REVIVAL OF OLD INQUISITION
In reviving and stimulating to activity this papal institution, Ferdinand was fully resolved to have it subjected to the crown as completely as in Castile. Hitherto it had been a Dominican province, with inquisitors holding office at the pleasure of the Dominican authorities and his first step therefore was to procure, in 1481, from the Dominican General, Salvo Caseta, a commission to Fray Gaspar Juglar to appoint and dismiss inquisitors at the royal will and pleasure.[609]This gave him control over the personnel of the Inquisition, but to render it completely dependent and at the same time efficient, it was necessary that the appointees should be well paid and that the pay should come from the royal treasury. A hundred years earlier, Eymerich, the Inquisitor of Aragon, had sorrowfully recorded that princes were unwilling to defray the expenses, because there were no rich heretics left whose confiscations excited their cupidity; the Church was equally disinclined, so that, in the absence of regular financial support, the good work languished.[610]Now, however, greed and fanaticism joined hands at the prospect of wealthy Conversos to be punished and Ferdinand, by a rescript of February 17, 1482, provided ample salaries for the manning of the tribunal of Valencia, with all the necessary officials.[611]We may reasonably assumethat he commenced there in the anticipation of meeting less obstinate resistance than in the older and stronger provinces of Aragon and Catalonia. He was, however, not yet fully satisfied with his control over appointments and he applied to Sixtus IV for some larger liberty, but the pope, who was beginning to recognize that the Castilian Inquisition was more royal than papal, refused, by a brief of January 29, 1482, alleging that to do so would be to inflict disgrace on the Dominicans to whom it had always been confided.[612]
The reorganized tribunal speedily produced an impression by its activity. The Conversos became thoroughly alarmed; opposition began to manifest itself, while the more timid sought safety in flight. A certain Mossen Luis Masquo, one of the jurats of Valencia, made himself especially conspicuous in exciting the city against the inquisitors and in stimulating united action in opposition by the Estates of the kingdom. A letter to him from Ferdinand, February 8, 1482, censures him severely for this and vaguely threatens him with the royal wrath for persistence. Another letter of the same date to the Maestre Racional, or chief accounting officer of the kingdom, shows that the severity with which the property of those arrested was seized and sequestrated was arousing indignation, for it explains the necessity of this so that not adinershall be lost; if the inquisitors have not power to do this, it shall be conferred on them.[613]The Maestre Racional had suggested that for those who should spontaneously come forward and confess a form of abjuration and reconciliation might be adopted which should spare them the humiliation of public penance while still keeping them subject to the penalties of relapse. To this, after consultation with learned canonists, Ferdinand assented and sent him the formula agreed upon, with instructions that it should appear to be the act of the local authorities and not his—doubtless to prevent his Castilian subjects from claiming the same exemption from the humiliating penitential processions in the autos de fe.[614]
PAPAL INTERFERENCE
Allusions in this correspondence to special cases of arrests andfugitives and sequestrations show that Ferdinand was succeeding in moulding the old Inquisition as he desired and that it was actively at work, when suddenly a halt was called. In the general terror it is presumable that the Conversos had recourse to the Holy See and furnished the necessary convincing arguments; it may also be conjectured that Sixtus was disposed, by throwing obstacles in the way, to secure the recognition of his profitable but disputed right to entertain appeals and that he was unwilling, without a struggle, to lose control of the Inquisition of Aragon as he had done with that of Castile. There are traces also of the hand of Cardinal Borgia seeking to recover his episcopal jurisdiction over heresy in Valencia. Whatever may have been the impelling cause, the first move of Sixtus was to cause the Dominican General, Salvo Caseta, to withdraw the commission given to Fray Gaspar Juglar to appoint inquisitors at Ferdinand’s dictation. At this the royal wrath exploded in a letter to the General, April 26, 1482, threatening the whole Order with the consequences of his displeasure; Gualbes and Orts had done their duty fearlessly and incorruptibly, while Fray Francisco Vital—appointed to Catalonia by the Dominican General—had been taking bribes and had been banished the kingdom; he will never allow inquisitors to act, except at his pleasure; even with the royal favor they can accomplish little in the face of popular opposition and without it they can do nothing; meanwhile Gualbes and Orts will continue to act. This heated epistle was followed, May 11th, by one in a calmer mood, asking that Juglar’s commission be renewed or another one be issued, failing which he would obtain papal authority and overslaugh the Dominican Order.[615]
PAPAL INTERFERENCE
The next move by Sixtus was the issue, April 18, 1482, of the most extraordinary bull in the history of the Inquisition—extraordinary because, for the first time, heresy was declared to be, like any other crime, entitled to a fair trial and simple justice. We shall have abundant opportunity to see hereafter how the inquisitorial system, observed since its foundation in the thirteenth century, presumed the guilt of the accused on any kind of so-called evidence and was solely framed to extort a confession by depriving him of the legitimate means of defence and by the free use of torture. It was also an invariable rule that sacramental confession of heresy was good only in the forum of conscience andwas no bar to subsequent prosecution. There was brazen assurance therefore in Sixtus’s complaining that, for some time, the inquisitors of Aragon had been moved not by zeal for the faith but by cupidity; that many faithful Christians, on the evidence of slaves, enemies and unfit witnesses, without legitimate proofs, had been thrust into secular prisons, tortured and condemned as heretics their property confiscated and their persons relaxed to the secular arm for execution. In view of the numerous complaints reaching him of this, he ordered that in future the episcopal vicars should in all cases be called in to act with the inquisitors; that the names and evidence of accusers and witnesses should be communicated to the accused, who should be allowed counsel and that the evidence for the defence and all legitimate exceptions should be freely admitted; that imprisonment should be in the episcopal gaols; that for all oppression there should be free appeal to the Holy See, with suspension of proceedings, under pain of excommunication removable only by the pope. Moreover, all who had been guilty of heresy should be permitted to confess secretly to the inquisitors or episcopal officials, who were required to hear them promptly and confer absolution, good in both the forum of conscience and that of justice, without abjuration, on their accepting secret penance, after which they could no longer be prosecuted for any previous acts, a certificate being given to them in which the sins confessed were not to be mentioned, nor were they to be vexed or molested thereafter in any way—and all this under similar pain of excommunication. The bull was ordered to be read in all churches and the names of those incurring censure under it were to be published and the censures enforced if necessary by invocation of the secular arm; while finally all proceedings in contravention of these provisions were declared to be null and void, all exceptions from excommunication were withdrawn and all conflicting papal decrees were set aside.[616]It is evident that the Conversos had a hand in framing this measure and they could scarce have asked for anything more favorable. In fact Ferdinand in December, 1482, writes to Luis Cabanilles, Governor of Valencìa, that he learns that Gonsalvo de Gonsalvo Royz was concerned in procuring the bull for the Conversos: he is thereforeto be arrested at once and is not to be released without a royal order, while Luis de Santangel, the royalescribano de racion, will convey orally the king’s intentions concerning him.[617]
In this elaborate and carefully planned decree Sixtus formally threw down the gage of battle to Ferdinand and announced that he must be placated in some way if the Inquisition of Aragon was to be allowed to perform its intended functions. That it was simply a tactical move—rendered doubly advantageous by liberal Converso payment—and that he is to be credited with no humanitarian motives, is sufficiently evident from his subsequent action and also from the fact that the bull was limited to Aragon and in no way interfered with the Castilian tribunals. Ferdinand promptly accepted the challenge. He did not await the publication of the bull but addressed, on May 13th, a haughty and imperative letter to Sixtus. He had heard, he said, that such concessions had been made, which he briefly condensed in a manner to show that his information was accurate, and further that the inquisitors Gualbes and Orts had been removed, at the instance of the New Christians who hoped for more pliable successors. He refused to believe that the pope could have made grants so at variance with his duty but, if he had thus yielded to the cunning persuasions of the New Christians, he, the king, did not intend ever to allow them to take effect. If anything had been conceded it must be revoked; the management of the Inquisition must be left to him; he must have the appointment of the inquisitors, as only through his favor could they adequately perform their functions; it was through lack of this royal power that they had hitherto been corrupted and had allowed heresy to spread. He therefore asked Sixtus to confirm Gualbes and Orts and the commission to Gaspar Juglar, or to give a similar commission to some other Dominican, for he would permit no one to exercise the office in his dominions except at his pleasure.[618]
Sixtus seems to have allowed five months to elapse before answering this defiance, but in the meanwhile the Inquisition went on as before. Ferdinand had formed in Valencia a specialcouncil for the Holy Office and this body ventured to remonstrate with him about the confiscations and especially the feature of sequestration, by which, as soon as an arrest was made, the whole property of the accused was seized and held; this was peculiarly oppressive and the council represented that it violated the fueros granted by King Jaime and King Alfonso, but Ferdinand replied, September 11th, that he was resolved that nothing belonging to him should be lost but should be rigidly collected, while what belonged to others should not be taken. Another letter of September 6th to the Governor Luis Cabanilles refers to an arrangement of a kind that became frequent, under which the Conversos agreed to pay a certain sum as a composition for the confiscations of those who might be proved to be heretics.[619]
CRISTOBAL GUALBES
At length, on October 9th, Sixtus replied to Ferdinand in a manner to show that he was open to accommodation. The new rules, he said, had been drawn up with the advice of the cardinals deputed for the purpose; they had scattered in fear of the impending pestilence but, when they should return to Rome, he would charge them to consider maturely whether the bull should be amended; meanwhile he suspended it in so far as it contravened the common law, only charging the inquisitors to observe strictly the rules of the common law—the “common law” here being an elastic expression, certain to be construed as the traditional inquisitorial system.[620]Thus the unfortunate Conversos of Aragon, as we shall see hereafter were those of Castile, were merely used as pawns in the pitiless game of king and pope over their despoilment and the merciful prescriptions of the bull of April 18th were only of service in showing that, in his subsequent policy, Sixtus sinned against light and knowledge. What negotiations followed, the documents at hand fail to reveal, but an understanding was inevitable as soon as the two powers could agree upon a division of the spoil. It required a twelvemonth to effect this and in the settlement Ferdinand secured more than he had at first demanded. It was no longer a question of commissioning a fraile to appoint inquisitors at his pleasure, but of including in the organization of the Castilian Inquisition the whole of the Spanish dominions. On October 17, 1483, the agreement was ratified by a bull appointing Torquemada as inquisitor of Aragon, Valencia and Catalonia, with power to appoint subordinates. In this, with characteristicshamelessness, Sixtus declares that he is only discharging his duty as pope, while his tender care for the reputation of the Dominicans is manifested by his omitting to prescribe that the local inquisitors should be members of that Order, the only qualification required being that they should be masters in theology.[621]
During the interval, prior to this extension of Torquemada’s jurisdiction, there was an incident showing that Sixtus had yielded the appointment of inquisitors, while endeavoring to retain the power of dismissing them. Cristóbal Gualbes, who was acting in Valencia to the entire satisfaction of Ferdinand, became involved in a bitter quarrel with the Archdeacon Mercader for whom, as we have seen, Cardinal Borgia had obtained a papal brief, virtually constituting him an indispensable member of the tribunal—a power which he doubtless used speculatively to the profit of Borgia and himself. It is to the interference of Gualbes with these worthies that we may reasonably attribute the action of Sixtus, who wrote, May 25, 1483, to Ferdinand and Isabella that the misdeeds of Gualbes merited heavy punishment, but he contented himself with removing him and asked them to fill his place with some fitting person on whom he in advance conferred the necessary powers. He evidently felt doubtful as to their acquiescence, for he wrote on the same day to Iñigo Archbishop of Seville, asking him to use his influence to induce the sovereigns to concur in this.[622]Ferdinand was not inclined to abandon Gualbes for, in a letter of August 8th, he orders the Maestre Racional of Valencia to pay to “lo devot religios maestre Gualbes” forty libras to defray his expenses in coming to the king at Córdova and in order that he might without delay return to work.[623]In the final settlement however Gualbes was sacrificed, for whenTorquemada was made Inquisitor-general of Aragon, Sixtus expressly forbade him from appointing that son of iniquity Cristóbal Gualbes who, for his demerits, had been interdicted from serving as inquisitor.[624]
If Ferdinand imagined that he had overcome the resistance of his subjects by placing them under the Castilian Inquisition with Torquemada at its head, he showed less than his usual sagacity. They had been restive under the revived institution conducted by their own people and the intense particularism of the Aragonese could not fail to arouse still stronger opposition to the prospect of subjection to the domination of a foreigner such as Torquemada, whose sinister reputation for pitiless zeal gave assurance that the work would be conducted with greater energy than ever.
VALENCIA
In Castile the introduction of the Inquisition had been done by the arbitrary power of the crown; in Aragon the consent of the representatives of the people was felt to be necessary for the change from the old to the new and a meeting of the Córtes was convoked at Tarazona for January 15, 1484. Ferdinand and Isabella arrived there on the 19th and remained until May, when the opening of the campaign against Granada required their presence elsewhere. Torquemada was there ready to establish the tribunals; what negotiations were requisite we do not know, though we hear of his consulting with persons of influence, and an agreement was reached on April 14th. It was not until May 7th, however, that Ferdinand issued from Tarazona a cédula addressed to all the officials throughout his dominions, informing them that with his assent the pope had established the Inquisition to repress the Judaic and Mahometan heresies and ordering thatthe inquisitors and their ministers should be honored and assisted everywhere under pain of the royal wrath, of deprivation of office and of ten thousand florins.[625]
Under the plenary powers of Torquemada’s commission, steps were taken to reorganize the Inquisition and adapt it to the active discharge of its duties. Tribunals were to be established permanently in Valencia, Saragossa and Barcelona with new men to conduct them. Gualbes was disposed of by the enmity of Sixtus IV. Orts still figures in an order for the payment of salaries, April 24, 1484, and, on May 10th, Ferdinand, writing from Tarazona, says that he is there and will be sent to Saragossa, but he never appeared at the latter place, though he was not formally removed from office until February 8, 1486, by Innocent VIII, when he was styled Inquisitor of Valencia and Lérida.[626]
In the Spring of 1484 Torquemada appointed, for Valencia, Fray Juan de Epila and Martin Iñigo, but the popular resistance and effervescence were such that their operations were greatly delayed. The jurats, or local authorities, prevented the opening of their tribunal and, by the advice of Miguel Dalman, royal advocate fiscal, presented an appeal to the Córtes of the kingdom, imploring their intervention. The Córtes had assembled and all fourbrazosor Estates united in remonstrances against the threatened violation of the fueros and privileges of the land and threw every impediment in the way of the inquisitors. All this we learn from a series of letters despatched, July 27th, by Ferdinand to the various officials, from the governor down, in which he gives free vent to his wrath and indignation, declaring his will to be unchangeable, threatening with punishment and dismissal all who resist it and pronouncing as frivolous the argument that the Inquisition was an invasion of the privileges of the land. At the same time he wrote to the inquisitors informing them of his proposed measures, instructing them to perform their duties withoutfear and cautioning them to observe the fueros and privileges and to show clemency and mercy, in so far as they could with a good conscience, to those who confessed their errors and applied for reconciliation.[627]
Energetic and determined as was the tone of these letters they produced no effect upon the obstinate Valencians. The Córtes and the city joined in sending a deputation to the king to remonstrate against the proposed violation of their rights. The Maestre Racional stood by and did nothing to remove the dead-lock. Even the Royal Council of Valencia prevented the inquisitors from opening their tribunal, on the ground that they were foreigners while, by the fueros, none but natives could exercise official functions. All this produced another explosion of royal anger under date of August 31st. Ferdinand roundly scolded his officials and threatened punishment proportioned to the gravity of the offence; the reasons alleged by the envoys and the council were brushed aside as untenable; he ordered the governor to set the inquisitors at work, without caring what the Córtes might do or what the people might say, and he exhorted the inquisitors to lose no time in performing their duties.[628]The struggle continued but at length opposition was broken down and, on November 7, 1484, the inquisitors were able formally to assume their functions by preaching theirsermon de la feand publishing their edicts. Although they were thus in shape to carry on the business of the tribunal, the usual solemnities were omitted and they did not venture to exact, from the secular and ecclesiastical dignitaries, the customary oaths—all of which Ferdinand subsequently ordered to be performed.[629]
VALENCIA
Scarcely had the inquisitors commenced operations when Borgia’s representative, the Archdeacon Mateo Mercader, was the cause of fresh trouble. Discord arose between him and Juan de Epila which threatened to have even more serious results than his quarrels with Gualbes, which had compromised the attempt to revive the old Inquisition. Ferdinand’s patience was exhausted and so serious did he consider the situation that he despatched his secretary, Antonio Salavert, to Valencia armed with peremptory orders to Mercader and the governor. The former wasrequired to make over his episcopal functions to Martí Trigo, another vicar-general, to surrender the bull of December 4, 1481, delegating to him inquisitorial powers, and no longer to meddle in any way with the Holy Office. In case of disobedience, the governor was instructed, without a moment’s delay, to order him under pain of five thousand florins, to depart within twenty-four hours for the royal court and to be beyond the frontier of Valencia within six days; if he failed in this all his temporalities were to be seized to defray the fine and further contumacy was to be met by banishing him from the kingdom as a disobedient rebel. The inquisitors were also told no longer to summon him to their deliberations and not to allow him to take part in their action.[630]All this was in flagrant violation of the fueros of the land and independence of the Church and shows what latitude Ferdinand allowed himself when the Inquisition was concerned. It was successful however and we hear no more of Mercader, though it was not until February 8, 1486, that the curia assented to this arbitrary illegality by withdrawing his commission along with those of the old inquisitors.[631]
Still, Valencia was not disposed to allow to the Inquisition the untrammelled exercise of its powers or to render to it the assistance required of all the faithful. The nobles continued for some months to offer resistance and when this was nominally broken down it continued in a passive form. To meet it, Ferdinand, in a letter of August 17, 1485, ordered Mossen Joan Carrasquier, alguazil of the Inquisition, at the simple bidding of the inquisitors, to arrest and imprison any one, no matter how high in station. For this he was not to ask the concurrence of any secular authority, for the whole royal power was committed to him and all officials, under pain of two thousand gold florins, and other arbitrary punishment, were required to lend him active assistance. Even this infraction of the royal oath to respect the liberties of the subject did not suffice, for another letter of January 23, 1486, states that the nobles continued to give refuge in their lands to fugitives from the Inquisition, even to those condemned and burnt in effigy, wherefore they were summoned, under their allegiance and a penalty of twenty thousand gold florins, to surrender to the alguazil all whom he might designate and to aid him in seizing them. About the same time Ferdinand placed the royal palaceof Valencia at the service of the Inquisition and ordered to be built in it the necessary prisons. His own officials apparently had by this time been taught obedience for in March, 1487, he writes to the governor warmly praising their zeal.[632]To stimulate this, on July 28, 1487, he issued a safe-conduct, taking under the royal protection all the officials of the Inquisition, their families and goods; all royal officials, from the highest to the lowest, were required, under pain of five thousand florins and the king’s wrath, to assist them and to arrest whomsoever they might designate.[633]
ARAGON
Still, there were occasional ebullitions of resistance which were met with prompt and effective measures. In 1488 the Lieutenant-general of the kingdom ventured to remove by force, from the inquisitorial prison, a certain Domingo de Santa Cruz, condemned for heresy, and was at once summoned by Torquemada to answer for his temerity. Ferdinand at the same time wrote to him severely to come without delay and, that the kingdom might not be without a governor, sent him a commission in blank to fill in with the name of a deputy to act during his absence or until the king should otherwise provide; moreover, all who had assisted in the removal of the prisoner were to be forthwith arrested by the inquisitors.[634]So, when in 1497 the notaries of Valencia claimed that the notaries of the Holy Office had no power to certify documents concerning the sales of confiscated property and other similar business and summoned them before the secular authorities, Ferdinand threatened them with severe punishment, besides the prosecution by the inquisition to which they were liable for impeding it, for it was not subject to any of the laws or privileges of the land. He also wrote to the Duke of Segorbe, his lieutenant-general, to support the Inquisition; the fiscal of the Suprema presented aclamosaclaiming that those guilty of this action were excommunicate and liable to the penalties for fautorship of heresy, and the inquisitor-general forwarded this to them with a summons to appear within fifteen days and defend themselves.[635]The Inquisition was so sacred that a mere attempt to decide at law a question of business was a crime involving heavy penalties. Ferdinand’s sharp rebuke, in 1499, when a case of confiscation, involving peculiarhardship, provoked the royal officials and local magistrates to meet and draw up a protest in terms unflattering to the tribunal has already been referred to (p. 189). It was probably one of the results of this that, on June 28, 1500, the inquisitors summoned all the officials and the Diputados before them and, when all were assembled, read to them the apostolic letters and those of the king respecting the tribunal and its fees and required all present to take the oath of obedience, which was duly acceded to without objections.[636]The unintermitting pressure of the throne was thus finally effective and, in spite of its fueros, the little kingdom was brought under the yoke.
The tribunal had been active and efficient. Already, in June, 1488, a list of those reconciled under the Edicts of Grace amounted to 983 and, among these, no less than a hundred women are described as the wives or daughters of men who had been burnt. Those included in this enumeration were given assurance that their property would not be subject to confiscation—unless it had already been sequestrated—and that they could effect sales and make good titles. Apparently inquisitorial zeal disregarded this assurance for these penitents applied for and obtained its confirmation, May 30, 1491.[637]Of course they had been subjected to heavy fines under the guise of pecuniary penance and we can readily imagine how large was the sum thus contributed to the coffers of the Inquisition, to which as yet these fines enured.
OPPOSITION IN SARAGOSSA
The parent state of Aragon proper seemed at first sight to present an even more arduous problem than Valencia. The people were proud of their ancient liberty and resolute in its maintenance, through institutions sedulously organized for that purpose. The Conversos were numerous, wealthy and powerful, occupying many of the higher offices and intermarried with the noblest houses and, in the fate of their brethren of Castile, they had ample warning of what was in store for them. In the revival of the old Inquisition, Valencia was the scene of action and we hear littleof Gualbes and Orts beyond its boundaries. The acceptance, however, by the Córtes of Tarazona, in the Spring of 1484, of Torquemada’s jurisdiction, of course included Aragon; he lost no time in organizing a tribunal in Saragossa, by the appointment, May 4th, as inquisitors of Fray Gaspar Juglar and of Maestre Pedro Arbués, a canon of the cathedral, with the necessary subordinates and, by May 11th, the appointments for a full court were completed, as we learn by an order for the payment of the salaries.[638]The expense was large but it was already provided for; Torquemada must himself have employed his leisure in acting as inquisitor for, on May 10th, an auto de fe was held in the cathedral in which four persons were penanced and subjected to confiscation.[639]Gaspar Juglar in this appointment obtained his reward for the services he had rendered as a nominator of inquisitors, but he did not long enjoy it; he disappears almost immediately, poisoned, as it was said, by the Conversos in somerosquillasor sweet cakes.[640]No time was lost in getting to work. Ferdinand had written from Tarazona, May 10th, that the Edict of Grace which had been resolved upon was not to be published, but that proceedingsshould go on as if it had been proclaimed and had expired, thus depriving the Conversos of the opportunity of coming forward for confessing, and explaining the absence at Saragossa of the long lists of penitents that we find elsewhere.[641]Thus, although some time must have been required for the members of the tribunal to assemble, by June 3d it was ready for another auto, held in the courtyard of the archiepiscopal palace. This time it was not bloodless, for two men were executed and a woman was burnt in effigy.[642]
No more autos were held in Saragossa for eighteen months. Thus far the people had been passive; they had accepted the action of the Córtes of Tarazona, apparently under the impression that the new Inquisition would be as inert as the old had so long been, but, as they awoke to the reality, an opposition arose which called a halt and Arbués never celebrated another auto. Not only the Conversos but many of the Old Christians denounced the Inquisition as contrary to the liberties of the land. The chief objections urged against it were the secrecy of procedure and the confiscation of estates and, as these were the veriest commonplaces of inquisitorial business, it shows how completely the old institution had been dormant. So many Conversos were lawyers and judges and high officials that they had abundant opportunity to impede the action of the tribunal by obtaining injunctions and decisions of the courts as to confiscations, which they regarded as the most assailable point, believing that if these could be stopped the whole business would perish of inanition.[643]
To overcome this resistance, resort was had to the rule compelling all who held office to take the oath of obedience to the Inquisition. On September 19th, the royal and local officials were assembled and solemnly sworn to maintain inviolably the holy Roman Catholic faith, to employ all their energies against every one of whatever rank, who was a heretic or suspect of heresy or a fautor of heresy, to denounce any one whom they might know to be guilty and to appoint to office no one suspect in the faith or incapacitated by law. A few days later the same oath was taken by the Governor of Aragon, Juan Francisco de Heredia and his assessor, Francisco de Santa Fe, son of that Geronimo de Santa Fe the convert, who had stimulated the popular abhorrence ofJudaism. Other nobles were subsequently required to take the oath, and it was gradually administered to all the different Estates. Then, in November, followed Torquemada’s assembly of inquisitors at Seville, whose instructions were duly transmitted to Aragon for observance, although Aragon had not been represented in the conference. Thus far the tribunal seems to have had no definite quarters, but it was now settled in some houses between the cathedral and the archiepiscopal palace, convenient to the ecclesiastical gaol.[644]
Agitation grew stronger and those who deemed themselves in danger began to seek safety in flight, whereupon Ferdinand, on November 4th, issued orders to the authorities of the three kingdoms to adopt whatever means might be necessary to prevent the departure of all who were not firm in the faith. The effort proved ineffective, as it was decided to be in violation of the fueros, but the Inquisition was superior to the fueros and Ferdinand instructed the inquisitors to issue an edict forbidding any one to leave the kingdom without their license, under pain of being held as a relapsed heretic in case of return, and this scandalous stretch of arbitrary power he sarcastically said that he would enforce so that the object might be attained without infringing on the liberties of the kingdom.[645]
RESISTANCE IN TERUEL
The rich Conversos offered large amounts to the sovereigns if they would forego the confiscations, but the proposition was rejected. A heavy sum was subscribed to propitiate the curia, but the arrangement by which the land was subjected to Torquemada was too recent to be changed. The lieutenant of the Justicia of Aragon, Tristan de la Porta, was urged to prohibit the Inquisition altogether, but in vain. Then the Four Estates of the realm were called together to deliberate on a subject which involved the liberties of the whole land. To forestall their action Ferdinand, on December 10th, addressed a circular letter to the deputies and to the leading nobles, entreating them affectionately to favor and aid the inquisitors of Saragossa and Teruel, but this had no influence and a solemn embassy was sent to remonstrate with him. To their representations he answered, disposing of their arguments by assuming practically that he was only the agent of the Church in enforcing the well-known principles of the canons. The essence of his answer is embodied in responding totheir demand that the Inquisition be carried on as in times past, for in any other way it violated the liberties of the kingdom. “There is no intention” he said “of infringing on the fueros but rather of enforcing their observance. It is not to be imagined that vassals so Catholic as those of Aragon would have demanded, or that kings so Catholic would have granted, fueros and liberties adverse to the faith and favorable to heresy. If the old inquisitors had acted conscientiously in accordance with the canons there would have been no cause for bringing in the new ones, but they were without conscience and corrupted with bribes. If there are so few heretics as is now asserted, there should not be such dread of the Inquisition. It is not to be impeded in sequestrating and confiscating and other necessary acts, for be assured that no cause or interest, however great, shall be allowed to interfere with its proceeding in future as it is now doing.”[646]
Meanwhile there had been, at Teruel, a more open resistance to the Inquisition, in which the inflexible purpose of the monarch to enforce obedience at any cost was abundantly demonstrated. Simultaneously with the organization of the Saragossa tribunal, Fray Juan Colivera and Mossen Martin Navarro were sent to Teruel with their subordinates to establish one there. Teruel was a fortified city of some importance, near the Castilian border, the capital of its district, although it was not elevated into a separate bishopric until 1577. When the reverend fathers appeared before the gates, the magistrates refused them entrance and they prudently retired to Cella, a village about four leagues distant, whence they fulminated an edict excommunicating the magistrates and casting an interdict on the town. From the venal papal court Teruel had no difficulty in procuring letters in virtue of which the dean, Francisco Savistan, and Martin de San Juan, rector of Villaquemada, absolved the excommunicates and removed the interdict, nor is it likely that any success attended Ferdinand’s order to his son, the Archbishop of Saragossa, to send to his official at Teruel secret instructions to seize the two priests and hold them in chains. The town sent a supplication to him by Juan de la Mata and Micer Jaime Mora, but he only ordered them to send home a peremptory command to submit, under pain of such punishment as should serve as a perpetual example. This he also communicated to the Governor of Aragon, Juan Fernández de Heredia, with instructions to take it to Teruel and read it to themagistrates, when, if they did not yield, a formal summons to appear before him was to be read to each one individually—all of which was doubtless performed without effect. Ferdinand had also ordered the envoys not to leave the court, but they fled secretly and his joy was extreme when, six months later, Juan de la Mata was captured by Juan Garcés de Marzilla.
RESISTANCE IN TERUEL
The next step of the Inquisition was a decree, October 2, 1484, confiscating to the crown all the offices in Teruel and pronouncing the incumbents incapable of holding any office of honor or profit—a decree which Ferdinand proceeded to execute by stopping their salaries. It was in vain that the Diputados of Aragon interceded with him; he replied curtly that the people of Teruel had nothing to complain of and were guilty of madness and outrage. Then the inquisitors took final action, which was strictly within their competence, by issuing a letter invoking the aid of the secular arm and summoning the king to enable them to seize the magistrates and confiscate their property. To this he responded, February 5, 1485, with anExecutoria invocationis brachii sæcularis, addressed to all the officials of Aragon, requiring them and the nobles to assemble all the horse and foot that they could raise and put them at the service of the inquisitors, under a captain whom he would send to take command. Under pain of the royal wrath, deprivation of office, a fine of twenty thousand gold florins and discretional penalties, they were ordered to seize all the inhabitants of Teruel and their property and deliver them to the inquisitors to be punished for their enormous crimes in such wise as should serve for a lasting example. The people of Cella, also, were ordered to deliver their castle to the inquisitors to serve as a prison and to make all repairs necessary for that purpose. Apparently the response of Aragon to this summons was unsatisfactory for Ferdinand, in defiance of the fuero which forbade the introduction of foreign troops into the kingdom, took the extreme step of calling upon the nobles of Cuenca and other Castilian districts contiguous to the border, to raise their men and join in the holy war, while the receiver of confiscations was ordered to sell enough property to meet the expenses. Whether this formidable array was raised or not, the documents do not inform us, nor of the circumstances under which Teruel submitted, but it had braved the royal will as long as it dared and it could not hold out against the forces of two kingdoms. By April 15th Ferdinand was in position to appoint Juan Garcés de Marzilla, the captor of Juande la Mata, asassistenteor governor of Teruel, with absolute dictatorial powers, and the spirit in which he exercised them may be gathered from his declaration that he did not intend to allow fueros or privileges to stand in the way. The lot of the inhabitants was hard. Ferdinand ordered Marzilla to banish all whom the inquisitors might designate, thus placing the whole population at their mercy, and their rule must have been exasperating, for, in January, 1486, Ferdinand reproaches Marzilla because his nephew, who had aided in the capture of la Mata, had recently attempted to slay the alguazil of the Inquisition. Presumably the inquisitorial coffers were filled with the fines and confiscations which could be inflicted at discretion on the citizens for impeding the Inquisition. During the long struggle Teruel had been at the disadvantage that the surrounding country supported the inquisitors, won over through an astute device by which the inquisitors, while at Cella, had guaranteed, on the payment of certain sums, the remission of all debts and the release of all censos or bonds and groundrents, which might be due to heretics who should be convicted and subjected to confiscation in Teruel. All debtors were thus eager for the success of the inquisitors and for the punishment of heresy among the money-lending Conversos of the town.[647]
Meanwhile, in Saragossa, the Conversos were growing desperate. All peaceful means of averting the fate that hung over them had failed and events at Teruel demonstrated the futility of resistance. The bolder spirits began to whisper that the only resource left was to kill an inquisitor or two, when the warning would deter others from incurring the hazard. They knew that secret informations were on foot gathering from all sources testimony against them all. Inquisitor Arbués was almost openly said to be ready to pay for satisfactory evidence, and the life and fortune of every man was at the mercy of the evil-minded.[648]Sancho de Paternoy, the Maestre Racional of Aragon, when on trial, admitted to prejudice against Juan de Anchias, secretary of the tribunal, becausehe had enquired of a Jewish tailor whether Paternoy had a seat in the synagogue.[649]Suspense was becoming insupportable; the project of assassination gradually took shape and, when the friends of the Conversos at the royal court were consulted, including Ferdinand’s treasurer Gabriel Sánchez, they approved of it and wrote that if an inquisitor was murdered it would put an end to the Inquisition.[650]
At first the intention was to make way not only with Pedro Arbués but with the assessor, Martin de la Raga, and with Micer Pedro Francés, and a plot was laid to drown the assessor while he was walking by the Ebro, but he chanced to be accompanied by two gentlemen and it was abandoned.[651]The whole attention of the conspirators was then concentrated on Arbués. Maestre Epila, as he was commonly called, was not a man of any special note, though his selection by Torquemada indicates that he was reputed to possess the qualities necessary to curb the recalcitrant Aragonese, and we are told that he was an eloquent preacher. He possessed the gift of prophecy, if we may believe the story that he foretold to his colleague Martin García that he would reach the episcopate, for García, in 1512, became Bishop of Barcelona, but such foresight is not necessary to explain his reluctance to accept the inquisitorship, for, although this was always a promising avenue to promotion, the post was evidently to be an arduous one.[652]His hesitation was overcome and we have seen how energetically he commenced his new career, yet the interruptions which supervened had prevented him from accomplishing much and he fell a victim rather to fear than to revenge.