LICENCES
The earliest formal grant of power to the Spanish Inquisition to issue licences would appear to have been made by Paul V early in the seventeenth century,[1388]but it had been exercised long before. The Index of Quiroga, issued in 1583, in its preliminary rules 3, 4, 5 and 8, assumes that inquisitors can grant written licences, but this power was held subject to the inquisitor-general and Suprema for, in the orders accompanying the distribution of the Index, consultation with them was prescribed as a necessary preliminary.[1389]From some examples of the period it would seem that only special and not general licences were granted, and that much circumspection was used with regard to them. Even PhilipIV had no general licence until, about 1640, he wrote to Inquisitor-general Sotomayor that he had been amusing his leisure with Guicciardini’s History, until he was told that it was prohibited. He therefore asked for a licence to read it and other prohibited books not treating of matters of faith, for he would not accept a licence to read them.[1390]A curious partial licence was one granted in 1614, to Padre Gullo Sabell (William Saville?) to read Catholic books in the English tongue—apparently the language sufficed to render them prohibited.[1391]
The tendency of the Spanish Inquisition to assert its independence of Rome in matters of censorship was especially manifested with regard to licences. When in 1622, Gregory XV and, in 1631, Urban VIII, revoked all licences, the Suprema declared that it was not the papal intention to interfere with the licences granted by the inquisitor-general, and that they remained in force.[1392]The next step was to invalidate all papal licences and accordingly, January 18, 1627, the Suprema presented a consulta to Philip IV, representing that many persons in Spain obtained them, and supplicating him to order his ambassador to urge the pope not to grant them, adding that meanwhile it was deemed necessary to issue an edict annulling them. Philip was not prepared to sanction so flagrant an assault on papal authority, and replied that he would ask the pope to transmit them through the inquisitor-general, but that, until the answer was received, no innovation must be attempted. Urban took advantage of the request to assert his supreme authority in a manner for which the Suprema had not bargained, for he annulled all licences, both papal and those issued by the inquisitor-general, the only exception being the one held by the inquisitor-general himself. As all the bishops in Spain were ordered to publish this brief, the Inquisition could not suppress it, however humiliating it was. Cardinal Zapata accordingly published it, February 21, 1628, requiring the surrender of all licences within twenty days, under heavy penalties, and when he issued his Index of 1632 he included in it the brief and his edict.[1393]
Urban pursued his victory by instructing Cardinal Mellini towrite, December 6, 1628, to Zapata defining his authority to be that of granting licences to learned persons who furnished security that they wished to combat heresy, but the licences were to be limited in time, and to require the recipients to show to the Inquisition what they wrote.[1394]This however was a failure, for no attention seems to have been paid to the prescribed limitations. The Inquisition continued its independent course and finally carried its point, to a certain degree, by instructing the tribunals that, if papal licences were presented to them, they were not to be admitted, but were to be forwarded to the inquisitor-general for his action.[1395]
PENALTIES
Towards the close of the eighteenth century, Llorente tells us that licences were difficult to obtain. When an application was made, the inquisitor-general instituted secret inquiries as to the character of the applicant and, if the result was favorable, he was required to state his object and the nature of the works that he desired to consult; if the licence was granted, it was limited to a specified number of books in a definite branch of literature; permission to keep them was rarely granted, and all licences excepted works directed against Catholicism, such as the writings of modern philosophers.[1396]Doubtless this strictness may be true of certain times, but the practice varied according to the temper of the inquisitor-general or Suprema. There sometimes was great laxity, if we may believe the reasons alleged, in 1747, by Prado y Cuesta, for revoking all licences, for he says that on investigation he had found that they were not sought by men of learning, but by the frivolous of both sexes to gratify idle curiosity; many persons merely made a verbal request to read a single book and extended the permission to cover all that they wanted, while others, seeing that ignorant people were licensed, thought that the privilege was general and availed themselves of it without asking.[1397]Licences, moreover, were by no means so restricted in character as Llorente asserts. Some issued by Inquisitors-general Bonifaz and Beltran cover all prohibited books, except Machiavelli, Sarpi’s Council of Trent, works assailing the Catholic religion and obscenities,[1398]and we have seen that religious houses generally and evenoccasionally individuals held licences enabling them to purchase from estates considerable miscellaneous lots of prohibited books, the possession of which, by deceased scholars, shows that they too must have enjoyed similar privileges.
From the very numerous applications for licences made about this time it appears that they were customarily addressed to the Suprema, which referred them to the appropriate tribunal for report as to the age, the learning and the judgement of the applicant. Under the Restoration this inquiry was extended to his moral and political conduct, showing that discrimination was made in favor of those whose conservative tendencies were approved.[1399]
We have seen the ferocious penalties of death and confiscation provided in the law of 1558 for unauthorized printing. With these the Inquisition had nothing to do, as its censorship was concerned only with books after publication, and its treatment of those who violated its rules was much more moderate. With its jurisdiction over them it allowed no interference, even from Rome, for, about 1565, it suppressed a papal jubilee indulgence, because it contained faculties of absolution for keeping prohibited books.[1400]In the Index of 1559, the penalties threatened for reading, possessing, buying or selling prohibited books were excommunicationlatæ sententæ ipso facto, two hundred ducats and a menace of prosecution for suspicion of heresy and disobedience.[1401]In the special edicts prohibiting individual books, there appears to be no established formula. Sometimes the penalty threatened is excommunication and two hundred ducats, sometimes excommunication and punishment at discretion, sometimes excommunication, fine and punishment at discretion.[1402]
This discretion manifested itself in a great variety of penalties, moderate and severe, both as regards readers and booksellers, though the latter appear commonly to be the more harshly visited. A rehabilitation granted, September 28, 1647, to Luis Sanaren, bookseller of Saragossa, infers that he had been reconciled anddeprived of his civil rights.[1403]Miguel Rodríguez, a bookseller of Madrid, for importing and selling prohibited books, was sentenced, August 1, 1763, to reprimand, absolutionad cautelam, certain spiritual penances, all costs of trial and banishment from Madrid for six years, of which the first three were to be spent in an African presidio. This of course meant his utter ruin.[1404]At Logroño, in 1645, Fray Tomas de Nieva, for teaching in his professorial chair from a prohibited book, was condemned to grave reprimand before his colleagues, to retract certain propositions, to four years’ reclusion, and to perpetual deprivation of teaching and of voting and being voted for.[1405]On the other hand, in 1803, Don Jacobo María de Parga y Puga, for the inveterate habit of reading prohibited books, knowing them to be prohibited, in contempt for many years of the authority of the Inquisition, was sentenced by the Madrid tribunal to fifteen days’ spiritual exercises and to a private reprimand in the apartments of the inquisitor.[1406]So, in 1816, the Suprema, acting on asumaria, and without subjecting the delinquents to a trial, sent to the Santiago tribunal a sentence on Juan Romero for reading prohibited books and on Josef Manuel García for selling and recommending them; they were to present themselves before the nearest commissioner, who was to reprimand and warn them that for a repetition of the offence they would not be treated with the same benignity.[1407]
THE SCRIPTURES
Cases of infraction, until a comparatively recent period, are not frequent. After the excitement of the Reformation was suppressed, intellectual activity in Spain seems to have been reduced to such torpor that the forbidden fruit was little sought. In the Toledo record from 1575 to 1610 there is not a single case, nor is there one in the same record from 1648 to 1794.[1408]In the disturbance of thought, preceding and during the revolutionary epoch, prosecutions become more frequent, although still not as numerous as might be expected from the importance claimed by the Inquisition for its services. From 1780 until 1820, in the whole of Spain,the total aggregate amounts only to three hundred and five. During this period, from 1808 to 1815, inclusive, the Inquisition was virtually dormant, having only five cases in all, which would leave, for the remaining years, an average slightly under nine. The crowding of a hundred and one cases into the six years, 1801 to 1806, reflects the urgency with which the government of Carlos IV was endeavoring to restrict the press, and that there were twenty in 1819 is significant of the agitation leading to the revolution of January, 1820.[1409]The slenderness of the whole record is the measure of the success which attended the combined action of the state and of the Inquisition in benumbing for nearly three centuries the Spanish intellect.
Although censorship was instituted for the suppression of heresy and for keeping heretical books and propositions from the people, it developed its utility in many directions, more or less connected with its primary object. It was inevitable that it should wage incessant warfare with the countless editions of the Bible with Protestant notes and commentaries, and we have seen how industriously Valdés prepared for his expurgatory Index of the Scriptures in 1554. It was, however, the vernacular versions that caused the greatest anxiety. Prior to the Reformation there was practically no restriction on the circulation of the Bible in the vulgar tongue. It is true that, in the early thirteenth century, the struggle with the Waldenses and the Cathari, who possessed versions of their own, led to prohibitions by Innocent III, in 1199, and by Jaime I of Aragon in 1234, while the Council of Toulouse, in 1229, prohibited the possession by laymen of any portion of the Bible, even in Latin, as well as of the Breviary and Hours of the Virgin in the vernacular, because they contained extracts. The decree of Pope Innocent became embodied in the Corpus Juris and thus remained familiar to canon lawyers; it was adduced in the Repertorium Inquisitorum of 1494, but only in a kind ofobiter dictum, showing that at that time it was regarded as of no practical moment.[1410]Yet from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centurythere was no proscription of vernacular Bibles. The temporary causes which had led to their prohibition had passed away, and many translations were made, especially in Germany. One in Catalan, by Bonifacio Ferrer, brother of San Vicente Ferrer, was printed in Valencia, in 1478, under the editorship of the Inquisitor Jaime Borell.[1411]
THE SCRIPTURES
It was natural that the use made of the Bible by the Reformers should cause the revival of these obsolete prohibitions. Even before the compilation of the Indexes, we find Inquisitor-general Tavera granting to the Duchess of Soma, wife of the Admiral of Naples, a licence to keep and read a Bible in Italian, but the permission is limited to one year, showing how carefully it was guarded.[1412]It was therefore a matter of course that the Index of 1551 should contain a prohibition of the Bible in Spanish or any other vulgar tongue.[1413]This zeal was intensified by the versions which the Spanish refugees—Francisco de Enzinas, Juan Pérez, Cipriano de Valera and Cassiodoro de Reina—perfected and strove to introduce into Spain, but the prohibition was not confined to these. It extended to all fragments and extracts, however orthodox the rendering, as though to keep the unlearned ignorant of the existence of the Bible, or at least to make them understand that it was a wholly forbidden book. The Index of 1559 condemns twenty-two editions of the Hours of the Virgin in Romance, together with all others containing similar superstitions, but the real objection was the passages of Scripture contained in them, and, in 1573, all Hours in Romance were forbidden, as the Council of Toulouse had done in 1229.[1414]The extreme care with which the public was guarded from the Bible is seen in the 1583 Index of Quiroga, which, in forbidding all portions of Scripture in Romance, only excepts the fragments embodied in the canon of the mass, and the texts which Catholic writers may cite and explain,provided they are not printed alone but are in sermons and other works of edification.[1415]So unreasoning was this jealousy that, according to Azpilcueta, there were earnest men who desired to suppress vernacular versions of the Creed, the Paternoster, the Ave Maria and the Salve Regina, a zeal which found practical expression, in 1674, when the Inquisition prohibited a work entitledExercicios de Devocionbecause it contained translations of the Miserere, the Magnificat, the Te Deum and the Athanasian Symbol.[1416]The people were to be kept in such profound ignorance that the Sotomayor Index of 1640 prohibits, not only the vernacular Bible and all its parts, but even summaries and compendiums of it and, as though to render it hateful, in the Edicts of Faith, it was classed with the Koran and other Mahometan books, the possession of which was to be denounced to the Inquisition.[1417]It had to watch not only over its Spanish flock, but over its converts in the Indies, when it found that the English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had caused versions to be made in the Indian tongues and was circulating them in America. This unexpected missionary work called for fresh exertion and, in 1710, we find Clement XI congratulating Inquisitor-general Ibañez on his efforts and urging him to persistent watchfulness.[1418]
This treatment of the Bible seems to have piqued the curiosity of the intelligent for, in 1747, Inquisitor-general Prado y Cuesta complains of the inordinate desire of many persons to have it in the vernacular, but, among the mass of the people it produced the impression desired. In 1791, Villanueva tells us that they, who once sought it, now regard it with horror and detestation; many care nothing for it and more are ignorant of its very existence.[1419]Yet, within a decade of Prado’s utterance, the policy of the Church changed. Although, in 1713, Clement XI, in the bullUnigenitus, had condemned the use of the Bible by the laity as a Jansenist error, yet, only forty-four years later, the Congregation of the Index, in 1757, conceded the use of vernacular versions, if approved by the Holy See and accompanied with orthodox comments.[1420]This was followed, in 1771, by a version of the Acts of the Apostles by Catenacci, dedicated to Clement XIV and, in 1778, by the briefIn tanta librorum, in which Pius VI approved of a translation of the whole Bible by Archbishop Martini.[1421]The Spanish Inquisition promptly followed the papal example. In 1782, Inquisitor-general Beltran issued a decree reciting that ample cause had existed for exceeding the Tridentine rule, but these causes had ceased and, in view of the usefulness of the sacred text, the Spanish rule was modified to conform to that of Trent, to the decree of the Congregation of 1757 and to the brief of 1778.[1422]In 1783 the Suprema ordered that the French version of Le Maître de Saci should be freely allowed[1423]and, in 1790, there appeared in Valencia a complete Spanish translation by Scio de San Miguel, which was speedily and repeatedly reprinted. No such evils have followed as were dreaded for two centuries, showing how much wiser would have been the policy of meeting the heretic Scriptures with an orthodox version, fortified with appropriate comments.
EXTENSION OF JURISDICTION
The same jealousy of admitting the vulgar to too great a familiarity with spiritual things showed itself with regard to works of devotion and edification. In 1570 a consulta of the Suprema to the inquisitor-general recommended that the catechism should not be printed in Romance.[1424]In the Preface to the Index of 1583, the prohibition of works by men of the highest Christian repute, such as Fisher of Rochester, Thomas More, Gerónimo Osorio, Francisco de Borja, Luis de Granada, Juan de Avila and others is explained, partly by books having been falsely attributed to them, partly by occasional incautious passages, and partly by their not being fitted for circulation in the vulgar tongue. The case of theObras del Cristianoof St. Francisco de Borja is illustrative. In the Index of 1559 it is simply prohibited. After his death, in 1572, as General of the Society of Jesus, Quiroga, in the Index of 1583, added “only in Romance or other vulgar tongue.” He was beatified in 1624, but the canonization proceedings were delayed in consequence of his book being in the Spanish Index and, in 1662,the Jesuit Procurator-general applied to the Inquisition to rubricate the leaves of a copy and send it to the Congregation of Rites, so as to remove the impediment, but it was not until 1671 that he was finally enrolled in the catalogue of saints.[1425]The effort to suppress mysticism manifested itself, about 1620, in numerous edicts to suppress books of mystic devotion and lives of men and women who evidently were mystics.
Books of ritual were scrutinized with the same captiousness. June 15, 1568, the Pontificals printed in Dueñas and Valladolid were ordered to be seized. In 1583 some pernicious errors were discovered in the Breviary printed in Salamanca, in 1575. Even books so elementary ascartillas, or primers, could not escape. A carta acordada of November 6, 1577, alludes to a previous one of June 14th, ordering the suppression of cartillas containing an article entitled “Castigo y doctrina de Caton.” Since then, it goes on to say, there have been found in other cartillas various matters pernicious and contrary to the teaching of the Church, especially in those printed by Juan de la Plaza in Toledo, wherefore all cartillas of every kind are to be seized, in the shops and in the hands of children going to school, and orders are consequently given that no one, under pains and censures, shall hold, read, or sell them.[1426]
There was little, indeed, to which the Inquisition could not extend the jurisdiction of its censorship. The fifth Council of Lateran had alluded to the danger to the public peace arising from libellous attacks on individuals, as one of the reasons for the examination and licensing of books before printing, but this was a purely secular matter, and the faculties conferred on the inquisitor-general looked solely to the suppression of heresy. Clement VIII, however, in his Index of 1596, included, as subjects of condemnation, defamatory memorials against religion or princes, and this opened the way to much else. It is true that an experienced writer assures us that, although such writing can be suppressed by edict, it cannot be under pain of excommunication, but only as a command under pain of mortal sin, and that the Inquisition cannot proceed against the author unless the faith is involved.[1427]
These limitations, however, were easily overpassed. We have seen (Vol. I, p. 488) how Inquisitor-general Pacheco, in 1623, condemned some legal arguments in defence of the Chancellery of Granada and commenced prosecutions of the counsel who had drawn them up. His successor Zapata, in 1627, was a trifle more cautious in a conflict wherein the Inquisition was not concerned. The Universities of Salamanca, Valladolid and Alcalá united in an attack on the Jesuits and their new college, when the Inquisition ordered the paper suppressed on the ground that it was anonymous and harsh in style. Then Salamanca came forward and acknowledged the authorship; the Jesuit procurator still asked for its suppression, but the Inquisition decided that it had not thecalidad de oficioand withdrew the prohibition, but still assumed authority to require the removal of asperities. Philip IV was dissatisfied, as he favored the Jesuits, and asked in what this case differed from others in which Pacheco had suppressed similar papers.[1428]
In 1687, the tribunal of Toledo, in a quarrel with the Carthusian house of el Paular, suppressed four memorials of its adversaries to the king, and punished the printer, Lucas Antonio Bedmar with four years’ exile from Toledo and Madrid; the grounds alleged were that they were scandalous, insulting, untrue and defamatory of those mentioned in them; there was no assumption that the faith was in any way involved and it was simply an expeditious way of putting an opponent out of court.[1429]Other similar cases will come before us presently and meanwhile we may observe that there was even no scruple in prosecuting individuals, in matters with which the Inquisition seemingly had no concern or jurisdiction, as in the case of Fray Bonifaz de San Pablo, tried in 1791, by the Barcelona tribunal, for attempting to print a satirical paper on his own Carmelite Order, and in that of Josefa and Jacinto López, prosecuted by Toledo, in 1797, on suspicion of having posted some pasquinades, characterized as “infamatorios y hereticales.”[1430]The powers of the Inquisition were so elastic that they included the privilege of self-definition; none dared to call them in question, and it seems have been invoked to supply any deficiency in the ordinary machinery of justice—or of injustice.
THE REGALIAS
Still less concerned with heresy was an important field in which the censorial functions of the Inquisition were employed by the crown, in its frequent struggles with the Holy See. In the middle ages papal domination encroached in many ways on the prerogatives of the temporal ruler, encroachments submitted to, with more or less resistance, by the loosely organized feudal monarchies. As these, in the sixteenth century, transformed themselves into absolutism, it was natural that they should grow restive, and the Reformation, which divided Europe into two hostile religious camps, gave to those sovereigns who remained faithful to Rome the opportunity of advancing their claims as the price of their support. The Spanish kings had always been distinguished by their resistance to papal pretensions and though, throughout the sixteenth century, they sternly kept their people in the Roman obedience, they were none the less resolute in asserting theregalías, or royal prerogatives, which in many ways conflicted with what Rome asserted as its rights. In the struggles thence arising, valuable assistance was derived from the works of legists, learned in the imperial jurisprudence and in the fueros, and theseregalistasbecame especially obnoxious to the Holy See. Rome has never hesitated to use the powerful aid of the Index in support of Ultramontanism, and it took special care to condemn and prohibit the books of the regalistas. It was impossible for a temporal sovereign to allow the suppression of works written in defence of his sovereignty, and the Inquisition, at least for a time, willingly supported the crown in this, not from loyalty, but because it afforded the opportunity of declaring and maintaining its independence of the hated Congregations of the Inquisition and of the Index.
When Melchor Cano, in 1555, at the request of Charles V, drew up a memoir in which he assailed, with the bitterest invective, the pretensions of the curia, and Paul IV summoned him, as a son of perdition, to Rome for trial, the Spanish Inquisition sided with the sovereign and did not put the obnoxious paper in the Index.[1431]Melchor Cano was forgiven, but the causes of dissension remained. One of the chief of these was the jurisdiction exercised by the papal nuncio, bringing in its train a long series of abuses, relief from which was sought by therecurso de fuerza, like the Frenchappel comme d’abus, admitting appeals to the Council of Castile from all ecclesiastical tribunals. The curia claimed this to be aninvasion of clerical liberty, and the struggle over it was long and envenomed. In 1591 Juan de Roa printed, with a dedication to the king and the approbation of an inquisitor, a treatise entitled “Apologia de Juribus principalibus defendendis,” arguing in favor of the royal jurisdiction in such cases, which excited no little indignation in Rome, where it was promptly condemned and burnt. Gregory XIV and the Roman Inquisition instructed the Nuncio Millino to induce Philip II to follow this example, and the succeeding Nuncio Caietano was ordered to labor with the utmost zeal to have the very memory of the book obliterated. So far was he from success that the Inquisition did not censure the work, and Philip rewarded the author with presentation to a priory worth fifteen hundred ducats per annum, of which he was promptly deprived by the nuncio, on account of his unspeakable crimes. So bitter was the quarrel that Cardinal Baronius, in his Annals, so far forgot the impartiality of an historian as to introduce an indecent personal attack on Roa in his account of the Priscillianists of the fifth century. This led to a rumor that his volume would be condemned by the Spanish Inquisition, whereat he complained loudly, in a letter to Padre Antonio Talpa, inveighing against the incredible audacity of the Spanish Inquisition, which placed on its Index whatever it chose.[1432]
INDEPENDENCE OF ROME
It was probably this case that led Clement VIII, in the Rules prefixed to his Index, which have been retained in all succeeding Indexes, to order the expurgation of whatever was contrary to ecclesiastical immunity, liberty and jurisdiction. This did not prevent Spanish legists and theologians from defending the regalías. About 1600, Henrique Henríquez, one of the most learned doctors of his day, produced his “De Clavibus Romani Pontificis” in which, like Roa, he maintained therecurso de fuerza. By orderof the papal nuncio, this was suppressed and burnt so successfully that only three or four copies have survived.[1433]That an organized government should permit within its territory an antagonistic foreign power to suppress books defending what it claimed to be its rights was an anomaly which could not be patiently endured. Rome was immovable, and a clash was inevitable. In 1613 appeared the “Tractatus de cognitione per viam violentiæ” by Gerónimo de Cevallos and, in 1617, Philip III, on learning that its condemnation was under consideration in Rome, wrote earnestly to his ambassador to prevent it, and declared that such condemnation would not be received or executed in Spain. This may have delayed but did not prevent the adverse decision, which came December 12, 1624, when Philip IV carried out his father’s threat. The Spanish Inquisition did not condemn the work, but merely ordered some clauses altered, and its independence in the matter of censorship was tacitly asserted.[1434]
Rome persisted, and independence was definitely asserted. In February, 1627, the Count of Oñate, ambassador to the Holy See, reported the issue of a decree condemning books, some of which were in defence of the regalías. In June, Philip sent this to the Suprema, asking its advice. It replied that, when the decree should come, it would be examined and reported to the king without allowing its publication, for no ecclesiastic or layman in Spain could do so without orders from the Inquisitor-general and Suprema. If such attempts were made, an appropriate remedy would be applied.[1435]The issue promptly came. The decree appeared, April 12, 1628, and one of the books condemned was the “Tractatus de Regia Protectione,” by Salgado de Somoza, President of the Royal Council and a vigorous upholder of the regalías. When the decree arrived, the king ordered the inquisitor-general to deliver it to him and wrote to all the bishops forbidding them to publish it.[1436]
Having thus established its independence, the Inquisition refused to recognize Roman condemnations of books of all kinds. When one was received, it caused the book to be examined by its own calificadores and voted on their report, either to approve or to condemn; whatever was done was its own act and not that of Rome. Another of the works condemned in the decree of April 1, 1628, was a book of extravagant Mariolatry, entitledElucidarium Deiparæ, by the Jesuit Juan Bautista Poza, which had been current in Spain for a couple of years. Poza wrote two abusive letters to Urban VIII, asserting that the Roman Congregations had no jurisdiction in Spain, where its own Inquisition was supreme, and, in 1632, the Congregation retorted by condemning all his works. The Nuncio Monte made great efforts to have this published, but the Suprema had the books examined and only prohibited them until they should be expurgated. It was not always easy, however, to array the bishops in opposition to the Holy See, and in Valencia the self-willed Archbishop Acevedo claimed the right to publish the papal decree, and the tribunal there was involved in some trouble with the episcopal officials.[1437]
INDEPENDENCE OF ROME
This was speedily followed by a similar struggle over a vastly more important book—theDialogoof Galileo, on the Copernecan system.[1438]In a consulta of December 13, 1633, the Suprema represented to Philip that, under the papal delegations, the Inquisition had exclusive control over censorship in Spain. In Rome, prohibitions were issued by the Congregations of Inquisition and Index, which were similar bodies to the Suprema, and it did not recognize them, but only the pope, as its superior. The nuncios were always endeavoring to extend their jurisdiction and required to be watched to avert greater evils. The inquisitors of Cuenca had just written that, by the nuncio’s order, the provisor had affixed to the church-doors an edict regarding a book entitled “Galileo Galilei Fiorentino,” without having first given notice to the inquisitor-general. The results of allowing the nuncio to do this were foreseen when the Count of Oñate reported from Rome the prohibition of certain books defending the regalías and, asthe nuncios were continually endeavoring thus to invade the exclusive jurisdiction of the Inquisition in matters of censorship, the king was asked to sign the accompanying letters to the archbishops and bishops, similar to those despatched in 1627.[1439]Of course the king signed the letters; whether the Suprema had Galileo’s book examined or not, we have no means of knowing, but the Inquisition escaped the discredit of condemning him, and the name of the illustrious Florentine appears nowhere in the Spanish Indexes.
In the matter of the regalistas, Philip, in a letter of April 10, 1634, to Cardinal Borja, pointed out the unfairness of suppressing legal works defending his side of the controversy with the Holy See, in which the faith was not concerned, and he ordered urgent representations to be made to Urban VIII, with the intimation that, if Rome continued its course, he would suppress all books supporting the papal claims.[1440]Remonstrance was in vain. In 1640, Salgado de Somoza’s “Tractatus de Supplicatione ad Sanctissimum” was condemned; in 1642, Solorzano’s “Disputationes de Indiarum Jure” and, in 1646, six or eight similar works, for which the nuncio was instructed to demand similar prohibition in Spain.[1441]Imperious as was this, the act was rendered doubly offensive by causing the condemnation to be published without transmitting it through the Inquisition, thus disregarding the independence claimed by the latter and the courtesy due to a friendly government. Provocation so extreme could scarce have been ventured but for the desperate position of Spain, battling at once with France, with Portugal and with Catalonia. Yet Spain was not sunk so low as to submit. After deliberation in the various councils, Philip, on October 16th, sent to the Suprema three consultas which they had presented and ordered it to advise him. With unusual promptitude it replied, October 20th, expressing its unreserved adhesion to the regalías claimed by the crown, which were founded in rights inseparable from sovereignty, in papal bulls, and in immemorial prescription. The unlawful act of the nuncio was of the highest prejudice; the books condemned had in no way transcended proper limits; their authors were pious Catholics and the works had been circulated in sight of the Inquisition, whose duty it was to watch over such matters. The consultaended with a promise to suppress the papal decree and to make the fact known everywhere, so as to avert the injury which its publication might have caused.[1442]Thus supported by the indignation of all his advisers, Philip issued a decree in November ordering the papal decree to be suppressed; the nuncio was rebuked and told that the royal indignation would seek other means of expression; the ambassador at Rome was instructed to represent the deep resentment which was felt, and to tell the Holy See that this was not a mere matter of opinion, in which it could interfere and dictate to Spain about rights coeval with the crown and always uninterruptedly enjoyed. Opportunity was also taken to reassert emphatically the independence of the Spanish Inquisition and the nullity, without its approval, of the acts of the Roman Congregations.[1443]Notwithstanding this, the progressive decadence of Spain encouraged the curia to make another attempt, in 1687, when the nuncio sent a decree of the Congregation of the Inquisition to the bishops, with orders to publish it. The Suprema lost no time in presenting two earnest consultas to the king, urging him to take prompt action in repelling this attempt to subject Spain to the Roman Inquisition.[1444]
The persistence of the curia was fruitless. The established custom, resulting from these disputes, as described by an experienced inquisitor, was that, when the nuncio received a brief from the Congregations, he sent it to the Suprema, which ordered the book to be examined by its calificadores and, if they pronounced it objectionable, the Suprema issued a corresponding edict. Twice, he says, the nuncio, in order to evade these rules, caused edicts to be posted in the court-yard of his palace, but the Suprema abrogated them, punished those who did it, and reported to the king in order that he might warn the nuncio to observe the regulations. Sometimes, however, a brief came directly from the pope. Then the matter was in the hands of the king, who retained it and supplicated the pope that it should be published by the Inquisition. In Sicily, no brief was published without receiving the exequatur of the viceroy.[1445]
USED AGAINST THE CROWN
The Inquisition had thus, by supporting the royal jurisdictionagainst the papal claims, achieved its independence of Rome, but it was fighting for its own hand and, when its object was attained, its allegiance to the Church outweighed its allegiance to the sovereign. When the question was between its own jurisdiction and that of the crown, its attitude was most decisive. The condemnation by Pacheco of the arguments of Don Luis de Gubiel, in the competencia with the Chancellery of Granada, was not an isolated instance of this. In 1637, there was a bitter controversy between the Seville tribunal and the royal Audiencia, over the banishment of a familiar by the latter, in the course of which the Suprema ordered the suppression of various arguments prepared in support of the royal jurisdiction, and among them one by Juan Pérez de Lara, the fiscal of the Audiencia, written in the strict line of his duty. To this the Council of Castile took exception, in a consulta complaining that it was of great prejudice to the regalías; the paper contained nothing contrary to the faith, rendering it liable to the censure of the Inquisition, wherefore the Council asked that all the documents suppressed should be examined by disinterested persons, and that the Suprema be ordered in future not to suppress any paper in favor of the royal jurisdiction without preliminary notice to the king. To this temperate expostulation the Suprema replied with lofty disdain. The king was told that he should answer all remonstrances as Charles V did, May 17, 1519, to the Diputados of Aragon—“as an affair of the Inquisition, it is not for us to interfere, nor can the fueros of the kingdom impede what the inquisitor-general does, as it is an ecclesiastical case.” It was astonished that there should be any question as to the power of the Inquisition, established by papal bulls, decrees of councils and inviolable custom, while the rule of the Index extends this power without limitation, at the discretion of the inquisitors. That the regalías had been threatened was easy of disproof, for the peace and prosperity of the king’s dominions were due to the unity of faith procured by the watchful care of the Inquisition. The object of the Council of Castile was to limit the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and to reduce its censorship to a matter of competencias, but the Inquisition alone could decide what belonged to it and what did not belong.[1446]
Such being the temper and spirit of the Holy Office, it is not surprising that, when it had secured its own emancipation fromRome, it should no longer prove an ally of the crown in defence of the regalías. Llorente mentions two authors—Ramos del Manzano and Pedro González de Salcedo, whose works it condemned for defending the royal prerogative.[1447]It could not be depended on for suppressing those which impeached the regalías, and the State, in defending itself, was obliged to resort to its own censorship, as in case of the work entitled “Casos reservados à su Santidad,” attributed to Doctor Francisco Barambio, in 1694. It never appeared in the Index, but a royal auto condemned it as subversive of the regalías and prerogatives of the crown, and ordered its suppression under pain of half confiscation and arbitrary penalties.[1448]