HEREDITARY TRANSMISSION
Offices were virtually held for life, although the commissions technically expired with the death or removal of the grantor, for we have seen that, with each change in the inquisitor-generalship,the new incumbent renewed them and the interregnum was bridged over by the action of the Suprema. This did not cover the financial officials, who held from the crown and the same process was required on a change of sovereigns. Thus, when Philip II died, in 1598, the Suprema made haste to inform the tribunals that Philip III confirmed all the judges of confiscations, receivers and auditors.[587]Thus the incumbents came to regard themselves as holding vested rights in their offices and in fact were technically called “proprietors” of them, a corollary to which was to consider them as property, subject to hereditary transmission or to transactions more or less disguised.
A tendency to nepotism seems to have manifested itself early, for the Instructions of 1498 forbid the appointment, in any tribunal, of a kinsman or servant of the inquisitors or of any other official.[588]The force of this was weakened, in 1531, by a decision of the Suprema that the deputy of the receiver of Valencia was not an official in the sense of the prohibition—a decision which opened the door to hereditary transmission by enabling fathers to introduce their sons as deputies in their offices, as we have seen in the case of Géronimo Zurita.[589]Still, the prohibition was held to be in force and, in the instructions to visitors, one of the points to be investigated was whether two members of a family were employed in a tribunal.[590]Like all other wholesome rules, however, there was no hesitation in violating it. When the tribunal of Lima was established in 1570, it was specifically called to the attention of the inquisitors, but they had scarce been installed when a letter from Secretary Vázquez ordered them to appoint Pedro de Bustamente, brother of one of them, to any office for which he was fitted, and he was duly made notary of sequestrations.[591]
Hereditary transmission seems to have been favored from an early period. In 1498, we find Ferdinand not only approving the resignation of Pedro Lazaro, alguazil of Barcelona, in favor of his son Dionisio, but increasing the salary of the latter because he is a person who cannot live upon the regular stipend. So, in1502, when Juan Pérez, notary of the tribunal of Calatayud, was incapacitated by age, he executed a will leaving all the papers and documents to his son Juan, and Ferdinand confirmed the bequest and empowered Juan to act.[592]
So completely did this become the policy of the Inquisition that when an official died, leaving a minor son, the place was filled temporarily till the boy should reach adult age and he was provided for meanwhile. In 1542, Luis Bages, notary of sequestrations in Saragossa, died and Tavera appointed Bartolomé Malo to the vacancy, ordering the receiver to pay from the fines and penances five hundred sueldos a year to Juan Bages, the young son of Luis. Accompanying this was a private communication to the inquisitors, informing them that Malo was appointed only until Juan should have age and experience for the position and, as the arrangement does not appear in his commission, a notarial act must be taken so as to insure Juan’s succession. Secret arrangements such as this, however were not usually considered necessary. The next year died Miguel de Oliban, notary of the secreto in the same tribunal, when a temporary appointee was inducted who divided the salary with Juan Pérez de Oliban, son of Miguel, till he should be old enough to take the place.[593]The requirements of age were waived in favor of such transmissions. About 1710, Carlos Albornoz, receiver of Valencia, asked to be allowed to transfer his office to his son, aged twelve; this was refused but when, two years later, he renewed the request, it was granted.[594]Of course the service suffered from the incompetence of those thrust into it, but when they were absolutely unfit they were allowed to employ substitutes who served for a portion of the salary. Thus when Juan Romeo, in 1548, resigned a notariat of the juzgado in favor of his brother Francisco, Valdés wrote to the inquisitors that he hoped that Francisco would soon learn his duties and be able to fill the office personally without employing a substitute as had previously been the case.[595]
HEREDITARY TRANSMISSION
It would be useless to multiply examples of what was of daily occurrence. Officials were constantly resigning or retiring on half-pay in favor of their sons or grandsons or nephews, who were accepted as a matter of course. So completely was office regardedas property that a bereaved widow sometimes held it as a dowry, with which to tempt a new husband, or was granted a pension on it to be paid by the successor. Or, a man with a marriageable daughter would secure the promise of the succession for whoever would marry her; or, if he died leaving a girl unprovided for, the tribunal would kindly look up a husband for her on the same conditions, as in the case of Juana de Treviño, daughter of Antonio Españon in Valencia. Unluckily the first suitor failed to prove his limpieza and another one was found in the person of Antonio de Bolsa.[596]
The natural result of this was to found inquisitorial families who continued through generations to live on the Holy Office, rendering such service as might be expected from those who held their positions to be personal property, like purchasers for four or more lives. Many examples of this could be cited, but a single one will suffice. In 1586 we find Juan del Olmo officiating as notary or secretary of the Valencia tribunal—whether the first of the line or not does not appear. In 1590, his widow Magdalena asked the reversion for her son Joseph, to whom it was given, and during his minority it was served by the alcaide, Pedro Juan Vidal, who gave a third of the salary to the widow. In 1623 this Joseph secured the succession for his son Joseph, who seems to have been a somewhat turbulent gentleman for, in 1638, he and his son were accused of the murder of his fellow secretary, Julian de Palomares. Escaping punishment for this, he died in 1644 and was succeeded by his son Jusepe Vicente, who, in 1666, not without difficulty, obtained the reversion for his son Vicente. The latter was still functioning in 1690. Who followed him I have not been able to trace, but the male line seems to have failed and the office to have passed to a nephew for, in 1750, it is filled by a Vicente Salvador y del Olmo.[597]
Philip II was not blind to the evils of this abuse and, in his instructions of 1595 to Manrique de Lara, he ordered that offices should not be transferred to brothers or sons unless there were special cause and the recipients were capable of filling them without appointing deputies; but Philip III reversed this, in 1608, inhis instructions to Sandoval y Rojas, and prescribed that, when an official died, his children should be borne in mind.[598]In the instructions of Carlos II, in 1695, there is exhibited the fatal Spanish tendency of recognizing evils while tolerating them. He prohibited the transfer of office, save from father to son or from brother to brother when there is a just cause and the appointee has capacity for the position, for it had often happened that sons and brothers so appointed were unfit, or were so young that the Inquisition had to wait long to its detriment and even more so when substitutes were taken temporarily, for they went out with a knowledge of the secrets of the Inquisition and imagined themselves no longer bound to secrecy. Yet, after this clear admission he proceeded to repeat the order of Philip III that, when an official died, care was to be taken of his children.[599]Of course the warning went for nothing and the abuse continued to the last. A certificate of limpieza issued, November 23, 1818, to Juan Josef Paris, describes him as secretary of the tribunal of Toledo, on half-salary, while his father, Juan Antonio Paris, jubilado, has the other half.[600]
LENIENCY TO OFFENDERS
When there was no lineal successor available, the custom arose of granting—doubtless for a consideration—coadjutorships with the right of reversion. In 1619 the tribunal of Valencia took exception to this and consulted the Suprema, resulting in a decision not to recognize such transactions for the future.[601]They still continued, however and, in September 1643, a papal brief was procured prohibiting them, in spite of which a well-informed writer tells us that the inquisitor-general still granted them.[602]Another frequent abuse was saddling an office with a pension in favor of some representative of the previous incumbent or even of a stranger, suggesting collusion of the appointing power. Even inquisitors themselves sometimes accepted office under these degrading conditions. In 1636, a commission issued to Don Alonso de Buelva, as inquisitor of Toledo, bore on its face the full salary, but it was secretly coupled with the condition that he was to draw only the half, while the other half was given to Don Francisco de Valdés. A man taking such an office on these terms would probablynot be nice in his methods of recouping himself. Still more suggestive of this was the not infrequent custom of taking office “sin gages”—without pay. Thus, in 1637, the Licenciado Pedro Montalvo accepted such a commission as notary of the secreto in Toledo and, in 1638, a similar one was issued for Córdova to Pedro Gutiérrez Armentía. Even inquisitors did not disdain to stoop to this as when, in this same year 1638, Doctor Villaviciosa took the inquisitorship of Murcia without pay.[603]
It is easy to understand how a system such as this should encumber the tribunals with useless hangers-on whose only serious duty was the drawing of salaries. So well was this understood that when, in the confusion of the War of Succession, there often was not money enough to go around, an order was issued that those who were performing duties should be paid in preference to those who were not. So, one of the features of the reform of 1705, attempted by Philip V, was a royal decree declaring null and void all commissions issued without carrying the obligation to work in the office, that no jubilation with salary should be granted without consulting the king, and that no ayuda de costa or other gratification should exceed thirty ducats without the royal assent.[604]
Malfeasance was stimulated by the excessive tenderness which forbore to visit misconduct with punishment. Warnings and threats were freely uttered but rarely enforced and, even when the penalty of suspension was inflicted, the term was apt to be reduced before expiration. This patience under repeated and prolonged wrongdoing was partly owing to the paternalism which generally governed the relations between superiors and subordinates, but principally because dismissal was a public acknowledgement of fallibility, endangering the popular veneration which the Inquisition sought to inspire. It was so from the first. It is true that the reformatory instructions of 1498 declare that any notary, who does what he should not do, shall be condemned as a perjurer and forger and be perpetually deprived of office, besides such other penalty of fine or exile as the inquisitor-general may determine, but this carried few terrors for offenders.[605]The power of effective punishment lay exclusively with the central head,which was not readily moved to active indignation by offences committed at a distance. A letter of Ferdinand, May 17, 1511, to an inquisitor, who had complained bitterly of a subordinate and evidently had asked his discharge, embodies the principle to which the Inquisition remained faithful to the last. The complainant was told that, when any of his officials was in fault, he was to be admonished; if he persisted, he was to be rebuked in the presence of his fellows; if this did not suffice, consultation was to be had with those who had been present and every care be taken to avoid injustice before going further, for the dismissal of officials of the Inquisition is most odious; the utmost caution must be observed that it is founded on justice and the success of the work depends on all living in harmony.[606]This forbearance Ferdinand himself practised in cases which might well move him to inflict summary chastisement.[607]When the inquisitor himself proved incorrigible, he might be suspended for a year or two, but the usual course was to transfer him and inflict him on some other district. In extreme cases he might be jubilado or retired on half-pay as was done with officials who were superannuated or too infirm to work. Dismissal was almost unknown and I have met with but few cases of it.
Jubilation might be either a reward or a punishment. In the earlier time, when an official was obliged to retire on account of age or infirmity he was taken care of with either a pension or a substantial gift, of which various cases are to be found in the records. In time this became an established custom, known as jubilation, and the retiring pension was usually half the salary, sometimes, but not often, deducted from the salary of the successor. Applications for jubilation were common, as men grew old or incapacitated, and we have seen, in the enumeration of the tribunal of Murcia, how many wage-eaters of this kind weighed on the finances of the Inquisition.
RELAXATION OF DISCIPLINE
The use of jubilation as a punishment affords a striking illustration of the tenderness shown to offenders. Instead of the deserved dismissal, they were shielded as far as possible from disgrace and were retired with a pension, thus placing them on a par with aged officials worn out in service. So far was this sympathy carried that, in the instructions of Carlos II to Rocaberti, in 1695, he is warned that, as jubilation inflicts grave discredit,even sometimes involving risk of life, it is only to be resorted to with ample cause, after taking a vote in the Suprema.[608]How superfluous was this caution could be instanced by a number of cases, of which it suffices to mention that of Melchor Zapata who, about 1640, succeeded his father-in-law as alcaide of the secret prison of Valencia. Then the correspondence of the tribunal becomes burdened with complaints of his disorderly conduct; he was constantly getting into scrapes and being tried on various charges, among others, that of hiring four soldiers to commit a crime of violence. At length, in place of dismissal, he was jubilated with a life-pension of 20,000 maravedís in silver and his office was given to his cousin, Crispin Pons. Thetitulo de jubilacionissued to him by Sotomayor describes his long and faithful service, for which he is thus rewarded and he was assured of the enjoyment of all the exemptions and prerogatives attached to his office—though his subsequent conduct was so disreputable that, in 1642, it was felt necessary to deprive him of them.[609]When this was the policy observed toward incapable and delinquent officials it is not difficult to understand the financial troubles of the Holy Office and the grievances endured by the people.
The natural effect of this misguided leniency was looseness of discipline and indifference to duty. Inquisitors could inflict fines on their subordinates, except the fiscal, but for serious offences they could only report to the Suprema and, as they had no power of appointment or dismissal, it was impossible for them to exert adequate authority.[610]How little control they possessed is indicated when, in 1546, it was necessary for the Suprema to issue a formal order to the janitor of the Granada tribunal to shut the inner gates of the castle, which was its residence, at such hours as the inquisitors might designate and, if he did not do so, he was to be reported for such action as the Council might see fit to take.[611]Under such a system it is not surprising that, in the suggestions for reform, in 1623, it was proposed to give the inquisitors powerto punish and suspend, for the tying of their hands resulted in insubordination, causing grave troubles in the tribunals.[612]
That there was gross neglect of duty follows as a matter of course. The hours prescribed for work, during which all were required to be present, were only six—three in the morning and three in the afternoon—except on the numerous holidays, and visitors in their inspections were instructed to inquire especially into this.[613]From such reports of visitations as I have examined, it would appear that the enforcement of the rule was difficult; Cervantes, indeed, in his report on Barcelona in 1561, says that there is no hope of securing regular attendance unless the Suprema will impose a penalty for default of more than an hour.[614]
INSPECTORS
Absence from the post of duty was an abuse which also seemed incurable. Even under the vigilant rule of Ferdinand, a circular letter of the Suprema, September 7, 1509, calls attention to the absence of the officials on their private business; the inquisitors, in urgent cases, could grant leave of absence for twenty days in the year, but this was never to be exceeded; records were to be kept and salaries were to be proportionately docked.[615]This was perfectly ineffectual. In 1520 we find the Suprema writing to the officials of Barcelona to return to their posts within ten days, and rebuking the inquisitors for permitting this neglect of duty, but a repetition of the letter in 1521 shows how fruitless had been the first one. The trouble was by no means confined to Barcelona and, in 1521, Cardinal Adrian made an effort to check it by declaring vacant the office of any one absenting himself for two months.[616]It was not only the subordinates, for the inquisitors themselves had frequently to be taken to task for similar neglect of duty.[617]The trouble was endless and serves in part to explain the cruel delays which aggravated so greatly the sufferings of those under trial. In 1573 the rule of 1509 was repeated with the addition that, if the twenty days granted were exceeded by ten days, the absentee was not to be admitted to his office on his return and this again was reissued in 1597, together with an order that noinquisitor should absent himself without the permission of the Suprema.[618]
This was not the only matter in which inquisitors had to be kept in check. The frequent commands for them not to accept commissions to attend to outside business show how eager were people to secure the service of agents so powerful and how ready were the inquisitors thus to sell their influence. So, when Valdés, in 1560, ordered them not to ask for favors, for complaints were made by people that they were forced to grant what was asked, we recognize how infinite were the resources of petty tyranny afforded by the terror which they inspired. That they were not superior to the vices of the period may be inferred from an injunction of Valdés, in 1566, to exercise great moderation in gambling.[619]
Earnest efforts were not lacking to maintain a fair standard of efficiency and discipline in the tribunals, although they were largely neutralized by the restricted authority allowed to the inquisitors and the fatal clemency shown to delinquents. Isabella has the credit of reforming the administration of justice in Castile by periodically sending inspectors, incorruptible and inflexible, to scrutinize the operation of the courts, and it was not long after the organization of the Inquisition that a similar plan was found necessary for its tribunals. We happen to hear of avisitadoror inspector at Medina del Campo, while Torquemada was still in the active exercise of his functions, probably before 1490.[620]From letters of 1497 we learn that the salaries of an inspector and his notary were the same as those of an inquisitor and notary—a hundred thousand maravedís for the one and forty thousand for the other. These were appointed by the inquisitor-general and carried royal letters ordering inquisitors to receive and treat them well and all officials to aid them, give them free passage and levy no tolls, dues, ferriages or fees of any kind.[621]The Instructions of 1498 create permanent inspectors-general, of whom there were to be one or two, to visit all tribunals and report their condition; they were not to lodge or eat with the inquisitors or to receive presents from them and were to exercise only the powers expressedin their commissions.[622]Under this Francisco de Simancas, Archdeacon of Córdova, was appointed inspector, with González Mesons as his notary; how long he served does not appear, but orders for the payment of his salary can be traced until 1503.[623]
When the Inquisitions of Castile and Aragon were separated, in 1507, each continued to employ inspectors. Alonso Rodríguez, of whom we hear in 1509, probably belonged to Castile; in 1514 Ximenes appointed Juan Moris as inspector, after which special inspectors ceased for a time to be employed for, in 1517, the Inquisitor of Córdova was sent to inspect Toledo, Seville and Jaen and the Inquisitor of Jaen to inspect Córdova, Cuenca and Valladolid.[624]In Aragon, Mercader in 1513 sent Juan de Ariola to inspect Majorca, Sardinia and Sicily and, about the same time, Hernando de Montemayor to inspect the tribunals of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia.[625]After the reunion of the Inquisition, Cardinal Adrian introduced an innovation by appointing laymen to the office—the Licentiates Sisa and Peña—the former a judge in the high court of Valladolid. Their functions were enlarged, for Charles V describes them as persons of high authority, not connected with the Inquisition, sent to investigate all the tribunals and to reform whatever required amendment, for which he clothed them with ample powers.[626]
INSPECTORS
These regular routine inspections came to an end and, though the wholesome supervision was not abandoned, it became irregular, either employed occasionally or when complaints seemed to indicate its necessity. Barcelona was a troublesome tribunal, but it seems to have been visited only at intervals of from six to ten years. The inspections were not inexpensive and the cost had to be defrayed by the Suprema. When, in 1567, de Soto Salazar, a member of the Suprema, was sent to investigate Valencia, Barcelona and Saragossa, he was given at the outset four hundred ducats and his secretary, Pablo Garcia, two hundred.[627]The rule became established to employ only inquisitors and those in active service, not retired.[628]The work, when conscientiouslyperformed, was not light. An inspection of the Canary tribunal, made by Claudio de la Cueva, lasted from 1595 to 1597 and his report forms a mass of 1124 folios.[629]This was unusually laborious, but reports covering three, four or five hundred pages are not uncommon.
Thevisitadorwas expected to make a thorough investigation of the condition and working of the tribunal, to discover all neglect of regulations, all abuses and malfeasance of the officials, all derelictions of duty, all maladministration of the property and revenues, all misuse of power, whether through oppression of the defenceless or remissness in vindicating the faith. He was to examine the records, not only to see that they were properly kept and indexed but also whether justice had been duly administered and theestiloof the Holy Office had been rigidly followed. He visited the prisons, listened to the complaints of the prisoners and investigated them. On arrival, he fixed a day on which he would appear in the audience-chamber; the inquisitors and all officials were assembled, his credentials were read and the inquisitors promised obedience in the name of all present. The next day the inquisitors were examined under oath, as to whether there was anything requiring amendment and whether the officials performed their full duty, the answers being taken down in writing. The inspector brought with him an elaborate series of interrogatories, usually forty-eight or fifty in number, covering all the points which experience had shown as likely to tempt to wrongdoing and on these he examined all the officials singly. He also listened to all who had complaints to make; if these appeared to be justified he investigated them thoroughly, summoning all witnesses, who were guaranteed that their names would be kept secret, and on this evidence he framed charges against those inculpated and heard them in defence. When his duties in the tribunal were accomplished he was expected to visit the district and investigate all complaints. The results were reduced to writing and, when his labors were completed, he sent or carried the whole to the Suprema for its action.[630]As a rule, he had no executive authority and could only make recommendations, but visitadores to the colonies were frequently invested withgreater power, presumably in view of the long delays in communication. When, in 1654, Medina Rico came as inspector to Mexico, where maladministration was flagrant, he sat in judgement on the inquisitors, Estrada and Higuera, suspended them and occupied the tribunal for years.[631]It can readily be conceived that at times there was no little friction between inspector and inquisitors, and, in 1645, the Suprema presented to the king a consulta on the controversies thence arising.[632]
The necessity for these visitations diminished in proportion as the tribunals were subordinated to the Suprema. When they had to make monthly reports of all pending cases, so that their action was under constant supervision; when all sentences were submitted for confirmation or revision, with the papers showing the conduct of the cases; when no arrest could be made without presenting the sumaria and receiving authority; when, moreover, the business management of property was scrutinized through monthly reports of thejunta de hacienda, there was no longer a justification for the expenses of visitations. The growing facilities of intercommunication encouraged centralization and enabled the Suprema to maintain a constant supervision. When, therefore, it concentrated in itself all the judicial faculties of the Inquisition, rendering the tribunals merely instruments for investigation, the functions of the visitador became superfluous, at least in the Peninsula.
THE SECRETO
The palace or building, which was the seat of the tribunal, was divided into thesecretoand the outside rooms or apartments. It was expected to furnish lodgings for the inquisitors and, if spacious enough, for the other officials. The most important feature was thecarceles secretasor secret prison for those on trial, for it was necessary that they could be brought at any moment to the audience-chamber without being seen by any one. There was, of course, a torture-chamber, which seems to have generally been underground. Thesecretooriginally was merely a record-room in which the papers and documents were preserved. From the first these were guarded with jealous secrecy, not only on account of their importance in the trials but because their abstraction or destruction was so ardently desiredby the kindred or accomplices of convicts. As early as 1485, Ferdinand, in his instructions to the tribunal of Saragossa, orders that no servant of any of the officials shall enter “lo secreto de la Inquisicion.”[633]The Instructions of 1498 provide that the chest or chamber in which the papers are kept shall have three keys, two held by thenotarios del secretoand one by the fiscal, so that no one can take out a document save in the presence of the others, and no one shall enter it except the inquisitors, the notaries and the fiscal, rules substantially repeated in the Sicilian instructions of 1516. Among the derelictions of the Barcelona tribunal, reported in 1561 by Cervantes, was the neglect of this rule, leading, he said, to grave abuses.[634]The functions and extent of the secreto were gradually enlarged. In Mercader’s Instructions of 1514, the money-chest with three keys was ordered to be kept in the secreto, a provision which became permanent.[635]When the rule was established of conducting the trials in profound secrecy, and a veil of impenetrable mystery was thrown around all the operations of the Inquisition, the audience-chamber was included in the secreto, as well as the offices occupied by the fiscal and secretaries. The door to it was secured by three locks having different keys and entrance was forbidden save to those officially privileged or summoned.[636]In 1645, it was discovered that there was danger in the notaries or secretaries bringing in their swords, for a prisoner when led to an audience might in his desperation seize one and give trouble, and they were consequently ordered in future to be left outside.[637]In the Valencia tribunal there was considerable excitement, in 1679, when the pages of the inquisitors got possession of the keys and had false ones made, with which they gained at will access to the sacred precincts, but no harm seems to have arisen from the boyish prank.[638]One feature of the audience-chamber was significant—acelosíaor lattice, behind which a witness could identify a prisoner, without being seen or recognized.[639]
THE INQUISITORS
In considering the personnel of the tribunal, we may dismiss the assessor with a few words. Such an official was unknown in the Old Inquisition, but we have seen that, when the first inquisitors were sent to Seville, they were accompanied by an assessor, and such a functionary continued for some time to be considered a necessary adjunct to a tribunal. At the beginning the inquisitors were Dominican friars, presumably good theologians but unversed in the intricacies of the law. It was therefore desirable to associate with them a lawyer as a guide, and his presence moreover might serve as an assurance to the people of the legality of the proceedings. In Torquemada’s instructions of 1485 it is provided that they must always act in concert and that anything done by one without the other was invalid; even communications to the Suprema must be signed by both.[640]In the trials of this period we sometimes find the assessor sitting with the inquisitors and sometimes not, and the sentences are rendered by the latter with the concurrence of the former.[641]In the secular law of the period, the assessor had only a consultative and not a decisive vote, and this would appear to be his position in the tribunal, when the routine of the Inquisition had established its own precedents, when all doubtful questions were decided by the Suprema and the services of trained lawyers were no longer required.[642]In the early time their salaries were the same as those of the inquisitors—indeed, at Saragossa, in 1486, Martin Martínez, the assessor, receives five thousand sueldos while the inquisitors are rated at four thousand.[643]It was not long, however, before it apparently became indifferent whether there was an assessor or not. In 1499, the salary lists of Seville, of Burgos and of Palencia have no mention of such an official, while there is one at Saragossa and, in 1500, Ferdinand empowers the inquisitor of Sardinia to select for his assessor any doctor he pleases.[644]The office continued to exist for a time, as a kind of supernumerary, employed in hearing the civil cases of officials but, in the Aragonese Concordia of 1568, this duty was placed on the inquisitorsand the assessorship was abolished. In Castile, the list of officials, promulgated in the same year by Philip II, as entitled to exemption from taxation, makes no mention of the assessor, who may be assumed by this time to disappear.[645]
The inquisitors, of course, were the superior officials of the tribunal. They were the judges, with practically unlimited power over the lives and fortunes and honor of all whom they summoned before them, until they were gradually restricted by the growing centralization in the Suprema. To the people they were the incarnation of the dreaded Holy Office, regarded with more fear and veneration than bishop or noble, for all the powers of State and Church were placed at their disposal. They could arrest and imprison at will; with their excommunication they could, at a word, paralyze the arm of all secular officials and, with their interdict, plunge whole communities into despair. Such a concentration of secular and spiritual authority, guarded by so little limitation and responsibility, has never, under any other system, been entrusted to fallible human nature. To exercise it wisely and temperately called for exceptional elevation of character, self-control and mature experience of men and things. That friars, suddenly called from the cloister or the schools and clothed with such limitless power over their fellow-beings, should sometimes grow intoxicated with their position and commit the awful slaughter which marked the early years of the Inquisition, gives no occasion for surprise, nor that their successors should have trampled with such arrogant audacity on all who ventured to raise a voice against their misuse of their prerogatives. It is therefore worth our while to examine what qualifications were required by popes and kings in those whom they selected as fitted for an office of such bewildering temptations and such vast opportunities for evil.
QUALIFICATIONS
Sixtus IV, in the bull of November 1, 1478, empowered Ferdinand and Isabella to appoint, as inquisitors, three bishops or other worthy men, priests either regular or secular, over forty years of age, God-fearing, of good character and record, masters or bachelors of theology or licentiates of canon law. The prescription as to the minimum age was as old as the Council of Vienne, in 1312, and had become a matter of course; the restwas as well-chosen a definition of the requisite qualities as perhaps could be expressed in general terms, considering the temper of the age and the work to be performed.[646]So, in 1483, when Sixtus, under the influence of Cardinal Borgia, desired to get rid of Inquisitor Gualbes, he asked Ferdinand to replace him with some master of theology who had the fear of God and was eminent for his virtues.[647]The only inquisitors that Spain had known were Dominicans and, although they were not specified, it seemed to be a matter of course that the Inquisition should remain in their hands, but Ferdinand, in his struggle with Sixtus for the control of the Aragonese Inquisition, had encountered the obstacle of the obedience due by the friars to their General, who of course was a creature of the curia. He was resolved to organize the Inquisition to suit himself, which explains why Torquemada, in his Instructions of December 6, 1484, simplified the formula of qualifications toletrados(either lawyers or men of university training) of good repute and conscience, the fittest that could be had.[648]This did not even require the inquisitor to be an ecclesiastic, except in so far as there were comparatively few letrados of the time who were not in orders. When Innocent VIII renewed the commission of Torquemada, February 3, 1485, it empowered him to appoint as inquisitors fitting ecclesiastics, learned and God-fearing, provided they were masters of theology or doctors or licentiates of laws, or cathedral canons or holding other church dignities, but, while this was repeated in a subsequent bull of March 24, 1486, it was simplified, in another clause, into ecclesiastics of proper character and learning, not less than thirty years of age.[649]This reduction in the age limit was retained by Alexander VI, in the commissions issued to Deza, November 24, 1498 and September 1, 1499, when the requisite of being an ecclesiastic was omitted, for the qualification was reduced simply to suitable men of good and tender conscience, even if they have not reached forty years of age but are more than thirty.[650]This became virtually the accepted formula, as shown in the commissions issued, June 4 and 5, 1507 by Julius II, to Enguera for Aragon and toXimenes for Castile, and in those of Leo X to Mercader and Poul in 1513 and to Cardinal Adrian in 1516 and 1518.[651]
The office of inquisitor was thus thrown open to the laity and there was no hesitation in employing them so long as they remained single but, if they married, they were obliged to resign—possibly because it was thought impossible for a married man to preserve the absolute secrecy regarded as essential in the Holy Office. The Licentiate Aguirre, Ferdinand’s favorite member of the Suprema, was a layman. On June 28, 1515, Ferdinand writes to Ximenes that the Licentiate Nebreda, Inquisitor of Seville, desires to marry and, as he is a good servant, another office has been found for him, while the treasurer of the church of Pampeluna will make a suitable appointee for Seville.[652]Two other similar cases occur about the same time.[653]It was an anomaly to allow laymen to sit in judgement on matters of faith, but no action was taken to prevent it until Philip II, in his instructions of 1595 to Manrique de Lara, ordered that inquisitors and fiscals at least must be in holy orders—a clause omitted by Philip III in his instructions of 1608.[654]At length the Suprema met the question, November 10, 1632, by requiring all inquisitors to have themselves ordained and prohibiting them otherwise from exercising their functions, a provision which apparently met with slack obedience, for it had to be repeated January 12 and June 5, 1637, with the addition that inquisitors and fiscals who were not in orders should receive no salaries.[655]Even this does not seem to have been effective for, in 1643, a consulta called attention to the matter as a great evil and indecency, and suggested that a papal brief should be obtained, rendering priests’ orders an essential qualification for inquisitors and fiscals.[656]This was not done, but we may presume that in time the functions were confined to ecclesiastics.
Legal training was prescribed as a requisite in 1608, by Philip III, who ordered that no one should be appointed inquisitor or fiscal who could not exhibit to the Suprema his diploma of graduation in law. Carlos II repeated this, in 1695, adding that inquisitorsand secretaries must not be natives of the provinces to which they were assigned, so as to avert partisanship, and that the strictest investigation into character and limpieza must precede appointment.[657]
The papal requirements expressed in the successive commissions issued to inquisitors-general continued for a while to be simply that they should appoint prudent and suitable men of good repute and sound conscience who had attained the age of thirty years. Apparently this violation of the Clementine rule of forty years led to some animadversion and, in the commission of Valdés, in 1547, there is no allusion to age. This example was followed until, in 1596, Clement VIII, in the commission to Portocarrero, inserted a minimum age limit of forty years, as required by the canons, adding that if enough suitable men of that age could not be found, as to which he charged Portocarrero’s conscience, then men of thirty-five could be appointed, but if this were done without necessity, the appointment would be invalid. To this Portocarrero objected, saying that it rendered it impossible for him to make appointments without scruples of conscience, as it was difficult to find suitable persons of the designated age to take the office, and he therefore begged that the limit should be reduced to thirty years, as had been done by all popes since Innocent VIII. Clement yielded, but was careful to insert a derogation of the apostolic constitutions and especially of the ClementineNolentes.[658]