ADOPTED BY INQUISITION
This vacillation continued. A number of appointments subsequent to that of Romeo have no allusion to limpieza until 1549, when, on April 8th, Valdés enquires of the inquisitors of Barcelona whether Gerónimo de Torribos, candidate for the receivership, possesses the qualifications of limpieza and habits required in officials, and whether there is anything connected with his wife to prevent his appointment. So, on April 8th, when Moya de Contreras, inquisitor of Saragossa, proposed to employ commissioners of the Cruzada, Valdés emphatically negatived the suggestion, giving, among other reasons, the fact that the officials of theCruzada were not “tan limpios de sangre.” Yet, in an order of October 8th of the same year to the tribunal of Cuenca, remodelling its familiars, there is no allusion to the necessity of limpieza.[859]
This uncertainty continued yet for a while, of which further instances could be cited, but a decisive step seemed to be taken when Philip, in instructions of March 10, 1553, concerning the Concordia of Castile, prescribed that all familiars must be Old Christians and yet a carta acordada of March 20th on the same subject makes no allusion to such a condition.[860]The tribunals appear to have been somewhat slack in conforming their patronage to the new regulation. December 23, 1560, the Suprema felt it necessary to order that all familiars must be married men andlimpios.[861]When the inquisitor-general made an appointment and required the inquisitors to certify to the limpieza of the nominee, they would do so, as appears from the commission of Bernaldo Mancipi, as assistant notary of sequestrations in Barcelona in 1561, but in this same year Inspector Cervantes reported that they paid no attention to it in their appointments of commissioners, consultores and familiars, a negligence which continued for, in 1568, the Suprema was obliged to rebuke them for it.[862]This is scarce surprising when Philip II himself, in 1565, had issued a series of conciliatory instructions regarding the Moriscos of Valencia, in which he ordered that their leading men should be made familiars.[863]
Thus far there does not seem to have been any definite system adopted as to verifying limpieza. The statute of Toledo required aspirants to furnish genealogies and deposit money for expenses and this was probably the common plan. In 1557 we are told of Beltran Ybañez de Arzamendi, appointed alguazil in the tribunal of Sardinia, that the examination of his paternal genealogy was made in Valencia and of his maternal in Calahorra, the birth-places of his respective parents,[864]but doubtless much of this was perfunctory. It was evidently felt that the highest authority must be invoked to prescribe a settled system andPhilip II was called upon for this. In 1562 he accordingly issued a decree in which, according to custom, antiquity was claimed for innovation, for it recited that, since the Inquisition had been founded in Castile and Aragon, all inquisitors and officials appointed by the inquisitor-general had been required to furnish genealogies to prove that there was no trace of descent from Jews or Moors, or from those condemned or penanced by the Inquisition. The king therefore ordered that all appointees, in tribunals of the kingdoms of the crown of Aragon and of Navarre, and of Logroño, should furnish satisfactory proofs of limpieza, even though they might hold canonries or churches or be members of Orders which required limpieza. Moreover married men were obliged to furnish proofs of the limpieza of their wives and those already in office were to be dismissed if there was defect of limpieza in the wife. These rules were to be embodied in the Instructions and were to be inviolably observed.[865]Undoubtedly a similar order was issued for Castile and the utterance is important as embodying the first absolute demand for proofs of limpieza and as marking the extravagant extension of the rule to wives.
This royal cédula was interpreted as applicable to existing incumbents, and investigations as to their genealogies were set on foot, with the intention of weeding out at least the familiars who were not limpios. Several efforts had already been made to this effect after the Castile Concordia of 1553, without apparent result, and it was now undertaken again with instructions that, if any were found to be Conversos, they were to be dismissed without assigning a reason.[866]It was a work ungrateful both to the investigators and investigated and dragged along in the most perfunctory fashion. Cartas acordadas in 1567 and 1575 called for lists of those who had been investigated and those who had not and, when it came to taking action, the habitual tenderness manifested toward officials was displayed in orders issued in 1572 and again in 1582 that if any officials, commissioners or familiars, were found lacking in the requisite qualifications, they were to be reported to the Suprema without dismissing them.[867]
LIMITATIONS DISREGARDED
As a matter of course the test was applied to all new appointments and no one was admitted to office in any capacity in theInquisition who was not free from themanchaof Jewish or Moorish blood or of ancestral punishment. Even for temporary employment, limpieza was essential. In his visitation of the Canaries, in 1574, the Inspector Bravo de Zayas brought an accusation, against the Inquisitor Ortiz de Funes, of appointing officials without preliminary investigation, the cases being two emergency appointments to fill temporary vacancies, and the appointees beingmontañeses, or highlanders from the northern provinces of Spain, where purity of blood was presumable—to say nothing of the fact that an investigation would probably have consumed a year or two.[868]Yet this was but the natural expression of the infatuation which had taken possession of Spain. In 1595, Philip II, in his instructions to Manrique de Lara, lays especial stress on the importance of limpieza. Investigation as to this and as to habits must be made with the utmost rigor and no dispensations must be granted. No examinations are to be made before the party is selected, because otherwise, if he is not appointed owing to other reasons, it may be ascribed to amanchaand thus undeserved infamy be cast upon an entire kindred.[869]Strangely enough, however, the inquisitor-general himself was never required to furnish proofs of purity of blood.[870]
Unfortunately, in the craze for absolute limpieza, no limit was set to the number of generations through which the taint could be carried. The canon law, as we have seen, limited disabilities to grandchildren and, in 1573, Leonardo Donato describes the rule as extending to what were called the four quarters, that is, the parents and the four grandparents, and in this moderate shape he says it was the cause of constant strife and of preserving the old Judaizing memories.[871]In this, however, he greatly understated Spanish craving for purity of blood. We have seen the Córtes of Castile, in 1532, petition that it should be satisfied with great-grandparents, indicating that it was carried beyond this, and Siliceo’s Toledo statute affixed no limit. Each body, it is true,could prescribe its own rules, but the more important ones discarded all limitations and refused admission to those against whom a stain could be found, however remote. In 1633 Escobar informs us that among these were included the Inquisition, the Orders of Santiago, Alcántara, Calatrava and St. John, the church of Toledo and all the greater colleges and universities, including that of Alcalá; these all required the most rigorous investigation to trace out the slightestmanchain the remotest grade of parentage.[872]
IMPURITY ARISING FROM PENANCE
There were two sources of descent which caused impurity of blood—from an ancestor of either of the proscribed races, or from one who had ever been penanced by the Inquisition. As regards the former, the line was drawn at the massacres of 1391 for Jews and at the enforced baptisms of the early sixteenth century for Moors. Voluntary converts, prior to those periods, were accepted as Old Christians, the subsequent ones were considered as unwilling converts and were regarded as New Christians, together with their descendants, no matter how zealously they had embraced the Christian faith. The prevalence of intermarriage with Conversos throughout the fifteenth century had led to infinite ramifications throughout the land in the course of generations and, about 1560, Cardinal Mendoza y Bobadilla, apparently moved by some discussion on limpieza, drew up and presented to Philip II a memorial in which he showed that virtually the whole nobility of Castile and Aragon had a strain of Jewish blood.[873]There was no lack of material for tracing the dissemination of this blood through the land. In Aragon, Juan de Anchias, the zealous secretary of the first Saragossa tribunal, compiled what was known as theLibro Verde de Aragon, giving the affiliations of all the leading Conversos who had suffered, so as to serve as a beacon for all who desired to avoid contamination. In Castile there was no such authoritative publication, but the records of the tribunals had accumulated ample material, and the sanbenitos of the relaxed and reconciled, hung in the parish churches, kept the memory of the sufferers green, to the discomfiture of theirdescendants. Many individuals, moved by zeal or by malignity, from these and other sources, with greater or less exactness, and including much that was mere idle hearsay, compiled books which were circulated under the name ofLibros verdeordel Becerro. No one of the upper or middle class, except in the remote mountainous districts of the North and East, could feel secure that investigation might not reveal some unfortunatemésallianceof a distant ancestor. In fact, only those could feel safe whose obscurity precluded any prolonged research into their ancestry. As a writer remarks, in 1629, if it were not for limpieza the Inquisition could select the best men for familiars, in place of appointing the low-born whose ignorance enables them to pass the examinations successfully.[874]
The second source of impurity—descent from one penanced by the Inquisition—originally applied only to those who had incurred the heavier penalties of relaxation or reconciliation, but there was nothing to check the scrupulosity of the examiners, who worked in secret, and they came to regard any penance inflicted by the Holy Office as affixing an indelible stigma on the descendants. The results of this are forcibly described in a memorial presented, in 1631, to Philip IV by Doctor Diego de Sylva, a member of the Suprema. After alluding to the greatly increased rigor of investigation, dating from the later years of Philip II, he proceeds to state a further source of wrong only appreciable by one who has handled the records of the Inquisition, and not to be openly mentioned. In contrast to the exquisite justice and benignity which he ascribes to the existing tribunals, the proceedings in the earlier period were hurried and violent; many to save their lives made confessions which may have been groundless; whole districts were reconciled rather as a spiritual than a judicial process; in that dangerous period careless words and propositions created suspicion, and people were tried and dismissed with some trivial penance—a few masses, some almsgiving or a light fast—for offences belonging really to the exterior forum. Yet all these were sentences and, as there has since grown up the rule requiring immemorial limpieza, whole families are branded with infamy.[875]As, in fact, since the Reformation, the Inquisition had grown more and more exacting and had inflicted on Old Christians innumerable penances for careless words, it iseasy to conceive how this rigorous definition of limpieza spread infection throughout the land, even outside of those who had a drop of Jewish or Moorish blood.
These evils were aggravated by the looseness with which adverse testimony was admitted in the investigations. Anonymous communications were received and acted upon, for, although this was prohibited by law and by papal briefs, these were commonly disregarded.[876]In a decree by Philip IV, in 1623, designed to curb some of the evils, it was ordered that no weight be attributed to idle talk, but the diffuseness with which Escobar, in his commentary on this section, dwells upon the worthless character of scandal and idle gossip and angry words uttered in quarrels, shows how largely such evidence entered into the conclusions reached. Common fame or reputation, he tells us, suffices, even if the grounds for it be unknown, and purity or impurity of blood is for the most part a matter of common fame and belief.[877]That this was so is seen in an elaborate series of instructions for the conduct of such investigations, where the fiscal is warned that great weight is to be given to such expressions of opinion, even though the witness can offer no proof except that he has heard it from his elders.[878]The avenue thus opened to the malignant to gratify hatred is dwelt upon by the writer with too much insistance for us to question the frequency with which it was utilized.
ROUTINE OF INVESTIGATION
This was facilitated by the secrecy which shrouded these investigations. The applicant put in his genealogy, named his witnesses and awaited the event. The process at best was a deliberate one and, if the result was unfavorable, the answer never came, though the failure to secure an appointment might arise from any other cause. As Doctor Sylva says, the silence and mysterious authority of the Inquisition will not give the slightest glimmer of light to the applicant, even through twenty years of suspense, though meanwhile the opinion gains ground that his family is impure, without his being able to rebut or investigate it, and thus a whole lineage suffers with all its kindred.[879]A glimpse into the anxieties thus caused is afforded by a consulta of February 26, 1634, from the inquisitor-general to the king, respecting amemorial from the Marquis of Navarrez asking for a speedy decision for his son, Don Francisco Gurrea y Borja, who had put in his proofs for an appointment as familiar, as the delay is damaging to his reputation. The inquisitor-general reports to the king that no conclusion had been reached; perhaps the king may please to decide it, for the marquis has been in court for a long time pressing the matter, and the delay has brought upon him suffering and stigma.[880]The suspense endured by all the kindred, when one of its members decided to undergo the ordeal, is visible in a letter of 1636, from Fernando Archbishop of Cuzco to his nephew, the Coronel Jacinto de Vera, on learning that he was about to apply for admission to one of the military Orders. He gives him advice and information, and so important did he consider it that he had seven copies made, to be forwarded by different routes and vessels, and another member of the family wrote to Jacinto earnestly cautioning him not to let any eye but his own to fall upon the archbishop’s letter.[881]
In the routine adopted by the Inquisition for these investigations, the applicant handed in his genealogy and, if married, that of his wife, giving the names and residences of parents and grandparents. If thorough search through the registers, by names and districts, revealed a fatal blot, that of course was sufficient. If not, commissioners or secretaries with notaries were sent from the tribunal, or the nearest commissioners were ordered to go to the places of residence, where from eight to twelve of the most aged Old Christians of good repute were summoned as witnesses, with precautions to prevent the interested parties from knowing who was called upon. The witnesses were examined under oath, on a series of printed interrogatories, as to their knowledge of the parties, whether they were descended from Conversos or from penitents, what were the sources of information and whether it was public fame and report. The replies were duly taken down and attested. If salaried officials or familiars were concerned, the results of the information were transmitted to the Suprema, to which were also referred doubtful questions and votes in discordia.[882]In a more perfected form, known as thenueva orden, in use in the seventeenth century, stringent additional precautionswere taken to prevent the insufficient secrecy observed by officials which was supposed to deter witnesses from giving adverse evidence. A carta acordada of January 22, 1628, threatened excommunication and deprivation of office for this and, under subsequent regulations, all concerned were forbidden, under rigorous penalties, to reveal to any one, even to a minister of the Inquisition, any evidence taken or papers, or records, or even the name of a witness, so that the applicant should be kept in perfect ignorance of the progress of his affair.[883]
The commissioners were invested with full power to cite witnesses, to examine into sanbenitos suspended in churches, and to demand any papers bearing upon questions that might arise, whether these were in private hands or public archives, and, at their discretion, to make copies or carry away the originals, the owners of which were told that if they wanted them back they might apply to the tribunal. If a witness absented himself, a summons to appear before the tribunal was left with the parish priest to be served on him when he should return.[884]Evidently no family records were too sacred to escape these searching investigations.
EXPENSES
All this, of course, involved expense and the fees earned in the work by the officials formed a welcome source of revenue. In 1625 the pay of notaries or secretaries was fixed at aper diemof sixteen reales.[885]This was subsequently raised for, in 1665, a statement of expenses in the case of Doctor Martin Roig, applicant for the position of consultor in Valencia, shows that the secretary was paid 30 sueldos a day and a local commissioner 20. This was only part of the cost, for every act and every blank filled in, every piece of writing bore its separate charge. The bill rolled up for him and his wife in Barcelona, for this unsalaried position, amounted to 955⅔ sueldos and this was only the beginning. Similar researches were required in the tribunals of Valencia and Cuenca, which must have been still more costly, for the Barcelona report only occupied twenty-three folios, while that of Valencia was in ninety and one against his son Vicente was in a hundredand eight. Two years later, in 1667, the affair was still dragging on.[886]It was a large price for the honor of an unpaid position, even if he proved successful. These extortions were multiplied as often as possible. In 1661, Juan Temprado Múñoz made his proofs as receiver of the tribunal of Murcia and of course this included his wife, but when, in 1667, their son Juan Temprado de Cereña desired an office in the tribunal of Barcelona, he had to go through the same process afresh, when the examination of the Barcelona registers alone cost him 546 sueldos. In addition to this the registers of Cuenca and Valencia had to be examined and evidence had to be taken in the home of his ancestors. This chanced to be in Roussillon, which was now French territory; there was war between the nations and, even in peace, France refused entrance to officials of the Inquisition, so the ingenious formality was devised of sending a commissioner to the border and examining there the requisite number of old men as witnesses. The evidence of course was valueless, but it gathered in theper diemall the same.[887]In time thisper diemfor the secretary was increased to 50 reales and, from one or two cases in 1815, it appears that it was a perquisite which the secretaries took in turns, and, when the commissioner nearest to the place of examination was employed, it was without prejudice to the secretary—that is, thecommissioner who did the work received 30 reales a day, while the secretary took the other 20.[888]
In order to secure the payment of these fees, the applicant was required, when he presented his genealogy, to make a deposit, originally of 300 reales. As the business increased it became evident that a separate fund and separate accounts of these moneys must be kept and, in 1600, it was ordered that a special chest be provided, with two keys, one entrusted to the fiscal and the other to a secretary. Abuses crept in, effectively described in the memorial of 1623 to the Suprema, as a remedy for which a new official was created, known as theDepositario de los Pretendientes, who received and accounted for the deposits, charging two per cent. on the sums passing through his hands. This he remitted to the Suprema, for his office was salaried and he was relieved of the temptation of perquisites. The office was one of those put up for sale, for three or four lives, under Sotomayor.[889]
The whole business was provocative of fraud and perjury and bribery. Despite the well-meant efforts of the Inquisition to preserve the profoundest secrecy, the writers of the period are too unanimous in deploring the success of enemies in casting infamy on those they hated, for us to doubt that means were found to ascertain what was on hand and to abuse the opportunity. To the applicants the stake was too great for them to shrink from any means that promised success. Cases become not infrequent in the records of prosecutions for false-witness in matters of limpieza, showing that aspirants were not remiss in furnishing testimony to prove fraudulent claims.
FRAUDULENT TESTIMONY
Although, in 1560, Valdés humanely ordered that descendants of penitents, who committed perjury in getting up statements of limpieza, should not be prosecuted, this policy changed in 1577, when they were subjected to prosecution and in 1582 the thrifty plan was adopted of inflicting pecuniary penance.[890]This proved profitable, for the culprits were many, not only among aspirantsto office but because limpieza was requisite in many careers, and the Inquisition took cognizance of all cases of perjury in this matter, whether it was concerned or not in the investigation. Thus, in 1585, Bernardino de Torres, a prominent citizen of Toledo, had occasion, in a suit, to prove his nobility and purity of blood, which he did with a number of witnesses. The tribunal had evidence in its records that, on both father’s and mother’s side, he was descended from Conversos who had been penanced, and it promptly prosecuted both him and his witnesses. Among them was the Regidor of Toledo, Diego de Parades, who had likewise sworn to his own limpieza, although the records showed his descent from reconciliados in a time of grace. Altogether there were sixteen witnesses, the advanced age of most of them showing that old men found profitable occupation in testifying to their recollections. Bernardino himself was penanced in fifty thousand maravedís. Many of the witnesses were let off with perpetual disability to testify in such cases, but a hundred and thirty-six thousand maravedís were collected from the rest. A few other Toledo cases at the same time may be mentioned to show the various motives impelling men to these frauds. Gerónimo de Villareal desired to place his daughter in a convent where limpieza was required. The Licenciado Antonio de Olvera was about to emigrate to the colonies and wished to protect himself from insult. Hernando de Villareal had a son who proposed to take orders and another who aspired to an appointment as familiar. The records showed them to be descended from grandparents or great-grandparents who had been burnt or reconciled and they were duly punished.[891]The taint spread with every new generation and a large part of the population was heavily handicapped in life.
If there were frequent perjury and subornation of testimony it is not to be supposed that the seekers for limpieza hesitated to corrupt the officials who controlled their destinies, nor is it unreasonable to assume that many of the latter were accessible to bribery. The opportunities were tempting and they were freely exploited. An experienced writer, in 1648, describes this as the most troublesome business in the tribunals, leading to quarrels, which he hints arose between those honestly endeavoring to discharge their duty and those who had been bribed. Thefiscal is reminded that he must set his face like flint against all efforts to pass a genealogy in which there is a flaw, for the aspirants tempt the officials, there is collusion between them and forged documents are to be expected. The chief reason, he says, why commissionerships are sought is because of the opportunities thus afforded and, writing in Toledo, he declares that all the commissioners and notaries attached to that tribunal are untrustworthy and venal.[892]
It was natural that the evils with which this absurd cult of limpieza afflicted the land should arouse opposition and call forth suggestions to mitigate its hardship. The earliest writer who ventured publicly to urge a reform seems to have been Fray Agustin Salucio, a distinguished Dominican theologian. In 1599 he issued a brief tract, pointing out that practically all Spaniards, in the course of ages, had contracted some more or less infinitesimal impurity of blood and that, unless investigations were limited to some moderate period, such as a hundred years, only the lower orders, whose genealogies were untraceable, could escape the consequences. He tells us that both Pius V and Gregory XIII drew up briefs prescribing narrow limits to these investigations but that, on communicating their designs to Philip II, discussions arose as to the term, which proved so protracted that the briefs were never published. Philip himself became convinced of the necessity of some limitation and, towards the close of his reign, he assembled a junta, including Inquisitor-general Portocarrero (1596-99) which unanimously agreed to a term of a hundred years, but Philip’s death caused the project to be dropped. Salucio’s tract was promptly suppressed by Philip III, but it was reprinted, in 1637, by Fray Gerónimo de la Cruz with a verbose confutation. Yet, while he indignantly denied the aspersion on the limpieza of the nation, he was fully alive to the misery caused by the current practice and he urged a limitation of time, placing it at 1492, the year of the expulsion of the Jews.[893]
ATTEMPTED REFORM
At length Philip IV was induced, in a pragmática of February 10, 1623, to attempt some amelioration of existing conditions. Anonymous communications were to receive no attention and precision as to dates and persons was required in alleging punishment inflicted by the Inquisition. Witnesses were prohibited to testify as to common rumor unless they could allege reasons and details. Some tribunals, especially colleges, were so rigorous that they required not only proof of limpieza but also that no doubts had been expressed, whereby many families had been unjustly defamed through the malice so frequent in these matters, all of which was forbidden for the future. A significant clause pointed out that, in the early days, persons sometimes confessed to matters about which there was no other evidence and such confessions, unsupported by external proofs, were not to be prejudicial to their descendants. The practice of many persons in compiling books called “Libros verdes ó del Becerro,” fabricated with no greater authority than their own malignity, was condemned, because they caused irreparable injury and injustice and disturbance of the public peace, seeing that many persons gave evidence based only on having read such books. Any one possessing books or papers calling in question the limpieza or nobility of others was therefore commanded to burn them under pain of five hundred ducats and two years of exile. Then, to place some limit on the multiplication of investigations, it was decreed that when there had been “tres actos positivos”—three positive decisions affirming limpieza or nobility—it should be deemed a proved and settled matter for the party involved and his lineal descendants, not thereafter to be called in question, provided always that the decisions were made, with full knowledge of the case by proper tribunals, which were defined to be the Inquisition, the Council of Military Orders, the Order of St. John, the four principal colleges of Salamanca, the two principal ones of Valladolid and Alcalá and the Church of Toledo.[894]
Considering the acute perception of existing evils displayed in the preamble to the law, the slender restrictions imposed manifest the strength of the prejudices to be overcome. Slight as theywere, the Inquisition and the Council of Military Orders, after nominally accepting the law, proceeded vigorously to nullify the provision of thetres actos positivos. A writer, in 1629, tells us that they had succeeded in requiring regular investigations, in spite of the production of the three acts; they also held that these only related to parents and grandparents and that they were conclusive only as to the articles covered by them and not as to new points that would require fresh examinations and thus the fees of the officials and the anxieties of the applicants remained undiminished.[895]As regards the character of the testimony received, the secrecy of the procedure renders credible the assertion of Escobar, in his commentary on the law, that there was little if any improvement. There was some mitigation of rigor in an order of the Suprema, about 1645, that when an applicant could prove thetres actos positivosit was not necessary to push investigations as to his great grandparents. Somewhat halting was another rule promulgated in 1639, requiring submission to the Suprema of matters more than a hundred years old, before rejecting the applicant, but this was withdrawn in 1654.[896]
The futility of the system and its unfortunate influence are forcibly set forth by the writer of 1629, who tells us that those who succeed best in their proofs are the poor peasants, whose grandparents have been forgotten, and the great nobles, against whom no one dares to testify. The chief sufferers are the lesser nobility and gentlemen—too conspicuous for their ancestry not to be known and too powerless to exclude adverse witnesses. Everybody knows that he who has friends succeeds and that he who has enemies fails, irrespective of the truth, and thus the statutes wholly fail of their object. This is facilitated by the secrecy enabling the enemy to produce false witnesses and the accomplice to bribe and bring forward perjured testimony, so that it is notorious that in no other class of cases are the results so fallacious. In this way there has been created a sort of factitious nobility—that of limpieza—the possessors of which look down with contempt on the old nobility of the land.
EVILS
Another evil of magnitude is the fearful waste of money. He who succeeds, after paying his agents for things too scandalousto be described, finds himself penniless, and he who fails has not money enough left to make another attempt; his proofs are destroyed and he hangs around the court, wasting his life and perhaps that of his father and sons, and all this under the ban of being infamous—he and his latest posterity.
The damage to men’s honors is incredible and also to the kingdom, for strangers call us all Marranos. Moreover those whose talents would be of great service to State and Church are lost to us, for they have not confidence to seek to enter a college and, what a base cobbler can risk and gain, those who are noble and ambitious fail in, because there may be a single drop of tainted blood in their veins. It is also one of the causes of depopulation, for women enter nunneries and men remain celibates rather than inflict infamy on descendants, while large numbers emigrate. Besides all this are the hatreds arising from adverse testimony and the infinite bribery and collusions and perjury, so that Satan has no greater source of winning souls. It is not required for an Archbishop of Toledo, but it is insisted on for the beadle of his cathedral; it is not demanded for an inquisitor-general, but for the messenger of a tribunal; not for the President of Castile, but for a familiar or the purveyor of a college.[897]
This is not exaggeration, for it is merely an amplification in detail of the preamble of the pragmática of 1623 and is fully borne out by Escobar in his commentary on the law.[898]That in fact it was the conviction of all sober-minded and thinking men of the period may be gathered from the emphatic testimony of Fray Benito de Peñalosa, though he does not venture to suggest a remedy more radical than restricting the effect of impurity of blood to five generations.[899]
The effects of this proscription were manifold. As early as 1575, Lorenzo Priuli, the Venetian envoy, describes the descendants of the Conversos as living like other good Christians and being among the richest and noblest of the land, yet perpetually incapacitated from the honors and employments which were the ambition of every Spaniard—an evil which was increasing every day. Thus Spain, being full of discontented persons and divided in itself, some rising would be feared but for the severe executionof justice and the presence of the king. In 1598, Agostino Nani repeats the assertion—the descendants of all, who have at any time been punished by the Inquisition, live in a state of despair for, to the third and fourth generation they are regarded as infamous and incapable of any office in Church or State.[900]Navarrete does not hesitate to suggest that, but for the exclusion from public life of all but Old Christians of purest lineage, the fatal necessity of the expulsion of the Moriscos might have been averted: they might have been Christianized had they not been driven to desperation and hatred of religion by the indelible mark of infamy to which they were subjected.[901]
In fact, the statutes of limpieza created a caste of pariahs who infected all with whom they might form alliances, but the caste was not recognizable by exterior signs and no one could tell what corruption of blood he might entail upon his family by any marriage that he might contract. As Fray Salucio says, no one, entering into wedlock, could make the investigations required by the colleges and the Military Orders. Thus the infection was constantly spreading; every man stood upon a mine which might explode at any moment when some distant kinsman of his own or of his wife might provoke an investigation during which a taint might be discovered in the common line of ancestry. When we recall the history of the Conversos anterior to the sixteenth century and the enormous operations of the early Inquisition we can conceive how this indelible stain must have spread throughout society, to be revealed at any moment in the most unexpected places.[902]A writer in 1668 reflects the popular prejudice when he compares a marriage with a man whose father has been penanced by the Inquisition to sleeping in a bed full of lice or in sheets that have been used by one who has the itch.[903]
EFFECTS
Another result was greatly to increase the authority of the Inquisition and the terror which it shed around it, by the fact that at a word it could inflict this undying infamy upon a lineage. To be arrested and cast into the secret prison, even withoutcause, was sufficient. In 1601, Philip III, when instructing the Inquisition to furnish to the Council of Military Orders full information as to any one, when called upon, required the report to include, not only the imprisonment of an ancestor subsequently acquitted, but even the fact of an accusation never acted upon.[904]It can readily be understood that even a summons to appear, in a matter not of faith, was felt acutely through a whole kindred. In the long struggle at Bilbao over thevisitas de navios, the corregidor Mendieta took an active part against the commissioner Leguina who, to silence him, caused him to be cited by the tribunal of Logroño. This caused intense excitement and the Señorio of Biscay had him accompanied by two caballeros. When he demanded to know the charges against him, there were none forthcoming and he was dismissed. The affair was regarded as so serious that the Council of State presented a consulta to the queen-regent in October, 1668, setting forth that the citation might lead to the disgrace of his family and posterity and suggesting that some relief should be found for him.[905]
All this is of supreme importance in estimating the benignity and mercy of which the Inquisition was constantly boasting. The sentences rendered may frequently appear to us trivial, but the penance was the smallest part of the penalty. Villanueva, as we have seen, was condemned merely to abjure for light suspicion of heresy and to a few years’ absence from Madrid, but that cast disgrace upon his whole kindred; he and his descendants fell into the class of pariahs and could form no alliance outside of that caste; through generations they were branded with an ineffaceable stigma. To Spanishpundonorthe scaffold were merciful in comparison. The mercy of the Inquisition was more to be dreaded than the severity of other tribunals and men might well beware of incurring the enmity of those who could at discretion consign them and their posterity to infamy.
The limpieza test survived the Revolution and purity of blood was as essential under the Restoration as under the old monarchy, but there was some relaxation of rigidity. Thus, if a man and wife proved their limpieza, it sufficed for their children, only a legal certificate of baptism being required, and in the same way the proofs presented by one brother answered for another on hisfurnishing evidence of their common paternity.[906]A couple of years was also allowed to appointees in which to put in their proofs, and there is even a case of secretaries admitted without proofs, but with a warning that it would not be allowed again.[907]In the extreme penury of the time the Suprema imposed a fee, for its own benefit, of 60 reales on every investigation, which the receivers were required to collect and to remit yearly.[908]It was also in receipt of the two per cent. levied by thedepositarios de los pretendientes, and one of its last acts was the acknowledgement, February 10, 1820, of 360 reales remitted by the depositario of Seville, which would show that 18,000 reales had passed through his hands.[909]The part of the business which fell to the Suprema was not large. Its first certificate is dated January 3, 1816 and the last one January 4, 1820, the whole number being only one hundred and eight.[910]From these certificates it would appear that the investigation was scarce more than a formality.
The demand for limpieza survived the Inquisition, though with its closure it is not easy to conjecture where any serious proofs could be found. Up to 1859 it was still requisite for entrance into the corps of cadets but, in 1860, the Córtes unanimously abolished this survival of prejudice and intolerance.[911]
MAJORCA
Yet there is still a corner of Spain where that prejudice has proved superior to law. We shall have occasion hereafter to refer to the terrible persecution of the Judaizing New Christians of Majorca, in 1679 and 1691. Padre Francisco Garau, S. J., who promptly printed an exulting account of the four autos de fe celebrated in the latter year, tells us that the descendants of Conversos formed a community of some two hundred families, living huddled together in thecalleand apart from the rest of the population, for there never was intermarriage between them and the Old Christians. The people called them Jews and, on their complaining of this, an offensive nick-name was speedily invented and they were termedchuetasin allusion to their avoidanceof pork. They were not allowed to hold public office, although great efforts, supported by the government, were made by the wealthy and influential among them. The same proscription was exercised by the guilds and brotherhoods, especially by the surgeons, confectioners, candle-makers, grocers and silk-weavers, so that they were virtually all traders.[912]Thus there was a solid foundation of inveterate prejudice which was stimulated, in 1755, by the malicious reprint of Father Garau’s book, followed by the circulation of lists, furnished by the secretary of the tribunal, of all Conversos punished by the Inquisition, comprising all the families of Jewish extraction. This caused a recrudescence of ill-feeling, and complaint was made to Carlos III, who responded in cédulas of December 10, 1782, October 9, 1785 and April 18, 1788, ordering that they should not be impeded from residing in any part of Palma or of the islands, that the entrance-gate of thecalleshould be destroyed, and that insults or calling them Jews orchuetasshould be punished with four years of presidio. They were declared fit for service in army or navy or any other department, and free to exercise all arts and trades, and all this was extended to the descendants of Conversos throughout Spain.[913]
Yet even an autocratic monarch could not overcome prejudices so deep-rooted. Church and State in Majorca had bitterly opposed the appeal to the throne and had succeeded in postponing action for ten years. The University, in 1776, had revived its statute of limpieza and had closed its doors to the proscribed class. When the royal decrees came they provoked warm opposition on the part of the municipal authorities who resolved not to yield obedience. It was the force of events rather than the growth of tolerance that gradually brought relief. In 1808, when the nation rose against the French, they were admitted to military service, but when the local levies were ordered to the mainland, there was a mutiny in which thebarrio del Segellwas sacked.
After the reaction of the Restoration, under the revolution of 1820 they were enrolled in the National Guard, but when came the counter-revolution of 1823 they were disarmed and the rabble promptly sacked their houses and made bon-fires of what was too cumbrous to steal. After the death of Fernando VII theenforced constitutionalism of the Cristina government restored them practically to citizenship and military service and gradually their exclusion from civil office disappeared.
Popular aversion however was not to be overcome by statute. It was rekindled, in 1856, by a suit brought to establish their right to membership in the Circulo Balear, or Balearic Club, which led to republication of the essential portions of Father Garau’s book. This was answered, in 1858, by Tomás Bertran Soler, from whom we learn that the New Christians were still excluded from Christian society and continued to dwell in thecalle; they were refused all public offices and admission to guilds and brotherhoods so that they were confined to trading; they were compelled to marry among themselves, for no one would contract alliance with them, nor would the ecclesiastical authorities grant licences for mixed marriages. Since then there has been some abatement of popular prejudice, but the latest accessible view of the situation, in 1877, by Padre Taronji, a priest of the proscribed class, represents the clergy as still obstinately impervious to all ideas of extending fellowship to their fellow-believers and as busily fanning the dying embers of class hatred, based on events two centuries old.[914]
Wise statesmanship in Spain would have sought the unification of the races within its borders. In place of this, race hatred was stimulated in the name of religion, with the deplorable results recorded in Spanish history.
WHENthe Inquisition was established it was expected to be not only a self-sustaining institution but a source of profit. To what extent the anticipation of gain, by seizing the substance of their subjects, may have influenced Ferdinand and Isabella, in adopting this method of vindicating the faith, it would be useless now to enquire, but they refused to permit any division of the spoils as in the older papal Inquisition of Italy. These were reserved to the crown and, when the first inquisitors were sent to Seville, in 1480, they were accompanied by a receiver of confiscations—a royal official whose appointment shows what were the expectations entertained. Yet the support of the Inquisition had to come out of the product of its labors; the basis of its finances was confiscation and the use which it made of its powers in this respect, whether for its own benefit or for that of the sovereign, exercised so large an influence on the prosperity of Spain that it demands a somewhat careful examination. Spoliation on such a scale, continued unremittingly for nearly three centuries, was a tremendous burden on the productivity of the most industrious class of the population. At the commencement, a very large portion of the accessible wealth of Spain was in the hands of the Jews and Conversos. By the expulsion of the former and the prosecution of the latter they were stripped of it. The marvellous persistence of the New Christians, their tireless activity and business aptitude, kept them incessantly at work making acquisitions which continued to render persecution profitable and contributed to maintain the institution which was laboring, with equal persistence,for their destruction. It would not be wholly true to assert that the exhaustion of confiscations caused the inertia of the later decades of the Inquisition, but it unquestionably was a contributing factor.
The cruelty of confiscation was equal to its effectiveness. To strip a man, perhaps advanced in years, of the results of the labors of a life-time and to turn his wife and children penniless on the street was a severity of infliction which rendered the sparing of his life a doubtful mercy, and it was not without reason that the legists deemed it equivalent to capital punishment.[915]To the persecutor this was a recommendation, in addition to its financial advantages, and we can readily understand why it was enforced with such remorseless perseverance.
Confiscation as a punishment for crime was too settled a principle of the imperial jurisprudence for any jurist to call in question its propriety. As heresy was held to be treason to God, more detestable than treason to an earthly prince, the Church naturally adopted it as soon as, in the twelfth century, persecution became systematized. In 1163, Alexander III, at the Council of Tours, commanded all potentates to seize heretics and confiscate their possessions, and Lucius III, in his Verona decree of 1184, sought to divert this to the benefit of the Church.[916]Under the Roman law of treason, the property of a traitor was forfeited from the time when he first conceived his crime and this was applied to the heretic, whose earliest act of heresy was the date from which the fisc claimed his estate—a provision of much importance in the settlement of debts.