STATE AND CHURCH, 1700-1808
[Sidenote: Pronounced zeal of the Bourbons in subjecting the church.]
[Sidenote: The elements in controversy.]
If the kings of the House of Austria had displayed zeal in diminishing
the range of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the Bourbon monarchs, with
their accentuated ideal of absolutism, were even more insistent in that
respect. The kings were assisted by elements to which they themselves
were otherwise hostile, such as the Jansenists[63] and the
encyclopedists, whose partisans furnished arguments for the royal
authority, because they opposed the rule of the church. Nevertheless,
the monarchical ideal of the kings was sufficient to induce them to
attack the church, except as concerned the purely spiritual interests of
the Catholic religion, and the absolute patronage which the kings
enjoyed in the Americas became the model of what they wished to
establish in Spain. There were two principal angles to the problem, that
of overcoming the intervention of the popes in the affairs of the
Spanish church, and that of lessening the power and the privileges of
the Spanish clergy. As for the intervention of the popes, they exercised
the right of appointment to Spanish benefices which became vacant in any
of the so-called eight “apostolic months,” and also to those vacated in
the four “ordinary months” (March, June, September, and December) if the
death of the holder occurred at Rome; considerable sums of money were
also collected for papal dispensations to marry, papal pardons, and
other papal acts of an irregularly recurring character, although
government officials charged that a large part of these moneys remained
in the hands of Spanish and Italian intermediaries without reaching the
coffers of the pope; the tribunal of the nunciature, despite the
provisions of the papal brief of 1537, had come to be composed of
foreign priests, and besides exercising its judicial functions
independently of the royal courts administered the rents of vacant
benefices (_vacantes_), which gave rise to accusations of abuses in the
management of the funds; the tribunal of the _Cruzada_, for the
collection of the tax of that name, was still in papal hands, although
the income had frequently in the past been granted to the kings of
Spain; and finally, there existed the old question of the _pase regio_,
about the necessity for royal consent prior to the publication of papal
bulls and briefs, or in fact even for the delivery of pontifical
letters. As concerned the relations with the local clergy, the kings
were preoccupied with such matters as the great numbers of churchmen
(especially the regular clergy), the immunities they enjoyed, the
immensity of their landed estates held in mortmain, the extent of the
right of asylum in ecclesiastical edifices, and the power of the
Inquisition and, far more, that of the Jesuits.
[Sidenote: Conflict of the kings with the popes in the first half
century of the era.]
The conflict with the papacy began at the outset of the reign of Philip
V, for the popes favored the candidacy of the Archduke Charles to the
Spanish throne. Philip V expelled the nuncio, suspended the court of the
nunciature, and gave orders against the circulation of papal bulls in
Spain. These measures were only temporary, during the course of the war.
Nevertheless, Alberoni, who restored matters to their former basis, had
occasion, even though he was a cardinal himself, to banish the newly
appointed nuncio. Finally, an agreement was reached in the concordat of
1737 from which the crown obtained some advantages, such as the
suppression of the right of asylum in some cases and its restriction in
others, the limitation of the number of churchmen with rights of
personal immunity, and the giving of guarantees against false
allegations with a view to extending the immunities of church estates,
together with the derogation of this right for such properties as the
church should acquire in future. The concordat satisfied nobody, and
moreover most of its provisions were not observed. When Ferdinand VI
ascended the throne, he took steps to procure a more acceptable
arrangement, for though an exceedingly devout Catholic he was unbending
as concerned matters affecting the royal authority. The result was a
fresh concordat with the pope, dated 1753. Several important rights were
gained at this time: in return for a heavy money indemnity Ferdinand
obtained a recognition of the royal right of patronage in appointments
to all church offices, except some fifty-two dignities and the naming of
bishops to benefices vacated in the four “ordinary months”; various
kinds of papal taxes were renounced in favor of Spain; the tax of the
_cruzada_ was granted in perpetuity to the crown; and the right of
exemption from the taxation of lands held in mortmain was abolished.
Nevertheless, the partisans of royalty were not yet satisfied.
[Sidenote: Success of Charles III in the conflict with the popes.]
[Sidenote: Subjection of the Spanish church by Charles III.]
Charles III was a pious Catholic, but carried the reform movement
against the church further than any of his predecessors. The first step
was taken as a result of a papal brief against a book written by
Mesenghi, a French theologian. When the Spanish Inquisition was about to
publish the condemnatory document, the king issued a decree of
prohibition. This was followed by royal orders of 1761 and 1762 making
the following enactments: that no papal bull, brief, or other pontifical
letter should be allowed to circulate or be obeyed, whatever might be
its subject-matter, unless it should previously have been presented to
the king, or in certain cases of lesser moment to the _Consejo_, so that
a decision might be reached whether it interfered with the royal
prerogative, before a license to publish would be granted; that the
Inquisition should publish only such edicts as were forwarded to it by
the king; and that it should condemn no book without giving the author a
chance to defend himself. Through the influence of his mother, Isabel
Farnesio, Charles was persuaded to suspend these decrees, but they were
put into effect in 1768 when the pope issued a bull censuring the
Bourbon Duke of Parma, a relative of Charles III, for his application
of the _pase regio_ in his domain. A further step was taken in 1771,
when the pope consented to the reform of the nunciature, whereby that
tribunal, henceforth called the _Rota_, was to be composed of six
Spanish judges nominated by the king and appointed by the pope. A great
many measures were also undertaken in this reign to subject the Spanish
clergy to the royal authority, and to better economic and religious
conditions. The following enactments were representative of this phase
of the royal policy: the recourse of _fuerza_ was frequently employed in
cases of conflict of laws between the civil and the ecclesiastical
courts, and the jurisdiction of the former was favored; a law of 1766
required bishops to exercise vigilance to see that priests should say
nothing against the government or the members of the royal family, and
even the _alcaldes_ were given authority to assist in this regard in
conserving the good name of the state and its rulers; the rights of
asylum in churches and the personal immunities of churchmen were
limited, as by a law of 1774, according to which such rights were not to
obtain in the case of those guilty of participation in riots; in 1780 it
was ordered that the profits of vacant rural benefices should be applied
to the repair of churches of the diocese or to the repopulation of
abandoned districts; bishops were prohibited by a law of 1781 from
appointing vicars without the prior consent of the king; an attempt was
made in 1786 to do away with the custom of burying deceased persons in
churches, but the effort was unsuccessful, owing to the opposition of
the clergy; in the same year ecclesiastical judges were forbidden to
handle the temporal aspects of matrimonial cases, being restricted to
decisions affecting the canonical bonds established by marriage; and in
1787 all cases of smuggling were removed from the jurisdiction of the
ecclesiastical courts, even though a churchman were involved. In the
reign of Charles IV there were intervals when the church was less
rigorously dealt with, but the majority of the ministers followed the
tradition of their predecessors.
[Sidenote: Royal action diminishing the power of the Inquisition.]
There had been many complaints against the Inquisition in the period of
the Hapsburg kings, but they became more frequent in the far more
tolerant eighteenth century, and now that the monarchs no longer
regarded the danger of heresy as serious they were reinforced by the
royal policy of reducing all outstanding phases of authority. The
conflict with the Inquisition was fought out over the following issues:
questions of jurisdiction between the civil courts and that of the
Inquisition; abuse of power by the Inquisition, which was accused of
using its authority in matters of religion as a political arm; decrees
of the Inquisition inconsistent with those of the king, or failures to
observe the royal claims of a right to apply the _pase regio_; arbitrary
condemnations of books by the Inquisition; and the extraordinary
amplitude of cases falling within the purview of its tribunals, such as
those of usury, smuggling, the importation of coin into the kingdom, and
the raising of horses, all of which were far removed from the primary
objects of the institution. Not much was done until the reign of Charles
III. That monarch had already shown himself hostile to the Inquisition
while king of Naples, prior to his accession to the throne of Spain. One
of his earliest acts as king of Spain was the banishment of the
inquisitor general when the latter protested against the royal edict in
the already mentioned Mesenghi case, followed by the legislation of 1761
and 1762 referred to above. When the inquisitor was allowed to return,
Charles warned the other officers of the Inquisition not to disobey the
king in future. In 1770 many of the cases of a secular character were
removed from inquisitorial jurisdiction, and in 1784 it was ordered that
all processes against grandees or the ministers or employes of the king
should be submitted to the monarch. The reduction of the Inquisition was
carried still further under Charles IV. Godoy, Jovellanos, and Urquijo
thought of abolishing it, but fortunate turns in the political situation
intervened to postpone such action. It was provided in 1799 that no
subject of the king should be arrested by the Inquisition without royal
authorization, and the methods of trial employed by that institution
were modified in the interests of doing away with the former secrecy and
the seclusion of the accused. In 1804 the king banished several members
of the Inquisition who had opposed the freeing of an individual whom one
of the lesser branches of that organization had pronounced guiltless.
Its decline was also evidenced by the falling off in its revenues as
compared with the yield of earlier times. Many of its buildings were in
a state of bad repair, and its employees often died in poverty.
Nevertheless, its properties were said to be worth nearly 170,000,000
_reales_ (over $10,000,000) at the end of the era, and a state offer of
2,000,000 a year ($125,000), in exchange for its right to confiscate the
goods of persons convicted of crimes against religion, was refused. In
addition, there was the wealth of the Inquisition in the colonies; the
great German traveler and naturalist, Alexander von Humboldt, estimated
that the annual income of the Inquisition in New Spain alone was 800,000
_reales_ ($50,000). Although the Inquisition of the eighteenth century
had but a shadow of its former power, it was able to bring influential
persons to trial, including great churchmen, members of the higher
nobility, and ministers of state, but it did not always take effective
action in these cases. Godoy was accused on three occasions, being
charged with atheism, immorality, and bigamy, but the queen would not
consent to his arrest, and he was able to procure the banishment of
several of those who had intervened in this matter.
[Sidenote: Increased hostility against the Jesuits.]
The case of the Jesuit order was similar to that of the Inquisition, but
the result of royal action was even more decisive. The hostility to the
Jesuits in Catholic countries, already very great in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, was even more intense in the eighteenth. The
other religious orders and the secular clergy were almost a unit in
opposing them, for the Jesuits occupied a dominant place in church
affairs, and were charged with tyrannizing over the others both in
matters of theology and in questions of a temporal character. The ranks
of their enemies were swelled by the continued adhesion of the
universities to the Jesuit opposition and by the encyclopedists. The
former complained because the youth were attending the Jesuit colleges,
especially the nobility, from whom the leading ministers of state were
chosen, thus continuing the Jesuit influence, while those who were more
or less addicted to encyclopedist views were hostile to the order both
because of its power in the church and because of its partisanship in
favor of papal jurisdiction and authority. In defending themselves the
Jesuits had the support of many royal ministers and of the kings
themselves for over half a century; Philip V and Ferdinand VI as well as
Isabel Farnesio and the children of Charles III had Jesuit confessors.
Furthermore, the once hostile Inquisition became an instrument in Jesuit
hands when that order got control of the institution. Finally, the
Jesuits had achieved vast power as a result of their hold on the
affections of great numbers of the people, high and low, and in
consequence of the extraordinary wealth which they had accumulated.
[Sidenote: Expulsion and suppression of the Jesuits.]
It was not until the reign of Charles III that any effective action was
taken against them. While yet king of Naples, Charles had demonstrated
his lack of cordiality toward the Jesuit order, and had begun to feel a
suspicion, in common with other European monarchs, that the Jesuits
might prove to be a danger to the state; in view of the actual power
which the Jesuits possessed, it is not to be wondered at that the
ultra-absolutist statesmen and kings of the eighteenth century should
look upon them with disfavor. In the very year that Charles became king
of Spain they were expelled from Portugal, and in the years 1764 to 1767
similar action was taken in France. The accession of Charles was a blow
to the Jesuits in Spain, who now lost their influential place at court.
Four events of a political character tended to increase the feeling of
hostility toward them. One of these occurred in the reign of Ferdinand,
when the Jesuits of Paraguay opposed the cession of that territory to
Portugal in exchange for Sacramento. The Indians of Paraguay rose in
rebellion against the transfer, and it was believed that the Jesuits
were in some way concerned. The second of the events was the attempted
assassination of the kings of Portugal and France, which was attributed
to the Jesuit order on account of the hostility of those monarchs to the
Jesuits. Many were of the opinion that Charles might be in danger of a
like fate. In the third place friction arose between Charles and the
Jesuits as a result of the former’s advocacy of the canonization of Juan
de Palafox, a seventeenth century bishop of Puebla de los Ángeles in
New Spain. The Jesuits opposed the king in this matter, and even
procured the removal from the palace of the works of Palafox which
Charles had given to members of his family. The fourth matter was of far
more consequence,--the riots of 1766 at the time when the proposals of
Squillace with regard to the modification of Spanish dress were enacted
into law. On that occasion there was grave disorder in Madrid, including
an attack on the king’s guards, a number of whom were cruelly put to
death. The king was obliged to yield to the demands of the mob, and a
few days later unexpectedly left Madrid for Aranjuez,--a virtual flight,
taken as a measure of precaution. Not only in Madrid, but also in
Saragossa, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Alicante, Salamanca, Daroca, Tobarra,
Mombeltrán, Murcia, San Lúcar, Huesca, Borja, San Ildefonso, Azcoytia,
Villena, Ciudad Real, Jumilla, Coruña, Alcaraz, Quero, Las Mesas,
Aranjuez, Palencia, and Navalcarnero there were similar outbreaks, and
it seemed likely that Barcelona might also give trouble. In fine, there
appeared to be an organized attempt at rebellion, and Charles and his
ministers believed, or at least pretended to believe, that the Jesuits
were behind it. Most probably the order itself did not promote the
riots, although several of its members were compromised, but late in
1766 it was formally charged with responsibility by the _Consejo_. In
January, 1767, the _Consejo_ proposed the expulsion of the Jesuits from
Spain. The matter was submitted to a special _junta_, or council, which
concurred in the recommendation of the _Consejo_, after which the
decision was presented to various ecclesiastical personages, who
likewise expressed their approval. It was decided, however, to say
nothing of the motives, and the part of the proceedings concerning them
has disappeared. Nevertheless, a document of Campomanes is at hand
summing up some of the charges made at the meeting of the _Consejo_.
They were the following: responsibility for the Squillace riots; the
diffusion of maxims contrary to the royal and the canon law; a spirit of
sedition (of which some evidence was introduced); treasonable relations
with the English in the Philippine Islands; monopolization of commerce
and excess of power in the Americas; a too great pride, leading them to
support the doctrines of Rome against the king; advocacy by many Jesuit
writers of the right of tyrannicide; political intrigues against the
king; and aspiration for universal monarchy. While the evidence in
support of these charges is no longer available, it is clear that they
were exaggerated, or even without foundation,--at least in the case of
their supposed relations with the English. On the other hand, the
intensely royalist ministers of the era of the enlightened despotism
would have felt grave concern where a more democratic age might have
found no cause for worry. Some historians claim that Charles hesitated
to sign the decree, because the Jesuit general was said to have
threatened the publication of documents purporting to show that the king
was the illegitimate son of Isabel Farnesio and Alberoni, and others
assert that Charles was given reason to believe that the Jesuits planned
to assassinate him and the members of his family if the expulsion were
promulgated. Whatever the truth may be, he delayed only a few days,
signing the decree on February 27, 1767. The Count of Aranda was charged
with its execution, and proceeded to fulfill that duty with great
secrecy and despatch, so that the blow should fall simultaneously and
without warning in all parts of Spain’s dominions. Never was a decree
more carefully carried out. On the night of March 31 in Madrid, and on
the next night in the provinces, the Jesuits were surprised in their
establishments and told that they must leave Spain. There were at this
time 2746 Spanish Jesuits in 120 institutions, scattered through 117
towns. In the Americas the decree was carried out later in the same year
or early in 1768, and in some cases there was popular resistance to
their expulsion, although no untoward incidents of that character had
occurred in Spain. Without consulting the pope, Charles decided to send
the Jesuits to the Papal States, although on the eve of the expulsion he
informed the pope of his intention, promising also to pay the Jesuits
enough to permit them to live in a fitting manner. Despite the pope’s
entire sympathy with the Jesuits, there were reasons why he did not wish
them to land in his territory, and when the boats which were carrying
them arrived off Civita Vecchia, the port of Rome, Cardinal Torrigiani
ordered them to keep away, threatening to open fire on them if they
should not. Thereupon, they went to Corsica, where the Jesuits were
landed, being joined later by their American brethren. Finally, the pope
consented to their establishing themselves in Bologna and Ferrara, where
some ten thousand from Spain and the Americas found a haven,--much
against the will of the secular clergy of those places. Charles now set
about to procure the dissolution of the order, and in this he was aided
by the kings of Portugal, France, and Naples, from which last-named
country the Jesuits had also been expelled late in 1767. In 1773 their
efforts were at length successful, as a result, very largely, of the
skillful diplomatic achievements of Jose Moñino, Spain’s special
representative at the papal court. For his work in this matter Moñino
was rewarded with the title of Count of Floridablanca.
[Sidenote: Royal attempts to reduce the financial immunities of the
church.]
One of the leading preoccupations of the kings in dealing with the
Spanish clergy was to reduce the immunities of a financial character
which they enjoyed. Ever since the thirteenth century, efforts had been
made with that object in view, and considerable success had been
attained by the Hapsburg kings, while the attempts of the Bourbon
monarchs to check the acquisition of lands by the church or to render at
least a portion of them subject to taxation have already been traced in
the chapter on social institutions. A great deal remained to be done,
however, before the church would be reduced to the level of the
bourgeois class in the payment of tributes. For a proper appreciation of
this subject it is necessary to bear in mind the many sources of income
of the Spanish church. In addition to the profits from their lands,
cattle, and quit-rents (_censos_), churchmen received tithes
(_diezmos_), first-fruits (_primicias_), fees for masses, marriages,
funerals, and burials, alms for the mendicant orders, gifts, and still
other forms of contributions from persons and lands not under their
economic control. Their seigniorial rights were still extensive, for as
late as 1787 there were 3148 towns of one type or another under their
rule. To be sure, portions of these revenues were already being paid to
the crown, while many former ecclesiastical earnings had altogether
disappeared, or had been taken over by the state. In some places the
clergy were subject to certain taxes, and in others they were not; in
Castile churchmen paid part of the _alcabala_; in Catalonia they paid
all the royal tributes. The laws of the century displayed a consistent
intention on the part of the kings to reduce their financial immunities
still further. Thus in 1721 the clergy of Castile and the Canaries were
required to pay customs duties which had not previously been exacted
from them; in 1737 a tax of thirty-three per cent was levied on all new
landed possessions of the church in Valencia; in the concordat of the
same year the pope granted that all lands thenceforth coming into the
possession of ecclesiastical institutions might be taxed in the same
manner as those of lay individuals, if the king should so decide; when
Charles III was about to ascend the Spanish throne, Pope Benedict XIV
granted him the eventual subjection of the clergy to the same tributary
basis as laymen; in 1763 the clergy of the crown of Aragon were ordered
to pay the _alcabala_ from that time forth; in 1765 churchmen in general
were made subject to the military tax of the _milicias_ (militia), and
in 1780 the pope authorized the king to collect up to one third of the
income of benefices to which the king had the right of nomination. These
provisions were not carried out in full; there would no longer have been
any financial question between the kings and the church if they had
been. Aside from the royal gains of a legislative character the clergy
were often induced, or compelled, to make special grants to the state in
times of war, and occasionally they came forward of their own free will.
When the Jesuits were expelled in 1767, their properties were
confiscated, although the government announced that in applying the
proceeds it would bear in mind the objects of donors to the Jesuits, the
interests of religion, and public utility. Nothing definite is known as
to the amount of wealth this yielded to the state, although it must have
been considerable. Many writers have made fanciful estimates as to the
Jesuit properties, especially with regard to their holdings in the
Americas, some of them exaggerating their value, and others going to
the opposite extreme to make them appear inconsequential. Nevertheless,
despite the progress made by the Bourbons, the church was still
enormously wealthy at the end of the era; it is said that their annual
income reached 1,101,753,430 _reales_ (about $70,000,000).
[Sidenote: Reduction of the number of persons in religious service.]
The statesmen and economists of the Bourbon era gave considerable
attention to the problems arising from the great numbers of the clergy,
taking steps to prevent an increase in the membership of religious
orders and to bring about a reduction in the list of benefices and
chaplaincies. The reign of Charles III was especially notable in this
regard, and much was achieved. Still, though there were more churchmen
and religious institutions in the Hapsburg period at a time when the
population was not so great, there were 2067 convents for men and 1122
for women in 1787, with 61,998 who had taken vows and 71,070 others who
had not (though living at the convents), besides 70,170 members of the
secular clergy. Thus there were over 200,000 persons in religious
service in a total population of about 10,400,000, or one for every
fifty-two persons.[64] By 1797 the numbers had been materially lessened.
At that time there were 93,397 men and women connected with the
institutions of the regular clergy, in 2051 convents for men and 1075
for women, and 58,833 priests. In 1808 there were eight archbishoprics
and fifty-two bishoprics in Spain, sustaining 648 dignitaries, 1768
canons, 216 prebends, and 200 half prebends.
[Sidenote: Attempts at internal reform of the church.]
The question of the numbers of the clergy was closely related to the
never-ending problem of reform in the internal life of the church. While
matters were not so bad as they had been in earlier times, and while
Spanish churchmen compared very favorably with those of some other
countries,--for example, those of France,--the necessity for correction
was nevertheless clear. Despite the fact that the church furnished many
of the most distinguished names of the era in intellectual attainments,
the mass of the lower clergy was decidedly uncultivated. There was a
marked relaxation in discipline. Many churchmen absented themselves
from their livings to become hangers-on at court,[65] with the result
that the kings seven times in less than fifty years expelled all priests
from Madrid whose parishes were not in that city. It was also deemed
necessary to pass laws forbidding clergymen to wear lay dress, for it
was claimed that they used it as a disguise, enabling them the more
easily to indulge in immoral practices. Many clergymen were punished for
improper solicitations in the confessional. Steps toward reform were
taken by the popes in 1723, 1737, and 1753,--the two latter times in
connection with the concordats of those years. The measures of the pope
provided rules for the instruction and discipline of the clergy and
sought to diminish the numbers of clergymen and of benefices and
chaplaincies.
[Sidenote: Diminution in the rigor of religious persecutions.]
Outwardly there was little difference between this period and the one
before it in the persecution of heresy and the effort to attain
religious unity. Both of these ideals continued to be proclaimed in the
laws, and the Inquisition made its accusations and condemnations and
published its indices of prohibited books as formerly, but in fact a
great change had come over the spirit in which the laws were
interpreted. Such a rigorous policy to stamp out heresy as that employed
by Philip II in the Low Countries was no longer thinkable, and while the
Hapsburg kings had based their international policy on the
re-establishment of Catholic unity, cost what it might, the Bourbons
completely abandoned that idea. The treaties of Westphalia in 1648
seemed to have settled the question of religious warfare, with an
acknowledgment of the right of Protestant nations to exist apart from
the Catholic Church. Henceforth, wars were to be for various objects,
mainly political and economic in the eighteenth century, but not for
religion.
[Sidenote: Inter-relations of the different religious elements.]
The new spirit was manifested in, and was to some extent caused by, the
frequency of communications between Catholics and Protestants or between
Catholics and anti-church elements, such as the encyclopedists and
Jansenists. In earlier times, such a correspondence would have been a
serious religious crime which even the most prominent would have been
afraid to attempt; now, it was not generally regarded as seriously
reprehensible, though far from being looked upon with favor, and many
churchmen themselves might have been held guilty if charges on this
account had been brought. The quarrels of different factions in the
church among themselves, notably the opposition to the Jesuits, and the
intensely royalist policy of the kings tended in the same direction.
Some evidences of the new attitude toward religion were also to be found
in the laws. A treaty of 1713 with the Netherlands allowed Protestants
of that country having business in Spain to reside in the peninsula, and
a like privilege was granted to Spanish Catholics in the Netherlands.
The _asiento_ treaty with England in the same year did not, as had at
first been proposed, restrict to Catholics the privileges thereby
granted to Englishmen. A series of treaties with Morocco, Tripoli,
Tunis, and Turkey in the reign of Charles III allowed of Catholic
worship by Spaniards in those countries, and agreed that Moslems coming
to Spain should be respected in their religion. A general law of 1797
provided that any foreign artist or artisan could establish himself in
the peninsula, and in case he were not a Catholic he was not to be
molested in his religious opinions. The Jews were excluded from the
operation of the law, however. Charles III had been favorable to a
policy of toleration toward them as well, and had issued a decree in
1741, when he was king of Naples, permitting of their entry into his
kingdom, but public opinion was still too strongly opposed to them, and
he was obliged to recall his decree. Two ministers of Charles IV,
Urquijo and Varela, made a like proposal, but he did not dare to follow
their advice; rather, he expressly declared in a decree of 1802 that the
existing laws and practices with respect to the Jews should continue to
be observed. The Inquisition directed its activities in this period to
attacking the new philosophic and religious ideas and to defending
itself as well as it could from the inroads of royalism, while there
were still numerous processes against superstitious practices, Jewish
worship, and the crimes of bigamy and notorious immorality. The number
of cases before the Inquisition was not less than formerly, and not a
few persons, especially Jews and Illuminati, were put to death. In
general, however, greater leniency was displayed, and the Inquisition
was no longer the much feared institution it once had been.
[Sidenote: Underlying spirit of intolerance and Catholic fervor.]
Nevertheless, both the clergy and the great majority of the people
remained as intolerant as ever. Ignorance played no small part in this
feeling; thus French priests expelled from their country at the time of
the revolution were suspected of heresy, and the general opinion of the
Spanish common people with regard to Frenchmen was that they were all
not only heretics or atheists but also cannibals. The ideal of
toleration hardly passed beyond the narrow circle of the upper classes,
but it was they who decided the policy of the state; indeed, the
attitude toward religion in this period perfectly exemplified the
workings of the benevolent despotism. The very men who expressed
tolerant views and framed legislation to that end were pious in their
private life, furnishing numerous proofs thereof, every day. Thus
Spaniards still gave a multitude of Christian names to their children,
in order to procure for them the protection of many saints; they
observed religious ceremonies, such as processions, baptisms, and
saints’ days of individuals, as the most important events of social
life; they prayed daily, and at the sound of the Angelus all work
stopped, even theatrical performances, and every one bowed his head in
prayer; phrases with a religious turn were a part of everyday speech;
sacred images and chapels were as abundant as formerly; and in a
thousand ways, from the king to the lowest peasant, men continued to
manifest their devotion to the Catholic faith.