PABLO OLAVIDE
It shows the decadence of the Inquisition that the royal permission to prosecute was sought and obtained. Olavide was summoned to court, towards the end of 1775, on a pretext; after some delay he realized the situation and sought the protection of Manuel de Roda, then minister of Gracia y Justicia, who was too vulnerable himself to compromise his own safety, and who merely wrote to Inquisitor-general Beltran a note speaking favorably of Olavide. The Madrid tribunal moved with deliberation, for it was not until November 14, 1776, that Olavide was arrested. For two years he disappeared from human sight. Seventy-two witnesses were examined, and the fiscal accumulated a formidable array of a hundred and sixty-six heretical propositions. He admitted imprudent talk, while denying all lapse from the faith, but he confessed enough for the inquisitors to assume that he secretly cherished the opinions of the fashionable philosophy, and his condemnation was inevitable. We are told that a public auto was desired, in order to emphasize the warning, but it was felt that the occasion scarce justified such a solemnity, and the Roman Inquisition was consulted which suggested that the purpose would be answered by a private auto with a huge number of spectators. It was held, November 24, 1778, in the audience-chamber, after inviting—invitations equivalent to commands—Campomanes and numerous prominent nobles, statesmen and others who had been connected with Olavide, or were suspected of philosophism, so that when he was brought in he found himself surrounded by his friends assembled to witness his humiliation. For three hours he listened to the long-drawn recital of all the heretical propositions proved against him by the witnesses, to which he responded by ejaculating “I never have lost the faith although the fiscal says so.” Then followed the sentence, pronouncing him a convicted heretic, a rotten member of the Church, and condemning him to reconciliation, confiscation, and banishment for ever for fortyleagues from Madrid and all royal residences, the kingdoms of Lima, Andalusia and the colonies of the Sierra Morena, to reclusion for eight years in a convent and to the customary disabilities for himself and his descendants to the fifth generation. This tremendous severity so overcame him that he fell senseless to the floor. A distant convent at Gerona was selected for his confinement; in 1780, on the plea of ill-health, he was allowed to visit a watering-place, from which he escaped to France, not without, it is said, the secret connivance of the court, although, when his extradition was demanded, he sought safety in Geneva. With the outbreak of the Revolution he returned to France, where he narrowly escaped the guillotine; adversity brought a change of heart and, in 1798, he published anonymously at Valencia his “El Evangelio en Triunfo, ó Historía de un Filósofo disengañado,” which had an enormous circulation and so impressed Inquisitor-general Lorenzana that he was allowed to return to Spain. He was offered restoration to his positions, but he was disillusioned with the world; he retired to Baeza, devoting himself to good works and dying in 1804.[639]
The Inquisition had not miscalculated the salutary influence of the example. Don Felipe Samaniego, Archdeacon of Pampeluna, Knight of Santiago and member of the Royal Council, was one of those constrained to be present, and was so frightened that the next day he denounced himself to the tribunal as a reader of prohibited books, of which he presented a long list. This, he said, had led him to religious doubt but, on serious reflection, hehad resolved to adhere firmly to the Catholic faith and he asked to be absolvedad cautelam. He was turned to account by being required to submit a sworn statement as to where and how he had procured the books, how long he had held these views, who had taught him, with whom had he discussed these matters, and who had refuted or accepted his opinions. This brought out a detailed confession compromising almost all the learned and enlightened men of the court—Aranda, Floridablanca, Campomanes, O’Reilly, Lacy, the Duke of Almodovar and many others of high position. Prosecutions were instituted against them all, but the testimony of a single witness was insufficient and the power of those implicated was so great that the tribunal was content to let the cases remain in suspense.[640]
Offenders less conspicuous were less fortunate, and numerous cases attested the resolve of the Inquisition to crush out the new ideas. It was merciful to Benito Bails, a professor of mathematics and author of a series of text-books long in use, for a niece was allowed to enter with him the secret prison and take care of him, as he was aged and crippled in all his limbs. Before the publication of evidence he confessed to having entertained doubts as to the existence of God and as to immortality, but that solitude and reflection had removed them, and that he was ready to abjure and accept penance. As reclusion in a convent would have deprived him of the care of his neice, his house was charitably assigned to him as a prison, with various spiritual penances.[641]A more suggestive case was that of Doctor Gregorio de Vicente, professor of philosophy in the University of Valladolid, for certain theses in which were discovered twenty propositions savoring of “naturalism,” and for a sermon in which he argued that true religion consisted in the practice of virtue and not in external observance. For eight years he lay in the secret prison, but it chanced that he had an uncle who was an inquisitor of Santiago, whose influence induced the Valladolid tribunal at length, in 1801, to pronounce him insane, while condemning his propositions. On his release, however, he gave such evidence of sanity that the tribunal felt obliged to arrest him again and repeat his trial. This time a year of incarceration sufficed; he abjured his errors publicly and accepted certain penances.[642]
CONSERVATISM AND PROGRESS
A case which excited much attention was that of D. Ramon de Salas, a prominent man of letters and professor in Salamanca, imprisoned in 1796, on the charge of entertaining the errors of Voltaire, Rousseau and other exponents of the new philosophy. He admitted that he had read their works, but only for the purpose of confuting them, which he had done publicly and in writing. The accounts which have reached us of his trial differ irreconcileably, but it appears that the prosecution was the result of private enmity on the part of men high in office, and that Salas had powerful protectors who induced Carlos IV to evoke the case, after he had been condemned. This invasion of inquisitorial jurisdiction led to resistance on the part of Inquisitor-general Lorenzana, which caused Queen María Luisa to exclaim to him “It is you, hypocrite, and the like of you who cause the revolutions of Europe.” Not only was the sentence annulled and Salas was liberated, but a royal order was obtained that in future no arrest should be made without previously consulting the king. This was duly drawn up, but Vallejo, Archbishop of Santiago and President of the Council of Castile, one of the enemies of Salas, had sufficient influence with Godoy to procure its withdrawal.[643]
This case illustrates the struggle on foot between the forces of conservatism and progress, in which the Inquisition, as the protagonist of the former, was not always successful. The propagators of the new ideas were difficult to silence. Even under Carlos III, we are told that in 1785-6 there appeared in Saragossa essays scandalizing to the faithful, for they sought to establish that celibacy is prejudicial to the State, that vows of religion should be postponed to the age of 24, that the Church had customs detrimental to the State and that its abuses and superstitions should be suppressed. Apparently the Inquisition took no steps to vindicate the faith, and when Fray Diego de Cádiz, at the request of many ecclesiastics, preached against these subversive propositions, he was obliged to fly and even then he was pursued by the wrath of the innovators.[644]Under the anomalous government of Carlos IV, constant changes in the ministry and the fluctuating whims of his favorite Godoy, who liked to pose as the patron of lettersand enlightenment, in turns repressed the Inquisition and gave it free rein. A prominent personage of the time was the Count Francisco Cabarrús, a French adventurer who founded the Bank of San Carlos and alternated, like other statesmen of the period, between guiding the destinies of the nation and a dungeon. After his imprisonment in the castle of Batres, he relieved his mind in 1792 and 1793 of the thoughts which had accumulated there, in three letters to Jovellanos, developing in verbose rhetoric the ideas of Rousseau and thecontrat social. Education, he argued, should be universal, but it should be purely secular, and the clergy should not be allowed to meddle with it, religious training being left to parents and parish priests. In colleges the studies should be directed to fitting youth for actual life; the existing universities were sewers of humanity, whose scholastic theology and teaching of jurisprudence were equally destructive to the human race. The numbers of the clergy were enormously excessive, constituting a running sore and a body subversive of all the principles of morals and statesmanship. There should be stimulated a holy and virtuous indignation against all the absurd and apocryphal devotions which pervert reason, destroy virtue and cause heathendom to ridicule Christianity.[645]For much less than this many a man, like Olavide, had suffered bitterly but, in 1795, Cabarrús prefaced these letters with one addressed to Godoy himself as “mi amigo” and, secure in the protection of the all-powerful favorite, he was beyond the reach of the Inquisition, showing how uncertain were its functions during the disastrous period when absolutism was in the hands of a frivolous courtier.
CONSERVATISM AND PROGRESS
The feelings of the orthodox towards these innovators are comprehensively expressed by Fray Francisco Alvarado, the leading champion of conservatism against the Córtes of 1810. “These philosophers” he says, “have come to disrupt our union, to disturb our peace, to embarrass our defence, to distract our attention, to corrupt our fidelity, to overturn our State, to seize our fortunes, to degrade our reason, to abolish our religion, to—what shall I say?—to make our free cities a hell where nothing but blasphemies are heard and where there is little lacking to replace order with sempiternal horror.”[646]Virulent as is this objurgation, it is but the natural expression of the passions excited by the struggle inprogress, which each side felt to be a combat to the death. A moderated philosophism, as we shall see, triumphed in the Córtes of 1810-13 and, although there has followed nearly a century of vicissitudes, some of them sanguinary, it has, at least established its right to existence. The Inquisition was not mistaken in recognizing it, from the first, as its most dangerous enemy—the embodiment of the modern spirit, destined, for better or worse, finally to supplant medievalism.
FROMan early period the Church assumed jurisdiction over marriage, derived from the function of the priest for its due celebration, and when, in the twelfth century, matrimony was erected into a sacrament, its control became absolute. Monogamy was a distinguishing feature of Christianity, and marriage was declared to be insoluble. The sacrament could be enjoyed but once during the life of both spouses, and its repetition was invalid, all of which naturally came within the province of the episcopal courts. The infraction of the ecclesiastical law, however, considered as an offence against society, was subject to secular penal statutes and, under the Partidas, it was punishable with relegation to an island for five years and confiscation for the benefit of children, to which penalties Juan I, in the Córtes of Briviesca, in 1387, added branding in the face.[647]In 1532, the Córtes of Segovia petitioned to have it made a capital offence, which Charles V refused, but added half confiscation and, in 1548, the Córtes of Valladolid substituted the galleys, the term for which Philip II, in 1566, defined as ten years, with public vergüenza.[648]
RESISTANCE IN CATALONIA
Thus there was ample provision for the trial and punishment of the offence by the spiritual and secular authorities, and there was no necessity for the assumption of jurisdiction by the Inquisition. Presumably it obtained a foothold through the laxity of the marriage tie among Moors and Jews, so that bigamy, like abstinence from pork and wine and change of linen on Saturday, created suspicion of heresy. This showed itself first in Aragon. As early as 1486, the Saragossa tribunal burnt in effigy the fugitive Dionis Ginot, a notary, for marrying a second wife during the lifetime ofthe first, and a number of other cases followed in which bigamy is conjoined with Judaic practices. For simple bigamy the penalty seems to have been perpetual prison, the punishment indicated for two culprits in the auto of February 10, 1488.[649]It also involved confiscation, for a letter of Ferdinand, October 22, 1502, to his receiver at Saragossa, orders him to deliver to certain parties ninety-four head of cattle confiscated on the bigamist Dornan Morrell.[650]In some way bigamy was construed as heresy for, in the Barcelona auto of February 3, 1503, Pere de Sentillana was required to abjure for marrying two wives, and in that of July 2, of the same year, Pere Ubach abjured for marrying in Rhodes and in Barcelona.[651]
This was one of the grievances of the Catalans, which they thought to remove in the Concordia of 1512, where it was agreed that bigamists, male and female, should be tried by the Ordinaries and not by the Inquisition, but they unwarily allowed the insertion of a provision “unless they believe erroneously as to the sacrament of matrimony or are suspect in the faith.”[652]As this practically left it to the discretion of the inquisitors, Inquisitor-general Mercader, in his Instructions of 1514, was safe in telling the tribunals that they were not to try cases of bigamy unless there was presumption of erroneous belief as to the sacrament, and this was the answer sent, in 1515, to the Sicilians, when they made complaint of inquisitorial abuses.[653]Leo X, when, in 1516, confirming the Concordia of 1512, in the bullPastoralis officii, was careful to make the same reservation,[654]but in this, as in everything else ostensibly gained by the Concordia, the subjects of the crown of Aragon found themselves deceived and when the Córtes, about 1530, complained that the inquisitors assumed jurisdiction over bigamy, the curt answer was that they observed the provisions of the law.[655]
A case occurring in 1513 suggests ample justification for this struggle to prevent the Inquisition from acquiring cognizance of bigamy. In 1477, Don Jorje de Bardaxí betrothed himself bywordsde præsentito Leonor Olzina but, learning that she was pregnant or had borne a child, he never married her in the face of the Church or consummated the marriage. He remained single, but she, in 1497, married Antonio Ferrer. In some way the Saragossa tribunal got wind of the betrothal twenty years previous and prosecuted her in 1513. In her defence she alleged that Bardaxí had previously been married to Doña Juana de Luna, whereupon the tribunal commenced proceedings against him for the betrothal in 1477 and would have thrown him into the secret prison had he not been too infirm. He was a man of consideration and appealed for protection to Ferdinand, who ordered that he should not be arrested, that every care be taken to eliminate perjured testimony and that, on conclusion of the case, the papers be sent to Inquisitor-general Mercader.[656]The result is unknown, but Bardaxí was at least exposed to the terrors of an inquisitorial trial on a vague assertion of an indiscretion committed thirty-six years before.
INFERENTIAL HERESY
Whether there was any formal opposition in Castile it would be impossible to say. There was a decided assertion of episcopal jurisdiction in the Council of Seville, held in 1512 by Archbishop Deza, the former inquisitor-general, which imposed a fine of two thousand maravedís on bigamists, in addition to the penalties provided by law; long absence of a missing spouse was not to be accepted as an excuse, and the death must be notorious or be duly proved before the Ordinary, before he could permit a second marriage.[657]Still, there was no special reclamation on the subject by the Córtes of Valladolid in 1518, nor any provision in the reform attempted through the Chancellor Jean le Sauvage. As in Aragon, the question turned theoretically upon the presumable heresy of the bigamist. About 1534, Arnaldo Albertino devoted an elaborate discussion to the matter,[658]but all this was academical rather than practical. In 1537, Dr. Giron de Loaysa, in his inspection of Toledo, reported that he had found everywhere many bigamists; they were so numerous that the inquisitors prosecuted them without distinction as to belief, and he suggestedthat special orders should be accordingly issued as the offence was so evil and so frequent.[659]This would have been superfluous. Simancas admits that, if the culprit says that he knew that he could not have two wives and thus did not err in the faith, it would seem that the Inquisition was estopped from proceeding, but custom has prevailed, though it would appear wiser to leave them to the episcopal courts. In a later work, however, he says that the Inquisition prosecutes them as thinking wrongly of the sacrament and impiously abusing it.[660]Thus it became settled, and otherwise the Inquisition would have been obliged to abandon its jurisdiction, for about 1640 an experienced inquisitor tells us that the accused never admitted heresy, but always professed consciousness of guilt. He was always asked whether he regarded a bigamous marriage as lawful and, if he answered in the affirmative, he was to be punished as a heretic.[661]
To keep up this fiction, the formal accusation by the fiscal asserted heresy or at least suspicion, at first in a simple form but subsequently with much amplification, stigmatizing the accused as an apostate heretic, or at least gravely suspect in the faith, for “thinking ill of the holy sacrament of matrimony and its institution and adopting the error of the heretics against the prohibition of polygamy.”[662]With the same view he was always required to abjure for suspicion of heresy, in the earlier timede vehementi, but laterde levi.[663]The flimsiness of the pretext, however, is exposed by the fact that, in the Suprema, bigamy cases were always considered in the afternoon sessions, at which assisted the two lay members of the Council of Castile, and where public pleas and other secular matters were discussed.[664]Still, when the jurisdiction once was acquired, it was asserted to be exclusive and was defended with customary aggressiveness. The civil magistrates were unwilling to surrender their immemorial cognizance of the crime, and assumed that it wasmixti fori, leading to frequentcollisions. The tenacity with which these contests were conducted is illustrated in a Sardinia case, in 1658, where the royal court arrested Miquel Fiori for bigamy. When the inquisitors heard of this, they demanded the accused and the papers but, three hours after the demand was made, Fiori was paraded through the streets of Cagliari, receiving two hundred lashes, and was sent to the galleys. The indignant tribunal refused conference and competencia, and promptly excommunicated the veguer and his assessor. Then the quarrel was transferred to Madrid, where the Suprema and the Council of Aragon alternately for two years pelted the king with consultas, the former assuming that the crime was purely one of faith and that the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was exclusive; there could be no competencia, because the inquisitor-general was the sole judge of what constituted cases of faith. In October, 1659, the king ordered the excommunication of his judges to be lifted; the Suprema replied that it had commanded this in the previous February, but the inquisitors had given reasons for not obeying; it had repeated the order in August and presumed that it had been complied with, but it had not been and, in November the king reiterated his commands. He decided, however, as usual, in favor of the Inquisition, and the judges were summoned to surrender the prisoner and the papers, but they replied that Fiori had escaped from the galleys and that the papers had been sent to Spain. The Suprema regarded this as an evasion and the utmost it would do was to suspend the excommunications for six months at a time, especially as the offending judges refused to present themselves before the tribunal and beg for absolution.[665]
PENALTIES
The time-honored episcopal jurisdiction over bigamy was treated with similar imperiousness. In 1650 the Suprema ordered the Valencia tribunal to demand from the Ordinary the case of Joana Arais, charged with bigamy, because it was a matter of faith, pertaining exclusively to the Inquisition. So, in 1658, when the Bishop of Salamanca arrested Domingo Moreno on the same charge, as soon as the Valladolid inquisitors heard of it, they claimed and obtained and tried him.[666]Yet, notwithstanding this,the episcopal authority over the sacrament of matrimony was acknowledged and, in all sentences, there was a clause referring to the Ordinary the question as to the validity of the marriages.
The Roman Inquisition was less aggressive than the Spanish for, while it claimed jurisdiction, it was willing that bigamy should be regarded asmixti foribetween the secular, the spiritual and the inquisitorial tribunals. If the civil magistrate was the first to take action he could carry a case to its conclusion, and punish the delinquent according to the municipal law, but the episcopal Ordinary, or the inquisitor, ought to demand the culprit for examination as to his belief in the sacrament and then, after making him abjure and imposing appropriate penance, return him to the secular court.[667]Offenders were treated with somewhat greater severity than in Spain. The abjuration was alwaysde vehementiand torture was freely employed for intention. The penalty was the galleys—five years in ordinary cases and seven or more when justified by circumstances.[668]
In Spain, as we have seen, the secular laws provided penalties, but these were disregarded by the Inquisition, when it secured exclusive jurisdiction, and in practice the tribunals exercised a wide discretion. Ordinarily men were punished with one or two hundred lashes and from three to five years of galleys at the oar, though those of gentle blood were exempt from scourging and were sent to presidios or to military service in the galleys.[669]The Seville auto of May 13, 1565, may be taken as an example, where there were fourteen bigamists. Ten of them were scourged with an aggregate of seventeen hundred lashes, and five, in addition, were sent to the galleys, with an aggregate of twenty-nine years. A woman had two hundred lashes, with prohibition to leave Seville for ten years, and two others were paraded in vergüenza. The heaviest punishment was that of the Bachiller Cristóbal de Ordaz, a physician, who was fined in two hundred ducats, provided that this did not exceed half his property, he suffered two hundred lashes and was sent to the galleys for six years irremissibly, afterwhich he was banished for life, with a threat of perpetual galleys in case of infraction.[670]
Full allowance was made for extenuating circumstances. If husband or wife had been absent for years and reasonable effort had been made to ascertain their fate, or false news of death had been received, the accused was acquitted or the penalty reduced.[671]This is illustrated in the case of Anton de Cueba, a peasant of Cienpozuelos, before the Toledo tribunal in 1606. Both his wives were of his native place. He left it for awhile and on his return found his first wife absent. Then news came of her death in the hospital of Anton Martin in Madrid. He went there and verified it, returning with a certificate, on the strength of which and of public notoriety, four years afterwards, a licence for a second marriage was granted. Then the first wife returned and he was placed on trial. All this was carefully verified and the case was suspended.[672]There can, indeed, be little doubt that honestly misguided bigamists fared better at the hands of the Inquisition than they would have done in the secular courts, while the thorough organization of the tribunals enabled it to collect evidence throughout the land, whether for severity or mercy, in a manner impossible to either the civil or episcopal authorities. Its unwearied perseverance was sometimes severely taxed in the case of soldiers, removed from post to post, and is fairly illustrated in that of Joseph Antonio Ferro, a private in the regiment of Castile, accused, in 1763, to the Barcelona tribunal. His corps shifted its quarters and he was transferred to the regiment del Rey; his movements were followed up for years, the tribunals of Barcelona, Seville and Valladolid were successively employed on the case and, in 1769, that of Madrid was charged with its conduct.[673]
JURISDICTION DISPUTED
Discretion could be used to sharpen as well as to mitigate penalties, as may be seen in the case of the most accomplished bigamist in the records, Antonio ——, who appeared in the Valladolid auto of October 4, 1579. He confessed promptly and freely that within ten years he had married fifteen wives. It was the profession by which he earned a livelihood, for he wandered through the land marrying and running away with whatever hecould secure. He must have been a most plausible scamp, for his favorite device was to personate some one who had disappeared, after gathering information sufficient to enable him to maintain the deception. This plan he repeated eleven times, in some cases establishing claims to considerable property. His sentence was to appear in the auto with a mitre bearing the insignia of all the fifteen marriages (usually the figure of a woman for each), two hundred lashes and the galleys for life. In view of the latter clause it seemed slightly superfluous to remit to the Ordinary, as usual, the question as to which of the women he should live with.[674]
As the eighteenth century advanced, the inquisitorial claim to exclusive jurisdiction was called in question. In the New Granadan case of Alberto Maldonado, of Santafé de Bogotá, the alcalde resisted the interference of the Inquisition with his prosecution of the culprit; the matter was brought before the royal Audiencia, which decided in favor of the tribunal, on grounds of expediency. Appeal was made to the home government, resulting in a decree, February 18, 1754, to the effect that bigamy wasmixti foriand that cognizance belonged to the jurisdiction taking first action. Against this the Suprema presented a consulta, March 18th, but to no purpose. The decree was enclosed to all viceroys in a royal cédula, commanding that, in no case, should a competencia be admitted, for no custom could prevail against the regalías, without the royal consent. If the Inquisition desired to take action for the suspicion of heresy involved, it could do so after the culprit had served out the punishment imposed by the royal courts.[675]
The Inquisition was irrepressible and, in spite of these positive commands, a competencia arose in New Granada, which induced Carlos III to reconsider the questions. Consultas were called for and were presented, by the Suprema in April, 1765, and by the Council of Indies in April, 1766, resulting in a decree of July 21, 1766, by which Carlos restored the exclusive jurisdiction of the Inquisition. This was sent to the viceroys, September 8th and we find it ordered to be duly obeyed in Mexico by the Marquis deCroix, February 26, 1767.[676]Carlos soon saw reason to change his views. The Auditor de la Guerra had tried and sentenced an invalid soldier, when the Inquisition interposed and demanded the papers. This aroused him to a sense of the incongruity of the position, and he ordered the Royal Council to consider the matter. It presented a unanimous report, January 10, 1770, in conformity with which he decreed, February 5th, that the case belonged exclusively to the Auditoria de la Guerra. He utilized the occasion, moreover, by adding that he had ordered the inquisitor-general to instruct inquisitors that, in cases of this kind, they must observe the laws of the kingdom and not embarrass the royal judges in matters appertaining to them, but must limit the use of their faculties strictly to heresy and apostasy and not dishonor the royal vassals by arrests without manifest preliminary proof. All the royal tribunals were ordered to try and punish bigamists, according to the laws and to be zealous in preventing any contravention of the decree.[677]
This was a bitter rebuke, sullenly resented by the Inquisition. There were many pending cases in the tribunals and they forthwith suspended proceedings. This led to a royal letter of September 30, 1771, in which authority was granted to proceed with all cases not on trial in the royal courts, and all that might be denounced to the Inquisition, but subject to the condition that, when the culprit was notreo de fe, through belief that bigamy is lawful, sentence should not be rendered or punishment be inflicted but that the case should then be handed over to the courts having jurisdiction.[678]
JURISDICTION DIVIDED
Although this conceded only the power of trying without convicting, it was an entering wedge, which the Suprema lost no time in turning to advantage, by stimulating denunciations and making the people believe that it still held jurisdiction. In the Edict of Faith for 1772, therefore, bigamy was included, with the cautious formula “so that the Holy Office may prevent the offences against God committed in this crime.”[679]The royal decree was sent around to the tribunals, with instructions that, when denunciations were received, care was to be taken to see that the accused was not on trial elsewhere. In that case he was to be regularly tried andconvicted and made to appear in anauto particular, with the insignia of bigamy and double-knotted halter indicating scourging; he was to be made to abjure and be remanded to prison for two or three weeks of penance and then be handed over to the secular court, so that his subsequent punishment might have the appearance of being merely the execution of a sentence by the tribunal.[680]
While these devices doubtless had the effect designed, the offensive decree of 1770 remained in force and was a standing humiliation which the Suprema strove earnestly to remove. In 1777 it presented a memorial representing that the decree was printed and sold and published in the journals, causing infinite prejudice to religion and giving immense impulse to profligacy and infidelity. It debarred the Inquisition from acting in any cases save those of heresy and apostasy, and even in these it could make no arrests unless guilt was conclusively proved. Since that year, it says, how many have abandoned themselves to solicitation, sorcery and other crimes, believing themselves secure from the Inquisition! How many have allowed themselves to utter propositions impious or heretical, believing that, even when denounced, they could not be arrested until their offences were fully proved—a thing which could rarely or never happen! It is in vain that the Inquisition publishes its yearly Edict of Faith; the impression produced by the cédula is uneffaced and it ought to be called in and suppressed.[681]
This appeal led to a royal declaration of September 6, 1777, to the effect that the cédula of 1770 did not impede the jurisdiction of the Inquisition in cases of which cognizance was reserved to it. As to bigamy, the offence was partitioned between three jurisdictions; the deceit of the woman and the injury of offspring were subjected to the secular courts; the validity or invalidity of the marriage, to the episcopal courts; and heresy as to the sacrament, when it existed, to the Inquisition. The three jurisdictions should coöperate, by each imposing the penalties belonging to it and delivering the culprit from one to another in order that his offences might be verified.[682]This subdivision of a crime into three was too clumsily scientific to be reduced to practice. In appearance itonly defined the existing method, but in a shape which enabled the Inquisition to encroach on the secular jurisdiction. As early as 1781, we find that the bigamist, after trial, was handed over to the royal court with a certificate designating him not merely as a convict but expressing the punishment of exile and presidio, thus showing that the tribunal presumed to sentence him to temporal as well as to spiritual penance. In 1791 a case indicates that it even went further, for the Toledo tribunal held an auto particular for Gabriel Delgado, in which his sentence was read, prescribing not only abjuration de levi and spiritual penance, but exile for eight years from Toledo, Madrid and royal residences. The only difference between this and the practice of a century earlier, was a clause that his person was to be delivered to the secular justice.[683]
NUMBER OF CASES
Under the Restoration the Inquisition assumed full jurisdiction over bigamy; the tribunal sentenced the culprit as of old, usually to scourging and presidio or exile, and the Suprema, in confirming the sentence, ordered the scourging omitted on some pretext. Nothing was said about handing the culprit over to the secular courts. They might, if they saw fit, exercise cumulative jurisdiction, and entertain cases that came to them, but, after they rendered judgement, the Inquisition tried the culprits over again and modified the sentence at its pleasure, either to increase or diminish the penalties. Thus, in 1818, the Granada criminal court sentenced Eusebio Reulin to six years of presidio of which one was to be in Africa. Then the tribunal took hold of him, adding spiritual penances and perpetual exile from certain places, and increasing the presidio to ten years, but, when this went for confirmation to the Suprema, it cut down the exile to eight years and the presidio to two. The sentence of the criminal court was treated with the utmost contempt. An exception to this seems to have been made when the army was concerned. In 1817, Eladio de Aragon was tried by the Madrid tribunal and convicted of having three wives; his sentence comprised only abjuration and spiritual penances, after the performance of which he was to be handed over to the captain-general with a copy of his sentence and a recommendation to mercy, in view of his long imprisonment, his confession and the hopes entertained of his amendment.[684]Evidently, in dealing with the army, the Inquisition felt constrained to obey the laws.
Bigamy formed a portion by no means inconsiderable of the current business of the Inquisition. In the Toledo record, from 1575 to 1610, the number of cases is fifty-four, ranking next to those of Moriscos. In the same tribunal, from 1648 to 1794, there were sixty-two cases, being next in number to solicitation. In the sixty-four autos held in Spain from 1721 to 1727, there were thirty-four cases, the only crimes exceeding this being Judaism and sorcery. In the later period, owing doubtless to the interference of the secular jurisdiction and the decadence of the Inquisition, the number falls off, the total in all tribunals from 1780 to 1820 being one hundred and five.[685]
BLASPHEMYis a somewhat elastic term but, for our purpose, it may, in a general way, be defined as imprecation derogatory or insulting to the Divinity. Punished with lapidation under the Levitical law, it was, during the Middle Ages, the subject of infinite legislation, both on the part of secular and ecclesiastical lawgivers, and savage punishments, such as boring the tongue with a hot wire, were frequently imposed. Enrique IV, in 1462, prescribed cutting out the tongue, together with scourging or banishment and, in 1476, Ferdinand and Isabella confirmed this.[686]Jurisdiction over blasphemy was cumulative, belonging both to the secular and spiritual courts, and was also within the cognizance of the Old Inquisition, provided it was heretical, but the distinction between non-heretical and heretical was not easy. Eymerich tells us that imprecations reviling God or the Virgin, or expressing ingratitude to him, are simple blasphemy with which the Inquisition has no concern; to give it cognizance there must be a denial of some article of faith, and the repetition of this definition by the Repertorium in 1494 shows that this continued to be accepted as the rule in practice.[687]
MUST BE HERETICAL
The Spanish Inquisition, at its inception, thus found itself possessed of jurisdiction and, in Aragon at least, where the institution had the tradition of centuries, there was no hesitation in exercising it, immediately after the reorganization. In the Saragossa auto of December 17, 1486, there appeared a Christian punished for blasphemy, his tongue being pierced with a stick, and a Jew with a bridle in his mouth, a mitre and a strawespuerta. In this field, as in so many others, inquisitorial zeal outran discretion; there was little attention paid to the distinction between heretical and non-heretical and, in the Instructions of 1500, inquisitors were told that they made arrests for triflingmatters, not directly heretical, as for words uttered in anger that were blasphemy and not heresy; in future, no one was to be arrested for such things and, if there was doubt, the inquisitor-general was to be consulted.[688]This warning was all the more needed, as the secular courts were not ready to abandon their jurisdiction, for a pragmática of Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1502, provides lashes, prison and other penalties for blasphemies so evidently heretical asdescreo de Dios(I disbelieve in God).[689]The bishops likewise continued to assert control, for the Council of Seville, in 1512, under ex-Inquisitor-general Deza, imposed a fine of three gold florins and imprisonment at discretion on clerics, while for laymen, in addition to the legal penalties, the ecclesiastical judge was directed to prosecute for swearing, blasphemy, or insults to God, the Virgin and the saints.[690]
The caution enjoined in the Instructions of 1500 was lost on the inquisitors and their abuse of power, in this respect, suggested one of the complaints of the Córtes of Monzon, in 1510. In the Concordia of 1512 it was provided that they should not have cognizance of blasphemy, unless it manifestly savored of heresy, such as denying the existence of God or his omnipotence. Inquisitor-general Mercader embodied this in his Instructions of 1514, and Leo X confirmed it, in 1516, in his bullPastoralis officii.[691]The Aragonese Suprema accepted this and, in the Edict of Faith of 1515, it was specially stated that denunciation of blasphemy was not required, except when it was contrary to articles of faith.[692]As we have seen in bigamy, however, no attention was paid to this and, among the grievances of the Córtes about 1530, there is complaint that the Inquisition threw into prison orthodox persons for blasphemy and for words merely uttered in the heat of passion, to which the imperturbable inquisitor-general replied that the inquisitors acted only in accordance with the law and, if parties had been aggrieved, let their names be given, when due provision would be made.[693]
These troubles were by no means confined to Aragon. In Castile a royal pragmática of 1515 recites a supplication to theking asking that inquisitors should not have cognizance of blasphemy, wherefore it was ordered that they should only hear cases which they could and ought to hear, and a special charge was given to the inquisitor-general not to permit them to do otherwise, and to provide that abuses, if such there were, should cease.[694]This ambiguous utterance naturally produced no effect and, in 1534, the Córtes of Madrid represented forcibly the hardship that a blasphemy, uttered in the excitement of gambling or in the passion of a quarrel, should expose a man, noble and of pure blood, to arrest by the Inquisition, when, as the cause was not known, the whole lineage suffered infamy. They asked, therefore, that the offence should be remanded exclusively to the secular courts, which should punish it rigorously. To this Charles evasively replied that the judges would execute the laws and the inquisitors would not exceed their powers, and he contented himself with reissuing the pragmática of 1515.[695]
It is easy to appreciate the feelings underlying these remonstrances, for there was no function of the Inquisition which brought it more fully in contact with the mass of the Old Christian population, thoroughly orthodox at heart, strict in observance, proud of purity of blood, and dreading nothing so much as the nota incurred by the slightest suspicion of heresy. The Spaniard was choleric, and not especially nice in his choice of words when moved by wrath; gambling was an almost universal passion and, in all lands and ages, nothing has been more provocative of ejaculations and expletives than the vicissitudes of cards and dice. What, to women in the humbler walks of life, were the prosecutions for sorcery, those for blasphemy were to men of all ranks. Trivial as this portion of inquisitorial activity may seem to us, we may feel sure that in no other way was the influence of the Holy Office more keenly felt or more dreaded by that great body of the nation which zealously welcomed its persecution of the Jewish and Moorish New Christians.