PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS.
Before the Revolution introduced the theory of equality, class
privileges were the rule. The public burdens were eluded by those best
able to bear them and were accumulated on the toilers. The mortmain
lands held by the Church were exempt from both taxation and military
service and, though Philip V, in the Concordat of 1737, obtained the
privilege of taxing such as might subsequently be acquired, the repeated
decrees for its enforcement show the impossibility of enforcing it.[908]
The complete immunity of ecclesiastics from taxation was emphatically
asserted by Boniface VIII in the bull _Clericis laicos_ and, although
this was revoked by the Council of Vienne in 1312, care was taken to
enunciate the principle as still in vigor.[909] Yet in the kingdoms of
Aragon they were subject to all imposts on sales, to import and export
dues and other local taxation and, when resistance was offered to this,
Charles V procured from Adrian VI, in 1522, and from Clement VII, in
1524, briefs confirming their liability.[910] _Hidalguia_, or gentle
blood, conferred a multiplicity of privileges, including exemption from
taxation, royal and local, with certain exceptions that were largely
evaded, and the _labrador_--the peasant or commoner--was distinctively
known as a _pechero_ or tax-payer.[911] That in such a social order the
Inquisition should seek for its members all the exemptions that it could
grasp was too natural to excite surprise, though it might occasionally
provoke resistance.
As regards freedom from taxation, the subject is complicated by
questions concerning royal and local imposts, by the varying customs in
the different provinces, and by the distinction between the active
officials of the tribunals, known as _titulados y asalaridos_, and the
more numerous unsalaried ones, who were only called upon occasionally
for service, such as familiars, commissioners, notaries, consultors and
censors. Their rights were loosely defined and were subject to perpetual
variation by conflicting decisions in the contests that were constantly
occurring with the secular authorities, provoked by habitual antagonism
and the frequent imposition of new taxes, raising new questions.
Ferdinand wrote sharply, April 13, 1504, to the town-council of
Barcelona, when it attempted to subject the officials of the tribunal to
the burdens borne by other citizens, in violation of the pre-eminences
and exemptions of the Holy Office, and he warned them to desist, in view
of the judicial measures that would be taken. Yet, in 1508, we find him
writing still more sharply to that tribunal, scolding it because it had
taken from the house of the alguazil of the Bailía a female slave and,
without waiting for formal judgement, had sold her without paying the
royal impost of twenty per cent., a disregard of the regalías not
permitted to them. They had also issued an order on the custom-house to
pass free of duty certain articles for an inquisitor, which was against
all rule for, even if the goods were needed for the support of the
officials, it was a matter for the farmers of the revenue to decide, and
the issuing of such passes would be fruitful of fraud and loss.[912]
[Sidenote: _TAXATION_]
These instances indicate the uncertainties of the questions that were
constantly arising in the intricate system--or lack of system--of
Spanish taxation. To follow the subject in detail would be an endless
and unprofitable task. I have collected a considerable number of more or
less contradictory decisions of this early period, but the only
deductions to be drawn from them are the indefiniteness of the exemption
and the earnestness of the effort made to extend it by the Inquisition.
The matter evidently was one in which there were no recognized rules
and, in 1568, Philip II undertook to regulate it, at least in so far as
concerned royal taxation. He defined for each tribunal the officials who
were to be exempted from all taxes, excise and assessments, and forbade
their exaction under pain of fifty thousand maravedís and punishment at
the royal discretion, but this exemption was granted only during his
good pleasure, so that he retained full control and admitted no
privilege as inherent in the Inquisition. His enumeration moreover
comprised only the _titulados y asalariados_, holding commissions from
the Suprema and in constant service, and omitted the familiars and
others who greatly exceeded them in numbers.[913]
This attempt at settlement left the matter still undefined and
provocative of endless strife. It said nothing as to local taxes; these
and the royal taxes were often indistinguishable, or so combined that
they could not be separated; the unsalaried officials were not
specifically declared to be taxable and were always striving for
exemption, and when, in the growing needs of the monarchy, new taxes
were imposed, there came ever fresh struggles conducted with the
customary violence of the Inquisition. May 10, 1632, the Royal Council
earnestly represented to Philip IV that it had already laid before him
certain excesses of the inquisitors of Cuenca to which he had not seen
fit to reply. Now the corregidor of Cuenca has reported other excesses
requiring immediate remedy, for they have issued an order, under pain of
excommunication and other penalties, that the collector of the excise on
wine, imposed for the pay of the troops, shall not collect it of the
salaried officials of the tribunal although they are laymen and subject
to it. They pretended that they were not liable to the alcavala (tax on
sales) but they were defeated in the suit on this before the Council of
Hacienda. And if this is permitted all the other tribunals will attempt
the same, and with their exemption will come that of their servants and
kindred and connections of all kinds, with frauds and concealment as
usual, resulting in increase of charge to other vassals and damage to
the treasury, for it seems as though the sole object of the inquisitors
is to diminish the royal patrimony.[914] Similar troubles attended the
levying of the _servicio de millones_, an exceedingly unpopular impost
on wine, meat, vinegar and other necessaries.[915]
[Sidenote: _TAXATION_]
When, in 1631, the tax of _media añata_, or half a year's salary levied
on appointees to office, was imposed there was a discussion as to
whether it was applicable to the Inquisition. This was settled in the
affirmative and the Suprema made no objection, for its collection was
taken from the _Sala de Media Añata_ and was given to Gabriel Ortiz de
Sotomayor, appointed by Inquisitor-general Zapata and when he, in the
course of a few years, became Bishop of Badajoz, the business was
intrusted to the inquisitor-general himself. For awhile the payments
were made with some regularity, but, in 1650, an investigation showed
that for a long while it had been quietly allowed to drop and, as it was
in the hands of the inquisitor-general, there were no means of enforcing
an accounting. For a year Arce y Reynoso eluded the efforts of the Sala
de Media Añata to obtain information and finally, May 17, 1651, the king
ordered him peremptorily to pay his own media añata (due since 1643), to
make the other officials do so and to furnish the required information
to the Sala. On receiving this he said there were difficulties in making
ecclesiastics like inquisitors pay, but he would consult the Suprema and
reply in July. July passed away and the Sala again applied to him, when
he replied that, as concerned the familiars and other secular officials,
orders had already been given and collections made, but as to clerics
there were scruples about which he would advise with the king. He failed
to do so and in October the king was urged to repeat his demand for
immediate payment. The outcome of the affair was that ecclesiastics were
exempted and laymen had to pay, while familiars, who had no salaries,
were assessed nine ducats--so Arce y Reynoso succeeded in eluding his
tax. Collection, moreover, from the laymen was not easy and, January 28,
1654, the Suprema issued general instructions to deduct it without
exception from the salaries. This only transferred the indebtedness from
the individuals to the receivers or treasurers of the tribunals, who
seem to have been equally slow to pay and, in 1655, an inquisitor in
each tribunal of Castile and the colonies was designated to collect the
money from the treasurer and remit it at once.[916] It is safe to assume
that the receipts were trivial and the whole business affords an
illustration of the methods by which the revenues of Spain were
frittered away before reaching the treasury. Whether productive or not,
however, the media añata remained until the end a permanent charge upon
the lay officials. In Valencia, in 1790, it had for ten years amounted
to an annual average of ten libras.[917]
With regard to local taxation, contests were renewed at every new impost
with varying success, and a single case will elucidate the character of
these struggles. In 1645 the Córtes of Valencia agreed to furnish for
six years twelve hundred men to garrison Tortosa, reserving the right to
impose whatever duties or excise might be necessary to defray the
expense. In order that the clergy might be included the assent of
Archbishop Aliaga was sought, which he granted with difficulty and only
on condition that, within eight months, a confirmatory papal brief
should be obtained, which was duly accomplished. To meet the charge an
excise, known as the _sisa del corte_ was levied on all goods cut for
garments. The tribunal refused to submit to this and pointed to its
contributions to a loan of twenty thousand ducats made by the
Inquisition to the king in 1642, and to its payment since 1643 of five
per cent. of the salaries for the maintenance of certain mounted men.
The city yielded for a while and then a compromise was made; the
ecclesiastics at the time were paying eighteen deniers on the libra
(7-1/2 per cent.) while the officials of the tribunal were to be taxed
only six deniers (2-1/2 per cent.). To maintain their principle of
exemption, however, for some years they had their garments made in the
name of other ecclesiastics and paid the eighteen deniers, but in 1659
they grew tired of this and paid the six deniers for themselves, first
registering a protest that it was without prejudice to their privileges
and exemptions. This continued until 1668, when suddenly, on June 19th,
the fiscal of the tribunal summoned the collectors of the _sisa del
corte_ to pass freely, within twenty-four hours, the cloth cut for the
garments of Benito Sanguino, the alcalde mayor, under pain of five
hundred ducats. On the 21st the syndics of the city and the collectors
interjected an appeal to the king, in spite of which the next day the
mandate was repeated, this time giving twelve hours for obedience and
adding excommunication to the fine. Another appeal was interposed and
the regent of the Audiencia applied for a _competencia_, or orderly
method of settling disputes, as provided in the Concordia, but
notwithstanding this the next day the excommunications were published
and the names of the collectors were affixed to the doors of the
cathedral as under the anathema of the Church.[918] The final outcome is
of little moment; the interest of the affair lies in its illustration of
the persistence of the Inquisition and the violence of its methods.
In this respect the case is not exceptional. The formularies of the
Inquisition contained a full assortment of arbitrary mandates which it
employed, in place of seeking the legal courses prescribed in the
Concordias, by which the king and the Córtes sought to preserve the
peace. One of these, drawn in the name of the tribunal of Llerena,
addressed to the governor and magistrates, recites that complaint has
been made of the imposition on officials and familiars of a new octroi
on meat and proceeds to assert that, by immemorial custom and royal
cédulas, the commissioned officials are exempted from paying any taxes,
excise, imposts and assessments, whether royal or local or otherwise;
the magistrates are commanded within two hours to desist from the
attempt, under pain of major excommunication and a fine of a hundred
thousand maravedís for the governor or his deputy and of fifty thousand
for subordinates, with the threat, in case of disobedience, of
prosecution with the full rigor of law. Moreover the secretary or notary
of the city is ordered within the two hours to bring to the tribunal and
surrender all papers concerning the assessment on the officials, under
pain of excommunication and ten thousand maravedís.[919] Such were the
peremptory commands habitually employed, the arrogance of which rendered
them especially galling.
[Sidenote: _TAXATION_]
Not only were these fulminations ready for use when the case occurred,
but there were formulas drawn up in advance to prevent any attempted
infraction of the privileges claimed by the officials. Thus this same
collection has one addressed to the corregidor and magistrates of a town
where a fair is to be held, reciting that an official of the tribunal
proposes to send thither a certain number of cattle bearing his brand,
which he swears to be of his own raising and, as he is exempt from
paying alcavala, tolls, ferriages, royal servicio and all other
assessments and dues and, as he fears that there may be an attempt to
impose them, therefore all officials and collectors are ordered, under
pain of major excommunication and two hundred ducats, to abstain from
all such attempts, with threats of further punishment in case of
disobedience.[920] The enormous advantage which the official thus
possessed is plain, as well as the door which it opened to fraud. That
the claim was groundless appears by a memorial presented to the Suprema
in 1623, in response to a call by Inquisitor-general Pacheco on his
colleagues for suggestions as to the better government and improvement
of the Inquisition--a remarkable paper to which reference will
frequently be made hereafter. On this point it states that, in some
tribunals, the officials are exempted from paying the alcavala on the
products of their estates, while in others they are not. In some, a
portion of the officials have dexterously secured exemption, while
others have been compelled to pay, by judicial decision, as there is no
basis for such claims. If there is no right or privilege of exemption,
it is not seen how the officials can conscientiously escape payment, or
how the inquisitors can defend them in evading it, besides the numerous
suits thence arising which occupy the time of the tribunals. To cure
this it is suggested that the king grant exemptions to all, for there
are not more than two or three in each tribunal to be thus
benefited.[921] This suggestion was not adopted, but the claim was
persisted in with its perpetual exasperation and multiplicity of
litigation.
The large numbers of the unsalaried officials, especially the familiars,
rendered the question of their exemption of considerably greater
importance. They had no claim to it, but they were persistently
endeavoring to establish the right and for the most part they were
supported by the tribunals in the customary arbitrary fashion. In the
futile Concordia of Catalonia in 1599, it was provided that levies and
executions for all taxes and imposts could be made on familiars and
commissioners by the ordinary officers of justice. In the memorial to
Clement VIII asking for the disallowance of this Concordia, the Suprema
proved learnedly, by a series of canons from the fourth Council of
Lateran down, that the cruce-signati (whom it claimed to correspond with
the modern familiars) were exempt. It even had the audacity to cite the
Concordia of 1514, which in reality denied their exemption, and it
assumed with equal untruth that this was the universal custom in
Spain.[922] Yet, in a consulta of December 30, 1633, the Suprema tacitly
excluded the unsalaried officials when it argued that there were not,
exclusive of ecclesiastics, more than two hundred officials in Spain
entitled to the exemption.[923]
[Sidenote: _TAXATION_]
Still, the Inquisition fought the battle for the unsalaried officials
with as much vigor as for the salaried. In 1634 the levying of a few
reales on a familiar of Vicalvero, on the occasion of the voyage to
Barcelona of the Infante Fernando, was resisted with such violence by
the tribunal of Toledo, that finally the king had to intervene,
resulting in the banishment and deprival of temporalities of a clerical
official and the summoning to court of the senior inquisitor.[924] In
1636, Philip IV, to meet the extravagant outlays on the palace of Buen
Retiro, levied a special tax on all the towns of the district of Madrid.
In Vallecas the quota was assessed on the inhabitants, among whom was a
familiar who refused to pay, when the local alcaldes levied upon his
property. He appealed to the Suprema which referred the matter to the
tribunal of Toledo and it arrested the alcaldes and condemned them in
heavy penalties. Then the Alcaldes de Casa y Corte, the highest criminal
court, intervened and arrested the familiar, whereupon the Suprema twice
sent to the _Sala de los Alcaldes_, declaring them to be excommunicated,
but the bearer of the censure was refused audience. On this the Suprema,
with the assent of the Council of Castile, sent a cleric to arrest the
alcaldes and convey them out of the kingdom, and on March 12th, in all
the churches of Madrid, they were published as excommunicate and subject
to all the penalties of the bull _in Coena Domini_.[925] What was the
outcome of this the chronicler fails to inform us, but the Council of
Castile took a different view of the question when, in 1639, one of its
members, Don Antonio Valdés, who had been sent to Extremadura as
commissioner to raise troops, was publicly excommunicated by the
tribunal of Llerena because, in assessing contributions for that
purpose, he had not exempted its officials and familiars. The Council
thereupon appealed to Philip, who ordered the decree expunged from the
records and that a copy of the royal order should be posted in the
secretariate of the tribunal.[926]
Yet it was about this time that the claim in behalf of unsalaried
officials seems to have been abandoned, for, in 1636, 1643 and 1644 the
Suprema issued repeated injunctions that in the existing distress the
royal imposts and taxes must be paid. In 1646 it ordered the tribunal of
Valencia not to defend two familiars in resisting payment and in the
same year the Córtes of Aragon gained a victory which subjected them to
all local charges.[927]
With the advent of the Bourbons the salaried officials found a change in
this as in so much else. In the financial exigencies of the War of
Succession they were subjected to repeated levies. Philip V called upon
them for five per cent. of their salaries and then for ten per cent. to
which they were forced to submit. In 1712 a general tax was laid of a
doubloon per hearth, which was assessed in each community according to
the wealth of the individual. There were no exemptions and appeals were
heard only by the provincial superintendents of the revenue. The sole
concession obtained by the Suprema was that, where officials of the
Inquisition were concerned, the local tribunal could name an assessor to
sit with the superintendent and it warned the tribunals that any
interference with the collection would be repressed with the utmost
severity.[928] Salaries, however, were held to be subject only to
demands from the crown for, when Saragossa in 1727 endeavored to include
them in an assessment for local taxation, Philip, in response to an
appeal from the Suprema, decided that those of the Inquisition, in
common with other tribunals, should be exempt, but that real and
personal property, including trade, belonging to officials, should be
held liable to the tax.[929]
Towards the close of the eighteenth century various documents show that
all ideas of resistance and all pleas of exemption had been abandoned.
The Holy Office submitted to ordinary and extraordinary exactions and
the Suprema warned the tribunals that the assessments were wholly in the
hands of the royal officers and that it had no cognizance of the matter.
The calls were frequent and heavy, as when, in 1794, four per cent. was
levied on all salaries of over eight hundred ducats, and three months
later a demand was made of one-third of the fruits of all benefices and
prebends, which was meekly submitted to and statements were obediently
rendered.[930] Under the Restoration, the Inquisition was less
tractable. In 1818 an incometax was levied and was imposed on all
salaries, including those of the Suprema, which at once prepared for
resistance. There seems to have been a prolonged struggle with a
successful result for, on November 17th, it issued a circular enclosing
a royal order which conceded exemption.[931]
* * * * *
The exemption from taxation, which included import and export dues or
merchandise and provisions required for officials and prisoners, led to
the claim of other privileges and to not a few abuses. It was not
confined to sea-ports and frontier towns, for the jealous particularism
of the kingdoms, dynastically united, kept up their antagonistic policy
towards each other and intercourse between them was subjected to
regulations similar to those of foreign trade. The exemption from these,
as well as from the octroi duties of the towns, was a most important
privilege, capable of being turned to account in many ways besides
diminishing the expenses of the officials.
[Sidenote: _CUSTOMS DUTIES_]
We have seen that Ferdinand, in 1508, prohibited the issue of orders to
pass goods free, but nevertheless it continued. When, in 1540, Blas
Ortiz went to take possession of his office as inquisitor of Valencia,
the Suprema furnished him with a pass addressed to all customs officials
permitting him to cross the frontiers with three horses and four
pack-mules; he could be required to swear that what he carried was his
private property and was not for sale, but all further interference was
hidden under pain of excommunication and a hundred ducats.[932] It was
not only on such occasions, however, that the customhouses were thus
eluded. Before the introduction of regular posts, the constant
communications between the tribunals and with the Suprema were carried
by couriers or by muleteers, and the mysterious secrecy which shrouded
all the operations of the Holy Office furnished an excuse for preventing
any risk that these sacred packages should be examined. All bearers of
letters therefore, even when they had loaded mules, were furnished with
passes forbidding, under excommunication and fine, any unpacking or
investigation of what they carried.[933] The facilities thus offered for
contraband trade are obvious and their value can only be appreciated
through a knowledge of the elaborate system of import and export duties
and prohibitions of import and export which characterize the policy of
the period.[934] Complaints were fruitless, for when the Council of
Hacienda issued letters against certain familiars in the Canaries,
detected in importing prohibited goods, Philip II, February 11, 1593,
ordered the letters to be recalled and that no more should be
issued.[935]
There were few things concerning which there was more jealousy than the
transfer of grain from one Spanish kingdom to another, and when it was
permitted there were duties, either import or export or perhaps both.
Deficient harvests, in one province or another, were not infrequent and
the tribunals were constantly seeking special relief by obtaining
permits to violate the laws, or by violating the laws without permits.
Many instances of this could be cited, but it will suffice to recount
the experience of the Valencia tribunal in endeavoring to obtain wheat
from Aragon. For this it had special facilities, for the Aragonese
districts of Teruel and Albarracin were subject to it, but, on the other
hand, Aragon was especially firm in prohibiting the exportation of
wheat. In 1522 the tribunal undertook to bring some wheat from Aragon
and threatened the frontier officials with excommunication if they
should interfere. In spite of this they detained it, when the inquisitor
published the censures and imprisoned a guard whom he caught, whereupon
the Aragonese Diputados remonstrated, saying that if the emperor or pope
wanted wheat from Aragon he applied for licence, and begging the
inquisitor to keep within his jurisdiction and release the guard. Then
an accommodation was reached and the tribunal was permitted to bring in
thirty cahizes (about one hundred bushels), on condition of removing any
excommunication that might exist, but it repudiated its side of the
agreement and summoned the officials to appear and receive penance. This
exhausted the patience of the Diputados; they ordered the wheat to be
stopped or, if it had gone forward to be followed and captured with the
mules bearing it; the inquisitor might do what he pleased, but they
would employ all the forces of the kingdom and enforce respect for the
laws. The position in which the inquisitor had placed himself was so
untenable that the inquisitor-general issued an order forbidding
tribunals to take anything out of Aragon in violation of the
prohibitions.[936]
[Sidenote: _IMPORTATION OF WHEAT_]
The effect of this rebuff was evanescent. The tribunal persisted and by
false pretences established a claim which, in 1591, the Suprema warned
it to use with moderation as the Council of Aragon was making complaint.
As usual no attention was paid to this and, in 1597, Philip II was
compelled to interfere because the tribunal was issuing to excess
letters authorizing the export of wheat from Teruel--an abuse which was
doubtless abundantly profitable.[937] If this brought any amendment it
was transient. On June 16, 1606, the Diputados represented to the
tribunal that they were bound by their oaths of office, under pain of
excommunication, to enforce the laws prohibiting the export of wheat;
that, in spite of these laws, large quantities were carried to Valencia,
to the destruction and total ruin of the land, by individuals armed with
licences issued by the tribunal, wherefore they prayed that no more
licences be issued. No attention was paid to this and on January 8,
1607, they wrote again, stating that the abuse was increasing and that
they must appeal to the king and the Suprema for its suppression. This
brought an answer to the effect that the tribunal was more moderate than
it had previously been and would continue to be so as it would find
convenient, without prejudice to the rights conceded to it by the royal
cédulas and, as it was occupied in the service of God, it could
reasonably exercise those rights. The asserted rights under which it had
so long nullified the laws of Aragon were a conscious fraud for, when it
complained to the Suprema of the interference of the Diputados with its
immemorial privilege and enclosed the royal cédula conferring it, the
Suprema pointed out that this referred only to Castile and not to
Aragon; the complaints of the Diputados had been listened to and all
that could be done was to invoke the good offices of the Saragossa
tribunal to obtain permission to get fifteen hundred bushels per annum.
The Saragossa inquisitors willingly lent their aid, but in vain. They
wrote, June 6, 1608, that they had brought to bear all their influence
on the Diputados who declared that the _fuero_ prohibiting the export of
grain was too strict for them to violate it. A correspondence ensued
with the Suprema which ordered the tribunal, February 8, 1610, to
abstain, as previously ordered, but if, in any year, there should be
special necessity, it might report the quantity required when
instructions would be given. This imposed silence on it until 1618, when
another attempt was made to overcome the obstinacy of the Diputados; it
had abstained, the tribunal said, for some years from issuing licences,
in consequence of the great abuses and excesses of those to whom they
were granted, but now the sterility of the land causes great
inconveniences and it asks that the fruits of its prebends in Aragon and
its rents be invested in wheat allowed to be exported. The Diputados
however wisely refused to open the door; the law to which they had sworn
imposed heavy penalties for its infraction and they were compelled to
refuse. This was probably effectual, as far as concerned Aragon, for we
happen to find the tribunal, in 1631, obtaining from the king licence to
import two hundred and fifty bushels from Castile.[938]
IMPORTATION OF WHEAT
[Sidenote: _EVASION OF OCTROI DUTIES_]
This narrative is instructive in more ways than one. The pretence of
necessity in the service of God was as fraudulent as the claims put
forward. The whole business was purely speculative and the licences were
doubtless sold to the highest bidder through all these years. The
Valencian tribunal was at no time in need of wheat from Aragon or
Castile, for it had ample privileges at home for all its wants and it
was working these local privileges for a profit to some one. Among other
public-spirited acts of Ximenes was the founding, in 1512, of an
_alhondiga_, or public granary, in Toledo so that, as we are told in
1569, in times of scarcity the citizens could procure supplies at
moderate prices.[939] It was probably owing to this that other cities,
including Valencia, formed establishments of the kind, monopolizing the
traffic in wheat, to which the citizens resorted day by day for their
provision. When a loss occurred in the business, from a surplus over the
demand or from spoiling of the grain, it was assessed upon the citizens,
under the name of _pan asegurado_, but, in 1530, the magistrates
relieved the officials of the tribunal from sharing this burden and the
exemption is enumerated, in 1707, as still among its privileges.[940]
Another privilege, which it shared with the viceroy and the archbishop,
was that the baker who served it was the second one allowed every
morning to enter the granary and select a sack of wheat (_trigo fuerte_)
of five and a half bushels and every week a _cahiz_ (3-1/2 bushels) of
_trigo candeal_, without payment save a small tax known as _murs y
valls_--evidently for the maintenance of the city defences. This he
baked and distributed the bread among the officials and to the prison,
in allotted portions, and what was over he sold--showing that the
tribunal not only got its wheat gratuitously but more than it needed, to
somebody's profit. The amount must have been considerable, for the
bakers complained of the unfair competition of the favored baker and, in
1609, the city endeavored to put an end to the abuse, but without
success. The matter slumbered until 1627, when the city obtained a royal
cédula abolishing the privilege of taking the wheat, but obedience to
this was refused because it had been issued without preliminary notice
to the other side and without a junta or conference between the Suprema
and the Council of Aragon. Then the city ordered the baker no longer to
go to the granary for wheat and the aggrieved Suprema complained loudly
to the king, urging him to consider the services to God and the tonsure
of the inquisitors and not to allow these holy labors to be interrupted
by the necessity of going personally to the granary. To this Philip
replied by ordering the fueros to be observed, which was virtually a
confirmation of his cédula, but this seems to have been similarly
disregarded, for, in 1628 we find the city again endeavoring to put an
end to the collateral abuse of the sale of the surplus bread and the
tribunal busily engaged in gathering testimony to prove that this had
publicly been the custom from time immemorial. In proving this, however,
it also proved unconsciously how fraudulent had been the claim that it
had been in need of wheat from Aragon.[941]
This commercial development of the Inquisition led it to utilize its
exemption from taxation and octroi duties by opening shops for the
necessaries of life, causing violent quarrels with the cities whose
revenues were impaired and whose laws were ostentatiously disregarded.
Among a number of cases of this in the records, a series of occurrences
in Saragossa will illustrate this phase of the activity of the Holy
Office. A large part of the local revenues of the city was derived from
a monopoly of wine, meal and provisions and no citizen was allowed to
bring these articles within the gates. The Aljafería, occupied by the
tribunal, was situated a few hundred feet beyond the walls; the
inquisitors assumed that they were not bound by the municipal
regulations; they introduced what they pleased into the town and the
authorities complained that they maintained in the Aljafería a public
meat-market, a tavern and a shop where citizens could purchase freely to
the infinite damage of the public revenues. The Córtes of 1626 demanded
that affairs should be reduced to what they had been prior to the
troubles of 1591, when the Aljafería was garrisoned with soldiers,
giving rise to profitable trade, but the Suprema prevented the royal
confirmation of the acts of the Córtes and the matter was left open.
This led to troubles which came to a head, September 21, 1626, when a
load of wine for the tribunal on entering the city was seized under the
law by the guard and taken to the house of one of the jurados or
town-councillors. At once the inquisitors issued letters demanding its
release under pain of excommunication and a thousand ducats. The jurados
lost no time in forming the _competencia_, which, in accordance with the
existing Concordia, was the method provided for deciding such contests,
but the inquisitors refused to join in it, asserting that there could be
no competencia, as it was a matter of faith and impeding the Inquisition
in the exercise of its functions. They arrested and imprisoned one of
the guards, notwithstanding that he had letters of _manifestacion_ from
the court of the Justicia of Aragon--a species of habeas corpus of the
highest privilege in Aragon, which was traditionally venerated as the
palladium of popular liberty--and the next day they seized three more
who were likewise _manifestados_. The incensed magistrates applied to
the Justicia and to the Diputados, to release by force the prisoners
from the Aljafería and there was prospect of serious disorder. The
Governor of Aragon, however succeeded in getting himself accepted as
umpire by both sides and temporarily quieted them by the compromise that
the wagon, mules and wine should be delivered to him, that the prisoners
should be surrendered through him to the city and that the comminatory
letters should be withdrawn, all this being without prejudice to either
party. He wrote earnestly to the king, pointing out the imminent danger
of an outbreak and the necessity of a decision that should avert such
perils for the future; if the assumption that such questions were
matters of faith were admitted, the inquisitors could refuse all
competencias, which would annul the Concordia and destroy the royal
jurisdiction. The city also addressed him, saying that the inquisitors
had refused to abstain from further action pending his decision and if
these pretensions were admitted they would be unable to pay him the
servicio which had been granted.[942]
[Sidenote: _SALT AND BAKE-OVEN_]
This resulted in a compromise, agreed upon between the Suprema and the
Council of Aragon, under which the city obligated itself to supply the
tribunal with meat, wine and ice. It was impossible however to compel
the Inquisition to observe compacts. Fresh complaints arose, the nature
of which is indicated by a decree of Philip IV, June 17, 1630, requiring
the Suprema to order the inquisitors to keep to the agreement and not to
sell any portion of the provisions furnished and further to stop the
trade carried on in some little houses in the Aljafería where the
municipal supervisors could not inspect them. This resulted in a fresh
agreement of December 7, 1631, under which the city bought for three
thousand crowns the _casa de penitencia_, or prison for penitents, and
engaged to maintain in it shops to the sale of meat and ice to the
inhabitants of the Aljafería at the prices current in the town.[943]
Probably this quieted the matter, but before long the irrepressible
inquisitors started another disturbance. The salt-works of Remolinos and
el Castellon belonged to the royal patrimony and were farmed out under
condition that no other salt should be sold or used in Saragossa and
some other places under heavy fines. To enforce this there were
commissioners empowered to investigate all suspected places, even
churches not being exempt. In 1640 a party in the city was found to be
selling salt and confessed that he obtained it from the gardener of the
Aljafería. The commissioner, Baltasar Peralta, went there with a
scrivener and in the gardener's cottage they found two sacks, one empty,
the other nearly full of salt, with a half-peck measure. They announced
the penalty to the gardener's wife and proceeded to enforce it in the
customary manner by seizing pledges--in the present case, three horses.
The inquisitor, who had doubtless been sent for, came as they were
leading the horses away, forced the surrender of the horses and salt and
told them that they should deem themselves lucky if they were not thrown
in prison. Thereupon the royal advocate-fiscal of Aragon, Adrian de
Sada, reported the case to the king, adding that it was learned that the
coachman of one of the inquisitors was selling salt from the salt-works
of Sobradiel. He pointed out that, if the servants of the Inquisition
could sell salt freely and the royal officials be deterred by threats
from investigation, the revenue would be seriously impaired, for no one
would venture to farm the salt-works, and he asked for instructions
before resorting to proceedings which might disturb the public peace, as
had happened on previous occasions. The matter was referred to the
Council of Aragon, which advised the king to issue imperative commands
that the inquisitors should not obstruct the detection and punishment of
frauds, for their cognizance in no way pertained to the Holy
Office.[944]
The Saragossa tribunal had a still more prolonged and bitter dispute
with the city over the bake-oven of the Aljafería. This belonged to the
crown and, at some time prior to 1630, Philip IV made it over to the
tribunal which was pleading poverty. Its use of the privilege soon
brought it into conflict with the city, but a complicated arrangement
respecting it was included in the agreement of December 7, 1631,
requiring the baker to purchase at least seventy bushels of wheat per
month from the public granary, with certain restrictions as to the
places whence he could procure further supplies. In 1649 we chance to
learn that the oven was farmed out for six thousand reales per annum and
in 1663, a lively conflict arose because the tribunal had granted a
lease which was not subject to the restrictions of 1631. Then again, in
1690, the trouble broke out afresh, each side accusing the other of
violating the agreement. All the authorities, from the king and viceroy
down, were invoked to settle it; there were fears of violence but, May
1, 1691, the tribunal reported to the Suprema that a compromise had been
reached on satisfactory terms.[945]
The independent spirit of Aragon caused it to suffer less from the
mercantile enterprises of the Inquisition than the more submissive
temper of Castile. In 1623 there was a flagrant case in Toledo, arising
from a butcher-shop established by the tribunal in violation of the
municipal laws. Its violent methods triumphed and Don Luis de Paredes,
an alcalde de corte, sent thither to settle the matter, was disgraced
for attempting to restrain it. This called forth an energetic protest
from the Council of Castile, which boldly told the king that he should
not shut his eyes to the fact that the inquisitors were extending their
privileges to matters beyond their competence, with such prejudice to
the public weal that they were making themselves superior to the laws,
to the government and to the royal power, trampling on the judges,
seizing the original documents, forcing them to revoke their righteous
acts, arresting their officials and treating them as heretics because
they discharged their duty.[946]
[Sidenote: _SEIZURE OF PROVISIONS_]
In procuring provisions, whether for consumption or sale, besides the
freedom from local imposts, the Inquisition had the further advantage of
employing coercive methods on unwilling vendors and of disregarding
local regulations and prohibitions. As early as 1533 the Aragonese, at
the Córtes of Monzon, took the alarm and petitioned that the statutes of
the towns, when short of bread-stuffs and provisions, should be binding
on officials of the Inquisition, to which the emperor's reply was the
equivocating one customary when evading confirmation.[947] The
significance of this is manifested by a _carta acordada_ of 1540,
authorizing the tribunals to get wheat in the villages for their
officials and prisoners and, if the local magistrates interfere, to
coerce them with excommunication. Yet inquisitorial zeal in using this
permission sometimes overstepped the bounds and, in this same year, the
Suprema had occasion to rebuke a tribunal which had issued orders to
furnish it with wheat under pain of a hundred lashes, for it was told
that, in rendering such extra-judicial sentences, it was exceeding its
jurisdiction.[948] How bravely the Suprema itself overcame all such
scruples was manifest when laws of maximum prices, and the heavy
discount on the legal-tender spurious vellon coinage, rendered holders
of goods unwilling to part with them at the legal rates. It issued,
February 14, 1626, to its alcalde, Pedro de Salazar, an order to go to
any places in the vicinage and embargo sheep and whatever else he deemed
necessary, sufficient for the maintenance of the households of the
inquisitor-general and of the members and officials, paying therefore at
the rates fixed by law, to effect which he was empowered to call for aid
on all royal justices, who were required to furnish all necessary aid
under penalty of major excommunication _latæ sententiæ_ and five hundred
ducats. So again, on April 11, 1630, Salazar was ordered to go anywhere
in the kingdom and seize six bushels of wheat, in baked bread, for the
same households, paying for it at the established price, and all
officials, secular, ecclesiastical and inquisitorial, were required to
assist him under the same penalties.[949] This was an organized raid on
all the bakeries of Madrid, and Salazar was more scrupulous than the
average official of the time if he did not turn an honest penny by
taking bread on his own account at the legal rate and selling it at the
current one.[950]
The tribunal of Valencia enjoyed another privilege in the important
matter of salt, the royal monopoly of which rendered it so costly to the
ordinary consumer. Every year the tribunal issued an order to the
farmers of the salt-works, commanding them, under pain of
excommunication and fifty ducats, to deliver to the receiver of
confiscations twelve cahizes (about forty-two bushels) of refined salt,
at the price of eight reales the cahiz, and the custom-house officials
were summoned, under the same penalties, to let it pass without
detention or trouble for the service of God. The salt was duly
apportioned among the officials at this trivial price, each inquisitor
getting four bushels down to the messengers who received two-thirds of a
bushel, and even _jubilado_ officials had their portion. When or how
this originated is unknown; in 1644 it seems established as of old date
and it continued until 1710, when the new dynasty brought it to a sudden
conclusion. The Council of Hacienda reported it to the king, as though
it were a novelty just discovered, pointing out that the eight reales
were less than the cost of transport from the works to the magazines;
that the manufacture was a monopoly of the regalías and the price
charged was in no respect a tax or impost, but was regulated by the
necessities of the national defence; that no other tribunal in Spain,
secular or ecclesiastic, made such a demand, while the publication of
censures against royal officials was dangerous in those calamitous
times. This aroused Philip, who ordered a prompt remedy. The Suprema no
longer ventured an opposition or remonstrance, but wrote immediately to
Valencia expressing its surprise; the demand must be withdrawn at once;
if any censures had been published they must be revoked and no such
demonstration should have been made without previous consultation.[951]
It would be superfluous to adduce further examples of the manner in
which the tribunals abused their power for unlawful gains and benefits,
and we can readily conceive the exasperation thus excited, even among
those most zealous in the extermination of heresy.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _BILLETING TROOPS_]
Few of the privileges claimed by the Inquisition gave rise to more
bickering and contention than its demand that all connected with it
should be exempt from the billeting of troops and the furnishing of
_bagages_ or beasts of burden for transportation. The subject is one of
minor importance, but it furnishes so typical an illustration of
inquisitorial methods that it is worthy of examination somewhat in
detail. Under the old monarchy the _yantar_ or _droit de gîte_, or right
to free quarters, was an insufferable burden. Almost every Córtes of
Leon and Castile, from the twelfth century complained of it
energetically, for it was exercised, not only by the royal court in its
incessant peregrinations, but by nobles and others who could enforce it,
and it was accompanied by spoliation of every kind, while the
impressment of beasts of burden was an associated abuse and even the
lands of the Church were not exempt.[952] The more independent Aragonese
were unwilling to submit to it, and a fuero of the Córtes of Aleañiz, in
1436, provided that the courtiers and followers of the king should pay
all Christians in whose houses they lodged.[953] When the Inquisition
was founded and was to a great extent peripatetic, its officials
apparently claimed free quarters, for a clause in the Instructions of
1498 provides that where a tribunal was set up they should pay for their
accommodations and provide their own beds and necessaries.[954] When
travelling, a decree of Ferdinand, October 21, 1500, repeated in 1507,
1516, 1518, 1532, and 1561, provided that they should have gratuitous
lodging and beds, with food at moderate prices.[955] The frequent
repetition of this indicates that it aroused opposition and, in 1601,
when the inquisitor of Valencia was ordered to go at once on a
visitation of Tortosa, he was told not to oppress the city by demanding
free quarters but to lodge decently in a monastery or in the house of
some official.[956]
Furnishing free quarters however was different from enjoying them. The
old abuses gradually disappeared with the settled habitations for kings
and tribunals, but the change in military organization, with standing
armies, gave rise to others which, if more occasional, were also more
oppressive--the billeting of troops. When Louis XIV resorted to the
_dragonnades_--the quartering of dragoons on Huguenot families--as an
effective coercion to conversion, it shows how severe was the
infliction. The rebellion of Catalonia, in 1640, had for its proximate
cause the outrages committed by troops quartered for the winter in
places insufficient for their support, culminating in their burning the
churches of Riu de Arenas and Montiró.[957] The massacre in Saragossa,
December 28, 1705, of the French troops in the service of Philip V, had
the same origin.[958]
As the pay of Spanish armies was habitually in arrears and the
commissariat system imperfect, it can be realized how valuable was the
privilege of exemption from entertaining these uninvited guests and
providing them with transportation when they departed. In the war with
Portugal, in 1666, Galicia suffered so seriously that we are told a
company of cavalry was worth to its captain two thousand ducats in
ransoms, from outrage.[959] That the Inquisition should claim such
exemption was to be expected, for it was one of the privileges of
hidalgos, but the earliest allusion to it that I have met occurs in
1548, when Inquisitor-general Valdés ordered that no billets must be
given on houses occupied by inquisitors or officials, even though not
their own or during their absence, for their clothes were in them.[960]
What authority he had to issue such a command it might be difficult to
say, but it indicates that the exemption was an innovation and, as it
refers only to salaried officials, it infers that the numerous
unsalaried ones were not entitled to the privilege, which is further
proved by the fact that, in the Castilian Concordia of 1553, regulating
the exemptions of familiars, there is no allusion to billeting. The
action of Valdés, however, settled the matter as far as the salaried
officials were concerned and even the Aragonese Córtes of 1646, which
greatly limited the claims of the Inquisition, admitted that they had
the same privileges as hidalgos.[961]
[Sidenote: _BILLETING TROOPS_]
The determination with which this was enforced is seen in a case in
1695, when Inquisitor Sanz y Múñoz of Barcelona threatened with
excommunication and a fine of two hundred libras the town-councillors of
Manlleu if they should assign quarters in a country-house belonging to
the portero of the Inquisition, although it was occupied by a peasant
who worked on the land. The councillors appealed for protection to the
Audiencia, or royal court, which invited the inquisitor to settle the
matter amicably in the prescribed form of a competencia, but he treated
the overture with such contempt that he promptly issued a second
mandate, under the same penalties, and summoned the councillors to
appear before him as having incurred them. The Audiencia made another
attempt at pacification to which he replied that he proposed at once to
declare the councillors as publicly excommunicated. The Diputados of
Catalonia thereupon protested vigorously to the king that, while all the
rest of the people were patriotically united in aiding the war, and the
gentry had voluntarily foregone their privilege of exemption, the
officials and familiars of the Inquisition were exciting tumults and
riots in their efforts to extend exemptions to those who had no
claim.[962]
The chief trouble arose with the unsalaried officials, especially the
multitudinous familiars, who had no claim to exemption. The Barcelona
tribunal seems to have started it, for one of the complaints made to de
Soto Salazar, on his visitation of 1567, was that the inquisitors
forbade the quartering of soldiers in the houses of familiars; in his
report he suggested that it should be done when necessary and the
Aragonese Concordia of 1568 followed this idea by prohibiting
inquisitors to support familiars in refusing to receive men assigned to
them when there were no other houses to receive them.[963] There was
evidently no recognized exemption but a steady effort to establish one,
while the familiars complained that the hatred felt for them led to
their being oppressed with billets when others went free. To remedy this
Philip II, in a cédula of February 21, 1576, ordered that no
discrimination should be made against them, but that they should be
placed on an equality with justicias and regidores who were not called
upon to furnish quarters until all other houses were occupied.
Complaints continued and he advanced a step, February 22, 1579, by
decreeing that for three years, in towns of upwards of five hundred
hearths, familiars should be exempt from billeting and furnishing
transportation; in smaller towns, one-half should be exempted and where
there was but one he should be exempt. This was renewed frequently for
three years at a time and as frequently was overlooked, but this made
little difference for we are told by an experienced inquisitor that it
was always assumed to be in force and, when a familiar complained of a
billet, the tribunal would issue a mandate ordering his relief within
three hours under a penalty of 100,000 mrs.; if the exemption was in
force, a copy of the cédula was included in the mandate, if it was not
it still was quoted as existing in the archives of the tribunal.[964]
There were few questions which gave rise to more embroilment than this.
Both sides were unscrupulous; the privilege excited ill-will, it was
evaded by the authorities wherever possible and the tribunals were kept
busy in defending their familiars with customary violence. At length, in
1634, the necessities of the state were pleaded by Philip IV as his
reason for withdrawing all exemptions--a measure which he was obliged to
repeat more than once.[965] It is somewhat remarkable therefore that,
when the Córtes of Aragon, in 1646, succeeded in greatly abridging the
privileges of familiars, they were included with the salaried officials
in the exemption from billets. This did not avail them much for we are
told that, in the changes effected by the Córtes, the terror felt for
the Inquisition was so greatly diminished that there was scant ceremony
in imposing on its officials; that the familiars were singled out to
have two or three soldiers quartered on them and when they complained
the tribunal ventured no more than to instruct its commissioner to use
persuasion.[966] Catalonia was not so fortunate and strife continued
with the usual bitterness. As a frontier province, in war time it was
occupied with troops and there were abundant opportunities for friction.
In 1695 the Diputados complained that, as the only mode of escaping
billets was to become a familiar, many had themselves appointed,
although there was already an innumerable multitude, and that even when
the local magistrates were compelled to receive soldiers, the familiars
refused, in contempt of the royal orders.[967]
[Sidenote: _BILLETING TROOPS_]
The War of Succession brought fresh necessities and the change of
dynasty was unfavorable to the Inquisition in this as in so much else. A
royal decree of February 11, 1706, abolished all exemptions but, as a
favor to the Inquisition, four of its officials were excepted in towns
and twenty in cities that were seats of tribunals. The Suprema accepted
this cheerfully but, when a decree of January 19, 1712, revoked all
exemptions, it remonstrated and was told that, while the king recognized
the claims of the Inquisition to all the privileges granted by his
predecessors, the existing urgency required the withdrawal of all
exemptions and, as the law was absolute, he could make no exceptions.
Although this covered the salaried officials, it seems to have been the
familiars who complained the loudest; possibly now that the tribunals
could no longer protect them they were exposed to special
discrimination. It was a question of money, however, rather than of
hardship, for a system of composition had been developed under which by
paying the _cuartel_ or _utensilio_--an assessment proportioned to the
wealth of the individual--the billet was escaped.[968] When the urgency
of immediate peril was passed these decrees were either withdrawn or
became obsolete. The claim of exemption revived and with it the active
efforts of the tribunals to protect those whose exemptions were
disregarded and to punish the officials who disregarded them.[969]
In 1728 Philip V made a well-intentioned attempt to relieve the
oppression of the poor arising from the numerous classes of officials
who claimed exemption from the common burdens, including the billeting
of troops. As for the familiars, he says, who all claim exemptions and
give rise to disturbances, attacks on the local magistrates, with
excommunications and other penalties, and perpetual competencias, all
this must cease. Yet he admits their exemption and only insists that it
must be confined to the number allowed by the Concordia of 1553; that
limitation had never been observed and the inquisitors had appointed
large numbers in excess of it, in spite of perpetual remonstrance, and
Philip now ordered that tribunals should not issue certificates to more
than the legal number and should not take proceedings against the local
magistrates.[970] As usual the royal orders were disregarded. The
tribunal of Valencia threatened with excommunication and fine the
magistrates of Játiva and San Mateo, at the instance of some familiars
on whom soldiers had been quartered, and, on learning this, Philip
addressed the Suprema in 1729 stating that the records showed that
familiar were entitled to no exemption; even if they were, the tribunal
had exceeded its powers in employing obstreperous methods in defiance of
the royal decrees. There must be no competencia; the Valencia tribunal
must be notified not to exceed its jurisdiction and the Suprema itself
must observe the royal orders. After the delay of a month, the Suprema
forwarded the royal letter to Valencia, sullenly telling the tribunal to
report what could be done and not to act further without orders.[971]
For two centuries the Inquisition had been accustomed to obey or to
disregard the royal decrees at its pleasure and to tyrannize over the
local authorities. The habit was not easily broken and it was hard to
conform itself to the new order of things. A formulary of about 1740
contains a letter to be sent to magistrates granting billets on
familiars, couched in the old arrogant and peremptory terms and
threatening excommunication and a fine of two hundred ducats. Familiars,
it says, are not to furnish quarters and beasts of burden, except in
extreme urgency when no exemptions are permitted, and this it assumes to
be in accordance with the royal decrees, including the latest one of
November 3, 1737.[972] I can find no trace of a decree of 1737 and we
may assume that it was this obstinacy of the Inquisition that induced
Philip, in 1743, to reissue his decree of 1728 with an expression of
regret at its inobservance and the disastrous results which had ensued;
he added that, when the houses of the non-exempt were insufficient for
quartering troops, they could be billeted on hidalgos and nobles.[973]
[Sidenote: _BEARING ARMS_]
The Inquisition still adhered to its claims, but Carlos III taught it to
abandon its comminatory style. When, in 1781, the authorities of
Castellon de la Plana billeted troops on familiars, the Valencia
tribunal adopted the more judicious method of persuading the
captain-general that they were to be classed with hidalgos and he issued
orders to that effect. This did not please Carlos III, who brushed aside
the claim to exemption by a peremptory order that the familiars of
Castellon de la Plana should subject themselves to the local government
in the matters of billets and that there should be no change until he
should issue further commands.[974]
This would seem in principle to abrogate all claims to exemption, but
Spanish tenacity still held fast to what it had claimed and, in 1800,
when José Poris, a familiar of Alcira, complained that the governor had
quartered on him an officer of the regiment of Sagunto, the Valencia
tribunal took measures for his relief.[975] The times were adverse to
privilege, however, and in 1805 the Captain-general of Catalonia sent a
circular to all the towns stating that familiars were not exempt. The
magistrates accordingly compelled them to furnish quarters and beasts of
burden, and, when the tribunal complained to the captain-general and
adduced proofs in support of its claims, he responded with the decrees
of 1729 and 1743, which he assumed to have abrogated the exemption and
he continued to coerce the familiars. The same process was going on in
Valencia and, when that tribunal applied to Barcelona for information
and learned the result, it ordered its familiars to submit under
protest. Then followed a royal cédula of August 20, 1807, limiting
strictly what exemptions were still allowed; the Napoleonic invasion
supervened and under the Restoration I have met with no trace of their
survival.[976]
* * * * *
Another privilege which occasioned endless debate and contention was the
right of officials and familiars to bear arms, especially prohibited
ones. This was a subject which, during the middle ages, had taxed to the
utmost the civilizing efforts of legislators, while the power assumed by
inquisitors to issue licences to carry arms, in contravention of
municipal statutes, was the source of no little trouble, especially in
Italian cities.[977] The necessity of restriction, for the sake of
public peace, was peculiarly felt in Spain, where the popular temper and
the sensitiveness as to the _pundonor_ were especially provocative of
deadly strife.[978] It would be impossible to enumerate the endless
series of decrees which succeeded each other with confusing rapidity and
the repetition of which, in every variety of form, shows conclusively
how little they were regarded and how little they effected. Particular
energy was directed against _armas alevosas_--treacherous weapons--which
could be concealed about the person. In the Catalan Córtes of 1585,
Philip II denounced arquebuses, fire-locks and more especially the small
ones known as pistols, as unworthy the name of arms, as treacherous
weapons useless in war and provocative of murder, which had caused great
damage in Catalonia and had been prohibited in his other kingdoms. They
were therefore forbidden, not only to be carried but even to be
possessed at home and in secret, and against this no privilege should
avail, whether of the military class or official or familiar of the
Inquisition or by licence of the king or captain-general, under penalty
for those of gentle blood of two years' exile, for plebeians of two
years' galley-service, and for Frenchmen or Gascons of death, without
power of commutation by any authority. Three palms, or twenty-seven
inches of barrel, was the minimum length allowed for fire-arms in
Catalonia and four palms in Castile. Philip IV, in 1663, even prohibited
the manufacture of pistols and deprived of exemptions and fuero those
who carried them, while as for poniards and daggers, Philip V, in 1721,
threatened those who bore them with six years of presidio for nobles and
six years of galleys for commoners.[979]
[Sidenote: _BEARING ARMS_]
These specimens of multitudinous legislation, directed against arms of
all kinds, enable us to appreciate how highly prized was the privilege
of carrying them. In an age of violence it was indispensable for defence
and was equally desired as affording opportunities for offence. That the
Inquisition should claim it for those in its service was inevitable and
it had the excuse, at least during the earlier period, that there was
danger in the arrest and transportation of prisoners and in the enmities
which it provoked, although this latter danger was much less than it
habitually claimed. The old rules, moreover, were well known under which
no local laws were allowed to interfere with such privilege,[980] and
the Inquisition had scarce been established in Valencia when the
question arose through the refusal of the local authorities to allow
its ministers to carry arms. Ferdinand promptly decided the matter in
its favor by an order, March 22, 1486 that licences should be issued to
all whom the inquisitors might name--for the time had not yet come in
which the inquisitors themselves issued licences.[981] Probably
complaints arose as to the abuse of the privilege for the instructions
of 1498, which were principally measures of reform, provided that, in
cities, where bearing arms was forbidden, no official should carry them
except when accompanying an inquisitor or alguazil.[982] As indicated by
this, policy on the subject was unsettled and it so remained for a
while. November 14, 1509, Ferdinand ordered that the ministers of the
Sicilian Inquisition should not be deprived of their arms; June 2, 1510,
he thanked the Valencia tribunal for providing that its officials should
go unarmed, for, by the grace of God, there is no one now who impedes or
resists the Inquisition and, if there were, the royal officials or he in
person will provide for it; then, in about three months, on August 28th,
he wrote to the Governor of Valencia that the salaried officials of the
tribunal, with their servants and forty familiars should enjoy all the
prerogatives of the Holy Office and were not to be deprived of their
arms.[983]
We see in all this traces of general popular opposition to exempting
inquisitorial officials from the laws forbidding arms-bearing. This was
stimulated by the difficulty of preventing the exemptions from being
claimed by unauthorized persons without limit, leading Catalonia, in the
Concordia of 1512, to provide that officials bearing arms could be
disarmed, like other citizens, unless they could show a certificate from
the tribunal, and further that the number of familiars for the whole
principality should be reduced to thirty, except in cases of
necessity.[984] Although this Concordia was not observed,
Inquisitor-general Mercader, in his instructions of August 28, 1514,
admitted the necessity of such regulations by prohibiting the issue of
licences to bear arms; by reducing the overgrown number of familiars to
twenty-five in Barcelona and ten each in Perpignan and other towns, by
permitting the disarmament of those who could not exhibit certificates
and by endeavoring to check the fraud of lending these certificates by
requiring them to swear not to do so and keeping lists whereby they
could be identified.[985]
The right of arming its familiars, thus assumed by the Inquisition was
by no means uncontested. We have seen how the Empress Isabella when in
Valencia, in 1524, ordered the arms taken from them and broken, leading
to a protest from Inquisitor-general Manrique, who asserted this to be a
privilege enjoyed since the introduction of the Inquisition. In spite of
this Charles V, by a cédula of August 2, 1539, ordered inquisitors to
prohibit the use of arms by familiars.[986] The matter remained a
subject of contest for some years more. In 1553 there were quarrels
concerning it between the Valencia tribunal and the local authorities,
but the Concordia of 1554 admitted the right unreservedly.[987]
By this time, in fact, it was generally recognized, but this, in place
of removing a cause of discord only intensified and multiplied it. The
right to bear arms could scarce be held to include weapons which were
prohibited to all by general regulations, yet the authorities had no
jurisdiction over familiars to enforce them. Thus when flint-lock
arquebuses were prohibited and the Viceroy of Valencia included
familiars in a proclamation on the subject, in 1562, Philip II called
him to account, telling him that the order must come from the
inquisitors and, in 1575 he repeated this to the Viceroy of
Catalonia.[988] The Suprema might decide that familiars were included in
prohibitory decrees and that inquisitors must issue the necessary
orders, as it did, in 1596, with regard to one respecting daggers and in
1598 to one forbidding fire-locks and pistols at night,[989] but the
tribunals had no police to enforce these orders and, when the secular
authorities undertook to do so, inquisitors were prompt to resent it, in
their customary fashion, as a violation of the immunities of the Holy
Office.
[Sidenote: _BEARING ARMS_]
Even more fruitful of trouble was the fact that it was impossible to
make the inquisitors respect the limitations imposed by the Concordias
on the number of familiars and consequently to obey the rule of
furnishing lists of them to the authorities so that they might be known.
Appointments were lavished greatly in excess of all possible needs and
without informing the magistrates--often, indeed, without keeping
records in the archives. The familiar might or might not carry with him
the evidence of his official character but, whether he did so or not,
his arrest or disarmament was violently resented, and the ordinary
citizen when caught offending was apt to claim that he was a familiar in
hopes of being released. How exasperating to the civil authorities was
the situation may be gathered from a case occurring in Barcelona, in
1568. The veguer, on his nightly rounds, arrested Franco Foix, whom he
found armed with a coat of mail, sword, buckler and dagger. The culprit
claimed to be a familiar and the veguer obediently handed him over to
the tribunal. He proved not to be one, but, instead of returning him,
the inquisitors fined him in forty-four reales for their own benefit
(presumably as a penalty for personating an official) and restored to
him his forfeited arms.[990] When the laws were thus openly set at
defiance, conditions were eminently favorable for quarrels, even without
the violent mutual animosity everywhere existing between the tribunals
and the civil authorities; collisions were correspondingly frequent and
were fought to the bitter end.
It would be wearisome to multiply cases illustrating the various phases
of these quarrels which occupied the attention of the king and his
councils in their settlement. A single one will suffice to show the
spirit in which they were conducted on both sides. In 1620, by order of
the tribunal of Valencia, acting in its secular capacity and not in a
matter of faith, the commissioner at Játiva arrested a man and sent him
to Valencia under the customary guard of relays of familiars. One of
these named Juan López, armed with a prohibited flint-lock, was
conveying him, on February 23d, when at Catarroja, about a league from
the city, some armed alguaziles, in the service of Dr. Pedro Juan
Rejaule, a judge on the criminal side of the Audiencia, arrested him,
taking away his weapon and carrying him to Dr. Rejaule's house.
Disregarding his documents, Rejaule told him that he could not be
released without giving bail to present himself to the viceroy and, as
he was unable to furnish it he was handed as a prisoner to the local
magistrates. On learning the event the inquisitors applied to the regent
of the Audiencia who ordered the release of López, which was effected
and Rejaule visited the tribunal, admitted that he had been in error and
promised in future to observe all necessary respect. In spite of this
the inquisitors proceeded to try him for impeding the Inquisition,
ordered him to keep his house as a prison under pain of three hundred
ducats, and threw into the secret prison as though they were heretics,
the four alguaziles who had made the arrest. When notice of this was
served on Rejaule he protested that the inquisitors were not his judges
and that he would appeal, whereupon the additional indignity was
inflicted upon him of posting two guards in his house with orders to
keep him in sight.
[Sidenote: _BEARING ARMS_]
This produced a crisis. The viceroy assembled in his palace all three
_salas_ or branches of the Audiencia, where the matter was fully
discussed and it was resolved to release Rejaule and hold the two guards
as hostages for the imprisoned alguaziles. At 2 A.M. Dr. Morla went with
halberdiers furnished by the viceroy, seized and handcuffed the guards
and brought Rejaule to his brother judges. At the same time a scrivener
of the court had been sent to the inquisitor Salazar with a message from
the viceroy to the effect that, as the offence had not been in a matter
of faith, Rejaule was justiciable only by the king; if the Inquisition
held otherwise a competencia could be formed; the Audiencia had decided
that Rejaule and the alguaziles must be released and the guards be held
until this was done. The scrivener also presented a petition of appeal
to the pope, or to whomsoever was judge, and demanded _apostolos_ or
letters to that effect. To this Salazar replied in writing that the
arrests had been made for matters incident to and dependent upon affairs
of the faith, in which the Inquisition had exclusive jurisdiction and
could admit no competencia; he could say no more as to the cause of the
arrests without violating the secrecy of the Inquisition and incurring
excommunication and he begged the viceroy not to interfere in a matter
concerning so greatly the service of God and the king. At 4 A.M. the
scrivener returned with this reply to where the viceroy and judges were
waiting. At the magic word "faith," however fraudulently employed, all
opposition vanished. By six o'clock Dr. Morla had taken Rejaule back to
his house and had replaced the guards and, at the same time, the
scrivener bore to the inquisitors a note from the viceroy saying that,
as they had certified that it was a matter of faith, the Audiencia had
restored everything to its previous condition and he offered not only
not to impede the Inquisition but to show it all aid and favor.
The case was thus transferred to the court, where the Suprema on one
side and the Council of Aragon on the other, struggled for a favorable
decision from Philip III. The former evidently felt the weakness of the
claim that the faith was involved, but it argued that impeding the
Inquisition in any way conferred jurisdiction on it and Aliaga, in his
double capacity of inquisitor-general and royal confessor, added a
bitter complaint as to the manner in which the Inquisition was abused
and maltreated. To this the king replied that he wished the affair
treated with the customary moderation and mercy of the Holy Office,
especially as it was not directly a matter of faith, and whatever
sentence the Suprema resolved upon for Rejaule and the other inculpated
parties must be submitted to him before publication. Besides, he ordered
a junta of two members each of the Suprema and the Council of Aragon to
be formed and to devise a plan for the avoidance of future contention.
This assumed Rejaule's guilt and awarded the victory to the Suprema, but
it was not satisfied and presented a consulta representing the perilous
condition of the Valencia tribunal, which necessitated the punishment of
the delinquents as a warning, but Philip merely repeated his former
decision.[991]
What was Rejaule's fate we have no means of knowing, but his career was
evidently blasted, whatever may have been the so-called mercy exhibited.
As for the perilous position of the tribunal insisted on by the Suprema,
it seems to be set forth in a Petition of the syndic of the College of
Familiars, February 25, 1616, complaining of arrests and ill-treatment
and asking the tribunal to take evidence on the subject. It accordingly
did so, but while the testimony was ample as to the existence of
ill-feeling towards the familiars, in substance it amounted only to
their being deprived at night of daggers and bucklers which were
prohibited weapons, and it does not appear that any action was taken in
consequence. Complaints continued and another petition of October 30,
1626, asked that an envoy be sent to the Suprema, for which the
familiars would defray the cost, for unless some relief was had they
would resign in a body, as their position only exposed them to wrong and
insult and their privileges were set at naught.[992]
The difficulty of enforcing the laws on the people was intensified by
the privileges claimed by the familiars. They were by no means peaceable
folk and the unprivileged class naturally regarded it as a hardship to
be restricted to the use of swords when these gentry were so much more
efficiently armed. The Suprema as a rule supported its satellites. For
ten years, from 1574, it resisted, in Aragon, the enforcement on
familiars of a royal decree against carrying prohibited weapons at
night, although the Concordia of Aragon in 1568 provided that familiars
should obey the laws respecting arms and that inquisitors should not
protect them in violations. Members of all the Royal Councils were
involved in the discussion, as though it were the weightiest affair of
state and it was not until 1584 that the Suprema was induced to issue
the necessary orders, which it was obliged to repeat in 1592.[993]
Another illustration of its attitude occurs with respect to a pragmática
of great severity against the use of fire-arms, issued by Philip III,
March 14, 1613, pronouncing the mere discharge of a weapon to be a
capital offence, whether death ensued or not. It abrogated all
privileges and exemptions and conferred on the royal courts full
jurisdiction in such cases, and all this was accepted and its observance
enjoined by the Suprema. This met with such scant obedience that the
Council of Aragon in a consulta of July 31, 1632, called the king's
attention to the evils existing from the exemption of familiars and
suggested that they should not be permitted to decline the jurisdiction
of the courts for crimes committed with fire-arms. It was doubtless in
consequence of opposition by the Suprema that it was not until September
30, 1633, that Philip IV, in a cédula addressed to the Viceroy of
Valencia, ordered that, with the assent of the Councils of Aragon and of
the Inquisition, the pragmática of 1613 must be strictly observed by
which all exemptions were disallowed and offenders were triable and
punishable by the royal courts; the Inquisition must withdraw from all
pending competencias and the cases be carried to conclusion by the
Audiencia. The Suprema must have consented unwillingly to this, for it
labored with the wavering monarch and, on November 8th, he wrote
withdrawing the cédula and ordering the suspension of all cases before
the Audiencia. A few weeks later he yielded to other influences and
annulled the last letter, but added that his orders of September 30th
must be executed impartially, for the Inquisition complained that it was
enforced only against its officials and in such case he would give it a
free hand again. December 27th the Suprema sent this to the Valencia
tribunal with formal instructions to obey it, but added a confidential
letter saying that efforts would not be relaxed to persuade the king to
remit all such cases back to them; meanwhile an agreement had been
obtained from the Council of Aragon that all sentences by the Audiencia
should be referred to it before execution and the tribunal must watch
them closely and send such reports as would enable the Suprema to obtain
favorable action on them.[994]
For this endless strife, for the habitual disregard of the laws by
familiars, the Suprema was primarily responsible. It was perfectly
acquainted with the innumerable edicts specifying prohibited weapons and
forbidding the carrying of them after night-fall; it acquiesced,
ostensibly at least, in the subjection of these offences to the royal
courts and yet it encouraged familiars in the belief that it had power
to override all laws and could confer licence to violate them. The
formula of commission which it caused to be issued to familiars
contained a clause granting them full liberty to carry arms, offensive
and defensive, publicly and secretly, by day or by night, and ordering
all secular officials to abstain from interference with them, in virtue
of holy obedience and under penalty of excommunication and of fifty
thousand maravedís applicable to the expenses of the Holy Office.[995]
It could not be fuller or more explicit; there are no exceptions as to
the character of arms or allusion to the jurisdiction in these cases
granted by the king to the royal courts. When one branch of the
government thus resolutely placed itself in opposition to the sovereign
and encouraged its subordinates to resist the laws and the constituted
authorities, peace was impossible and conflicts were inevitable. Yet the
illegality of all this was admitted when, in 1634, the familiars of
Valencia held a meeting to assess themselves for a donation to be
offered to the king, in return for a privilege to bear arms, and the
Suprema instructed the tribunal to aid the movement, and again when, in
1638, a fruitless offer was made by them of twelve thousand ducats for
the revocation of legislation on the subject.[996]
[Sidenote: _BEARING ARMS_]
To crown all this, the Suprema, in 1657, reached the audacity of arguing
that the right of familiars to bear arms was imprescriptible and could
not be abrogated by any prince, for it would impede the Inquisition in
the free exercise of its functions, wherefore it denied that any
competencia could be formed in such cases; the secular authorities had
no jurisdiction and there could not even be a discussion about their
claim to interfere.[997] Philip IV had the weakness to submit to these
extravagant claims, in 1658, and to decide that the Suprema alone had
cognizance in such matters. The case in which this occurred was that of
Jaime Espejo, alcaide of the penitential prison of Valencia, arrested
for carrying pistols and it has interest for us because in it the
inquisitor, Don Antonio de Ayala Verganza, argues away all the royal
decrees and pragmáticas as not meaning what they said and proves it by
citing a vast number of cases in which, when carried up to the king, he
overruled his own legislation, invariably deciding in favor of the
Inquisition and against his own jurisdiction. He could sometimes be
brought to issue wholesome general regulations, but, when it came to
their execution, the ever-present dread of interfering with the service
of God overwhelmed him.[998]
Yet Philip promptly reversed himself for, in a despairing effort to put
an end to these interminable quarrels, he was induced to issue a royal
letter, December 23, 1659, declaring that the cognizance of infractions
of the laws respecting prohibited arms lay with the royal jurisdiction
and that no competencias should be formed in these cases. When this
letter was alleged by the royal court, in the case then pending of
Joseph Navarro, a familiar arrested for carrying a pistol, the
Inquisition in reply airily cast aside the pragmática of 1613, and its
confirmation in 1633, by asserting that both before and after those laws
it had always exercised jurisdiction over these cases, as was notorious
to every one--which was all doubtless true. As for the recent letter of
1659, it had not been issued with the assent of the Suprema; being thus
irregularly issued it should not be regarded as valid, until the king
should be supplicated to modify it, and until this was done the accused
should be surrendered to it or he could be released under bail to both
jurisdictions.[999] The vacillating monarch probably yielded again;
whether he did so or not mattered little to the Holy Office, which
regarded his decrees so lightly. The miserable business of quarrelling
over the multiplication of the laws went on and, in 1691, Carlos II
found it necessary again to prohibit the carrying of pistols and _armas
cortas_ and to deprive offenders of their claims to jurisdiction, even
if they were familiars or salaried officials of the Inquisition.[1000]
Several cases in the earlier years of Philip V seem to indicate that
this matter was an exception to the general limitation of the privileges
of the Holy Office and that there was a tendency to admit its
claims.[1001] Their final extinction, however, was not far off. In 1748,
Fernando VI prohibited all officials of tribunals, including the
Inquisition, from carrying cut-and-thrust weapons any kind; exclusive
jurisdiction in the enforcement of this was reserved for the secular
courts and all claims to _fuero_ were abolished. He confirmed and
extended this by proclamations of 1749, 1751 and 1754, with penalties
of six years in the mines for commoners and six years service in
presidio for nobles. In another of 1757 he regretted the non-observance
of these laws and ordered their irremissible enforcement without
privilege of fuero. This legislation was supplemented by Carlos III, in
1761, who included in the prohibition all fire-arms of less than four
palms length of barrel, although he conceded to gentlemen the use of
holster pistols when on horseback but not when on mule-back.[1002] Yet
the Inquisition continued to issue the old form of commissions granting
unlimited license, until the magistrates of Seville and Alcalá la Real
refused to recognize them when, in 1777, it admitted its altered
position by a modification which granted the right to carry
non-prohibited weapons, but only when on duty for the Holy Office, and
contented itself with exhorting the secular authorities not to interfere
with this.[1003]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _MILITARY SERVICE_]
In somewhat ludicrous contrast with the belligerent spirit, indicated by
the earnest desire to carry arms, was the claim that all connected with
the Inquisition were exempt from military service. In its relations with
the State the Holy Office recognized no duties of citizenship; it only
claimed privileges. That the salaried officials, regularly employed in
the tribunals, should enjoy such exemptions was merely in accordance
with old custom, for a law of Juan II, in 1432, specifically released
from the obligation of service nearly all officials, including even
physicians, surgeons and schoolmasters.[1004] That this should apply to
the Inquisition seems to have been assumed as a matter of course in its
early days but, in 1560, the corregidor of Córdova summoned the
officials and familiars to appear in the musters; they all claimed
exemption, when the inquisitor-general upheld the appeal of the
officials but denied that of the familiars. Similar questions arose in
Murcia in 1563 and 1575, in which a similar distinction was drawn.[1005]
In Valencia, the familiars had probably been more successful, for an
article in the Concordia of 1568 provides that they must serve their
turns in guarding the coasts and that inquisitors shall not defend them
in seeking exemptions under pretext of their office.[1006] The same
question arose in Majorca and was settled by a law providing that
familiars refusing to perform guard-duty on their appointed days could
be compelled by the royal officials.[1007] Thus by common consent at
this time salaried officials were exempted while the claims of familiars
were rejected.
In the troubles of the seventeenth century, when the very existence of
Spain was threatened, the question as to officials as well as familiars
came up again and the Suprema sought to protect both classes. In 1636
and 1638, the corregidors of various cities refused to except the
officials when making up the lists for conscription, but Philip IV
decided that they were exempt.[1008] As the danger increased, in 1640,
with the rebellions in Catalonia and Portugal, and the resources of the
kingdom were strained to the utmost, all claims were disregarded. By a
cédula of September 7, 1641, Philip declared this to be a religious war,
as the rebels were allied with nations infected with heresy. Inquisitor
general Sotomayor was required to summon all officials and familiars to
organize and serve and was clothed with power to enforce it. No protest
was made against this, for it was a financial rather than a military
move; arrangements were made to commute service for cash and the Suprema
was thus aided in meeting the royal demands for contributions.[1009]
This was only a temporary truce. Philip, in a letter of February 22,
1644, to Inquisitor-general Arce y Reynoso, reported that the attitude
of the officials had excited much dissatisfaction in Galicia; he
therefore ordered that no exemptions be admitted and no excuses be
received. To this the Suprema responded with bitter complaints that in
Saragossa the lot had fallen on a messenger of the tribunal and the
widow of a notary, who were told that they must furnish substitutes, all
of which was in violation of the privileges of the Inquisition,
crippling it in its pious labors so essential to the faith and reducing
it in popular esteem to a level with other institutions. Unstable as
usual where the Holy Office was concerned, Philip abandoned his position
and admitted that salaried officials were not liable to serve or to
furnish substitutes, which the Suprema promptly conveyed to the
tribunals, cautioning them not to employ excommunication in collisions
with the royal officials until after obtaining its permission.[1010]
Even in this hour of supreme need the liability of familiars was
contested. Philip endeavored to placate the Suprema by assigning them to
garrison duty, but it remonstrated, asserting that the Inquisition could
not perform its functions if wholly deprived of them, and the cause of
religion was higher than any other. It therefore asked that no place
should be left without one, in small towns there should be two and in
larger places four. To this Philip assented, on condition that those
exempted should contribute to those who served, but the Suprema
demurred; every one could avoid service who could pay the assessment, so
this would be giving the familiars no special privileges; there could be
no question that favors shown to the Inquisition would contribute to
success in the war, for experience had demonstrated that the more
sovereigns had fostered it the more fortunate they had been. However
just was the argument it was fruitless; Philip adhered to his decision,
but when the corresponding decrees were issued, the Council of Castile
remonstrated in its turn and the distracted monarch was involved in a
fresh discussion between the two.[1011]
[Sidenote: _RIGHT TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE_]
The Suprema carried its point that those exempted should not contribute
to those conscripted and the arrangement remained in force. It was
repeated in a _carta acordada_ of January 14, 1668, and, when, in 1681,
a question arose in Tembleque, the Suprema cautioned the Toledo tribunal
not to issue more letters of exemption than the settlement permitted, in
order to avoid competencias which only serve to render the Holy Office
hateful and to imperil its other privileges.[1012] Carlos III seems to
have been more liberal when, in 1767, he included, in an elaborate list
of those exempt from military service, the ministers and dependents of
the Inquisition who were relieved from billets under the decree of May
26, 1728, which, it will be remembered, granted the privilege to the
number of familiars allowed under the old Concordias. Carlos IV was
more exacting for, in 1800, when regulating the conscription in minute
detail, he granted exemption only to the titular officials and took
special care to exclude familiars and other dependents.[1013] This
continued to the end. September 14, 1818, the Suprema communicated to
the tribunals a decision of the king that, in order to secure exemption
from conscription, it was not necessary to exhibit a royal commission,
but one from the inquisitor-general or Suprema sufficed.[1014] Evidently
the local tribunals were no longer allowed to issue certificates of
exemption.
* * * * *
The right of officials and familiars to hold secular offices raised
questions that caused no little debate. It was evidently of advantage to
the Inquisition that those who were bound to it and enjoyed its
exemptions should be in positions of influence where they could guard
its privileges and promote their extension. On the other hand, for these
very reasons, the people were jealous of office-holding by its ministers
and dreaded to have their local authorities relieved of responsibility
through their claim on the _fuero_ or jurisdiction of the Inquisition.
Had these local positions been elective, popular good sense could have
averted the danger, but they were awarded by lot, the names of those
deemed eligible being placed in a _bolsa_ or bag--a process known as
_insaculacion_--and drawn forth.[1015]
The earliest instance I have met of a refusal to include officials of
the Inquisition among the eligibles occurs in 1503, when Ferdinand wrote
to his Lieutenant-general of Majorca that he was astonished to learn
that the names of Pere Prat, his son Pere Prat, Carman Litra and
Gerónimo Serma had not been insacculated because they held office in the
Inquisition; it should rather be a recommendation; they must not be thus
dishonored and their names must at once be put in the bolsa.[1016]
Doubtless Ferdinand's watchfulness preserved this privilege for
officials during his life, but subsequently popular feeling must have
manifested itself by their exclusion, for, in 1523, Charles V forbade
it in an edict and he followed this by a special pragmática, May 30,
1524, asserting their eligibility to public office in all his dominions
and for all future time, under pain of the royal wrath and of two
thousand florins, but he provided that they should not be entitled to
the jurisdiction of the Inquisition for official malfeasance.[1017]
Notwithstanding this, Philip II was obliged to issue special
instructions on the subject to Sardinia in 1552 and to Navarre in
1558.[1018]
In this, as in so much else, the Catalans were especially intractable.
Córtes of the three kingdoms of Aragon were held in 1553, in which
Catalonia alone took up the matter and adopted a law, confirmed by
Prince Philip, prescribing that no bayle or his lieutenant, or judge, or
scrivener could be a familiar, nor could he accept office after his term
of service had expired.[1019] This received scant obedience, nor did the
Inquisition pay attention to the clause in the pragmática of 1524
depriving it of cognizance of official malfeasance. One of the
complaints of the royal Audiencia to de Soto Salazar, in his visitation
of the Barcelona tribunal in 1566, was that it assumed jurisdiction in
all such cases. Salazar recommended that this should be forbidden, for
it impeded the proper administration of the towns, and officials could
not be punished for violating local ordinances about bread, vineyards,
meadows, breaking irrigating canals to water their lands, and
multitudinous other derelictions.[1020]
[Sidenote: _RIGHT TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE_]
Catalonia refused to accept the Concordia of 1568 and, in 1585, the
Córtes re-enacted the provisions of 1553 in an enlarged form, including
almost all offices, and subjecting violation to a penalty of two hundred
ducats, which was confirmed by Philip II.[1021] This seems to have been
enforced for, in 1586, a memorial from the Bishop of Segovia says that
in Catalonia the names of all officials of the Inquisition were removed
from the lists of eligibles, that commissioners and familiars were
resigning and that every day withdrawals were received from applicants,
so that the tribunal would be crippled and the Córtes could have
contrived nothing more damaging.[1022] The Catalans held good, despite
the earnest efforts of the Holy Office, which declared long afterwards
that this was the severest blow that it had ever received. In the Córtes
of 1599 the battle was renewed after elaborate preparations by the
inquisitors. On June 30th the king presented a series of articles, in
response to those submitted to him by the Córtes, and among them was one
declaring officials and familiars eligible to all offices, but the
Catalans would have none of it. In the elaborate memorial presented to
Clement VIII by the Suprema against the work of the Córtes, it
complained bitterly of the laws of 1553 and 1585 as diminishing notably
the authority of the Inquisition and causing great lack of officials, so
many having ignominiously resigned, while others could not be found to
replace them.[1023]
Again, when the Córtes were about to assemble in 1626, the Barcelona
tribunal implored the Suprema to use its utmost exertions for the repeal
of the law of 1585, for no person of consideration would accept office
and it was obliged to appoint those of low condition, which was fatal to
its authority. The Córtes yielded in so far as to adopt an article
throwing open the offices, provided incumbents were justiciable by the
civil courts for a long series of offences, but the whole legislation of
the Córtes came to naught through lack of the royal confirmation.[1024]
When the question was coming up again in the Córtes of 1632, earnest
appeals were made to the Suprema to have the obnoxious law of 1585
repealed. The condition of the Inquisition in Catalonia was represented
as most deplorable by reason of it. In a memorial to the king it was
stated that in Barcelona there were but four or five familiars, and they
were mechanics, ineligible to public office; there was not a single
advocate of the accused, nor an ecclesiastical consultor, so greedy was
every one for public office. Throughout the principality there was the
same dearth--familiars only in miserable villages, destitute of tempting
positions, and those were of base condition, for in fact the barons
would endure none other in their lands. The Suprema was urged to bring
the matter before the Rota and it submitted the question to its fiscal,
but he wisely reported that, although a favorable result was to be
anticipated, yet it was expedient to set the example of recourse to Rome
which might result in other matters being carried thither with damage to
the jurisdiction of the Holy Office.[1025]
Thus Catalan pertinacity triumphed. When, in 1667, Pedro Momparler,
familiar at Alconer, asked permission to resign, in order to accept the
office of bayle, and his request was referred to the Suprema, it replied
that it should be denied on account of the evil influence of his
example, but it added that if he should renounce his familiarship before
the royal justice for the term of his office, the inquisitors should
pretend ignorance.[1026]
[Sidenote: _RIGHT TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE_]
In Majorca, frequent alterations of the law show that it was subject to
active debate and that preponderance shifted from one side to the other.
In 1637 it was decided that none of those connected with the Inquisition
could hold public office; then, in 1643, they were allowed to do so, in
positions where they had not to vote or to give counsel; again, in 1660,
the prohibition was made absolute; then, in 1662, royal letters of
January 11th and March 4th removed the prohibition, provided they would
previously renounce all claim to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.
These letters afford a remarkable illustration of the vacillation of the
monarch and of the extent to which bureaucracy had crippled his
autocracy--only this time it was the Council of Aragon which imitated
the methods of the Suprema. The latter body was dissatisfied with the
arrangement and addressed to the king a consulta, April 5, 1663, asking
its suspension and that a junta of the two councils should be called to
consider the subject. Philip promptly acceded and, on April 10th,
ordered the Council of Aragon to write to that effect to the viceroy.
The command was not obeyed and, on September 19th, the Suprema asked him
to remedy the omission, whereupon he asked the council to state its
reasons and, on its doing so, he again ordered it, October 3d, to
execute his decree of April 10th. It was still recalcitrant and, on
March 19, 1664, the Suprema represented the delay to the king who the
next day called upon the council to render an exact account of what it
had done, replied that in conformity with his commands it had written on
October 3, 1663, copy of which it enclosed. This proved to be merely
copies of the letters of 1662 which had given rise to the debate,
showing that it had deliberately nullified his orders. In view of all
this the Suprema, July 24, 1664, asked the king to insist on literal
compliance and that a copy of the despatch of the Council of Aragon to
the viceroy should be furnished to it. This proved to be merely a
duplicate of that of October 13, 1663, with the date altered to April 6,
1664. Then the Suprema again asked the king peremptorily to order exact
obedience and he replied that he had done so. Meanwhile the Viceroy and
the inquisitor of Majorca had been playing at cross-purposes in
consequence of the contradictory despatches received by each.[1027] Such
a method of carrying on an organized government seems incredible and,
trivial as was the question at issue, a case such as this throws light
on one of the causes of Spanish decadence. The question itself, after
all this trouble, apparently remained unsettled, for, in 1673, there was
a competencia over Gabriel Berga, a knight of Santiago and a familiar,
when the tribunal contended that he could not renounce its
jurisdiction.[1028]
It would be superfluous to follow out in detail the vicissitudes of this
matter in the other provinces of Spain, where it gave abundant occasion
for quarrels conducted with customary vehemence. It seems to have
settled itself into the rule that officials and familiars were eligible
to public office but that, during their terms of service, they were not
entitled to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. Such, we are told in
1632, was the practice in Castile, Aragon and Valencia.[1029] Yet still
there were disputes for, about the middle of the seventeenth century, a
formula is given for use when a familiar is prevented from taking
office. This sets forth at much length that, if familiars are refused
office, no one will take the position, which will inflict great
detriment on the faith; it cites the royal cédulas, it sets aside
opposing arguments by showing that for all malfeasance in office the
familiar will be subject to the royal jurisdiction and finally it orders
his immediate induction in his post under penalty of excommunication and
of five hundred ducats; no further notice will be given and all further
action will be published in the halls of the Inquisition, which will be
full legal notice to all parties concerned.[1030] I have met with no
further legislation on the subject and presumably some arrangement of
this kind was in force to the end.
* * * * *
It was highly inconsistent but, at the same time, thoroughly in keeping
with the spirit of the Inquisition in its dealings with the public, that
while it vindicated so energetically the right of its officials to hold
honorable and lucrative posts, it claimed for them the privilege to
refuse to serve in those which were onerous. In the municipalities there
were a certain number of these latter, entailing unremunerative labor
and responsibility which no one could refuse to accept when his name was
drawn from the bolsa. The officials claimed to be insaculated for the
desirable positions but not for the undesirable ones. That such a claim
could be made and sustained is a forcible illustration of the power of
the Inquisition.
[Sidenote: _RIGHT TO REFUSE OFFICE_]
There is no allusion to this in the earlier Concordias and no specific
grant that I have been able to find. It seems to have been merely a
gratuitous assumption on the part of the Inquisition, asserted with its
customary persistence. A noteworthy case growing out of it occurred, in
1622, in the town of Lorca (Murcia) where a familiar refused to serve in
the office of collector of the alcavala, or tax on sales, and was
imprisoned for contumacy. The inquisitors of Murcia demanded his
liberation and excommunicated the alcalde mayor for refusing to obey.
This failing, they prepared to arrest him and called upon the corregidor
of Murcia, Pedro de Porres, for assistance. On his refusal they
excommunicated him and then laid an interdict on the city of Murcia. The
citizens appealed to their bishop, Fray Antonio Trejo, who remonstrated
with the tribunal and, finding this unavailing, issued an edict
declaring the interdict invalid. Bishops were not subject to
inquisitorial jurisdiction, even for heresy, without special papal
faculties, but the inquisitor-general, Andres Pacheco, was the most
audacious and inexorable assertor of inquisitorial omnipotence and he
did not hesitate to condemn the episcopal edict, to publish the
condemnation in all the churches, to fine the bishop in eight thousand
ducats and to summon him, under pain of four thousand more, to appear
within twenty days and answer to the action brought against him by the
fiscal as an impeder of the Inquisition. The bishop and chapter sent the
dean and a canon to represent them, but, without a hearing, they were
thrown _incomunicado_ into the secret prison, excommunicated and the
censure published in all the churches. The inquisitors imprisoned the
parish priest of Santa Catalina for disregarding the interdict and the
whole ecclesiastical body of Murcia became involved. Finally, through
the intervention of the king and the pope, the bishop was absolved, but
the Inquisition reaped a rich harvest of fines. Those of the bishop,
dean and some of the canons were kept by the Suprema, while the local
tribunal, in addition to inflicting terms of exile, of from one to eight
years, secured from José Lucas, the episcopal secretary, a thousand
ducats, from Alonso Pedriñan, the fiscal, eight hundred and, from
thirteen other priests and dignitaries of the church, sums ranging from
fifty to one hundred and fifty--in all, an aggregate of 3272
ducats.[1031]
A claim enforced so relentlessly was dangerous to dispute and even the
Aragonese Concordia of 1646, which registered a triumph over the Holy
Office, admitted the right of salaried officials and familiars to
decline onerous offices.[1032] In time, however, there seems to have
come a slight modification of the claim. About 1750 we have the formula
of a mandate, issued at the instance of a familiar, forbidding, under
pain of excommunication and of two hundred ducats, the authorities of a
town from including him among those liable to serve in any of the minor
offices, nor in any of the more important ones until every other
inhabitant has served his turn.[1033]
* * * * *
It is not difficult to understand the origin of the claim that the
buildings of the Inquisition and the houses of its officials were
sanctuaries into which the officers of justice could not penetrate
without special permission. The asylum afforded to criminals in churches
was an old established practice throughout Europe to which Spain was no
exception. Even as late as 1737 the papal sanction was deemed necessary
to except from this certain crimes, such as murder, highway robbery and
high treason.[1034] Asylum was also afforded by the feudal rights which
debarred royal officers of justice from intruding on lands of nobles,
and the withdrawal of this right in Granada is cited as one of the
causes of the agitation leading to the rebellion of 1568.[1035] In
Aragon this was developed so far that a law of Jaime I, in the Córtes of
Huesca in 1247, which still continued in force, gave to the houses of
infanzones, or gentlemen, the same right of asylum as that possessed by
churches.[1036]
It is therefore somewhat remarkable that the claim of affording asylum
was not made at the outset by the Inquisition, especially in view of the
importance attached to the secrecy which shrouded all its operations.
Yet, until the middle of the sixteenth century, such claims when made
were authoritatively repudiated. Inquisitor-general Tavera writes,
September 3, 1540, a sharp letter to the inquisitors of Seville saying
that he is informed that recently certain murderers had been received
and protected in the castle of Triana, occupied by the tribunal, and
that the officers of the royal justice had not been allowed to search
for them; the punishment of delinquents should be in no way impeded and
no occasion be given for complaint; the gates of the castle must be kept
shut so that criminals cannot take refuge there.[1037] So, in 1546,
among instructions from the Suprema to the tribunal of Granada, is an
order that no criminals or debtors shall find refuge in the Inquisition,
nor be allowed to sleep there nor between the gates; the janitor must
eject them and, if they will not go, report it to the inquisitors for
proper action.[1038] This shows that the abuse was commencing but that
it was disapproved and the same is seen in the Valencia Concordia of
1554, which says that, as the Inquisition has no privileges as an
asylum, it cannot protect those who take refuge there.[1039]
[Sidenote: _RIGHT OF ASYLUM_]
Evidently the local tribunals were claiming a right which the central
authority disallowed; they were moreover claiming it not only for the
building of the Inquisition but for the houses of officials and
familiars. Among the malfeasances of the Barcelona tribunal, reported in
1567 by de Soto Salazar, were cases of this kind. When the bayle of
Perpignan sought to arrest some culprits they were sheltered by Pedro de
Roca, a familiar, in his house and he resisted the bayle who came with a
posse to arrest them; Roca accused the bayle and his men for this; they
were imprisoned for a long while by the Barcelona inquisitors and were
condemned to fines and exile. So when the bayle of Sens, with a posse,
broke into the house of Vicente Valele, who was merely a temporary
commissioner, to arrest some culprits who had taken refuge there, he
accused them and they were all imprisoned.[1040]
The rapidity with which the abuse developed in Valencia is manifested by
a comparison of the Concordias of 1554 and 1568. The former, as we have
seen, admits that the Inquisition could offer no asylum, while the
latter is obliged to forbid the lower officials and familiars from
putting the arms of the Inquisition on their houses; all such must be
removed and their houses shall not have immunity from the officers of
justice--evidently the officials found profit in harboring thieves and
murderers and the tribunal supported them.[1041] In Barcelona a sort of
compromise was reached by which, on application to the tribunal, one of
its ministers was sent with the officers of justice to enter houses of
officials where criminals had taken refuge, but the Córtes of 1599
complained that this delay afforded time for escape and, in the abortive
Concordia enacted there, a clause provided that this should not be
necessary and that, in case of resistance, houses could be entered. It
shows how slow was the Suprema to assert a right of asylum that, in its
protest to Clement VIII, it accepts this article on the ground that the
Inquisition never has impeded the pursuit and arrest of
malefactors.[1042] In time, however, it overcame these scruples and, in
1632, it issued repeated orders that the officers of justice should not
be allowed to enter the houses of officials. Philip IV countermanded
this, but the Suprema presented a consulta saying that there was no
objection when the pursuit was _flagrante delicto_; prisoners, however,
were frequently confined in the houses of officials and an unlimited
right of entry might be abused to obtain communication with them in
violation of the all-important secrecy of the Holy Office. As usual, the
vacillating monarch yielded and, in 1634, issued a decree restricting
the right of search to cases of hot pursuit.[1043]
It is remarkable that the Aragonese Concordia of 1646, imposed by the
Córtes on Philip, which in so many ways restricted the privileges of the
Inquisition, recognized this doubtful one in the fullest manner. As the
ministers, it says, of so holy an office should enjoy certain honors and
pre-eminence, it orders that they, including familiars, shall have as to
their houses the same privileges as caballeros and hijosdalgo--which, as
we have seen, included the right of asylum.[1044] As regards the
buildings of the Inquisition itself, a scandalous case occurring in 1638
shows how far it had travelled since Tavera rebuked the tribunal of
Seville. In Majorca the Count of Ayamano, at the head of a band of
assassins, committed the sacrilege of escalading the walls of a convent
for the purpose of murdering his wife who had sought refuge there.
Philip ordered every effort made to arrest him and his accomplices, but
he escaped to Barcelona with eight of them and all found asylum in the
Inquisition, in the apartments of his uncle, the Inquisitor Cotoner. It
affords a curious insight into the conditions of the period to see that
this created a situation impenetrable to the highest authorities of the
land. Philip called a junta of two members each of the Suprema and
Council of Aragon to devise how the criminals could be captured without
scandal or quarrel with the Inquisition. The result of their
deliberations seems to be a letter from the Suprema to Cotoner telling
him that, if he wanted to help his nephew, it should be outside and not
inside of the Inquisition, in order to avoid the troubles ensuing on an
attempt of the royal officers to remove him. The imperturbable Cotoner
was not to be scared by this gentle warning and a fortnight later the
Suprema enclosed to him a royal decree telling him that he would see the
untoward results of sheltering his nephew. As complete satisfaction was
demanded he was ordered to report in full all details, including his
motives in harboring one who was put to the ban, especially when the
latter was not a familiar.[1045] Unfortunately we do not know how the
affair ended, but when the Suprema, in place of dismissing Cotoner,
inquired as to his motives, we may assume that the asylum offered by the
Inquisition saved the forfeit life of the criminal by some compromise.
[Sidenote: _RIGHT OF ASYLUM_]
The immunity of the houses of officials became generally recognized,
with the proviso that permission of search would be granted by
inquisitors if special application was made to them, when they preserved
their jurisdiction by sending one of their people to accompany the
officers of justice. An exception which proved the rule however was made
in favor of the administrators of the tax on tobacco, to whom general
letters were given empowering them to search the houses of officials for
contraband tobacco. Even this was argued away by the Suprema in 1728,
when it asserted that semi-proof in advance was necessary to justify
search and full proof to give jurisdiction.[1046]
* * * * *
It is evident from the above that the Holy Office, with its claims for
special privileges and exemptions and its methods for enforcing their
recognition, was a very disturbing factor in the body politic. Yet the
greatest source of conflict lay in the exclusive jurisdiction which it
sought to establish over all who were connected with it, not only
between themselves but between them and the rest of the community. This
engrossed so large a portion of its activity and was the cause of such
perpetually recurring trouble that its consideration requires a chapter
to itself.