THE INQUISITION
Some allusion has already been made in our introductory chapter to the
character of the Castilian Church in mediæval times. Strongly national
in its resentment of papal interference, as in its dislike of alien
races within the Spanish boundaries, its wealth and popularity were a
sure index of the large part it must play in any difficult crisis.
Amongst churchmen both Henry IV. and the rebels who opposed him had
found their councillors and their generals; to the Church Queen Isabel
had turned, with a confidence that was not belied, for financial help
against the Portuguese; and it was a churchman, sitting in constant
deliberation with her and Ferdinand, who gained amongst contemporaries
the proud title of “the Third King.”
Pedro Gonsález de Mendoza had been a favourite of fortune from his
birth. A member of one of the proudest and wealthiest families in Spain,
the settlement of his profession had been almost coincident with his
admission to its material benefits; and, from holding a curacy in early
boyhood and a rich benefice at twelve years old, he had passed through
the lesser offices of the episcopate to succeed Don Alonso Carrillo, on
his death in 1482, as Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Castile.
Judicious influence had previously obtained him a Cardinal’s hat; but,
marked though her favour had been, his reputation was not solely of
fortune’s weaving.
Pedro Gonsález was in himself a striking personality. Nature had made
him a Castilian noble, and, in adopting one of the few careers
considered worthy of his rank, it never occurred to him that the claims
of religion should exclude those of his blood and class. A clear-headed
practical statesman, whose loyalty proved none the less valuable that it
had been inspired by a cautious regard to the interests of himself and
his house, he was also a liberal patron of education and philanthropy,
and an accomplished soldier and courtier.
“There was never a war in Spain during his time,” we are told, “in which
he did not personally take part, or at least have his troops engaged”;
nor did he disdain the amours, that with conspiracies and duelling
formed the fashionable life of Henry IV.’s Court. When that
impressionable monarch succumbed to the charms of the Portuguese
lady-in-waiting, Doña Guiomar, the name of Gonsález de Mendoza, then
Bishop of Calahorra, was linked with that of the favourite’s cousin; and
the chronicles record that two of his sons in later years intermarried,
through their father’s influence, with connections of the royal family.
Illegitimacy carried with it little stain amongst a people whose
standard of life was as low as their ideals were often high; and the
Church, sharing deeply as we have seen in the national life, paid the
penalty of this intimacy in a blinding of her own eyes to the distance
many of her sons had wandered from their Master’s footsteps. Queen
Isabel, whose personal purity was a standing witness to the high code of
morality in which she believed, was yet daughter enough of her age to
accept Cardinal Mendoza at his popular value. He had been her protector
and advisor through many of her difficulties, showing himself subtle and
far-seeing in politics, as well as the kindly friend a man of mature
years will often prove to young ambitions. Ferdinand and Isabel owed him
much, and they paid their debt by a trust and reverence that gained him
honour in Spain only second to that accorded to themselves.
Peter Martyr, in a letter to the Cardinal, addresses him as, “You,
without whom the King and Queen never take the smallest step, whether
engaged actively in war or enjoying peace, and without whose advice they
arrive at no important conclusion.” It is the language of eulogy, but it
touches truth at bottom; and the strength of Isabel’s affection for her
chief councillor may be gauged by her deference to his will, on those
occasions that it happened to clash with her own. When, in 1485, she
would have carried the royal jurisdiction with her to Alcalá de Henares,
superseding temporarily with her prerogative all local justice, as
elsewhere on her progress, the Cardinal declined to admit her claims
within the boundaries of his diocese of Toledo. To all her
expostulations he returned an obstinate refusal, till Isabel, seeing
that the matter must end either in an open breach or her own surrender,
yielded the point. It was a concession she would have made to few of her
subjects.
[Illustration:
THE CARDINAL OF SPAIN, DON PEDRO GONSÁLEZ DE MENDOZA
FROM “HISTORIA DE LA VILLA Y CORTE DE MADRID” BY AMADOR DE LOS RIOS
]
Very different was her attitude when a criminal of Trujillo, on being
hailed for his misdeeds before the royal judges, protested that he had
received the tonsure and therefore he should be tried in the
ecclesiastical courts. To this plea, a trick to which men who had no
intention of taking orders resorted, that they might escape the rigours
of the secular law, the judges paid no heed; whereupon some priests,
relations of the accused, took up arms in his favour. “The Faith,” they
declared, “was in danger of perdition,” and having roused the mob by
inflammatory speeches, they attacked the house of the corregidor and the
local prison. The criminal was released; but the triumph of
ecclesiastical privilege was short-lived; for, some companies of
men-at-arms appearing on the scenes in response to the corregidor’s
appeal to the Queen, the principal lay rioters were hung. The clerical
offenders, saved by their cloth from a like fate, spent the rest of
their days in exile, meditating on the long arm of royal justice.
Equally firm was the position maintained by Ferdinand and Isabel in
their dealings with the Roman See. From one aspect they were sincerely
loyal and devoted to their “Holy Father in Christ,” seeking his sanction
for all those actions where orthodoxy demanded papal consent; and
informing him, in sure confidence of his blessing, of every success they
enjoyed in their struggle with infidels and heretics. The very nature of
the war of Granada earned for them a reputation in Europe as special
champions of the Faith; and, though the honour was prompted rather by
his needs than their deserts, no title could have been more fitting than
“Los Reyes Católicos,” “The Catholic Kings,” bestowed on them by
Alexander VI. in 1494.
Yet, from another point of view, these same “Catholic Kings” were as
staunch opponents of papal encroachments as any imperial Frederick II.
or Henry VIII. of England. It might be said that their disputes with the
Holy Father savoured rather of the spoilt than the rebellious child.
Conscious of their merits as perpetual crusaders and chasteners of the
unorthodox, they preferred, instead of making war on the general
principle of Roman interference in ecclesiastical matters, to demand
exemption as their special right,—the right of those who, with their
ancestors, had won back the soil of their native land in conflict with a
heathen race.
Their hand was none the less iron that it was discreetly gloved. When in
1491 an appeal to Rome was admitted by the Court of Chancery at
Valladolid, in a case falling by law solely within the royal
jurisdiction, Isabel in her indignation did not hesitate to remove all
the judges who had consented to this step, appointing others in their
place.
Still more drastic was the action taken by Ferdinand and herself in
1482, when the question of the extent of Roman patronage came
prominently to the fore. Sixtus IV., anxious to provide for a host of
needy relatives, had appointed a Cardinal-nephew to the rich see of
Cuenca, then vacant. Quite unprepared for the indignation with which
this announcement was received in Spain, he was soon disillusioned by
the sovereigns, who utterly refused to acknowledge his protégé,
declaring that it had always been the custom to appoint natives of the
country;—and this, not only as a reward for the services rendered by
Spain to Christendom, but as a national safeguard, since the majority of
the sees carried with them the control of fortresses and strongholds.
Sixtus replied by alleging his unlimited right to provide incumbents to
all and every church in Christendom. In vain ambassadors passed to and
fro suggesting compromise. The dispute had reached an impasse that no
arguments could remove, when Ferdinand and Isabel, by commanding all
their subjects at Rome to leave the Papal dominions without delay,
removed the matter to an altogether different plane. Spaniards in the
Holy City were less afraid of Papal anger than of the threat that their
goods at home would be sequestered, if they failed to obey the royal
edict; and Sixtus, witnessing the preparations for their departure,
realized the seriousness of the issue. A loss of revenue, a Spanish
appeal to a General Council that might depose him, these and many other
possible results of his obstinacy floated before his mind; and it was an
embassy of conciliation that he next despatched from Rome.
The sovereigns, who were at Medina del Campo, at first received the
overture with unbending pride, bidding the ambassador depart as they saw
no reason why he should be admitted to their presence. When at length,
by the mediation of the Cardinal of Spain, negotiations were once more
entertained, the Pope agreed to withdraw his nephew’s claims and to
appoint one of the Queen’s chaplains. Henceforth he conceded to the
sovereigns the right to petition in favour of candidates, whom they
might deem suitable for the episcopate, reserving for himself the actual
nomination.
This decision was equivalent to a triumph for the Crown; but it proved
only the first of a series of battles, and the instructions issued to
Spanish ambassadors at Rome throughout the reign continually pressed the
royal prerogative in ecclesiastical matters. In the case of presentment
to livings, of which patronage the Pope was peculiarly jealous,
Ferdinand and Isabel were often able to achieve their purpose
indirectly, by laying an embargo on the rents of the nominee to whom
they objected, until he saw his way to complying with their views.
If, in matters of practical administration, the sovereigns accepted
their duty of obedience, like certain brides, with reservations, they
did not let their enthusiasm for Catholic dogma blind their eyes to the
scandals of the Roman Court, and more especially to the evil reputation
it acquired during the pontificate of Alexander VI., the notorious
Rodrigo Borgia. Conscious of the harm his example wrought in the Church,
they sent private ambassadors to petition him that he would send away
his children from Rome, “purify his life, reform his house, and cease to
allow the sale of benefices and ecclesiastical offices.”
That their motive was a genuine desire to raise the prevalent low
standard of morality may be gathered from their rigorous policy of
ecclesiastical reform at home. Hitherto all efforts in this direction
had proved abortive; and the instructions issued by Alonso Carrillo,
Archbishop of Toledo, at the Council of Aranda in 1473 show how
deep-seated was the evil. Open immorality of life and more venial
habits, such as dicing and the wearing of gaily-coloured clothes are
amongst the ordinary offences scheduled; but even the standard
recommended for the future scarcely touched a high level. Bishops were
not to take money in return for conferring ordination, nor to accept as
fitting candidates those unable to speak Latin, the language of the
Church. Priests must celebrate Mass at least four times a year and
bishops three, while both were strongly urged not to lead a riotous or
military life. The latter charge, as emanating from Don Alonso Carrillo,
has its humorous aspect, but criticism was disarmed by the grave
addition, unless it should be to take service with kings or princes of
the blood.
The character of the episcopate, in whose hands these measures of reform
were left, fully explains the failure that attended them. An Alonso
Carrillo could not be expected to quench military tendencies; an Alonso
Fonseca, the giver of banquets, to suppress luxury; a Pedro Gonsález de
Mendoza to inveigh heavily against broken vows of celibacy. This Queen
Isabel realized, and with the exception of Cardinal Mendoza, her
advisers in spiritual matters were men of a very different type.
“He is a gentle-natured priest, somewhat narrow of mind perhaps, but a
sound theologian without bitterness or passion.” Thus wrote Peter Martyr
of Fra Fernando de Talavera, Isabel’s confessor, who exercised so large
an influence over her mind throughout the earlier part of her reign. The
story of his introduction to his duties is characteristic of both man
and Queen. At their first confessional, the Friar, seating himself on a
low stool, bade his companion kneel before him; but she, unwilling to
lower her dignity, reminded him gently that it was the custom for her
confessors also to kneel.
“Señora,” replied Fra Fernando, “this is the tribunal of God, and
therefore must you kneel and I be seated.”
“He is the confessor whom I have long sought,” was the Queen’s comment
on this interview, the acknowledgment of her readiness to bow before the
spiritual director she could respect. To some minds his answer might
have savoured of arrogance; but the friar’s personal humility forbade
such an interpretation; and when, on the surrender of Granada in 1492,
he was appointed as first Archbishop of that city, he accepted the
office with a shrinking reluctance that was wholly sincere.
He took away with him to his southern diocese much of the saner and
kindlier influences at work on Isabel’s soul; for, though she continued
to rely on his advice both in religious and worldly affairs, yet other
and less tolerant directors were helping to shape her conscience.
The name of her new confessor, Ximenes de Cisneros, is famous in Spanish
history,—the name of one of the world’s chosen few, who solely by their
natural gifts climb from poverty and obscurity to pluck her richest
fruits. His success is the more arresting that, by the irony of fate, he
cared nothing for the world or her rewards. Literary fame had stretched
before him as chaplain of the cathedral church of Sigüenza, and he
deliberately turned his back on it to exchange the free life of the
chapter for the monk’s cell. Here he donned the Franciscan habit; not as
the cloak for idleness and evil customs it had become with many of the
Order but as the rough garment of humility and self-abnegation that
Saint Francis had offered to his followers of old.
The Franciscan community was split at this time into two distinct
sections: the Conventuals, wealthy, influential, and prosperous, who in
the decadence of their life had ceased even to realize the loss of their
ideals; and the Observants, those who observed the old rules with an
austerity and fire that burned all the more brightly for their brothers’
failings. Between these two was war; and it was natural that Cisneros
should be found in the camp of the ascetics, natural also that even in
this retreat his talent should be discovered, and his gift for preaching
and organization win him uncoveted renown.
[Illustration:
XIMINES DE CISNEROS
FROM “ICONOGRAFIA ESPAÑOLA” BY VALENTIN CARDERERA Y SOLANO
]
He was already fifty-five years old at the time of the fall of Granada
when Cardinal Mendoza, consulted by the Queen as to her new confessor,
remembered his own light-hearted days as Bishop of Sigüenza and a
certain austere but brilliant chaplain of his cathedral, who had turned
his back on the world for the sake of his religious ideals. The portrait
caught Isabel’s fancy; and Cisneros was duly summoned to Court and named
her confessor, an appointment that filled him with even more dismay than
the frivolous courtiers.
“Behold!” says Peter Martyr, “an Augustine in his piercing intellect, a
Jerome in his self-inflicted penances, an Ambrose in his zeal for the
Faith.”
It was a combination to leave its mark on the spiritual life of those
around him; the more that the admiration which his character inspired in
the Queen was soon to widen his sphere of action. At the beginning of
the year 1495 Pedro Gonsález de Mendoza died. The Queen had visited him
during the last days of his illness and consulted him as to a fitting
successor in the Primacy; on which the old Cardinal frankly advised her
not to give the office to any man of great family or wealth, lest he
should be tempted to use it for his own ends. Instead he suggested the
humble Franciscan friar, whose life to both their minds represented the
highest earthly fulfilment of Christianity. Isabel joyfully agreed,
refusing to yield to Ferdinand’s wish that the honour should go to his
own illegitimate son, Alfonso, Archbishop of Saragossa.
Knowing her confessor’s character, she sent secretly to Rome for the
bull of nomination. When it arrived, she handed it to him; but Cisneros,
reading the opening address, “To our venerable brother, Fra Ximenes de
Cisneros, Archbishop-elect of Toledo,” pushed it away, saying “Señora,
this cannot be meant for me.”
He quitted the royal presence abruptly and hastened from Madrid,
replying to all appeals and arguments that he did not feel himself
worthy to enter on so high an office. It was not till some six months
later, on the receipt of another bull from Rome, commanding him to
accept the archbishopric without delay, that the friar withdrew his
opposition.
Never had the Spanish Church witnessed a more curious transformation.
The humble Observant had become an ecclesiastical prince, the holder of
the see in Christendom coveted, according to contemporaries, next to
Rome itself. Henceforth his annual revenue would amount to over 80,000
ducats a year, the value of the patronage at his disposal far exceed
that sum, his military retainers would make a small army, his judicial
rights over his diocese were to be those of a viceroy.
Warned by the Pope that it befitted the Primate of Castile to maintain a
certain state and dignity, Cisneros grimly adopted the splendour of his
predecessor’s régime, tolerating as a necessary evil the rich furniture
and food, the household of young nobles, and the velvet and silk of his
outward clothing, that to many a priest of the day would have filled the
foreground of the picture. Some indeed believed that the Archbishop had
shed the fine ideals of the monk; and once in his presence a Franciscan
boldly preached to this effect. Cisneros listened in silence; but after
the service was over took his critic apart and, drawing aside the
gorgeous vestment in which he was clothed, showed beneath it the friar’s
rough woollen shirt. This, with the frugal dishes, that were his own
portion from his loaded tables, and the hard straw mattress that shamed
his canopied bed, were the realities of Ximenes’s material life in the
midst of all his glory.
His indifference to the soft things of this world was equalled by his
contempt of popularity; and the revenues that had bought for other
archbishops of Toledo influence and fame amongst the wealthy and
well-born of the kingdom now went to ameliorate the lives of the poor
and to enrich hospitals and schools. From the first, also, he had set
his face against patronage bestowed for any reason except the personal
merit of the candidate in question.
Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, a brother of the Cardinal, had been appointed
Adelantado of Cazorla, a military office in the diocese of Toledo.
Fearful, lest he should now be deprived of it, he obtained a
recommendation from the Queen, but Cisneros would not look at it.
“Archbishops of Toledo,” he declared, “should administer their patronage
freely and not on any recommendation. My Sovereign Lord and Lady, whom I
deeply respect, can dismiss me to the cell from which they fetched me,
but they cannot force me to act against my conscience and the laws of
the Church.”
Isabel received the report of this interview with the serenity that
ordinary court flatterers found so baffling; while Cisneros, on his
part, satisfied on enquiry as to Diego Hurtado’s character and
capability, consented to ratify his nomination.
The work of reform, undertaken by Queen and confessor, proceeded with
renewed energy after the latter’s appointment as Primate. With regard to
the secular clergy, the sovereigns had from the beginning of their reign
endeavoured to leaven the worldly character of the episcopate by
conferring vacant bishoprics on men of the lower nobility or middle
class, who were distinguished for their mental or moral qualities. Nor
did they leave to the lax arm of the ecclesiastical courts the
administration of the numerous laws and edicts designed to check the
widespread immorality of the lesser clergy; and it was royal officials
who “fined, scourged, or banished” the women kept by priests in defiance
of their vow of celibacy.
This policy of amendment and repression met with Cisneros’s full
approval; but the reform in which as a friar he was most interested was
that of the monastic orders. In 1493 the sovereigns had obtained a papal
brief, authorizing them to appoint “visitors,” who should inspect the
various Religious Houses, correct the errors that they found, and punish
evildoers.
From this tour the Conventual section of the Franciscans did not emerge
scatheless; and the indignation, aroused amongst its members, at the
penalties inflicted and changes introduced was so great that an appeal
against the Archbishop’s tyranny was finally lodged at Rome. Four
hundred friars, it was declared, rather than submit to the new order of
things had been driven to turn Mahometan and seek refuge in Africa. Such
a tale might well have inspired the conviction that the drastic measures
of the Queen and her adviser were fully justified; but in Alexander VI.
it only prompted a heartfelt sympathy with the Conventuals; and in
January, 1496, he dispatched a bull, forbidding further reform until he
was satisfied as to its necessity. Isabel replied by sending special
ambassadors to plead her side of the case; a transaction in which they
succeeded so admirably that the Pope withdrew his opposition.
In the meanwhile she and Cisneros had continued with unwavering energy
the task they had begun. Her own share was no sinecure; for, taking her
needlework or her spinning, she would visit the convents and, seated
amongst the nuns, strive by her personal influence to win them back to a
sense of their duties, and the devotion that could alone inspire their
calling. According to his biographer, success also attended the harsher
treatment meted out to the Franciscans by Cisneros, till at length “few
monasteries remained where the rules of the Observants were not kept, to
the great satisfaction of the Archbishop and edification of the people.”
The reform of the morals and customs of the Spanish Church was now well
in train; but it formed only a part, and the smaller part, of the
sovereigns’ general scheme for the promotion and safeguard of the
Catholic Faith within their realms. If the foundations of a building are
insecure, the beauty and strength of its walls will soon prove
valueless; and Ferdinand and Isabel, regarding “right belief” as the
foundation of “right action,” and identifying “right belief” with
“acceptance of the doctrines and practice of the Holy Catholic Faith,”
were led by logical reasoning to establish the monstrous tyranny of the
Inquisition. There can be few things so pitiless as logic when carried
to its extreme, and few so faulty when the conclusions concern the soul;
perhaps because it is in this sphere that human intelligence most often
fails to test the truth of its premises. Heresy was to the mediæval mind
“the unpardonable sin”; the heretic in the language of the day, “a
venomous reptile requiring to be exterminated, lest he should spread
contagion by his very breath.” And in Spain this unpardonable sin was
more diffused and difficult to eradicate than amongst her neighbours;
for, through the centuries of reconquest, her population had been
exposed to constant intercourse with races of alien creed, endowed
moreover with the subtlety of mind that is the heritage of the Oriental.
However high the barriers built by racial prejudice, so long as
Christian, Jew, and Moor stood side by side on Spanish soil, a certain
amalgamation and interchange of ideas were inevitable. The Church,
jealous for the safety of the Catholic Faith, made the construction and
maintenance of barriers her lifework, and issued frequent canons
prohibiting mixed marriages as well as the friendly intercourse arising
from shared feasts and common dwellings. This proved unavailing; and
finally Jews and Moors were segregated in special quarters, called
“Juderías” and “Morerías,” and compelled to wear a dress or a badge,
that would distinguish them from their Christian neighbours when they
walked abroad.
Such legislation was to have far-reaching results, little foreseen by
those who framed it, though the immediate effect was highly
satisfactory. Some there were amongst the subject races, who preferred
to keep their own religion and suffer ignominy, rather than accept the
Faith they had learned to hate; but the majority, faced by a choice
between conversion and the scorn, disabilities, and even danger, that
became the daily portion of the professed Jew or Mahometan, chose the
easier path. At first the movement was gradual; but an outburst of
Christian fanaticism and racial prejudice towards the close of the
fourteenth century, led to a general massacre of the Jews, throughout
all the large cities of Spain, and this in turn to a wholesale
conversion of the survivors.
The “Conversos,” or “New Christians,” as they were often called in
contradistinction to the “Old Christians” of unblemished Catholicism,
were to introduce another jarring element into the already complicated
society of Spain. Welcomed by the Church as “brands plucked from the
burning,” they took full advantage of the opportunity to enter offices
and professions hitherto closed, as well as to continue unmolested in
the commerce and business they had formerly carried on under sufferance.
Since conversion affected neither their natural industry, nor their
racial capacity for making money, the New Christians soon developed the
wealth and power that have followed the footsteps of the Jew in all ages
and countries, where he has been free to pursue them. From the
collection of rents and taxes to the control of the King’s treasury,
they invaded every corner of the financial and economic life of Spain,
wringing from the carelessness of the Spaniard and their own foresight
the wealth that was one of the causes of their future ruin.
The Jew has always believed himself “the chosen of God,” and regarded
Gentiles with a scorn akin to that felt by the Greeks of old for their
“barbarian” neighbours. He might under pressure forsake his religion,
but his inborn sense of racial superiority remained; and the envy
excited in “Old Christians” by the accumulated honours of “the New” was
often fanned to the white heat of passion by the arrogance with which
these honours were borne.
An additional barrier was religious distrust that, removed in theory by
conversion and baptism, existed still in a more insidious form. Enforced
conversion is rarely sincere; and though some of the New Christians
out-heroded Herod in their hatred and denunciations of the religion they
had abandoned, the majority were content with a nominal or lukewarm
profession of the Catholic Faith. Old habits and customs cling; and the
Conversos, while attending Mass and other services of the Church, would
often observe in private the Jewish sabbath, and practise the rites and
ceremonies of their forefathers.
This laxity tended to increase during the reigns of weak or tolerant
kings, such as John II. and Henry IV. of Castile; while the anger it
excited amongst the mass of the people became proportionately more
violent as they watched their unorthodox neighbours “wax and grow fat.”
The growing spirit of fanaticism left its trail in riots instigated by
the “Old Christians” against “the New” in Toledo, Segovia, Ciudad Real,
Cordova, and Seville; rebels made use of it to threaten the unorthodox
Henry IV., and at length, in the Concord of Medina del Campo of 1465, a
resolution was passed, advocating that power should be given to the
archbishops and bishops of the kingdom to imprison, fine, and punish
“evil Christians and those whose faith was suspect.”
The Concord failed, but the desire for the castigation of heresy did not
die with the resolutions. When, in 1477, Ferdinand and Isabel came to
Seville, they were approached by a body of leading laymen and clergy,
who petitioned that “as Catholic Princes they would punish this
detestable sin, because if they left it ... unchecked, it would grow so
rapidly that great harm would befall the Holy Catholic Faith.”
Commissioners were appointed to hold an inquiry; and these gave their
opinion that the evil was so widespread that nothing but the
establishment of the Inquisition would have power to eradicate it.
“So rampant was this heresy,” says the Curate of Los Palacios, “that
lawyers almost preached the law of Moses”; while in another place he
adds: “These heretics and cursed Jews fled both Christian doctrines and
customs, avoiding when they could the baptism of their children, or, if
they must have them baptized immediately washing away the sign in their
own homes.”
Ferdinand and Isabel had in 1474 resisted an attempt of Sixtus IV. to
plant the papal Inquisition in Spain, by endowing his legate with
inquisitorial powers; their motive being not so much humanity as their
strong dislike of Roman interference in ecclesiastical matters, to which
attention has already been drawn. Now that an Inquisition of some kind
appeared a necessity, their whole endeavour was directed to obtaining a
bull that would secure for them the control of the new institution. For
this Sixtus was most unwilling; but their obstinacy, as on another
occasion, proved greater than his, and in November, 1478, he issued a
bull, authorizing the sovereigns to appoint as inquisitors three bishops
or other suitable men, with the right to remove them at pleasure.
The way lay clear; but Ferdinand and Isabel did not take advantage of it
till 1480, when a scheme of Cardinal Mendoza to combat heretical beliefs
by instruction and persuasion had been proclaimed by its author totally
unavailing. Seville was the first seat of the Holy Office, but its
sphere was soon extended to Cordova, and then to the other towns of
Andalusia and Castile; while, in 1485, Aragon also fell under its iron
yoke.
The dread assizes would be opened, on the arrival of the inquisitors, by
the publication of an “Edict of Grace,” granting to those conscious of
heresy a period of from thirty to forty days, during which they could,
without fear of death, make full confession of their errors and, after
due penance, be reconciled with the Mother Church. This term of
indulgence expired, the real work of the Inquisition would begin, and
the suspected heretic be summoned before the judges to clear himself of
the charges brought against him, the justice of the day holding him
guilty until he had proved his innocence.
The situation of the accused [says Lea] was helpless. Standing up
alone before the stern admonitions of the trained and pitiless judge;
brooding in his cell, cut off from all external communication, during
weeks or months of interval between his audiences; apparently
forgotten, but living in constant uncertainty of being at any moment
summoned to appear; torturing his mind as to the impression which his
utterances might have made, or the deductions drawn from his
admissions or denials ... it required an exceptionally resolute
temperament to endure the prolonged strain, with the knowledge that
the opponent in the deadly game always had in reserve the terrible
resource of the torture chamber.[4]
Footnote 4:
Lea, _History of Spanish Inquisition_, ii., p. 483.
Death, imprisonment for life, scourging, a loss of property, and public
ignominy: these were the main penalties inflicted. Since the object of
the Inquisition was to impress the populace with a terror of heresy and
its consequences, care was taken that the _Auto-de-Fe_, or “Act of
Faith,” regarded by many as a manifestation of the last Judgment, should
be as widely seen as possible. Amid the jeers or horror of the
spectators, and the low chanting of attendant priests the condemned
marched from their prison to their death, clad in “sanbenitos” or the
coarse woollen garment of the penitent. Across their breasts and
shoulders were embroidered, for those who were reconciled to the Faith,
crosses; for the obstinate heretic, flames and devils, symbols of the
everlasting torment that awaited his soul, when earthly judges had
finished their task.
The “Conversos,” terrified by the storm that had at last broken over
their heads, sought shelter where they could. Some took advantage of the
Edicts of Grace, and, caught in the toils of the demand that their
confession must be “full,” or it would avail them nothing, accused in
their panic neighbours and even relations, that their own repentance
might seem the more sincere. Others, leaving their lands and houses to
pay toll for their unorthodoxy, fled to Portugal, Italy, or France.
Pulgar tells us that the number of houses deserted in Seville, Cordova,
and the other cities of Andalusia amounted to over four thousand.
And although [he adds] through the exodus of this race, a great part
of the land was depopulated, and word was brought to the Queen that
trade was diminishing, yet she, esteeming little the loss of her
revenues and as of great value the purity of her dominions, declared
that, putting aside her own interests, she would seek to cleanse the
land from this sin of heresy; because she believed that thus she
fulfilled God’s service and her own. And the supplications that were
made to her on this matter could not turn her from her purpose....
According to Bernaldez, the single tribunal of Seville, during the first
eight years of its office, committed to the flames seven hundred
persons, and condemned five thousand more to perpetual imprisonment or
rigorous penance. So fierce was the persecution that even the dead were
not spared; the bones of those suspected of heresy were exhumed and
publicly burnt, their children forbidden to hold any office or benefice,
and their property seized and employed to meet the heavy expenses of the
Inquisition.
It will be seen that Isabel brought to the task of exterminating heresy
the same unshrinking thoroughness that marked her share in the
restoration of law and order, and the continuance of the Moorish war.
Nor was Ferdinand less zealous. It was in his name that most of the
business of the Inquisition was transacted, and his correspondence on
the subject shows that the minute interest he exhibited was prompted far
more by religious fervour than by financial greed or policy. Lea has
described him as “sincerely bigoted”; but though founders and patrons,
neither he nor Isabel was the moving spirit of the Holy Office.
[Illustration:
TORQUEMADA
AFTER A PAINTING ATTRIBUTED TO MIGUEL ZITTOZ, FROM “TORQUEMADA AND THE
SPANISH INQUISITION”
REPRODUCED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR, MR. RAFAEL SABATINI
]
The appointment of Tomas de Torquemada as Inquisitor-General of Castile
in May, 1483, placed in control of the practical working of this
institution a judge, whose bigotry was untempered by ordinary humanity.
A Dominican of Jewish extraction, he was for a time the Queen’s
confessor and won her favour, like Fra Fernando de Talavera and
Cisneros, by his austerities and contempt of the world. From regard for
the dignity of his office he accepted an escort of fifty horse and two
hundred foot, and wealth, which he lavished freely on churches and
monasteries; but his personal asceticism remained unchanged. Till the
day of his death, he ate no flesh, nor would he consent to wear linen
next his skin, nor to sleep on any bed save a wooden plank; while he
sternly refused to a sister more financial help than would enable her to
enter a Dominican convent.
Under his presidency the Inquisition received what might be called a
constitution and laws; for in 1484 a “Supreme Council,” “La Suprema” as
it was afterwards known, was established; and “Instructions for the
governance of the Holy Office” were issued, informing judges and
officials of the exact nature and extent of their duties. They reveal,
as Rafael Sabatini remarks in his _Life of Torquemada_,
a spirit at once crafty and stupid, subtle and obvious, saintly and
diabolical, consistent in nothing,—not even in cruelty, for in its
warped and dreadful way it accounted itself merciful, and not only
represented but believed that its aims were charitable.
Ordinary conceptions of mercy were to Torquemada synonymous with
weakness; and an acquittal of an accused heretic by a subordinate would
be sufficient excuse in his eyes for a second trial. Was it not better
for an innocent man to perish, than for a guilty man to pass out again
into the world through negligence and sow eternal damnation amongst his
neighbours? The penitent condemned, when the Inquisition was first
introduced, to wear his sanbenito for twelve months as a sign of his
repentance, now found himself cut off for the rest of his life from all
true Catholics by this badge of his shame. The orthodox son of the
convicted dead, whose bones had been committed to the flames, saw
hanging up before him, whenever he entered his parish church, the
garment of infamy that kept alive the memory of his parent’s sin.
None were safe; for the indefinable sphere of the Holy Office and the
royal favour and protection it enjoyed enabled Torquemada to encroach
with safety on the rights of other courts, both civil and
ecclesiastical, and to add as he thought fit to the number of
inquisitorial ordinances and decrees. Proceedings were even taken
against two bishops of Jewish lineage, on account of the supposed
apostacy of their ancestors; with the result that one of them, Pedro de
Aranda, Bishop of Calahorra, found himself despoiled of his see and
revenues, while the other, the aged Juan Arias Davila, Bishop of
Segovia, died at Rome, after successfully pleading his cause there
before the Pope.
The complaints and appeals lodged against Torquemada’s unbridled tyranny
grew so loud that in 1494 Alexander VI. appointed four other
inquisitor-generals with equal power, in the hope that they would
exercise a restraining influence over their colleague’s actions. He,
however, continued his work with unshaken zeal, until in 1498, he died
tranquilly at the monastery he had founded at Avila, confident of a life
well spent in devotion to the Faith, and revered as a Saint by the rest
of his Order.
It is difficult to ascertain exactly how many heretics were burned
during his term of office; some historians placing the number at more
than 8000, and others at 2000, while 90,000 are declared to have been
subject to various forms of penance. Whatever the exact statistics, they
represent but a small section of the results of the Inquisition during
these years. Men die and are forgotten but the suspicion and treachery
that are born of terror, the spirit of pitiless fanaticism that springs
from licensed intolerance, the intellect bowed into subservience to an
iron yoke of uniformity,—these were to leave their mark for generations
and lessen the force of progress that Ferdinand and Isabel fostered so
strongly in other directions.