COMPOSITIONS
It illustrates the independence of the kingdoms of the crown of Aragon that, when the tax-collectors of Valencia levied taxesand imposts on confiscated property and its sale, Charles V was obliged to appeal to the Holy See for its prevention. Clement VII obligingly granted a bull, July 7, 1525, forbidding this under pain of excommunication and a fine of a thousand ducats to the papal camera; the inquisitor-general was named as conservator and judge to enforce it by censures and interdict and invocation of the secular arm, which doubtless put an end to the practice.[1040]
As the operations of the Inquisition developed, an additional source of gain was found in speculating upon the terror pervading the New Christian communities. Whether the idea originated in their mercantile instincts, or in the desire of the sovereigns for prompt realization, cannot be determined, but it was in essence a kind of rude and imperfect insurance against certain contingencies of confiscation, for which those in danger were willing to pay a heavy premium. As early as September 6, 1482, in a letter of Ferdinand to Luis Cabanilles, Governor of Valencia, there occurs an allusion to an arrangement of this kind, made with the Conversos of that city, under which apparently they had agreed to pay a certain sum in lieu of the confiscations and had appointed assessors to apportion the share of each individual. Some of those thus assessed refused to pay, and Ferdinand ordered them to be coerced by imprisonment.[1041]What were the exact terms of this we have no means of knowing but, on June 6, 1488, he made another bargain with the Valencia Conversos, who were reconciled under an Edict of Grace, by which they paid him for exemption from confiscation—apparently rather a fresh impost, for this reconciliation substituted fines for confiscation. Then, April 6, 1491, he confirmed this and, for a further payment of five thousand ducats, he added exemption for heretical acts subsequently committed, if they did not amount to relapse, and for imperfect confessions made under the Edict of Grace—for, as we shall see hereafter, such confessions were frequently a source of danger arising from trifling omissions, construed by the inquisitors as rendering them fictitious and entailing relaxation. It is an indelible disgrace to Ferdinand that, in these compositions, he did not keep faith with those whose money he took. In 1499, the Suprema took exception to this arrangement, probably in consequence of complaints that it was violated by the seizure andsale of properties comprehended under it. Then Ferdinand declared that it had not been his intention to relieve from confiscation those whose confessions had been imperfect, whereupon the Suprema ordered the inquisitors and receiver to prosecute and confiscate the property of all such penitents in spite of the agreement. Even the hardened receiver Aliaga seems to have hesitated to obey these orders, for Ferdinand was obliged to write to him, September 27th, that they were to be executed notwithstanding the privilege and its confirmation.[1042]
The hardships inflicted on the innocent by this breach of faith are illustrated in a petition presented, in 1519, to Charles V by Juan and Beatriz Guimera, children of Bernat and Violante Guimera who, after the composition of 1488, had been condemned for imperfect confession and their property confiscated. Juan and Beatriz, with other children in the same position, appealed to Ferdinand who, under the provision of April 6, 1491, ordered the receiver to restore all such property. They received and enjoyed possession for twelve years, after which, under the orders of 1499 the inquisitors took it from them. From this they appealed, but were too poor to follow it up, and the Suprema declared the appeal abandoned. Now they prayed Charles for the restoration of their property and showed that, after the execution of their parents, they had paid all the instalments remaining of the composition. In view of this, Charles, as a special grace and in the exercise of the royal clemency, ordered—not that the property of which they had been robbed should be restored—but that the receiver should repay them what the inquisitors might find that they had paid of the composition after the death of their parents, without deducting therefrom the claim of the fisc for the income of the property during their twelve years’ possession.[1043]
COMPOSITIONS
Even worse, if possible, was Ferdinand’s course in a composition made, September 10, 1495, with the heirs and successors of all who in Aragon had died up to that time and whose memories had been or might in future be condemned. For the sum of five thousand ducats he abandoned, to those who contributed, all the confiscations of their inheritances and also the inheritances of those who refused to contribute, to be distributed amongthem in proportion to their contributions. Inferentially this was confirmed when, in 1499, in view of trouble with the receiver, at the prayer of the contributors, he appointed Vicent de Bordalva administrator of the property, to claim and hold it and distribute it to the owners. After seven years had passed, in 1502, he was seized with qualms of conscience at thus violating the canon law which incapacitated the children of heretics as inheritors. It is true that he might have assumed the property and then made a free gift of it, as was frequently done in special cases, but his scruples were too delicate for such a subterfuge. By letters of December 13, 1502, to the inquisitors and assessor, he ordered the seizure and confiscation of all the property thus devolved and the return to the contributors, in all cases where they were sufferers, of the moneys which they had paid—thus retaining the contributions of those who had not profited by the composition. This breach of faith made an immense sensation in Saragossa and even his son, the archbishop, ventured to remonstrate, when he replied sanctimoniously that he was acting by the advice of learned and God-fearing men, who had demonstrated to him that he could not, with a clear conscience and without peril to his soul, grant a privilege contrary to the canon law; the sufferers must have patience, for it was in accordance with the canons of holy Mother Church which were obligatory on him.[1044]
The inquisitors and receiver were not over-nice in utilizing their opportunity and complaints speedily came pouring in that, besides the inheritances, they seized all the property belonging to the heirs, including their acquisitions and the dowries of their wives, and that moreover they did not repay the contributions. Thus, before the month of December, 1502, was out, the brothers Buendia appealed to him; they had paid fifteen thousand sueldos to the composition and now the receiver had seized what they had inherited from their father; much of this they had sold; they had acquired other properties by their labor, they had inherited from their mother, who was an Old Christian, and had received dowries with their wives, all of which was included in the seizure. Ferdinand merely reported this to the inquisitor, with a vague order to do justice so as not to afford grounds for complaint. It is easy to conceive the confusion of titles, the multiplicity of suits and the amount of misery resulting from this arbitraryabrogation of a contract. Resistance was prolonged, but it was unavailing, for Ferdinand held good and repeated his peremptory orders, January 4 and March 8, 1503, July 8 and November 7, 1504 and October 7, 1508.[1045]It would appear, moreover, that many of the contributors who suffered never obtained a return of their money, for this formed the subject of one of the articles of the Aragonese Concordia of 1512, confirmed in the 1516 bull of Leo X, providing that whoever had joined in a composition for the property of the dead and had paid his money, if the deceased was subsequently convicted and the fisc seized his inheritance, he should recover from the estate what he had paid, provided the payment had not been made out of the effects of the deceased.[1046]It was thus admitted that the contracts were no bar to the Inquisition.
There were various forms of these compositions, insuring against the different risks and disabilities to which the property of the Conversos was exposed, but they all had this in common that the contributor threw his money into a pool from which his chance of deriving advantage was in the highest degree problematical. It is therefore a striking evidence of the desperation to which the New Christians were reduced that they were eager to grasp at these forlorn chances and to pour their money into the ever-gaping royal treasury, while Ferdinand, in spite of his conscientious scruples, was always ready to speculate on their despair. It is impossible now to say how many compositions were made, from first to last, but they probably covered nearly the whole of Spain, at one time or another. We have seen that there was one in Córdova, prior to 1500, which was highly profitable to the inquisitor who managed it and another of uncertain date in Andalusia (Vol. I, pp. 190, 220); there was one in Orihuela in 1492 and a second in Valencia in 1498 and, in 1515, there were others in the Biscayan provinces and in Cuenca. Occasionally, moreover, inquisitors were authorized to enter into such bargains with individuals, as in Majorca in 1498 and in Catalonia in 1512.[1047]
COMPOSITIONS
A specimen of these individual compositions is revealed to us in an investigation made in 1487, by Doctor Alfonso Ramírez, juez de los bienes of Toledo, into the accounts of Juan de Urría,the late receiver, who was reported to have defrauded the fisc of more than a million and a half maravedís. Pedro de Toledo had fled to Portugal, to escape trial, and his wife, Isabel Díaz, arranged with Urría for a royal letter of security and pardon for him, his property and his paternal inheritance, for which the price agreed upon was half a million maravedís, in addition to which Urría was promised a hundred florins for his services. Pedro returned and paid for the letter, when Isabel gave Urría thirteen gold cruzados and fourteen pieces of cloth, which he sold and claimed that he was five hundred maravedís short.[1048]This was productive but still more so was one, in 1514, by which Francisco Sánchez of Talavera ransomed the estate of his deceased father for a million maravedís.[1049]
These transactions justify the conclusion that persecution was largely a matter of finance as well as of faith. Such conviction is strengthened by the history of the greatest of the general compositions, a most prolonged and involved transaction, of which space will permit only the barest outline. It commenced with a composition, signed December 7, 1508, with Seville and Cádiz, by which, in consideration of twenty thousand ducats, there was made over to the penanced and condemned, or to their heirs, all confiscated property in suit, or that had not been discovered and seized, from the commencement of the Inquisition up to November 30th, except what was included in the auto de fe of October 29th. The property of those who did not join in the agreement and pay their assessments was liable to seizure and all amounts thus realized were to be deducted from the payment. There was also granted the valued privilege of going to and trading with the Indies, forbidden to allreconciliados. This was extended, October 10, 1509, in the name of Queen Juana, covering the archbishopric of Seville, the bishopric of Cádiz and the towns of Lepe, Ayamonte and la Redondilla, and providing for the payment of forty thousand ducats, for which the queen made to the contributors a donation of all real and personal property forfeit to her from persons reconciled and guilty of imperfect confessions or other offences prior to reconciliation; also all the property of those who had died reconciled or to be reconciled and forfeitable by reason of prior offences, together with all property confiscated on those who refused to contribute. All alienationsmade by contributors were confirmed to the purchasers and contributors were relieved from all penalties incurred for disregarding the disabilities inflicted on those reconciled and their descendants. On the other hand, it was expressly stated that the grant did not exempt the property of those who relapsed or committed offences subsequent to reconciliation, nor did it relieve them from prosecution in person or fame. After this, for some cause, the total payment was increased to eighty thousand ducats, of which sixty thousand were for the composition and twenty thousand for rehabilitation or removal of disabilities.
The first obstacle lay in the assembling of the enormous mass of papers relating to the old confiscations. The tribunal of Leon, which held some of them, refused to deliver them, and the same occurred with papers concerning Ecija, requiring repeated peremptory orders from Ferdinand to procure their deposit in the Castle of Triana for inspection. At last the unwieldy business was got under way. Assessors were appointed to make the assessments on contributors, but troubles arose and the whole affair was put in the hands of Pedro de Villacis, the experienced receiver of Seville, who had been instrumental in getting up the agreement of 1508. The work went on and large collections were made, although delays in payment incurred penalties which, by 1515, amounted to seven hundred and fifty thousand maravedís, to be paid to the tribunal of Seville—but it never got the money.[1050]
COMPOSITIONS
Encouraged by this initial success the scheme was extended over the kingdom of Granada, the bishoprics of Córdova, Jaen, Badajoz, Coria, and Plasencia and the province of Leon, the sum agreed upon for them being fifty-five thousand ducats. Complaints however arose about injustice in the assessments; payments were not forthcoming in time; difficulties apparently insuperable accumulated and Ferdinand, after consultation with Ximenes and the Suprema, revoked the composition. Then it was revived and Ferdinand, January 18, 1515, placed it in the hands of Villacis, whose instructions justify the assumption that, under the guise of an act of mercy, the whole scheme was merely the pretext for fresh exactions on the defenceless. He was ordered to proclaim the composition in all places within the districts concerned; to order all persons obligated to pay their contributions; those proposing to join were to appear before him by their procuratorsat a specified time and arrange the assessments to be paid by each place or person, such assessments being binding on the absent. As for those who refused to join, Villacis was empowered to levy on their property as being jointly liable and to sell it at auction, giving to the purchasers good and sufficient title, guaranteed by the crown, while all secular officials were required to give him whatever aid he required. Inquisitors were to do the same and were to commission as alguazils such persons as he might name. Letters were sent to the corregidors of the towns, telling them that some contributors refused to pay, and they were empowered to decide all such questions summarily and finally.[1051]
That the matter was really an unauthorized impost, enforced by the authority of the Inquisition, would appear not only from this admittance of secular jurisdiction but also from what we know as to the methods pursued in the original composition of Seville. Each town was assessed at a certain sum which it divided at discretion among the contributors. When Alcázar was assessed at a thousand ducats it remonstrated to Ferdinand, who kindly ordered execution suspended. Other places were not so fortunate and the pitiless exaction of the assessment provoked resistance. Thus in March, 1514, when, by order of the tribunal and as representative of Villacis, Fernando Royz went to San Lucar de Barrameda, he seized some slaves and other property and placed them in the prison for safe-keeping. The Duchess of Medina Sidonia ordered the alcalde to return them to their masters and would allow no further levies to be made. Ferdinand forthwith rebuked her, ordering her to assist the officials and never again to interfere in matters concerning the Inquisition. He also wrote to the inquisitors to inflict due punishment on the person and property of the alcalde and all connected with the affair; the levies and executions must proceed and the money be collected, for the last instalment of the composition was to be paid by the end of May.[1052]
This indicates that the Seville composition had been fairly productive, but the other had continued to drag. With the death of Ferdinand, in January, 1516, pressure was removed and resistance became general. A cédula issued in the name of Queen Juana, February 24th, states that those who were assessed wererefusing to pay and were supported by nobles and magnates, wherefore the inquisitors of Seville, Córdova, Jaen and Leon were instructed to enforce the payments by levy and execution and to prosecute with all rigor those who impeded the collection, irrespective of their rank and dignity. This was ineffective. In Córdova, the Count of Cabra and the Marquis of Priego forced the agents of Villacis to abandon work among their vassals, and the latter compelled them to deposit sixty thousand maravedís which they had collected. It was in vain that the Governors of Castile ordered them to desist and when, in September, the Count of Cabra justified his persistence by stating that his people had paid their composition to Rodrigo of Madrid—who had organized the scheme—and he would not allow them to be coerced into duplicate payments, he and the marquis were told that Rodrigo had no authority and that his receipts were worthless, which suggests the impositions practised on the victims. In the lands of the Duke of Medina Sidonia the same opposition was offered and the high court of Granada took advantage of the opportunity by issuing mandates restraining the collection, nor is it likely that it respected a royal cédula of July 4th commanding it to abstain from interference.[1053]
COMPOSITIONS
This resistance was fully justified. Even before Ferdinand’s death, the proceedings of Villacis and his underlings had aroused general indignation. At the Córtes of Burgos, in 1515, the procurators of Seville had called the attention of the nation to their extortions in a petition which set forth their misdeeds, doubtless with exaggeration, but which, coming from those not personally interested, must have had substantial foundation in fact. Villacis was accused of arbitrary assessments and of making up deficiencies by assessing again those who had already paid, of cruelty, extortion and fraud, of selling at auction property taken in execution, at unusual places and times, so that he and his friends could buy it in, of using the machinery of the composition to collect his private debts, of defrauding the fisc by false returns, of charging to the contributors the exorbitant fees and expenses of his collectors, although the agreement provided that the fisc should bear them, of rendering to the contributors only a partial account of his collections and refusing to complete it, and in this charging himself with only forty ducats as collected in the Canaries, whenthere was evidence that the amount was more than a thousand. In short, he was accused of abusing his arbitrary powers in almost every conceivable way to oppress the people and enrich himself, and numerous specific cases were cited in support of the allegations. The magistrates of Seville had endeavored to restrain him but he scorned their jurisdiction and therefore, in the name of the whole community, the king was supplicated to send to Seville some one empowered to investigate and punish and make restitution to those wrongfully despoiled.
It was impossible to ignore such an appeal made in the face of the nation, and the Licenciado Giron, one of the judges of the high court of Granada, was despatched to Seville, but only with power to investigate and report to the Suprema within sixty days. The time proved too short and, after exceeding it, he begged to be relieved on making a partial report. In December, 1516, the Licenciado Mateo Vázquez, a resident of Seville, was commissioned, with the same powers, to complete the investigation and also to enquire into many complaints coming from various places that, prior to the appointment of Villacis, Pedro del Alcázar and Francisco de Santa Cruz and their employees had made large collections, of which they had rendered no account; that they had retained more than a million of maravedís, while those who had paid them were subjected to levy and execution to enforce duplicate payments. Altogether the whole business would seem to have been a Saturnalia of spoliation and embezzlement. Vázquez undertook the task and, on September 17, 1517, he was ordered to furnish to Villacis a copy of the evidence to enable him to put in a defence, after which all the papers were to be submitted to the Suprema for its action.
If anything resulted from this it has left no trace in the documents. The influence of Villacis carried him through, for he was continued in office and went on with the work. August 13, 1518, Charles V ordered an audit of his accounts and payment of balances due, which he skilfully parried. A new assessment was ordered to make good any part of the eighty thousand ducats that might still be uncollected and this was given to him to enforce. The old methods were still pursued for, in March, 1519, Charles was obliged to write vigorously to the Count of Cabra, the Marquis of Priego and the alcalde mayor of the Marquis of Comares, who had again interfered with his collectors and stopped all proceedings in their lands.
DILAPIDATION
Charles’s Flemish favorites were growing impatient to share in the elusive spoils. He had granted to his chamberlain, M. de Beaurains, the rest of the composition, but it was not forthcoming, nor were the accounts of Villacis. In January, 1519, he wrote to Torquemada, one of the Seville inquisitors, to enforce on Villacis, with the utmost rigor of the law, the payment to Beaurains of any amounts collected and not paid over, while, if there was a balance uncollected, Villacis was to assess it afresh and account for it to Beaurains. This produced nothing and, on March 24th Charles emphatically repeated the order, granting full power to enforce it with penalties at discretion. Villacis, however, had experience in eluding such demands and Ferdinand had not left much to glean. In 1515 he had divided up the Córdova composition, giving twenty thousand to the Inquisition and reserving thirty thousand for himself. Of this he had received twenty thousand and the remaining ten he granted to the Marquis of Denia, but when the latter presented this order to Villacis, he was told that eight thousand was covered by previous grants and he could only have two thousand. Denia complained to Ferdinand, by that time mortally sick, who, on December 4th, assented to the transfer to him of the previous grants, but Ximenes, in transmitting this order to Villacis, made a condition that the twenty thousand for the Inquisition must first be paid and he subsequently suspended Denia’s grant altogether. The marquis complained of this to Charles, who from Ghent, May 22, 1517, ordered Ximenes to lift the suspension, but again Ximenes insisted with Villacis that the Inquisition must first be paid. The funds seemed to evaporate and vanish into thin air. It is probable that Denia got little or nothing and that Beaurains fared no better, for Charles’s prime favorite, Adrien de Croy, received as his share of the spoils only the seven hundred and fifty thousand maravedís, the penalties for delay, which had been assigned to the tribunal of Seville. The insatiable Calcena and Aguirre, however, secured a thousand ducats which, in 1515, Ferdinand granted them in recompense for their labors on the composition.[1054]Thus for ten years the New Christians of a large part of Spain had been harried and impoverished under delusive promises of exemption and, of the moneys thus extorted, but little reached either the crown or the Inquisition. The tribunal of Seville,indeed, can have received virtually nothing for, as we have seen, in 1556, its Archbishop Valdés asserted that, since the beginning of the century, it was so impoverished that it could support but a single inquisitor and pay only one-third of the ordinary salaries.[1055]
It would be impossible now to conjecture what was the amount of which the industrious and producing classes of Spain were thus despoiled, or what was the sum of misery thus inflicted, although we may estimate the retribution which followed in the disorganization of Spanish industries and the retardation of economic development. What reached the royal treasury and the money-chests of the Inquisition was but a portion of the values of which the owners were deprived. The assets taken melted in the hands of the spoilers. The expenses of the trials, which became inordinately prolonged, and the maintenance of the prisoners consumed a considerable part. Dilapidation and peculation, which even Ferdinand’s incessant vigilance could not prevent, were the source of constant loss. Even without these, the necessity for immediate realization, to supply the peremptory demands of the treasury and the tribunals, threw an enormous amount of property and goods of all kinds on the market, in forced sales which were inevitably sacrifices. It was the established rule, perpetually enunciated, that every thing, except money and securities, was to be sold at auction, the real estate on the thirtieth day after condemnation, in presence of the receiver and notary of sequestrations.[1056]Notwithstanding all precautions, collusion and fraud were perpetual. It was doubtless as an effort to check them that Valdés, in 1547, ordered that real estate or censos, or government securities should not be sold without consulting the Suprema, together with an attested statement of past income and probable proceeds, and this was followed, in 1553, with an order that property in litigation was not to be sold.[1057]Precautions however were unavailing. The memorial of 1623 to the Suprema remarks that there are many opportunities for human wickedness in the sequestration,valuation and sale of sequestrated property; the valuations are habitually too low and the sales are made at the lowest prices. Whenever possible, property should be brought to the city of the tribunal, be properly valued and the receiver be forbidden to sell it for less. When sales have to be made at the place of arrest, they should be by public auction, in the presence of the commissioner and of a familiar, to see that just prices are obtained.[1058]The Suprema seems to have mooned over this until 1635, when it called for reports as to the manner in which the auctions were held and whether just prices were obtained; if the property was in some small place it must be brought to a larger town to prevent fraud.[1059]
During the period of active confiscation, moreover, when the moneyed classes were either ruined or anticipating ruin, it was sometimes impossible to effect sales and, in the pressure and confusion, property was allowed to go to waste. A letter of March 20, 1512, to the receiver of Huesca and Lérida, speaks of the uninhabited houses and lands which had not been sold, because fair prices could not be had, and which were perishing in consequence, and he was told to see whether he could not sell them on ground-rent, redeemable or irredeemable.[1060]It is impossible not to see in this the commencement of thedespobladoswhich were the despair of Spanish statesmen for more than two centuries. So, in 1531, the dwelling in Játiva of Juan Sanz, on whom it was confiscated, was allowed to fall into such disrepair that no one would take it subject to the incumbrances, and the rentals did not meet the ground-rents, so it was abandoned to the incumbrancers.[1061]
DILAPIDATION
The manner in which property melted away is seen in the settlement, made in 1519, of the estate of Mayor de Monzon, burnt for heresy. It was appraised at 110,197 maravedís, but against this were the expenses of the woman and her children while in prison, amounting to 41,100, and the widower, Diego de Adrade, finally agreed to take the estate for 17,000 maravedís, subject to whatever claims there might be against it.[1062]Everybody concerned grasped at what he could. In 1532, the Valencia tribunal sent Rafael Diego to Majorca to arrest and fetch Leonor Juan, wifeof Ramon Martin who was blind. She was reconciled with confiscation and Charles V made a grant to the husband of a hundred libras from the estate, but when the account was made up the expenses did not leave enough to pay him. One item against which he protested was twenty-five ducats to Diego for twenty days’ work, when his salary was only eighty ducats a year; the Suprema consequently suspended the item but, in 1545, Inquisitor-general Tavera ordered it to be paid.[1063]
It is perhaps superfluous to insist upon what was inevitable in an age when integrity was exceptional in public affairs, and in a business affording peculiar temptations to malversation, through the fluctuating uncertainty of receipts and the difficulty of effecting competent supervision. Ferdinand did his best to establish accountability, and his incessant activity exhibits itself in his minute criticisms on his auditor’s reports of the accounts of receivers, but even his vigilance could not prevent frauds and peculation, nor was it possible for him to penetrate the mysteries lurking behind statements of receipts and expenditures, when the receivers were apt to use the funds as their own. When Juan Denbin, the receiver of Saragossa, died and his accounts were balanced, after all possible allowances were made, he was found, in 1500, to owe 9367 sueldos, which Ferdinand vainly endeavored to collect from his heir, the Abbot of Veruela. Denbin’s deputy at Calatayud improved on his example and was found, in 1499, to be short 24,000 sueldos, of which he paid 8000 and promised the rest at the rate of 4000 a year; the installment of 1500 was obtained after some delay and, when we last hear of him, Ferdinand was endeavoring to secure that of 1501.[1064]
It is easy to understand the chronic reluctance of such officials to render statements, and Ferdinand’s correspondence shows how difficult it was to force them to do so. There is much suggestiveness in a letter of October 15, 1498, to the Maestre Racional or Auditor-general of Catalonia, telling him that, as Jayme de la Ram, the former receiver, and Pedro de Badia, the present one, refuse under various pretexts to hand over their books so that their accounts can be settled, he is to take legal steps to compel it; they can have until March 1, 1499, to obey and, if they still refuse, their salaries are to be stopped. When the books areobtained no time is to be lost in striking a balance, and especial care is to be taken that they do not give themselves fraudulent credits. Juan de Montaña, receiver of Huesca and Lérida was another whose accounts were chronically in arrear.[1065]This continued to the end of Ferdinand’s reign. In 1515 we find him writing to a receiver, who had flatly refused to obey an order of Ximenes to go to Valencia with his books and papers and render an account of his collections, for persistence in which the king threatened him with prosecution.[1066]After his death Ximenes labored energetically to evoke order out of disorder. He appointed a receiver-general, with power to collect by levy, execution and sale, all moneys due by the receivers, and all fines, penances, commutations and rehabilitations; moreover, to a new auditor-general Hernando de Villa, he addressed a cédula, February 21, 1517, reciting that the receivers had collected from the confiscations and other sources large sums of which for a long time they had rendered no account, wherefore he was instructed to visit every tribunal, to demand an accounting from the receiver, to examine all papers and vouchers and ascertain the balances due, while all notaries were instructed to furnish whatever documents he might call for, and he was empowered to enforce his orders with punishment at discretion.[1067]
PRODUCTIVENESS
Possibly this may have produced improvement, but if so it was but temporary. We have just seen how recalcitrant about his accounts was Pedro de Badia, the receiver of Barcelona; he did not improve and when he died, in 1513, he left his office in bad condition. He was replaced by Martin de Marrano, transferred from Majorca, who proved to be no better. In 1520 Cardinal Adrian, to punish him, reduced his salary to 2880 sueldos and then, April 16, 1521, wrote a long and indignant letter to the inquisitors, principally devoted to Marrano’s misdeeds, among which was refusal to settle his accounts and alleging claims for which he had no vouchers. Yet, to all appearances, with the inexplicable tenderness shown to official culprits, he was retained in office.[1068]The tribunal of Sicily, where the confiscations were large, was in even worse hands. Diego de Obregon, who served as receiver from 1500 to 1514, left its affairs in lamentable confusion.He was succeeded by Garcí Cid, who was sent to reduce it to order. How he accomplished this is seen in a report of Benito Mercader, sent as inspector, describing the financial management as characterized by every vice, while peculation was rife among all the officials. Garcí Cid returned to Spain in 1520 and it was not until 1542 that the Suprema ordered him to pay the 1420 ducats, which he was found to owe, as well as what he had collected of 9300 more which were charged against him.[1069]Things did not mend for, as we have seen, Zurita, who became Auditor-general for Aragon in 1548, describes his untangling of the Sicilian accounts, which had not been received for twenty years and were in the utmost disorder.[1070]
It is evident that the receipts of the royal treasury formed but a portion of the amount wrung from the victims. What those receipts were, we have no means of knowing but, in 1524, the Licenciado Tristan de Leon, in an elaborate memorial addressed to Charles V, asserted that Ferdinand and Isabella obtained from this source the enormous amount of 10,000,000 ducats, which greatly assisted them in their war with the Moors.[1071]Occasionally we have scattering indications of the productiveness of inquisitorial labors. Thus in the little temporary Geronimite Inquisition of Guadalupe, in 1485, the sovereigns appropriated the proceeds to the erection of a royal residence for their frequent devotional visits to the shrine. It was a magnificent palace, the cost of which, 2,732,333 maravedís, was almost wholly defrayed from this source.[1072]In 1486, the Valencia tribunal must have been productive, for Ferdinand wrote from Galicia to the receiver Joan Ram, to supply all that was needful for a fleet, as he had not the money in hand at the court.[1073]The impression produced on contemporaries is conveyed in Hernando de Pulgar’s grim remark, when, describing the violent expulsion from Toledo of the Count of Fuensalida, he adds that the populace, like rigid inquisitorsof the faith, found heresies in the properties of the count’s peasants, which they plundered and burnt.[1074]
The large sums which were raised in the various compositions, in return for the very slender exemptions offered, are an index of the magnitude of the confiscations and so is a proposition, made to Ferdinand and declined, of a loan of 600,000 ducats if he would transfer the adjudication of such matters to the secular courts.[1075]Although receipts were perhaps diminished, with the weeding out of the Judaizing New Christians, we have seen (Vol. I, p. 220) the offer made, in 1519, to Charles V, to provide an endowment which would meet all the salaries and expenses of the Inquisition and, in addition, to pay him 400,000 ducats in compensation for the abandonment of the confiscations. Soon after this another offer was made of 700,000 ducats, which seems to have been held under consideration for a year or two.[1076]
PRODUCTIVENESS
During the remainder of the sixteenth century, the constant drafts by the Suprema on the several tribunals shows that they were, as a rule, supporting themselves, with a surplus for the central organization, although occasionally a tribunal in bad luck had to be helped by some more fortunate brother. The grant, in 1559, of a prebend in each cathedral and collegiate church, supplied the growing deficiency of confiscations, but the latter received a notable augmentation after the annexation of Portugal, in 1580. This was followed by a large influx of New Christians from the poorer to the richer kingdom, where their business ability speedily led to the acquisition of wealth, while their attachment to the ancient faith gave to the Inquisition a new and lucrative field of operations. We shall see hereafter the curious transaction by which, in 1604, they purchased a brief immunity, and this led soon afterwards to an offer, by the New Christians of Seville and the western provinces, of 1,600,000 ducats for a forty years’ suspension of confiscation, coupled with the release of descendants from disabilities and infamy, the ratingof testimony at its true worth, and papal intervention with the king in the rendering of sentences. The offer was seriously considered, but an investigation of the treasury accounts showed that, in its financial aspect, it would be a losing bargain for the crown, which would have to support the Inquisition, and it was rejected.[1077]
The persecutions in Peru and Mexico furnished evidence against wealthy merchants at home which was profitably utilized. In 1635, the Pereiras, who were large contractors in Madrid, were implicated and also “the Pasariños and all the rich merchants of Seville.” Then too, Francisco Illan of Madrid, rated at 300,000 ducats, was accused and we hear of the arrest of Juan Rodríguez Musa, described as a wealthy merchant of Seville.[1078]It is true that when, in 1633, Juan Nuñez Sarabia was arrested, and his books showed a fortune of 600,000 ducats, hope was dashed by Gabriel Ortiz de Sotomayor, a member of the Suprema, who claimed the major part of it as a deposit by him as curador of Doña María Ortiz and as executor of Don Bernabé de Vivanco.[1079]Still, a class of culprits such as these, composed of rich bankers and merchants, gave ample opportunity of swelling the assets of the Holy Office. In 1654, in an auto de fe at Cuenca, there were fifty-five Judaizers, many of them evidently in easy circumstances, one of whom said, on the way to the brasero, that his chances of heaven were costing him 200,000 ducats.[1080]Yet these were uncertain resources and we have seen that the Suprema, in its budget for 1657, only reckoned on receiving from the tribunals 755,520 maravedís, or about 2000 ducats, but, on the other hand, in a consulta of May 11, 1676, it boasted that, within a few years, it had contributed to the royal treasury confiscations amounting to 772,748 ducats vellon and 884,979 pesos in silver.[1081]In addition to this the confiscations were not only defraying any deficiencies in its income, but it was gradually becoming richer, for, in the years 1661-1668, the surplus of the Suprema and tribunals invested in government securities amounted to 21,064 ducats.[1082]
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the persecution of the Judaizing New Christians became sharper and we have seen the large results obtained, in 1679, by the Majorca tribunal from its wholesale prosecution of the Conversos of Palma. This persecution lasted till near the middle of the eighteenth century, with a large number of victims and, as they belonged in great part to the commercial class, the receipts must have been substantial. In sixty-six autos de fe, celebrated between 1721 and 1727, there were 776 sentences of confiscation. Many of these were unproductive, for confiscation was included in the sentence, whether the culprit had property or not, and the formula “confiscacion de los bienes que no tiene”—of the property which he has not got—is one of frequent occurrence, but there were doubtless enough possessed of wealth to make a fair average.[1083]Then there were occasional windfalls from others than Judaizers, as in the case of Melchor Macanaz, in 1716. The financial management seems not to have improved since the days of Ferdinand. No account of the estate was rendered until December 31, 1723. This shows that his real estate brought in a revenue of 1269 libras, indicating a value of about 25,000 libras. There had been collected 9320ll. 7s. 10d. and expended 5838ll. 1s., leaving a balance of 3482ll. 6s. 10d. If the results were not greater it was not owing to any scruples. Melchor’s brother Luis had an interest of 770 doubloons on the books of the glass-factory of Tortosa. It was guessed that he had not sufficient capital to justify such an investment, so the Madrid tribunal, October 21, 1716, ordered Valencia to sequestrate it.[1084]Another piece of good fortune was the discovery, in 1727, of an organization of Moriscos, who had preserved their faith and whose confiscations were so profitable that the principal informer, Diego Díaz, received as reward a perpetual pension of 100 ducats a year.[1085]