CHAPTER IV.

CONFLICTING JURISDICTIONS.

The principal source of strife between the Inquisition and the other

authorities arose from its claim to exclusive competence in all cases

involving those connected with it and their dependents. This gave rise

to perpetual conflicts, conducted with the utmost tenacity, which filled

the land with confusion and, in many cases, rendered the administration

of justice a mockery. For two centuries the monarchs vainly endeavored

to keep the peace by repeated efforts to define the boundaries between

the rival jurisdictions and the methods of settling their differences.

The tireless efforts, on the one side, of the Holy Office to extend its

authority and increase its emoluments caused it constantly to violate

compacts, while the jealousy of the civil magistracy on the other and

its natural desire to repel intrusion rendered it prompt to use whatever

means lay in its power. The struggle was unequal against the superior

weapons furnished by papal faculties and against the royal favor which

was with the Inquisition, but the conflict was maintained with

marvellous constancy, supported by popular sympathy, and the time of the

king and his advisers was frittered away in deciding a continuous stream

of petty quarrels, growing out of trivial incidents, but assuming

portentous proportions through the violent methods which had aggravated

them.

To understand the claim of the Inquisition to exclusive cognizance of

the cases of its subordinates it is necessary to bear in mind the

benefit of clergy, through which, from the early middle ages, all

clerics were exempted from the jurisdiction of the laity and were

subjected wholly to the spiritual courts. This amounted virtually to

immunity for crime, both because those courts were debarred from

rendering judgements of blood and because of the inevitable favoritism

manifested to those of their own cloth.[1047] As civilization advanced

the disorders caused by a class, thus emboldened in wrong-doing by

impunity, were the source of constant solicitude to rulers and were

deplored by right-thinking churchmen. In this, Spain was no exception.

In a project of instructions drawn up by a Spanish bishop for the

delegates to the Lateran Council in 1512, the crimes and scandals

perpetrated by married clerks and those in the lower orders, through

expectation of immunity, are dwelt upon as reasons for a change; there

were daily conflicts between the spiritual and secular courts, leading

to interdicts cast on cities and some universal legislation by the

Church was desirable.[1048] No such remedy was adopted, and when the

Council of Trent gave promise of reform, the Spanish prelates, in

contrast with the Inquisition, which made every effort to extend its

jurisdiction over offenders, proposed in 1562 to the council that

married clerks wearing secular habits should not enjoy protection from

secular justice.[1049] In 1544, Fernando de Aragon, when Viceroy of

Valencia, declared that his principal trouble lay with the Church, of

which the chief object was to protect evil-doers and liberate them from

his justice, an opinion in which he was heartily seconded by the saintly

Tomás de Vilanova, then recently appointed archbishop.[1050]

[Sidenote: _LATITUDE IN SECULAR AFFAIRS_]

Yet the marked aversion in Spain to ecclesiastical encroachment led to

repeated enactments restraining spiritual jurisdiction within strict

limits. In a series of laws, dating from the fourteenth to the sixteenth

century, Henry II, Juan II, Henry IV, Ferdinand and Isabella and Charles

V endeavored by the severest penalties to repress its inevitable

tendency to extend itself, whether by seizure of the persons or property

of the laity or by entertaining cases between laymen. Ferdinand and

Isabella, in 1493, even threatened half confiscation and perpetual exile

from Spain for all who, under any pretext, aided ecclesiastical judges

in taking prisoners from secular officials or who assisted them in any

way.[1051] In addition to this was the _recurso de fuerza_ through which

appeal lay to the royal courts or to the _Sala de Gobierno_ whenever the

spiritual courts refused an appeal or heard secular cases or those in

which laymen were concerned.[1052] It is necessary to bear in mind this

tendency and these restrictions on ecclesiastical jurisdiction to

estimate properly the latitude obtained by the Inquisition in purely

secular affairs.

Whether, at its inception, the Inquisition enjoyed the prerogative of

exclusive cognizance of cases involving its officials it would be

impossible now to say. They were mostly laymen and as such were subject

to the secular courts, while, in the popular opposition elicited by

their proceedings, especially in the Aragonese kingdoms, there might be

anticipated danger that they would be terrorized or prosecuted unless

protected by being reserved for judgement by their own tribunals. The

earliest mandate to this effect that I have met is a cédula of

Ferdinand, March 26, 1488, addressed to all the officers of justice in

Catalonia ordering them, under penalty of two thousand florins and the

royal wrath, to take no cognizance of anything concerning the ministers

and familiars of the Inquisition; all their acts in such cases are

declared invalid, and any one whom they may have arrested is at once to

be transferred to the tribunal, showing that, at least in Catalonia, no

such exemption from secular justice had previously been

recognized.[1053]

Yet in this unlimited decree Ferdinand had overlooked details which

necessarily presented themselves in practice. Was this exemption from

secular jurisdiction confined to the _titulados y asalariados_ or did it

extend to the unsalaried commissioners and familiars, receiving no pay,

pursuing their customary avocations and only called upon for occasional

service? There was also a question about the servants of officials, for

an abuse of the spiritual courts had included those of clerics. Then it

might be asked whether the protection accorded to the person of the

official extended to his property in civil suits, with the wide avenue

thus opened to abuses of many kinds. There was, moreover, a well-settled

principle of law that the accuser or plaintiff must seek the court of

the defendant; if, in violation of this, the official could enjoy what

was known as the active _fuero_ as well as the passive--that is, if he

as plaintiff could bring suit or prosecution before his own

tribunal--his power of offence would be vastly increased, together with

his opportunities for tyrannizing over all around him.

These were questions which had to be decided. It would seem that the

inquisitors construed their powers in the most liberal fashion, giving

rise to abuses which called for repression and a limitation of their

jurisdiction. The reformatory Instructions of 1498, accordingly, order

them not to defend officials and their servants in civil cases and only

officials in criminal actions, a rule repeated in a carta acordada of

May 4th of the same year.[1054] This excluded servants wholly and

deprived officials of the _fuero_ in civil matters, but it was soon

modified by Ferdinand, in a letter of January 12, 1500, to the Catalonia

tribunal, ordering it not to interfere with the royal court in a certain

suit, and expressing the rule that the plaintiff must seek the court of

the defendant.[1055] It was impossible however to restrain inquisitors

from exceeding their jurisdiction and he was obliged, August 20 1502, to

repeat his injunctions to the same tribunal, in consequence of

complaints from the Diputados. The inquisitors were roundly taken to

task for lending themselves to the schemes of the receiver in buying up

debts and claims and then collecting them through the tribunal; they

were told that they must defend none but salaried officials actually in

service; if they are plaintiffs in civil suits they must apply to the

court of the defendants, while if they are defendants the plaintiffs

must seek the tribunal. To evoke other cases, he says, causes great

scandal and will lead to troubles which must be prevented. A fortnight

later he emphasized this about a civil case which they had evoked from

the royal court; they must remit it back and not have to be written to

again as he would not tolerate such proceedings.[1056] Thus familiars

and servants were not entitled to the _fuero_, or inquisitorial

jurisdiction, while salaried officials enjoyed it, active and passive,

in criminal actions and only passive in civil suits.

[Sidenote: _INTERFERENCE WITH COURSE OF JUSTICE_]

Unduly favorable as was this to the Inquisition, the tribunals paid no

attention to its limitations; they welcomed all who sought their

judgement seat, and the desire for it of those who had no claim on it

shows that they had a reputation of selling justice. One or two cases

will exemplify this and show how good were the grounds of complaint by

the people. There was a certain Juan de Sant Feliu of Murviedro, whose

father and mother-in-law had been condemned for heresy, and to whom

Ferdinand had kindly granted their confiscations, including the dowry of

his wife. In 1505 the town of Murviedro farmed out to him and his wife

the impost on meat for 11,100 sueldos a year; he died and, in the

settlement of his account, he was found to owe the town a hundred and

fifty libras, which it proceeded to collect from his sons in the court

of the governor. Under pretext that his property had been confiscated

and restored, they appealed in 1511 to the tribunal of Valencia, which

promptly evoked the case and inhibited the court from further action,

whereupon the town complained to Ferdinand who ordered the case remitted

to the governor. Unabashed by this, in 1513, Sant Feliu's heirs on the

same pretext obtained the intervention of the tribunal in another case,

in which Doña Violante de Borja had sued them for 7500 sueldos which she

had entrusted to him to invest in a censo of the town of Murviedro; the

censo had been paid off and he had concealed the fact and kept the

money. Judgement was given against them, when the inquisitors interposed

and prohibited the royal court from further action. Ferdinand expressed

much indignation at their interference with justice in a matter wholly

foreign to their jurisdiction and ordered the prohibition to be

withdrawn. Even more arbitrary was the action, in 1511, of the Majorca

tribunal, when Pedro Tornamirandez sued the heirs of Francisco Ballester

for some cattle and obtained judgement in the court of the royal

lieutenant, whereupon the heirs appealed to the inquisitor who evoked

the case and forbade further proceedings in the secular court. None of

the parties had any connection with the Inquisition and there was not

even the pretext of confiscation; it was a mere wanton interference with

the course of justice, only explicable by some illicit gain, and when

Ferdinand's attention was called to it he ordered the inquisitor to

revoke his action.[1057] If, under Ferdinand's incessant vigilance the

Inquisition thus boldly prostituted its powers, we can appreciate how

well-founded, under his careless successors, were the complaints of

those who suffered under wrongs perpetrated under the pretence of

serving God.

In the Catalan Concordia of 1512 there was an attempt to do away with

some of these abuses and the bull _Pastoralis officii_ of Leo X,

confirming the Concordia, marks another stage in the development of the

_fuero_. No one, he said, could be cited save in his own ordinary court

at the instance of an official or familiar; if it were attempted, all

acts concerning it were invalid and the inquisitors must condemn the

plaintiff in double the expenses and damage; if any official bought

property in suit, or on which a suit was expected, he could be cited

before a court not his own and if he claimed property under seizure by a

secular judge, the latter could disregard all inhibitions issued by

inquisitors; moreover inquisitors should have no cognizance in matters

concerning the private property of officials. While thus striking at

some of the more flagrant abuses of the _fuero_, Leo opened the door to

worse ones by admitting familiars and the commensals or servants of

officials to participation in the immunities of the Inquisition.[1058]

The bull, in fact, is in accordance with the Instructions of 1514, as

issued by Inquisitor-general Mercader, and we shall see how completely

the restrictive clauses were ignored while those admitting familiars and

servants were developed.[1059]

[Sidenote: _IMMUNITY OF SERVANTS_]

The question as to familiars and servants was not absolutely settled for

some years. It is true that, in 1515 at Logroño, when the corregidor

arrested Martin de Viana, a servant of the secretary Lezana, and refused

to surrender him to the tribunal, he and his deputy and alguazil were

excommunicated and the Suprema on appeal subjected them all to fines and

humiliating penance.[1060] On the other hand, in 1516 at Valladolid,

when Alonso de Torres, servant of Inquisitor Frias, was thrown into the

royal prison, the inquisitor did not reclaim him but procured the

interposition of the Suprema, which ordered him to be released on bail

and then, after nine months had passed without a charge being brought

against him, he procured a royal cédula for the release of his

bondsmen.[1061] Whatever doubts may have existed on the subject were

removed, in 1518, by a cédula of Charles V, reciting that in Jaen the

secular courts assumed cognizance of criminal cases concerning officials

and familiars and their servants, which was contrary to the privileges

of the Holy Office, wherefore he forbade it strictly for the

future.[1062] After this the Inquisition had no hesitation in insisting

on its rights. When, in 1532, the corregidor and officials of Toledo

were excommunicated for punishing the servant of an inquisitor and the

Empress-regent Isabel wrote to the tribunal to absolve them, the Suprema

instructed it not to obey her.[1063] She learned the lesson and, in

1535, when ordering some servants of inquisitors and familiars to be

remitted to the Inquisition, she said it was accustomed to have their

cases, both civil and criminal, and it was her pleasure that this should

be observed.[1064]

The civil authorities were somewhat dilatory in recognizing the immunity

of servants, and cases continued to occur in which the tribunals

vindicated their jurisdiction energetically. About 1565 two officers of

the royal justice in Barcelona arrested a servant of Inquisitor Mexia in

a brothel where he was quarrelling with a woman, for which they were

thrown into the secret prison as though they were heretics and were

banished for three months, while the judge of the royal criminal court,

who had something to do with the matter, was compelled to appear in the

audience-chamber and undergo a reprimand in the presence of the

assembled officials of the tribunal. The virtual immunity for offenders

resulting from the privilege is illustrated by the case, in the same

tribunal, of Pedro Juncar, servant of the receiver, who murdered the

janitor of the Governor of Catalonia; the governor arrested him but was

forced to surrender him to the tribunal, which discharged him with a

sentence of exile for a year or two and costs.[1065] The influence on

social order of conferring immunity on such a class can readily be

conceived.

The privilege of the fuero was not confined to servants but was extended

in whatever direction the ingenuity and perseverance of the tribunal

could enforce it. Penitents who were fulfilling their terms of penance

were claimed and the claim was confirmed, in 1547, by Prince Philip. In

Valencia and Barcelona the workmen employed on the buildings of the

Inquisition were given nominal appointments under which they claimed

immunity. In Lima the tribunal complained to the viceroy of the arrest

of a bricklayer who was working for it, but it got no satisfaction. In

Barcelona the tribunal granted inhibition with censures on the civil

court, in which the brother of a familiar was suing a merchant on a

protested bill of exchange.[1066]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _IMMUNITY OF FAMILIARS_]

We have seen the limitations imposed by Ferdinand and the bull

_Pastoralis officii_ and the reiteration of the principle that the

plaintiff must seek justice in the court of the defendant. As far as

regards Castile, Charles V had overthrown this in criminal matters for

both officials and familiars. Civil cases remained in a somewhat

undetermined state, especially concerning familiars, the inquisitors

endeavoring to grasp as far as they could both the active and passive

fuero. When, in 1551, complaints came from Valencia that the tribunal

was collecting debts for familiars, Inquisitor-general Valdés wrote that

he did not know how this had come to pass and called for precise

information as to when it had commenced and generally as to the method

observed in the civil cases, active and passive, of familiars, so that

he could answer Prince Philip.[1067] There was a good deal of

uncertainty about the whole subject; the courts were restive and the

situation was becoming strained. In the endeavor to settle it, Charles,

in 1542, reissued his edict of 1518 with a _sobre carta_ emphatically

commanding its strict observance and forbidding the secular courts from

any cognizance of the criminal cases of officials or familiars.[1068]

This did not mend matters. The courts persisted in exercising

jurisdiction over familiars, the _recurso de fuerza_ was freely invoked

and competencias multiplied. Both sides appealed to Charles, who was in

Germany, and this time the opponents of the Inquisition gained the

advantage. Prince Philip, as regent, issued a cédula, May 15, 1545, in

which he described how laymen, subject to the secular courts, obtained

immunity for their crimes on pretext of being familiars; how the

tribunals, in defending them, cast excommunications on the officers of

justice, through which scandals and disquiet were daily increasing, and

the course of justice was impeded. The familiars were in no way entitled

to immunity from the secular courts, as they were not officials,

although a different custom existed in Aragon and the inquisitors

pretended to it in Castile, under the cédula of 1518 and the sobrecédula

of 1542, but these were both irregular, not having been despatched by

the Council and Secretariat of Castile as is customary and necessary.

Therefore in order that delinquent familiars may not remain unpunished

and be induced to commit crimes by the prospect of immunity, the emperor

ordered the matter to be thoroughly discussed and meanwhile the cédulas

of 1518 and 1542 to be suspended, in conformity with which they are

declared to be suspended, inquisitors are ordered no longer to take

cognizance of the cases of familiars and the secular courts are

instructed to prosecute them in accordance with the laws.[1069]

The Inquisition did not acquiesce tamely in this defeat, which was

aggravated by the secular courts interpreting it as giving them

jurisdiction over officials as well as familiars. It protested and

resisted and showed so little obedience that the Córtes of Valladolid,

in 1548, asked that it should be compelled to confine itself to its

proper functions in matters of faith.[1070] Quarrels and recursos de

fuerza continued and finally the whole question was referred to a junta

consisting of two members each from the Suprema and Council of Castile.

The representatives of the Inquisition conceded that it had been in

fault in appointing too many familiars and in claiming for them all the

exemptions of salaried officials; those of the Council admitted that the

courts had erred in interfering with civil and criminal cases properly

appertaining to the Holy Office. Mutual concessions were made, resulting

in what was known as the Concordia of Castile, March 10, 1553--an

agreement which the Inquisition admitted, a century later, that neither

side had observed.[1071]

[Sidenote: _THE LAW IN CASTILE_]

The Concordia was silent as to the salaried officials, thus leaving them

in possession of the active and passive fuero in both civil and criminal

cases. It devoted itself wholly to the familiars who, in this as in so

much else, were the leading source of trouble. After regulating, as we

shall see hereafter, their number and character, it defined that in

civil cases they should be subject wholly to the secular courts. For the

greater crimes, moreover, cognizance was also reserved exclusively to

the courts, the list comprising treason, unnatural crime, sedition,

violating royal safe-conducts, disobedience to royal mandates,

treachery, rape, carrying off women, highway robbery, arson,

house-breaking and crimes of greater magnitude than these, as well as

resistance or formal disrespect to the royal courts. Those who held

office were also amenable to the courts for official malfeasance. This

left only petty offences subject to inquisitorial jurisdiction and for

these familiars were liable to arrest by secular magistrates, subject to

being immediately transferred to the Inquisition. For doubtful cases it

was provided that, when the lay judge and inquisitor could not agree,

there should be no contention, but the evidence was to be sent to the

court of the king, where two members each of the Suprema and Council of

Castile should decide as to the jurisdiction; for this a majority was

required and, in case of equal division of votes, the matter went to the

king for final decision. No appeal from this was allowed and meanwhile

the accused was retained in the prison to which he had been consigned at

arrest.[1072] This process of adjudicating disputes became known as

_competencia_, the details of which will be considered hereafter.

Whatever concession the Inquisition made in thus surrendering a portion

of its jurisdiction over familiars was more than compensated by what was

evidently part of the agreement, the issue on the same day of Philip's

cédula addressed to all judicial bodies forbidding them to entertain

appeals of any kind from the acts of the Holy Office (p. 341). It thus

secured complete autonomy; it was rendered self-judging, responsible to

the king alone, and the populations were surrendered wholly to its

discretion.

As far as regards Castile, the Concordia of 1553 was final. It is true

that the royal cédula of Aranjuez, April 28, 1583, extended its

principles to the salaried officials, but there is no trace of the

observance of this.[1073] Another point was subjected to a temporary

modification. The absolute denial of justice in allowing inquisitors to

have their civil suits decided by their own tribunals attracted

attention, after nearly a century, and the Suprema, February 18, 1641,

ordered that these cases should be referred to it, when, if it deemed

proper, it would commission the tribunal to hear them, but this slender

restriction seems to have elicited so active an opposition that it was

withdrawn within three months by a counter order of May 14th, restoring

to the inquisitors the power of sitting in judgement on their own

cases.[1074] It is easy to conceive the amount of oppression and wrong

which they could thus inflict.

With these trivial exceptions the Concordia remained the law in Castile.

In 1568 Philip II issued a cédula stating that it had not been observed,

wherefore he ordered strict compliance with it and, as late as 1775

Carlos III treats it as being still in force and to be respected by all

parties.[1075] If Philip, however, expected peace between the rival and

jealous jurisdictions, as the result of the Concordia, he deceived

himself. Both were eager for quarrel and opportunities to gratify

combative instincts were not lacking. The secular courts resented the

intrusion of the Inquisition, which was careful to keep antagonism

active by the insulting arrogance of its methods, whenever a question

arose between them. There was ample field for contention, for not only

were the excepted crimes loosely defined, giving rise to many nice

questions, but the Inquisition acutely argued that before the royal

courts could assume possession of a case the crime must be fully proved,

for the familiar was entitled to the fuero until his guilt was

ascertained, thus keeping in its own hands all the vital parts of the

process and excluding the secular justices.[1076] Then the circle of

excepted cases was enlarged, not only for familiars but for salaried

officials, by various edicts from time to time, as we have seen with

regard to pistols and discharging fire-arms. Another instance was a

cédula of Philip II, in 1566, including among exceptions the violation

of royal pragmáticas, which was put to the test, in 1594, when the

Chancellery of Granada prosecuted a notary of the tribunal for wearing a

larger ruff than was allowed by a sumptuary pragmática; the tribunal

excommunicated the judges but, when the case was carried up to the

Suprema and Council of Castile, the Chancellery was justified.[1077] In

the frenzied efforts to maintain the value of the worthless vellon

coinage, Philip IV, by repeated edicts between 1631 and 1660, deprived

familiars and salaried officials of the fuero in cases of demanding more

than the legal premium for the precious metals or of counterfeiting or

importing base money.[1078] Frauds on the revenue from tobacco also

deprived all offenders of exemptions, by a pragmática of 1719, but it

was difficult to enforce and had to be repeated in 1743, after which at

last Inquisitor-general Prado y Cuesta, in 1747, ordered the tribunals

to obey it.[1079]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _VALENCIA_]

Although Navarre was under the crown of Castile, the Concordia of 1553

was not extended to it until 1665, by a royal cédula of May 9th. The

questions which agitated the rest of Spain seem to have rarely presented

themselves there, for we hear little of them in that quarter, although,

in 1564, the tribunal of Logroño complained of the intrusion of the

secular courts on its jurisdiction and there were, as we shall see

hereafter, occasional collisions on the subject of witchcraft, which was

_mixti fori_.[1080]

* * * * *

The kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon were the scenes of much greater

trouble than those of Castile, in delimiting the boundaries of the rival

jurisdictions, for they still had institutions which could remonstrate

against abuses and struggle for their removal. We have seen how

recalcitrant they were when the Inquisition was introduced and how

vigorously they struggled against the abuses which followed. In the

Concordias of 1512 and 1520 they secured certain paper guarantees, but

these were brushed aside by the Inquisition with customary ill-faith.

Irritation and hostility became chronic, with the result that they were

denied some of the slender alleviations vouchsafed to Castile, on the

ground that the character of the population and the neighborhood of the

heretics of France rendered it necessary that the Holy Office should be

fortified with greater privileges than in the rest of Spain.

Of the three kingdoms Valencia was the one which gave the least trouble

in this matter. Yet a case occurring in 1540 is highly significant of

the terrorism under which the royal judges discharged their duties. Dr.

Ferrer of Tortosa, one of the judges, appealed to Inquisitor-general

Tavera, representing that in the previous year he had condemned to death

a murderer, who had fully deserved it. Now that the inquisitor had come

his enemies represent that the culprit was a familiar, although he had

never claimed to be one, and it is currently reported that the

inquisitor is about to prosecute him (Ferrer). If he is in fault in the

matter he will cheerfully submit to punishment, but he begs not to be

subjected to the infamy of a trial. To this appeal the Suprema responded

by ordering the inquisitor to send it such evidence as he may gather and

to await a reply before taking action.[1081] It is evident that all

criminal judges lived in an atmosphere of dread lest at any moment the

honest discharge of their functions might precipitate them into a

disastrous conflict with the tribunal. It justifies the complaints of

the Córtes of 1547 and 1553, the latter of which declared that the

inquisitors exceeded their jurisdiction, intervening in many affairs,

both civil and criminal, that had no connection with heresy. This caused

great disturbance of justice and contentions between the jurisdictions,

in which the tribunal assumed to be supreme and to define the limits of

its own power. Great as were these evils they were daily increasing and

were becoming intolerable, wherefore the Córtes prayed that the subject

be investigated and a clear definition be made between the royal

jurisdiction and that of the Inquisition.[1082]

[Sidenote: _VALENCIA_]

This resulted in a junta of the members of the Suprema and of the

Council of Aragon, who agreed upon a Concordia, published by Prince

Philip, May 11, 1554. In this he recited that, in consequence of the

great numbers of familiars and their endeavoring to have all their

cases, civil and criminal, tried by the tribunal, which sought to

protect them in this against the claims of the royal judges, there had

arisen many contentions in which the whole of the Audiencia had been

excommunicated. To put an end to this unseemly strife he had caused the

junta to be held, with the result of the following articles, which he

ordered both sides to observe, the royal officials under pain of a

thousand florins, and the inquisitors as they desired to please him and

the emperor. In this the first point was the reduction of the excessive

number of familiars; in the city of Valencia they were not to exceed one

hundred and eighty; in towns of more than a thousand hearths there might

be eight, in those of over five hundred six, in smaller places four,

except that in the coast towns there might be two more. Lists of all

appointees were to be furnished to the magistrates, both to check excess

and to identify individuals. In civil suits they were to enjoy the

passive fuero but not the active; if in contracts they renounced this

privilege the condition held good, while, if the other party agreed to

accept the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, he could not be cited before

it. In criminal cases, the Inquisition had sole cognizance with respect

to officials, their servants and families and to familiars but not to

their wives, children and servants. When contests arose with secular

courts, mild measures were to be used and excommunication be avoided as

far as possible. When a familiar entered into a treaty of peace and

truce, it was to be executed before an inquisitor and, if it contained a

condition of death for violation, the inquisitor, in case of such

violation, was to relax the culprit to the secular arm to be put to

death. Familiars who were in trade were not to enjoy the fuero for

frauds or violations of municipal laws and officials holding public

office were liable to the secular courts for malfeasance therein.[1083]

This would appear to grant to the Inquisition all that it had any excuse

for asking, but it was impossible to bind the inquisitors to any

compact, or to observe any rules. A letter to them from the Suprema, in

September, 1560, reminds them that it had already ordered them, in the

case of Juan Sánchez, to deprive him of his familiarship, to withdraw

their inhibitions and censures, and to remit the affair to the secular

judge, in spite of which they had gone forward and rendered sentence;

now, as Sánchez is not a familiar, they must positively send the case

back to the ordinary courts.[1084] When such persistence in injustice

existed, it is not surprising that, at the Córtes of Monzon, in 1564,

the deputies of Valencia, like those of Aragon and Catalonia, presented

a series of complaints, bearing chiefly on abuses of jurisdiction. We

happen to have a view of the situation by an impartial observer, the

Venetian envoy, Giovanni Soranzo, in his relation of 1565, which is

worth repeating, although we must bear in mind that it was impossible

for a Venetian statesman to give Philip II credit for the honest

fanaticism which underlay his character. After alluding to the

privileges of the Aragonese kingdoms, he proceeds "The king uses every

opportunity to deprive them of these great privileges and, knowing that

there is no easier or more certain method than through the Inquisition,

he is continually increasing its authority. In these last Córtes the

Aragonese prayed that the Inquisition should take cognizance of no cases

save those of religion and said that they grieved greatly that it

embraced infinite things as distant as possible from its jurisdiction

and they presented many cases not pertaining in any way to its duties.

In truth at present the Inquisition interposes in everything, without

respect to any one of whatever rank or position, and we may say

positively that this tribunal is the real master which rules and

dominates all Spain. The king replied that the Inquisition was not to

be discussed in the Córtes, when they all arose and threatened to depart

without finishing any other business, if the king did not wish them to

discuss a matter of so much importance to them. The king quieted them by

promising that, when he returned to Castile, he would listen to their

complaints and would not fail to grant the appropriate relief. But

undoubtedly he did this so that the Córtes should end without a revolt,

his intention being to increase rather than to diminish the importance

of the Inquisition, clearly recognizing it as the means of maintaining

his reputation and of keeping the people in obedience and terror."[1085]

[Sidenote: _VALENCIA_]

Soranzo's account of the Córtes is not wholly complete. When Philip

promised relief after his return to Castile, the deputies replied that

they did not choose to be convoked in Castile and that they would go no

further with the subsidio which he wanted until they were satisfied. The

sessions were prolonged; the patience of the deputies outwore his own

and he promised that he would have a visitation made of the tribunals of

the three kingdoms and then, in concert with their Diputados, issue a

new series of regulations.[1086] The promise was kept. Francisco de Soto

Salazar, a member of the Suprema, was sent, in 1566, with full powers

and instructions to investigate all abuses, but especially those

connected with jurisdiction in matters not of faith. In Valencia his

attention was particularly called to a practice of appointing deputy

inquisitors and officials and investing them with the privilege of the

fuero as well as mechanics employed on the palace of the Inquisition and

houses of the officials and also to the overgrown number of familiars

and their character.[1087] In Catalonia, especially, he found much to

criticize, as we shall have occasion to see hereafter, for he performed

his mission thoroughly and conscientiously; he listened to all

complaints, investigated them and bore back to the Suprema full reports

which bore hardly on the methods of all the tribunals. Prolonged debates

ensued between the Suprema, the Council of Aragon and the Diputados and

finally, in 1568, a new Concordia was issued. It is significant that it

no longer was a royal decree but bore the shape of instructions from

Inquisitor-general Espinosa and the Suprema to the tribunals, and the

king only appeared in it as communicating it to his representatives and

ordering its observance under pain of a thousand florins, coupled with

commands to favor and reverence the Inquisition and its officials, to

give them all necessary aid and to protect and defend their privileges.

The Concordia thus granted to Valencia confirmed that of 1554 and

ordered its observance, adding a number of special provisions, highly

suggestive of the abuses which had flourished. As affording a view in

some detail of the causes of popular irritation and of the remedies

sought, I subjoin an abstract of the articles bearing on the subject.

Outside of the city the local magistrates are to have cognizance of

civil cases of familiars involving less than twelve libras.

Familiars of other districts settling in Valencia lose the fuero,

but retain it if the residence is temporary.

The number of familiars is to be reduced to that provided in 1554,

weeding out the least desirable.

They must present themselves with their commissions to the local

magistrates in order to be entered on the lists, without which they

forfeit their exemption.

The provision depriving those in trade of the fuero, for frauds and

offences committed in their business, which has not been observed,

is to be enforced.

Crimes committed prior to appointment are not entitled to the

fuero.

No cleric or religious or powerful noble or baron is to be

appointed.

Consultors are not to be considered as officials, but only persons

holding commissions from the inquisitor-general, to whom may be

added a steward of the prison and two advocates of prisoners.

In future the servants of officials must really be servants living

with them and receiving regular wages in order to be protected by

the inquisitors.

Inquisitors are not to interfere, at the petition of an official or

familiar, with the regulations of the college of surgeons.

Any familiar who is a carpenter and who brings lumber from the

sierra of Cuenca shall not be protected by the inquisitors, but

shall be left for judgement to the secular court.

Outside of cases of heresy inquisitors must not interfere with the

execution of justice by the royal judges under pretext that

culprits have committed offences pertaining to them, but in such

cases the judges shall be notified and allowed to execute justice,

after which the inquisitors can inflict punishment. In case of

heresy, however, a prisoner can be demanded, to be returned after

trial, provided he is not sentenced to relaxation.

Familiars are not to be protected in the violation of municipal

regulations, nor, during pestilence, in the refusal to observe the

regulations for the avoidance of contagion; they must submit for

inspection the goods which they bring in and the royal judges

shall not be prevented from imposing the penalties provided in the

royal pragmática.

Commissioners shall not form competencias with secular or

ecclesiastical judges, nor shall their assistants enjoy greater

privileges than familiars.

Persons temporarily employed to make arrests, or to read the

edicts, or as procurators, etc., shall not be defended by the

inquisitors.

As the inquisitorial district of Valencia comprehends Teruel in

Aragon and Tortosa in Catalonia, those places are not to be

exempted from the Concordia under the pretext that the Concordia of

1554 spoke of the kingdom of Valencia.

The widows of officials, while remaining unmarried, enjoy both

civil and criminal fuero, but not their children and families as

has been the case, but widows of familiars are deprived of it and

are not to be defended by the inquisitors.

The judge employed by the inquisitors to hear the cases of

officials and familiars is to be dismissed; such cases are to be

heard by the inquisitors outside of the regular hours of service

and for this they are to charge no fees.

Servants and families of salaried officials are only to have the

passive fuero in civil cases, like familiars.

Inquisitors are no longer to defend familiars in matters of the

apportionment of irrigating waters, injuries to harvests,

vineyards, pastures, forests, furnishing of lights, licences for

building, street-cleaning, road-mending and furnishing provisions.

Inquisitors are not to publish edicts with excommunication for the

discovery of debts, thefts or other hidden offences committed

against officials and familiars, nor such edicts against any

delinquents save in cases of heresy.

Persons arrested, except for heresy, are not to be confined in the

secret prison but in the public one, where they can confer with

their counsel and procurators, and they are to be allowed to hear

mass and receive the sacraments.

Familiars holding office are not to be defended for official frauds

or malfeasance, but the secular authorities are to be freely

allowed to administer justice.

Inquisitors shall not give safe-conducts to persons outlawed or

banished by the royal judges, except in cases of faith and then

only for the time necessary to appear before them.

When any official or familiar, in criminal or civil cases not of

faith, has consented tacitly or explicitly to the secular

jurisdiction or has pleaded clergy, the inquisitors shall not

protect him nor inhibit the secular judges. And if any official or

familiar inherits property in litigation the case shall remain in

the court where it is pending.

As familiars in civil cases have only the passive and not the

active fuero there shall no longer, as heretofore, be artifices

employed, such as pretended criminal prosecutions and interdicts,

to obtain cognizance of such cases, but they shall be conducted in

the court of the defendant.

When a suit between outsiders has been decided, if any official or

familiar intervenes to prevent the execution of the decision, on

the pretext that he is in possession of the property at issue or a

part of it, the inquisitors shall not support him in it.

[Sidenote: _VALENCIA_]

If an outsider commits a crime while in company with an official or

familiar, or is an accomplice in a crime committed by an official

or familiar, the inquisitors shall not have cognizance of his case

but only of that of the official or familiar.

When a grave crime has been committed by or against a familiar the

inquisitors shall not send a judge to take testimony or punish,

with salary by the day, but shall avoid expense by making a

commissioner gather the evidence.

Inquisitors shall no longer enforce contracts of peace and truce

unless they have been entered into before them or by their order.

Inquisitors shall not have cognizance of contracts between

outsiders because of a clause submitting them to the fuero, nor of

cases of donations or cession to officials or familiars.

Inquisitors shall not protect widows of officials and familiars in

refusing to pay imposts and contributions.

When inquisitors have to summon secular judges before them it must

be only in cases where it is unavoidable and then only with great

consideration.

If a bankrupt is a familiar the inquisitors have cognizance, but

not in the case of an outsider under pretext that an official or

familiar is a creditor.

Familiars shall not make arrests or other execution of justice

without orders from inquisitors.

Inquisitors shall not proceed against the priors and officials of

guilds and confraternities who levy upon a familiar, who is a

member, for dues under the rules of the association, or when a

familiar has had the administration of a church or hermitage or

hospital and is sued for debts or contributions due.[1088]

The other prayers and demands of the Córtes were rejected, but those

which were granted sufficiently indicate the abusive manner in which the

tribunal had extended its jurisdiction, how that jurisdiction was

admittedly used to protect officials and familiars in violations of law,

and how intolerable was the influence on municipal and commercial life

of letting loose on the community a class who were beyond the reach of

justice. We can readily understand the eagerness of the lawless and

unscrupulous to obtain positions which secured for them such privileges

and why it was impossible to restrain inquisitors within the prescribed

limits of their appointing power.

After protracted effort the Valencians had thus obtained promise of

substantial relief, but as usual it was a promise only made to be

broken. How little intention there was of enforcing the reform was

promptly revealed for, when the authorities naturally ordered the new

Concordia to be printed so that the courts and rural magistrates could

be guided by it in their dealings with the officials and familiars, the

inquisitors at once ordered the printers to suspend work and appealed

to the king, who commanded that all copies should be surrendered.[1089]

Although the settlement was permanent and remained in force until the

end, it apparently never was published for general information. At the

moment it was regarded as greatly limiting the secular jurisdiction of

the tribunal, and the worthy Valencian inquisitor, Juan de Rojas, says

that he is ashamed to allude to its depressed and weakened condition,

which has worked great injury to the faith.[1090] His grief was

superfluous; the tribunal was not accustomed to be bound by law and its

methods of enforcing its assumed prerogatives were difficult to resist.

In 1585 the Córtes had a fresh accumulation of grievances which, by

order of the king, the Suprema sent to the inquisitors with orders to

report the method of meeting them most advantageous to the Holy

Office.[1091]

[Sidenote: _VALENCIA_]

If space permitted abundant cases could be cited to show the justice of

these complaints. In fact, the correspondence between the Suprema and

the tribunal, during the last fifteen years of the sixteenth century, is

largely devoted to cases of competencias arising from crimes of all

descriptions committed by familiars and to the punishments inflicted by

the tribunal, the heaviest of which is the galleys, in two or three

cases. Sometimes the charges are dismissed and as a whole the criminals

seem to have escaped so lightly that prosecution only served to

encourage their lawlessness.[1092] There was no improvement as time went

on and a case occurring in 1632 is worth alluding to as illustrating the

results of the _fuero_ and the spirit in which it was administered by

the tribunal. Don Martin Santis was murdered by pistol shots, while

returning with some Dominican frailes in a coach from the Grao of

Valencia to the city. Four notorious familiars, Pedro Rebert, Joan

Ciurana, Jaime Blau and Calixto Tafalla, were suspected and were

arrested by the Audiencia. The tribunal claimed them, a competencia was

formed and the case came up before the Suprema and the Council of

Aragon. The Marquis of los Velez, the viceroy, took advantage of it to

represent to Philip IV the disorders and scandals caused by the criminal

familiars who were protected by the Inquisition. This paper was referred

to the Council of Aragon which, on July 21st, presented a consulta on

the subject. There is, it says, no peace or safety to be hoped for in

Valencia unless there is reform in the selection of familiars, for there

is no crime committed there in which they are not principals or

accomplices, in the confidence of escape through the intervention of the

tribunal, since there is no one, however guilty he may be of atrocious

crime, who is not speedily seen walking the streets in freedom. In all

disturbances, familiars are recognized as ringleaders and their object

in gaining appointment is only to enjoy immunity for their crimes. In

Valencia, Pedro Revert, Joan Ciurana and Sebastian Adell, all familiars,

are the chief disturbers of the peace. So in Villareal, a place

notorious for murders, Jaime Blau has been the moving spirit. In

Benignamin, where there are constant outbreaks, the leaders of the

factions are Gracian España, Martin Barcela and others, likewise

familiars. It is the same in Orihuela with Juan García de Espejo and

others. Scarce anywhere is there trouble in which familiars are not

concerned and they daily become more insolent through impunity, for the

inquisitors never punish with the requisite severity. One result is that

it is almost impossible to procure evidence against these malefactors,

in consequence of witnesses knowing that they will shortly be released

and will avenge themselves. Justice cannot be administered and still

greater evils are to be anticipated if the king does not provide a

remedy. If it is difficult to revise the Concordia and introduce the

necessary provisions, at least the king can order that these familiars

be dismissed and greater care be exercised in new appointments. All the

viceroys have recognized these impediments to justice, for these people

only seek exemption from the secular courts in order to be free to

commit crimes.

We might imagine much of this to be exaggeration were not its truth

tacitly admitted by the Suprema, when transmitting it to Valencia with

instructions for information on which to base a reply. There is no

rebuke or exhortation to amendment, but the inquisitors are told to act

with the utmost caution and secrecy; to report the number of familiars

in Valencia and how many are unmarried; to give details as to the cases

cited by the Council of Aragon and what punishments were inflicted; what

was the record of those inculpated in the murder of Don Martin Santís;

covertly to obtain statistics of crime in Valencia for the last ten

years, committed by those not exempt, the punishments inflicted by the

royal court and whether these were subsequently remitted; whether, when

familiars were tried by the tribunal, accomplices were prosecuted in

the royal courts, and if so what sentences were pronounced; also to make

secret investigation as to promises made to familiars by the judges to

let them off easily if they would not claim the fuero, and finally to

furnish a list of cases in which the tribunal has punished its officials

for trifling offences. Altogether the effort was evidently much less to

offer a justification than to make a _tu quoque_ rejoinder. Apparently

the statistics asked of the tribunal were unsatisfactory, for there was

no use made of them in the answer presented October 6th, in which, after

seeking to explain away the assertions of the viceroy and Council of

Aragon, the Suprema accused the secular courts and their officials of

perpetual prosecution of familiars, who were arrested on the slightest

suspicion, assumed to be guilty and then forced by cruel treatment to

renounce the fuero. The suggestions for reform were airily brushed

aside. To dismiss delinquent familiars would be almost impossible, in

view of its effect upon their families and kindred. To enquire of the

royal officials as to the character of aspirants for appointment was

inadmissible, as it would admit them to participation in a matter with

which they had nothing to do. The true cure for the troubles would be to

secure the Inquisition in its rights by forbidding the secular courts

from assuming any jurisdiction over familiars. In short it was a

passionate outburst, precluding all hope of amendment, to which the king

replied by telling the Suprema to see that the tribunal did not employ

violent measures against the royal officials, but report to him any

excess for his action. Evidently nothing was to be hoped for from him

and indeed he had written on August 6th to the viceroy that the case

must take its regular course as a competencia and the inquisitors must

not use inhibitory censures or summon the judges to appear before them.

The result was the usual one that the tribunal obtained cognizance of

the case; one, at least, of the accused, Jaime Blau, was found guilty,

for we have his insufficient sentence, condemning him to exile and a

fine of three hundred ducats--a sentence which goes far to explain the

eagerness of the inquisitors to extend their jurisdiction, for they

rarely inflicted corporal punishments on their delinquent officials,

when pecuniary ones were so much more profitable.[1093]

[Sidenote: _VALENCIA_]

The same spirit was shown when, in 1649, disturbances between armed

bands led Philip IV to order the Suprema to instruct the inquisitors

that familiars and officials participating in these brawls, or lending

aid to peacebreakers, should not enjoy the fuero and that the tribunal

should not defend them or interfere with the course of justice. Instead

of obeying, the Suprema replied that it suspended the order until the

king should be better informed. It then proceeded with a long argument

to show that the faith would be imperilled by such abridgement of the

privileges of the Holy Office. Besides, these factional contests had

always been customary in Valencia and it was impossible to avoid

favoring one side or the other, for these armed bands demanded whatever

they wanted--money, or food or clothes--and people were forced to give

it at the risk of having their harvests burnt or their throats cut. The

consulta ended with the impudent suggestion that in future it would be

much better for the king, before issuing such decrees, to communicate to

the Suprema the consultas of the other councils on which they were based

so that a junta could be formed and the matter be debated.[1094]

Evidently the Suprema held that this semi-savage state of society should

be encouraged by favoring the factionists and, under such conditions,

amelioration was impossible. Rivalry of jurisdiction paralyzed the law

and there was perpetual friction over the veriest trifles, for the

tribunal was always on the watch to resist the minutest infraction of

its prerogatives or disregard of its dignity. When, in 1702, Jacinto

Nadal, a familiar of Onteniente, received a summons to appear before Don

Pedro Domenech, a criminal judge of the Audiencia, he at once appealed

to the tribunal which sent word, on May 29th, that he had been under

arrest since March 25th and the papers in any charge against him must be

surrendered to it. It turned out that Domenech only wanted him to enter

security for his son and, when this was done, the inquisitors complained

that Nadal had done wrong in going to the judge after appealing to them,

and that Domenech had not treated them with proper respect, so that some

months were required to arrange a truce between them.[1095]

* * * * *

Aragon was a source of greater trouble than Valencia. The popular spirit

was more independent, it had resisted the introduction of the

Inquisition until the murder of San Pedro Arbués had rendered further

opposition impossible, it had been cheated of the fruits of the tenacity

of Juan Prat and it possessed an institution peculiar to itself,

designed to limit the encroachments of the sovereign power and well

adapted to restrain the arrogance of anything less formidable than the

mingled spiritual and temporal jurisdiction of the Holy Office.

[Sidenote: _ARAGON_]

The origin of the court of the Justicia of Aragon was fondly attributed

by the Aragonese to the legendary times of the kingdom of Sobrarve and

there is fair probability in the theory of the latest writer on the

subject that it was derived by the Christians from the conquered

Moors.[1096] In the thirteenth century the Justicia was already judge

between the king and his subjects; every precaution was taken to render

him independent; he was irremovable by the king and even his resignation

was void; he could accept no office from the king; he was not liable to

arrest and in a case of prosecution the Córtes sat in judgement on him;

every person in the kingdom was required to obey his commands, to

respect his decisions and to aid in their enforcement. His court

consisted of his assessors or lieutenants, originally appointed by him,

but subsequently by the king. The Córtes of 1528 increased the number to

five, submitting fifteen names to Charles V, who selected five, while

the rest were placed in a _bolsa_ and drawn as vacancies occurred. They

were virtually the equals of the Justicia, for the assent of a majority

was required in all judgements and all precautions were taken to secure

their independence.[1097] It is true that, in spite of the inviolability

of the Justicia, there were cases on record in which Justicias had been

made way with and that, on the suppression of the rising caused by

Antonio Pérez, in 1591, the Justicia, Juan de Lanuza, was beheaded

without trial, and in the ensuing Córtes of Tarazona the appointment of

both Justicia and lieutenants was surrendered to the king.[1098]

Nevertheless the court of the Justicia was regarded by the Aragonese

with the greatest pride and reverence, as the safeguard of their

liberties and the highest expression of judicial authority existing in

the world; it was the bond that united the state and the foundation of

its tranquillity. When the Justicia authorized the cry of _Contrafuero!

Viva la Libertad y ayuda á la Libertad!_ it summoned every citizen to

sally forth in arms to defend the liberties of the land. Moreover, he

had the power of withholding from execution all papal decrees, and his

authority in ecclesiastical matters in general caused him to be

popularly termed the married pope.[1099]

So far as we are concerned, the power of the court was exercised through

two processes, the _manifestacion_ and the _firma_. The former was a

kind of habeas corpus, under which a person had to be produced before

it, either to be liberated on bail or to be confined in the _carcel de

manifestados_--a special prison over which even the king had no

jurisdiction. The summons of a manifestacion had to be obeyed, even if

the subject were on the gallows with the halter around his neck, or if

it was addressed to the highest secular or spiritual court of the land.

It was a privilege to which every citizen was entitled; when, in 1532,

Charles V sent orders that Don Pedro de Luna should be deprived of it,

he was not obeyed, and a special envoy was sent to him in Germany,

asking the prompt withdrawal of the command as, until the return of the

messenger, the land would be in great suspense. The _firma_ was of

various kinds, but in general it was of the nature of an injunction,

stopping all proceedings and summoning the parties before the court of

the Justicia, where their cases would be determined, and it was

especially useful in preventing arbitrary arrests and seizure of

property. Failure to obey a firma was promptly followed by seizure of

temporalities and, under a fuero of King Martin, it could be served on

the king himself. One was served on Charles V, at Valladolid, and again

one on the papal nuncio and, when the latter disregarded it, his

temporalities were sequestrated. Such a jurisdiction could not fail to

come into collision with the Inquisition, against which its powers were

frequently invoked, and the favorite device of the tribunal, of evading

service by closing its doors, was unavailing, for attaching the firma to

the gates was held to be legal service. In 1561, the Justicia granted a

manifestacion to Don Juan Francés del Ariño, in a case not of faith; the

tribunal prepared to answer by fulminating excommunications, but the

court issued a _monitorio_ against it, when a settlement was reached

which both parties considered satisfactory. In the same year, when the

inquisitors arrested Bartolomé Garate, secretary of the court, it served

a monitorio upon them and, in 1563, it did the same for the censures

issued against Augustin de Morlanes, of the criminal council of the

Audiencia. In 1626, when Pedro Banet, secretary of the tribunal, was

accused of the murder of Juan Domingo Serveto, the action of the

inquisitors led to the issue against them of a firma and monitorio,

under which their temporalities were seized and this was followed by

another firma, prohibiting the use of excommunication.[1100]

[Sidenote: _ARAGON_]

Under such institutions, animated by such a spirit, it was inevitable

that the extension of the temporal jurisdiction of the Holy Office

should provoke a bitter and prolonged conflict. We have seen the early

struggles of this; how concessions were wrung from monarch and

Inquisition, to be disregarded by them as soon as the momentary pressure

had passed, and how the remonstrances of the Córtes of 1528 and 1533

were contemptuously brushed aside. The grievances were real and the

Suprema knew them to be such, but the policy was invariable of denying

their existence and refusing amendment when asked for by the sufferers.

The temper in which complaints were heard was significantly manifested

when, in 1533, the Córtes of Monzon adopted certain articles and

presented them to Inquisitor-general Manrique and the Suprema, with the

request that they should be adopted. Thereupon Miguel de Galbe, fiscal

of the tribunal of Lérida, addressed to Manrique a formal accusation,

naming four members of the Córtes, who seem to have been the committee

deputed to communicate with the Suprema, asking that they and all who

had advocated the articles should be prosecuted as fautors of heretics

and impeders and disturbers of the Inquisition, while the articles in

question should be publicly torn and burnt as condemned and suspect of

heresy, injurious to the honor of God and prejudicial to the Holy

Office.[1101] Parliamentary discussion had doubtless been warm and

freedom of debate and legislation was contrary to the principles of the

Holy Office. Possibly it was the unpleasant experience of the Suprema on

this occasion that led it to keep away from the Córtes of Monzon in

1537 and to order the inquisitors to do likewise or, if their duties

called them there, to keep silent. Thus, when the Córtes asked the

emperor to make the Inquisition obey the laws, he was able to promise

accordingly and then the Suprema could subsequently argue it away in a

consulta.[1102]

The remedial decree of Prince Philip, in 1545, was limited to Castile,

and Aragon was coolly told that its customs were different. Abuses

continued unchecked and at the Córtes of Monzon, in 1547, a long series

of grievances was presented to the inquisitor-general, as though the

crown had ceased to be a factor. The bull _Pastoralis officii_, by which

Leo X had confirmed the Concordia of 1512, had limited the number of

familiars to ten permanent ones in Saragossa and ten temporary ones

elsewhere as needed, in place of which the number was between five

hundred and a thousand; the bull had prescribed that they should be

married men of good character, in place of which many were bandits and

homicides and of notoriously evil life; the bull had ordered dismissal

for officials and familiars who did not pay their debts or who engaged

in trade, whereas the fuero was held to cover debts contracted and

offences committed prior to appointment; when they became bankrupt they

took refuge with the tribunal and the creditors were unpaid; if they

were creditors of a bankrupt they seized all the assets and others got

nothing; men procured appointments in order to revenge themselves in

safety on their enemies; it was impossible to collect debts of them and

this protection was extended even to women. A woman who claimed that her

father had been a familiar was thus defended from her creditors; the

brother of a notary of the tribunal, who had committed an offence,

caused the aggrieved parties to be arrested and the inquisitors held

them until they were forced to a compromise. How little hope there was

of redress for all this is visible in the contemptuous indifference with

which Inquisitor-general Valdés answered the several articles. As to

bandits and homicides being made familiars, he said the Inquisition had

need of all kinds of officials for its various functions, and as to the

specific complaints the stereotyped answer was that any one deeming

himself aggrieved could appeal to the Suprema and get justice.[1103]

The Concordia of 1553 was applicable to Castile alone and that of 1554

to Valencia. Aragon remained without the slender alleviation provided

for in the latter, for the adjustments of 1512 and 1521 were treated as

non-existent. At the Córtes of 1563-4 the complaints were so vivacious

that, as we have seen, Philip promised investigation which resulted in

the Concordia of 1568. The formula for Aragon was virtually the same as

the combined Valencia Concordias of 1554 and 1568, the evils with which

the two kingdoms were afflicted being virtually the same. As usual,

familiars were the class that excited the bitterest hostility. Their

commissions were all to be called in and then sixty were to be appointed

for Saragossa, while the other towns were assigned from eight to one or

two according to population. Their character was to be closely

scrutinized and all bandits, homicides, criminals, powerful nobles,

frailes and clerics were to be excluded, and no one was to enjoy the

fuero whose name was not on lists presented to the magistrates. They

were to have, in criminal matters, the active and passive fuero but in

civil suits only the passive; it was the same with servants of

officials, while officials themselves had active and passive in both

civil and criminal. The utmost caution and moderation was prescribed in

the employment of inhibitions and excommunications of the royal judges,

and the royal alguazils were not to be arrested save in cases of grave

and notorious infraction of inquisitorial rights.[1104]

[Sidenote: _ARAGON_]

The Concordia did not bring concord. In 1571 there arose a bitter

dispute between the tribunal and the court of the Justicia, in which

excommunications were freely used and, in December, the Diputados

appealed to Pius V to evoke the case and remove the censures, but he

told them to go to the inquisitor-general. After the death of Pius, the

kingdom insisted with Gregory XIII and, in December, 1572, obtained from

him a brief committing the case to the Suprema or to Ponce de Leon the

new inquisitor-general, but, at the same time, he ordered that some

remedy be found to prevent the inquisitors from abusing the privileges

conceded to them by the canons and the popes.[1105] The next year, 1573,

formal complaints were made by the kingdom of infractions of the

Concordia and, by 1585, aggravation had reached a point that the Córtes

asked for a new concordia. Philip promised to send a person to Saragossa

to gather information as to grievances alleged against certain

inquisitors and officials, after which arrangements were made for the

drafting and acceptance or rejection of a new agreement, but there is no

trace of any resultant understanding.[1106] Quarrelling necessarily

continued with little intermission. In 1613 the removal of the name of

Juan Porquet, a familiar, from _insaculacion_, by the royal commissioner

of Tamarit, gave rise to a great disturbance which was long remembered

and, in 1619, there was a clash between the tribunal and the

captain-general, which caused much scandal, resulting in the governor

being summoned to Madrid, where he was kept for four years.[1107]

Thus it went on until, in 1626, the Córtes were again assembled. It was

known that demands for relief would be made and the Suprema asked Philip

to submit to it whatever articles were proposed, in reply to which he

assured it that there should be no change to its prejudice, but that he

would procure its increase of privilege.[1108] The chief business of the

Córtes was the questions connected with the Inquisition. Philip was not

present and his representative, the Count of Monterrey, did not feel

empowered to grant the demands made. The only absolute action taken was

to adopt as a _fuero_ or law the Concordia of 1568, which hitherto had

only the authority of the orders of the king and inquisitor-general. As

regards reform, it was left to a commission, consisting on one side of

royal appointees and on the other of four delegates named by each of the

four _brazos_ or estates. The commission framed a series of fourteen

articles, by no means radical in their character, but Philip

procrastinated in confirming or rejecting them; the Suprema, in 1627,

appealed to Rome to withhold papal sanction and they were quietly

allowed to drop, on the pretext that the Concordia of 1568, now erected

into law, would suffice to prevent future grounds of complaint. How

futile this was is apparent from a conflict which occurred during the

sitting of the commission. The assessor of the governor, as was his

duty, entered the house of the secretary of the tribunal, _flagrante

delicto_, for a most treacherous murder attributed to him. Although his

obligation to do this was notorious, arrest of subordinates followed on

both sides and the indignant people were with difficulty restrained

from a tumult. The royal officials at once took steps to form a

competencia, in conformity with the Concordia which had just been

erected into a law; this required all proceedings to be suspended but

the inquisitors excommunicated the assessor, refusing to join in the

competencia because, as they asserted, the case was an evident one, thus

assuming that they could set aside all law by merely declaring that a

case was evident.[1109]

[Sidenote: _ARAGON_]

The Inquisition had never been restrained by the Concordia and now that

it had again baffled the Córtes it was still less inclined to submit to

restraint. Quarrels continued as virulent as before, a single example of

which will illustrate its invincible tendency to extend its jurisdiction

on all possible pretexts. Berenguer de San Vicente of Huesca, in 1534,

had founded in that city the College of Santiago and when, in 1538, the

municipality added an endowment of more than six thousand ducats, he

made the magistrates its patrons. In 1542 he procured from Charles V a

cédula, confirmed by the pope, making the inquisitors of Aragon visitors

or inspectors of the college, during the royal pleasure and so long as

they should perform their functions loyally and well. This supervisory

function they stretched in course of time to bring the college and all

its members under their jurisdiction, although in 1643 it was asserted

that the last visitation had been made in 1624. This power they

exercised in most arbitrary fashion. When an attempt was made to burn

the college and the town offered a reward for the detection of the

incendiary, they interposed with the threat of an interdict and

frightened the citizens into submission. In 1643 a pasquinade against

some of the inhabitants led to the prosecution of the rector of the

college, Dr. Juan Lorenzo Salas, who promptly procured letters from the

tribunal inhibiting further proceedings and demanding all the papers.

The patience of Huesca was exhausted. It declared its position to be

intolerable, for the students appealed to the fuero in all disputes with

the townsmen, and the result of the stimulus thus given to that

turbulent element was driving away the population and every one lived in

apprehension of some terrible event. To gain relief it applied to the

Audiencia for a competencia but was told that this was impossible,

whereupon it obtained from the court of the Justicia a _firma_

prohibiting the inquisitors from acting; they refused to allow it to be

served when it was put on the gate of the Aljaferia with notice that if

answer was not made within thirty days it would be followed with exile

and seizure of temporalities. The Suprema ordered the inquisitors to

answer by excommunicating all concerned. Philip was then in Saragossa,

on his way to Catalonia to put himself at the head of his army, for the

disgrace of Olivares had forced him to govern as well as to reign, but

he was compelled to distract his thoughts with these miserable

squabbles. The Council of Aragon appealed to him to require the

inquisitors to show cause why they should not be deprived of the

visitation and to impose silence on all until he should reach a

decision; the Audiencia rendered an opinion that the court of the

Justicia could not refuse to issue the firma and, if the complainant

insisted on its service, it must be served if the whole power of the

kingdom had to be called upon. On the other hand the Suprema declared

that the service of the firma was unexampled and urged the king to

support the Inquisition in a matter on which depended the ruin or the

preservation of the monarchy, for it would be better to close the Holy

Office than to expose its jurisdiction to such disgrace, while in these

calamitous times favor shown to the Inquisition would placate God and

insure the success of his arms. Philip's reply was long and maundering,

irresolute between his reverence for the Inquisition and his fear of

alienating in his extremity the Aragonese by violating their most

cherished privileges. If Huesca would desist from the service of the

firma he would order the tribunal to form a competencia. Huesca,

however, was intractable; its very existence, it asserted, was at stake

and it begged the king not to interfere with the legal remedies to which

it had been forced and, in conveying this reply to the king, the Council

of Aragon warned him that it could not prevent Huesca from serving the

firma, as this would be a notorious violation of the law on the point

regarded by the kingdom as most essential. Yet, after all, the question

was evaded by the device of appointing as visitor of the college the

inquisitor Juan Llano de Valdés, who succeeded in reaching an agreement

with the city. It would seem that thereafter special visitors were

nominated for, in 1665, we hear of such an appointment issued to

Inquisitor Carlos del Hoya and it may be doubted whether Huesca gained

much.[1110]

These disturbances mark the highest point reached by the Inquisition in

Aragon as regards its temporal jurisdiction. How little cause of

complaint it really had, and how Aragon, in spite of its sturdy

independence, had endured greater abuses than those permitted in

Castile, is evinced in a suggestion made by the Suprema, February 11,

1643, in response to a demand from the king to devise some new source of

raising money for the bankrupt treasury. This was that if he would grant

to the familiars of Castile the same privileges of active and passive

fuero enjoyed by those of Aragon, they would cheerfully contribute to a

considerable assessment, with the added advantage of diminishing the

competencias which caused so much trouble and loss of time.[1111] Such a

proposal affords the measure of the wrongs inflicted on society by those

who profited by their exemption from the secular courts, for even the

more limited privileges of the Castilian familiars rendered the position

one to be eagerly sought, in spite of the considerable cost of proving

the condition precedent of _limpieza_, or purity of blood. These evils

were vastly aggravated by the fact, as we shall see hereafter, that the

tribunals never regarded the limitation on numbers prescribed by the

Concordias, but filled the land with these privileged persons who, for

the most part, turned to the best account the protection of the Holy

Office.

[Sidenote: _ARAGON_]

That Aragon should be permanently restive under this adverse

discrimination was inevitable and the time had come when it could

dictate in place of supplicating. Since the Córtes of 1626 twenty years

elapsed before Philip found himself constrained to assemble them again.

The situation was desperate; the Catalan rebellion bade fair to end in

the permanent alienation of the Principality to France, and it was not

wise to impose too severe a strain on the loyalty of Aragon, when the

Córtes met September 20, 1645, for a session of fifteen months. In

preparation for the struggle, the Suprema presented to the king,

September 30th, an elaborately argued memorial in which it told him that

the calamities of the war should lead him to greater zeal in fortifying

the Inquisition with new graces and privileges, so as to win the favor

of God, whose cause they served and from whom alone was relief to be

expected. It was therefore asked that whatever demands on the subject

should be presented should be reserved for discussion with the

inquisitor-general and Suprema.[1112] Philip doubtless made the desired

promise, but the Aragonese had too often found their hopes frustrated in

this manner to submit to it again under existing circumstances.

The Córtes lost no time in presenting their petition on the subject,

which asked for radical reform in all the Aragonese kingdoms. The

jurisdiction of the Inquisition was to be confined to cases of faith and

to civil and criminal actions between its officials. In certain mixed

cases, such as bigamy, unnatural crime, sorcery, solicitation and

censorship it should have jurisdiction cumulative with the appropriate

secular and spiritual courts. A number of minor points were added,

including a demand that all inquisitors and officials should be natives

and it was significantly stated that the petition was presented thus

early in order that it might be granted, so that the Córtes could

proceed more heartily with the servicio that was asked for. This paper

was submitted to the Suprema which replied in a long consulta, March 31,

1646, arguing that the Inquisition had been introduced into Aragon

without law and was independent of all law. It proceeded to demonstrate,

as we have seen (p. 345), that its temporal jurisdiction was inalienable

and that the Concordias were compacts which could not be modified

without its consent. The officials were so abhorred that it would be

impossible for them to perform their duties if they were not thus

protected. If the Córtes should stubbornly insist, the king was urged,

like Charles V in 1518, to remember his soul and his conscience, and to

prefer the loss of part of his dominions rather than consent to anything

contrary to the honor of God and the authority of the Inquisition.[1113]

The policy of the Suprema was to carry the war into Africa, and it

followed this manifesto with another demanding that the court of the

Justicia should be prohibited from issuing firmas and manifestaciones in

cases concerning the Inquisition. Both sides asked for more than they

expected to get and, when the Córtes answered these papers, June 20th,

after numerous citations to disprove the arguments of the Suprema and an

exposition of the hardships caused by the existing system, they opened

the way to a compromise by pointing out that Castile for nearly a

hundred years had enjoyed what Aragon had vainly prayed for, and

concluded by suggesting that the best settlement would be to confer on

Aragon the Concordia of Castile which had been thoroughly discussed by

lawyers and its practical working determined and understood.[1114]

Finally the demands of the Córtes were formulated in a series of

twenty-seven articles, which were prudently declared to be law, whether

confirmed or not by the inquisitor-general. Of these the essential ones

deprived familiars of the active and passive fuero in civil suits, of

the active in criminal cases, and excepted certain specified crimes in

the passive. Servants of salaried officials were put on the same footing

in criminal matters. The number of both familiars and salaried officials

was limited to four hundred and fifty in the whole kingdom and those who

held office were deprived of the fuero for official malfeasance; in

cases not of faith the use of torture was prohibited as well as

confinement in the secret prison; all cases, whether civil or criminal,

were to be concluded within two years; fraudulent alienation of property

to officials, so as to place it under the fuero, was declared invalid;

all persons or bodies, in case of violation of these provisions, had the

right to avail themselves of all remedies known to the laws of the land,

while to the tribunal was reserved the power to employ censures and

other legal processes. A concession was made by granting to both

officials and familiars the right of asylum in their houses, relief from

billeting, exemption from arrest for debt, capacity to hold office and

freedom from tolls, ferriages, etc. In return for this the Córtes were

liberal with the servicio, agreeing to keep in the field two thousand

foot and five hundred horse for four years, paying them two reales a

day, while the king should find them in food, arms and horses.[1115]

[Sidenote: _ARAGON_]

In these conditions there was nothing affecting the faith or restricting

the persecution of heresy; nothing save a prudent regard for the peace

and protection of society from the intolerable burden of gangs of

virtual bandits clothed in inviolability. Yet Philip resisted to the

last extremity these reasonable concessions, which merely placed Aragon

on the same footing as Castile. We are told that he declared that he

cherished the Inquisition as the apple of his eye and that he exhausted

every means to preserve its privileges. He offered to concede everything

else that was asked; he endeavored to win the Aragonese by bribing them

with royal grants and graces, of which three hundred and sixty were

published in a single day, with the names of the recipients, but

nothing could overcome the hatred felt for the Holy Office and the

_brazos_ were immovable. In his perplexity he appealed to his usual

counsellor, the mystic Sor María de Agreda, affirming his determination

to uphold the Inquisition, and he must have been surprised when that

clear-sighted woman advised him to compromise, for a quarrel with Aragon

might turn it to the side of Catalonia and lead to the permanent

disruption of the monarchy. Even this failed to move him. He endeavored

to depart for Madrid, but deputation after deputation was sent to the

convent of Santa Engracia where he was lodged, insisting on his

confirmation of the articles and detaining him for two or three days

while his coach stood ready at the gate, until at last he yielded,

seeing that there was no alternative. The writer who records this adds

that the people rejoiced and since then in Aragon, where the Inquisition

had stood higher than elsewhere, for an inquisitor was regarded with

more reverence than an archbishop or a viceroy, it has so fallen in

estimation that some say that all is over with it. The officials and

familiars feel this every day in the withdrawal of their privileges and

exemptions, and it is palpable that in all that does not concern the

faith, the ancient powers of the tribunal of Aragon are

prostrated.[1116]

It was not long before the sullen yielding of the Inquisition to the

changed situation was manifested in a case which did not tend to restore

it to reverence. Inquisitor Lazaeta was involved in an intrigue with a

married woman of San Anton, whose husband, a Catalan named Miguel

Choved, grew suspicious and pretended to take a journey. Lazaeta fell

into the trap. October 27, 1647, he went to the house at nightfall,

leaving his coach in hiding behind the shambles; the coachman waited for

him in vain, for the injured husband had entered by a side-door and

given him a sword-thrust of which he died in the street, while stumbling

forward in search of his coach. The woman escaped and Choved

disappeared, but some demonstration was necessary and the tribunal

arrested one Francisco Arnal as an accessory. The court of the Justicia

issued a manifestacion in his favor, when the inquisitors complained of

the interference with their functions of such orders and that the

tribunal could not be maintained if they were to be banished and their

temporalities be seized whenever they judged that a case was not

comprehended within the fueros. To this the Council of Aragon replied

that the court of the Justicia always acted with great caution and that,

in the present case, Arnal had renounced the manifestacion and had been

returned to the tribunal, which had found him innocent and had

discharged him. The Suprema insisted that it would be better to remove

the tribunal from Aragon than to have it subjected to such insults, to

which the Council rejoined that there was no admission of firmas and

manifestaciones except in matters not of faith; if the inquisitors would

keep within their just limits, such troubles would be avoided, while, if

they exceeded them, the kingdom must avail itself of the remedies

provided by the laws.[1117] Now in this case the tribunal was strictly

within its rights under the Concordia and its abstention from

excommunication and interdict indicates how thoroughly it was humbled.

Another grievance of the Inquisition shows how completely the tables

were turned. September 23, 1648, the Suprema represented in a consulta

that the tribunal had been notified to reduce the number of its

officials and familiars to the prescribed four hundred and fifty, which

had not been done under the plea that the number was insufficient, that

the Concordia did not order the dismissal of the overplus and that the

incumbents could not be deprived of their rights. Still there was little

doubt that persistent refusal would lead the Diputados to obtain a firma

compelling a selection and until this was done no familiar would be

allowed to enjoy their privileges--in fact a number of towns had already

assumed this position and others were taking steps to obtain firmas. The

Suprema endeavored to show the illegality of this on the ground that the

Concordia of 1646 was not valid in the absence of confirmation by the

inquisitor-general. Philip submitted this to the Council of Aragon and

merely transmitted its answer, in non-committal fashion, to the Suprema

for its information. This took the ground that only the secular and

royal jurisdiction was concerned; the king had confirmed the laws which

provided that the acquiescence of the inquisitor-general was

unnecessary; if parties were aggrieved they could apply to the court of

the Justicia.[1118]

[Sidenote: _ARAGON_]

Under these conditions, the laws of 1646, by restricting the tribunal

to its proper functions, were a severe blow to its predominance,

diminishing the terror which it inspired and affecting in some degree

its finances. The continual suits brought before it had afforded a rich

harvest of fees for its officials and the fines imposed had been a

resource to its treasury. All this fell off greatly and, in 1649, the

Suprema reminded Philip that, in 1646, it had predicted this result and

he had promised indemnification by a fixed income to be paid by Aragon

or by the royal treasury; although it did not regard the laws as binding

in the absence of confirmation by the inquisitor-general, and had

resisted their execution in every way, still they were executed and the

officials were suffering keenly from their diminished fees, wherefore it

asked the king to grant to the four notaries and messengers eight

hundred ducats a year out of the fund for the Catalan refugees. This

demand, and the impudent assertion of the nullity of the laws which he

had approved, provoked Philip into one of his rare assertions of

kingship. The Catalan fund, he replied, could not be touched; he would

listen to other suggestions for the relief of the incumbents but not of

their successors; he was master of the secular jurisdiction granted to

the Inquisition for his service and could make laws and abrogate them at

his pleasure.[1119]

Philip had learned a lesson and the laws of 1646 were duly executed.

When, in 1677, there was another convocation of the Córtes of Aragon,

the Suprema, in a suppliant tone contrasting strongly with its former

arrogance, begged Carlos II to influence them to condescend to a

modification. It gave a most dolorous account of the condition of the

Saragossa tribunal resulting from that legislation. It forebore to

discuss whether the officials had given just cause of complaint, but the

total destruction of the Inquisition was curing one malady by

introducing a worse one, and the Inquisition of Aragon had been

destroyed. The number of officials was reduced below that at the time of

its foundation, and its poverty was so great that wages were unpaid and

the tribunal would probably have to be abandoned. The treasurer was

compelled to collect its income and debts through the court of the

Justicia, where it was impossible for him to carry on so many suits, so

that only those paid whose consciences compelled them. The reduction of

the officials impeded its usefulness; possibly there were fewer culprits

but certainly there were fewer convictions--less in Aragon than in the

other provinces--and a single one who escaped correction was a matter

of greater consequence to God than the enjoyment of the fuero by five

hundred persons. It was impossible to fill the allotted number of

familiars, for the fuero in criminal matters left to them was rather a

disadvantage, for they died in prison owing to the interminable delays

in settling the numerous competencias, while other defendants were

released on bail. At the same time the deprivation of the active fuero

exposed them to the effects of the general hatred felt for them. It was

inconceivable that, in so pious a nation, this hatred could be caused by

their functions, but its existence was a matter of experience and, in

the absence of protection, the risks to which it exposed them prevented

men from seeking the position. The Inquisition did not desire

jurisdiction, but it could not exist without revenue and officials, and

it therefore prayed the king that proper measures of relief be discussed

in the Córtes, or a junta could be formed from both parties and a new

Concordia be framed. Even allowing for customary exaggeration, this

paper shows how greatly the Inquisition had outgrown the functions for

which it had been imposed upon the people.

The concessions asked for were singularly moderate--that the treasurer

should not be required to make collections through the court of the

Justicia, that more familiars be allowed--though it had just been said

that they could not be had--that they be admitted to bail during

competencias, and a timid suggestion respecting the firma and

manifestacion. The time, however, was not propitious even for demands so

modest. The youthful Carlos II had just relegated his mother to a

convent and her favorite Valenzuela to the Philippines; all power was in

the hands of Don Juan of Austria, who held the inquisitor-general

Valladares to be his personal enemy. The appeal of the Suprema was

received unsympathetically and it seems to have gained nothing. That the

Aragonese were content with the situation appears from the fact that the

only complaint made by the Córtes regarded the non-observance of a law

of 1646 prescribing the number of natives to be employed by the

tribunal, and this arose merely from greed of office, for they suggested

that, for each foreigner appointed in Aragon, an Aragonese should have a

corresponding berth in a tribunal elsewhere.[1120]

[Sidenote: _CATALONIA_]

The legislation of 1646 remained a finality. As late as 1741 the Suprema

remonstrated against the Audiencia of Saragossa for impeding the

jurisdiction of the tribunal by employing the firma, which, with

customary disingenuousness, it characterized as an innovation.[1121]

* * * * *

Catalonia was as intractable as Aragon, while its more pronounced spirit

of independence rendered it particularly troublesome. Although it lacked

the institution of the Justicia, it had a somewhat imperfect substitute

in the Banch Reyal, or King's Bench, which was used in the appeals _por

via de fuerza_ from the spiritual courts. The Audiencia summoned the

ecclesiastical judge before it and his disregard of the summons was

followed by a decree of banishment and seizure of temporalities. The

inquisitors denied their liability to this, the Catalans asserted it,

and the endeavor to enforce it was a serious cause of quarrel. It was

not without influence, for a memorial, in 1632, from the inquisitors

complains that the Duke of Maqueda, when viceroy in 1592, had employed

it against the tribunal, since when the veneration felt for the latter

had greatly declined, and a complaint of the Catalan authorities to

Carlos II, in 1695, describes it as the sole refuge and protection of

the people from the oppression of the inquisitors and ecclesiastical

judges.[1122]

We have already seen the Concordia reached in 1512, abolishing most of

the then existing abuses; how it was sworn to by king,

inquisitor-general and inquisitors, and how a similar oath was to be

taken by all future inquisitors; how Leo X obligingly released them all

from their oaths; how Ferdinand, just before his death, accepted the

conditions, in December, 1515, and the complaisant pontiff, in the bull

_Pastoralis officii_, confirmed them, and how Barcelona, in return,

bound itself to a yearly subvention of six hundred ducats. It is well to

recall these facts in view of the bare-faced denials with which

subsequently the Catalan complaints of non-observance were persistently

met. Even while the papal dispensation from the oaths was still in

force, the Instructions issued by Inquisitor-general Mercader, in 1514,

prescribed rules which, if observed, would have removed the leading

causes of complaint. Any official or familiar committing a crime

deserving of corporal punishment was to be denounced to him, when he

would dismiss the culprit and punish the inquisitor who tolerated it.

The civil suits of officials were to be brought in the court of the

defendant; if the official was plaintiff, all proceedings before an

inquisitor were pronounced invalid and both official and inquisitor were

to be punished; even when both parties to a contract agreed to accept

the forum of the tribunal, inquisitors were forbidden, under pain of

punishment, to entertain the case. Secular officials could arrest

familiars caught in the act. Officials were forbidden to engage in

trade, even through third parties, and were deprived of the fuero for

all matters thence arising, and similarly if they purchased claims

subject to suits, nor could they employ other officials to collect debts

connected with their private estates.[1123] Although these Instructions

were in force for only a year or two, they have interest as manifesting

Ferdinand's purpose that the Holy Office should not be distracted from

its legitimate functions or be used to oppress his subjects or to

minister to private greed. He could, at the same time, believe that it

required special privileges, for it did not as yet inspire awe in so

turbulent a population. In that same year, 1514, at Lérida, the

inquisitor Canon Antist was besieged in his house and the assailants

were with difficulty beaten off, after which they defiantly walked the

streets, uttering challenges to his defenders.[1124]

A further victory was gained by the Catalans at the Córtes of Monzon in

1520, when, on December 28th, Cardinal Adrian, in the most solemn

manner, not only swore to observe the articles of 1512 but presented for

attestation a document from Queen Juana and Charles V, promising

investigation and redress of charges brought against certain officials,

and enacting that, to prevent such abuses for the future, all offences

disconnected with the faith, committed by officials, should be tried by

the ordinary courts, thus depriving them of the much-prized criminal

passive fuero. This, too, Adrian swore to observe when the necessary

papal confirmation should be obtained--a confirmation which the

Inquisition probably had sufficient influence to prevent, as there

appears to be no further trace of it.[1125]

[Sidenote: _CATALONIA_]

The articles of 1512 thus were a compact in which the Catalans, the

king, the Inquisition and the pope all joined in the most solemn

manner, pledging all future inquisitors to swear to them. For a while

this latter clause was observed. Fernando Loazes, who was inquisitor of

Barcelona for twenty years from about 1533, took the oath, but he was

promptly involved in a quarrel with the magistrates in which Juan de

Cardona, Bishop-elect of Barcelona, was induced, as papal commissioner,

to prosecute him for perjury, and after that no inquisitor took the

oath.[1126] In this they were wise for they emancipated themselves

completely from the Concordia. The Córtes of 1547 complained of the

inordinate multiplication of familiars, over the thirty allowed by it,

and of the neglect to furnish lists or other means for their

identification, together with other infractions, but Prince Philip

replied that he would consult the Suprema and would reach appropriate

conclusions, which of course ended the matter.[1127] How completely the

provisions of the Concordia were ignored is manifest in 1551, when

Catalina Murciana asked relief in the veguer's court from suits brought

against her in the Inquisition by the fiscal, the Abbot of Besalú, when

she was entitled to her own court. On refusal of redress by the

inquisitor, Juan Arias, a monitorio was obtained from the Banch Reyal,

whereupon Arias threw the officials of the veguer's court into prison

and kept them there. The matter was carried up to the Royal Councils

with the result that the judges of the Audiencia were ordered to erase

all record of the affair from their dockets and appear in person before

the inquisitor to report to him that it was duly expunged.[1128]

Thus supported by the monarch, the tribunal exercised its powers at

discretion without regard to compacts. The report, in 1561, by

Inquisitor Gaspar Cervantes of the visitation which he had just

completed, describes the disorders which had long reigned in all

departments. The last visitation had been made in 1550 and its

recommendations had been wholly ignored. It had ordered a reduction in

the number of familiars and that lists of them be sent to the Suprema,

which had not been done; in fact the tribunal itself had kept no correct

register; it had a hundred and eight names recorded for Barcelona, but

when they were ordered to present their papers under penalty of being

dropped, only sixty-eight of these came forward, while there were

thirty-one who were not registered. The number, he said, should be

reduced and more care be exercised in the selection; many of the laymen

were bandits and the clerics were men of bad character, who sought the

office to obtain exemption from their prelates. All this resulted in so

much secular business that it seemed to be the real duty of the tribunal

and that nothing else was attended to--in fact there was so little to do

in matters of faith that the inquisitors could well be spared from

Barcelona and employ themselves in visiting their district. All this is

explicable by the exorbitance of the fees charged, about which there was

much complaint. There was no authorized fee-bill. In civil cases the

inquisitors charged from two and a half to ten per cent. on the amount

at issue, depending on its magnitude, with a maximum of seventy-five

libras; in criminal cases they received nothing but had the opportunity

of inflicting fines. The officials had fees for every act, drawing and

copying papers, serving notices, summoning witnesses, levying

executions, etc., etc., and there was a standing quarrel between the

notaries of the three departments--of the _secreto_, or tribunal of

faith, of sequestrations and of the juzgado, or court of

confiscations--as to which should have the business.[1129]

[Sidenote: _CATALONIA_]

That the Córtes of Monzon, in 1563-4, should protest energetically

against these abuses was natural. Indeed, a Catalan named Gaspar

Mercader carried the protest so far as to say, among other odious

things, that the Inquisition had been introduced only for a limited time

which had expired and that it should be abolished, for which the

tribunal arrested, tried and punished him.[1130] In spite of this

interference with the freedom of debate, the general disaffection, as we

have seen, led to the visitation of de Soto Salazar. In Barcelona he

found that not the slightest attention had been paid to the orders of

the Suprema based on the report of Cervantes. Advocates, familiars and

commissioners continued to be appointed in profusion, without

investigation as to fitness. When an inquisitor visited his district he

carried with him blank commissions which he distributed at will. All

these, with their families, were protected and defended by the tribunal

in civil and criminal cases, nor was this all, for it would seem that

any one who claimed the fuero, whether he was entitled to it or not, was

admitted and, in the absence of lists filed with the magistrates, the

latter had no means of resisting the arrogant and peremptory demand of

the tribunal to surrender cases. Instances were given which showed that

the tribunal was a court where justice--or rather injustice--was bought

and sold and there had been no reform in the excessive fees which had

scandalized Cervantes.[1131]

That it should be hated was inevitable. In 1566, Govilla, Bishop of

Elna, defending himself for acts committed when he was inquisitor of

Barcelona, declared that the Inquisition was even more odious in

Catalonia than elsewhere.[1132] This hatred sometimes expressed itself

more forcibly than by complaints. In 1567, the evocation of a case,

which the local authorities claimed as their own, led to the fiercest

excitement which the viceroy fruitlessly sought to allay and appealed to

Philip II for his immediate interposition. Disregarding the inviolable

secrecy of the Inquisition, the Diputados, with the veguer, forced their

way into the palace, penetrated to the audience-chamber where the

inquisitors were trying a case, and inventoried and sequestrated

everything, even to the private property of the Inquisitor Padilla in

his apartments--apparently a seizure of temporalities under an order of

the Banch Reyal. Even more flagrant was the insult committed when the

messenger and the secretary were conveying from Perpignan to Barcelona

two government officials accused of impeding the Inquisition and also a

prisoner under a charge of heresy. Near Gerona, one of the Diputados, at

the head of an armed band, seized the whole party and carried them back

to Perpignan, where they were paraded through the streets with blare of

trumpets, as though criminals on the way to execution, and were then

cast into prison, where they lay until discharged without accusation.

This was a most serious assault on the dignity of the Holy Office and

even worse was permitting the escape of the heretic, but it was obliged

to submit without vindicating its authority.[1133]

Such being the temper of the Catalans and such the provocation to meet

lawlessness with lawlessness, it is not surprising that, when the

Concordia of 1568 was prepared for the three kingdoms, Catalonia would

have none of it. When, in September, it was submitted to the Diputados,

they were incensed and proposed to send envoys to the king to

remonstrate against it. There was a universal outcry that it was

contrary to the constitution and privileges of the land; they would

observe it in so far as it was in their favor, but as to the rest they

were ready to lose life, property and children rather than to submit to

it. In February, 1569, the inquisitors wrote that the people would not

be content until they had driven the Inquisition from the land; as for

themselves they proposed to go on as they had previously done until the

Concordia should be accepted, to which the Suprema cordially

assented.[1134]

[Sidenote: _CATALONIA_]

This attitude of mutual defiance was not conducive to peace. In 1570,

there arose a quarrel so bitter that the Diputados invoked the

protection and interposition of Pius V, and he urged Philip II to come

to some understanding with them, in view of possible serious

consequences. Philip took the position that they were so excited and so

obstinate that any concessions would lead only to further demands, but

he asked the pope to dismiss the envoys, referring them to him with

recommendation for favorable consideration, so that anything that he

might yield would be to the Holy See and not to recalcitrant subjects.

The situation was critical; the rebellion of Granada was exhausting his

resources, there was acute apprehension of attack by a Turkish fleet and

the Catalans were soon afterwards called upon to contribute to the

defence of the coasts, but if any concessions were enforced on the

Inquisition they have left no traces. In fact, the Venetian envoy,

Leonardo Donato, in his relation of 1573, states that, after the

Catalans had spent a hundred thousand ducats in these efforts, the

Inquisition imprisoned those who had been most active in the matter and

that they subsequently refused to leave the prison without a formal

declaration that they had not been arrested for heresy.[1135] Dissension

naturally continued. In 1572 we hear of a demand from the Diputados that

the inquisitors should show them their commissions and take an oath to

obey the constitution of Catalonia, because they held rents on the

Diputacion; the inquisitors acceded to the first of these and were

rebuked by the Suprema because it was a demand that had been

persistently refused before and they must not do it again. Then, in

1574, there came a complaint from all the cities that familiars refused

obedience to the local laws respecting prices, pasturage and other

matters as required under the Concordia, to which the Suprema

superciliously replied by instructing the inquisitors that, as the

people had rejected the Concordia, they need not observe it.[1136] Then,

in 1585, as we have seen (p. 416) the Córtes obtained an advantage in

excluding familiars and officials from public offices.

In this spirit of undisguised hostility both sides were aligned for a

decisive struggle in the Córtes of 1599, under the new royalty of the

youthful Philip III. As the Catalan efforts failed and the Inquisition

was left in possession of its usurped powers, the details of the contest

have no interest except as an exhibition of shameless duplicity, by

which the king tricked his vassals. They hoped to win favor by a

subsidio of a million libras to the king and a hundred thousand to his

bride, besides shrewdly granting ten thousand to the Marquis of Denia

(soon to become Duke of Lerma) and six thousand to the Vice-chancellor

of Aragon,[1137] but they reaped nothing but deceit. Long discussions

resulted in a series of articles, divided into two categories, to one of

which Philip gave unqualified assent and to the other his assent as far

as concerned himself, with a promise to procure that of the

inquisitor-general and pope. It was proposed to withhold the pension of

six hundred libras granted in 1520, if the papal confirmation were not

procured within a year, but Philip declared that no such guarantee was

necessary, for the letters which he had ordered to be written to the

pope were so strong that no influence could counteract them. His

despatches to his ambassador were sent through the Diputados in order to

satisfy them, but they assuredly were not allowed to see others which

instructed the ambassador to be circumspect in urging the matter. He

also sent word to the inquisitor-general that the delivery of these

despatches had been delayed in order to give him time to express his

views. The Suprema, in appealing to Clement VIII to withhold

confirmation, did not hesitate to say that Philip had endeavored to

escape under cover of the inquisitor-general and pope and had finally

signed only in so far as concerned himself. Indeed, in a subsequent

official paper, it was unblushingly asserted that he had done so only to

get rid of the Catalans. Under these influences it is needless to say

that the confirmation never came and the subsidio was the only

practical result of the labors of the Córtes.[1138]

One of the articles required the execution of the Concordia of 1520,

which embraced that of 1512, the fulfilment of which the Catalans had

never ceased to demand, and the manner in which these solemn compacts

were argued away is instructive. In 1566, Govilla, Bishop of Elna, who

had been inquisitor of Barcelona, calmly asserted that the articles of

1512 had been revoked as prejudicial to the free exercise of the

Inquisition. The Suprema, in urging Clement VIII to refuse confirmation

of the new Concordia of 1599, argued that the transactions of 1512 and

1520 were invalid through simony, as the Córtes had obtained the assent

of Ferdinand in 1516 (_sic_) and of Charles in 1520 by conditioning

subsidios on it. Leo's bull of condemnation in 1513 was relied upon and

that of confirmation in 1516 was dismissed as obreptitious and

surreptitious. So Cardinal Adrian's action in 1520 was represented as

conditional on confirmation by the Holy See, and as in no way binding on

the Inquisition. So, in 1632, the Barcelona tribunal drew up a statement

to be laid before Philip IV by the Suprema, adroitly mixing up the

affairs of Aragon and Catalonia and telling him that the Córtes of 1518

demanded the revival of the articles of 1512, that Charles refused to

swear to them, that Juan Prat interpolated others, for which he was

imprisoned and that the effort failed. In transmitting this the Suprema

added that the fact that the Córtes never ceased to demand the

enforcement of the articles showed that they had never been

observed.[1139] From first to last it was a history of deception, in

which kings conspired with inquisitors to betray their subjects, without

even the excuse that the faith was concerned in these details of secular

jurisdiction.

[Sidenote: _CATALONIA_]

The Catalan temper was not soothed by the disappointment of 1599, and

the refusal of redress prompted resort to forcible measures. There was a

contest in 1608 in which the Banch Reyal uttered a sentence of

banishment against the inquisitors; a vessel was made ready for their

deportation but, when the day came, they barred their door and hung over

it a portière of black velvet to which was attached a crucifix. The city

showed its piety by placing candles in front of the sacred emblem and

the chapter sent priests to pray before it. No one ventured to disturb

it; the Diputados, the chapter and the city authorities interposed, and

an accommodation was reached.[1140] A more savage quarrel arose, in

1611, in consequence of the veguer disarming the coachman of an

inquisitor. The city authorities seized the temporalities, laid siege to

the palace of the Inquisition, sentenced the inquisitors to banishment

and proclaimed it with trumpets through the streets. This they justified

to the king by telling him that the Holy Office had been instituted for

a limited term which had expired, so that it should be abolished in

Catalonia and the cognizance of matters of faith be restored to the

episcopal courts, all of which, we are told, gave his majesty much

concern.[1141]

Mutual detestation did not diminish and, when the Córtes of 1626 were

approaching, the inquisitors anxiously urged the Suprema to impress upon

the king that the peace and preservation of Catalonia depended upon the

maintenance of their temporal jurisdiction. The deputies, they said,

were holding daily juntas and accumulating stores of documents from the

archives, asserting that the time had expired for which the Inquisition

was instituted, and if they accomplish their intention they will destroy

it wholly. That they were really alarmed is visible in their asking the

Suprema to secure some compromise. The Suprema duly represented the

danger to Philip IV, who in reply gave assurance that no prejudicial

change would be approved, for his unceasing desire was to promote the

exaltation of the Inquisition. After the Córtes had assembled, the

tribunal reported, June 27th, that they had drawn up a series of

articles effectually disabling the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and

that they declare that they will not vote a subsidio until the king

shall have confirmed them. The articles deemed so obnoxious scarce

amounted to more than the Concordia of Castile so long in force, save

provisions that the inquisitors should be Catalans and should take an

oath to obey the laws, and that disputes of jurisdiction should be

settled by a junta consisting of an inquisitor, a judge of the Audiencia

and the Bishop of Barcelona. Moderate as they were, Philip kept his

promise and referred them, September 23d, to Diego de Guzman, Archbishop

of Seville, acting head of the Suprema in the vacancy of the

inquisitor-generalship, so that, on the adjournment of the Córtes, the

whole matter remained suspended.[1142]

An attempt at compromise was made in what was known as the Concordia of

Cardinal Zapata, arranged, December 24, 1630, between him as

inquisitor-general and the Council of Aragon. This made no substantial

change in the jurisdiction of the Inquisition but was directed chiefly

to restraining the misuse of excommunication on the one side and the

recourse to the Banch Reyal on the other, by providing that all disputed

cases should be settled by competencias conducted according to the

received form of procedure, under penalty for a first offence of five

hundred ducats on the tribunal refusing, and suspension from office for

a second. This left untouched the roots of trouble and accomplished

little, in consequence, it is said, of the delays and evasions of the

inquisitors, and frequent recourse continued to the Banch Reyal,

especially by creditors.[1143]

[Sidenote: _CATALONIA_]

The Córtes of 1626 had not been dissolved and they met again in 1632 to

conclude their unfinished business. As usual, the tribunal and the

Suprema prepared for the struggle by earnest appeals to Philip, who

responded with assurances of special care in all that concerned the

Inquisition. The Suprema had the hardihood to tell him that the

Concordia of 1512, on which the Catalans based their claims, had never

been confirmed, but it was within the truth when it said that it had

never been observed. It declared moreover that the articles framed by

the Córtes would so prostrate the tribunal that it would have to cease

its functions. A memorial by the secretary of the tribunal, Miguel

Rodríguez, gives a deplorable account of the social condition of

Catalonia, where the barons and gentlemen, the cities and church

foundations, he says, possessed excessive powers and where the bishops

were also barons. The hostility of the nobles and cities to the

familiars was manifested by the daily murders committed on them and

their children and the burning of their houses. But for the protection

of the Inquisition they would be exterminated, for its jurisdiction was

the only one respected. Fathers endured the murder of their sons, sons

that of their fathers and wives that of their husbands, for fear of

greater evils and, in addition to this, was the turbulent temper of the

population. The viceroys had nominal power, but it was exercised only on

the common folk and not on the powerful, whom no one dared to accuse or

to bear witness against. All this busy preparation was superfluous; the

Córtes were dissolved without gaining their object.[1144]

The Inquisition, as usual, had triumphed, but peace was impossible

between the incompatible claims of rival jurisdictions. In 1637 the

Suprema complained of the continuous series of troubles and of the

disregard of the Concordia of Zapata. This time the offender was the

viceroy, the powerful Duke of Cardona, who had imprisoned a familiar for

carrying a pistol and refusing to surrender it, and had arrested two

servants of the receiver, fining one and discharging the other. When the

tribunal sent to him a priest bearing a monitorio with excommunication,

he shut the priest up, _incomunicado_, in a room of the palace. Then he

invited to dinner the fiscal of the tribunal and shut him up likewise.

He ordered the inquisitor to withdraw the excommunication and, on his

refusal, he pronounced sentence of banishment, posted four hundred men

around the Inquisition and made ready a vessel to carry him to Majorca.

The inquisitor assembled five bishops who declared that Cardona had

incurred the excommunication of the bull _Si de protegendis_ and the

inquisitor so declared him, though for the avoidance of scandal he

forbore to publish it. Under the intervention of the bishops the

sentences of banishment and excommunication were mutually withdrawn, and

the viceroy released the priest and fiscal, boasting that he had carried

his point. Thereupon the Suprema asked the king to execute on Cardona

the penalties of the Concordia of Zapata and greater ones in view of his

unprecedented acts and also that the _ipso facto_ censures of the canon

_Si quis suadente_ and the bull _Si de protegendis_ be published in

order that he might seek the salvation of his soul. To this the weary

king could only reply by deprecating these unseemly quarrels and

ordering that viceroys should not try the cases of familiars--Cardona

apparently having undertaken to do this only because there was no other

authority that ventured to do so, although the offence was one which

forfeited the fuero.[1145] Soon after this, in 1639, a still more

serious trouble broke out in Tortosa, in which the magistrates were

involved and the people rose against the Inquisition, but while this was

in progress the Catalan rebellion broke out and prudence counselled

abstention from severe measures of repression.[1146]