance, and Philip now ordered that tribunals should not issue certificates to more than the legal number and should not take proceedings against the local magistrates.[970]As usual the royal orders were disregarded. The tribunal of Valencia threatenedwith excommunication and fine the magistrates of Játiva and San Mateo, at the instance of some familiars on whom soldiers had been quartered, and, on learning this, Philip addressed the Suprema in 1729 stating that the records showed that familiar were entitled to no exemption; even if they were, the tribunal had exceeded its powers in employing obstreperous methods in defiance of the royal decrees. There must be no competencia; the Valencia tribunal must be notified not to exceed its jurisdiction and the Suprema itself must observe the royal orders. After the delay of a month, the Suprema forwarded the royal letter to Valencia, sullenly telling the tribunal to report what could be done and not to act further without orders.[971]
For two centuries the Inquisition had been accustomed to obey or to disregard the royal decrees at its pleasure and to tyrannize over the local authorities. The habit was not easily broken and it was hard to conform itself to the new order of things. A formulary of about 1740 contains a letter to be sent to magistrates granting billets on familiars, couched in the old arrogant and peremptory terms and threatening excommunication and a fine of two hundred ducats. Familiars, it says, are not to furnish quarters and beasts of burden, except in extreme urgency when no exemptions are permitted, and this it assumes to be in accordance with the royal decrees, including the latest one of November 3, 1737.[972]I can find no trace of a decree of 1737 and we may assume that it was this obstinacy of the Inquisition that induced Philip, in 1743, to reissue his decree of 1728 with an expression of regret at its inobservance and the disastrous results which had ensued; he added that, when the houses of the non-exempt were insufficient for quartering troops, they could be billeted on hidalgos and nobles.[973]
BEARING ARMS
The Inquisition still adhered to its claims, but Carlos III taught it to abandon its comminatory style. When, in 1781, the authorities of Castellon de la Plana billeted troops on familiars, the Valencia tribunal adopted the more judicious method of persuading the captain-general that they were to be classed with hidalgos and he issued orders to that effect. This did not please Carlos III, who brushed aside the claim to exemption by a peremptory order that the familiars of Castellon de la Planashould subject themselves to the local government in the matters of billets and that there should be no change until he should issue further commands.[974]
This would seem in principle to abrogate all claims to exemption, but Spanish tenacity still held fast to what it had claimed and, in 1800, when José Poris, a familiar of Alcira, complained that the governor had quartered on him an officer of the regiment of Sagunto, the Valencia tribunal took measures for his relief.[975]The times were adverse to privilege, however, and in 1805 the Captain-general of Catalonia sent a circular to all the towns stating that familiars were not exempt. The magistrates accordingly compelled them to furnish quarters and beasts of burden, and, when the tribunal complained to the captain-general and adduced proofs in support of its claims, he responded with the decrees of 1729 and 1743, which he assumed to have abrogated the exemption and he continued to coerce the familiars. The same process was going on in Valencia and, when that tribunal applied to Barcelona for information and learned the result, it ordered its familiars to submit under protest. Then followed a royal cédula of August 20, 1807, limiting strictly what exemptions were still allowed; the Napoleonic invasion supervened and under the Restoration I have met with no trace of their survival.[976]
Another privilege which occasioned endless debate and contention was the right of officials and familiars to bear arms, especially prohibited ones. This was a subject which, during the middle ages, had taxed to the utmost the civilizing efforts of legislators, while the power assumed by inquisitors to issue licences to carry arms, in contravention of municipal statutes, was the source of no little trouble, especially in Italian cities.[977]The necessity of restriction, for the sake of public peace, was peculiarly felt in Spain, where the popular temper and the sensitiveness as to thepundonorwere especially provocative of deadly strife.[978]It would be impossible to enumerate the endlessseries of decrees which succeeded each other with confusing rapidity and the repetition of which, in every variety of form, shows conclusively how little they were regarded and how little they effected. Particular energy was directed againstarmas alevosas—treacherous weapons—which could be concealed about the person. In the Catalan Córtes of 1585, Philip II denounced arquebuses, fire-locks and more especially the small ones known as pistols, as unworthy the name of arms, as treacherous weapons useless in war and provocative of murder, which had caused great damage in Catalonia and had been prohibited in his other kingdoms. They were therefore forbidden, not only to be carried but even to be possessed at home and in secret, and against this no privilege should avail, whether of the military class or official or familiar of the Inquisition or by licence of the king or captain-general, under penalty for those of gentle blood of two years’ exile, for plebeians of two years’ galley-service, and for Frenchmen or Gascons of death, without power of commutation by any authority. Three palms, or twenty-seven inches of barrel, was the minimum length allowed for fire-arms in Catalonia and four palms in Castile. Philip IV, in 1663, even prohibited the manufacture of pistols and deprived of exemptions and fuero those who carried them, while as for poniards and daggers, Philip V, in 1721, threatened those who bore them with six years of presidio for nobles and six years of galleys for commoners.[979]
BEARING ARMS
These specimens of multitudinous legislation, directed against arms of all kinds, enable us to appreciate how highly prized was the privilege of carrying them. In an age of violence it was indispensable for defence and was equally desired as affording opportunities for offence. That the Inquisition should claim it for those in its service was inevitable and it had the excuse, at least during the earlier period, that there was danger in the arrest and transportation of prisoners and in the enmities which it provoked, although this latter danger was much less than it habitually claimed. The old rules, moreover, were well known under which no local laws were allowed to interfere with such privilege,[980]and the Inquisition had scarce been established in Valencia when the question arose through the refusal of thelocal authorities to allow its ministers to carry arms. Ferdinand promptly decided the matter in its favor by an order, March 22, 1486 that licences should be issued to all whom the inquisitors might name—for the time had not yet come in which the inquisitors themselves issued licences.[981]Probably complaints arose as to the abuse of the privilege for the instructions of 1498, which were principally measures of reform, provided that, in cities, where bearing arms was forbidden, no official should carry them except when accompanying an inquisitor or alguazil.[982]As indicated by this, policy on the subject was unsettled and it so remained for a while. November 14, 1509, Ferdinand ordered that the ministers of the Sicilian Inquisition should not be deprived of their arms; June 2, 1510, he thanked the Valencia tribunal for providing that its officials should go unarmed, for, by the grace of God, there is no one now who impedes or resists the Inquisition and, if there were, the royal officials or he in person will provide for it; then, in about three months, on August 28th, he wrote to the Governor of Valencia that the salaried officials of the tribunal, with their servants and forty familiars should enjoy all the prerogatives of the Holy Office and were not to be deprived of their arms.[983]
We see in all this traces of general popular opposition to exempting inquisitorial officials from the laws forbidding arms-bearing. This was stimulated by the difficulty of preventing the exemptions from being claimed by unauthorized persons without limit, leading Catalonia, in the Concordia of 1512, to provide that officials bearing arms could be disarmed, like other citizens, unless they could show a certificate from the tribunal, and further that the number of familiars for the whole principality should be reduced to thirty, except in cases of necessity.[984]Although this Concordia was not observed, Inquisitor-general Mercader, in his instructions of August 28, 1514, admitted the necessity of such regulations by prohibiting the issue of licences to bear arms; by reducing the overgrown number of familiars to twenty-five in Barcelona and ten each in Perpignanand other towns, by permitting the disarmament of those who could not exhibit certificates and by endeavoring to check the fraud of lending these certificates by requiring them to swear not to do so and keeping lists whereby they could be identified.[985]
The right of arming its familiars, thus assumed by the Inquisition was by no means uncontested. We have seen how the Empress Isabella when in Valencia, in 1524, ordered the arms taken from them and broken, leading to a protest from Inquisitor-general Manrique, who asserted this to be a privilege enjoyed since the introduction of the Inquisition. In spite of this Charles V, by a cédula of August 2, 1539, ordered inquisitors to prohibit the use of arms by familiars.[986]The matter remained a subject of contest for some years more. In 1553 there were quarrels concerning it between the Valencia tribunal and the local authorities, but the Concordia of 1554 admitted the right unreservedly.[987]
By this time, in fact, it was generally recognized, but this, in place of removing a cause of discord only intensified and multiplied it. The right to bear arms could scarce be held to include weapons which were prohibited to all by general regulations, yet the authorities had no jurisdiction over familiars to enforce them. Thus when flint-lock arquebuses were prohibited and the Viceroy of Valencia included familiars in a proclamation on the subject, in 1562, Philip II called him to account, telling him that the order must come from the inquisitors and, in 1575 he repeated this to the Viceroy of Catalonia.[988]The Suprema might decide that familiars were included in prohibitory decrees and that inquisitors must issue the necessary orders, as it did, in 1596, with regard to one respecting daggers and in 1598 to one forbidding fire-locks and pistols at night,[989]but the tribunals had no police to enforce these orders and, when the secular authorities undertook to do so, inquisitors were prompt to resent it, in their customary fashion, as a violation of the immunities of the Holy Office.
BEARING ARMS
Even more fruitful of trouble was the fact that it was impossible to make the inquisitors respect the limitations imposed by the Concordias on the number of familiars and consequently to obey the rule of furnishing lists of them to the authorities so that they might be known. Appointments were lavished greatly in excess of all possible needs and without informing the magistrates—often, indeed, without keeping records in the archives. The familiar might or might not carry with him the evidence of his official character but, whether he did so or not, his arrest or disarmament was violently resented, and the ordinary citizen when caught offending was apt to claim that he was a familiar in hopes of being released. How exasperating to the civil authorities was the situation may be gathered from a case occurring in Barcelona, in 1568. The veguer, on his nightly rounds, arrested Franco Foix, whom he found armed with a coat of mail, sword, buckler and dagger. The culprit claimed to be a familiar and the veguer obediently handed him over to the tribunal. He proved not to be one, but, instead of returning him, the inquisitors fined him in forty-four reales for their own benefit (presumably as a penalty for personating an official) and restored to him his forfeited arms.[990]When the laws were thus openly set at defiance, conditions were eminently favorable for quarrels, even without the violent mutual animosity everywhere existing between the tribunals and the civil authorities; collisions were correspondingly frequent and were fought to the bitter end.
It would be wearisome to multiply cases illustrating the various phases of these quarrels which occupied the attention of the king and his councils in their settlement. A single one will suffice to show the spirit in which they were conducted on both sides. In 1620, by order of the tribunal of Valencia, acting in its secular capacity and not in a matter of faith, the commissioner at Játiva arrested a man and sent him to Valencia under the customary guard of relays of familiars. One of these named Juan López, armed with a prohibited flint-lock, was conveying him, on February 23d, when at Catarroja, about a league from the city, some armed alguaziles, in the service of Dr. Pedro Juan Rejaule, a judge on the criminal side of the Audiencia, arrested him, taking away his weapon and carrying him to Dr.Rejaule’s house. Disregarding his documents, Rejaule told him that he could not be released without giving bail to present himself to the viceroy and, as he was unable to furnish it he was handed as a prisoner to the local magistrates. On learning the event the inquisitors applied to the regent of the Audiencia who ordered the release of López, which was effected and Rejaule visited the tribunal, admitted that he had been in error and promised in future to observe all necessary respect. In spite of this the inquisitors proceeded to try him for impeding the Inquisition, ordered him to keep his house as a prison under pain of three hundred ducats, and threw into the secret prison as though they were heretics, the four alguaziles who had made the arrest. When notice of this was served on Rejaule he protested that the inquisitors were not his judges and that he would appeal, whereupon the additional indignity was inflicted upon him of posting two guards in his house with orders to keep him in sight.
BEARING ARMS
This produced a crisis. The viceroy assembled in his palace all threesalasor branches of the Audiencia, where the matter was fully discussed and it was resolved to release Rejaule and hold the two guards as hostages for the imprisoned alguaziles. At 2A.M.Dr. Morla went with halberdiers furnished by the viceroy, seized and handcuffed the guards and brought Rejaule to his brother judges. At the same time a scrivener of the court had been sent to the inquisitor Salazar with a message from the viceroy to the effect that, as the offence had not been in a matter of faith, Rejaule was justiciable only by the king; if the Inquisition held otherwise a competencia could be formed; the Audiencia had decided that Rejaule and the alguaziles must be released and the guards be held until this was done. The scrivener also presented a petition of appeal to the pope, or to whomsoever was judge, and demandedapostolosor letters to that effect. To this Salazar replied in writing that the arrests had been made for matters incident to and dependent upon affairs of the faith, in which the Inquisition had exclusive jurisdiction and could admit no competencia; he could say no more as to the cause of the arrests without violating the secrecy of the Inquisition and incurring excommunication and he begged the viceroy not to interfere in a matter concerning so greatly the service of God and the king. At 4A.M.the scrivener returned with this reply to where the viceroy and judges were waiting. At the magic word “faith,” however fraudulently employed, all opposition vanished. By six o’clock Dr. Morla had taken Rejaule back to his house and had replaced the guards and, at the same time, the scrivener bore to the inquisitors a note from the viceroy saying that, as they had certified that it was a matter of faith, the Audiencia had restored everything to its previous condition and he offered not only not to impede the Inquisition but to show it all aid and favor.
The case was thus transferred to the court, where the Suprema on one side and the Council of Aragon on the other, struggled for a favorable decision from Philip III. The former evidently felt the weakness of the claim that the faith was involved, but it argued that impeding the Inquisition in any way conferred jurisdiction on it and Aliaga, in his double capacity of inquisitor-general and royal confessor, added a bitter complaint as to the manner in which the Inquisition was abused and maltreated. To this the king replied that he wished the affair treated with the customary moderation and mercy of the Holy Office, especially as it was not directly a matter of faith, and whatever sentence the Suprema resolved upon for Rejaule and the other inculpated parties must be submitted to him before publication. Besides, he ordered a junta of two members each of the Suprema and the Council of Aragon to be formed and to devise a plan for the avoidance of future contention. This assumed Rejaule’s guilt and awarded the victory to the Suprema, but it was not satisfied and presented a consulta representing the perilous condition of the Valencia tribunal, which necessitated the punishment of the delinquents as a warning, but Philip merely repeated his former decision.[991]
What was Rejaule’s fate we have no means of knowing, but his career was evidently blasted, whatever may have been the so-called mercy exhibited. As for the perilous position of the tribunal insisted on by the Suprema, it seems to be set forth in a Petition of the syndic of the College of Familiars, February 25, 1616, complaining of arrests and ill-treatment and asking the tribunal to take evidence on the subject. It accordingly did so, but while the testimony was ample as to the existence of ill-feeling towards the familiars, in substance it amounted only to their being deprived at night of daggers and bucklers whichwere prohibited weapons, and it does not appear that any action was taken in consequence. Complaints continued and another petition of October 30, 1626, asked that an envoy be sent to the Suprema, for which the familiars would defray the cost, for unless some relief was had they would resign in a body, as their position only exposed them to wrong and insult and their privileges were set at naught.[992]
The difficulty of enforcing the laws on the people was intensified by the privileges claimed by the familiars. They were by no means peaceable folk and the unprivileged class naturally regarded it as a hardship to be restricted to the use of swords when these gentry were so much more efficiently armed. The Suprema as a rule supported its satellites. For ten years, from 1574, it resisted, in Aragon, the enforcement on familiars of a royal decree against carrying prohibited weapons at night, although the Concordia of Aragon in 1568 provided that familiars should obey the laws respecting arms and that inquisitors should not protect them in violations. Members of all the Royal Councils were involved in the discussion, as though it were the weightiest affair of state and it was not until 1584 that the Suprema was induced to issue the necessary orders, which it was obliged to repeat in 1592.[993]
Another illustration of its attitude occurs with respect to a pragmática of great severity against the use of fire-arms, issued by Philip III, March 14, 1613, pronouncing the mere discharge of a weapon to be a capital offence, whether death ensued or not. It abrogated all privileges and exemptions and conferred on the royal courts full jurisdiction in such cases, and all this was accepted and its observance enjoined by the Suprema. This met with such scant obedience that the Council of Aragon in a consulta of July 31, 1632, called the king’s attention to the evils existing from the exemption of familiars and suggested that they should not be permitted to decline the jurisdiction of the courts for crimes committed with fire-arms. It was doubtless in consequence of opposition by the Suprema that it was not until September 30, 1633, that Philip IV, in a cédula addressed to the Viceroy of Valencia, ordered that, with the assent of the Councils of Aragon and of the Inquisition, the pragmática of1613 must be strictly observed by which all exemptions were disallowed and offenders were triable and punishable by the royal courts; the Inquisition must withdraw from all pending competencias and the cases be carried to conclusion by the Audiencia. The Suprema must have consented unwillingly to this, for it labored with the wavering monarch and, on November 8th, he wrote withdrawing the cédula and ordering the suspension of all cases before the Audiencia. A few weeks later he yielded to other influences and annulled the last letter, but added that his orders of September 30th must be executed impartially, for the Inquisition complained that it was enforced only against its officials and in such case he would give it a free hand again. December 27th the Suprema sent this to the Valencia tribunal with formal instructions to obey it, but added a confidential letter saying that efforts would not be relaxed to persuade the king to remit all such cases back to them; meanwhile an agreement had been obtained from the Council of Aragon that all sentences by the Audiencia should be referred to it before execution and the tribunal must watch them closely and send such reports as would enable the Suprema to obtain favorable action on them.[994]
For this endless strife, for the habitual disregard of the laws by familiars, the Suprema was primarily responsible. It was perfectly acquainted with the innumerable edicts specifying prohibited weapons and forbidding the carrying of them after night-fall; it acquiesced, ostensibly at least, in the subjection of these offences to the royal courts and yet it encouraged familiars in the belief that it had power to override all laws and could confer licence to violate them. The formula of commission which it caused to be issued to familiars contained a clause granting them full liberty to carry arms, offensive and defensive, publicly and secretly, by day or by night, and ordering all secular officials to abstain from interference with them, in virtue of holy obedience and under penalty of excommunication and of fifty thousand maravedís applicable to the expenses of the Holy Office.[995]It couldnot be fuller or more explicit; there are no exceptions as to the character of arms or allusion to the jurisdiction in these cases granted by the king to the royal courts. When one branch of the government thus resolutely placed itself in opposition to the sovereign and encouraged its subordinates to resist the laws and the constituted authorities, peace was impossible and conflicts were inevitable. Yet the illegality of all this was admitted when, in 1634, the familiars of Valencia held a meeting to assess themselves for a donation to be offered to the king, in return for a privilege to bear arms, and the Suprema instructed the tribunal to aid the movement, and again when, in 1638, a fruitless offer was made by them of twelve thousand ducats for the revocation of legislation on the subject.[996]