FAMILIARS
The complaint was renewed, about 1530, by the Córtes of Aragon, that familiars were appointed in every place in the three kingdoms, and that no lists were furnished, so that the Inquisition could set free any offender by declaring him to be a familiar, to which Cardinal Manrique merely replied that no more were appointed than were necessary, and that the instructions wereobserved.[801]Again, in 1547, the Córtes of Catalonia declared that the abuse had been carried to a point that seriously limited the royal and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, and it requested that Barcelona should be restricted to fifty, with five each for the Catalan districts subjected to Valencia and Saragossa, and also that lists be furnished, but Prince Philip only answered that he would consult the Suprema and do what was fitting.[802]Of course nothing was done.
While thus the Suprema defended the tribunals against the public, it was constantly scolding them for their excesses and issuing orders to diminish the evil. A carta acordada of 1543 alludes to the excessive numbers of familiars, their turbulence and evil lives; they must be persons of good repute and the rest must be dismissed. In 1546 moderation in appointments was enjoined. When the Castile Concordia of 1553 was framed, instructions were issued for its strict observance; all not registered and reported to the authorities were not to be held as familiars. In 1560 and again in 1573, they were ordered to be married men, quiet, peaceable,limpiosand not ecclesiastics; all others were to be removed. In 1562 the inquisitor of Majorca was rebuked for unnecessary appointments of turbulent and unfit men and for not giving a list to the magistrates. In 1566 lists were ordered to be given to the civil authorities and none not borne on them were to enjoy exemption. In 1573 instructions were issued requiring them to be householders and heads of families, residents of the place for which the commission was given and none to be appointed for uninhabited places. In 1578 it was ordered that appointments should only be made to fill vacancies. In 1586 a carta acordada commanded the number to be reduced to the provisions of the Concordia; the surplus must surrender their commissions and support themselves honestly, new appointments were restricted to quiet and peaceful men of good life and habits, and evidence of compliance with the order must be furnished.[803]
This brief summary could be largely extended, but its only interest lies in its showing that the Suprema recognized the evil and sought to abate it, while the tribunals paid no attention toits commands, secure in the assurance that it would defend them through thick and thin, whenever a question arose between them and the people or the authorities. Sometimes, indeed, continued pressure might induce temporary compliance but it was abandoned as soon as it appeared safe to do so.
A single instance will illustrate the tenacity and successful evasions of the inquisitors. Valdés wrote to the Valencia tribunal, March 12, 1551, that the excessive number of familiars interfered with its proper functions in consequence of the time required for their cases. They were to be reduced to a hundred in the city of Valencia; in towns of three thousand inhabitants the maximum was to be eight; in smaller places, if any were needed, the number was not to exceed four without notifying the Suprema. To effect this, all commissions were to be revoked and, if necessary, he revoked them. Instructions were given as to reappointments; every commission was to be signed by both inquisitors and countersigned by one of the notaries; the commissions were to be limited to two or three years so as to stimulate good behavior and lists were to be furnished to the Suprema.
FAMILIARS
To this promising scheme of reform the inquisitors replied that they suspended its operation because the Governors of Valencia thought the number assigned to the city inadequate. July 9th the Suprema ordered them to learn from the governors their views as to numbers. This was left unanswered and, on November 5th, the Suprema ordered a report within thirty days of what had been agreed upon with the governors; otherwise the provisions of March 12th were to be put into execution and, if this was not done, a person armed with full powers would be sent to do it. This looked like business and brought from Inquisitor Artiaga the reply that, as soon as his colleague returned from visiting the district, it would be complied with. Valdés waited till December 23rd and then wrote that there must be no further delay; the king had repeatedly ordered a reduction of the familiars on account of the daily complaints received against them. He therefore commanded peremptorily that, without reply or further excuse, the instructions be executed and a notarial attestation of the fact be furnished during January; if both inquisitors were not in Valencia, the one in residence must do the work; if it was not accomplished within the time named, they must present themselves personally before him to give their reasons for disobedience.This would seem to leave no opening for evasion, but it received no attention and, on March 10, 1552, Valdés wrote again, repeating the injunctions of the previous March, but conceding that there might be two hundred familiars in the city. Public proclamation of the revocations was to be made and evidence of execution with lists of those retained was to be furnished during April. Again no attention was paid to this and it was repeated September 10th. This, in time, brought a statement that the number in the city had been reduced to two hundred, but there is no evidence as to reductions elsewhere or that the wholesome limitation of commissions to two or three years had been observed.[804]If it were, it was but for a brief time, and we have seen what were the familiars of Valencia early in the next century.
It was the same in Castile. When the Concordia of 1553 was agreed upon, a royal cédula of March 10th prescribed the number of familiars to be allowed in cities and towns and ordered that all in excess should be deprived of their commissions, while lists of those retained were to be given to the secular authorities. The Suprema seems to have honestly endeavored to enforce these provisions by letters issued under the same date, but the inquisitors were sullen and refractory and the Valencia experience was repeated. July 13, 1555, another royal cédula and circular letter of the Suprema repeated the command to reduce the number and furnish lists. Again, in 1565 these orders were renewed, which brought out the fact that the tribunals had not even kept registers of the appointments, for in 1566 they were ordered to call in all commissions and compile lists from them, with a warning that all who were not borne on such lists would not be allowed enjoyment of the fuero and, if the judges were inhibited in such cases, when the competencia reached the Councils it would be abandoned. Even this required to be supplemented with another order the next year.[805]
It would be a weariness of the flesh to follow in detail these fruitless efforts of the Suprema to force the tribunals to comply with the law, but a carta acordada of 1604 affords a glimpse into some of the tricks and evasions resorted to. It lays down salutary rules as to the observance of the Concordia and the characterof appointees, and proceeds to forbid the granting of expectative appointments, the admission of applicants to prove limpieza unless there is a vacancy, and then he must be a resident of the place where it occurs and not one with a supposititious domicile. Appointments in derogation of these rules will not render the individual an official of the Inquisition and no competencias will be entertained for him. It shows how slack was the observance of this that it had to be repeated in 1620 and again in 1626.[806]
FAMILIARS
While thus the Suprema was vainly busied in repressing the exuberance of its subordinates, it fiercely resented any assistance offered by outsiders. The Concordia of 1553 was part of the law of the land, and as such it was printed in the official Nueva Recopilacion (Lib.IV, Tit. i, ley 20). In 1634 the Council of Castile, apparently wearied with the stubbornness of the tribunals, undertook to enforce it by printing the articles concerning the numbers and qualifications of familiars and sending them to the magistrates of the towns and villages with instructions that, if the number was in excess, they were to strike off the surplus; if a list had not been furnished, they were not to regard any one as a familiar and entitled to exemptions and privileges. When this practical method of enforcing obedience to law came to the knowledge of the Suprema, it was highly incensed. On December 22nd it addressed an indignant consulta to the king; the Council of Castile, it said, was meddling with concerns wholly beyond its competence; it had no authority in matters concerning the Inquisition; if inquisitors transgressed the law, specific complaints could be made and settled in a junta of the two bodies; the Council was leading the local magistrates to sit in judgement on inquisitors and get themselves into trouble. Besides the familiars are so molested when they seek to avail themselves of their privileges that they think it better to abandon them; they are fewer already than the Concordia permits, are diminishing daily and, in a few years, the Inquisition will not have ministers to attend to its business. The consulta concludes by asking the king to order the Council to erase the paper from its records and not to issue similar ones in future. For once this arrogance overshot the mark. There must have been a desperate contest waged over the matter for Philip kept the consulta until October 3, 1636, whenhe returned it with the endorsement that the Council of Castile can issue the provision embodying the articles of the Concordia and can order the local magistrates to observe and execute them.[807]
The reasons inducing inquisitors to the perpetual and illegal multiplication of these officials are not far to seek. The position was much coveted and the high value set upon it, notwithstanding the assertions of the Suprema as to diminishing numbers, is shown in one of the expedients for raising money resorted to in 1641, when an additional familiarship was created in each place, to be sold for fifteen hundred ducats. The offer was withdrawn in 1643, possibly because, as we have seen (p. 213), in 1642 a block of three hundred was thrown upon the market, thus breaking the price.[808]When such estimates were placed on the office, the opportunity for illicit gains was tempting to those who had power to issue commissions and, in addition to this, were the profits of litigation and the abundant fees for officials in the investigation into the limpieza of aspirants and their wives. The fines also arising from cases in which familiars were concerned were a not inconsiderable addition to the income of the tribunals. Thus, in 1564, Dr. Zurita, in a four months’ visitation of the dioceses of Gerona and Elne, collected a hundred and six ducats for offences committed by or against familiars and, in addition, five culprits were sent to Barcelona on more serious charges which doubtless yielded still larger returns.[809]It is easy then to understand the temptation to enlarge so profitable a jurisdiction, and the steady opposition to revealing the number of appointees by furnishing lists.
It is true that the Suprema drew up an excellent list of qualifications as requisites for eligibility. No one was to be appointed who was not an Old Christian, at least twenty-five years of age, married or a widower, head of a household, virtuous, quiet, peaceable and fitted for the office, as well as of legitimate and not of foreign birth.[810]Yet there was no difficulty in obtaining dispensations for age, for celibacy, for illegitimacy and for foreign birth or parentage, the considerable fees for which went to thesecretary of the inquisitor-general.[811]There was no formal dispensation for the moral qualities, but these were elusive and the general character ascribed to familiars, as we have seen in Valencia, shows how little care was frequently taken as to these. They are not even alluded to in the formalities required, in the middle of the seventeenth century, when we are told that the petition of the applicant must be accompanied with a certificate from the secretary of his place of residence setting forth the number of inhabitants, the number of familiars, evidence of baptism to show his age, that he did not follow any mechanic or low occupation, and that he had property sufficient for his decent support. He was also of course required to furnish the genealogies of himself and his wife for investigation into limpieza.[812]
To what extent precautions were taken to avoid improper appointments depended of course upon the temper of the tribunal and necessarily varied with time and place. In 1561, Inquisitor Cervantes says that in Córdova, Seville and Saragossa, where he had served, aspirants for appointment were taken on probation for two or three months, after which inquiry was made as to their limpieza and mode of life when, if they were married and peaceable men they were appointed, but that nothing of this was observed in Barcelona.[813]It is not likely that such scrutiny was frequent, for the appointments were treated as patronage by inquisitors, who took them in turn until, in 1638, this was forbidden by the Suprema, which ordered that they should be decided by voting; the fiscals were required to report whether this was observed, which it doubtless was, because it could be so easily eluded by a private understanding.[814]
FAMILIARS
There was some effort made, but without success, to maintain the dignity of the office by excluding those engaged in trade or in pursuits regarded as degrading, such as butchers, shoemakers, pastry-cooks and the like. On the other hand there was naturally welcome for personages of distinction and of these there was no lack. The bluest blood of Spain did not disdain to serve theInquisition in the office of familiar. This excited apprehension in the Aragonese kingdoms and, in the Concordias of 1568, it was provided that familiars should be plain men and not powerful ones such as gentlemen and barons. At once the Valencia tribunal enquired of the Suprema whether this excluded gentlemen who were not barons and it was assured that barons only were excluded. The tribunal disregarded even this limitation and appointed barons and gentlemen holding vassals, turbulent men, rendered reckless by the exemptions, leading to quarrels with the Audiencia, in which Philip II interposed, in 1590, by ordering all such appointments made since the Concordia to be revoked. Loud were the complaints of the inquisitors; they denied that they had appointed barons; if the gentlemen with vassals were deprived of their commissions the Inquisition would be dishonored and, what made matters worse, the Audiencia had registered the decree where it could be read by every one, and had sent it to the governors of provinces, thus publishing it to the world.[815]
How long this exclusion lasted under the crown of Aragon it would be impossible to say, but probably it was not permanent. In Castile there was no such distinction. At the Madrid auto de fe of July 4, 1632, the standard of the Inquisition was borne by the Admiral of Castile, assisted by the Constable of Castile and the Duke of Medina de las Torres, all familiars.[816]Fernando VI, however, adopted the Aragonese precaution and required all familiars to bepecherosor taxpayers, when an indignant memorial, apparently from Inquisitor-general Prado y Cuesta, called his attention to the fact that there was not, in all Castile, Aragon, Valencia and Andalusia, a grandee or gentleman of illustrious birth who did not find ancestors on the rolls of the Holy Office, or count it among the glories of his house that they were enlisted in the militia of the faith.[817]
By this time the number of familiars had greatly fallen, though not to the extent that would be inferred from the table in the Appendix, for the tribunals had evidently not reported them—in fact, it is probable that few if any had kept registers enabling them to do so. The diminishing influence of the Inquisition, the curtailment in the privileges of the office, the new spirit vivifyingSpain under the Bourbons, all combined to render the position less sought for, and thenceforth we hear comparatively little of the familiar as a disturbing element in the social order.
It was a matter of course that the officials of the tribunals should form organized bodies. They did so under the name of the Cofradia or Congregacion or Hermandad de San Pedro Martir, which assumed to be the same as the Cruce-signati, founded in Italy by Innocent IV, after the murder of St. Peter Martyr, in 1252. The bulk of the membership was naturally formed by the familiars, who were the most numerous class of officials, and there are occasional allusions toColegios de Familiares, which may have been a subdivision of the general body. At what date the Cofradia was organized it would be impossible to assert, but, as early as 1519, it was a formidable body with chiefs known asmayordomosfor when, in that year, there were rumors of an attempt in Saragossa to liberate Juan Prat by force, Charles V ordered the Zalmedina of Saragossa to assemble it and resist the movement, and he wrote to the mayordomos to obey the Zalmedina.[818]
The Hermandad became elaborately organized in the inquisitorial centres with a constitution which was printed in 1617. Each branch had as officers a padre mayor, a secretary, a mayordomo mayor, a mayordomo menor and a fiscal. The entrance-fees were considerable and the reception of new members was attended with a certain amount of ceremonial, in which the candidate took a solemn oath, in the hands of an inquisitor, to imperil his life in executing the commands of the Holy Office and to denounce all heretics, after which the inquisitor gave him a cross and imparted to him all the privileges and indulgences of the crucesignati.[819]
COFRADIA DE SAN PEDRO MARTIR
The extension of the Hermandad over Spain was by no means simultaneous. It was not established in Seville until 1604 and then only after considerable opposition. Even as late as 1700, in a Formulary, there is a formula of a grant by inquisitors to the commissioners and familiars of an arch-priest district to founda cofradia.[820]The functions of the body may be assumed as purely ornamental, giving lustre to the solemnities of the auto de fe and an occasion for the Inquisition to exhibit its strength. Marching in procession under the standard of the Holy Office in the Seville auto of November 7, 1604, they formed a body four hundred strong and at that of Córdova, in 1655, they were reckoned at over five hundred. At the last of the great autos, celebrated in Madrid, in 1680, the Suprema ordered all the familiars of the city to join the Congregation, under penalty of forfeiting the fuero, and each member was required to carry in the procession a wax candle of two pounds’ weight, with the insignia of the Inquisition, whereupon it ordered three hundred candles. On this occasion it received a splendid standard which it continued to use in solemn celebrations.[821]
The organization was not always as faithful as it might have been to its oaths of obedience. In 1603, in 1675 and again in 1715 there was trouble over the right claimed by the members to wear habitually their crosses and habits as insignia of St. Dominic, though the Suprema restricted this to occasions of solemnity, and it finally required a threat of dismissal to enforce the rule.[822]There was still greater indiscipline in 1634 and 1635, at Valencia, where they excited a popular tumult and refused to obey the orders of the Suprema in the matter of the celebration of the feast of theCruz nueva.[823]
When, under the Restoration, Fernando VII endeavored to revive the somewhat dilapidated glories of the Inquisition, it was suggested to him to elevate the Hermandad into a Royal Order of Knighthood. He welcomed the idea and, on March 17, 1815, he issued a decree in which he says that, at the request of the mayordomos of the Most Illustrious Congregation of San Pedro, composed of the Suprema, the inquisitors and the subordinates of all the tribunals, and in order that they may be distinguished and honored, he commands that they wear daily on their outer garments, like the other orders of knighthood, thehabit and badge of the Inquisition. To set the example, on the feast of St. Peter Martyr (April 29th) he presided over the Congregation in person, accompanied by the infantes Don Carlos and Don Antonio, when he wore these insignia, which was imitated by the members, so that it became the fashion in the court. April 26th the Royal Council promulgated the decree, in accordance, it said, with concessions from the Holy See, and it ordered that no individual or court should impede the members in the enjoyment of this right. On May 10th the Suprema communicated the decree to the tribunals, with orders for its strict observance by all officials. It was disheartening to find that all this was not taken seriously by the people, for it was not long before the inquisitor of Valladolid had occasion to complain to the Suprema of the insults offered by the ecclesiastical authorities to the officials, on account of the decoration of the Royal Order of Knighthood of St. Peter Martyr.[824]
REPEATEDallusions have occurred above to thelimpieza, or purity of blood, required in all officials of the Inquisition. This was so remarkable a development of the prevailing fanaticism and exercised so much influence on the social condition of Spain that it deserves a somewhat detailed investigation.
The first indication of this exclusiveness is seen in theSentencia Estatutoof Toledo, in 1449, under which all Conversos were stripped of official positions as being suspect in the faith (Vol. I., p. 126). This, as we have seen, elicited the bull of Nicholas V, denouncing such legislation as unchristian, forbidding discrimination between Old and New Christians and confirming the laws to that effect of Alfonso X, Henry III and Juan II. This was evaded in the founding of a confraternity, under the title of Christian Love, in Córdova, in 1473, from which all Conversos were rigorously excluded, leading to the tumults and massacres described above.[825]It may have been this which induced Archbishop Carillo of Toledo, in a provincial synod held at Alcalá, to denounce the growing practice of brotherhoods, bound under oaths to exclude Conversos and alleging these oaths in justification. All such statutes were declared invalid and all who had taken such oaths were released from them.[826]In 1473, also, Juan II of Aragon abrogated the statutes of a similar association in Majorca and ordered that Conversos should have full enjoyment of all faculties in his dominions.[827]A somewhat ludicrous aspect was given to this prejudice by a guild of stone-masons in Toledo, composed principally of Mudéjares, which, in 1481, adopted a rule forbidding members from teaching their art to Conversos, and the next year a still more prescriptive statute was adoptedin Guipúzcoa, prohibiting Conversos from settling or marrying in the province.[828]
The earliest official recognition of a distinction between Old and New Christians was the bull of Sixtus IV, in 1483 (supra, p. 11) ordering that episcopal inquisitors should be Old Christians. The next step was more portentous of the future. When, in 1485, the temporary Inquisition was established in the Geronimite monastery of Guadalupe, a Jew was found among the monks, who had been living as one of them for forty years and yet had never been baptized. His prompt burning in front of the convent gates did not allay the dread that other heretics might find similar refuge in the Order, leading the General Chapter to decree that no descendant of a Jew should be admitted; those already entered, if they had not professed, were expelled, and those who had professed were incapacitated for any honor or dignity. Much discussion ensued; the decree was held as contravening the bull of Nicholas V in 1449, and there was prospect of trouble, leading Ferdinand and Isabella to apply to Innocent VIII for a remedy. He evaded a decision in the briefDecet Romanam, September 25, 1486, by clothing the Archbishop of Seville and the Bishops of Córdova and Leon with authority to decide all questions under the decree and to revoke, modify and strengthen it at their discretion. This of course was held to be a practical confirmation of the new rule, and we are told that Our Lady of Guadalupe was so delighted that she coruscated in miracles, which Fray Francisco Sancho de la Fuente undertook to record, but they were so abundant that his zeal was exhausted and he abandoned the pious task.[829]
The next instance was a special and limited one. After Torquemada had founded at Avila his convent of St. Thomas Aquinas, he grew apprehensive that the hatred which he had earned from the Conversos might lead them to enter it with evil intent. In 1496 he therefore applied to Alexander VI for a decree forbidding the reception of any one descended, directly or indirectly from Jews, a request which the pontiff readily granted, subjecting toipso factoexcommunication any prior or other person contravening the rule.[830]
DEVELOPMENT OF PROSCRIPTION
The tendency to discriminate against Conversos was stimulatedby the disabilities inflicted under the canon law on the children and grandchildren of impenitent heretics. This will be treated more fully hereafter and it suffices to say here that it was construed as applying to the children and grandchildren of all condemned or reconciled by the Inquisition. It was the subject of some debate, and the Instructions of 1488 required inquisitors to enforce by heavy penalties the incapacity of such descendants to hold any public office or to be admitted to holy orders.[831]These disabilities were extended still further by the sovereigns, in two pragmáticas of 1501, forbidding the children and grandchildren by the male line and the children by the female to hold any office of honor or to be notaries, scriveners, physicians, surgeons, or apothecaries. These pragmáticas were promptly sent by the Suprema to all tribunals, with orders for their strict enforcement, as the sovereigns did not permit exceptions to be made.[832]
In this rising tide of proscription it is pleasant to find an exception. There was no more uncompromising defender of the faith than Ximenes but, in organizing his University of Alcalá, he made no discrimination against Conversos. In his carefully elaborated details as to qualifications for professorships, fellowships, degrees and the other objects of academic ambition, there is not a word indicating that the taint of Jewish or Moorish blood was an obstacle.[833]It was doubtless this which excepted Alcalá from the ominous decree of the Suprema, November 20, 1522, prohibiting Salamanca, Valladolid and Toledo from conferring degrees upon any convert from Judaism, or on any son or grandson of one condemned by the Inquisition.[834]Where it found warrant for such assumption of authority it might be difficult to say, but the effect of such proscription can scarce be exaggerated, in thus barring the way to all the learned professions and consequently to public employment and ecclesiastical preferment.
The next step was taken by the Observantine Franciscans who, in 1525, procured from Clement VII a brief providing that in Spain no fraile descended from Jews, or from one convictedby the Inquisition, should be promoted to any office or dignity, and that thereafter no one laboring under such defect should be admitted into the Order.[835]
By this time the question of limpieza was ever present and every one was popularly classed as an Old Christian or a New, for genealogies seem to have been public property. When, in 1528, Diego de Uceda was tried for Lutheranism and claimed to be an Old Christian, the Toledo tribunal sought testimony in Córdova, where the witnesses unhesitatingly described his family, paternal and maternal, as perfectly pure from stain of Converso blood, which they said was notorious throughout the city.[836]The increasing importance of the matter led the Inquisition to amass evidence for itself and, in 1530, the tribunals were ordered to summon before them the descendants of all who had been relaxed or reconciled and ascertain whether they had changed their names. From this general inquest each tribunal compiled for its own district a register of genealogies, comprising all the infected families which, when duly kept up, preserved a mass of testimony infinitely disquieting to subsequent generations.[837]The growing importance of the questions involved, to society at large, is indicated by a petition of the Córtes of Segovia in 1532, that those should be held as Old Christians who could prove their descent from Christian parents, grand-parents and great-grand-parents—or, if necessary, from great-great-grand-parents—and that no imputation of lack of limpieza should be cast on them, unless there was evidence to prove their descent from Jews or Moors, or that an ancestor had been condemned by the Inquisition.[838]
DEVELOPMENT OF PROSCRIPTION
The Dominicans were not as active as the Franciscans in obtaining papal protection of their limpieza. In a long list of briefs conceded to Spanish Dominican houses there is no allusion to the exclusion of Conversos between Torquemada’s of 1496 and 1531 when the houses of Santa Maria Nieba and San Pedro Martir of Toledo were forbidden to receive any fraile suspected of Jewish or Moorish origin, while in the college of Santa Maria the professors and students of arts and theology were required to be free from all suspicion of such descent.[839]The sentiment of theOrder was less proscriptive than that of the Franciscans. Its most conspicuous member of the period was Thomas de Vio, better known as Cardinal Caietano who, when consulted, in 1514, by the regent of Salamanca, as to the legality of excluding those of Jewish blood from the Order, replied that it was not a mortal sin but, seeing that the race had furnished Jesus Christ and the apostles and the salvation of man, it was irrational and ungrateful to discriminate against them, as well as an obstacle to their conversion.[840]Paul III agreed with him for, in amotu proprioof 1535 addressed to the Dominican Provincial, he forbade any impediment to the entrance in the Order of those of Jewish or Moorish blood and, on learning that this was disregarded in some houses, he repeated and confirmed it with censures by a brief of August 3, 1537.[841]
In this, as in so much else, any one seemed able to get from the Holy See whatever he wanted and Paul reversed himself, in 1538, when the convent of San Pablo of Córdova represented that, in most of the colleges of the Order, descendants of Conversos were not received or, if admitted in error, were ejected, and it desired the same concession to its college, as necessary for its preservation and the peace of the house. Paul promptly acceded to this request and ordered the inquisitors and the dean of Córdova to defend the convent in these privileges, even to calling in the aid of the secular arm.[842]This was followed by a more general measure, in 1542, when, by command of Paul, Cardinal Juan de Toledo, Bishop of Burgos, prohibited the Dominicans of Aragon from receiving into the Order descendants of Jews or of convicts of the Inquisition to the fourth generation. It is not likely that this was confined to Aragon and, in the next year, we find the Suprema addressing the provincial and the definitors urging that no Conversos be allowed to enter.[843]
Charles V was as inconsistent as Paul III. In 1537 he issued a decree reciting that as, in some colleges of the universities, admittance was refused to New Christians he ordered that the constitutions of the founders be observed.[844]Yet when the chapterof Córdova, in 1530, adopted a statute of limpieza applicable to all the ministrants of the cathedral, and was unable to obtain papal confirmation, he ordered its observance and contributed by his influence to induce Paul IV, in 1555, to confirm it.[845]
The movement was one which was constantly gaining momentum. In 1548, Archbishop Siliceo of Toledo enumerates, among the bodies refusing admission to all except Old Christians, the three great military Orders of Santiago, Calatrava and Alcántara, membership in which was the object of ambition to almost every Spanish layman of gentle birth. In all the Spanish colleges, including that of Bologna founded by Cardinal Albornoz, none but Old Christians were received and from these colleges were drawn the members of councils and chancelleries and other judicial officials. It was the same with the Minims, by express statute of the founder St. Francis de Paula, and in other Orders and monasteries of both men and women. Cathedral chapters were beginning to adopt it, such as those of Córdova and Jaen; numerous confraternities were based upon it, and manymayorazgos, or entailed estates were conditioned on it.[846]Thus the mania for absolute purity of blood was spreading irresistibly and, while it would be impossible now to enumerate accurately the bodies which made it a condition precedent of membership, it is safe to say that the avenues of distinction, and even of livelihood, in public life and in the Church, were rapidly closing to all who bore the fatalmanchaor stain. In time even admission to holy orders required proof of limpieza.[847]
SILICEO’S TOLEDO STATUTE
The Conversos, however, were too able and energetic to yield without a struggle and how the losing battle was waged is seen in the decisive case of the primatial church of Toledo. The Cardinal Archbishop Tavera attempted, in 1539, to procure the adoption of a statute of limpieza in the cathedral, but the opposition was so strong that he was obliged to desist.[848]His successor was Juan Martínez Pedernales, who adopted the classic appellation of Siliceo—a Salamanca professor who had the luck to be appointed tutor to Prince Philip and was rewarded with the seeof Murcia, in 1541, whence he was translated to Toledo, in 1546. He was roused to indignation when, in September of that year, papal letters were presented to the chapter granting a canonry to Doctor Hernan Ximenes, whose father had been reconciled by the Inquisition. Although the chapter had several Converso members it refused admission to Ximenes and wrote a rambling and inconsequential letter to Paul III justifying its disobedience. To prevent such contamination for the future, Siliceo drew up a statute forbidding that any but an Old Christian should hold a position in the cathedral, even down to the choir-boys; all aspirants were to present their genealogies and deposit a sum of money to defray the expense of an investigation. In July, 1547, he came to Toledo, with a large retinue of gentlemen, and secretly assured himself of the assent of a majority of the canons, who bound themselves with oaths to adopt it; a meeting of the chapter was called and the measure was sprung upon it, in violation of its rules of order—as he frankly said, if notice had been given and discussion allowed it could not have been passed, for the Conversos would have intrigued successfully against it. The vote in its favor was twenty-five to ten, not including the dean, who opposed it but had no vote. The minority claimed that they were the wiser and better part of the chapter, and probably they were, for they included the archdeacons of Guadalajara and Talavera, both sons of the Duke del Infantado, and Juan de Vergara, one of the most illustrious men of letters of the day, who had had experience of the rigor of the Inquisition. This action aroused so much excitement in the city that the Royal Council sent analcalde de corte, who reported that, for the sake of peace, the statute had better not be enforced, in consequence of which Prince Philip, then holding the Córtes of Monzon, sent orders to suspend it until the emperor’s pleasure could be learned. The struggle was thus transferred to the imperial court and to Rome. The matter was argued publicly in the Rota, when the conclusion was against confirmation and the pope signed a brief to that effect, but the archbishop’s envoy, Diego de Guzman, used such persuasive arguments that Paul secretly evoked the matter to himself and signed another brief, May 28, 1548, confirming the statute, so that each side could boast of his support. Charles referred the question back to the Royal Council, to which both sides presented memorials. Their temper may be judged by the argument of the chapter that, after so many religious bodies had adoptedthe exclusion, if the opponents contend it to be unscriptural, they are manifest heretics and should be burnt to ashes.
A memorial of Siliceo to Charles is in the same key. A strange medley of evils is attributed to Jews and Conversos—even the German Lutherans are descendants of Jews. On taking possession of his archbishopric he had found that nearly all the beneficed priests and those having cure of souls were of Jewish extraction, and there was danger of Conversos obtaining entire possession of the Church, owing to the sale of preferment in Rome, where there were at the time five or six thousand Spaniards, most of them Conversos, bargaining for benefices. It was the same in the other professions, where judges, lawyers, notaries, scriveners, farmers of the revenue, etc., were mostly of Jewish stock, and they alone were physicians, surgeons and apothecaries, in spite of all that the Inquisition had burnt and was daily burning; they adopted these callings solely for the purpose of killing Christians—it was but the other day that, in a Toledo auto, there was reconciled a surgeon who always placed a poisonous powder in the wounds of his Christian patients. If Charles did not confirm the statute, the outlook was that the Conversos would govern the church of Toledo. Wild as all this may seem to us, it gives us a valuable insight into the impulses which governed Spain in its dealings with the alien races within her borders. It was a humiliating admission that they were regarded as men of superior intelligence and ability, whose wrongs for generations had converted them into irreconcilable enemies, the object of mingled dread and detestation; as they could not be matched in intellect, the only policy was brute repression and extermination.[849]
Of course Siliceo carried the day. The confirmation of his statute by Paul III was conclusive and was regarded as establishing on irrefragable grounds the necessity of limpieza as a qualification for all who aspired to position in Church or State.[850]Toledo maintained it even against the pope. In 1573, the Venetian envoy, Leonardo Donato, reports that he had seen all the authority of the stern Pius V vainly exerted to secure the archidiaconate of Toledo for a servant of his who was notlimpioand who finally had to content himself with transferring the dignity to another and retaining a heavy pension on the revenues.[851]
It was not only in Toledo that the capacity of the Conversos was filling the minds of the faithful with direful apprehensions of their ultimate triumph over their oppressors. While Siliceo was at work, the Inquisition was endeavoring to enforce the brief by which, in 1525, Clement VII had excluded them from the Observantine Franciscans. To the Suprema its fiscal represented that the unbridled licence of frailes of Jewish descent had prevailed to such an extent that they were elected as general and provincial ministers, guardians, vicars, procurators, visitors and other officials, to the oppression of the Old Christians of the Order, who were thus excluded from office, causing daily scandals and threatening worse. Valdés consequently ordered the brief to be published anew and observed everywhere under heavy penalties. Thereupon the General of the Order, Andreas de Insula, was incensed and, on the assumption that this had been instigated by Old Christian frailes, threatened to punish them severely. The Suprema therefore appealed to Julius III, reciting all this and pointing out the crafty and unscrupulous ways in which that unquiet race disturbed the peace of all bodies to which it found entrance, forming factions and aspiring to rule, with the object of ruining the Old Christians, thus opening the way to a return to Judaism and the destruction of Christianity. Julius responded favorably, in a brief of September 21, 1550, instructing Valdés to summon the General Andreas and all concerned to obey the decree of Clement, and granting him full powers to decide summarily the prosecutions proposed with a view to protect the Old Christians from molestation, using for the purpose whatever censures might be necessary.[852]It shows how indomitable were the Conversos that confirmatory briefs had to be procured from Gregory XIII and Sixtus V.[853]Yet again the Holy See manifested its inconsistency for, when the chapter of Seville, in 1565, petitioned Pius IV to confirm a statute of limpieza, he refused and condemned the Spanish practice as contrary to law and as upsetting the churches. Cardinal Pacheco defended it and described the evils wrought by the Jews, when Pius turned fiercely on him, saying that he would do as he thought best and that the Spaniards all tried to be popes.[854]
When those who had the slightest taint of Jewish or Moorish blood were thus regarded as not only implacable enemies of the Christian faith, but as gifted with pre-eminent intelligence and craft, it became impossible for the Inquisition to consider them as fitted for its service. One would have expected it to take the initiative and the only subject of surprise is that it should have been so late in adopting for itself the rule which it was enforcing on other bodies. Discrimination may have been exercised in special cases but, till the middle of the sixteenth century, there is no trace of any systematic adoption of limpieza as a test. A carta acordada of July 20, 1543 and a decree of Prince Philip in 1545, respecting the numbers and character of familiars, are silent as to this as a qualification.[855]The first allusion to it that I have met occurs in a commission issued to Francisco Romeo as scrivener of confiscations in Saragossa, signed April 16, 1546, by the inquisitor-general, but not countersigned by members of the Suprema until July 9th, “after the inquisitors of Aragon had ascertained the limpieza of the said Francisco Romeo.”[856]A step forward is seen in the instructions issued by the Suprema, October 10th of this same year, in which it ordered that no familiar be received until it is ascertained that he is an Old Christian.[857]Still this was rejected as a general principle for, when the Córtes of Monzon, in 1547, complained that Moriscos were appointed as familiars, the answer of the Suprema was a formal declaration that the Inquisition regarded as capable of holding office all who had been baptized and who lived as Christians, except heretics or apostates or fautors of heretics.[858]