DISTINCT FROM CONFISCATION
There was an advantage to the Inquisition in considering these fines as penitential, for penance was part of the sacrament ofabsolution which was an ecclesiastical function, the proceeds of which were controlled by the Church, and it differed thus wholly from confiscation. It is true that practically this was merely a verbal juggle, for the inquisitor did not absolve and, as he was not necessarily a priest, his office did not comprise the administration of the sacraments, but the verbal juggle sufficed and serves to explain the rigid separation of the funds arising from penance and from confiscation, even after both were controlled by the Inquisition. We have seen (Vol. I, p. 338) the prolonged struggle made by Ferdinand to obtain possession of the penances, which finally terminated in favor of the Inquisition. This was rather beneficial to the accused, as the tribunal would be inclined to find him guilty only of suspicion of heresy, enabling it to inflict a pecuniary penance for its own benefit, rather than of formal heresy which inferred confiscation. Of course this passed away when financial control practically lapsed to the Suprema, but the distinction between the funds was still maintained.
In the earlier period the distinction was emphasized by the office of special receiver for the penances, who seems to have been subject to the inquisitor-general, while the receiver of confiscations held from the king. Thus the sentence of Brianda de Bardaxí shows us Martin de Cota as receiver of penances in Saragossa in 1492 and we still hear of him in that position in 1497, while Ferdinand had, as his own receiver, Juan Denbin, succeeded by Juan Royz. As early as 1486, Esteve Costa was “receptor de las penitencias” in Valencia, whose salary of fifty libras shows the office to be of much less importance than that of the receiver of confiscations.[1131]Still, there came to be no settled rule about this. In 1498, Juan Royz was receiver of both penances and confiscations in Saragossa and, in Valencia, Juan de Monasterio was inquisitor and at the same time receiver of penances, while, in 1512, in Barcelona the fiscal also filled the latter office, as we learn from his salary being suspended until he should render an account of his receipts.[1132]As late as 1515 there was still a special receiver of penances in Huesca, the Canon Pero Pérez, whose death revealed him to be a defaulter to the extent of four thousand sueldos, when the office was consolidated with that of the receivership.[1133]In 1516, among his other reforms, Ximenes abolished thisspecial office and put the fines and penances in the hands of the receivers of confiscations, with instructions, however, to keep the funds separate and not to disburse the fines and penances except on orders from the inquisitor-general. There had previously been, in the Suprema, a receiver-general of fines and penances, an office which was likewise suppressed and all the revenues were placed in charge of a single official, a regulation which was confirmed by Manrique in 1524.[1134]
DISTINCT FROM CONFISCATION
There was difficulty in preventing the unauthorized collection of these funds, by other officials, with the consequent absence of responsibility and risk of embezzlement. In instructions for the prevention of abuses, October 10, 1546, it is prescribed that all fines be paid to the receiver; again, August 20, 1547, it is ordered that neither the inquisitors nor other officials save the receiver shall collect the penances or other moneys. Inspection of the Barcelona tribunal, in 1549, showed that this was not obeyed; other officials made the collections and they were not reported to the receiver, all of which was forbidden for the future, but the order of 1547 had to be repeated December 4, 1551, May 9, 1553, and December 20, 1555.[1135]Evidently there were leaks which the Suprema was vainly seeking to stop. A special commission was issued, January 12, 1549, to Gerónimo Zurita, as contador for the kingdoms of Aragon, to audit the accounts of all receivers, past, present and to come, concerning the fines and penances and otherparties casuelles, with full powers to send for persons and papers under such penalties as he might designate, which is highly significant.[1136]Possibly his investigations led to a carta acordada of September 23, 1551, which states that, in some tribunals, some of the pecuniary penalties are not entered in the Book of Punishments; the notaries of sequestrations are therefore impressively ordered, under holy obedience and major excommunicationlatæ sententiæ, to make such entries when sentence is rendered, stating whether they are applicable to the Inquisition or to some pious work, so that the contador may know whether they are collected, and all fines thus omitted are to be deducted from the salaries of the notaries.[1137]As, by this time, the fines and penalties were invariably applied to the Inquisition, the pretence of appropriating topious uses was presumably a mere device for embezzling them. The Suprema evidently had no doubts as to this, when the inquisitors of Barcelona, in the case of Pirro de Gonzaga, imposed a penance of three hundred ducats and appropriated twenty-five to the convent of N. Señora de los Angeles, twenty-five to the nuns of San Gerónimo and the remainder to beds and garments for the poor. It told them, in 1568, that all fines were for the expenses of the Inquisition and required them, within thirty days, to furnish authentic evidence of the disposition made of the two hundred and fifty ducats, under pain of rigorous proceedings against them.[1138]As for holding the notaries responsible, there was manifest injustice in this, for they were powerless to prevent fraud by the inquisitors. In 1525, some instructions to the tribunal of Sicily mention that the notary had repeatedly and vainly requested that notice be given to him of all penances, in order that he might charge them to the receiver.[1139]How reckless sometimes were the inquisitors appears in the case of the murder of Juan Antonio Managat, deputy receiver at Puycerda. In 1565 the three Barcelona inquisitors inflicted on the accused certain heavy fines which were duly collected and placed in the coffer with three keys, after which they coolly helped themselves to a thousand reales apiece, under pretext that it was for fees in trying the case. On this being discovered, in the inspection by de Soto Salazar, the Suprema ordered the money to be returned to the coffer and satisfactory evidence of the restitution to be furnished within thirty days.[1140]
The distinction between the confiscations and the fines and penances was rigidly maintained when both were concentrated in the hands of the receiver. A special commission was issued to authorize him to receive the latter[1141]and he was straitly instructed to keep the accounts separate. The confiscations were devoted to salaries and, if there was an overplus, to investments of a more or less permanent character, while the fines and penances were levied, as the formula of the sentences habitually expressed it, for thegastos extraordinarios—the other and extraordinary expenses of the tribunals. Still, when the confiscations ran short,there was no hesitation in drawing upon the other fund, although a special order of the Suprema was necessary for its authorization. Ayudas de costa were generally drawn from the fines and penances, though frequently the receiver is told to pay them out of any funds in hand.[1142]In 1525, Manrique directed the house-rents of the officials to be paid from the fines and penances; in 1540 Tavera granted, from the same fund in Valencia, three thousand sueldos to the nunnery of Santa Julia as the dowry of a reconciled Morisca, placed there to save her soul; in 1543 he calls upon the receiver of Granada to furnish, from the same source, two hundred ducats to Juan Martínez Lassao, secretary of the Suprema, on the occasion of his marriage; in 1557 the inquisitors of Saragossa were allowed, in the same manner, to defray the cost of alterations in the Aljafería.[1143]In short, this fund was expected to meet the innumerable miscellaneous expenses of the tribunals and to supply all deficiencies, rendering the inquisitors watchful to keep it abundantly supplied.
There were occasions when penances replaced confiscations, to the manifest advantage of the tribunals. Thus, in 1519, when the estate of Fernando de Villareal was subject to confiscation, Charles V authorized the inquisitors to impose on him such penance as they deemed fit and released to him the surplus. It is not likely that this surplus was allowed to be large for, when in 1535, the tribunal of Valencia was trying the Bachiller Molina and learned that the viceroy had promised Molina’s wife that, in case of confiscation, he would ask the emperor to forego it, the inquisitors wrote to the Suprema that they proposed not to confiscate his property but to impose a penance of something less than its value.[1144]This indicates that the penances were not subject to the crown and thus it exposes the disingenuousness of the Suprema, in replying to a petition of Valencia, in the Córtes of Monzon in 1537, that the Inquisition should be restrained from penancing the Moriscos. It argued that these pecuniary penances were applied to the royal treasury and that his majesty should not be asked to remit them, or be required to supplicate the pope to revoke what the canons prescribe.[1145]
REPLACE CONFISCATION
The canons prescribed confiscation, but there was no hesitation,as we have just seen, in substituting penance. The largest scale on which this was tried was in the kingdoms of Aragon, where the Moriscos were mostly vassals of the gentry and nobles, who suffered when they were impoverished and their lands were taken. The fueros of Valencia provided that feudal lands confiscated, whether for heresy or other cause, should revert to the lord, and this was repeatedly sworn to by Ferdinand and Charles, but the Inquisition calmly disregarded all laws and insisted on confiscating for its own benefit. Even a brief of Paul III, August 2, 1546, decreeing that for ten years and subsequently, at the pleasure of the Holy See, there should be no confiscations or pecuniary penances inflicted on the Moriscos, received no attention and the practical answer to the remonstrances of the Córtes of 1564 was a specific instruction from the Suprema to the Valencia tribunal to go on confiscating, no matter what the people might say about their privileges.[1146]Aragon, meanwhile, had obtained, in 1534, a pragmática by which Charles renounced his right to the Morisco confiscations, which were to revert to the heirs or be distributed as intestate, and to this the assent of the Suprema was secured. This was, however, practically nullified for, in 1547, the Córtes complained that confiscations were replaced by penances greater than the wealth of the culprits, who were obliged to sell all their property and, in addition, to impoverish their kindred, to which the Suprema loftily replied that, if any one was aggrieved, he could appeal to it or to the inquisitors.[1147]
A lucrative bargain was finally made with Valencia, which had the largest Morisco population. In 1537 the Córtes proposed that, for a payment of 400 ducats a year, the Inquisition should abstain from penancing the Moriscos, but the Suprema refused, on the ground that it would be a disservice to God. It was shrewd in this for, in 1571, it secured an agreement under which, for an annual payment of 50,000 sueldos (2500 ducats) it abandoned confiscation and limited penance to 10 ducats, the payment of which was rendered secure by levying it on the aljamas of the culprits.[1148]Favorable as was this, the inquisitors did not restrain themselves to its observance. In the auto de fe of January 7, 1607, there was a penance of 50 ducats, one of 30and one of 20 and, while there were only eight reconciliations, there were twenty penances of 10 ducats. The Suprema took exception to this, saying that, without reconciliation, the fines were uncalled for, in the absence of some special offence.[1149]The agreement, in fact, was one under which the gains of the tribunal were limited only by its industry, for there was no lack of Morisco apostates. The little village of Mislata, near the city, must have been well-nigh bankrupted, for it was liable for the penances of its inhabitants, of whom there were eighty-three penanced in 1591 and seventeen in 1592.[1150]
As confiscations diminished throughout Spain, the unrestricted power to impose fines and penances came in opportunely to fill deficiencies. They could be levied in a vast variety of cases—not only for suspicion of heresy and for fautorship, but for bigamy, blasphemy, ill-sounding expressions and all offences against the tribunal and its officials, as well as for those of the officials themselves and the familiars. The temporal jurisdiction especially afforded large opportunities, for the defendant, whether he was a familiar or an outsider, could always be fined for the benefit of the tribunal and this was rarely omitted. It was no secret within the Holy Office that this discretional power was to be exercised, not in accordance with the merits of the case, but with the needs of the Inquisition. As early as 1538, this was intimated in the instructions to Inquisitor Valdeolite of Navarre, when sent on a visitation to investigate witchcraft. He was forbidden to inflict confiscations but was told that he could impose fines and penances, in proportion to the offences and wealth of the culprits, in order to meet expenses and enable the receiver to pay salaries.[1151]In time the Suprema grew more outspoken. A carta acordada of October 22, 1575 told inquisitors that they could impose pecuniary penalties while on visitations, as well as when sitting in the tribunal, and must bear in mind the poverty of the Suprema as well as the wealth of the culprits and the character of the offence. This was repeated in 1580, and in 1595 attention was called to the necessity of relieving the wants of the Inquisition in this manner, an exhortation repeated in 1624.[1152]
PRODUCTIVENESS
This stimulation was apparently superfluous, for the inquisitors exploited their powers in this respect to a degree that sometimes moved even the Suprema to reproof. In a visitation of Gerona and Elne by Doctor Zurita of Barcelona, in 1564, we find him inflicting fines and penances continually, of 4, 6, 10, 20, 30 or 100 ducats, apparently limited only by the means of the victim. His colleague, Dr. Mexia, on a visitation penanced Damian Cortes in 100 ducats because, thirty years before, when some one told him to trust in God, he had exclaimed “Trust in God! By trusting in God last year I lost 50 ducats” and, when Juan Barbero made a comment on this sentence, he was fined 20 ducats and costs. When this last exploit was reported by de Soto Salazar, the Suprema ordered the fines to be refunded, as it also did with those inflicted by Mexia, of 60, 40 and 15 ducats, on the Bayle of Vindoli and two jurados for an offence so trifling that their names were ordered to be stricken from the records. When sitting as a tribunal these inquisitors were even more liberal to themselves, for they fined the Abbot of Ripoll 400 ducats for keeping a nun as a mistress—an offence wholly outside of their jurisdiction.[1153]As late as 1687, the tribunal of Logroño furnished a flagrant instance of this abuse of arbitrary power, when it excommunicated and fined in 200 ducats D. Miguel Urban de Espinosa, a Knight of Santiago and familiar, because, when summoned to attend at the publication of the Edict of Faith, he sought to enter the church while wearing a sword. The inquisitor-general promptly ordered his absolution and suspended the fine until further information.[1154]
The receipts from penances, although fluctuating, were a substantial addition to income. In the Seville auto de fe of May 13, 1585, a penitent accused of Lutheranism was penanced in 100 ducats, a bigamist in 200, provided it did not exceed half his property; for asserting fornication to be no sin one man was penanced in 200 ducats or less, according to his wealth, another in 200 and two in 1000 maravedís apiece, while, for concealing heretics, there was a penance of 50 ducats. In all, the auto yielded 850 ducats and 2000 maravedís.[1155]Even more productive was the auto of June 14, 1579, at Llerena, where the tribunal harvested 626,000 maravedís and 2700 ducats, or about 4375ducats in all—owing to some of the penitents being well-to-do ecclesiastics, given to Illuminism.[1156]Toledo, in 1604, imposed a penance of 3000 ducats on Giraldo Paris, a German of Madrid, guilty of sundry heretical propositions, including the assertion that St. Job was an alchemist.[1157]The same tribunal, in 1649 and 1650, penanced four persons engaged in endeavoring to shield a Judaizer, two of them 500 and the other two 300 ducats apiece. In 1654, again, in two autos, November 8th and December 27th, it realized a total of 4000 ducats. After this it had occasional good fortune and, in 1669, it was supremely lucky in a rich penitent, Don Alonso Sanchez, priest and physician to the Cuenca tribunal, whom it convicted of fautorship and penanced in the large sum of 13,000 ducats.[1158]In 1654, Cuenca realized 2250 ducats, besides thirteen confiscations, from its auto of June 29th.[1159]Córdova was more fortunate, in an auto of May 3, 1655, when a group of wealthy Judaizers and their friends yielded an aggregate of 7000 ducats.[1160]
In addition to this source of revenue from penance imposed on penitents there were the fines inflicted in the exercise of the secular jurisdiction of the Inquisition. How liberally this power was exercised, even when the delinquents were officials, is seen in the defence offered by the Suprema, in 1632, when strenuous complaints were made about the familiars of Valencia. It instanced the case of Jaime Blau, who was fined 600 libras, half to the complainant and half to the fisc; Vicente de San German fined 300 libras; Hierónimo Llodra, 500 ducats; Pedro Carbonel, 500 ducats; Tomás Real, 300 ducats; Miguel Rubio, 400 libras, and Hierónimo Pilart, 500 libras.[1161]Doubtless through these inflictions the culprits escaped corporal punishments much less endurable, and they serve to explain the persistent multiplication of familiars, coupled with disregard of the character of the appointees. It was the same with outsiders who were prosecuted for offences against officials, as when, in 1565, Don Tristan de Urria of Saragossa was fined 60 ducats for insulting a notary.[1162]
LUCRATIVE RESULTS
In the seventeenth century the Suprema claimed these finesas its special perquisite. When Jaime Blau, for instance, was mulcted in 300 ducats for the fisc, no sooner was the Suprema apprised of it than it ordered the amount to be remitted at once, and the length of correspondence which ensued indicates that this was a novelty submitted to unwillingly.[1163]Even a fine of 100 libras, imposed on Ignacio Navarro, in 1636, was called for immediately and remitted, as was also soon afterwards 100 ducats with which he purchased his pardon; as he was forthwith arrested again for murdering Don Juan Augustin Saluco, he probably yielded another series of fines.[1164]In the extreme exigencies of the royal treasury, the king claimed a portion of these receipts and, by a decree of September 30, 1639, he ordered one-fourth of all fines for secular offences to be paid to the official designated to receive the fines of the royal courts.[1165]
In the unscrupulous exercise of discretional power, fines and penances were frequently imposed beyond the culprit’s ability to pay, and inquisitors had a habit of adding in the sentence the alternative of some corporal punishment, such as the galleys, scourging or vergüenza, with the object of inducing the kindred to contribute, in order to avert from the family the shame of the public infliction. The Instructions of 1561 strictly forbid this cruelty; the sentences are to be without condition or alternative and inability to pay is not to be thus visited.[1166]This received scant obedience. In 1568 it was the ordinary practice of the Barcelona tribunal to enforce payment of its arbitrary impositions by the alternative of such punishment.[1167]About 1640, however, we are told by an inquisitor that the question was evaded by the prudent custom of sending poor men to the galleys and reserving pecuniary penance for the wealthy.[1168]
In fact, after the middle of the seventeenth century, the number of such penances diminished and they are usually for larger amounts. In a record of the autos de fe of Toledo, from 1648 to 1794, there is but one that is less than 100 ducats and that one is for 50. In all there are but sixty-four penances imposedup to 1742 and none subsequently. The aggregate is 30,600 ducats, besides fourteen of half the property of the culprit.[1169]Whether from a growing sense of their indecency or from a lack of material, the custom of imposing pecuniary penances rapidly declined in the eighteenth century. In a collection of sixty-six autos de fe, between 1721 and 1745, comprising in all 962 cases, there is not a single pecuniary penance.[1170]Fines, however, continued to be imposed to the last. March 27, 1816, Pasqual Franchini of Madrid, for possessing two indecent pictures, was fined 100 ducats and, as these are defined as applicable to the royal treasury, it would appear that the crown had absorbed this trifling source of revenue.[1171]
In this matter the Roman Inquisition offered a creditable contrast to the Spanish. Except in Milan, Cremona and other places under Spanish rule, pecuniary punishments were rarely to be inflicted; the assent of the Congregation of cardinals was required, and they were at once to be distributed in pious uses, of which a strict account was required. Thus in 1595, one of 4000 crowns was given to the poor of Genoa and, in the same year at Naples, one of 400 crowns was parcelled out among the charitable establishments. Even this was felt to derogate from the character of the Holy Office and, in 1632, Urban VIII decreed that papal confirmation must be had in each case and, at the same time, he withdrew the special privileges of the Milanese tribunals.[1172]So strong was the disgust felt in Rome for this commercialized zeal for the faith that, when the Fiscal Cabrera was there representing the Inquisition, in the case of Villanueva, and Arce y Reynoso sent to him, for presentation to the pope, a report of an auto celebrated by the tribunal of Santiago, with the expectation of arousing his sympathy for an institution that was doing so much for religion, Cabrera replied, January 6, 1656, that he would not present it without special orders. Alexander VII, he said, disliked pecuniary penalties in matters of faith, and there were some of these in the report; his Holiness had already spoken to him on the subject and it was wiser not to call his attention to it afresh.[1173]
THERoman curia had so long accustomed Christendom to the idea that pardon for the consequences of sin was purchasable, that we cannot be surprised if relief from the penalties imposed by the Inquisition was a marketable commodity to be regarded as a source of revenue. We have already seen this exemplified in the compositions for confiscation, and it was carried out with regard to the more personal inflictions prescribed by canon and municipal law—the disabilities of culprits and their descendants alluded to above (p. 287). The Instructions of 1484 and 1488 adopted these and extended the sumptuary regulations by including the carrying of arms and riding on horseback; they enlarged the list of prohibited callings and applied them all to the descendants of those who were burnt in person or effigy. Then Ferdinand and Isabella, by pragmáticas in 1501, made the prohibition of office-holding and the following of numerous trades and professions a matter of municipal law, reserving the right to grant relief by royal licences. Thus these disabilities, which weighed cruelly upon penitents and their descendants, drew their origin from different sources. The sumptuary restrictions, which came to be known ascosas arbitrarias, were considered to be the act of the tribunal, which could remove them. Permission to hold office, or to follow the inhibited callings, was a royal prerogative, while the Holy See, as the guardian of the faith and of the canon law, and as the supreme source of inquisitorial jurisdiction, claimed a general control, which was grudgingly conceded.
In addition to these disabilities were the personal punishments, relief from which was claimed by the Inquisition. Those which concern us here were the galleys, exile, imprisonment and the wearing of the sanbenito or “habito”—a kind of yellow tunic with a red St. Andrew’s cross—a mark of infamy and a severe infliction, as it largely impeded the efforts of the penitent to gain a livelihood.
The curia was not long in recognizing the abundant market opened for its dispensations by the large numbers of those subjected to disabilities. In the Taxes of the Penitentiary there was inserted a clause offering the fullest possible dispensation for “Marrania.” To a cleric the price was 60gros tournois, or 15 ducats; to a layman 40 gros, or 10 ducats, besides a fee to the datary of 20 gros. When the dispensation was partial, allowing a layman to follow his accustomed calling, or a priest to celebrate mass, the charge was 12 gros, or 3 ducats, but, if the profession was that of a physician or advocate, the charge was double.[1174]
We have seen the extreme jealousy which existed as to any papal interference with the Inquisition and Ferdinand’s repeated efforts to suppress papal letters, but the power to issue these dispensations could not be questioned. Cardinal Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo, held from Innocent VIII a faculty to grant rehabilitations, and one of these, issued to Pero Díaz of Cifuentes, whose mother had been burnt, was recognized and confirmed, in 1520, by the Suprema and Charles V.[1175]At the same time, the Inquisition claimed the right to control relief from the punishments which it inflicted, and it held these favors at a far higher price than the cheap papal dispensations. Anchias, the secretary of the Saragossa tribunal, tells us how Juan Gerónimo was sentenced to wear the sanbenito and carried it for a long time, until his father paid for him to the tribunal a thousand florins for permission to abandon it. Some of the gold proved to be of light weight and eighteen or twenty florins were demanded of him to make good the deficiency, when he handed them to the messenger saying “How is this? Are not the señores well paid for the merchandise they sold me? But take it and welcome.”[1176]When exactions on this scale were possible, we can readily believe that Dr. Guiral, the embezzling inquisitor of Córdova, could easily secrete a hundred and fifty thousand maravedís from the dispensations sold to the wearers of the sanbenito (Vol. I, p. 190), nor can we wonder that the Holy Office was resolved to maintain a hold on so prolific a source of gain.
CONTEST WITH THE CROWN
The situation was complicated by the pretensions of the sovereigns to intervene and claim their share, and this they sought to establish by procuring from Alexander VI a brief of February18, 1495, which recites that the inquisitors collect various sums from those who had obtained papal rehabilitations and retained them; all such moneys theretofore and thereafter received for commutations and rehabilitations were to be placed at the disposal of the sovereigns, under pain ofipso factoexcommunication.[1177]It is obvious from this that the papal dispensations were not admitted without the exaction of further payments; that the pope was content with this, so long as the taxes of the Penitentiary were paid in Rome, and that Ferdinand was concerned only with the destination of the proceeds and was quite willing to acknowledge the papal authority when it was exercised for his benefit. He lost no time in availing himself of the papal grant on a large scale and, before the year was out, we find him selling relief in mass to all those disabled by the tribunal of Toledo, a transaction which brought in large returns for, in 1497, Alonso de Morales, the royal treasurer, acknowledges the receipt of 6,499,028 maravedís from Toledo commutations and rehabilitations, and this was doubtless only one of numerous similar compositions.[1178]
The Inquisition was not disposed to abandon its profitable commerce. The Suprema continued to assert its control, in instructions, June 3, 1497, ordering inquisitors to take no fees for rehabilitations without consulting it; May 25, 1498, it declared that if there were no inquisitors-general there would be no one able to grant rehabilitation or to relieve from sanbenitos, and it forbade the tribunals to commute for imprisonment except by spiritual penances.[1179]There was evidently a contest on foot between the Inquisition and Ferdinand, of which the details are lost, for we have a letter from him, February 24, 1498, to a tribunal in which he says “You know that we have granted a privilege through which the children of condemned heretics are rehabilitated as to thecosas arbitrariasimposed by you. As it is our will that this privilege be maintained, we charge you not to levy or take anything from them for the enjoyment of it and if, perchance, the inquisitors-general have written or shall write anything contrary to this, consult us before acting on it and wewill write to them and to you what most comports with our service.”[1180]
The sovereigns, however, yielded the point when, by a cédula of January 12, 1499, they formally made over to the inquisitors-general all the moneys accruing from penances, commutations and rehabilitations in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, in order to provide for the salaries, but this grant as usual was practically subject to the exigencies of the royal treasury and the promise was irregularly kept.[1181]The inquisitors seem to have speedily arrogated to themselves this profitable privilege, for the Instructions of 1500 forbid them to grant dispensations and commutations, the right to which is reserved to the inquisitors-general.[1182]It was greatly impaired, however, by the next move in the game, the pragmáticas of 1501, which made disability to hold office or to follow numerous callings a matter of municipal law and reserved to the crown the right to issue licences in derogation of it, thus depriving the Inquisition of control over this important section of the penalties.
PAPAL COMPETITION
While Ferdinand thus secured a share in the business, he fully admitted the necessity of papal rehabilitation as a condition precedent. In 1510, writing to a member of the Suprema about the rehabilitation of the Jurado Alonso de Medina, issued at the request of Queen Juana, he says that it was granted under the belief that Medina held a papal brief; if he did not, it was invalid as there must first be papal rehabilitation. Yet papal action amounted to nothing in these matters without the royal licence. About this time the Licenciado Portillo applied to him stating that, as the memory of his grandfather had been condemned, he was incapacitated from holding office; he had been rehabilitated by the pope and now he asked for a licence in view of certain services rendered, and Ferdinand granted the prayer. The strictness with which these licences were construed is illustrated by a petition, in 1515, from Dr. Jaime de Lis, a physician of Logroño, representing that, by the condemnation of his parents, he had been incapacitated; he had procured a papal brief authorizing him to practice everywhere, and a royal licence to practice in Logroño. Unable to resist importunities, he had exceeded his bounds, for which he craved pardon and also permission to attend the Duke of Najera, who joined in the supplication. This wasgranted, with a warning not to transgress again, and the tribunal of Calahorra and the magistrates of all the towns were charged to make him observe the limits.[1183]
When the papal dispensation was issued to ecclesiastics, the king did not intervene, but there can be no doubt that thevidimus, or confirmation of the Suprema, was required and had to be paid for, for it had, on January 8 and February 12, 1498, summoned all reconciled penitents to present the absolutions and dispensations which they had procured from Rome, a significant indication that otherwise they would not be respected.[1184]Such dispensations were issued as readily as those to laymen, though, as we have seen, the price was fifty per cent. higher. Thus, April 8, 1514, Leo X dispensed Cristóbal Rodrigo, priest of Luduena, from the disabilities incurred by the condemnation of his parents and authorized him to retain his benefices, acquire others and perform all his functions. So also, November 3, 1514, he dispensed Bartolomé Eruelo, beneficed in the convent of Santa Cruz of Saragossa, from all the disabilities resulting from the heresy of his paternal grandfather.[1185]
Yet there frequently occur cases of rehabilitation in which there is no mention of papal intervention, under circumstances where it could scarce fail to be alluded to had it existed.[1186]There would seem to have been no thought of invoking the co-operation of the Holy See in the great composition of Seville, under which twenty thousand ducats were obtained by Ferdinand for the rehabilitations alone and, when it was extended to Córdova and other places, they formed part of the inducements offered.[1187]So, when Cardinal Manrique issued by wholesale licences to hold office, to the large districts of Seville, Córdova, Granada and Leon, there is no allusion to papal dispensations. For some reason, probably financial, these licences were issued for short terms and required renewal; in one case, a document, issued in February, 1528, prolonged the time to April 15th and then, on April 6th, it was extended to the end of June.[1188]
This disregard of papal participation seems to have provokedthe curia to retaliatory action, and it issued rehabilitations with clauses of censures and penalties for all who might impede them, thus rendering unnecessary the concurrence of the king and the Inquisition. Charles thereupon reissued the pragmáticas of 1501 and empowered the Inquisition to enforce them, while the Suprema explained to the tribunals that there was a disability under the canons and another under the pragmáticas, so that the papal rehabilitation was insufficient without the royal and vice versa, wherefore inquisitors were instructed to look closely into this and prosecute those who did not possess both. It withdrew however from this position and issued cartas acordadas May 15, 1530 and May 16, 1531, complaining of this new form of papal dispensations. If these were allowed to continue, it said, all the disabled would be rehabilitated and the laws of the kingdom would be annulled, wherefore, when such letters were presented, the fiscal was ordered to draw up a supplication to the pope setting forth that the disabilities were enacted by the laws of the land and that it had been found by experience that these children of heretics, if they obtain judicial positions, condemn Christians to death unjustly, or, if they become physicians, surgeons or apothecaries, give their patients poisons in place of remedies. All these supplications were to be sent to the Suprema, which would forward them to the Roman agent of the Inquisition—and meanwhile, we may assume, the papal letters were suspended. In another document of the period, opposition to the papal rehabilitations is enumerated as one of the regular duties of the fiscal. It is somewhat remarkable that this seems to have been confined to Castile for, in 1535, the Suprema learned that the Valencia tribunal accepted and respected papal rehabilitations and hastened to instruct it to follow the Castilian method. The struggle continued and the instructions of 1531 were repeated July 19 and October 26, 1543 and May 14, 1546.[1189]
PAPAL COMPETITION
The strenuous days of Ferdinand were past and resistance was vain. The curia continued imperturbably to sell dispensations of the most liberal character which completely annulled Spanish legislation. One bearing the name of Paul III, February 1, 1545, issued to Juan de Haro of Jaen, whose grandparents had been burnt in effigy, gives assurance of his high deserts and concedes that, even if his progenitors had been condemned and burnt, he canascend to the degrees of bachelor, licentiate and doctor; he can assume the office of judge, corregidor, advocate, procurator and notary, legate, nuncio, physician, surgeon, apothecary, farmer of revenue, collector and receiver of taxes and all honors and dignities, including professorial chairs; he can wear garments of any color and material, ornaments of gold and silver and jewels; he can bear arms and ride on horses and mules, inherit from any kindred, acquire property of all kinds, enter the priesthood and obtain any dignity or preferment, and all inquisitors and secular powers are forbidden to interfere with him in the enjoyment of these privileges.[1190]This is evidently the customary formula of these dispensations, and it was galling to have the laws of the land and the jurisdiction of the Inquisition thus calmly set at naught, but there was no help for it. Sometimes, however, the recipients of these papal rehabilitations deemed it wise to show humility, in which case they were fairly assured of a benignant reception. In 1548, the Saragossa tribunal penanced for fautorship five hidalgos, vassals of the Count of Ribagorza, in a way disabling them from holding office. They procured letters from Rome, but submitted them to the Suprema and declined to use them, whereupon Valdés told the inquisitors to follow the letters and dispense the penitents from their disabilities.[1191]
Roman competition, however, by no means destroyed the home traffic in dispensations. Whatever was imposed by the inquisitors could be removed by the inquisitors-general, as when Valdés, May 27, 1551, granted licence to Leandro de Loriz to accept the position of assessor to the bayle of Valencia after he had been disabled by the tribunal from holding any office of justice.[1192]When, however, disabilities were the result of the pragmáticas, it was recognized that their removal was a function of the crown. Thus, in 1549, the Suprema expresses pleasure that those reconciled under an Edict of Grace should procure rehabilitations from the king and, in 1564, it explains that the dispensations granted by the inquisitor-general only relate to the sumptuarycosas arbitrarias, so that those obtaining them who exceed in this are to be prosecuted.[1193]The functions of the Inquisition thus were restricted to enabling the disabled to wear costlyapparel and jewels, to bear arms and ride. These, which were known as dispensations “en lo arbitrario” were in great demand and a brisk business was done in them. In the records of course there is nothing said about their being sold, or the prices paid for them, which were doubtless proportioned to the station or wealth of the penitent or of his kindred, but that they were articles of traffic is shown by their being frequently given as gratifications to the lower officials, issued in blank, to be disposed of at the best price that could be had.[1194]So customary, indeed, became the issue of these dispensations that, towards the close of the sixteenth century, Peña closes his remarks on disabilities by saying that, after a time, it is usual to dispense for them.[1195]
The rehabilitation for holding office and trading was likewise a source of profit to the crown and its officials. The sale of these became so general that, in 1552, it formed a subject of complaint by the Córtes of Madrid, which represented that the children and grandchildren of condemned heretics were rich and obtained rehabilitations from the king, in contravention of the pragmáticas, to the great detriment of the Republic. To the petition that this should cease the reply was that the supplication would be borne in mind and the pragmáticas be observed.[1196]That this promise was kept may well be doubted, especially as, in time, the curia abandoned its claim to issue dispensations of this nature. When, in 1603 and 1604, several applications for such a grace were made to it, the Congregation of the Inquisition refused to interfere.[1197]