INDOLENCE
As though these blind and irrational policies were insufficient to destroy prosperity, an equally efficient factor was devised in tampering with the coinage. This began tentatively in 1566 by Philip II, in diminishing the alloy of silver in the vellon or copper coinage. In 1602, Philip III, in his financial distress, was bolder and resolutely issued a pure copper coinage with a fictitious value of seven to two, calling forth the protest of Padre Mariana which cost him his prosecution by the Inquisition. In 1605 the Lucchese envoy informs us that the treasury had already reaped a profit of 25,000,000 ducats by this fiat money, of which the marc cost 80 maravedís and had a forced circulation of 280. This was the first of a long series of violent measures continued throughout the seventeenth century, of alternate expansion and contraction. Thus, in 1642 the fictitious legal-tender value was suddenly reduced to one-sixth, followed in 1643 by raising it fourfold, and in 1651 by increasing it still further. In 1652 an attempt was made to demonetize the vellon, June 25th, which was abandoned November 14th. In 1659 thevellon gruesowas reduced in value one-half and, in 1660 it was trebled. Attempts were made to regulate prices by decrees ofmaximaand to prevent or define the inevitable premium on gold and silver, but the unwritten laws of trade were imperative, until at last, in 1718, thereal de platawas admitted to be worth twice thereal de vellon, a ratio which remained nearly permanent. The largest vellon coin was thecuartillo, or fourth of a real, equivalentto about three cents of American money, which became the standard of value in Spanish trade; the coins were tied in bags of definite amount and these passed from hand to hand, for the precious metals necessarily disappeared, and were rarely seen except in Seville, in spite of the most savage decrees against their exportation.[1054]It would be impossible to exaggerate the disastrous influence on industry and commerce of these perpetual fluctuations of the circulating medium. The relations between debtor and creditor, between producer and consumer, were ever at the mercy of some new decree that might upset all calculations. All transactions, from the purchase of a day’s supply of bread to a contract for a cargo of merchandise were mere gambling speculations.
These causes of decadence were accentuated by an aversion and contempt for labor, which was recognized as a Spanish characteristic, attributable perhaps to the long war of the Reconquest and the endless civil broils which rendered arms the only fitting career for a Spaniard, and accustomed him to see all useful work performed by those whom he regarded as belonging to inferior races—Jews and Mudéjares. Their expulsion was destructive to all industrial pursuits, but the Old Christian still looked down on the descendants of the Conversos who were to a large extent debarred, by the statutes of Limpieza, from the Spanish resource of living without labor by entering the Church or holding office. The evil effects of this were intensified by constitutional indolence. The Spanish Conquistadores gave memorable examples of indefatigable energy and hardihood, sparing no toil when their imaginations were inflamed with the lust of conquest or the hopes of gold, but they would not work as colonists. One of them, Bernardo de Vargas Machuca, who for thirty years was Governor of Margarita, defends the enslavement of the Indians by candidly saying that Spaniards would not settle on unoccupied land, no matter how healthy or how rich in gold and silver, but would go where there were Indians, even if the land were sterile and unhealthy for, if they had not Indians to work for them, they could not enjoy its products, and its possession would be no benefit.[1055]Nor were the Spaniards of whom he speaks gentlemenadventurers, but were mostly drawn from the humbler classes. It was the same at home. Already, in 1512, Guicciardini, who spent two years in Spain as envoy from Florence, describes Spain as a land rich in natural resources, but sparsely populated and largely undeveloped. The people, he says, are warlike and skilled in arms, but they look upon industry and trade with disdain; artisans and husbandmen will work only under pressure of necessity and then rest in idleness until their earnings are spent.[1056]The Córtes of Valladolid, in 1548, complain that agricultural laborers and mechanics would not come to work before 10 or 11 o’clock, and would break off an hour or two before sunset. A century later, Dormer, the historiographer of Aragon, reproves the indolence of the people, except in Catalonia, for they would not work as was customary in other lands, but only a few hours a day, with perhaps frequent intermissions, and they expected this to provide for them as fully as the incessant labor of other lands.[1057]
EDUCATED IDLENESS
Spanish indolence was a frequent theme with the Venetian envoys who describe Spain as abounding in resources, and able to supply all its needs, but dependent upon foreign nations in consequence of the rooted dislike for labor. As Gianfrancesco Morosini writes, in 1581, the people have little aptitude for any of the mechanic arts, and are most negligent in agriculture, while in manual labor they are so slow and lazy that what anywhere else would be done in a month, here takes four.[1058]The Lucchese envoys, in the next century, tell the same story. There are few Spaniards, they say, except office-holders, who will work; the greater part of the workmen are foreigners, who have made a new Spain, to the great detriment of the old kingdoms. This explains why Spain is only a port through which the precious metals pass; the Spaniards consume only foreign merchandise imported by foreign merchants; among the contractors there is not a single Castilian, and there are more pieces of eight in China than in Spain.[1059]So, in 1687, Luis de Salazar y Castro attributes the decline of the monarchy to its substance flowing out through every pore, and the ultimate cause of this is the lack of energy. “I say it isour indolence, ignorance and want of application ... we attribute to deficient population what is laziness and sloth. Could our torpidity go further than our requiring Frenchmen to makes tiles, to grind knives, to carry water and to knead bread?”[1060]A moralist of the period is excessively severe upon this indolence coupled with reckless extravagance, which he compares with the tireless industry and thrift of the Frenchman.[1061]To this he attributes the poverty of Spain, as we have seen (Vol. III, p. 390) had been done, in 1594, by Francisco de Idiaquez, the secretary of Philip II.
One development of this indisposition to labor is touched upon by the consulta of the Royal Council in 1619, when it alludes to the multiplication of grammar-schools, to which the peasants send their children for a smattering of education, and thus withdraw them from productive industry.[1062]The Córtes of the same year asked for restrictions on this and Navarrete, in his commentary on the consulta, dwells at some length on the evils thence arising, for the sons of peasants flock thither, to gain the exemptions of the learned classes; an infinite number of them fail to reach the priesthood, becoming beggars and vagrants and criminals, while many of those who enter orders are forced to dishonorable practices, the public suffering in consequence from the lack of laborers and artisans.[1063]Protests were in vain and, in 1753, Gregorio Mayans y Siscar still called attention to the crowds of half-educated students who sponged on the community—drones who sucked the honey while they might be of service in driving a plough or handling a musket—a complaint echoed with still greater vigor by Jovellanos in 1795.[1064]
To this tendency may be attributed the frenzied rush for office, to which the suggestive name ofempleomaníahas been given, burdening the State with a vast superfluity of employees and depriving it of their services in useful production. In 1674 the Luccheseenvoy wonders at the revenues, estimated at seventy-five millions, without apparent result, which he ascribes partly to the waste in collecting, the collectors employed numbering two hundred thousand—a manifest exaggeration, but yet suggestive.[1065]About 1740, Macanaz ranks this as the first in his enumeration of the causes of Spain’s condition; there are, he says, a thousand employees where forty would suffice, if they were kept at work, and the rest could be set at some useful labor.[1066]The evil still continues, if we may believe modern writers who regard it as one of the serious impediments to prosperity.[1067]
IMPROVEMENT
From the depth of poverty, disorder and humiliation to which Spain had fallen, the process of recuperation under the Bourbons was slow and at first vacillating. Something was accomplished by Philip V, in spite of his continual wars and his melancholy madness, when he had rid himself of such adventurers as Alberoni and Ripperda and gave scope to the practical genius of Patiño.[1068]The upward impulse continued under Fernando VII, while, under Carlos III and his enlightened ministers the progress was rapid. A memorial addressed by Floridablanca to the king, towards the close of his reign, enumerates the reforms and works of utility undertaken during his ministry. There were canals, both for navigation and irrigation, the drainage of marsh lands, the establishment of the nuevaspoblaciones, the improvement of roads. The trade to the colonies was thrown open to all the ports instead of being restricted to Seville, with the result that the exports quickly trebled and the customs revenue doubled. The Banco Nacional was founded and the public credit, which had fallen very low, was speedily restored. Insurance companies were established and other trading associations, which gave life to industry and commerce. The tariff on imports was rendered uniform at all the ports, and its schedules were arranged so as to foster internal development, being light on machinery and raw materials and heavy on articles produced in Spain, not only stimulating industry to the great prosperity of the land, but increasingthe customs revenue to a hundred and thirty millions when it had previously never exceeded thirty millions in the most prosperous years. The complicated and burdensome RentasProvincialeswere regulated so as to fall equally on the various provinces and to be easily borne; theMilloneswere reduced one-half; the formalities of the alcavala were simplified and its percentage greatly reduced, so as to bear lightly on industry, and with the expectation of its abrogation. The numbers of the exempts were diminished. All the mechanic arts were “habilitated,” so that nobles engaging in them should not forfeit their nobility, thus taking away the excuse for idleness and vice of those who called themselves noble and refused to work, however poor they might be. Through this policy during the reign of Carlos III, the population of Peninsular Spain increased by a million and a half and, under his guidance it emerged from the Middle Ages and began to take position with modern nations.[1069]
Much as had thus been accomplished, much remained to do, as set forth, in 1795, by Jovellanos in his celebrated “Informe.” Unfortunately progress was arrested by the indolent Carlos IV and his favorite Godoy. Then came the Napoleonic wars, and the course of events, as traced in the preceding chapter, was not conducive to improvement. Yet, in all the vicissitudes which Spain has endured since then, if we may trust the growth of population as an index of advancement, the substitution of liberal institutions for absolutism has proved a success and, however real may be the abuses of which the reforming element complains, the present situation is vastly better than the past. The census of 1768 showed a total of 9,309,804; that of 1787, 10,409,879; that of 1799, something over 12,000,000. Then there was a falling off and, in 1822, it was 11,661,980. Yet, in spite of Carlist wars and political troubles, in 1885, it had risen to 17,228,776, and it is now reckoned at 19,000,000 or about double that of the period of Spanish greatness. The fair inference from this is that Spain has a future; that, while much remains to do, much has been accomplished, and that there is progress which, if continued, will restore in great measure her ancient strength, although the enormous growth of modern nations precludes the expectation that she can resume her commanding position.
In addition to these secular causes of Spanish decadence, there remains to be considered another class of no less importance—those arising from clericalism, or the relations of the Church to the State, and its influence on the popular character and tendencies.
The accumulation of lands and wealth by the Church, and especially by the religious Orders, was, from an early time, a source of concern to statesmen and of complaint by the people, for the exemption from the royal jurisdiction, from military service and from taxation, claimed as imprescriptible rights by the Church, weakened the power of the State and threw increased burdens upon the population. Almost all the European nations endeavored to curb this acquisitiveness by laws of which the English Statutes of Mortmain and the Frenchdroits d’amortissementmay be taken as examples. These acquisitions came from two sources, each abundantly productive—gifts or bequests and purchase. The sinner, unable to redeem in money the canonical penance for his sins impossible to perform, would make over a piece of land and obtain absolution or, if on his death-bed, would bequeath a portion of his estate to be expended in masses for his soul—perhaps founding acapellaníafor that purpose, or as provision for a son who would serve as chaplain. So audacious became the demands of the Church on the estates of the dying that, in 1348, the Córtes of Alcalá complained that all the Orders obtained from the royal chancery letters empowering them to examine all testaments, whereupon they claimed all bequests made to uncertain places or persons; also, if there was not a bequest for each Order, those omitted demanded one equal to the largest in the will and they further claimed the whole estates of those who died intestate. If these demands were contested, they wearied the heirs with litigation into a compromise. Alfonso promised to revoke all such letters but the Black Death, which speedily followed, brought an immense accretion of lands for the foundation of anniversaries and chaplaincies, which led to lively reclamations by the Córtes of Valladolid, in 1351.[1070]
THE BURDEN OF THE CHURCH
With wealth thus constantly accumulating, the church or monastery would purchase lands from the laity, and as these became exempt from taxation it could afford to pay more than a secular purchaser. Whatever thus passed into ecclesiastical possession was never alienated; it remained in the grip of theDead Hand which, by constant accretions, came to hold a large portion of the most desirable lands and thus of the wealth of the kingdom.
It would be tedious to recapitulate the complaints of the Córtes and the devices attempted by legislation from the eleventh century onward to check this growth, which was regarded as threatening the most serious evils to the nation.[1071]Laws were adopted only to be evaded or forgotten, and the process went on. A new element, however, was injected into the struggle when, in 1438, the Córtes of Madrigal made a vigorous representation to Juan II that, if no remedy were applied, all the best lands in the kingdom would belong to the Church, resulting in manifold injury to the people and the crown, to which the feeble king evasively replied that he would apply to the pope.[1072]Hitherto Spanish independence of the papacy had regarded all such questions as subject to national regulation, but this utterance indicated that papal confirmation was beginning to be recognized as necessary in everything that affected the Church. This was not at once admitted, for Juan, in 1447, in response to the Córtes of Valladolid, and by a decree of 1452, imposed a tax of twenty per cent, on all purchases, bequests and donations,[1073]but it gradually established itself and furnished a ready answer to the vigorous representations which, with growing insistence, the Córtes of the sixteenth century made in 1515, 1518, 1523, 1528, 1532, 1534, 1537, 1538, 1542, 1544, 1551 and 1573.[1074]This put all remedy out of the question, for no pope could be expected to set limits to ecclesiastical wealth and influence, from which the curia derived its revenues; and the petitions of the Córtes served only to emphasize the magnitude of the evil and its universal recognition by the people.
It was not only the progressive absorption of wealth and land that was detrimental but the corresponding increase in the numbers of the clergy, regular and secular, who were released from all the duties of the citizen, and whose vows of celibacy aided in accelerating the diminution of the population. The process continued with added vigor, especially after the commencement of the seventeenthcentury, owing partly to a wave of religious fervor which led to the founding of chapels and convents on a greater scale than ever, and partly to the growing destitution forcing men to seek conventual refuge, where they might at least escape starvation, and inducing parents to give their sons such smattering of education as might enable them to take orders and have at least a chance to secure a livelihood free from the crushing burdens of taxation. The result of this is seen in Fray Bleda’s boast, in 1618, that one-fourth of the Christians of Spain were priests, frailes or nuns, and, even though this is obviously an over-estimate, it indicates how great was the task imposed on the producing classes to support in idleness so large a portion of the population.[1075]The increase was largely in the Mendicant Orders, whose systematic begging, that no one dared refuse, was a grievous addition to the tithes and first fruits.
A single instance will illustrate this inordinate growth. Cardinal Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo, the “third king” under Ferdinand and Isabella, stubbornly refused to allow convents to be founded in his province, saying that there were already many that were injurious to the people obliged to sustain them, but this ceased with his death in 1495. His biographer, Doctor Pedro de Salazar, penitentiary of the cathedral, tells us that the city of Toledo held a privilege from Alfonso X prohibiting the erection of convents there. At that time there were six, but in 1625, when he wrote, these had been enlarged and numerous others had been founded, so that they then occupied more than fifty royal and noble houses and more than six hundred smaller ones. The disastrous influence of this on the prosperity of the place is self-evident and Salazar regards this portentous development of ecclesiasticism as the chief cause of the decline in the population of Spain, which he estimates at twenty-five per cent.[1076]
THE BURDEN Of THE CHURCH
The consulta of the Council of Castile, in 1619, naturally included in its enumeration of the causes of national distress the foundation of so many religious houses, which were filled with those attracted, not by vocation but by a life of idleness, while their lands were exempt from taxation.[1077]In a similar mood, the Córtes, assembled by Philip IV on his accession, made a forcible and somewhatrhetorical representation, asking for measures to restrain the multiplication of foundations and the purchases of land, which not only diminished the alcavalas but, in a few years, would exempt all real estate from the royal jurisdiction and accumulate all taxation on the miserable poor, thus destroying the population of the provinces, for it was evident that, if the clergy continued to increase as it was doing, the villages would be without inhabitants, the fields without laborers, the sea without mariners and the arts without craftsmen; commerce would be extinct and, marriage being despised, the world would not last for a century.[1078]
At the earnest request of the kingdom, which represented that it could not support these idle multitudes or furnish soldiers for war, Urban VIII, in 1634, granted a bull reforming the religious Orders and suppressing some of the Barefooted ones, but the opposing influences were too strong and it was ineffective.[1079]In 1677 the matter was again debated, including the excessive numbers of the secular clergy, but action was postponed until there was a better prospect of results. The recognized evils were too serious to remain thus pigeon-holed, and an attempt was again made in 1691, the feebleness of which demonstrates how completely the Church dominated the State and could not be reformed without its own consent. The king deplored the multiplication of convents, and the consequent relaxation of discipline, and the pope was to be asked for authority to appoint visitors with full powers. The excessive increase of the secular priesthood, he said, was the cause of numerous disorders, to cure which the pope was to be applied to for faculties enabling bishops and abbots to reduce their numbers, so that all incumbents could live decently. The clergy in minor orders were so numerous that their exemption from the royal jurisdiction and the public burdens was a grievous injury to the laity and the bishops were asked to limit their ordination. The absorption of lands by the Church was an evil which had puzzled the wisest heads in all ages; many states had adopted laws regulating this, but he hesitated to have recourse to such measures until statistics could be gathered, and it could be decided how to reduce the numbers of the secular clergy.[1080]In short, the Church was an Old Man of the Sea, strangling the State, which lacked power to rid itself of its oppressor.
With the advent of the Bourbons there was less tendency to this hopelessness and, in 1713, the plain-spoken Macanaz, in a report to the king, presented a terrible picture of the misery and impoverishment resulting from the overgrown numbers and wealth of the clergy.[1081]Yet, short of revolution, effective remedy was impossible, and Philip V contented himself with a decree expressing regret that, without papal assent or a concordat, he could not afford general relief to his vassals. While awaiting this, however, he severely characterized the frauds of confessors in inducing the dying to impoverish their heirs. Such testators were declared not to be of free will, their bequests were invalid and scriveners drawing them were threatened with condign punishment.[1082]
Much of this evil would have been averted had the salutary reforms prescribed by the Council of Trent been enforced,[1083]but they had been a dead letter, at least in Spain. In 1723, however, Philip induced the Spanish bishops to supplicate Innocent XIII on the subject, resulting in a constitution in which he embodied at great length the Tridentine decrees as to restricting ordinations and the number of religious in convents.[1084]It was a tribute to the capacious learning rather than to the consistency of Macanaz that the Regular Orders employed him to draw up a memorial to the king, protesting against the enforcement of the papal decree, in which he lavished praises on them, and argued vigorously against any restriction on numbers beyond the capacity of support.[1085]This, however, was but a lawyer’s argument for a client and did not prevent him, in memorials to Philip V, about 1740 and to Fernando VI, in 1746, from expressing his true opinions as to the evils which were a main cause of Spanish distress—more than half the land held in mortmain and exempt from public burdens, and the immense number of those who, in place of being good laborers were bad priests, wandering around as beggars to the scandal of religion, while the overgrown religious Orders were useless consumers, living on the rest of the nation.[1086]
THE BURDEN OF THE CHURCH
In negotiating the Concordat of 1737, Philip obtained with difficulty a concession subjecting to taxation future acquisitions, but it was impossible of enforcement and repeated decrees by him, in 1745, by Fernando VII in 1756 and by Carlos III in 1760 and 1763, only attest the powerlessness of the State when dealing with the Church. In 1795 Godoy dallied with a project of secularizing Church property to meet the expenses of the disastrous war with France, but was obliged to abandon the project and only imposed a tax of fifteen per cent, on new acquisitions.[1087]It was inevitable that the Córtes of Cádiz and the constitutional Government of 1820-3 should partially carry out what Spanish publicists for centuries had demanded, and should earn the bitterest clerical hostility.
As a matter of course the wealth of so numerous, powerful and worldly a Church was enormous. As early as 1563 Paolo Tiepolo states that the clergy possessed little less than one half the total revenues of Spain. He rates the income of the Archbishop of Toledo at 150,000 ducats, and in addition the church of Toledo had 300,000.[1088]Exemption from public burdens gave ample opportunity of increase and, at the end of the eighteenth century, the archbishop was estimated as enjoying an income of half a million dollars.[1089]Navarrete, in 1624 regards as one of the leading causes of the hatred entertained for the Church by the laity, the contrast between its affluence and the general poverty,[1090]nor is this unlikely for, during the worst periods of national disaster, the Church seems always to have enjoyed superabundant resources. As its income, other than the produce of its lands, was largely derived fromtithes, it necessarily varied, from year to year, but was always enormous. In 1653, we find Plasencia spoken of as one of the four most lucrative bishoprics in Spain, with an income of 40,000 ducats, but that there were years in which it had been worth 80,000—and this at a time when the State was virtually bankrupt, the currency in frightful disorder, commerce and industry prostrate, and the whole land steeped in poverty.[1091]Against this, it is true, must be set the habit of the monarch in calling upon the bishops, as well as on the nobles, for contributions, as we have seen in the case of Valdés; thus Cardinal Quiroga, when Archbishop of Toledo, from 1577 to 1594, is said to have given to Philip II an aggregate of a million and a half of ducats.[1092]There were also certain papal grants to the crown on the revenues of the clergy at large, known as thesubsidioand theexcusadowhich, in 1573, were reckoned at 575,000 crowns a year and in 1658 at something over two million ducats.[1093]
THE BURDEN OF THE CHURCH
It betrays a consciousness of overgrown wealth that all knowledge of its amount was carefully concealed. In 1741, Benedict XIV granted to Philip V eight per cent. of the revenues of the clergy, regular and secular, for that year. The collection of this in Granada was delegated, with full coercive powers, to the Archdeacon Juan Bautista Simoni who, after Easter 1742, issued an edict requiring all incumbents, within ten days, to render sworn statements of their property and income. This aroused intense excitement. Under one pretext or another all, from the archbishop down, endeavored to escape the revelation of their wealth; there were meetings held and open threats were made of acessatio a divinisif the measure was insisted on. A compromise was offered of payment of a doubleservicio, which was assumed to be equivalent to eight per cent., but they refused absolutely to make a return of property and income. Simoni seems to have been sincerely desirous of executing his unpleasant duty with as little friction as possible but, in reporting this repugnance to make sworn statements, he does not hesitate to say that its object wasto prevent the king from learning that about three fourths of all the property in Spain was in the hands of the clergy, secular and regular, and especially of the Carthusians, Jesuits, Geronimites and Dominicans. It proved to be impossible to compel the archbishop to make the return, and finally it was compromised by taking the average of a valuation made during five years of a vacancy, 1728-32, which resulted in estimating the revenues of the see at about 39,000 ducats—evidently an undervaluation, although Granada was reckoned as the poorest of the five Castilian archbishoprics.[1094]
All this wealth and splendor was drawn, in its ultimate source, from the labor of the husbandman and the administration of the sacraments, casting a grievous burden on the industry of the land and counting for much in the general impoverishment. When the little development of Protestantism in 1558 excited so much dread, it was assumed as a matter of course that the people would welcome a reform that would bring relief from the burdens of the church establishment. Jovellanos asks what is left of the ancient glory of Castile save the skeletons of its cities, once populous and full of workshops and stores, and now filled with churches, convents and hospitals, which survive the misery that they have caused.[1095]So, in 1820, the learned Canon Francisco Martínez Marina, in indicating the measures necessary to restore prosperity, says that the first one is to reduce the wealth of the clergy for the benefit of agriculture and the poor and oppressed peasant, and to abolish forever the unjust and insupportable tribute of the tithe, a tribute unknown to Spain before the twelfth century, a tribute which directly prevents the progress of agriculture and one of those which have inflicted the greatest misery on the husbandman.[1096]
A clergy thus worldly, and so far removed from apostolic poverty, was not apt to be devoted to its duties, or to set an example of morality to its subjects. A project, drawn up by a Spanish bishop, of matters to be urged on the Council of Lateran in 1512, affords a glimpse into the deplorable condition of the Church which was so deeply concerned with the salvation of the Marranos and Moriscos. Few among the laity observed the prescribed fasts and feasts, and even the Easter communion was neglected. The priests were negligent and, even in cathedrals, it was sometimes difficult to have divine service performed. Among the clergy, from bishops to the lower orders, concubinage was universal and shameless, while simony ruled everywhere.[1097]The provisions of the Council of Seville in 1512, and of Coria in 1537, indicate the vicious and degraded character of the priesthood and the impossibility of restraining their habitual concubinage.[1098]Alphonso de Castro argues that if it were not for the protection of God it would be difficult to preserve religion in view of the unworthiness of the priests and their wickedness. It is known to all, he says, that the contempt felt for them arises first from their excessive numbers, secondly from their ignorance and lastly from their flagitious lives.[1099]Archbishop Carranza is emphatic in reproving the negligence of the clerics, who were so indifferent to their duty that they abandoned their churches and might as well be non-existent, in addition to which were their evil and scandalous lives and the abuse of their wealth.[1100]
CLERICAL DEMORALIZATION
This is confirmed by Inquisitor-general Valdés who states that when, in 1546, he assumed the archbishopric of Seville, he found the clergy and the dignitaries of his cathedral thoroughly demoralized. They had no shame in their children and grandchildren; their women lived with them openly, as though married, and accompanied them to church, and many of them kept public gaming tables in their houses, which were resorts of disorderly characters. If we may believe him, he resolutely undertook a reform and effected it at great labor and expense, owing to appeals and suits in Rome and in Granada and in the Royal Council and before apostolic judges. Then Francisco de Erasso, a favorite of Charles V, obtained a canonry and joined those who desired to return to their former dissolute life, against which, in 1556, he appeals to Philip II for protection.[1101]The lower ranks of the clergy were no better, if we may believe the synod of Orihuela, in 1600, which asserts that their concubinage was the cause of the animosity of the people against them,[1102]and we have seen, when treating of Solicitation, how frequent was the advantage taken of the opportunities of the confessional.
There were few prelates as conscientious as Valdés represents himself. Alfonso de Castro attributes the existence of heresy to their negligence; they were so slothful that they paid no attention to their duties; those who did otherwise were so rare that they were like jewels among pebbles.[1103]The Venitian envoy, Giovanni Soranzo is less cautious in his utterance, for he describes them as living luxuriously and squandering their revenues on splendid establishments; few of them were without children, in whom they took no shame and for whose advancement they employed every means.[1104]At the other end of the scale were the clerks in the lower orders, immersed in secular affairs, who took the tonsure in order to enjoy the protection from justice afforded by the Church. These were the despair of those responsible for public order. Fernando de Aragon, Viceroy of Valencia, complains, August 21, 1544, of the impossibility of enforcing justice owing to the zeal with which the church authorities protected the tonsure, whether right or wrong. The officials of the archbishops, he says, have been debased and ignorant men; whose sole aim has been to savecriminals from the punishment of their crimes. He is encouraged to hope for better things from the appointment as archbishop of San Tomas de Vilanova, and the latter follows, September 8th, with allusions to his own sufferings in consequence of his efforts to remedy this condition, which is an offence to justice and to God and a great damage to the people.[1105]
FANATICAL INTOLERANCE
A Church composed of such elements was not fitted to exercise for good the enormous influence which it enjoyed over public affairs, not only in shaping the policy of the kingdom but in directing the national tendencies. The theory was still the medieval one—that the ecclesiastical power is the sun and the royal power the moon, which derives its light from the sun.[1106]To its influence, as represented by Torquemada, was due the expulsion of the Jews; by Ximenes, the enforced conversion of the Moors; by Espinosa, the rebellion of Granada; by Juan de Ribera and his fellows, the expulsion of the Moriscos. In the royal councils, which formed a bureaucracy, prelates held leading and often dominant positions, and their subordinates were largely drawn from clerical ranks. In 1602 a proposition to increase the schools of artillery was referred to a junta presided over by the royal confessor, which reported that the expense could not be afforded; the schools came to be under the charge of Jesuits and frailes and speedily dwindled to nothing.[1107]The position of royal confessor was one of the highest political importance. Under Charles V he participated in all deliberations and had a preponderating influence.[1108]Under Philip II, his confessor Fray Diego de Chaves, played a leading part in the tragedy of Antonio Pérez. Fray Caspar de Toledo, confessor of Philip III boasted that, whenever he told the king that a thing must be done under pain of mortal sin or that it was sinful, he was obeyed without discussion.[1109]The Regent María Ana of Austria was completely under the domination of her confessor Nithard, and the letters to him of Clement XI, on European politics, indicate that be was the real ruler.[1110]The substitution of Froilan Díaz for Fray Pedro Matilla,as confessor of Carlos II, was the only step necessary to effect a revolution in the government and, when Díaz fled to Rome, he was reclaimed as a fugitive chief minister of state. We have seen under Philip V the power wielded by his confessors Daubenton and Robinet, and the part played by Rábago under Fernando VI. What thus ruled the court was perpetually at work in every parish and every family, where the pulpit and the confessional exercised an incalculable influence. What the Spaniard became was what the Church wished him to be. Clericalism thus, for good or for evil, was a leading factor in controlling the destinies of Spain, in exhausting its resources, in moulding the character of its people, and the Inquisition was its crowning work.
Under such influences, the toleration which had been so marked a feature of the medieval period gradually gave place to a fanaticism finding its expression in the Inquisition and inflamed into greater fierceness by the existence and reaction of that institution. There can be no question as to the sincere devoutness of Charles V, according to the unanimous testimony of the Venetian envoys, who describe his punctual discharge of all religious observances and who state that the surest avenue to his favor was the manifestation of earnest zeal for religion.[1111]Shortly before his death, he expressed deep regret that he had not executed Luther at Worms, in spite of his pledged safe-conduct, for he ought to have forfeited his word in order to avenge the offence to God. In his will, executed in 1554 at Brussels, he charged Philip II in the most earnest manner to favor in all ways the Inquisition, because of the many and great offences to God which it prevents or punishes and, in the codicil of September 9, 1558, dictated on his death-bed, his first thought is to repeat the injunction and to urge his son, by the obedience due to a father, to prosecute heresy, rigorously, unsparingly and relentlessly.[1112]Philip II needed no such exhortations. From his earliest youth he had breathed an atmosphere surcharged by the conflict with heresy; he had been taught that a sovereign’s highest duty to God and man was to enforce unity of faith, not only as a paramount religious obligation, but because it was an axiom of the statesmanship of the time that, in no other way, could the peace of a kingdom be preserved. There is no reason to doubt his perfect sincerity when, in 1568, the ArchdukeCharles came to Spain, as the representative of the German princes, to urge an accommodation with the Netherlands, and Philip, besides his formal reply, gave the archduke secret instructions to tell the emperor that no human influence, or considerations of state, or all that the whole world could say or do, would make him vary a hair’s breadth from the course which he had adopted and intended to pursue in this matter of religion, throughout all his dominions; that he would listen to no advice with regard to it, and would take ill any that might be offered. At the same time he wrote to Chantonnay, his ambassador at Vienna, that what he was doing in the Netherlands was for their advantage and the preservation of the Catholic faith, and that he would make no change in his policy, if it involved risking all his possessions and if the whole world should fall upon his head. So, in 1574, the instructions to the commissioners sent to Breda to confer with the deputies of William the Silent, were to declare emphatically that he would suffer no one to live under his throne who was not completely a Catholic.[1113]Philip was merely translating into practice the teachings of the Church and won its unstinted admiration. Cardinal Pallavicini contrasts the vacillating persecution in France with his sanguinary rigor, which was not only grateful to heaven but propitious to his kingdom, thus saved by salutary blood-letting.[1114]