CHAPTER XVI.

MISCELLANEOUS BUSINESS.

In the undefined and widely extending jurisdiction of the Inquisition

there were a number of matters, more or less connected with the faith,

of which it assumed cognizance. Their cursory consideration is

indispensable and they can more conveniently be grouped together.

MARRIAGE IN ORDERS.

The celibacy enjoined on the Catholic clergy includes the seculars, from

the subdiaconate upwards, and the regulars who are bound by the three

vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. Even degradation from orders

does not remove the disability, as the indelible _character_ impressed

in ordination remains.[708] Strict as has been the enforcement of the

canons, since the twelfth century, the weakness of the flesh has, at all

times, led to occasional infractions of the rule, punishable with

degradation, reclusion in a monastery and other penalties. Whether the

offence was justiciable by the Inquisition was, in the earlier period,

the subject of debate, some authors holding that, if the marriage was

public, it implied heretical error, bringing it under inquisitorial

jurisdiction, but that, if it was secret, this showed that there was no

intellectual misbelief, making the offender guilty only of violating the

law and subjecting him, if secular, to the spiritual courts, and if

regular, to the prelates of his Order.[709]

[Sidenote: _MARRIAGE IN ORDERS_]

The Reformation, which sanctioned clerical marriage, introduced a new

and controlling factor that in time altered the situation. Yet, for a

considerable period there was a powerful movement, especially among

German Catholics, to relax the prohibition in the hope of effecting a

reunion. The question was regarded as open for discussion, as a matter

merely of discipline; Arnaldo Albertino argues that the pope can

dispense for marriage in orders, and instances the dispensation granted

by Alexander VI to his son Cæsar Borgia, then a cardinal-deacon, to

marry the heiress of Valentinois.[710] The reactionary influences which

controlled the Council of Trent changed all this when, in 1563, it made

clerical celibacy a matter of faith, rendering priestly marriage

unquestionably thenceforth heretical.[711]

The Inquisition, however, did not wait for this to assume jurisdiction,

though it seems not to have acted until after the outbreak of the

Reformation had rendered clerical celibacy a subject of discussion. The

earliest case that I have met is that of Miguel Gómez, a priest of

Saragossa, sentenced, for marrying in orders, by the Toledo tribunal in

1529, when the peculiar punishment would seem to show that it was a

novelty for which no precedent existed. He was exhibited for three days

on a ladder at the portal of the cathedral, in his shirt and drawers,

with his hands tied, his feet chained and a mitre on his head, after

which he was deprived for life of sacerdotal functions and banished

forever from the province. Toledo had no other case until 1562, when it

had to deal with the somewhat complicated offence of Fray Juan Ramírez,

who entered a religious order while married, but twice left it and

returned again, during which performances he married two wives.[712]

That jurisdiction depended wholly on the sacrament is seen in the case

of Juan Carrillo, alias Fray Juan Ortiz, a Franciscan denounced, in

1596, to the Toledo tribunal by his prelate, Fray Juan de Ovando, for

apostasy and living with a woman reputed to be his wife. Investigation

showed that she was merely his concubine, so the case was suspended, and

he was remanded to Ovando to be dealt with under the rules of the

Order.[713]

[Sidenote: _PERSONATION OF PRIESTHOOD_]

After the offence had clearly been made heresy by the Council of Trent,

the terrifying formula of accusation by the fiscal describes the

offender as unworthy of mercy, to be deprived of all ecclesiastical

privilege, to be degraded from his orders and to be relaxed to the

secular arm, to which was added the _otrosi_ demanding the free use of

torture.[714] In practice, however, there was the widest discretion. It

is true that writers speak of appearance in public auto or degradation

and reclusion in a monastery for a few years, or a similar term of

galley service, but there seems to have been no rule.[715] Indeed, it is

not easy to understand how an offence so uniform in its nature should

have been visited with penalties so diverse. In 1597, Francisco Agustin,

an Augustinian of Barcelona, married in Toledo, sought to defend himself

on the plea that he had entered the Order under compulsion in order to

escape his debts; his sentence was appearance in an auto, abjuration _de

levi_ and imprisonment for life in the convent where he had made

profession.[716] In 1629, Fray Lorenzo de Avalle, a Benedictine priest,

accused himself to the Valladolid tribunal of having married and lived

for eight years as a musician in Aragon. Notwithstanding his

self-denunciation, he was sentenced to verbal degradation and to four

years' detention in a monastery, where he was to undergo a circular

discipline, while the woman was notified that she was free to marry

again.[717] In strong contrast with this was the case of Juan Alonso

Palacios, a married Jesuit, before the Toledo tribunal in 1659, who,

though not an _esponianeado_, escaped with a reprimand and four years of

reclusion. Then, in 1664, Fray Juan de Ayala, a Mercenarian priest, was,

by the same tribunal, suspended perpetually from his functions and

recluded for three years in a convent with one year's Friday fasting and

some spiritual penance. Again, in 1675, the same tribunal condemned

Gerónimo de Morales, a married subdeacon, to five years in the galleys,

three more of exile and disqualification for orders.[718] Five years of

galleys, with three more of exile and deprivation of functions and

benefices, was the portion of Don Cristóval de Zabiati, alias Don Juan

Baptista de Verganza, priest of Talavera de la Reina, who appeared in

the great Madrid auto of 1680.[719] In 1700 the Toledo tribunal had to

deal with a case characterized as "con circonstancias gravísimas," so

that we may regard the sentence as representing the extremity of

punishment for the offence. The culprit was not required to appear in an

auto, but his sentence was read in the audience-chamber, in the presence

of twenty-four ecclesiastics. It prescribed abjuration _de levi_,

perpetual deprivation of functions, perpetual confinement in a convent

cell, to be left only for choir and refectory, in which he was to have

the last place, to fasting for four years, on bread and water on Fridays

and vigils, and to a circular discipline when taken to the convent. The

details of his career are not given, but there is a suggestion of

material for a picaresque novel, as the culprit was a Dominican, Fray

Tomas Juster, who had been a calificador of the Inquisition and a

preacher of the king, and who enjoyed the multifarious aliases of Don

Juan de San Feliú Cisneros, Don Vicente de Ochaita and Don Juan de

Ibarrola.[720] It is somewhat remarkable that degradation appears so

rarely to be resorted to.

The offence seems to have been by no means frequent. In the Toledo

reports from 1575 to 1610, there are only the two cases referred to

above, and, in the record of the same tribunal from 1648 to 1794 the

number is only ten. From 1780 to 1820 the combined records of all the

tribunals show only six cases.[721]

PERSONATION OF PRIESTHOOD.

The veneration with which the sacraments are regarded, and the supreme

importance ascribed to them as a means of salvation, render it

indispensable that they should be guarded with the utmost solicitude.

Not only is their validity essential to those who seek them, but any

fraud in their dispensation is sacrilege, which, in the case of the

mass, may plunge all worshippers present into the sin of idolatry. With

the exception of baptism, they can be administered only by those in full

priest's orders, and the pretence to do so by men unqualified is a

wrong, not only to the faithful who are deceived, but to the Creator

who has established them for the solace and salvation of His

creatures.[722]

The fees attaching to the confection and bestowal of the sacraments are

a valuable privilege of the priesthood, and the temptation was great for

graceless laymen or clerics in the lower orders to simulate the

possession of the requisite faculties, and to betray the unsuspecting

into accepting from their hands the worthless simulacra. In the venality

of the fourteenth century this would seem not to have been regarded as

an especially grave offence for, in the tax-roll of Benedict XII, the

official fee for absolution for pretending to be a priest, hearing

confessions and granting absolution, is only six _grossi_ or about

three-quarters of a florin.[723] After the outbreak of the Reformation

it was regarded as a more serious matter. Paul IV, in briefs of May 20,

1557, and February 17, 1559, defined the offence as subject to the

Inquisition, and to be punished by relaxation, even when there was not

relapse.[724] Sixtus V felt compelled to reissue the brief of Paul, and

Clement VIII, in 1601, confirmed the acts of his predecessors,

authorizing prosecution by either the Inquisition or the episcopal

Ordinary. This was applicable only to culprits who had reached the age

of 25, but Urban VIII, in 1627, reduced the limit to 20.[725]

[Sidenote: _PERSONATION OF PRIESTHOOD_]

This repetition of legislation shows the stubbornness of the evil and

the papal determination to suppress it. Even complicity was sternly

punished for, in 1619, a layman assisting a celebrant, whom he knew to

be unqualified, was tortured for intention, made to abjure _de

vehementi_, to serve five years in the galleys, and was perpetually

suspended from assisting at mass.[726] Cardinal Scaglia, however, states

that when the offence was committed through thoughtlessness, relaxation

was commuted to ten years of galleys,[727] but there was no hesitation

in inflicting the full penalty in appropriate cases. As late as July 18,

1711, Domenico Spallacino, a hardened offender, who had lived for five

years by celebrating mass in Rome, Loreto and other places, was relaxed

and condemned to be hanged and burned; he was duly hanged in the Piazza

di Campo de'Fiori, the body was fastened to an iron stake on a pile of

wood and was reduced to ashes, which were gathered up and buried.[728]

In Spain the matter was treated less seriously. The Inquisition at first

did not regard itself as having jurisdiction unless there were misbelief

as to the sacraments. A carta acordada of January 31, 1533, instructs

the tribunals that, in these cases, the culprit is to be asked whether

he thought himself possessed of the power, or whether he had anywhere

heard it so asserted as an opinion, and what was his intention; if he

acknowledges no erroneous belief, the matter does not concern the

Inquisition and, he is to be handed over to the magistrate. The briefs

of Paul IV were not admitted in Spain, and the matter slumbered until

1574 when, on January 13th, the Suprema addressed to the tribunals a

circular inquiry, asking whether there had been any prosecutions for

this offence; if so, on what grounds was the jurisdiction based, what

form of procedure was followed, and what penalty was inflicted; also

opinions were asked as to how such cases should be treated.[729]

Evidently no attention had as yet been paid to the question; the replies

showed that there was no general policy, and a brief of August 17th, of

the same year, was obtained from Gregory XIII reciting that in Spain

there were conflicting opinions whether the Inquisition had or had not

jurisdiction, wherefore he granted to it exclusive cognizance, and

forbade the episcopal courts from entertaining such cases.[730] This the

Suprema sent, November 26th, to all the tribunals with orders to

prosecute in such cases, and to introduce a corresponding clause in the

Edict of Faith.[731]

It is evident that the Spanish Inquisition did not share the horror felt

in Rome for such offences, and this is manifested in the comparative

moderation of the penalties inflicted. About 1650, a Spaniard in Rome,

writing to a friend at home, and comparing the severity of the Italian

Inquisition with the mildness of the Spanish, instances the Roman

torture of bigamists and soliciting confessors, the longer terms of

galleys for the former, and the implacable relaxation of those who

celebrate mass without ordination.[732] There was no such ferocity in

Spain. No time had been lost in assuming the jurisdiction and already,

in 1575, there was a culprit in a Toledo auto--Fray Alonso García, a

Franciscan--who had celebrated mass and heard confessions, and whose

sentence was merely abjuration _de levi_ and four years' galley service.

The most complete discretion was exercised and the penalties varied in

the same tribunal according to the circumstances of the case and the

temper of the inquisitors. Thus in Toledo, in 1578, Pero Joan Queito, a

student, who carried forged certificates and had confessed many persons,

absolving them and imposing penance, appeared in an auto, with halter

and candle, abjured _de levi_, and had two hundred lashes and three

years of galleys. In the same year a Frenchman named Pierre Saletas,

accused of having for twenty years heard confessions and celebrated mass

on forged certificates, was tortured without confessing and was banished

the kingdom for four years and forbidden to administer sacraments

without genuine certificates. In 1600, Balthasar Rodríguez, a deacon,

appeared in an auto, abjured _de levi_, was suspended for ten years from

the exercise of his orders, with perpetual disability for promotion, and

had six years of galleys. In the same year the Mercenarian, Fray

Gregorio de Palacios, was spared appearance in an auto, but abjured _de

levi_, had fifty lashes and was recluded for three years in a monastery

of his Order.[733] In 1622, at Valladolid, the Franciscan deacon, Fray

Juan Tapia, for celebrating mass, was merely ordered to keep his convent

as a prison and to present himself when summoned. Somewhat greater

severity was shown to Fray Antonio Frechado, a Trinitarian subdeacon,

who for publicly hearing confessions was required to abjure _de levi_,

was suspended from his functions for two years, during which he was

recluded in his convent, was disabled for promotion and had some

spiritual penance.[734]

[Sidenote: _PERSONATION OF PRIESTHOOD_]

It would be useless to multiply examples of this diversified moderation.

I have met with but one case in which the papal prescription of

relaxation was obeyed and this occurred in Mexico, in 1606, when

Fernando Rodríguez de Castro, a mulatto, was relaxed for administering

sacraments without ordination, but this was no precedent for, in the

great auto of 1648, Gaspar de los Reyes was sentenced to two hundred

lashes and the galleys for life and Martin de Villavicencio Salazar to

the same scourging and five years of galleys.[735]

The systematic writers assure us that the papal decrees were not

received in Spain, and that the punishment varied with the nature of the

case, consisting usually of scourging, unless the offender was a fraile,

the galleys, exile, reclusion, degradation, suspension of functions,

etc., varied at the discretion of the tribunal and that, in cases of

minor culpability, it could be commuted for money. Relaxation was kept

in view only for some error in faith persistently held--a purely

academical supposition, although the culprit was exhaustively examined

as to his belief in the necessity of priestly orders to the validity of

sacraments.[736] That ecclesiastics between themselves in reality

attached but little importance to the offence may be inferred from the

case of the Mercenarian Fray Pedro de la Presentacion, who celebrated

mass when only in subdeacon's orders. The Toledo tribunal condemned him,

June 16, 1662, to three years of galleys. The superior of his Order at

once interceded for him and, in September, the Suprema commuted the

penalty to three years' reclusion in a convent, with three years'

subsequent exile from Daimiel, Toledo and Madrid. When only ten months

of the term had expired the Provincial of Castile applied for the

remission of the remainder, but in vain and, when two years had passed

the effort was renewed.[737] Evidently the good frailes recked little of

the idolatry into which he had plunged all who were present at his

ministration.

As the eighteenth century advanced a still more lenient view seems to

have obtained. In 1749 the case of Fray Juan de Santa Rosa, a Franciscan

deacon, was an aggravated one, for he had administered the sacraments of

baptism, the Eucharist, penitence and matrimony, but the Toledo tribunal

only declared him "irregular" for promotion, suspended him from the

diaconate for two years and imposed fifteen days of spiritual penance.

No special expectation of amendment earned this benignity, for his

Provincial was instructed to send him to a convent, from which he was

not to go out alone, so as not to expose him to relapse.[738]

Under the Restoration there was leniency difficult to understand. The

sentence of the Dominican Fray Tomas García by the Cuenca tribunal,

November 14, 1816, for celebrating mass without priests' orders, was

that the commissioner of Villaescusa was to reprimand him in presence of

the superior of his convent, pointing out the severe penalties provided

by the papal decrees and prescribing spiritual penances for a year,

besides informing the prelate that he could not ascend to full orders.

This was confirmed by the Suprema, with the addition that he be

transferred to a house of stricter observance. December 11th of the same

year, Angel Sampayo, a married layman of Campo Ramiro (Lugo) was

convicted of celebrating mass. The Suprema alludes to his _atentato

horrible_, but merely orders him to be reprimanded and sent back to his

home, where the parish priest and his father are to keep watch over

him.[739]

* * * * *

In connection with this subject it may be mentioned that the Inquisition

also took cognizance of a class of cases, alluded to above under

Solicitation, in which laymen managed to hear confessions of women, not

with a view to administer the sacrament of penitence, but through

jealousy, or for the opportunity of asking indecent questions, or in the

hope of listening to prurient details. These cases were by no means

infrequent. In 1785, there were three before the tribunal of Valencia;

in 1793, one in Murcia; in 1796, Joseph Herranz was prosecuted in Madrid

for doing this in order to hear his wife's confession. The same year

there was a case in Seville; in 1797, one in Barcelona and, in 1807,

Miguel Domínguez, sacristan of San Miguel de Niebla, pretended to be a

Capuchin with the object to listening to the confession of a woman.[740]

With what severity such cases were treated, I have not been able to

ascertain.

[Sidenote: _PERSONATION OF OFFICIALS_]

PERSONATION OF OFFICIALS.

In the universal dread inspired by the Holy Office, the temptation was

great to personate its agents, and to extort money as the price of

forbearance, for no one ventured to question the authority or acts of

any stranger who presented himself as an official.

The opportunities thus afforded were speedily recognized and utilized.

As early as 1487, at Saragossa, a special auto was held, April 1st, at

which appeared a cleric who had pretended to be an inquisitor and as

such had made an arrest. The penalty inflicted is not recorded, but

evidently the opportunity was taken to make an impressive warning[741].

The systematic writers assume that in these cases there should be

careful consideration of the injury inflicted, for the pretender may

deserve exemplary punishment. The usual offence is asserting that there

are accusations and that he will save the accused from prosecution; for

this he must refund the money received, appear in an auto and suffer two

hundred lashes and five years of galley service. If the imposture is

assumed only to escape from some trouble and causing no damage, there is

some penalty of fine or exile; if there has been only an assertion of

official position, the penalty is very light and secret.[742] Other

authorities tell us that, if the culprit is of a low class, he has two

hundred lashes and four years of galleys, more or less according to the

gravity of the offence; if he is a noble or rich, he is fined one or two

thousand ducats and serves for two or three years, without pay, as a

gentleman in the galleys, or against the Moors or heretics[743].

Evidently in an offence which varied so much in motive and result, much

was necessarily left to the discretion of the tribunal and a few cases

will serve to indicate the different methods of operating and the

deterrent penalties inflicted.

[Sidenote: _PERSONATION OF OFFICIALS_]

In the Seville auto of September 24, 1559, there were three cases of

personation. Alonso de Hontiveros, for pretending to be a familiar and

endeavoring to make arrests for the purpose of extortion, appeared with

halter and gag and was sent to Xeres his place of residence to receive

a hundred lashes; Juan de Aragon, of Málaga, for the same offence, was

spared the gag, but wore a mitre and had a scourging at Málaga and

another where his offence was committed, besides two years of exile,

while his accomplice, Francisco Prieto, received the same sentence, with

the substitution of vergüenza for scourging[744]. On the other hand, at

Toledo, in 1581, Francisco de la Bastida was visited with the utmost

rigor. He represented himself as an alguazil, carrying a _vara de

justicia_ and using the name of the inquisitor-general. He would summon

the alcades and other officials to render assistance, which was freely

given without question; he would make arrests, carry his prisoners to

some distance, take their money, leave them in charge of some local

familiar and disappear. In this way he moved from Fuente de Enzina to

Almaden and Madrid, and thence to Saragossa where he was arrested. He

confessed freely at once and was condemned to relaxation, by virtue of a

special brief obtained from Gregory XIII, but the Suprema, with doubtful

mercy, commuted this to six hundred lashes--two hundred each in Toledo,

Almaden and Fuente de Enzina--and the galleys irremissibly for

life[745]. Zapata relates what is evidently the exploit which brought to

a close the promising career of this enterprising knave. At Almagro, he

says, the agent of the Fuggers of Augsburg was Juan Xelder, a man highly

esteemed and reputed to be of great wealth. Suddenly a stranger

appeared, with the vara of an alguazil of the Inquisition, who sought

out two familiars and commanded them to assist him in making an arrest.

Proceeding to Xelder's house he made the arrest, locked him up in a room

and consoled the frightened family by assuring them of the customary

mercy of the Inquisition. He then summoned a notary and placed all the

property of the prisoner under sequestration, except two thousand ducats

which he said he had orders to take for the expenses of the trial. The

whole town was thrown into commotion, but no one dared to ask for

papers, or authority, or identification. Xelder was placed in a

carriage, with strict orders that no one should exchange a word with

him; the familiars were required to accompany it to the next halting

place, where they and the carriage were dismissed with handsome

gratuities and the stranger confided Xelder to the care of a familiar of

high standing, with orders to guard him carefully, _incomunicado_, while

he would proceed to Toledo and send instructions. Ten days passed when

the familiar, growing tired of the expense, made inquiries and

ascertaining the facts released the prisoner. Meanwhile the impostor,

fearing to carry the gold, deposited it with a banker and took a bill of

exchange on Saragossa, so that he was readily tracked and arrested when

he presented the bill for payment. The secular court claimed him, but

the Inquisition asserted its jurisdiction--fortunately, Zapata says, for

the culprit, for the offence was capital and he escaped with scourging

and the galleys[746].

Another method of speculation on the fears and hopes of the defenceless

appears in the case of Gerónimo Roche, son of the secretary of the

University of Lérida. He pretended to be an official, to have much

influence with the tribunal, and to hold faculties to remit four

sanbenitos and to appoint four familiars. He approached a Morisca who,

with her three daughters, had been reconciled, and offered to relieve

her of her sanbenito for two hundred ducats, and those of her three

daughters if one of them would abandon herself to him. He was forbidden

the house but he persisted in writing letters of mingled threats and

love. For this he appeared in the Saragossa auto of June 6, 1585, where

he was sentenced to vergüenza and eight years in the galleys, being

spared the scourging in consideration of his father[747].

There appears to have been a very lenient view taken, in 1582, by the

Toledo tribunal, of the case of Pedro Moreno, a sacristan, who pretended

to be a familiar and as such visited the hospital and asked the inmates

whether they had confessed, when he arrested and carried off those who

had not. It was in evidence also that, on seeing two men quarrelling in

a church, he arrested one in the name of the Inquisition. There does not

seem to have been a pecuniary motive in these eccentricities, and he

escaped with a reprimand and banishment for a year[748]. Another motive,

which was regarded with a lenient eye, was assuming official position in

order to enjoy the exemptions and privileges of the Inquisition. Thus

when Jayme Corvellana of Barcelona in this manner bluffed off the

officers of justice who came to his house to seize some salt, Inquisitor

Padilla imposed on him a fine of fifty ducats and some spiritual

penance, and was rebuked by the Suprema for inflicting so heavy a

penalty for so trifling a cause--"en causas tan livianas."[749]

Personation was by no means uncommon, but I am convinced that Llorente

is mistaken when he says that there rarely was an auto in which some one

was not punished for this offence. In the Toledo record from 1575 to

1610, the number of cases is only thirteen and, in the same tribunal,

from 1648 to 1794, they amount only to four.[750]

The principal interest in these cases is the evidence which they afford

of the terror inspired by the Inquisition, the very name of which seemed

to paralyze, so that no one, whether magistrate or individual, dared to

question the authority of any impostor who assumed to represent it, and

this same terror doubtless is the reason why this apparently facile

method of trading on popular fear was not more frequently exploited. It

required more than common nerve to incur the risk of inquisitorial

vengeance.

Somewhat akin to this was the levying of blackmail by threats of

denunciation. No doubt there was a good deal of this, in which the

victims prudently suffered in silence, rather than to draw upon

themselves the attention of the dreaded tribunal. It was a matter of

which the Inquisition took cognizance, but the only case which I have

happened to meet is that of Pedro Jacome Pramoseltes, who was sentenced

by the Toledo tribunal, in 1666, to three years of galley-service for

astrology and had his term extended to five for attempts at extortion in

this manner.[751]

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION.

[Sidenote: _DEMONIACAL POSSESSION_]

That evil spirits can take possession of a human being, deprive him of

his free-will and subject him to extreme bodily and mental suffering, is

a belief handed down from ancient times and still largely held as a

matter of faith. That relief can be had by the ministrations of an

exorcist, duly authorized by admission into one of the lower orders of

the priesthood, is a corresponding belief, and formulas without number

have been prepared to enable him to exercise his power over the demon.

There is no heresy involved in either the possession or the exorcism

and, under normal conditions, there was no call for interference by the

Inquisition, but when, for any reason, such interference was desired,

there was little trouble in finding pretext for its jurisdiction. We

have seen (Vol. II, p. 135) the active measures taken, in 1628, with the

nuns of San Placido, whose demoniacally inspired revelations were

somewhat revolutionary. Greater self-denial was exhibited by the

Valladolid tribunal in a contemporaneous case, when a Jesuit confessor

reported to it that Doña Felippa and Doña Aña de Mercado, Bernardino

nuns in Santo Espíritu of Olmeda, made gestures and other irreverent

acts in confession and communion, which caused scandal, and he thought

proceeded from demoniacal possession. The tribunal felt doubts as to its

jurisdiction and consulted the Suprema, which submitted the matter to a

calificador of high attainments. Prolonged investigations were made,

other nuns were examined, and it was in evidence that the two inculpated

were women of exceptional virtue and piety who had prayed to God to test

them with afflictions. The case dragged on for more than ten years,

resulting in the conviction that it was undoubtedly one of possession,

for which the nuns were free from blame, and finally, April 16, 1630,

the Suprema ordered its suspension[752]. Wherever there was the faintest

suspicion of heresy, the Inquisition could assert jurisdiction.

This involved the question of the responsibility of the demoniac for his

utterances, which was somewhat intricate. In the case of one under trial

by the Granada tribunal, in 1650, the learned Jesuit, Padre Diego Tello,

who was called in as a calificador, reported, with an immense array of

authorities, and after three visits to the accused in the secret prison,

that there could be no doubt as to the possession, for he was able to

discuss points of theology and other matters far beyond his capacity; he

could also speak Latin intelligibly and he quoted Scripture while, as he

uttered many heresies, it was evident that the spirit was evil. At the

same time he was rational on so many points that he could not be

regarded as irresponsible for his heresies. Luther and Zwingli, he

added, were notoriously possessed by demons, but they were none the less

held responsible for their teachings and it was the uniform practice of

the Inquisition so to decide in these cases.[753]

In the hysterical epidemics which form so notable a feature of

possession, the Inquisition was apt to be called in and was ready to

act, although it would be difficult to determine on what grounds. In

1638 there was such an epidemic in one of the Pyrenean valleys and, on

September 24th, Jacinto de Robles, secretary of the Governor of Aragon,

reported to the Saragossa tribunal that, on a recent visit to Jaca, he

had found, in the Valle de Tena, that there were about sixty

_endemoniadas_ and that the malady was spreading. It was attributed to

Pedro de Arrecibo and his friend Miguel Guillen, who had been seized by

the secular authorities; Guillen had been executed, while Arrecibo's

trial was nearly concluded. He had confessed that a Frenchman had given

him a paper and some conjurations through which to win women, but it

only rendered them possessed--a statement evidently fabricated to

satisfy his torturers. It was the demons who had accused these two men,

adding that their death would not stay the infection, for there were

other accomplices. The women affected were of the best families, their

ages ranging from 7 to 18--some were pregnant and others were suckling

their infants, for demons were able to produce these results in the

virtuous. The Bishop of Jaca and some Jesuits were exhausting their

exorcisms, and an inquisitor was badly needed. What function was

expected of an inquisitor is not stated, but the Suprema was consulted

and, after some delay it appealed to the king. It was ready to send an

inquisitor and four frailes, but it had no funds for the expenses of the

latter, which would have to be defrayed from some other source. The king

gave orders accordingly, but they were not obeyed, and the last we hear

of the matter is another consulta of March 28, 1640, in which he was

urged to speedy action in view of the great importance of the

affair.[754]

[Sidenote: _DEMONIACAL POSSESSION_]

The intervention of the Inquisition might well be welcomed if it was

always as rational and as effective as in an epidemic of the kind which

troubled Querétaro (Mexico) in 1691. Two young girls who had suffered

themselves to be seduced pretended to be possessed. The Franciscans and

_Padres Apostólicos_ took them in hand, exorcising them at night in the

churches with the most impressive ceremonies, which spread the

contagion, until there were fourteen patients, and the community was

thoroughly excited. It would doubtless have extended much further, but

fortunately the Dominicans, the Jesuits and the Carmelites, jealous of

the rival Orders, pronounced the whole to be an imposture. The two

factions denounced each other from the pulpits, the people took sides,

and passions grew so hot that severe disturbances were impending. Both

factions appealed to the Inquisition, which submitted the matter to

calificadores. These decided that the demoniacal possession was

fraudulent, and that the blasphemies and sacrilegious acts of the

energumens and the violent sermons of the frailes were justiciable by

the Inquisition. With great good sense the tribunal issued a decree,

January 9, 1692, ordering the cessation of all exorcism and of all

discussion, whether in the pulpit or in private. The excitement

forthwith died away and the energumens, left to themselves, for the most

part recovered their senses. Prosecutions were commenced against four of

them and against the Franciscan Fray Mateo de Bonilla, which seem to

have been suspended after a few years. One of the girls, however, who

had caught the infection, had her nervous system too profoundly

impressed for recovery; she continued under the inspection of the

Inquisition, gradually sinking into a condition of confirmed

hypochondria, until we lose sight of her in 1704.[755]

Cases of imposture were not infrequent. Whether this in itself rendered

the impostor liable to prosecution by the Inquisition may be doubted

but, in the deception, she was very apt to commit acts or to utter

blasphemies which brought her under its jurisdiction. Thus, in 1796, we

find the Valencia tribunal prosecuting Benita Gargori, a pretended

demoniac, and Francisca Signes, an accomplice, for irreligious actions

and utterances.[756]

The exorciser also occasionally laid himself open to inquisitorial

animadversion. Thus, in 1749, Fray Jaime Sans, a lay-brother of the

Order of San Francisco de Assis, used to visit the sick and pronounce

them to be possessed, when he would make the sign of the cross and

sprinkle them with holy water. He was denounced to the Barcelona

tribunal, which warned him to desist, for he had no power to exorcise,

and threatened to proceed against him, whereupon he promised to

obey[757]. Exorcists also sometimes abused their opportunities by

committing indecencies upon their patients. I have not met with such

cases in the Spanish Inquisition, but in this it would doubtless follow

the example of the Roman Congregation, which, in 1639, ordered the

prosecution of a most flagrant one, reported by the Inquisitor of

Bergamo[758].

Considered as a whole, the influence of the Inquisition must have been

decidedly beneficial in restraining the development of this disease, for

experienced inquisitors recognized that the methods usually adopted only

aggravated it. Cardinal Scaglia ([dagger symbol] 1639), in treating of these

epidemics among nuns, remarks that the superiors, not content with

exorcisms, commence prosecutions, examine witnesses and interrogate the

pretended criminals suggestively and absurdly and threaten them with

torture, thus extracting whatever confessions they desire and creating

still greater disturbance in the convent and the city[759].

INSULTS TO IMAGES.

Allusion has already been made to the invasion of episcopal jurisdiction

by the assumption of the Inquisition that outrages or insults offered to

sacred images fell under its cognizance. For this there was more

justification than for some other inferential heresies, for wilful

irreverence to the objects of universal cult was reasonably regarded as

causing suspicion of erroneous belief, and during the period of active

persecution of crypto-Judaism and of Protestantism such offences were

readily ascribable to heretical fanaticism.

[Sidenote: _INSULTS TO IMAGES_]

In one instance, at least, the secular magistrates exercised

jurisdiction. In December, 1643, Madrid was much excited by a robbery

committed on a miracle-working image of Nuestra Señora de la Gracia,

when all its jewels, ornaments and vestments were taken, and worst of

all, the image was left lying face downwards on the ground. Great

efforts were made to detect the perpetrators of the sacrilege, and it

was accounted miraculous when they were identified while investigating

another robbery. They must have been tried by the criminal judges, for

no mention is made of the Inquisition and all three were hanged in

March, 1644, in presence of an immense crowd[760].

This was exceptional, and the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was

generally admitted. We are told, by a writer of the period, that, when

images of the saints are outraged by word or act, if the accused belongs

to a nation infected with iconoclastic heresy, and the evidence is

sufficient and he denies intention, he must be tortured. Overcoming the

torture, without having sufficiently purged the evidence, he can be

sentenced to an extraordinary penalty and to abjuration, either _de

levi_ or _de vehementi_: if he confesses both fact and intention and

begs for mercy, he is to be reconciled, but if pertinacious he must be

relaxed[761]. This however applies to cases of absolute heretics, in

which the sacrilege was apt to be merely an aggravating incident, while

the great majority of cases consisted of more or less reckless

Catholics, whose punishment varied with the circumstances and was rarely

vindictive. In the Toledo tribunal, from 1575 to 1610, there were but

four cases, which illustrate the general principles of treatment and the

extreme susceptibility felt with regard to any irreverence towards

sacred objects. The first of these occurs in 1579, when Francisco del

Espinar, a boy of 13, was tried for pulling up a way-side cross, playing

with it until he broke it and cast the fragments into a vineyard, and

then alleging that it was no sin because the cross was not a blessed

one. He confessed freely and pleaded that it was not through

irreverence, because he was drunk, but he was punished with sixty lashes

and two years of exile. The second was in 1595, when Fernando Rodríguez

was accused by three witnesses of throwing a stick at a paper image of

the Virgin on an altar, tearing it and uttering a filthy jest, but he

proved an alibi and the case was suspended. The next was in 1600, when

Anton Ruiznieto was punished with abjuration de levi and three years'

exile, for maltreating a crucifix and using offensive words to it. The

fourth, in 1606, illustrates the circumspection requisite to avoid even

the appearance of irreverence, and the danger of denunciation which

constantly impended over every one. Isabel de Espinosa was denounced by

three witnesses because she had placed on a close-stool, which she kept

in her living-room, a painted board on which were representations of

Christ and some saints. A neighbor removed it and she replaced it, when

the neighbor spoke to her and she changed its place. She was brought

from Ocaña to Toledo and a house was assigned to her as a prison. In

defence she explained that her mother-in-law had left her some old

furniture, which her husband had just brought to the house; among it was

this board, black and indistinguishable with age and, without

examination, she had put it on the objectionable article, but when this

was pointed out to her she had removed it. As she was a simple woman and

there was no apparent malice, the case was suspended[762].

In contrast with the severity of the secular courts, as manifested by

the Madrid case of 1644 above referred to, and the French case of the

Chevalier de La Barre, the Inquisition was singularly merciful. In 1661,

Francisco de Abiles, chief auditor of the Priors of St. John, for

insults to an image of Christ, was only exiled for two years by the

Toledo tribunal, which likewise, in 1689 merely exiled for one year Juan

Martin Salvador for stabbing a cross[763]. Perhaps the instance of

greatest rigor that I have met was that visited, in 1720, by the Madrid

tribunal on a youth named Joseph de la Sarria. While confined in the

royal prison he became enraged in gambling and, in his wrath, he threw

in the dirt a picture of the Virgin and tore up another, for which he

was sentenced to two hundred lashes, five years in the galleys and eight

years of exile from Madrid and his native province of Galicia[764].

[Sidenote: _UNCANONIZED SAINTS_]

During the active period of the Inquisition, cases of this offence are

singularly few. In all the sixty-four autos held in Spain, from 1721 to

1727, there is not a single specific instance serious enough to require

appearance in an auto, indicating how universal and deep-seated was the

popular reverence for sacred symbols. It is therefore significant of the

spiritual and intellectual unrest characterizing the close of the

century, that outrages on images became comparatively frequent. In the

decade, 1780-1789 inclusive, there were sixteen cases; in that of

1790-1799, thirty-three and, from 1800 to 1810, nineteen, some of them,

such as trampling on the cross, indicative of iconoclastic zeal. Under

the Restoration, there are but three cases on record.[765]

During this period the spirit of revolt manifested itself in other

kindred ways. In 1797, 1798, 1799, 1800 and 1802 there were trials for

throwing down and trampling on consecrated wafers. In 1797, in Valencia,

Bernardo Amengayl, Ignacio Sánchez, Miguel Escribá and Valentin Duza

were prosecuted for exhibitions burlesquing the saints and sacred

objects. In 1799, at Seville, Manuel Mirasol was tried for a

sacrilegious assault on a priest carrying the sacrament to a sick man.

In 1807, Dr. Vicente Peña, priest of Cifuentes was prosecuted in Cuenca

for celebrating a burlesque mass and Don Eusebio de la Mota for

assisting him.[766] These were surface indications of the hidden

currents which were bearing Spain to new destinies, and it is worthy of

note that they almost ceased during the brief years of the Inquisition

under the Restoration.

* * * * *

Akin to the function of preserving images from insult, was the reverent

care with which the Inquisition sought to protect the cross from

accidental pollution. A carta acordada of September 20, 1629, instructs

the tribunals to suppress the custom of painting or placing crosses in

recesses of streets or where two walls form an angle, or other unclean

places, where they are exposed to filth, while all existing ones are to

be removed or erased under discretional penalties. Another carta of

April 19, 1689, recites that not only has this not been done, but that

the custom of placing crosses in these objectionable places is

extending, wherefore the previous orders are reissued, with notice that

six days after publication will be allowed, subsequently to which the

penalties will be enforced.[767]

UNCANONIZED SAINTS.

In the exuberant cult offered to saints, there must be some central and

absolute authority to determine claims to sainthood and to preserve the

faithful from the superstition of wasting devotion on those who have no

power of suffrage. St. Ulric of Augsburg is said to be the first saint

whose sanctity was deliberately passed upon by Rome, in 993, and

Alexander III, in 1181 definitely forbade the adoration of those who had

not been canonized by the Holy See.[768] The assumption of such

authority was essential, for the cult of a local saint was profitable to

a shrine fortunate enough to possess his remains, and popular enthusiasm

was ready at any moment to ascribe sainthood to any devotee who had

earned the reputation of especial holiness.

How difficult it was for even the Inquisition to crush this eagerness

for new intercessors between God and man, is seen in the disturbances

which troubled Valencia for seven years, between 1612 and 1619. After

the death of Mosen Francisco Simon, a priest of holy life, there

developed a fixed belief that he was a saint in heaven. Chapels and

altars were dedicated to him, books were printed filled with the

miracles wrought by his intercession, his images were adorned with the

nimbus of sanctity, processions and illuminations were organized in his

honor, and the question of his right to a place in the calendar became a

political as well as a religious one. It was in vain that the Holy See

asserted its unquestioned right of decision and ordered the Inquisition

to suppress the superstition. Popular excitement reached such height

that an attempt was made to murder in the pulpit a secretary of the

tribunal, when he endeavored to read the edict; a priest named Ozar was

slain for opposing the popular frenzy, and Archbishop Aliaga, for six

years after his election in 1612, was unable to perform the visitation

of his see, because he would everywhere have met with the unauthorized

cult which he could not sanction by partaking. The Suprema did its best

by continual consultas to Philip III, asking the aid of the secular arm

in suppressing this schismatic devotion, and enable it to publish its

condemnatory edicts. Its efforts were neutralized by the Council of

Aragon, backed by the all-powerful favorite Lerma, whose marquisate of

Denia led him to favor the Valencians. It was doubtless his disgrace, in

1618, which enabled the Suprema to attain its purpose, when an energetic

consulta of January 10, 1619, was returned with a decree in the royal

autograph to the effect that, if certain five points that had been

agreed upon were not executed within a month, the tribunal could be

ordered to publish the edicts without further delay.[769]

[Sidenote: _UNCANONIZED SAINTS_]

In this case the Inquisition acted under special papal commands, but the

growing abuse of the unauthorized cult of supposititious saints led

Urban VIII, in 1634, to issue a general decree empowering bishops and

inquisitors to repress, with penalties proportioned to the offence, all

worship of saints and martyrs not pronounced as such by the Holy See, or

relating their miracles in books, or representing them with the

nimbus.[770] Under this the Index of Sotomayor, in 1640, and the

subsequent ones, ordered the suppression of all images or portraits

adorned with the insignia of sanctity, unless the persons represented

had been duly beatified or canonized by Rome.[771]

Yet they did not condemn a work issued, in 1636, by a pious priest of

Salamanca and Toledo, Francisco Miranda y Paz, urging the cult as a

saint of Adam, the father of the human race, and audaciously asking

whether this could not be done without the licence of the Roman

pontiff.[772] In fact, what the Inquisition did in discharge of this

duty is less significant than what it left undone. We have seen (Vol. I,

p. 134) that the assumed martyrdom of _El Santo Niño de la Guardia_ was

followed by a popular cult of the unknown victim. That cult proved

exceedingly lucrative to those who exploited it and has continued to the

present day, although Rome could never be induced to sanction it, yet

the Inquisition prudently forbore to interfere with it in any way.[773]

Similar abstention was observed in the celebrated case of the forgeries

known as the _Plomos del Sacromonte_--inscribed leaden plates,

accompanied by bones assumed to be those of the earliest Christian

martyrs, exhumed in 1595, on a mountain near Granada. The forgeries were

clumsy enough, but they favored the two points dearest to the Spanish

heart--the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin and the Spanish

apostolate of St. James. They were welcomed with the intensest fervor, a

house of secular canons was erected on the spot, which grew wealthy

through the offerings of pilgrims, and innumerable miracles attested the

sanctity of the relics. Rome refused to admit the authenticity of the

_plomos_ without examining them; after a long struggle they were sent

there in 1641, and after another protracted contest they were condemned

as fabrications, May 6, 1682, by Innocent XI in a special brief. The

bones of the so-called martyrs were not specifically condemned as

spurious, but they were not accepted as genuine, yet the Index of Vidal

Marin, while printing the condemnation of the plomos and of the books

written in their defence, was careful to assert that the prohibition did

not include the relics or the veneration paid to them; the Sacromonte is

still a place of pilgrimage and, in the Plaza del Triunfo of Granada,

there stands a pillar bearing the names and martyrdoms of the saints as

recorded in the plomos.[774] Yet, so long as the claims of the martyrs

were not allowed by Rome and the only evidence in their favor was

condemned as fabricated, this was superstition, and its suppression was

the duty of the Inquisition.

While it was empowered to do this by the decree of Urban VIII, it is not

easy to see whence Inquisitor-general Arce y Reynoso obtained faculties

to authorize the cult of supposititious saints not accepted by the Holy

See. The success of the plomos led a learned Jesuit, Roman de la

Higuera, and his imitators, to fabricate chronicles of early Christian

times, principally designed to stimulate Mariolatry and belief in the

Christianization of Spain by St. James. They were long accepted as

genuine and, in 1650, Arce y Reynoso ordered the fictitious saints and

martyrs who figure in them to be included in litanies as objects of

veneration and worship.[775]

Still, the Inquisition asserted to the last its authority under the

decree of Urban VIII. So recently as 1818, when Josef de Herrera, an

apothecary of Xeres de la Frontera, desired to establish the cult of an

engraving of the Trinity, copied from a picture venerated in the

cathedral of Mexico, the tribunal of Seville prohibited the

effort.[776]

[Sidenote: _THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION_]

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin had a struggle for

recognition through six centuries, before it was defined as an article

of faith by Pius IX in 1854.[777] In Spain, where popular devotion to

the Virgin was especially ardent, it had, in the seventeenth century,

become almost universally accepted, except by the Dominicans, whose

reverence for their great doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, bound them to

follow him in its denial. In this they had long been fighting a losing

battle with their great rivals, the Franciscans, and of late with their

still more bitter foes, the Jesuits. Successive popes--Sixtus IV, Paul

IV, Paul V and Gregory XV--in vain sought to suppress the disputatious

scandals by forbidding public discussion of the subject under severe

penalties, and the two latter extended these penalties to those who

should publicly assert the Virgin to have been conceived in original

sin--but still the Holy See cautiously abstained from declaring the

conception to have been immaculate. The enforcement of these penalties

was confided to all bishops and inquisitors.

From 1617 to 1656, Philip III and Philip IV made the Immaculate

Conception a matter of state policy, by long and earnest efforts with

the papacy to decide it affirmatively, and negotiations for combined

action were carried on with France, but the Gallican court responded

only with pious phrases.[778] That in this the crown was but voicing the

wishes of the people was manifested when, in 1636, a man who ventured,

in Madrid, to assert that the Virgin was conceived in original sin, was

promptly cut down by some passing soldiers, was arrested by the

Inquisition, and as soon as his wounds were healed, was thrown into the

secret prison for due prosecution under the papal decrees.[779]

The Dominicans and their followers found it hard to observe the discreet

silence prescribed by the popes and, in 1661, the Spanish bishops united

in earnest request to Alexander VII, representing that persons were

still found who publicly denied the Immaculate Conception. Philip IV

sent the Bishop of Plasencia to Rome, as a special envoy, to convey this

memorial, resulting in the brief _Sollicitudo_, of December 8, 1661, in

which Alexander expressly abstained from defining it as a dogma, but

forbade the teaching of the opposite, as well as stigmatizing the

opposite as heresy, thus continuing the non-committal policy of his

predecessors, to prevent discussions and quarrels without deciding the

question. To this end he empowered all prelates and inquisitors to

prosecute and punish transgressors severely, no matter what exemptions

they might claim, and including even Jesuits. He also placed on the

Index all books impugning the Immaculate Conception and likewise those

which should tax unbelievers with heresy.[780]

This brief was received with great rejoicings by the upholders of the

doctrine, who regarded it as a triumph. In Valencia it was made the

occasion of a splendid festival, in which pasquinades on the opponents

were plentiful. One, which was greatly applauded, represented a

Dominican stretched on a sick-bed and watched by a Jesuit. A Franciscan

opening the door enquires "How is the good brother?" to which the Jesuit

replies "He is speechless, but he still lives." It was doubtless to the

temper thus evinced that we may attribute the suppression by the Suprema

of the city's official report of the celebration, the prohibition of one

paper and the correction of another.[781]

[Sidenote: _UNNATURAL CRIME_]

The brief was promptly transmitted to the tribunals by the Suprema, with

orders for its enforcement which show how delicately such explosive

material had to be handled. They were cautioned that, when they or their

commissioners were present at sermons preached by Dominicans, they must

be careful that any action taken was such as not to create scandal. They

were not trusted with prosecuting transgressors, but were ordered,

beforehand, to transmit to the Suprema the sumarias with the opinions of

the calificadores, and to await instructions. Apparently the customary

jealousy arose between the episcopal and inquisitorial jurisdictions,

for a carta acordada of 1667 calls for information as to whether the

Ordinaries concurred in hearing cases, or whether they were treated as

belonging exclusively to the Inquisition.[782]

It was impossible to make the angry disputants keep the peace, and the

Suprema was busy in condemning and suppressing writings on both sides.

In 1663 we find it ordering the seizure at the ports of two books

printed in Italy. An edict of January 4, 1664, suppressed fifteen books

and tracts, issued in 1662 and 1663, as indecent and irreverent to the

Holy See, the Religion of St. Dominic and the Angelic Doctor Aquinas.

Another decree, of December 7, 1671, suppressed two books indecently

attacking the Dominicans and another of prayers and exercises for the

devotion of the Immaculate Conception by the Franciscan Provincial

Bonaqua. Books of devotion thus assumed a controversial character, and

we can safely assume this to be the cause of an order, in 1679, to seize

at Alicante and transmit to the Suprema a box of Dominican

breviaries.[783]

I have chanced to meet with but few cases of prosecutions for impugning

the Immaculate Conception, but they occurred occasionally. Thus, in

1782, Don Antonio Fornes, a pilot's mate of a naval vessel, was tried in

Seville for obstinately denying it and, in 1785, Don Isidro Moreno, a

physician, and his son Joaquin, were brought before the Saragossa

tribunal for the same offence.[784]

UNNATURAL CRIME.

Inherited from classical antiquity, unnatural crime was persistent

throughout the Middle Ages, in spite of the combined efforts of Church

and State. It is true that, with the leniency shown to clerical

offenders, the Council of Lateran, in 1179, prescribed for them only

degradation or penitential confinement in a monastery, which was carried

into the canon law, but secular legislation was more severe and the

usual penalty was burning alive.[785] In Spain, in the thirteenth

century, the punishment prescribed was castration and lapidation, but,

in 1497, Ferdinand and Isabella decreed burning alive and confiscation,

irrespective of the station of the culprit. The crime was _mixti

fori_--the law treated it as subject to the secular courts, but it was

also ecclesiastical and, in 1451, Nicholas V empowered the Inquisition

to deal with it.[786] When the institution was founded in Spain it seems

to have assumed cognizance, for we are told that, in 1506, the Seville

tribunal made it the subject of a special inquest; there were many

arrests and many fugitives, and twelve convicts were duly burnt.[787]

Possibly this may have called attention to the incongruity of diverting

the Inquisition from its legitimate duties with the New Christians, for

a decree of the Suprema, October 18, 1509, assumes that this had already

been recognized, and it informs the tribunals that they are not to deal

with the crime, as it was not within their jurisdiction.[788] This

apparently settled the matter as far as the Castilian kingdoms were

concerned.

[Sidenote: _UNNATURAL CRIME_]

In Aragon it does not appear that the early Inquisition took cognizance

of the matter, as is shown by the curious connection of the crime with

the rising of the Germanía. In 1519, the city of Valencia was suffering

from a pestilence which had driven away most of the nobles and higher

officials when, on St. Magdalen's day (June 14th), Fray Luis Castelloli

preached an eloquent sermon in which he attributed the pest to the wrath

of God excited by the prevalence of the offence. The populace were

excited and hunted up four culprits, who confessed and were duly burnt

by the justiciary, Hieronimo Farragud, on July 29th. There was a fifth,

a baker who wore the tonsure and was delivered to the episcopal court,

which sentenced him to vergüenza. This dissatisfied the people who tore

him from the spiritual authorities, garroted and burnt him. The governor

was summoned, and the leaders of the mob feared punishment. There had

been a scare concerning a rumored attack by the Moors, which had led

the trades to form military companies; these were further organized,

elected a chief and swore confraternity, when, recognizing their

strength, they utilized the opportunity of gratifying their hatred of

the nobles and the rebellion broke out.[789]

In all this the Inquisition was evidently not thought of as having

jurisdiction, but possibly it may have drawn attention to the crime and

led to an application to Clement VII for a special brief placing it

under inquisitorial jurisdiction. Bleda, however, tells us that, when

the Duke of Sessa, ambassador at Rome, made request for such a brief, he

gave as a reason that it had been introduced into Spain by the

Moors.[790] Be this as it may, the brief of Clement, February 24, 1524,

recites that Sessa had represented the increasing prevalence of the

crime and had asked for an appropriate remedy, which the pope proceeded

to grant. The form in which it is drawn shows that the matter was

regarded as wholly foreign to the regular duties of the Holy Office, for

it is addressed, not to the inquisitor-general as usual, but to the

individual inquisitors of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia, and it

authorizes them to sub-delegate their powers to whom they please. They

are empowered to proceed against all persons, lay or clerical, of

whatever rank, either by accusation, denunciation, inquisition, or of

their own motion, and to compel the testimony of unwilling witnesses.

That the offence was not ecclesiastical or heretical was admitted by the

limitation that the trial was to be conducted in accordance with local

municipal law, but yet, with singular inconsistency, the episcopal

Ordinary was to be called in when rendering sentence.[791] The Barcelona

tribunal seems to have questioned, in 1537, whether the brief continued

in force, for the Suprema wrote to it July 11th, that there had not been

time to decide this positively, but that it might continue to act.[792]

Whatever doubts existed were settled in favor of the Inquisition, and

the Aragonese tribunals enjoyed the jurisdiction to the end. The

Archbishop of Saragossa had complained of being thus deprived of

cognizance of these cases, and it was restored to him by a brief of

January 16, 1525, but, at the request of Charles V, Pope Clement, July

15, 1530, evoked all pending cases to himself and committed them to the

inquisitors, with full power to decide them, in conjunction with the

Ordinary.[793]

Castile was never included within the special grant. In answer to some

inquiring tribunal, the Suprema replied, November 6, 1534, that the

matter did not pertain to the Inquisition, nor was it deemed advisable

to procure a brief conferring such power. This was adhered to. In 1575,

the Logroño tribunal was informed that it could not prosecute such cases

as it had no faculty and, about 1580, the tribunal of Peru was told not

to meddle with it in any way, except in cases of solicitation.[794] The

Consulta Magna of 1696 states that Philip II, towards the close of his

reign, applied to Clement VIII for a brief conferring the power on the

Castilian Inquisition, but the pope declined for the reason that the

whole attention of the inquisitors should be concentrated on matters of

faith.[795]

Majorca, although belonging to the crown of Aragon, was not specifically

included in the brief of Clement VII, and never assumed the power. When,

in 1644, the commissioner in Iviza reported to Inquisitor Francisco

Gregorio about Jaime Gallestria, a cleric denounced for this offence,

Gregorio replied that he had no jurisdiction; still the tribunal was

accustomed to arrest offenders and hand them over for trial to the

secular judges, so he sent a warrant for the arrest of Gallestria, even

though he had taken asylum in a church.[796] It is symptomatic that

arrest by the Inquisition, for a crime over which it had no

jurisdiction, was considered a matter of course.

[Sidenote: _UNNATURAL CRIME_]

Sicily also belonged to Aragon, but was not included. In 1569 Philip II

ordered the death-penalty to be rigidly enforced, without exceptions,

and that the informer should receive twenty ounces from the estate of

the convict, but this was slackly obeyed by the secular courts and, in

the Concordia of 1597, he reserved the crime exclusively to the

Inquisition, with the understanding that a papal brief should be applied

for, relieving inquisitors from irregularity for relaxing culprits.

Application was accordingly made to Clement VIII, but, after Philip's

death, the Viceroy Duke of Maqueda and the ambassador, the Duke of

Sessa, at the instance of influential Sicilians, urged Clement to

refuse, which he not only did but forbade the Inquisition to take

cognizance of such cases. The tribunal complained that this deprived it

of its jurisdiction over its own officials, to which the reply was that

it was not the pope's intention to exonerate them from it. The tribunal

therefore continued to punish its own guilty ministers, and the number

of cases cited would seem to indicate that the crime was by no means

uncommon. The punishments inflicted were comparatively moderate--occasionally

imprisonment for life or banishment, perpetual or temporary, from the

place of offending, or deprivation of office with heavy fines.[797]

Dr. Martin Real, who tells us this, writing in 1638, further informs us

that, throughout Italy, the crime was everywhere treated with a leniency

wholly inadequate to its atrocity. The Roman Inquisition, moreover, took

no cognizance of it. When, in 1644, some Conventual Franciscans rendered

themselves conspicuous by sounding the praises of the practice, the

Congregation contented itself with ordering their superiors to proceed

against them with severity.[798]

In Portugal, João III had no sooner got his Inquisition into working

order than he was seized with the desire to obtain for it jurisdiction

over the _pecado maao_. This he pursued with characteristic obstinacy,

while the papacy manifested its customary repugnance. It was not until

after his death that Pius IV, in a brief of February 20, 1562, committed

the decision to the conscience of Cardinal Henrique, confirming in

advance what he might do--but trials were to be conducted according to

municipal law. Henrique had no scruples, but, in 1574, he applied to

Gregory XIII for confirmation and for using the process for heresy in

these cases, when again the pope committed to him the decision and

ratified it in advance.[799] In 1640, the Regulations prescribe that the

offence is to be tried like heresy, and the punishment is to be either

relaxation or scourging and the galleys. In a case occurring in the

Lisbon auto of 1723, the sentence was scourging and ten years of

galley-service.[800]

* * * * *

In their general hostility to the Inquisition, the Aragonese kingdoms

objected to this extension of its jurisdiction. There were complaints by

the Córtes and, in the various Concordias and settlements, there were

concessions secured which gave to the secular judges some participation

in the trials. Into the details of these more or less temporary

arrangements it is scarce worth while to enter, except to mention that,

in the struggle which resulted in the Concordia of 1646, Aragon gained

the point that the crime was recognized as _mixti fori_, to be tried by

either the secular court or the Inquisition, according to priority in

commencing action, and that familiars were included in this.[801]

The current practice may be gathered from the answers of Valencia and

Saragossa, in response to inquiries by the Suprema, in 1573. In Valencia

arrest was accompanied by sequestration, but not in Aragon, where the

crime did not entail confiscation. In Aragon, when a new inquisitor was

inducted, the papal briefs were presented to him and he accepted them,

and all sentences commenced by qualifying the inquisitors as _juezes

comisarios apostolicos para conocer en el crimen de sodomia_, showing

that this was a special jurisdiction. The routine of procedure in the

two tribunals did not vary much; the process was somewhat simpler than

in heresy trials, the accused was allowed ample means of defence in

counsel, advocates and procurators, witnesses' names were not

suppressed, except in Valencia when the accused was of high rank, in

which case the Suprema was consulted. After the publication of evidence,

the procurator had the right to examine the witnesses. The Concordia of

1568 had provided that convicts should not appear in autos, but in

Aragon this was left to the discretion of the tribunal, which generally

exhibited them there.[802]

[Sidenote: _UNNATURAL CRIME_]

These reports make no allusion to the concurrence of secular judges, but

the practice may be gathered from a letter of Philip II, March 17, 1575,

to the Captain-general of Catalonia, where it appears that, when a

convict was relaxed, the royal court demanded to see the papers of the

case before pronouncing sentence. This the king pronounced to be wholly

wrong and ordered the custom of Valencia and Aragon to be

followed--that, when a case was ready for decision, the inquisitors

notified the captain-general, who delegated judges to take part in the

consulta, after which the sentence was to be executed without further

examination.[803]

Torture was freely employed, even on the testimony of a single

accomplice. This raised a question in Aragon, where the use of torture

was forbidden, as the trials were to be conducted in accordance with

municipal law, but the Inquisition replied that the brief of Clement VII

had been applied for at the request of the secular judges, who had found

themselves unable to convict for lack of torture, and desired, for that

reason, the Inquisition to have jurisdiction--the truth of which

assertion may well be doubted. In 1636 there was raised a question as to

torturing witnesses who revoked, but it was decided in the

negative.[804]

Punishment varied with time and place. In Aragon, spontaneous confession

was encouraged by simply reprimanding the culprit, warning him and

ordering him to confess sacramentally, and this was confirmed by the

Suprema, in a decree of August 6, 1600. In Valencia, however,

self-denunciation was visited with scourging and galleys and, if

testimony of accomplices supervened, with relaxation.[805] For those

accused and regularly convicted, the statutory and ordinary punishment

was burning. When, in 1577, the Captain-general of Valencia had some

hesitation as to his duty, in the case of two culprits relaxed to him by

the Inquisition, Philip II ordered him to execute them promptly and, as

late as 1647, in an auto at Barcelona, one was garroted and burnt.[806]

Yet, on the whole, there seems to have been a disinclination to relax

these offenders, who could not escape, as heretics could, by confession

and conversion. In 1616 we find the Suprema asking the Valencia tribunal

why it had not confiscated the estate of Dr. Pérez, convicted of this

crime and, in 1634, it enquires whether there is any fuero prohibiting

the _pena ordinaria_, when guilt has been fully proved and the offender

is of full age.[807] About 1640, an experienced inquisitor informs us

that, in Saragossa, the penalty for those over 25 was relaxation; for

minors, scourging and the galleys, but he adds that this is not

observed; he had seen many thus convicted and condemned to relaxation,

but the Suprema always commuted the penalty.[808]

Ecclesiastics seem to have been regarded as entitled to especial

leniency. In 1684, the Suprema called to account the Valencia tribunal

for its benignity, in a case of this kind, when it replied in much

detail. Two decrees of Pius V in 1568, it said, had prescribed

relaxation, with preliminary degradation, in the case of priests and, in

1574, the tribunal had so treated the case of a subdeacon. Many

authorities, however, held that clerics were not to be subjected to the

rigor of the law for this offence, and it was the common opinion that

incorrigibility was required to justify the ordinary penalty. This had

been the practice in Valencia, especially since 1615, when a priest was

convicted of a single act and, by order of the Suprema, was sentenced to

an extraordinary penalty. This had since been followed in various cases,

so that clerics were not relaxed unless incorrigible, and this was

defined to be when repeated punishment showed that the Church could not

reform them. This argument, moreover, precluded the use of torture

which, as the tribunal pointed out, could be used only when the penalty

was worse than torture.[809]

[Sidenote: _UNNATURAL CRIME_]

The case which called forth this explanation affords a very instructive

example of the advantage to justice of an open trial, with opportunity

of cross-examination. The accused was Fray Manuel Sánchez del Castellar

y Arbustan, a distinguished member of the Order of La Merced. The trial

had lasted for nearly three years, when the papers were submitted to the

Suprema, in August, 1684. There were two accomplice witnesses to

consummated acts, others to solicitation, others to lascivious and

filthy actions, and others to general foul reputation. Under the

ordinary inquisitorial process, condemnation would have been inevitable,

but repeated examinations and cross-examinations revealed discrepancies

and contradictions and variations, and a knowledge of the witnesses

enabled the accused to present evidence of enmities. The conclusion

reached by the tribunal was that nearly the whole mass of evidence was

the result of a conspiracy, embracing a number of frailes of the

convent, incited by jealousy of the honors and position obtained by

Sánchez. Still, there was some testimony as to indiscretions, which was

not rebutted and, as there had been a great scandal requiring a victim,

with customary inquisitorial logic, he was sentenced to four years'

exile from Valencia, Orihuela and Madrid, for the first two of which he

was deprived of active and passive voice, of confessing and preaching

and of all honors in his Order. In this, consideration was given to

three years spent in prison, so that, if innocent, he had suffered

severely and was sent forth branded with an ineffaceable stigma while,

if guilty, he had a penalty far less than his deserts. When the Suprema

asked why the two witnesses to complicity were not prosecuted, the

tribunal replied that they were regarded as spontaneously confessing,

and it was not customary to prosecute in such cases; besides, although

their enmity and contradictions invalidated their testimony, these were

insufficient to justify prosecution for false-witness.[810] Altogether

it was an unpleasant business, which the tribunal evidently desired to

despatch with as little damage as possible to the Church.

The tendency towards leniency increased with time, and was shown to

laymen as well as to ecclesiastics. In 1717, the Barcelona tribunal

sentenced Guillaume Amiel, a Frenchman, to four years of presidio and

perpetual banishment from Spain. The Suprema commuted the presidio to a

hundred lashes but, when the sentence was read, Amiel protested that his

father was a gentleman and that he held a patent as "teniente del Rey

Christianisimo," thus claiming exemption from degrading corporal

punishment. The proceedings were suspended, and the Suprema was

consulted, which omitted the lashes and, on the same account, the boy

Ramon Gils, who was the accomplice, was spared the vergüenza to which he

had been condemned.[811]

[Sidenote: _USURY_]

The most conspicuous case of this nature in the annals of the

Inquisition was that of Don Pedro Luis Galceran de Borja, Grand-master

of the Order of Montesa. He was not only a grandee of Spain, but was

allied to the royal house, he was half-brother to Francisco de Borja,

Duke of Grandía and subsequently General of the Jesuits, and was of kin

to nearly all the noblest lineages of the land. For his arrest, in 1571,

the assent of Philip II was necessary; he was not confined in the secret

prison, but had commodious apartments from which, during his trial, he

conducted the affairs of the Order. He claimed exemption on the ground

of the privileges of the Order, and more than two years were spent in

debating the question, though it was pointed out that, while the

Trinitarians had even greater privileges, two members professed of that

Order had recently been relaxed for the same crime, and Borja was not

even a cleric, but a married man with children. The claim was finally

disallowed and the trial went slowly on. The evidence reduced itself to

two "singular" witnesses, who testified to solicitation and attempt, and

to one, Martin de Castro, who testified to consummation and then

revoked. Powerful influence from all quarters was brought to bear to

save the accused, and in the final consulta de fe there was discordia.

Two inquisitors and the Ordinary voted for acquittal. The other

inquisitor, who was Juan de Rojas, in a written opinion, called for four

years of exile and a heavy fine. The Suprema, after prolonged

correspondence with the tribunal, accepted this, but changed the exile

to six years of reclusion in his convent of Montesa. Llorente intimates

that the inquisitors expected to gain bishoprics, or at least places in

the Suprema, and that a bargain was made through which, on Borja's

death, the Order of Montesa was incorporated with the crown, as the

military Orders of Castile had been under Ferdinand; to this latter some

color was lent by Philip's appointment of Borja's natural son to the

grand commandership of the Order, from which he rose to the cardinalate.

There is an evident allusion to this case in the remark of an Italian

traveller in 1593, who, when speaking of the severity of the

Inquisition in these matters, illustrates it by the story of a grandee

who, for merely throwing his arm around the neck of a page, spent ten

years in prison and fifty thousand ducats.[812]

Cases were sufficiently frequent to give the Aragonese tribunals

considerable occupation, especially after it was included in the Edict

of Faith in 1574, as a crime to be denounced.[813] I have but a few

scattering data, but they are suggestive. Thus, in Saragossa, at the

auto of June 6, 1585, there were four culprits relaxed.[814] In

Catalonia, in 1597, the report, by Inquisitor Heredia, of a visitation

through the see of Tarragona and parts of those of Barcelona, Vich and

Urgel, contains sixty-eight cases of all kinds and of these fifteen were

for this class of offences, though most of them were subsequently

suspended.[815] In Valencia, there appeared in the autos from January

1598 to December 1602, twenty-seven of these culprits, of whom seven

were frailes.[816] As it was customary to read the sentences _con

meritos_, the populace had an edifying education. From 1780 to 1820, the

total number of cases coming before the three tribunals was exactly one

hundred.[817]

USURY.

The ecclesiastical definition of usury is not, as we understand the

term, an exorbitant charge for the use of money, beyond the legal rate,

but any interest or other advantage, however small or indirect, derived

from a loan of money or other article. Forbidden by the Old Law, between

the Chosen People, and extended under the New to the brotherhood of man,

it has been the subject of denunciation continuously from the primitive

Church to the most recent times. Ingenuity has been exhausted in

devising methods of repression and punishment, only to show how

impossible has been the task of warring against human nature and human

necessities.

From an early period, usury was regarded as an ecclesiastical sin and

crime, subject to spiritual jurisdiction in both the _forum internum_

and _forum externum_. In 1258 Alexander IV rendered it justiciable by

the Inquisition and, at the Council of Vienne, in 1312, the assertion

that the taking of interest is not a sin was defined to be a heresy,

which the Inquisition was in duty required to prosecute.[818] During the

later Middle Ages, when the greater heresies had been largely

suppressed, the prosecution of usurers formed a considerable, and the

most profitable, portion of inquisitorial activity. It is true that the

heresy consisted in denying that usury is a sin, but, as the Repertorium

of 1494 explains, the usurer or simonist, who does not affirm or deny

but is silent and tacitly believes it not to be a sin to commit usury or

simony, is a pertinacious heretic mentally.[819]

[Sidenote: _USURY_]

In Spain, the usurious practices of Jews and Conversos were the

principal source of popular hostility, but Jews were not subject to the

Inquisition and, in its earlier years, it appears not to have recognized

its jurisdiction in this matter over the Conversos, for I have met with

no trace, at this period, of action by it against usury, whether in

Castile or in Aragon. As regards the latter, indeed, it was impeded by a

fuero of the Córtes of Calatayud, in 1461, prohibiting the prosecution

of usurers, by both the secular and spiritual courts, and the procuring

of faculties for the purpose by the Inquisition. To ensure the

observance of this, Juan II was required to swear that he would not

obtain any papal rescript or commission authorizing inquisition into

usury and that, if such rescript were had, it should not be used but be

delivered within a month to the Diputados.[820] It may be assumed that

the Inquisition sought relief from this restriction, for Julius II

issued a _motu proprio_, January 14, 1504, reciting the fuero of

Calatayud and stating that the _usuraria pravitas_ had so increased that

a measure of wheat would be multiplied to twenty-five within three

years, chiefly because the Inquisition, in consequence of this fuero,

was precluded from the exercise of its lawful jurisdiction. He therefore

ordered Inquisitor-general Deza to prosecute all Christian usurers and

compel them to desist, by inflicting the penalties prescribed by the

general council, while Ferdinand was summoned to aid the inquisitors,

and he and his successors were released from any oaths to observe the

fuero.[821]

As all commercial and financial transactions at the time were based on

interest payment and, as the agriculturist habitually borrowed seed-corn

before sowing, to be repaid with increase after harvest, the Inquisition

thus had an ample field opened for its operations. That it did not

neglect the opportunity is fairly inferable from the opposition excited.

It was the subject of one of the most energetic remonstrances of the

Córtes of Monzon in 1510, and the Concordia of 1512 bore an article in

which Ferdinand promised to obtain from the pope the revocation of the

faculties granted to the inquisitors; that he would allow no other grant

to be obtained, and that meanwhile he would arrange that no prosecutions

should be brought except for open assertion that usury was no sin. For

this, as for the other articles, he swore to procure the papal

confirmation. Inquisitors were likewise sworn to obey the Concordia and,

when Ferdinand was released from his oath by Leo X, in the brief of

April 30, 1513, a _motu proprio_ followed, September 2d, to the effect

that, as heresy and usury are the most heinous of crimes, to be

prosecuted with the sharpest rigor, the inquisitors were released from

their oaths and directed to employ the faculties granted by Julius II

for the suppression of usury.[822] This serves to explain why, in the

compromise embodied in Inquisitor-general Mercader's Instructions of

1514, there is no allusion to usury--the inquisitors were not to be

disturbed in the exercise of their functions in this respect.[823] When,

however, Leo, in 1516, confirmed the Concordia of 1512, he removed

usury from inquisitorial jurisdiction and prohibited its prosecution

unless the culprit should hold it not to be a sin.[824]

It has already been seen how completely the Inquisition ignored all

these agreements, in spite of royal and papal confirmations. So, when

Charles V was obliged, in 1518, at the Córtes of Saragossa, to take the

specific and elaborate oath imposed on Juan II, it proved equally

futile.[825] Inquisitors continued to exercise jurisdiction, but, in

Aragon proper, they were impeded for a time by a brief of Clement VII,

January 16, 1525, ordering them to confine themselves in future to

heresy--a brief procured by Juan of Austria, Archbishop of Saragossa,

who claimed jurisdiction over usury for his own court.[826] This

afforded slender relief, for he employed the inquisitorial process and

the Córtes of Saragossa, in 1528, adopted a fuero, confirmed by Charles

V, reciting that the laws provide for the punishment of usurers by the

secular courts, but that the ecclesiastical judges were prosecuting

them, wherefore, at the desire of the four brazos, his majesty ordered

the ancient laws of the kingdom to be enforced without exception.[827]

So long as the Inquisition was not involved, Charles was indifferent as

to how usurers were treated, but, when the Catalans, at the Córtes of

Monzon, in the same year, complained of the prosecution of usury by

inquisitors and petitioned that it be prevented, he drily answered that

the laws should be observed and justice should be done.[828] No greater

satisfaction than this could be had when, a few years later, the Córtes

of the three kingdoms reiterated the complaint of the prosecutions for

usury by the Inquisition, inflicting an ineffaceable stain upon parties

and their descendants, even though they were discharged without penance.

The reply of the inquisitor-general to this was a simple denial, coupled

with the demand that the names of injured parties should be

produced.[829]

[Sidenote: _MORALS_]

In the absence of documents, it is not easy to understand why the

Inquisition suddenly abandoned a jurisdiction for which it had contended

so strenuously, but so it was. In 1552, Simancas asserts that

inquisitors have no cognizance of questions arising from usury, but must

leave them to the Ordinaries, for usurers are not moved by erroneous

belief, but by the desire for sordid gains.[830] In this Simancas

evidently spoke by authority, for the Suprema, in a carta acordada of

March 17, 1554, forbade the tribunals to take cognizance of usury, and

the subject disappears from inquisitorial records.[831] The secular and

spiritual courts were left to fight the losing battle with industrial

and commercial progress, which eventually compelled the recognition of

the fact that payment for the usance of money is customarily profitable

to both parties.

MORALS

The object of the Inquisition was the preservation of the purity of

faith and not the improvement of morals. The view taken of its duties as

to the latter is set forth in the comments of the Suprema on the report

by de Soto Salazar of his visitation, in 1566, of the Barcelona

tribunal. Clement, Abbot of Ripoll, was prosecuted for saying that so

great was the mercy of God that he would pardon a sinner who confessed,

even though he had not a firm intention to abstain in future, and also

for keeping a nun as a mistress. He was fined in four hundred ducats,

and was ordered to break off relations with the nun under pain of a

thousand ducats. The Suprema sharply reprimanded Inquisitor Padilla for

inflicting so heavy a penalty and for exceeding his jurisdiction in

prohibiting the unlawful connection. So, when the inquisitors fined

Jaime Bocca, an unmarried familiar, in twelve ducats for keeping a

married woman as mistress, the Suprema told them that it was none of

their business. It is true that in two other cases of familiars, fined

in twenty ducats each for keeping mistresses, the comment is simply that

the rigor was excessive.[832]

The same principle, as we have seen, was observed in the treatment of

solicitation. The question of morals was studiously excluded, as a

matter entirely beyond the purview of the Inquisition, and the only

point considered was the technical one whether cases came within papal

definitions drawn up to safeguard the sacrament of penitence. The same

remark applies to the vigorous prosecution of those who held simple

fornication to be no sin. There was no attempt to repress the sin

itself, for this was beyond the faculties conferred on the Inquisition,

but merely to ascertain and punish the mental attitude of the accused.

As time passed on, however, and as the heretics who were the legitimate

objects of the Holy Office grew scarce, there arose a tendency to

enlarge its sphere of action and to assume the position of acustos

morum. This has been seen in the censorship, which, during the later

period, came to be applied not only to obscene books but to all manner

of works of art that did not accord with the censor's standard of

decency.

From this it was an easy step to intervene in the private lives of

individuals, in matters wholly apart from its legitimate jurisdiction,

of which we find occasional examples in the later period of decadence.

Thus, in 1784, Josef Mas was prosecuted in Valencia for singing an

improper song at a dance, and in 1791, there is a prosecution of Manuel

de Pino for "indecent and irreligious acts." In 1792 the Barcelona

tribunal takes the testimony of Ramon Seroles of Lloc, with respect to

the scandalous life of the parish priest of that place and his abuse of

the holy oils. In 1810 the Valencia tribunal is investigating Rosa

Avinent, keeper of a tobacco-shop, for suspicion of maltreating some

children in her house. In 1816 the Santiago tribunal sentences Don

Miguel Quereyzaeta, a post-office official, to leave the city where he

has led a disorderly and scandalous life, and charges him to reconcile

himself to his wife and to live with her. In 1819, Don Antonio Clemente

de Polar is prosecuted by the Madrid tribunal for propositions and for

dressing in such wise as to satisfy the passions and for other

excesses.[833]

[Sidenote: _THE SEAL OF CONFESSION_]

In these and similar cases, it may be assumed that the parties

inculpated richly deserved correction, but this sporadic defence of

virtue and punishment of vice was much more likely to encourage the

gratification of malice than to elevate the standard of public morals,

and the employment of the tremendous machinery of the Inquisition in

such matters marks the depth of its fall from its former height. Had its

object from the beginning been the purification of morals as well as of

religion, possibly the awe which it inspired in all classes might have

resulted in some ethical improvement but, during the time of its power,

the impression that it produced was that morals were of slender account

in comparison with faith and, in the day of its decline, these

occasional attempts to extend its jurisdiction could only produce

exasperation without amendment.

THE SEAL OF CONFESSION.

When, in 1216, the fourth Council of Lateran rendered auricular

confession imperative, it was essential that the father confessor should

be bound to preserve absolute silence as to the sins revealed to him.

For a time there were some exceptions admitted, as heresy for instance,

but eventually the obligation became universal and the schoolmen

exhausted their ingenuity in devising the most extreme cases by which to

illustrate the inviolability of what has become known as the seal of

confession. Human nature being what it is, and priestly nature being

subject to human infirmities, the violation of the seal has, at all

times, been a source of anxiety and the object of rigorous punishment,

administered to the secular clergy by the spiritual courts, and to the

regulars by their superiors. The Roman Inquisition, in the first

half-century of its existence, assumed exclusive cognizance of the

offence, and demanded that all offenders, whether secular or regular,

should be tried by its tribunals, but, in 1609, it abandoned its

jurisdiction and left them to their bishops and prelates.[834]

As the heresy involved in betraying the confidence of the penitent was

only an inferential error as to the sacrament--an artificial pretext

like that devised with regard to solicitation--the Spanish Inquisition

did not hold it to be comprised in the general delegation of faculties,

but that a special papal commission was requisite. No attempt seems to

have been made to obtain this until 1639, when, on October 11th, the

Suprema addressed Philip IV a consulta setting forth that numerous

denunciations were received by the tribunals against confessors who

revealed confessions, and that inquisitors were asking urgently for

permission to prosecute such cases as violations of divine, natural and

political law, rendering culprits suspect in the faith, this being even

more derisory of the sacrament than solicitation. It was notorious that

the Ordinaries did not check it among the secular clergy, nor their

prelates among the regulars, nor could, in such hands, any remedy be

efficacious, because in public trials the witnesses would be bought off

or frightened off, and there were no secret prisons to assure the

necessary segregation of the accused. The king was therefore asked to

procure from the pope, for the Inquisition, exclusive jurisdiction over

the offence.[835] The Suprema probably did not exaggerate as to the

denunciations received by the tribunals, for, in the minor one of the

Canaries, we find it, in 1637, receiving testimony against Diego

Artiaga, priest of Hierro, for this offence, in 1643, against Diego

Salgado, priest of la Palma and, in 1644 against Fray Matías Pinto of

Teneriffe.[836]

There can be no doubt that Philip, as usual, acceded to the request of

the Suprema, but Urban VIII seems not to have been responsive. He had a

plausible reason for declining, in the fact that the Roman Inquisition

had abandoned its jurisdiction over the matter and, at the moment, he

was at odds with the Spanish over the question of censorship and of the

Plomos del Sacromonte. The offence was never included in the Edict of

Faith, but occasionally it is enumerated among the charges against

confessors on trial for solicitation, as in the cases of the Franciscan

Fray Juan Pachon de Salas, in Mexico in 1712, of the Carmelite Ventura

de San Joaquin in 1794, and of Fray Antonio Ortuño in 1807.[837] It was

difficult to eradicate belief in the competence of the Inquisition and,

as lately as 1808, José Antonio Alvárez, priest of Horcajo de los

Montes, was denounced for this offence to the Toledo tribunal, but the

trial was suspended, probably through doubt as to jurisdiction.[838]

When the question was brought up squarely, in the case of Doctor Don

Francisco Torneo, before the Valencia tribunal, after due discussion it

decided, March 28, 1816, that it had no jurisdiction, and the case was

accordingly dismissed.[839]

GENERAL UTILITY.

[Sidenote: _GENERAL UTILITY_]

The efficient organization of the Inquisition and the dread which it

inspired caused it to be invoked in numberless contingencies, most

diverse in character and wholly foreign to the objects of its

institution. A brief enumeration of a few of these will serve to

complete our survey of its activity and, trivial as they may seem, to

illustrate how powerful was the influence which it exercised over the

social life of Spain.

The value of its services, arising from the indefinite extent of its

powers, was recognized early. In 1499, a Benedictine monastery

complained to Ferdinand that it had pledged a cross to a certain Pedro

de Santa Cruz and could not recover it, as he had placed himself under

protection of Dominicans, who claimed exemption from legal processes.

Ferdinand thereupon ordered the inquisitors of the city to settle the

matter; they neglected it and he wrote again peremptorily, instructing

them to seize the cross and do justice between the parties. In April,

1500, the king instructs the Valencia tribunal to recover for Don Ramon

López, of the royal guard, two runaway slaves and some plate which they

had stolen.[840] Evidently there was no little variety of duties

expected of the Holy Office.

In 1518 a nunnery of Clares, in Calatayud, complained that, within ten

paces of their house, there had been built a Mercenarian convent of

which the inmates were disorderly; the nuns could not walk in their

garden without being seen and great scandals were apprehended. Charles V

applied to Leo X to have the Mercenarians replaced by Benedictines or

Gerónimites and the Inquisition was invoked to assist.[841] Parties

sometimes obtained papal briefs to have their suits transferred to the

tribunals. In 1548 Doña Aldonza Cerdan did this in a litigation with Don

Hernando de la Caballería and, in 1561, Doña Isabel de Francia in a suit

with Don Juan de Heredia. In both cases the inquisitors of Saragossa

refused to act until Inquisitor-general Valdés ordered them to do

so.[842] All inquisitors were not thus self-restrained, for when, about

this time, a general command was issued forbidding them to prosecute for

perjury committed in other courts, it shows that they had been asked to

do so and that some of them, at least, were ready to undertake such

business.[843] In 1647, when the prevalence of duelling called for some

effective means of repression, among the remedies proposed was that

sending a challenge should be made a matter for the Inquisition, on the

ground that the infamy accruing to the offender and his descendants

would be the most effective discouragement to punctilious

gentlemen.[844] The suggestion apparently was not adopted, but it

illustrates the readiness to have recourse to the elastic jurisdiction

of the Holy Office.

The Jesuits found the Inquisition of much service when, through the

favor of Olivares, they were enabled to invoke its intervention in one

of their quarrels with the Dominicans. In 1634, Fray Francisco Roales

issued a pamphlet against the Society and Dr. Espino, an ex-Carmelite,

published two others. They were answered by Padre Salazar and there the

matter might have ended, but the Jesuits appealed to Philip IV and to

Olivares, who promised satisfaction and ordered the Inquisitor-general

Sotomayor (himself a Dominican) to take action, with the significant

hint that he would be watched. A royal decree of January 29, 1635,

rebuked the Suprema for lack of zeal, and ordered it to act with all

diligence and to inflict severe punishment. It responded promptly on

February 1st with an edict suppressing the pamphlet of Roales under

heavy penalties, but this did not suffice and, on June 30th, it

prohibited every one, layman or ecclesiastic, from saying anything in

private or in public, derogatory to any religious Order or the members

thereof, under exemplary penalties, to be rigorously executed--a decree

which had to be repeated in 1643.

On June 27, 1635 the three obnoxious pamphlets were burned with

unprecedented ceremony. There was a solemn procession of the officials

and familiars, with the standards of the Inquisition, while a mule with

carmine velvet trappings bore a chest painted with flames in which were

the condemned writings. It traversed the principal streets to the plaza,

where a fire was lighted; a herald, with sound of trumpet, proclaimed

that the Company of Jesus was relieved of all that had been said against

it and that these papers were false, calumnious, impious and scandalous;

they were cast by the executioner into the flames and then the box and

the procession wended their way solemnly back to the Dominican College

of San Tomas. The effect of the demonstration, however, was somewhat

marred by the populace believing that the box contained the bones of a

misbelieving Jew, and accompanying the procession with shouts of "Death

to the dogs!" and other pious ejaculations.

[Sidenote: _General Utility_]

Espino was arrested and incarcerated--not for the last time for, in

1643, he boasted that he had been imprisoned fifteen times for his

attacks on the Jesuits. Roales was more fortunate; he was a chaplain of

Philibert of Savoy; his pamphlet had been printed in Milan and he was

safe in Rome, but a printer who had issued an edition in Saragossa was

arrested and presumably sent to the galleys, and a Dominican Fray

Cañamero, who had circulated the three pamphlets, was ordered to be

arrested but seems to have saved himself by flight. Still the

irrepressible conflict continued and the Inquisition was kept busy in

prosecuting offenders and suppressing obnoxious utterances. It even

construed its duty so rigidly that it condemned a memorial of the

unfortunate creditors who suffered by the bankruptcy, in 1645, of the

Jesuit College of San Hermengildo in Seville, when some three hundred

depositors lost four hundred and fifty thousand ducats, and were

struggling to rescue the remaining assets from the hands of the

Jesuits.[845]

The Granada tribunal did not pause to enquire as to its jurisdiction

when, in May 1646, owing to the scarcity of wheat, there were

bread-riots and the mob had control of the city. It summoned all the

grain-measurers and porters, under pain of excommunication, to appear

before it on a matter of importance. By examining them, considerable

stores of hidden corn were revealed; the corregidores registered it and

the price was fixed at forty-two reales.[846] This was volunteer action

but, in 1648, when a pestilence was raging in Valencia, the tribunal was

called upon to maintain the quarantine at one of the city gates. The

king, on February 1, 1649, notified the Suprema that the pest had ceased

in Valencia, but that it was violent at Cádiz, San Lucar and other

places, and urged continued vigilance, to which the Suprema replied that

it had, since April, done its full duty, but that the municipal

officials were very negligent, and it asked him to order them to do

their share.[847] Apparently the Inquisition was relied upon for

quarantine work. As lately as July 2, 1818, the Suprema wrote to all the

tribunals that the plague had appeared at Tangier and threatened Spain

with the most terrible of calamities. The king had ordered energetic

precautions, in which all branches of the Government must coöperate,

and it was no time for hesitation or scruples. The tribunals were

therefore instructed to keep watch on the officials of all departments

and see that they did their duty and, if they could devise more

effective measures, they were invited to make suggestions.[848]

The unlimited interference of the Inquisition with matters pertaining to

episcopal supervision is seen in two or three cases tried by the Madrid

tribunal. May 5, 1656, it sentenced the priest, Francisco Pérez Lozano,

to exile for a year from various places for his share in founding a

confraternity with what were called "statutos execrables." February 6,

1688, Juan Moreno de Piedrola, a priest of the Congregation of San

Salvador, who proposed to establish a congregation, in the rules of

which the tribunal discovered censurable propositions, was ordered to

surrender all the papers and not to discuss it in word or writing and

was exiled until he should have permission to return, with warning that

otherwise he would be prosecuted with the full rigor of the law. As he

was not required to abjure even _de levi_, it shows that there was no

suspicion of heresy involved. Then, in 1697, Fray Juan Maldonado, of the

Order of San Juan de Dios, had three years of exile for preaching, in

the church of his convent at Ciudad Real, a sermon characterized as

burlesque and scandalous, though there is no hint of its being in any

way heretical.[849]

[Sidenote: _General Utility_]

This perpetual intrusion into all manner of affairs, irrespective of

heresy rather increased towards the last. In 1788, Antonio López was

prosecuted in Valencia for selling rosaries with bones made of clay as

relics. In 1789, Andrés Joáñez, a coachman, for a conversation on a

superstitious subject. In 1791, the Carmelite Fray Bonifacio de San

Pablo, for attempting to print a satirical paper; Josef de la Rosa, in

Cordova, for carrying a consecrated wafer in a relic-bag; Vicente

Felerit, in Valencia, for a "vain observance." In 1795, Don Miguel

Catalá, fiscal in Buñol and Josef Sánchez Masquifa, a scrivener, were

prosecuted for using, in drafting testaments, the words "diversos

atributos," when alluding to the Trinity. In 1799, Juan Rodríguez, a

priest in Santiago, for assisting and performing ceremonies in a

mock-marriage. In 1808, Josef Várquez de la Torre, a scrivener of

Valencia, for drawing a deed of separation between spouses. In 1818, in

Valencia, Vicente Maicas, priest of Cedrillos, for not wanting his

parishioners to die in the Franciscan habit.[850] As all these cases

presuppose denunciation, they illustrate the popular estimate of the

all-embracing powers of the Inquisition and the espionage under which

every Spaniard lived.

In fact, there was scarce anything in which the Inquisition did not feel

itself authorized to intervene. The latitude with which inquisitors

construed their own powers is manifest in their assuming to issue

licences to hunt in prohibited places, sometimes for their own benefit

and sometimes for that of others. This was an abuse which the Suprema

strove to correct by forbidding it in 1527, but it was so persistent

that the prohibition had to be repeated in 1530 and again in 1566.[851]

As the Inquisition was supreme within its jurisdiction and claimed the

right to define the extent of its powers, there was no one to call it to

account for their arbitrary exercise. If any other body in the State

felt that its rights were invaded, the only recourse was to the

sovereign and we have seen how, under the Hapsburgs, the crown, with

scarce an exception, decided in its favor.

BOOK IX.

CONCLUSION.

CHAPTER I.

DECADENCE AND EXTINCTION.

The Inquisition may be said to have reached its apogee under Philip IV.

We have had ample opportunity to see how that pious monarch yielded to

its aggressiveness, until it became a virtually independent organization

within the State, obeying the royal mandates or not, as best suited its

convenience, and engaged in almost perpetual controversies with the

other branches of the government, while the king, with rare exceptions,

submitted to its exigencies. It is true that, in his financial distress,

he compelled the restitution of a small part of the confiscations and

that he asserted the royal prerogative of making and unmaking

inquisitors-general and of appointing members of the Suprema but, when

once he had exercised the power, his appointees acted in independence.

It would not be easy to imagine a more complete assertion of

irresponsible authority than the sudden arrest of Villanueva--of a

leading minister in the absence of the sovereign, at a time of the

utmost confusion, when nothing would have been risked by delay, save

perhaps that the sovereign might have refused assent. Yet not only did

Philip condone this but he threw himself into the persecution of his

favorite with such ardor that he could scarce restrain himself from

risking a rupture with the Holy See in defence of the Holy Office. Under

the disastrous regency of Maria Ana of Austria and the reign of Carlos

II, the royal authority almost disappeared and, although this gave such

men as Nithard and Valladares opportunity to assert still further the

independence of the Inquisition, it also enabled Don John of Austria to

banish Nithard and the other governmental departments to emulate its

disregard of the royal authority. There was an omen of the future when

they united, in 1696, in the Junta Magna, to protest against the

encroachments of the Inquisition and to demand its withdrawal into its

proper limits, although by dextrous management the attempt was baffled.

THE BOURBONS.

With the advent of the Bourbon dynasty a new element entered into the

political organization of Spain. The absolutism of Louis XIV had

embraced the Church as well as the State, and the Gallican theories as

to the power of the Holy See were encouraged in order to assure the

headship of the crown. It was inevitable that Philip V and his French

advisers should entertain very different views as to the relations

between the king and the Inquisition from those which had been current

for a century. Even at the height of the War of Succession, we have seen

how Philip, in the affair of Froilan Díaz, intervened as master and

regulated the relations between the inquisitor-general and the Suprema,

how he undertook to reform the Inquisition and how, in many ways he

curbed its audacity. But for a court intrigue, working through Philip's

uxoriousness, Macanaz might have succeeded in his project of rendering

the Inquisition wholly subordinate to the crown, and though the

vindictiveness of the Holy Office inflicted on him life-long punishment

for the attempt, this did not prevent the continued assertion of the

royal supremacy, as we have had occasion to see in repeated instances

and in many different directions.

[Sidenote: _PHILIP V_]

Philip's assertion of the royal prerogative, however, by no means

implied any lack of zeal for the faith and, as long as the Inquisition

confined itself to its duties of exterminating heresy, it had his

cordial support. Frequent allusions have been made above to its renewed

activity during the period following the close of the War of Succession.

Full statistics are lacking, but in sixty-four autos, between 1721 and

1728, there appeared nine hundred and sixty-two culprits and effigies,

of whom one hundred and fifty-one were relaxed.[852] That this met his

hearty approbation is manifested by the letter which he addressed,

January 14, 1724, to his son Luis, when abdicating in his favor. In this

the exhortations breathing a lofty morality are accompanied with earnest

injunctions to maintain and protect the Inquisition, as the bulwark of

the faith, for to it is attributable the preservation of religion in all

its purity in the states of Spain, so that the heresies which have

afflicted the other lands of Christendom, causing in them ravages so

deplorable and horrible, have never gained a foothold there.[853]

Small-pox cut short the reign of Luis to seven months, after which

Philip was obliged to resume the weary burden, till death released him,

July 9, 1746, and if, during this later portion of his government, the

Inquisition was less busy, this may safely be attributed to flagging

energies and lack of material and not to any restraint on the part of

the sovereign. The punishment which he allowed it to inflict on Belando,

for the history of his reign of which he and his queen, after careful

scrutiny, had accepted the dedication, shows how untrammelled was its

exercise of its recognized functions.

Yet Philip unwittingly started the movement that was ultimately to

undermine the foundations on which the Inquisition rested. He brought

with him from France the conviction that the king should be the patron

of letters and learning, and he had the ambition to rule over a people

of culture. He aroused the slumbering intellect of Spain by founding the

Academies of Language and of History and of Medicine, the Seminary of

the Nobles, and the National Library, and he replaced for Catalonia the

University of Lérida by that of Cervera. Notwithstanding the vigilance

of the censorship, it was impossible that the awakening intelligence of

the nation, thus stimulated, should not eagerly grasp at the forbidden

fruit of modern philosophism, all the more attractive in that it had to

be enjoyed in secret. Fernando VI, from 1746 to 1759, followed his

father's example, in encouraging the spread of culture. Carlos III was

even more energetic in urging the enlightenment of his subjects, and

thus there was gradually formed a public, few in numbers, it is true,

but including the statesmen in power, which had lost the old Spanish

conception that purity of faith was the first essential, and regarded

the Inquisition as an incumbrance, save in so far as it might be used

for political ends. The Inquisition still inspired fear, and the case of

Olavide shows that these opinions had to be cherished in secret, but

the number who entertained them was indicated when the bonds of society

were loosened and the national institutions crumbled in the earthquake

of the Napoleonic invasion.

Possibly the diffusion of this modern rationalistic spirit, insensibly

affecting even those opposed to it, may partly explain the rapidly

diminishing activity of the Inquisition. The great tribunal of Toledo,

in the fifty-five years, from 1740 to 1794 inclusive, despatched but

fifty-seven cases, or an average of but one a year.[854] This cannot be

attributed to a lack of culprits, for bigamy, blasphemy, solicitation,

sorcery and similar offences, which furnished so large a portion of the

penitents of old, were as rife as ever. The fact is, that the officials

were becoming indifferent and careless, except in the matter of drawing

their salaries. When, on May 22, 1753, the priest Miguel de Alonso

García was to be sentenced in the audience-chamber with closed doors and

in the presence of the officials, it happened that there were no

witnesses of the solemnity because none of the officials were to be

found in the secreto.[855]

[Sidenote: _CARLOS III_]

The _personnel_ of the Inquisition was visibly deteriorating and

consequently forfeiting the respect of the community. There had long

been complaint of the insufficiency of the salaries, which had remained

stationary while the purchasing power of money had greatly diminished,

and there had been no reduction in the official staffs to correspond

with the dwindling business. Thus, in spite of the _empleomanía_

characteristic of the nation, and of the privileges and exemptions

attached to official position, it became increasingly difficult to fill

the offices properly. As early as 1719, the inquisitors of Barcelona

complained to the Suprema of the trouble they experienced getting people

to serve, on account of lack of desire for the offices and the absence

of advantage accruing from them.[856] In 1737 we find that the Toledo

tribunal had neither a commissioner nor a notary in Guadalajara, the

capital of a province which, in 1787, numbered 112,750 souls.[857] In

1750, a writer deplores that the stipend of eight hundred ducats is

insufficient to support the dignity of an inquisitor, so that the

inquisitor-general is not always able to make fitting nominations. This

necessitates the appointment of calificadores to examine the doctrines

brought under review, resulting in the indefinite prolongation of cases,

and also in lack of vigilance to suppress the errors perpetually

propagated in books; when the calificadores are not paid, they are slow

in their work and, to escape paying them, many things which ought to be

referred to them are passed over.[858] That the respect felt for the

Inquisition should diminish under these circumstances was inevitable and

altogether, at this period, it presents the aspect of an institution

which had survived the causes of its creation and was hastening to its

end. Yet it had exercised too powerful an influence in moulding the

Spanish character for it to disappear when its mission was accomplished,

and we shall see how violent were the struggles attendant upon its

dissolution.

Meanwhile it dragged on its existence under constantly increasing

limitations. Fernando VI, it is true, gave it obstinate support in its

quarrel with Benedict XIV over the works of Cardinal Noris, but he dealt

a severe blow when, in 1751, he deprived of the _fuero_ the officials of

the tribunal of Lima. Carlos III, who succeeded in 1759, came from

Naples with the highest ideals of royal supremacy, coupled with less

respect for ecclesiastical claims than was current in Spain; he

surrounded himself with advisers such as Roda, Campomanes, Aranda and

Floridablanca, who were more than suspected of leanings to modern

philosophism, and his reign of benevolent despotism was marked with a

series of measures designed to diminish or abolish the privileges of

inquisitorial officials, to repress abuses and to tame arrogance. The

complete control which he assumed over its functions is exhibited in the

rules imposed, in 1768, on its censorship and, in 1770 and 1777, on its

jurisdiction over bigamy, when he ordered it in future to limit its

operations to the suppression of heresy and not to embarrass the royal

courts. The theory thus developed of the relations between the crown and

the Holy Office is formulated in a consulta of the Council of Castile,

November 30, 1768: "The king as patron, founder and endower of the

Inquisition, possesses over it the rights inherent in all royal

patronage.... As father and protector of his vassals, he can and ought

to prevent the commission of violence and extortion on their persons,

property and reputation, indicating to ecclesiastical judges, even in

their exercise of spiritual jurisdiction, the path pointed out by the

canons, so that these may be observed. The regalías of protection and of

this indubitable patronage have established solidly the authority of the

prince, in issuing the instructions which he has deigned to give to the

Holy Office acting as an ecclesiastical tribunal."[859] Under such

conditions, he was quite content with its existence and, when Roda

suggested its suppression and presented various documents to show that

this had been discussed under Charles V, Philip II and Philip V, he

merely replied "The Spaniards want it and it gives me no trouble."[860]

In fact, the time had not arrived for such drastic measures. The Abbé

Clément reports a conversation with Aranda, October 29, 1768, in which

the count warned him that it was necessary to speak of the Inquisition

with great reserve, for people imagined that all religion depended on

it; it was, in truth, an obstacle to all improvement, but time would be

required to deal with it, and he advised Clément to allude to it only to

Roda and Campomanes.[861]

* * * * *

With the accession, in 1788, of Carlos IV, there opened for Spain a new

and disastrous epoch. Timid, irresolute, indolent, he had fallen

completely under the influence of his wife María Luisa, an energetic and

self-willed woman. Until 1792 he kept in office Floridablanca, who was

succeeded for a short time by Aranda, and then power was grasped by

Manuel Godoy, subsequently known as Prince of Peace. Cadet of an obscure

family of Badajoz, he had entered the royal body-guard, where he

attracted the attention of the queen, whose favored lover he was

universally believed to be, as well as the favorite of her husband. He

speedily rose to the highest dignities and became omnipotent; although a

court intrigue occasioned his dismissal in 1798, he was restored in

1800, remaining arbiter of the destinies of Spain, until the "Tumult of

Lackeys," at Aranjuez, in 1808, directed against him, caused the

abdication of Carlos in favor of his son Fernando VII. Light-headed,

selfish, vain and unscrupulous, he was mainly responsible for the

misfortunes which overwhelmed his country and from which it may be said

not to have as yet recovered.

[Sidenote: _ALTERED FUNCTIONS_]

The outbreak of the French Revolution gave a new importance to the

Inquisition. When the seductive theories of the French philosophers

were preached as the foundation of practical politics, overturning

thrones and threatening monarchical institutions with the doctrines of

the social compact, the sovereignty of the people and the universal

brotherhood of man, the Holy Office might claim that, as the foundations

of social order were based on religion, its labors were essential for

the safety of the State, while the State recognized that it was the most

available instrumentality for the suppression and exclusion of the

heresies of liberty and equality.

In this tumultuous breaking down of the standards of thought and belief,

in this emergence of a new order on the ruins of the old, the functions

of the Inquisition adapted themselves to the exigencies of the times, in

other ways besides the increased sharpness and vigilance of its

censorship. I have frequently had occasion above to refer to an

alphabetical list of all the persons denounced to the various tribunals,

from 1780 to 1820, some five thousand in all, and this, taken as a

whole, affords us an insight into the change in the objects of

inquisitorial activity. Judaism and Islam and Protestantism no more

claim its attention. The Church is no longer threatened by enemies from

without; what it has to dread is revolt among its own children.

Three-fifths of the denunciations are for "propositions," largely among

the cultured classes, including a fair proportion of ecclesiastics.

Their precise errors are not stated, but doubtless many were Jansenistic

and more were hostile to the claims of the Church Militant and to the

absolutism of the monarchy. There is also a large class of cases,

virtually unknown a century earlier, significant of a vital change in

the intellectual tendencies of the nation, calling for the special

vigilance of the Inquisition. Popular indifferentism is revealed in the

numerous prosecutions for inobservance or contempt of church

observances. Even more noteworthy are those for outrages on images of

Christ, the Virgin and the saints, and even for sacrilegious treatment

of the Venerable Sacrament. In many other ways was manifested the

weakening of the profound and unquestioning veneration which, for three

centuries, had been the peculiar boast of the Spanish race. On the other

hand it is not a little remarkable that there are very few cases of

offences against the Inquisition, for, in all these forty years, there

are but nine that can in any way be included in this class.[862]

At the same time, when we recall the old-time punctilious enforcement of

profound respect, it argues no little decline in popular awe when, in

1791, a simple parish priest, Dr. Joseph Gines of Polop (Alicante) dared

to address the Valencia tribunal in terms of violent indignation at the

conduct of its secretary, Dr. Pasqual Pérez, when on a mission to

collect testimony. He tells the tribunal that, if it does not dismiss

Pérez it will sink greatly in his estimation, and his whole epistle

breathes a spirit of independence and equality wholly impossible at an

earlier time.[863] It was not without reason that, in 1793, the

tribunal, in appealing for increase of salaries, complained of the

decline in popular respect for its officials, which it attributed to

their meagre pay and the curtailment of their privileges.[864] How

completely the tribunals had lost their former energy is indicated by

the abandonment, about this time, as we have seen (Vol. II, p. 98) of

the publication of the Edict of Faith, which of old had been so

impressively solemnized and had proved at once so fruitful a source of

denunciations and so powerful a means of maintaining popular awe.

[Sidenote: _POLITICAL FUNCTIONS_]

Coincident with this, and as though the Inquisition felt that it was on

trial before the people, there was a marked tendency towards

amelioration of procedure, coupled with benignity in treatment of

culprits. Allusion has been made above to the introduction of the

_audiencia de cargos_, through which the accused was afforded an

opportunity of knowing what was alleged against him, and frequently of

clearing himself without the disgrace of arrest and trial. There is a

very suggestive instance of merciful consideration, in 1791, in the case

of Josef Casals, a weaver, charged before the Barcelona tribunal with

the utterance of shocking blasphemies in the church of Santa Catalina. A

century earlier he would have been arrested and, on proof of the

offence, he would have been sentenced to scourging or the galleys. In

place of this Padre Miguel Alberch was instructed to report secretly as

to the character of the accused, which he did to the effect that Casals

had regular certificates of confession, but was of quick temper and

occasionally broke out in curses. Then a commission was issued to

Alberch to summon Casals and to represent to him the gravity of his

offence and of the punishment incurred, and the mercy shown by the

tribunal, which would keep a watch on him.

In pursuance of this the good priest reported that Casals was deeply

repentant and desired to be heard in confession, which he had

permitted.[865] The case is trivial, but of such was the bulk of

inquisitorial business, and the temper in which it was conducted was of

no little import to the people at large.

Partly this may be attributable to the modern softening of manners,

partly to a growing sense of insecurity, and partly to the inertia which

led the officials to shun all avoidable labor. It was becoming more and

more a political machine and neglectful of the objects of its creation.

During the inquisitor-generalship of Manuel Abad y la Sierra, from 1792

to 1794, we are told that, in all Spain, there were but sixteen

condemnations to public penance. Abad was an enlightened man; he thought

of assimilating the inquisitorial procedure to that of other courts of

justice, and consulted with Llorente as to the formula for such a

reform, but conservatism, however relaxed in practice, was not ready for

total abandonment of the old methods. His design became known: he was

forced to resign and was relegated to the Benedictine monastery of

Sopetran, under a charge, as we have seen of Jansenism.[866]

In fact, an absolute renunciation of the old procedure would have

largely deprived the Inquisition of its usefulness in its new political

functions, to which its established methods were peculiarly adapted.

When, in 1796, a powerful intrigue was formed for the overthrow of

Godoy, the Inquisition was naturally selected as the only weapon with

which to strike at the favorite. Three friars were found to denounce

him, because for eight years he had avoided confession and communion,

and because of his scandalous relations with women. Had

Inquisitor-general Lorenzana been resolute, Godoy's fate might have been

that of Olavide, but he was timid. Archbishop Despuig of Seville and

Bishop Muzquiz, then of Avila, who were the leaders of the plot, vainly

assured him that Godoy's arrest would insure success; he refused to act

except under orders from Pius VI. Despuig then prevailed upon his

friend Cardinal Vincenti to induce the pope to write to Lorenzana

reproaching him with his indifference to a scandal so hurtful to

religion. It chanced that Vincenti's letter, inclosing that of Pius, was

intercepted at Genoa by Napoleon who, to ingratiate himself with Godoy,

forwarded to him the correspondence. Godoy assured his position and took

a mild revenge, which does credit to his sense of humor, by sending

Lorenzana, Despuig and Muzquiz into honorable exile as special envoys to

condole with the pope on the occupation of his territories by the

French.[867] In fact, Capmany describes the Inquisition of the period as

devoted to the unholy work of an Inquisition of State, in order to

preserve its imperilled existence, and its ministers as trembling at the

sight of the infamous favorite, when they had the honor of joining the

crowd of his flatterers.[868]

Inquisitors might reasonably feel anxious as to their position, for

projects of reform were in the air. Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, the

most conspicuous Spaniard of his time for intellectual ability and

rectitude, had been exiled from the court, in 1790, and had betaken

himself to his native Gijon, where for years he labored in founding the

Instituto Asturiense. Desiring to endow it with a library of scientific

works, he applied, in 1795, to Lorenzana for licence to import them, but

Lorenzana refused on the ground that there were good Spanish writers,

rendering recourse to foreigners unnecessary, especially as foreign

books had corrupted the professors and students in various

universities--a process of reasoning applied to works on physics and

mineralogy, which Jovellanos characterized as a _monumento de barbarie_.

The attention thus drawn to his library aroused the suspicions of the

commissioner of the Inquisition, Francisco López Gil, priest of Somió,

who secretly entered it one day while the owner was taking his siesta.

Word was brought to him and he hastened thither, finding Gil examining a

volume of Locke. Jovellanos turned him out, telling him that his office

rendered him an object of suspicion and forbidding him to enter the

building without permission. Gil became a spy and was probably the

author of a denunciation which cost Jovellanos years of captivity.[869]

[Sidenote: _JOVELLANOS_]

He was suddenly recalled from his exile, November 23, 1797, to assume

the position of minister of Gracia y Justicia, where he speedily gave

the Inquisition abundant cause to dread him. A competencia had arisen

between the Seville tribunal and the episcopal authorities over a

confessional which it had ordered to be closed. The matter came before

Carlos, who instructed Jovellanos to obtain the opinion of Tavira,

Bishop of Osma, which he duly transmitted to the king, February 15,

1798, with a Representation arguing that the time had come to restore to

the bishops their old jurisdiction in matters of faith; the object for

which the Inquisition was established had been attained; its processes

were cumbrous and inefficient, and its members were ignorant. The

jurisdiction of the bishops could alone furnish an effective remedy for

existing evils--a jurisdiction more natural, more authoritative, more

grateful to the people, and fuller of humanity and gentleness, as

emanating from the power granted to them by the Holy Ghost, wherefore

the authority that had been usurped from them should be restored.

Moreover he took into consideration the condition of the Holy See,

deprived of its temporalities by the French Republic. Everything, he

said, pointed to a fearful schism at the death of Pius VI, in which case

each nation must gather itself under its own pastors. The papacy would

endeavor to retain the cumbrous and costly organization of the curia, by

increasing its exactions, and it would have to be reduced to the

functions exercised during the first eight centuries.[870]

Jovellanos was a sincere Catholic, but after utterances so hardy it was

not difficult for his enemies to convince the king that he was inclined

to heresy and atheism. Godoy had grown alarmed at the ascendancy which

he was acquiring over Carlos; his fellow-minister Caballero conspired

with the Inquisition, and on August 15th the king signed the dismissal

of his minister, whose official life had endured but eight months. A

fortnight later a royal _carta orden_ declared it to be his unalterable

will that the Holy Office should permanently enjoy its jurisdiction and

prerogatives without modification.[871] Jovellanos returned to Gijon

where he lived in dignified retirement for two years and a half. His

offence however had been too great for pardon and his influence was

still dreaded. An anonymous denunciation of the flimsiest character was

laid before Carlos, describing him as having abandoned all religion and

as being at the head of a highly dangerous party, engaged in schemes for

the overthrow of Catholicism and the monarchy. The pusillanimous king

adopted the course suggested to him by the secret accuser. Before

day-break of March 13, 1801, the house of Jovellanos was surrounded by a

troop of horse; he was aroused from sleep, his papers were seized and

transmitted to the ministry of State; he was kept in his house

_incomunicado_ for twenty-four hours, then thrust into a coach and

carried, still incomunicado, across Spain to Barcelona and thence to

Majorca, where he lay in prison until the abdication of Carlos, in 1808,

and the consequent troubles effected his release.[872]

[Sidenote: _ATTEMPTED SUPPRESSION_]

A case nearly parallel was that of Mariano Luis de Urquijo, who followed

Jovellanos in the ministry of Gracia y Justicia. He had no cause to love

the Inquisition. Among his youthful indiscretions was a translation of

Voltaire's _Mort de César_, which led the Inquisition to make secret

investigations, resulting in the conviction that he was dangerously

infected with philosophism. He was about to be arrested when Aranda, who

recognized his merit, recommended him to the king and, in 1792, he was

appointed to a position in Aranda's office. The Inquisition had learned

respect for royal officials and substituted for a decree of arrest a

summons to an _audiencia de cargos_, ending in a sentence of light

suspicion of sharing philosophic errors, absolution _ad cautelam_, some

secret penances and the suppression of his book, though his name was

considerately omitted in the edict of prohibition. His official

promotion was rapid and, at the age of thirty, he found himself a

minister, employing his power, possibly with more zeal than discretion,

in encouraging enlightenment and all humanizing influences. On the death

of Pius VI he incurred Ultramontane hostility by inducing the king to

sign the decree of September 5, 1799, restoring to the bishops the right

of issuing dispensations--a measure which provoked long and bitter

discussion. This was followed, as we have seen above (Vol. III, p. 504)

October 11th by a sharp rebuke to the Inquisition, ordering it to

confine itself to its proper duties and, soon afterwards, he presented

to Carlos for signature, a decree suppressing the institution and

applying its property to purposes of charity and public utility. This

was too bold a measure; the king shrank from the responsibility and

Urquijo only succeeded in concentrating upon himself clerical hostility,

which was reinforced by the enmity of First Consul Bonaparte, whose

policy he had opposed. Godoy, who commenced to fear him as a rival, and

who was irritated by some imprudent jests, withdrew his support. A

triple prosecution was commenced against him by three inquisitors and he

fell in December, 1801. He was sent to Pampeluna, to the cell which had

been occupied by Floridablanca, and there he lay for a year or two,

deprived of fire, lights, books and writing materials. He was liberated

under surveillance; in 1808 he refused to accompany Carlos and Fernando

to Bayonne, but he attended the so-called Junta of Notables there,

accepted the French domination, served as secretary of State and, with

the other _Afrancesados_, sought refuge in France in 1813, dying in

Paris in 1817.[873]

It is evident from all this that the opposition to the Inquisition was

gathering strength and boldness, but that its foundations were too deep

and solid to be overthrown without an upheaval that should shatter the

social fabric. A well-intentioned, but somewhat absurd, attempt was made

by Grégoire, Constitutional Bishop of Blois, whose fervent Catholicism,

combined with equally fervent liberalism, was of service so essential in

piloting the Church of France through the storms of the Revolution. In

1798, he addressed a letter to the Spanish inquisitor-general, urging

the suppression of the Inquisition and universal toleration, as a

preliminary to the redemption of Spain from despotism, and to enabling

it to take its place among the nations which had recovered their rights.

This was translated into Spanish and some thousands of copies were

circulated; it may have made some secret converts but the only visible

result was to elicit several replies. One of these, by Pedro Luis

Blanco, told Grégoire, with more or less courtesy, to mind his own

business; assured him that, if the Inquisition was suppressed, Spain

would remain as intolerant as ever, and asserted that no Spaniard had

ever imagined that coercion could be employed to obtain conversion. It

was probably this, mingled with some skilful adulation of the king and

his ministers, that procured for the author, in 1800, the episcopate of

Leon.[874] There was also an anonymous "_Discurso historico-legal_,"

evidently by a well-informed inquisitor, probably Riesco of Llerena. It

was the most rational history of the Inquisition that had as yet

appeared, although it assures us that experience showed that penitents

were most grateful for the benevolence shown to them, and that it was a

tribunal full of gentleness, the centre of benignity, compassion and

mercy, but also of justice.[875]

A third was by Lorenzo Villanueva, a calificador of the Valencia

tribunal, whose defence of the reading of Scripture has been alluded to

above. It was published under the transparent pseudonym of Lorenzo

Astengo, his maternal name. In view of his subsequent career it is not

without interest to see his indignation at the advocacy of toleration

and his dithyrambic denunciation of the horrors to which philosophism

has led in the assertion of human liberty. The first portion of his work

is an impassioned and rhetorical defence of persecution, supported by

ample learning. Vigorous is his denunciation of the modern theories of

philosophism and the rights of man--since original sin, he asks, what

rights has man save to slavery, to punishment, to ruin? So he combats at

length the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, which he

stigmatizes as a delirium, a dream and a deception. Yet he admits that

the Inquisition is not perfect--that it has committed errors through

imprudence, through ignorance, through excessive zeal, and through human

frailty, and that it has prevented the development of some things which

would aid the prosperity of the nation.[876] If, as has been asserted,

he expected a bishopric in reward for this, he was disappointed.

[Sidenote: _POLITICAL UPHEAVAL_]

Thus, at this period the Inquisition was inert and its very existence

seemed to be threatened, but its potentiality of evil was undiminished.

It was still an object of terror to all inclined to liberal opinions,

and it was regarded by the Conservatives as the bulwark protecting the

land from the deluge of modern thought.

Feeble though it might be in appearance we shall see how prolonged and

stubborn was the contest required for its final suppression.

THE CORTES.

The treaty of Fontainebleau, October 27, 1807, dismembered Portugal, of

which Godoy was to have the southern portion, as an independent kingdom,

and the King of Etruria (Ferdinand of Parma) the northern portion.

Napoleon sent Junot with an army which, accompanied by Spanish troops,

speedily overran the land, when Junot issued a decree declaring Portugal

annexed to the empire. Simultaneously French armies, under Dupont and

Moncey, entered Spain and occupied the strongholds of Pampeluna,

Barcelona, Figueras and other places. Murat was sent as commander in

chief and took possession of Madrid. The Tumult of Aranjuez drove Godoy

from power and, on March 19, 1808, Carlos abdicated in favor of his son,

Fernando VII, whose accession was received with enthusiasm by the

nation. Beauharnais, the French ambassador at Madrid, and Murat,

however, refused to recognize him; Carlos protested to Napoleon that his

abdication had been coerced; by various devices, Carlos and his queen,

Fernando and his younger brother Don Carlos, were induced to go to

Bayonne to lay their respective pretensions before the emperor. There,

on May 5, Fernando was obliged to renounce the crown to his father and

the latter to transfer it to Napoleon. Carlos and María Luisa were sent

to Compiègne and Fernando to Valençay, where he remained until 1814.

Meanwhile in Madrid, Murat, under instructions, ordered the Infantes

Antonio and Francisco, the remaining members of the royal family, to

depart for Bayonne on May 2d. The indignant populace rose, with the aid

of a few officers and soldiers and, after a gallant struggle against the

veterans of Napoleon, the insurrection was repressed with heavy

slaughter, followed by numerous executions. The heroic "Dos de Mayo" was

the signal of resistance to the invader and, in a few weeks, Spain was

aflame; the desperate six years' War of Liberation was commenced, and

the nation showed what a people could do when abandoned by its incapable

and cowardly rulers. With a soldier's contempt for an unorganized

militia, Napoleon pursued his plans. Joseph was called from Naples to

occupy the vacant throne and was acknowledged as king by an Assembly of

Notables, convoked at Bayonne in June, which transformed itself into

Córtes and adopted a Constitution.

This summary of the situation is necessary to an understanding of the

position of the Inquisition. Whatever may have been the views of some of

the local tribunals, the central body accepted the intrusive domination

and was _afrancesado_--a term which, to the patriots, became one of the

bitterest contempt. The Constitution of Bayonne provided that, in

Spanish territories, no religion save Roman Catholicism should be

tolerated. Raimundo Ethenard, Dean of the Suprema, was a member of the

Córtes and, when he took the oath of allegiance to Joseph, the latter

assured him that Spain was fortunate in that the true faith alone was

there honored. When the Constitution was under consideration, two

members, Pablo Arribas and José Gómez Hermosilla, advocated the

suppression of the Inquisition, but Ethenard and his colleagues of the

Inquisition, Galarza, Hevia Noriega and Amarillas, successfully opposed

it, although they admitted that, in conformity with public opinion, its

procedure should be made to conform to that of the spiritual courts in

criminal cases.[877]

[Sidenote: _SUPPRESSION BY NAPOLEON_]

The Inquisition thus deemed itself safe and earnestly supported the

Napoleonic government. After the sanguinary suppression of the Madrid

rising on May 2d, it made haste to counteract the impression produced

and, on the 6th, the Suprema addressed a circular letter to the

tribunals, describing the affair as a scandalous attack by the lowest

mob on the troops of a friendly nation, who had given no offence and had

observed the strictest order and discipline. Such demonstrations, it

said, could only result in turbulence and in destroying the confidence

due to the government, which was the only one that could advantageously

direct patriotic energies. The tribunals were therefore instructed to

impress on their subordinates, and the commissioners and familiars in

their districts, the urgent necessity of unanimously contributing to the

preservation of public tranquillity. This communication was received by

the Valencia tribunal on May 9th and, on the 11th, it was read to the

assembled officials, calificadores, notaries and familiars of the city,

with exhortations to comply strictly with its commands--action which

was doubtless taken by the other tribunals.[878]

The Inquisition thus remained in Madrid under the protection of the

French arms, but its freedom of action was curtailed. The Abate

Marchena, a fine classical scholar, but revolutionary and tinctured with

atheism, had abandoned Spain early in the French Revolution and had

barely escaped the guillotine during the Terror. He returned, in 1808,

as Murat's secretary, when the Inquisition thought fit to arrest him,

but Murat sent a file of grenadiers and forcibly released him.[879] When

Napoleon reached Madrid, December 4, 1808, the capitulation granted to

the city provided that no religion but Catholicism should be tolerated

but, on the same day, he issued a decree which suppressed the

Inquisition, as contrary to sovereignty and to civil authority, and

confiscated its property to the crown.[880] The Inquisitor Francisco

Riesco stated, during the debate in the Córtes of Cádiz, that this

sudden decree was motived by the refusal of the members of the Suprema

to take the oath of allegiance to the new dynasty, but this is evidently

incorrect, as most of them had already done so at Bayonne, and Arce y

Reynoso, who resigned his inquisitor-generalship, adhered to the French

and accompanied them on the final evacuation. Riesco further asserts

that Napoleon ordered them to be imprisoned, but they escaped and

scattered to places of safety.[881] The Inquisition was thus left in an

anomalous position and without a head, for correspondence with Pius VII

was cut off, and neither his acceptance of Arce's resignation nor his

delegation of powers to a successor could be had. The Junta Central,

which was striving to govern the country, attempted to fill the vacancy

with Pedro de Quevedo y Quintano, Bishop of Orense, but he could obtain

no papal authorization and made no attempt to act. It was argued that

during a vacancy the jurisdiction continued with the Suprema, but this

was denied and it remained an open question.[882]

During the period which followed, the tribunals maintained their

organization and exercised their functions after a fashion, when not

prevented by the French occupation. Thus when the invaders reached

Seville, February 1, 1810, the Inquisition was suppressed, but its

members took refuge in Ceuta. Valencia remained in operation until the

city was captured by Suchet, in 1811, while Barcelona at one time

transferred itself to Tarragona. Activity was intermittent and, in the

excitement of that stirring time, there was little energy for the

prosecution of heresy while, even when the enemy had withdrawn, in many

cases the buildings had been ruined. The Valencia record shows that the

total number of cases brought before all the tribunals in 1808 was 67;

in 1809, 22; in 1810, 17; in 1811, 25; in 1812, 1; in 1813, 6. Probably

few of these cases were regularly heard, if we may judge from that of

Don Vicente Valdés, captain of volunteers who, in 1810, was denounced to

the Valencia tribunal for blasphemous propositions. October 27th it was

ordered that, in view of the circumstances, a fitting occasion should be

awaited for the _audiencia de cargos_ demanded by the fiscal--a

postponement which proved to be protracted for it was not until 1816

that he was tried.[883] Still, where the Inquisition itself was

concerned it could act swiftly and effectively. In 1809 the French took

possession of Santiago. Felipe Sobrino Taboada, professor of civil law

in the university, was acting as police-magistrate and, by order of the

director-general of police, he issued a proclamation exhorting the

people to lay down their arms and praising the suppression of the

Inquisition. When the French retired, the university refused to readmit

him to his chair. He obtained a decision of the tribunal of Public

Safety of Coruña re-establishing him and then the Inquisition arrested

him, without the prescribed preliminary formalities, and kept him for

five months in the secret prison. Afterwards he was allowed to keep his

house as a prison and, when finally the bounds were enlarged to the

province of Galicia, it was with the condition that he would accept no

public office.[884]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _ASSEMBLING OF THE CORTES_]

The Junta Central, which had endeavored to govern, amid much opposition

from the particularist tendencies of the provincial juntas, retired to

Cádiz when the French occupied Andalusia.

On January 1, 1810, it issued a convocation for the assembling of

Córtes, and on the 31st it dissolved, after appointing a Regency and

imposing on it the duty of convoking the Córtes by March 1st. The

Regency delayed until, forced by the pressure of public opinion, on June

18th it published a decree ordering elections where they had not been

held, and summoning the deputies to meet in August in Isla de Leon, now

San Fernando, near Cádiz. Suffrage was virtually universal and, in the

letters of convocation, the nation was called upon to assemble in

general Córtes "to establish and improve the fundamental constitution of

the monarchy," while the commissions of the delegates empowered them to

decide all points contained in the letters and all others, without

exception or limitation.[885] The Córtes accordingly assumed the title

of Majesty, as embodying the will of the people and occupying the throne

of the absent sovereign. When they were opened, September 24th, about a

hundred deputies were present, two-thirds of whom were elected by the

provinces not occupied by the French armies, and the rest selected in

Cádiz from among natives of the unrepresented districts, including the

colonies, then more or less in open revolt, while, as the vicissitudes

of the war permitted, deputies came straggling in from districts

unrepresented at first. As a whole, the body fairly reflected existing

public opinion. The Liberals numbered forty-five, and the majority

consisted of ecclesiastics, men of the privileged classes and government

employees.[886] It was an unavoidably hazardous experiment, this sudden

wrenching of Spain from the old moorings and launching it on the

tempestuous waters of modern ideas, under the conduct of men without

training or experience in self-government. Grave mistakes were

inevitable and their constructive work was idealistic and doomed to

failure--a failure bound to result in blood and misery. At the moment,

however, there were no misgivings and the Córtes were regarded as the

salvation of the nation.[887]

The oath administered to the members bound them to maintain Catholicism

as the exclusive religion of Spain and to preserve for their beloved

monarch Fernando VII all his dominions. Their first act was to adopt a

series of five resolutions, offered by an ecclesiastic, Diego Muñoz

Torrero, rector of the University of Salamanca, of which one provided

that the Regency should be continued as the executive power, on taking

an oath recognizing the sovereignty of the nation as embodied in the

Córtes and promising obedience to their enactments. Rather than do this,

the Regency proposed to break up the Córtes, but the threatening aspect

of the people and the army caused a change of heart, and that same night

they took the oath, except the implacable conservative Quevedo Bishop of

Orense, who resigned both from the Regency and the Córtes. His

resignations were accepted but he was forced to take the oath required

of all prelates and officials before he was allowed to retire to his

diocese. It was evident that the Córtes and the Regency could not pull

together; on October 28th, the latter was dismissed, its membership was

reduced from five to three and a new Regency was installed with which

the Córtes could work in harmony.[888]

[Sidenote: _THE INQUISITION ASSAILED_]

After settling relations with the other departments of the State, the

first attention of the Córtes was given to the freedom of the press. Two

days after the opening session the subject was introduced and referred

to a committee; no time was lost, a decree was reported October 8th, and

on the 18th, in spite of the reclamations of the opposition, it was

passed by a vote of 68 to 32. This was regarded as a preliminary attack

on the Inquisition, which was thus deprived by implication of the

function of censorship. Some members desired this to be explicitly

stated, giving rise to a hot debate in which Inquisitor Riesco, a member

of the Córtes, pleaded in vain for some honorable mention of the Holy

Office. There was also indignation excited by the provision subjecting

prohibition by the bishops to revision by the secular power, which was

subversive of the imprescriptible rights of the Church, whose judgements

are final.[889] If this was really the first move in a campaign against

the Inquisition, it was not unskilful, for it set at liberty the pens

which had hitherto been restrained. At once there arose a crowd of

pamphleteers and journalists, not only in Cádiz but throughout Spain,

who attacked the institution unsparingly, raising a clamor which showed

how severe had been the repression. Sturdy defenders were not lacking

and the wordy war was vigorously waged. The two most prominent champions

on either side were Antonio Puigblanch, who, under the pseudonym of

Natanael Jomtob, issued a series of pamphlets, collected under the title

of "La Inquisicion sin Máscara" or "The Inquisition unmasked," and Padre

Maestro Fray Francisco Alvarado, a Dominican of high repute for learning

and eloquence, whose letters under the name of _El Filósofo Rancio_ or

Antiquated Philosopher, continued for two years to keep up the struggle

against all the innovations of the Liberals.[890]

Puigblanch was no exception to the general rule that those who attacked

the Inquisition were careful to profess the highest veneration for the

faith and in no way to advocate toleration. His work commences with an

eloquent description of religion as the foundation of all civil

constitutions and Catholicism as the noblest adornment of enlightenment

and liberty, the only question being whether the Inquisition is the

fitting institution for its protection. He is careful to maintain to the

last his abhorrence of heresy and his desire for its suppression, which

he proposes to effect by reviving episcopal jurisdiction under certain

limitations.[891] With all this his denunciation of the Inquisition was

unsparing, and he had ample store of atrocities with which to justify

his attacks, although there was unfairness in attributing to it, in the

nineteenth century, the cruelties which had stained its previous career.

Alvarado was a man of extensive learning, but of little claim to the

title of philosopher, whether antiquated or modern. Though his methods

were not such as to make converts, they were well adapted to stimulate

those of his own side, for he was an effective partizan writer, fluent,

sarcastic, often coarse, vulgar and vituperative, using assertion for

argument and indifferent as to truth. The chief value of his letters is

the flood of light which they shed on the conservative attitude of the

time, which explains much in the subsequent vicissitudes of Spain.

Philosophers, he says, are wolves, robbers and devils, monsters who

cannot be regarded without horror, enlighteners who are nothing but

ignoramuses and cheats and emissaries sent by hell. To seek to undermine

popular confidence in the priesthood he holds to be a crime greater than

the crucifixion of Christ. The ferocity of his intolerance shows how

little Spanish churchmen had changed since the days of Torquemada. As to

the relations of religion and the State, he assumes that the only

function of the civil power is to punish him who offends the faith; the

Catholic religion is as intolerant as light is of darkness, or as truth

is of falsehood, and this intolerance distinguishes it from all

religions invented by man. Repeatedly and savagely he proclaims that

burning is the proper remedy for unbelief, and he tells his adversaries

that, if they wish free thought, they may go to England or to the United

States, but in Spain what they had to expect was the _quemadero_.[892]

Such advocacy could only render the Liberals more eager to accomplish

their work.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _THE CONSTITUTION OF 1812_]

While this controversy was contributing to the greater enlightenment or

obscuration of public opinion, the Córtes were engaged in framing a

Constitution. The committee entrusted with this task had a majority of

conservatives, including several ecclesiastics, but these were quite

willing to circumscribe the royal power, while seeking to extend the

privileges of the Church, and all the members signed the project as

presented.[893] It commenced by asserting the sovereignty of the nation,

which had the exclusive right to establish its fundamental laws, and

could never be the patrimony of any person or family, and it affirmed

that the religion of the nation was, and always forever would be the

Catholic, Apostolic, Roman, the only true one, which the nation protects

by wise and just laws, and prohibits the exercise of any other.[894]

This apparent concession to intolerance was denounced, when too late, as

a trap, for it placed in the hands of the representatives of the nation

the power of deciding what the wise and just laws should be for the

protection of religion. Be this as it may, the Córtes were resolved that

there should be no refusal to accept the new framework of government.

In secret session of March 16, 1812, it was decreed that whosoever

should refuse to swear to it should be declared an unworthy Spaniard and

be driven from Spain, and measures were taken to have it read in every

parish church, where the assembled people should swear to obey it and to

be faithful to the king. As the French armies were driven back, the

Spanish commanders made it their first duty to see this ceremony

performed, and where there was opposition, chiefly arising from the

priests, force was employed. A priest of the Cádiz cathedral who alluded

to it slightingly as a _libelo_, or little book, was prosecuted, and the

irreconcileable Bishop of Orense, who refused to take the oath, was

exiled and declared to be an unworthy Spaniard. As a whole, however, it

was enthusiastically accepted as the dawn of a new era, though we may

well question how many of those who took the oath comprehended the

purport of its three hundred and eighty-four articles, covering all the

complicated minutiæ of institutions based on an entirely new conception

of the relations between the Government and the governed.[895]

It was inevitable that, in the effort to create a new Spain, the fate of

the Inquisition should be involved, especially as its disabled condition

invited attack. That a struggle was impending had long been evident to

all parties, and that this was felt to be decisive as to the character

of the future institutions of Spain is seen in the tenacity with which

it was fought. The Inquisition was the conservative stronghold, to be

defended to the last, after all the outer defences had been abandoned,

and the deep roots which it had established are manifested by the

tactics required for its overthrow, and by the fact that the contest was

the bitterest and the most prolonged in the career of the Córtes, which

had so unceremoniously converted Spain from absolutism to liberal

constitutionalism.

Some preparation had been made for the struggle by the conservatives.

The first Regency had endeavored to reconstitute all the old Councils of

the monarchy and, on June 10, 1810, Ethenard, the Dean of the Suprema,

addressed to it a memorial requesting it to order the reassembling of

the Suprema, to which it responded, August 1st, by issuing such an

order. The scattering of the members precluded this, but, when the early

acts of the Córtes foreshadowed what was to come, on December 18th,

Ethenard and Amarillas asked the new Regency to appoint as a member the

fiscal Ibar Navarro and as fiscal the Madrid inquisitor, Galarza, thus

enabling the body to resume its functions. As no attention was paid to

this, an old member, Alejo Jimenez de Castro, who had been exiled to

Murcia by Godoy, was brought from his retreat to Cádiz, so as to have

material for a quorum present. The occasion to utilize this offered

itself in January, 1811. The freedom of the press enabled Don Manuel

Alzaibar to start "La Triple Alianza," a frankly irreligious journal, in

the second number of which there appeared an article ridiculing the

immortality of the soul and suffrages for the dead. On January 28th

advantage was taken of this to ask the Córtes to refer it to the

Inquisition for censure, which was carried in spite of opposition. The

next day the editors asked that the action be rescinded, leading to a

three days' debate in which the Inquisition was denounced as a

mysterious, cruel and antichristian tribunal and, for the first time,

its suppression was openly advocated. President Dou ruled that the

inculpated journal must be passed to the Junta de Censura, for he

understood that the Inquisition was not organized, when he was told that

there were three members of the Suprema in Cádiz, and that the Seville

tribunal was in Ceuta. This raised larger questions and the whole matter

was referred to a committee so composed that it was expected to report

against re-establishment, but it withheld its report for a long time and

meanwhile there were other moves in the game.[896]

[Sidenote: SKIRMISHING FOR POSITION]

On May 16th, the members of the Suprema notified the Regency that they

were prepared to act, in response to which the minister of Gracia y

Justicia expressed his surprise that they should meet as a tribunal,

without awaiting the decision of the questions submitted to the Córtes,

and forbade them from forming a Council until they should have express

authorization.[897] The matter was brought before the Córtes and

Inquisitor Riesco vainly argued in favor of the Inquisition; his motion

was referred to the committee, where it lay buried in spite of repeated

calls for a report. The Liberals insisted that a National Council would

be a more suitable body for the mature consideration of such questions;

their object was solely to gain time, which was fighting on their side,

but the idea was seriously entertained, even by the clericals. The

committee on the external discipline of the clergy reported, August 22d,

in favor of the project, with a list of matters to be submitted to the

Council; on August 28th the Córtes ordered it to be convoked, but

postponed consideration of the details. Other matters supervened and no

further action was taken, which Archbishop Vélez assures us saved Spain

from a schism, or at least from a scandal for, under the proposed

program, it would have proved a second Synod of Pistoja. In fact, the

journals naturally took a lively interest in the matter; thousands of

pamphlets, we are told, appeared everywhere, pointing out the abuses and

relaxed morals of the clergy and demanding a reform that was assumed to

be necessary. It is easy to imagine that the ecclesiastical authorities

were willing to let the project drop.[898]

The position of the Liberals was greatly strengthened by the adoption of

the Constitution, in March 1812, as was abundantly shown in the next

debate on the Inquisition. This was provoked by the publication, in

April 1812, of the "Diccionario crítico-burlesco" of Gallardo, librarian

of the Córtes, in which all that the mass of the population held sacred

was treated with ridicule, neither refined nor witty. It created an

immense sensation and was brought before the Córtes, which enabled

Riesco, on April 22d, to call for the immediate presentation of the

report of the committee on the Inquisition, for which the Córtes had

been waiting for more than a year. The committee, in fact, had reached a

decision, in July 1811, in favor of the Inquisition, and we are not told

why it had been held back, for four members had concurred in it and only

Muñoz Torrero had dissented. The report was accordingly presented,

re-establishing the Suprema in its functions, with certain limitations

as to political action; the debate was hot, but the Liberals had taken

precautions to avoid a direct vote on the question. In a decree of March

25th, creating a supreme court of justice, they had introduced an

article suppressing the tribunals known by the name of councils, and

they pointed out that this embraced the Suprema, which gave abundant

opportunity for discussion. Even more important was a decision of the

Córtes, adroitly planned for this especial purpose, December 13, 1811,

during the discussion on the Constitution, that no propositions bearing

on the fundamental law should be admitted to debate without previous

examination by the committee on the Constitution, to see that it was not

in opposition to the articles thereof. It was notorious that

inquisitorial procedure was in direct contravention of the

constitutional provisions to secure justice in criminal prosecutions

and, after an exciting struggle and a postponement, the report was

referred to the committee on the Constitution. The Conservatives were so

exasperated that they proposed to dissolve the Córtes, and have a new

election under the Constitution, to which the Liberals agreed, except

that the new body should meet October 1, 1813, and the existing one

should remain in session until then. Archbishop Vélez tells us that the

policy of the Liberals was to gain time, for their personal safety was

at stake if the Inquisition was re-established, nor does he recognize

how monstrous was the admission involved in this, for an institution

that could prosecute and punish legislators for their official acts was

virtually the despot of the land. Doubtless the deputies felt this, and

that the struggle was one for life or death.[899]

The flank of the enemy was thus skilfully turned. The committee on the

Constitution was in no haste to report and occupied itself with

collecting documentary material from the archives wherever accessible.

Its conclusion was that the Inquisition was incompatible with the

fundamental law and, on November 13th, it voted on a project for

establishing "Tribunales protectores de la fe" in compliance with the

constitutional requirements. Finally, on December 8th two reports were

presented. That of the minority by Antonio Joaquin Pérez, who had been

an inquisitor in Mexico, argued that the abuses of the Inquisition were

not inherent; that its procedure conflicted with the Constitution and

should therefore be modified accordingly.[900]

[Sidenote: _DEBATE ON SUPPRESSION_]

The majority report was a very elaborate document, tracing the treatment

of heresy from the earliest times, and pointing out the irreconcileable

incompatibility of the Inquisition with the constitutional provisions

securing to the citizen the right of open trial and opportunities for

defence. It concluded with the draft of a decree "Sobre Tribunales

protectores de la fe," in which such caution was deemed necessary that

the Inquisition was nowhere mentioned. It appealed to the national

pride, by simply reviving a law of the Partidas concerning the

prosecution of heretics by bishops, it prescribed the form and procedure

of the episcopal tribunals, the punishment by lay judges of those

pronounced guilty, and it provided for appeals as well as for the

suppression of writings contrary to religion. The reports were duly

received and January 4, 1813, was appointed for the opening of

debate.[901]

Probably no measure before the Córtes provoked so bitter and prolonged a

debate. The Liberals had secured the advantage of position, and the

Conservatives felt that the issue involved the whole future relations of

Church and State. There was a preliminary skirmish on December 29th,

when Sánchez de Ocaña asked for a postponement until the bishops and

chapters could be consulted, on the ground that the Church was an

independent body.[902] This was voted down and the debate was opened on

the designated day, January 4, 1813. The friends of the Inquisition had

not been idle; the Church organization was in good working order, and

the Córtes were bombarded with memorials from bishops, chapters,

ayuntamientos, military officers, towns and provinces, showing how

active the canvass had been during the two years in which the subject

had been mooted. Yet the Conservatives could only procure, out of the

fifty-nine sees existing in Spain, protests from two archbishops and

twenty-four bishops, the authorities of three vacant sees, and four

chapters of those occupied by the French; while the number from officers

of the army was not large, those from towns were but a small fraction of

the municipalities, and only two provinces--Alava and Galicia--spoke

through their authorities. Muñoz Torrero declared, January 10th, that

every mail brought him mountains of letters in favor of the Inquisition

and Toreno spoke of the reclamations that came in, showing how the

signers of protests had been coerced.[903]

The debate was vigorous and eloquent on both sides but, while it took

the widest range, embracing the history of the Church from apostolic

times and the career of the Inquisition from the thirteenth century, the

parliamentary question in reality turned upon the power of the Córtes to

intrude in the sphere of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. After discussion

lasting until January 22d on the preliminary propositions, the decree

itself was taken up, article by article and strenuously fought over;

amendments were presented and accepted or rejected, as they strengthened

or weakened the measure, and hot resistance was offered to the clauses

allowing appeals from the judgements of the bishops, which the Liberals

supported on the ground that all the members who opposed the Inquisition

had been denounced throughout Spain as heretics, and the safety of the

citizen demanded that episcopal definition of heresy should not be

final. The debate was prolonged until February 5th, when the last

article was agreed to, and the decree in its final shape did not differ

essentially from that proposed by the Committee. There was no formal

suppression of the Inquisition; it was simply declared to be

incompatible with the Constitution and the law of the Partidas was

revived. This latter had been agreed to on January 26th by a vote of 92

to 30, and that date was assumed as determining the extinction of the

Inquisition, regulating the disposition of its property. It is not worth

while to recapitulate the details of the episcopal tribunals and the

provisions for censorship, as the bishops took little interest in the

exercise of their restored jurisdiction, though there are traces of

their action in one or two cases--that of Joaquin Ramírez, priest of

Moscardon and of Doña Antonia de la Torre of Seville.[904] During the

seventeen months that elapsed until the re-establishment of the

Inquisition, we are told that, although the land was full of Freemasons

and other anticatholics, the bishops had no occasion to arrest any one,

for no informers or accusers came forward--doubtless because they

realized that their names would be known.[905]

[Sidenote: _THE INQUISITION SUPPRESSED_]

In the debate several ecclesiastics distinguished themselves by their

able advocacy of the measure, among whom were pre-eminent Muñoz Torrero,

who had borne a leading part in drafting the decree; Lorenzo Villanueva,

who had defended the Inquisition against Bishop Grégoire, and Ruyz

Padron, parish priest of Valdeorras in Galicia and formerly of the

Canaries. How they fared in consequence we shall see hereafter. On the

other side one of the most vehement was Pedro Inguanzo, who was rewarded

with the see of Zamora, and ultimately with the archbishopric of Toledo.

The Liberals had won their victory by unexpectedly large majorities,

indicating how great had been the advance in public opinion. No measure

had created such intensity of feeling on either side; the rejoicing of

the Liberals was extravagant, and the anger of the clerical party may be

gauged by the declamation of Archbishop Vélez, who is as vehement as

though the whole fate of Christianity was at stake--the abomination of

desolation, he declares, seemed to have established its throne in the

very house of God.[906] The clergy had already been alienated by various

measures adverse to their interests--the appropriation of a portion of

the tithes to the support of the armies, the escheating of the property

of convents destroyed by the invaders, or having less than twelve

inmates, and the abrogation of the Voto de Santiago, a tax on the

agriculturists of some provinces based on a fraudulent tradition of a

vow made by Ramiro I, when, by the aid of St. James, he won the

suppositious victory of Clavijo.[907] The debate on the Inquisition had

heightened the reputation of the Córtes as an irreligious body, and it

was not wise to inflame still further the hostility of a class wielding

such preponderating influence, but the Liberals, intoxicated by their

victory, proceeded to render the measure as offensive as possible to the

defeated clericals.