SUPEREMINENCE.
When the Inquisition, as we have seen, arrogated to itself almost an
equality with the sovereign, it necessarily assumed supremacy over all
other bodies in the State. Spain had been won to the theory, assiduously
taught by the medieval Church, that the highest duty of the civil power
was the maintenance of the faith in its purity and the extermination of
heresy and heretics. The institution to which this duty was confided
therefore enjoyed pre-eminence over all other departments of the State
and the latter were bound, whenever called upon, to lend it whatever aid
was necessary. To refuse to assist it, to criticise it, or even to fail
in demonstrations of due respect to those who performed its awful
functions, were thus offences to be punished at its pleasure.
Allusion has already been made (p. 182) to the oath required of
officials at the founding of the Inquisition, pledging obedience and
assistance, whenever an inquisitor came to a place to set up his
tribunal. This was not enough, for feudalism still disputed jurisdiction
with the crown, and the inquisitor was directed to summon the barons
before him and make them take not only the popular oath but one
promising to allow the Inquisition free course in their lands, failing
which they were to be prosecuted as rebels.[869] As the tribunals became
fixed in their several seats, when a new inquisitor came he brought
royal letters, addressed to all officials, from the viceroy down,
commanding them, under penalty of five thousand florins, to lend him and
his subordinates what aid was necessary and to obey his mandates in
making arrests and executing his sentences, and this was published in a
formal proclamation, with sound of trumpets, by the viceroy or other
royal representative.[870] This was not an empty formality. When, in
1516, the Corregidor of Logroño, the Comendador Barrientos, a knight of
Santiago, ventured to assert that the familiars were not to be assisted
in making an arrest the inquisitors excommunicated him and ordered him
to seek the inquisitor-general and beg for pardon, which was granted
only on condition of his appearance in a public auto de fe, after
hearing mass as a penitent, on his knees and holding a candle, after
which he was to be absolved with stripes and the other humiliations
inflicted on penitents.[871] This was not merely an indignity but a
lasting mark of infamy, extending to the kindred and posterity.
[Sidenote: _OATHS OF OBEDIENCE_]
As though this were not sufficient, at a somewhat later period, the
officials of all cities where tribunals were established were required
to take an elaborate oath to the inquisitors, in which they swore to
compel every one within their jurisdiction to hold the Catholic faith,
to persecute all heretics and their adherents, to seize and bring them
before the Inquisition and to denounce them, to commit no public office
to such persons nor to any who were prohibited by the inquisitors, nor
to receive them in their families; to guard all the pre-eminences,
privileges, exemptions and immunities of the inquisitors, their
officials and familiars; to execute all sentences pronounced by the
inquisitors and to be obedient to God, to the Roman Church and to the
inquisitors and their successors.[872] In this, the clause pledging
observance of the privileges and exemptions of the officials was highly
important for, as we shall see hereafter, the privileges claimed by the
Inquisition were the source of perpetual and irritating quarrels with
the royal and local magistrates. It was an innovation of the middle of
the sixteenth century, for Prince Philip, in a letter of December 2,
1553, to the tribunal of Valencia, says that he hears it requires the
royal officials to swear to maintain the privileges, usages and customs
of the Inquisition; this he says is a novelty and, as he does not
approve of innovations, he asks what authority it has for such
requirement. To this the answer was that every year, when the municipal
officials enter upon their duties, they come and take such an oath and
the records showed that this had been observed for a hundred years
without contradiction. This seems to have silenced his objections and
the formula became general. The Valencia Concordia, or agreement of
1554, simply provides that the secular magistrates shall take the
accustomed oath and what that was is doubtless shown by the one taken,
in 1626, by the _almotacen_, or sealer of weights and measures, when he
came to the Inquisition and swore on the cross and the gospels to
observe the articles customarily read to the royal officials and to
guard the privileges of the Holy Office and defend it with all his
power.[873]
Even all this was insufficient to emphasize the universal subordination.
At all autos de fe, which were attended by the highest in the land as
well as by the lowest, and at the annual proclamation of the Edict of
Faith, to which the whole population was summoned, a notary of the
Inquisition held up a cross and addressed the people: "Raise your hands
and let each one say that he swears by God and Santa Maria and this
cross and the words of the holy gospels, that he will favor and defend
and aid the holy Catholic faith and the holy Inquisition, its ministers
and officials, and will manifest and make known each and every heretic,
fautor, defender and receiver of heretics and all disturbers and
impeders of the Holy Office, and that he will not favor, or help, or
conceal them but, as soon as he knows of them, he will denounce them to
the inquisitors; and if he does otherwise that God may treat him as
those who knowingly perjure themselves: Let every one say Amen!"[874]
When the sovereign was present at an auto this general oath did not
suffice and he took a special one. Thus, at the Valladolid auto of May
21, 1559, the Inquisitor-general Valdés administered it to the Regent
Juana and at that of Madrid, in 1632, Inquisitor-general Zapata went to
the window at which Philip IV was seated, with a missal and a cross, on
which the king swore to protect and defend the Catholic faith as long as
he lived and to aid and support the Inquisition--an oath which was then
duly read aloud to the people.[875] Thus the whole nation was bound, in
the most solemn manner, to be obedient to the Inquisition and to submit
to what it might assert to be its privileges.
How purely ministerial were the functions of the public officials in all
that related to the Inquisition, even under Philip V, was illustrated
when, at Barcelona, in an auto de fe, June 28, 1715, a bigamist named
Medrano was sentenced to two hundred lashes to be inflicted on the 30th.
On the 29th word was sent to the public executioner to be ready to
administer them, but the Viceroy, the Marquis of Castel-Rodrigo, forbade
the executioner to act until he should give permission, holding that no
public punishment should be inflicted until he should be officially
notified of the sentence. There were hasty conferences and debates,
lasting to nearly midnight, and it was not until 7 A.M. of the 30th that
the marquis gave way and the sentence was executed. The tribunal
reported the affair to the Suprema, which replied in the name of the
king, diplomatically thanking the marquis and rebuking his legal
adviser, who was told that it was his duty and that of all officials to
be obedient to the Inquisition.[876]
As a perpetual reminder of this subordination, there appears to have
been kept in the royal chancellery the formula of a letter addressed to
all viceroys and captains-general. This recited the invaluable services
of the Inquisition in clearing the land of infinite heretics and
preserving it from the convulsions afflicting other nations, thus
rendering its efficiency one of the chief concerns of the crown.
Therefore the king charges his representatives emphatically to honor and
favor all inquisitors, officials and familiars, giving them all the
necessary aid for which they may ask and enforcing the observance of all
the privileges and exemptions conceded to them by law, concordias, royal
cédulas, use and custom and in any other way, so that the Holy Office
may have the full liberty and authority which it has always enjoyed and
which the king desires it to retain. A copy of this was sent to all the
viceroys in 1603 and, as I have chanced to find it again addressed, in
1652, to the Duke of Montalto, then Viceroy of Valencia, it was
presumably part of the regular instructions furnished to all who were
appointed to these responsible positions.[877]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _POWER TO CRIPPLE OPPONENTS_]
In the interminable conflicts through which the Inquisition established
its enjoyment of the powers thus conferred, the inquisitor was armed,
offensively and defensively, in a manner to give him every advantage. He
could, at any moment, when involved in a struggle with either the
secular or ecclesiastical authorities, disable his opponent with a
sentence of excommunication removable only by the Holy Office or the
pope and, if this did not suffice, he could lay an interdict or even a
_cessatio a divinis_ on cities, until the people, deprived of the
sacraments, would compel submission. It is true that, in 1533, the
Suprema ordered that much discretion should be exercised in the use of
this powerful weapon, on account of the indignation aroused by its
abuse, but we shall have ample opportunity to see how recklessly it was
employed habitually, without regard to the preliminary safeguards
imposed by the canons.[878] On the other hand, the inquisitor was
practically immune. His antagonists were mostly secular authorities who
had no such weapon in their armories and, when he chanced to quarrel
with a prelate, he usually took care to be the first to fulminate an
excommunication, and then unconcernedly disregarded the counter censures
as uttered by one disabled from the exercise of his functions, for the
anathema deprived its subject of all official faculties. It had the
contingent result, moreover, that he who remained under excommunication
for a year could be prosecuted for suspicion of heresy.[879]
There was another provision which rendered it even more formidable as an
antagonist. In matters of faith and all pertaining directly or
indirectly thereto, its jurisdiction was exclusive. In the extensive
field of civil and criminal business, of which it obtained cognizance
through the immunities of its officials and, in the frequent quarrels
arising from questions of ceremony and precedence, no court, whether
secular or spiritual, had power to inhibit any action which it might see
fit to take. By special papal favor, however, it had power to inhibit
their action and thus to cripple them on the spot. This extraordinary
privilege, with power to subdelegate, appears to have been first granted
in the commissions issued, in 1507, to Ximenes and Enguera as
inquisitors-general respectively of Castile and Aragon and was repeated
in those of Luis Mercader and Pedro Juan Poul in 1513.[880] For a
considerable time this clause disappears from the commissions, but,
towards the close of the century, it again finds place, in a more
detailed and absolute form in that granted to Manrique de Lara, after
which it continued in those of his successors to the end. It confers the
power of inhibiting all judges, even of archiepiscopal dignity, under
pecuniary penalties and censures to be enforced by the invocation of the
secular arm and of absolving them after they shall have submitted and
obeyed.[881] This proclaimed to the world that the Inquisition outranked
all other authorities in Church and State and the power was too often
exercised for its existence to be ignored or forgotten. This superiority
found practical expression in the rule that, in the innumerable
conflicts of jurisdiction, all secular and ecclesiastical judges must
answer communications from inquisitors in the form of petition and not
by letter. If they replied to commands and comminations by letter they
were to be fined and proceedings were to be commenced against them and
their messengers, and they were required to withdraw and erase from
their records all such letters which were held to be disrespectful to
the superiority of the Holy Office.[882]
[Sidenote: _ASSERTION OF SUPERIORITY_]
It was an inevitable inference from this that there was no direct appeal
from whatever a tribunal might do except to the Suprema, which, though
it might in secret chide its subordinates for their excesses,
customarily upheld them before the world. The sovereign, it is true, was
the ultimate judge and, in occasional cases, he interposed his authority
with more or less effect, but the ordinary process was through a
_competencia_, a cumbrous procedure through which, as we shall see, the
Inquisition could wrangle for years and virtually, in most cases, deny
all practical relief to the sufferers.
Another weapon of tremendous efficacy was the power of arrest, possessed
at will by inquisitors during the greater portion of the career of the
Inquisition. Even to gratify mere vindictiveness, by simply asserting
that there was a matter of faith, the inquisitor could throw any one
into the secret prison. The civil magistrate might thus abuse his
authority with little damage to the victim, but it was otherwise with
the Inquisition. In the insane estimate placed on _limpieza de sangre_,
or purity of blood, the career of a man and of his descendants was
fatally narrowed by such a stain on his orthodoxy; it mattered little
what was the outcome of the case, the fact of imprisonment was
remembered and handed down through generations while the fact of its
being causeless was forgotten. In the later period, when the Suprema
supervised every act of the tribunals, the opportunities for this were
greatly restricted, but during the more active times the ill-will of an
inquisitor could at any moment inflict this most serious injury and the
power was often recklessly abused in the perpetual conflicts with the
secular authorities. The ability thus to destroy at a word the prospects
in life of any man was a terrible weapon which goes far to explain the
awe with which the inquisitor was regarded by the community.
That the inquisitor should assume to be superior to all other
dignitaries was the natural result of the powers thus concentrated in
him. Páramo asserts that he is the individual of highest authority in
his district, as he represents both pope and king; and the Suprema, in a
consulta addressed to Philip V, in 1713, boasted that its jurisdiction
was so superior that there was not a person in the kingdom exempt from
it.[883] The haughty supremacy which it affected is seen in instructions
issued in 1578 that inquisitors, when the tribunal is sitting, are not
to go forth to receive any one, save the king, the queen or a royal
prince and are not, in an official capacity, to appear in receptions of
prelates or other public assemblies, and this was virtually repeated in
1645, when they were told not to visit the viceroy or the archbishop or
accept their invitations, for such demonstrations were due only to the
person of the king.[884] Exception however, was probably taken to this
for a _carta acordada_ of March 17, 1648, lays down less stringent rules
and specifies for each tribunal, according to the varying customs of
different places, the high officials whom the inquisitor is permitted to
visit on induction into office and on occasions of condolence or
congratulation.[885]
In the social hierarchy the viceroys and captains-general stood next to
the king as representing, in their respective governments, the royal
person. To outrank these exalted personages was not beyond inquisitorial
ambition. In 1588 there was great scandal in Lima, when the inquisitors
claimed precedence over the Count of Villar, the Viceroy of Peru, and
carried their point by excommunicating him, but Philip II, in a cédula
of March 8, 1589, took them severely to task for their arrogance and
added that the viceroy was equally to blame for yielding, as he
represented the royal power. This lesson was ineffectual and some years
later another method was tried of asserting superiority. In 1596, the
Captain-general of Aragon complained to the king that, in the recent
auto de fe, the inquisitors had refused to give him the title of
Excellency. To this Philip replied, February 6, 1597, that it was
unreasonable for them thus to affect equality with his personal
representative; they must either concede to him the title of Excellency
or themselves be treated as _vuestra merced_, in place of _muy ilustres_
or _señoria_, and therefore he could attend the next auto.[886]
[Sidenote: _ASSERTION OF SUPERIORITY_]
This asserted superiority of the Inquisition was very galling to the
bishops, who argued that the Holy Office had been founded only four
hundred years before, as an aid to their jurisdiction, and they resented
bitterly the efforts of the resolute upstarts to claim higher privileges
and precedence. The Inquisition, however, was an organized whole, with
sharp and unsparing methods of enforcing its claims and protected in
every way from assault, while the episcopate was a scattered and
unwieldy body, acting individually and, for the most part, powerless to
defend the officials, through whom it acted, from those who claimed that
everything concerning themselves was a matter of faith of which they had
exclusive cognizance. The serious conflicts over jurisdiction will be
considered in a subsequent chapter; here we are concerned merely with
questions of etiquette and ceremonial. Seen through the perspective of
the centuries, these quarrels, which were conducted with frantic
eagerness, seem trivialities unworthy of record, but their significance
was momentous to the parties concerned, as they involved superiority and
inferiority. The hundred years' quarrel over precedence in Rome, between
the ambassadors of France and Spain, which was not settled until 1661 by
the triumph of France, had a meaning beyond a mere question of ceremony.
In Spain these debates often filled the land with confusion. All parties
were tenacious of what they conceived to be their rights and were ready
to explode in violence on the smallest provocation. The enormous mass of
letters and papers concerning the seats and positions of the inquisitors
and their officials at all public functions--whether seats should be
chairs or benches and whether they were to have canopies, or cushions,
or carpets, shows that these were regarded as matters of the highest
moment, giving rise to envenomed quarrels with the ecclesiastical and
secular dignitaries, requiring for their settlement the interposition of
the royal authority. The inquisitors were constantly arrogating to
themselves external marks of superiority and the others were disputing
it with a vehemence that elevated the most trivial affairs into matters
of national importance, and the attention of the king and the highest
ministers was diverted from affairs of state to pacify obscure quarrels
in every corner of the land.
It would be futile to enter into the details of these multitudinous
squabbles, but one or two subjects in dispute may be mentioned to
illustrate the ingenuity with which the Inquisition pushed its claims to
superiority. Towards the middle of the seventeenth century it demanded
that, when there was an episcopal letter or mandate to be published in
the churches and also an edict or letter of the Inquisition, the latter
should have precedence in the reading. This was naturally regarded as an
effort to show that the inquisitorial jurisdiction was superior to the
episcopal and it led to frequent scandals. In 1645, at Valencia, on
Passion Sunday, a secretary of the tribunal endeavored to read letters
of the inquisitors before one of the archbishop's, but, by the latter's
order, the priest refused to give way, whereupon the inquisitors
arrested him: the matter was carried up to the king, who ordered the
priest to be discharged in such wise that there should be no record of
his prosecution and that his good fame should be restored. Soon after
this, in Saragossa on a feast-day in the cathedral, a priest commenced
to read an archiepiscopal letter, but before he had finished more than a
few lines, a secretary of the Inquisition mounted the other pulpit and
began reading a letter of the Inquisition; the priest was so disturbed
that he stopped, whereupon the archbishop, Juan Cebrian, ordered his
arrest, but he pleaded his surprise and confusion and the archbishop
relented. In 1649 a more determined effort was made by the Saragossa
tribunal. August 15th the parish priest of the cathedral read certain
archiepiscopal letters at the accustomed time and was followed by the
secretary of the Inquisition with others of the inquisitors. Two days
later the priest was summoned before the tribunal and was made to swear
secrecy as to orders given to him. The result showed what were his
instructions, for the next Sunday, having archiepiscopal letters to
read, he waited until the secretary read those of the inquisitors. Some
days later similar secret orders were given to the priest of Nuestra
Señora del Pilar and when, on October 11th, he commenced reading an
archiepiscopal letter, an officer of the Inquisition seized him by the
arm and forced him to read first those of the tribunal. Archbishop
Cebrian addressed memorials to the king, September 7th and 21st and
October 12th asking his protection to preserve the archiepiscopal
jurisdiction; the Council of Aragon presented a consulta supporting him,
on which the wearied monarch made an endorsement, deploring the evil
results of such conflicts and telling the Council to write to the
archbishop not to proceed to extremities but to seek some adjustment
similar to that by which, a short time before, Cardinal Moscoso in
Toledo had caused an inquisitorial letter to be read on a different day,
to which the tribunal must be made to conform.[887]
[Sidenote: _ASSERTION OF SUPERIORITY_]
The persistence with which the Inquisition maintained any claim once
advanced is illustrated by its endeavor to introduce change in the
ritual of the mass favorable to its assumption of superiority. It was
the custom that the celebrant should make a bow to the bishop, if
present, and in his absence, to the Eucharist. In 1635, at Valladolid,
the inquisitors required that when the Edict of Faith was read the bow
should be made to them and, on the refusal of the officiating canon,
they arrested him and the dean who upheld him and held them under heavy
bail. This aroused the whole city and brought a rebuke from the king,
who ordered them to discharge the bail and not to abuse their
jurisdiction. Unabashed by this the effort was made again at
Compostella, in 1639, and duly resisted; the king was again obliged to
examine the question and, after consultation with learned men, decided
that the chapter was in the right and that the inquisitors had the
alternative of absenting themselves from the reading. Two rebuffs such
as this should have sufficed but, in 1643, after careful preparation,
another attempt was made at Córdova, which produced a fearful scandal.
Neither side would yield; the services were interrupted; the inquisitors
endeavored to excommunicate the canons, but the latter raised such a din
with howls and cries, the thunder of the organ, the clangor of bells and
breaking up the seats in the choir, that the fulmination could not be
heard. Even the inquisitors shrank from the storm and left the church
amid hisses, with their caps pulled down to their eyes, but they lost no
time in commencing a prosecution of the canons, who appealed to the
king, in a portentous document covering two hundred and fifty-six folio
pages. Philip and his advisers at the moment had ample occupation, what
with the dismissal of Olivares, the evil tidings from Rocroy and the
rebellions in Catalonia and Portugal, but they had to turn aside to
settle this portentous quarrel. A royal letter of June 16, 1643, ordered
the inquisitors to restore to the canons certain properties which they
had seized and to remove the excommunications, while reference to
similar decisions at Compostella, Granada and Cartagena shows how
obstinate and repeated had been the effort of the Holy Office.
Notwithstanding this the tribunal of Córdova refused obedience to the
royal mandate and a second letter, of September 28th from Saragossa,
where Philip was directing the campaign against Catalonia, was required.
This was couched in peremptory terms; the excommunications must be
removed and, for the future, the Roman ceremonial must be observed,
prescribing that in the absence of the bishop, the reverence must be
made to the sacrament.[888]
[Sidenote: _QUESTIONS OF CEREMONY_]
While thus steadily endeavoring to encroach on the rights of others, the
Inquisition was supersensitive as to anything that might be reckoned as
an attempt by other bodies to assert superiority, and it vindicated what
it held to be its rights with customary violence. When the funeral
solemnities of Queen Ana, of Austria were celebrated in Seville, in
1580, a bitter quarrel about precedence in seats arose between the
tribunal, the royal Audiencia or high court and the city authorities,
when the former arbitrarily suspended the obsequies until consultation
could be had with Philip II, then in Lisbon, engaged in the absorption
of Portugal. He regulated the position which each of the contending
parties should occupy and the postponed honors were duly rendered.
Matters remained quiescent until a similar function became necessary,
after the death of Philip in 1598. The city spent weeks in costly
preparations and the catafalque erected in the cathedral was regarded as
worthy of that magnificent building. November 29th was fixed for the
ceremonies; on the vigil, the regent, or president judge of the
Audiencia, sent a chair from his house to the place assigned to him, but
the chapter protested so vigorously against the innovation that he was
obliged to remove it. The following morning, when the various bodies
entered the church at half-past nine, the benches assigned to the judges
and their wives were seen to be draped in mourning. This was at once
regarded as an effort on their part to establish pre-eminence and
excited great indignation. The services commenced and during the mass
the inquisitors sent word to the cabildo, or city magistracy, that it
should order the mourning removed. After some demur, the cabildo sent
its procurador mayor, Pedro de Escobar, with a notary and some
alguaziles to the Audiencia, bearing a message to the effect that if the
drapery were not removed, the inquisitors and the church authorities
were agreed that the ceremonies should be suspended. He was told not to
approach and on persisting he and his followers were arrested and thrown
into the public gaol. The inquisitors then sent their secretary with a
message, but he too was kept at a distance when he mounted the steps of
the catafalque and cried out that the tribunal excommunicated the three
judges, Vallejo, Lorenzana and Guerra, if they did not depart. A second
time he came with a message, which he was not allowed to deliver, and
again he mounted the steps to declare all the judges excommunicated and
that they must leave the church in order that the services might
proceed, for the presence of excommunicates was a bar to all public
worship. This was repeated again by the fiscal, when the Audiencia drew
up a paper declaring the acts of the tribunal to be null and void and
ordering it to remove the censure under pain of forfeiting citizenship
and temporalities, but the scrivener sent to serve it was refused a
hearing and on his persisting was threatened with the pillory. The
alcalde of the city endeavored to calm the inquisitors, but Inquisitor
Zapata replied furiously that if St. Paul came from heaven and ordered
them to do otherwise they would refuse if it cost them their souls.
Meanwhile there were similar trouble and complications among the church
authorities. The vicar-general, Pedro Ramírez de Leon, ordered the
services resumed, under pain, for the dean and officiating priest, of
excommunication and of a thousand ducats; the precentor and canons
appealed to the pope, but the vicar-general published them in the choir
as excommunicates. The celebrant, Dr. Negron, was sought for, but he had
prudently disappeared in the confusion and could not be found. It was
now half-past twelve and the canons sent word to the Audiencia that they
were going and it could go. To leave the church, however, would seem
like an admission by the judges that they were excommunicate and they
grimly kept their seats. The cabildo of the city and the tribunal were
not to be outdone and the three hostile groups sat glaring at each other
until four o'clock, when the absurdity of the situation grew too strong
and they silently departed. Meanwhile the candles had been burning until
five hundred ducats' worth of wax was uselessly consumed.
So complicated a quarrel could of course only be straightened out by the
king to whom all parties promptly appealed. The judges proved that they
had not draped their benches as a sign of pre-eminence but had proposed
that the same be done by the cabildo and the tribunal. As far as regards
the latter, the royal decision was manifested in two cédulas of December
22d. One of these told the inquisitors that they had exceeded their
jurisdiction in excommunicating the judges, whom they were to absolve
_ad cautelam_ and they also had to pay for the wasted wax. The other
ominously ordered the inquisitors Blanco and Zapata to appear at the
court within fifteen days and not to depart without licence. At the same
time, on December 21st the suspended obsequies were duly
celebrated.[889]
[Sidenote: _SUPERIORITY TO LAW_]
It will be seen from these cases that the only appeal from inquisitorial
aggression lay to the king and that, even when the inquisitors were
wholly in the wrong and the royal decision was against them, no steps
were taken to keep them within bounds for the future. The altered
position of the Holy Office under the Bourbons was therefore
significantly indicated by a decision of Fernando VI in 1747. At the
celebration in Granada, on September 11th, of his accession, the
chancillería, or great high court of New Castile, observed that the
archbishop occupied a chair covered with taffety, outside of his window
overlooking the plaza, and that the inquisitors had cushions on their
window-sills. It sent messengers to request the removal of these symbols
of pre-eminence and, on receiving a refusal in terms of scant respect,
it stopped the second bull-fight and put an end to the ceremonies. The
matter was referred to the king, when the Suprema, in a memorial of
solemn earnestness, argued that the Inquisition had for centuries been
in the uncontested enjoyment of the privilege of which it was now sought
to be deprived. It was the highest tribunal, not only in Spain but in
the world, as it had charge of the true religion, which is the
foundation of all kingdoms and republics. The time had passed for this
swelling self-assertion. Full discussion was devoted to the momentous
question and, on October 3d, Fernando issued a decree which proclaimed
to Spain that the Holy Office was no longer what it had been. This was
to the effect that, as the chancillería represented the royal
jurisdiction, and thus indirectly the king himself, it was entitled to
pre-eminence in all such celebrations and in those of the royal chapel;
it was justified in its action and thereafter no such signs of dignity
as canopies, cushions, ceremonial chairs and the like should be used in
its presence. In case of attempts to do so, one of the alcaldes del
crimen with his officers should remove them and punish any workmen in
setting them up.[890]
* * * * *
The Inquisition and its members were protected in every way from
subjection to local laws and regulations. An edict of Charles V, in
1523, forbade all municipalities or other bodies from adopting statutes
which should in any way curtail their privileges or be adverse to them
and, if any such should be attempted he declared them in advance to be
null and void.[891] This in fact, was only expressing and enforcing the
canon laws enacted in the frenzied efforts to suppress heresy in the
thirteenth century and still in vigor. A constitution of Urban IV
(1261-5) declares invalid the laws of any state or city which impede,
directly or indirectly, the functions of the Inquisition, and the bishop
or inquisitor is empowered to summon the ruler or magistrates to exhibit
such statutes and compel him by censures to revoke or modify them.[892]
While this was designed to prevent the crippling of the Inquisition by
hostile legislation, it inferred a superiority to law and was construed
in the most liberal way, as was seen in a struggle in Valencia which
lasted for nearly two centuries. A police regulation for the improvement
of the market-place ordered the removal of all stands for the display of
goods under the arcades of the houses. One house belonged to the
tribunal; its tenant was the worst offender, and he obstinately kept his
stand and appealed to the tribunal for protection against the law. This
protection was accorded with such vigor in 1603, that the saintly
Archbishop, Juan de Ribera, who was also captain-general, vainly
endeavored to secure obedience to the law. Until the close of the
eighteenth century the tribunal thus successfully defied the Real Junta
de Policia, consisting of the captain-general, the regente and other
high officials. At length, in 1783, Carlos III issued a royal
declaration that no one should be exempt from obedience to orders of
police and good government and that all such cases should be adjudicated
by the ordinary courts without admitting the _competencias_ with which
the Holy Office habitually sought to tire out those who ventured to
withstand its aggressiveness. Under this, in 1791, the nuisance in
Valencia was abated, when the tribunal apologized to the Suprema for
yielding and excused itself in virtue of the royal declaration of 1783.
It had held out as long as it could, but times had changed and even the
Inquisition was forced to respect the law.[893] Madrid had been earlier
relieved from such annoyance, for a royal cédula of 1746, regulating the
police system of the capital, has a clause evidently directed at the
Inquisition for it declares that no exemption, even the most privileged,
shall avail in matters concerning the police, the adornment and the
cleanliness of the city.[894]
[Sidenote: _INVIOLABILITY_]
The lawlessness thus fostered degenerated into an arbitrary disregard of
the rights of others, leading to a petty tyranny sometimes exercised in
the most arbitrary and capricious manner. Inquisitor Santos of Saragossa
was very friendly with the Licenciado Pedro de Sola, a beneficed priest
of the cathedral, and Juan Sebastian, who were good musicians and who
gathered some musical friends to sing complins with them on Holy
Saturday at Santa Engracia, where the inquisitors spent Holy Week in
retreat. Santos used to send his coach for them and entertain them
handsomely, but when, in 1624, he became Bishop of Solsona, although the
singing continued, the coach and entertainment ceased and the musicians
went unwillingly. Finally, in 1637, some of them stopped going; the
inquisitors sent for them and scolded them which made them all
indignant. Then, in 1638, the secretary Heredia was sent to order them
to go and when the chapel master excused them, with an intimation that
they ought to be paid, Heredia told them the tribunal honored them
sufficiently in calling for them. They did not go and, when Easter was
over, two of them, beneficed priests, were summoned and, after being
kept waiting for three hours, were imprisoned in a filthy little house
occupied by soldiers and were left for twelve hours without bedding,
food or drink. The next day they managed to communicate with the
chapter, but it was afraid to interfere and, after six days of this
confinement, they were brought before the tribunal and informed that
they had the city for a prison, under pain of a hundred ducats, and were
made to swear to present themselves whenever summoned. As they went out
they saw two more brought in--the chapel-master and a priest. At last
the chapter plucked up courage to address a memorial to the king
through the Council of Aragon, which added the suggestion that he should
order the inquisitor-general to see to the release of the musicians and
the prevention of such extortion. May 11th Philip referred this to the
Suprema which, after a month's delay, replied, June 14th, that, desiring
to avoid controversy with the church of Saragossa, it had ordered the
tribunal to pay the musicians in future, to release any that were in
prison and to return whatever fines had been imposed.[895] When petty
tyranny such as this could be practised, especially on the privileged
class of priests, we can appreciate the terrorism surrounding the
tribunals.
* * * * *
Another distinction contributed to the supereminence claimed by the
Inquisition--the inviolability which shielded all who were in its
service. From an early period the Church had sought to protect its
members, whose profession was assumed to debar them from the use of
arms, by investing them with a sanctity which should assure their safety
in an age of violence. Throughout the middle ages no canon was more
frequently invoked than _Si quis suadente diabolo_, which provided that
whoever struck a cleric or monk incurred an anathema removable only by
personal appearance before the pope and accepting his sentence.[896]
More than this was asked for by the Inquisition, for the greater portion
of its officials were laymen. They were no more exposed to injury or
insult than those of the secular courts, but it was assumed that there
was a peculiar hatred felt for them and that their functions in
defending the faith entitled them to special security. We shall see
hereafter that the Inquisition obtained jurisdiction in all matters
connected with its officials, but this, while enabling it to give them
special protection, had the limitation that judgements of blood rendered
ecclesiastics pronouncing them "irregular." In cases of heresy this had
long been evaded by a hypocritical plea for mercy, when delivering
convicts to the secular arm for execution, but it was felt that some
special faculties were requisite in dealing with cases of mere assault
or homicide and a _motu proprio_ was procured from Leo X, January 28,
1515, empowering inquisitors to arrest any one, even of the highest
rank, whether lay or clerical, who strikes, beats, mutilates or kills
any minister or official of the Inquisition and to deliver him to the
secular arm for punishment, without incurring irregularity, even if it
results in effusion of blood.[897] The Holy Office thus held in its own
hands the protection of all who served it.
This was rendered still more efficient by subsequent papal action.
Irritated at some resistance offered to the Roman Inquisition, Pius V
published, April 1, 1569, the ferocious bull _Si de protegendis_, under
which any one, of whatever rank, who should threaten, strike or kill an
officer or a witness, who should help a prisoner to escape or make way
with any document or should lend aid or counsel to such act, was to be
delivered to the secular judge for punishment as a heretic--that is to
say, for burning--including confiscation and the infamy of his
children.[898] Although this was intended for Italy, the Spanish
Inquisition speedily assumed the benefit of it; it was sent out October
16th and it was annually published in the vernacular on Holy
Thursday.[899]
[Sidenote: _INVIOLABILITY_]
Thus all concerned in the business of the Holy Office were hedged around
with an inviolability accorded to no other class of the community. The
inquisitors themselves were additionally protected against
responsibility for their own malfeasance by the received theory that
scandal was more to be dreaded than crime--that there was inherent in
their office such importance to religion that anything was better than
what might bring that office into contempt. Francisco Peña, in treating
of this, quotes the warning of Aquinas as to cardinals and applies it to
the punishment of inquisitors; if scandal has arisen, they may be
punished; otherwise the danger to the reputation of the Holy Office is
greater than that of impunity to the offender.[900] The tenderness, in
fact, with which they were treated, even when scandal had arisen, was a
scandal in itself. Thus, when the reiterated complaints of Barcelona
caused a visitation to be made there, in 1567, by de Soto Salazar, and
his report confirmed the accusations, showing the three inquisitors to
be corrupt, extortionate and unjust, the only penalty imposed, in 1568,
was merely suspension for three years from all office in the
Inquisition. Even this was not enforced, at least with regard to one of
them, Dr. Zurita, for we chance to meet him as inquisitor of Saragossa
in 1570. He does not seem to have reformed, for his transfer thence to
Sardinia, the least desirable of the tribunals, can only have been in
consequence of persistent misconduct.[901] The tribunals naturally
showed the same mercy to their subordinates, whose sole judges they
were, and this retention in office of those whom unfitness was proved
was not the least of the burdens with which the Inquisition afflicted
Spain.
What rendered this inviolability more aggravating was that it extended
to the servants and slaves of all connected with the Holy Office. About
1540 a deputy corregidor of Murcia, for insulting a servant of the
messenger of the tribunal, was exposed to the infamy of hearing mass as
a penitent.[902] In 1564, we find Dr. Zurita, on circuit through his
district, collecting evidence against Micael Bonet, of Palacio de Vicio,
for caning a servant boy of Benet Modaguer, who held some office in the
Inquisition, and the case was sent to Barcelona for trial, which shows
that it was regarded as serious. So, in 1568, for quarrelling with a
servant of Micer Complada, who styled himself deputy of the abogado
fiscal at Tarragona, the Barcelona tribunal, without verifying
Complada's claims to office, threw into prison Gerónimo Zapata and
Antonio de Urgel and condemned Zapata to a fine of thirty ducats and six
months' exile and Urgel to ten ducats and three months.[903] In Murcia,
Sebastian Gallego, the servant of an inquisitor, quarrelled with a
butcher over some meat, when they exchanged insults. The secular judge
arrested both but the tribunal claimed them, prosecuted the butcher and
banished him from the town.[904] Such cases were of frequent occurrence
and it is easy to conceive how galling was the insolence of despised
class thus enabled to repay the contempt with which it was habitually
treated.
[Sidenote: _ENFORCEMENT OF RESPECT_]
When the honor of slaves was thus vindicated inquisitors were not apt to
condone any failure, real or imaginary, in the respect which they held
to be their due, and the offender was made to feel the awful authority
which shrouded the tribunal and its judges. As their powers were largely
discretional, with undefined limits, the manner in which they were
exercised was sometimes eccentric. In 1569, for instance, the Jesuits of
Palermo prepared for representation in their church a tragedy of St.
Catherine and, on October 4th, they gave a private rehearsal to which
were invited the viceroy and principal dignitaries. The inquisitor, Juan
Biserra, came as one of the guests and finding the door closed knocked
repeatedly without announcing himself or demanding admittance. The
janitor, thinking it to be some unauthorized person, paid no attention
to the knocking and Biserra departed, highly incensed. When the Jesuits
heard of it, the rector and principal fathers called on him to
apologize, but, after keeping them waiting for some time he refused to
see them. The public representation was announced for October 8th; the
church was crowded with the nobility awaiting the rising of the curtain,
when a messenger from Biserra notified the Jesuits that he forbade the
performance, under pain of excommunication and other penalties at his
discretion, until after the piece should have been examined and approved
by him. The audience was dismissed and the next day the MS. was sent to
Biserra who submitted it to Dominican censors. Although they returned it
with their approval he discovered in it two objectionable points, so
absurdly trifling as to show that he wanted merely to make a wanton
exhibition of his power. The censors replied to his criticism and he
finally allowed the performance to proceed. We may not unreasonably
assume that this may have been one of the freaks for which Biserra was
suspended in 1572, on the report made of him by the visitor Quintanilla.
Then, with customary tenderness, he was employed in the responsible
post of visitor at Barcelona, where he died soon afterwards.[905]
The sensitiveness to disrespect and the terrorism which its arbitrary
punishment diffused through the community were well illustrated when, in
1617, Fray Diego Vinegas preached the Lenten sermons in the Hospital of
N. Señora de la Gracia of Saragossa. He was a distinguished Benedictine,
who had held high offices in his Order, and his eloquence on this
occasion brought in alms amounting to eight thousand crowns. On January
21st the inquisitors sent him a message to come to them the next day at
2 P.M., to which he replied in writing that he was indisposed and
closely occupied with his sermons; if they wished to order him to preach
the Edict of Faith, he held himself already charged to do so and begged
them to excuse his coming. A second message the same day told him to
come at the same hour another day, when he would be told what was wanted
of him, to which he answered that he would come but that if it was only
to order him to preach the sermon he would return at once to Castile,
without again mounting the pulpit. Whether anything underlay this
somewhat mysterious action does not appear; the significance of the
affair lies in the fact that it at once became a matter of general
public concern. When that same night the governor of the Hospital heard
of it he recognized the injury that would accrue to the institution and
to the whole city and forthwith reported it to the viceroy, who
commissioned the Licentiate Balthasar Navarro to undo the mischief. The
result of his labors was that the inquisitors declared that as Fray
Vinegas pleaded indisposition they would excuse him from preaching the
Edict of Faith. The affair appeared to be settled and Vinegas begged
permission to call on the two inquisitors, Santos and Salcedo, and pay
them the Easter compliments. They graciously acceded and on Easter
Monday he waited on them, exculpated himself, and begged their pardon
for having been prevented by indisposition from preaching the Edict, all
of which they accepted with great courtesy. The community breathed
freer, for some vindication of the honor of the Inquisition had been
expected. The inquisitors however had been consulting the Suprema and
vengeance was at hand. The next day, Tuesday, was the last of the
series of sermons; Vinegas preached successfully to a crowded church
when, on descending from the pulpit, he was arrested by an alguazil of
the Inquisition, dragged through the crowd like a heresiarch attempting
escape, thrown into a coach and carried to the Aljafería. There he was
placed on a bench like a criminal, interrogated as one and then, without
being listened to, was sentenced to perpetual deprivation of the honors
of the Inquisition (preaching at autos, the edicts, etc.) and
reprimanded with the utmost severity. The mark of infamy thus inflicted
was indelible and the scandal was immense. The people flocked in crowds
to the viceroy in the greatest excitement and he had much ado to quiet
them by promising that it should be remedied. Vinegas applied for the
reinstatement of his honor to the Council of Aragon, which replied that
it had no jurisdiction; then he applied to the Suprema, which refused to
hear him. He sent a memorial to the king, who referred it to the Council
of Aragon and he continued his efforts for more than a year but it does
not appear that he ever obtained relief.[906]
[Sidenote: _ENFORCEMENT OF RESPECT_]
As a rule, any criticism of the justice of the Inquisition and any
complaint by one who had passed through its hands were offences to be
punished with more or less severity. To this, however, there was an
exception in a case the singularity of which deserves mention. Perhaps
the most distinguished Franciscan theologian of his day was Miguel de
Medina. He fell under suspicion of Lutheranism, was arrested and tried
and died during trial, May 1, 1578, in the secret prison of Toledo after
four years of detention. Another Franciscan, Francisco Ortiz, espoused
his cause so zealously that, in a public sermon in 1576 he pronounced
the trial to be unjust, for it was the work of a conspiracy among his
brother frailes; the arrest was a mortal sin, as though it were St.
Jerome or St. Augustin, and the inquisitor-general (Espinosa) who had
signed the warrant was in hell unless he had repented; the inquisitors
were ashamed and were seeking to avert the disgrace from themselves,
when they ought to be punishing the perjury of those who had testified.
This was flat blasphemy against the Holy Office, and it is not easy to
understand why the daring fraile escaped, when tried by the tribunal of
Toledo, with a reprimand administered privately in the audience-chamber
and a prohibition to enter Madrid without permission--a sentence which
was duly confirmed by the Suprema.[907] We shall see hereafter that
another Fray Francisco Ortiz, for a similar offence, did not escape so
easily.
* * * * *
These were the defences thrown around the Inquisition to secure its
effectiveness in its supreme function of maintaining religious unity,
and these were the efforts which it made to secure the recognition of
the supremacy to which it aspired. It was an institution suddenly
introduced into an established ecclesiastical and secular hierarchy,
which regarded the intruder with natural jealousy and dislike and
resented its manifest resolve to use its spiritual authority for their
humiliation. Its arrogant self-assertion led it into frequent mistakes
in which even its royal protectors could not justify it, but it
gradually won its way under the Hapsburgs. The advent of the Bourbons
brought into play a new theory as to the relations between Church and
State and the civil authorities were able in time to vindicate their
equality and independence. We shall have the opportunity of following
this struggle, in which religion was in no way concerned, for the
defence of the faith was a pretext under which the Holy Office sought to
arrogate to itself control over a constantly widening area of secular
affairs, while claiming release from secular obligations.