Whatever share the Inquisition may have had in stimulating the

disaffection that led to the rebellion, the unredressed grievances which

so excited the Córtes nowhere appear on the surface. The proximate

cause, as has been stated above, was the burning of the churches of

Montiró and Rio de Arenas by the Neapolitan troops quartered on the

people; some consecrated hosts were found reduced to coals and the

peasants, who had suffered from the outrages of the unpaid soldiery,

rose in arms, cut them off in detail, styled themselves the Exercit

Christiá and bore on their banners the Venerable Sacrament, with the

legend "Senor judicau vostra causa" and claimed that their object was to

protect the people and defend the Catholic faith. In fact, the

Inquisition was invited to prosecute the guilty authors of the sacrilege

and undertook to do so, but of course the culprits could not be

identified and it was reduced to excommunicating them in bulk. It was

against the representatives of the king that the initial riots of June 7

and 8, 1640, were directed, when the judges of the royal Audiencia and

the Viceroy, the Count of Santa Coloma, were murdered. The inquisitors

at once proffered their services to the Diputados and, at the request of

the latter, they wrote to the king and inquisitor-general praising the

efforts of the Diputados to preserve peace, not knowing that for months

they had been organizing the rebellion in correspondence with France.

When too, in September, a tax was laid to put the land in a state of

defence, the assent of the tribunal was asked as to levying it on

familiars.[1147]

[Sidenote: _CATALONIA_]

There was thus no open hostility towards the Inquisition, but, at the

same time, there was no respect for its inviolability. When the mob rose

again on Christmas day, to put to death all Castilians, there was a

report that two thousand of them were concealed in the Inquisition. Led

by a coachman of one of the inquisitors, the people broke into the

Inquisition, maltreated the officials, hanged some of them, emptied the

money chests and found in the secret prison a solitary Castilian on

trial for heresy. Him they carried to the town-council who returned him

to the tribunal and garroted the coachman.[1148]

When, on January 23, 1641, terms of submission to France were concluded,

the Inquisition was provided for. Having cut loose from Spain, it was

impossible to permit the tribunal to remain subject to the Suprema in

Madrid, and the clause respecting it was that all inquisitors and

officials should be Catalans, jurisdiction should be restricted to

matters of faith, and it should be directly under the Roman Congregation

of the Holy Office.[1149] Still the inquisitors remained at their posts;

for five months they had had no word from the Suprema; they expected to

be called upon to take the oath of allegiance to King Louis and they

sent their secretary, Juan de Eraso, to Madrid for instructions,

suggesting that they had better move to Tarragona or Tortosa. Philip

ordered them to remain and they resolutely obeyed, but the situation

grew constantly worse and, on November 7th, they made another appeal,

representing their danger, their destitution, their inability to perform

their functions, and their expectation that they would be forced to kiss

the hands of the Marshal de Brézé, the approaching French governor. This

was confirmed by Don Antonio de Aragon, who had just returned from

Barcelona; on two occasions the mob had set fire to the Inquisition and

heresy was rampant, for many of the French troops were Calvinists and

Calvinism was openly preached. The Suprema characteristically debated

the question under four heads--Shall the Inquisition be removed to

Tarragona or Tortosa? Shall the inquisitors kiss the hands of the French

governor? Does their lack of means to prosecute relieve them from

prosecuting native or French heretics? Shall testimony against such

heretics be taken in Madrid and action be based on it? After elaborate

discussion the fourth question was decided in the affirmative and the

other three in the negative. Juan de Mañozca was appointed to gather

testimony in Madrid, and the inquisitors were told to stand their ground

and do their duty, using censures and interdict if necessary. If driven

from the town, they were to carry with them the records so as to be able

to work elsewhere.[1150]

One of the inquisitors, Dr. Cotoner, had left Barcelona for his home in

Majorca. The other two, with most of the officials, stood to their post

and, in August, 1643, they were called upon to utter fearful curses on

unknown parties supposed to have committed a sacrilegious theft of

consecrated hosts.[1151] Towards the end of September, however, they

were expelled, to give place to a native tribunal, and it was done with

a refinement of cruelty. There were ten in all--seven subordinates and

the son of one of them, besides the two inquisitors--who had stood

faithful to their duty. They were put on board a vessel, with orders to

land them in Portugal, which, like Catalonia, was in revolt against

Spain. Although the crew consisted of Catalans and Frenchmen, they were

persuaded to put into Cartagena, with a promise of being allowed to sell

their cargo there. The reception of the refugees was most inhospitable;

the vessel was seized and the cargo and effects of passengers and crew

were embargoed: much red tape had to be cut and it was not until

December that the conclusion was reached that the crew had rendered an

essential service exposing them to punishment by the rebels, wherefore

the vessel was released and they were allowed to dispose of the

cargo.[1152]

The refugees were without salaries or resources and it was not without

difficulty and delay that the Suprema, professing its own inability to

help them, secured from Philip some moderate _ayudas de costa_ to keep

them alive. Then, in March, 1644, it ordered them to open a tribunal at

Tarragona, at the same time representing to the king that this would

cost forty-five hundred ducats in silver for the first year, and four

thousand annually thereafter, which might be supplied from the two

millions of maravedís coming from the tribunal of Cartagena--apparently

some recent large confiscation--as otherwise they would die of

starvation. They were doubtless thus provided for and did what they

could to restore the old-time dread of the Holy Office. It had sadly

diminished in these evil days for, in this same year, 1644, in the

neighboring town of Tortosa, Inquisitor Roig of Valencia complained

that, on reaching there during his visitation, the magistrates did not

come to receive him, they assigned him no lodgings and they refused to

publish his proclamation.[1153]

[Sidenote: _CATALONIA_]

Meanwhile, in accordance with the terms arranged with France, the

Catalans had organized a national Inquisition. Doctor Paulo Ferran and

Doctor Joseph Pla were appointed and application was made for the usual

papal faculties. These were granted and, when the briefs were received,

September 26, 1643, they were installed and the Castilians were

expelled. The new tribunal had not much to do. It did not meddle with

the Calvinists in the French armies, but it vindicated its authority by

an auto de fe, celebrated February 23, 1644, in which one victim was

garroted and burnt and there were two penitents. There was another,

November 7, 1647, in which there was an execution for unnatural crime

and six men and five women penitents, mostly for bigamy and sorcery. The

only other evidence of activity that I have met is an investigation

ordered by Pla, at the request of the parish priest of Pineda, resulting

in the trial of Anthoni Morell.[1154]

When the troubles of the Fronde compelled Mazarin to withdraw the French

armies, the rebellion collapsed, in spite of the obstinate determination

of the Catalans to sever relations with Castile. When Barcelona

surrendered, October 11, 1652, Catalonia was left at the mercy of the

conqueror, but Philip, with true statesmanship, restored it to its

ancient privileges and liberties, save a few exceptions which have no

bearing on our subject.[1155] Inquisitor Pla had lingered at Gerona,

continuing his functions in virtue of his papal brief. He was found

there by the Marquis of Olias y Mortara, who only ventured to suspend

him and wrote to the king, October 12, 1652, for instructions, adding

that the prompt re-establishment of the Inquisition would conduce

greatly to the pacification of the land. The Council of Aragon, November

16th, approved of this and the next day Philip instructed the

inquisitor-general to make the appointments and despatch the inquisitors

at once.[1156] There were financial difficulties, however. January 18,

1653, the Suprema reported the appointments; the infection of heresy by

the French promised much work, but there was an utter lack of money; the

tribunal would cost six thousand ducats a year, while its resources were

but two thousand, for the separation of Roussillon lost it a thousand

and it had two thousand more in Barcelona loans which were

incollectable; there was prospect however of large confiscations, for

many Catalans had fled to France who would be prosecuted and, on the

strength of this, the king was asked for four thousand a year.[1157] The

adjustment of these questions probably required time, for it was not

until August 2d that the new inquisitors took possession of their

office, riding in state through the city, with drums and trumpets and

the standard of the Holy Office, followed by all the familiars and

officials of Barcelona, and making public proclamation in the customary

places. The next day, Sunday, the Edict of Faith was read and on Monday

they commenced their functions. Of the Catalan inquisitors, Pla died

within a few days and Ferran was arrested at night as were many others,

some of whom were sent to France and others were deported to Majorca.

Apparently their official acts were not recognized, for familiars of

their appointment continued for some years to apply for

reinstatement.[1158]

[Sidenote: _CATALONIA_]

No sooner was the tribunal re-established than the old troubles

recommenced. Abuses must have been flagrant to call forth from Philip,

June 2, 1661, a cédula ordering the exact observance of the Concordias

and restraining the excessive use of excommunication.[1159] The quarrels

which arose were prolonged and complicated by every possible device. On

February 15, 1664, Juan Matheu, actual receiver and acting alguazil

mayor of the tribunal, was murdered. On most slender suspicion, the next

day, it arrested Joseph Guimart and Joseph Massart; the Audiencia

claimed the case and the tribunal refused to enter into a competencia

until the Banch Reyal threatened the inquisitors with banishment. Then

they averted the preliminary conference by questions of etiquette,

repeatedly disregarding the orders of the Suprema, until the

intervention of the queen-regent enforced obedience. The conference was

at last held and the papers were transmitted to the Suprema and Council

of Aragon to decide as to the jurisdiction. While this was pending, the

inquisitors started another trouble. They had confined the prisoners in

the secret prison as though guilty of heresy. This was a grievous

hardship and the queen ordered them transferred to the common prison;

the inquisitors reported that this had been done and then, on pretext

of information as to a plot to escape, brought them back to the secret

prison. When the Suprema heard of this it wrote in a tone of mingled

anger and fear, lest it should be discovered by the Council of Aragon;

the prisoners must be moved back again; the affair had become too

important, the Council of Aragon had made too many efforts and the queen

imputed it all to the Suprema as they would see by her enclosed order.

Then the competencia was suspended by the escape of the prisoners, March

9, 1666, and the last we hear of the matter is their negotiation for a

pardon, in 1668, on terms of which the viceroy advised the acceptance,

in order to avoid decision of the competencia. It was doubtless so

settled, for competing jurisdictions had brought the administration of

justice into such shape that it was better to let criminal accusations

remain untried than to decide between the rival claims.[1160]

These quarrels were not merely occasional but were continuous and

perpetual. A letter of June 18, 1667, happens to mention that there were

then four or five competencias delayed by the question whether in the

conferences the royal judge should bring his own notary.[1161] Perverted

ingenuity was constantly devising new points over which strife could be

created. Prisoners on trial in the royal gaols were sometimes borrowed

by the tribunal to be prosecuted for blasphemy or other trivial offence

against the faith. In 1666 a case of this kind gave rise to a question

as to the exact form of receipt to be given for the body of the culprit,

when it was pushed to such a point that the Suprema ordered the

excommunication of all the judges of the Audiencia, and the Council of

Aragon complained to the queen-regent about the oppressive abuse of

censures and asked her to provide that for the future the mutual

obligations of the two tribunals should be equal and reciprocal.[1162]

[Sidenote: _CATALONIA_]

When the Inquisition took such pains to make itself detested, one is

scarce surprised to learn, from a complaint of the Suprema in 1677, that

in Barcelona it had so fallen in public esteem that it was able to

procure but one familiar and that the alguazil mayor had asked to be

relieved from carrying his wand of office, for no noble was willing to

be seen walking with him when he bore it.[1163] This hostility it

continued carefully to cultivate. In December, 1695, the Diputados and

judges addressed to Carlos II a complaint of the multiplied excesses of

the tribunal, which trampled on the laws and liberties of the land,

causing such scandals that they could no longer be endured in silence.

This had been especially the case since Bartolomé Antonio Sans y Muñoz

had been inquisitor, whose methods can be appreciated by a single

example. Captain-general Marquis of Gastañara, had imprisoned a

Frenchman named Jaime Balle, on a matter of state, Spain being at the

time at war with France, with strict orders to keep him _incomunicado_.

Muñoz suddenly demanded an opportunity of taking testimony of him.

Gastañara was absent and no one had authority to violate his

instructions, but the regent of the royal chancery and the gaoler

offered, if Muñoz would declare it to be a matter of faith, to endeavor

to find some means of compliance. This assurance he refused to give,

even verbally, and he threatened the regent with excommunication. The

Audiencia invited him to a conference, which he refused and it then

cited him before the Banch Reyal, with the customary warning of

banishment and seizure of temporalities. Muñoz responded, December 29th,

with a mandate to the regent ordering him, under pain of

excommunication, to allow the deposition of the prisoner to be taken and

he followed this, within an hour, with an excommunication published in

all the pulpits and affixed to all the church-doors. The next day this

was re-aggravated and the regent was publicly cursed with the awful

anathema formulated for hardened and impenitent sinners. The Audiencia

rejoined with the decree of banishment and seizure of temporalities,

under the customary term of fifteen days. The tribunal answered this

with a threat of interdict on the city; it convoked all the superiors of

the religious Orders and arranged with the clergy for a great procession

when it should take its departure. It kept its doors closed and even

refused to receive the messengers of Gastañara, who had hastened back to

Barcelona, but he delayed further action until he should communicate

with Madrid and receive the royal orders. When they came, on January 11,

1696, he was at Montealegre, a couple of leagues from the city; they

were sent to him by a special courier and he returned the next morning

and made secret arrangements for their execution. At 2 P.M. he sent

word to Muñoz that he wished to see him on the king's service. At 4.30

P.M. Muñoz came, bringing the fiscal with him. A scrivener was

introduced who read to him the king's order, which he said he was ready

to obey. Gastañara told him that he must start at once; a coach was at

the door to which he was escorted with all honor; lackeys with flambeaux

were ready and a guard of twenty-five musketeers. Gastañara gave him

money and he was provided with all comforts, even to a courteous

gentleman as a companion to enforce all proper respect for him. As he

was leaving the palace, his violent temper burst forth in regrets that

he had not been allowed time to cast the interdict on the city. He was

driven to the embarcadero, placed on board a vessel that had been made

ready and was conveyed to the nearest Valencian port. It is symptomatic

of Spanish conditions that in war-time the captain-general was obliged

to abandon all other duties and devote a day to kidnapping a troublesome

priest, and this is emphasized by the fact that the inquisitor-general

rewarded the conduct of Muñoz by appointing him to one of the most

desirable tribunals of Spain.[1164] Possibly this affair may have

influenced Carlos II in reissuing, in 1696, his father's injunction of

1661 to observe the Concordias exactly and to be more sparing of

excommunications.[1165]

Philip V was scarce seated on the throne when he found himself

confronted with the eternal question of Catalan hostility towards the

tribunal. A consulta of the Suprema, October 16, 1701, warns him that

the inquisitors of Barcelona report that, in the Córtes about to

assemble, efforts will be made to limit its usefulness and he is

exhorted to follow the example of his predecessors.[1166] Whatever was

done was of little consequence for, in the war which broke out soon

afterwards, Catalonia enthusiastically acknowledged the Archduke Charles

as Carlos III and became the stronghold of the Austrian party. The

situation of the rebellion of 1640-52 was duplicated. The tribunal was

withdrawn, but seems to have been replaced by a local organization, for

an article of the Córtes of 1706, duly approved by the Austrian Carlos,

regulating the insaculacion for public office, recognizes its

certificates respecting its officials.[1167] Of course it could exercise

no jurisdiction over the heretic English allies; it has left no traces

of its activity and was replaced by a revival of the episcopal

cognizance of heresy. As to places beyond the control of the Austrian

party, a provision of the Suprema, March 16, 1706, extended the

jurisdiction of the Saragossa tribunal over all that should be recovered

from the enemy until such time as the Inquisition of Barcelona should be

re-established.[1168] The desperate resistance of the Catalans postponed

this until 1715, and when the tribunal was reinstated it found in the

secret prison two captives, Juan Castillo a bigamist and Mariana Costa

accused of sorcery, both of them confined by order of the vicar-general

of the diocese.[1169] As all the liberties and privileges of Catalonia

were abolished by the conquerors, its subsequent relations with the

Inquisition offer no special characteristics.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _MAJORCA-CASTILE_]

Majorca had no Concordia and its tribunal was free to claim what extent

of jurisdiction it saw fit, limited only by the resistance of the civil

authorities, which, as we have seen, was energetically expressed at an

early period. As defined by Portocarrero, in 1623, in practice it

asserted complete jurisdiction, active and passive, in civil and

criminal cases, over its salaried and commissioned officials and their

families; over familiars, in criminal matters, active and passive; in

civil, passive only, with exclusion of their families.[1170] The

occasion of his book was a violent struggle between the viceroy and the

tribunal, which presents the ordinary features of these contests for

supremacy between rival departments of the government. In a search for

arms in the house of Juan Zuñez, receiver of confiscations, some were

found. The viceroy at once arrested him, sentenced him to leave the

island within twenty-four hours and shipped him away. The inquisitor

promptly excommunicated the viceroy; the royal fiscal appealed; the

viceroy and royal judges summoned the inquisitor to a conference

preparatory to a competencia or to appear in the Banch Reyal and defend

his proceedings. On his refusal the Banch Reyal pronounced sentence of

banishment and seizure of temporalities, which was published with sound

of drum and trumpet. They also issued an edict declaring the censures

null and void and ordering the clergy to disregard them; they refused to

consider themselves excommunicated, they attended mass and apparently

had the support of the people and clergy, for no attention was paid to

the interdict cast on the city by the inquisitor.[1171] What was the

final result does not appear, nor does it much matter; the significance

in these affairs is the spectacle presented to the people of lawless

collisions between the representatives and exponents of the law.

In Majorca the most impressive cases of this kind occurred between the

Inquisition and the ecclesiastical courts and will be considered

hereafter. It suffices here to say that broils with the secular

authorities were constant and contributed their share to occupy and

distract the attention of the central government. It would be

superfluous to enumerate those of which the details have chanced to

reach us; they would merely prove that, considering their small size and

scanty population, the Balearic Isles were not behind their continental

sisters of Aragon in adding to the perplexities of the monarchy.

* * * * *

This somewhat prolonged recital of the struggles of the kingdoms of the

Crown of Aragon gives an opportunity of realizing the stubborn

resistance, to the arrogant pretensions of the Inquisition, of provinces

which still retained institutions through which public opinion could

assert itself. The people of the kingdoms of Castile had been reduced to

submission under the absolutism of the House of Austria and, though they

might at times complain, they could make no effective efforts to

ameliorate their position. When, in 1579 and again in 1583, the Córtes

of Castile complained of the arrest and immurement in the secret prisons

of individuals in every quarrel with an official of the Inquisition, to

the permanent disgrace of families, Philip II merely replied that he

would make inquiry and take such action as was fitting.[1172] The only

resource was to raise contests in individual cases and these were

frequent enough and violent enough to prove that there was the same

spirit of opposition to inquisitorial encroachment and the same

pervading discontent with the abuses flourishing so rankly under

inquisitorial protection. Instances of this could be cited almost

without limit, but one or two will suffice as examples of the multiform

aspect of these quarrels and the temper in which they were fought over.

It should be borne in mind that, in these struggles as in those of

Aragon, there was no question of freedom of conscience and no desire to

limit the effectiveness of the Holy Office as the guardian of purity of

faith. The Castilian, like the Catalan, looked with exultation on the

triumph over heresy in the autos de fe, and he desired only to set

bounds to the intrusion of the Inquisition on the field of secular

justice.

[Sidenote: _CASTILE_]

The chancellery of Granada was the supreme tribunal of New Castile as

that of Valladolid was of Old Castile. The alcaldes of its Sala del

Crimen constituted the highest criminal court, from which there was no

appeal save to God. April 15, 1623, the alcalde mayor, after five days'

trial, condemned Gerónimo Palomino, an habitual criminal and _rufian_,

to two hundred lashes and six years of galleys for various offences,

including sundry blasphemies; on the 24th, the Sala confirmed the

sentence and ordered its execution. On the same day the Inquisition

served two notices on the alcalde mayor prohibiting his cognizance of

the case, as some of the alleged crimes concerned the faith, over which

it had exclusive jurisdiction, and it demanded the surrender of the

accused and of all the papers under the customary comminations. The

alcalde mayor responded by calling for a competencia and offering to

deliver Palomino for trial on any charges of heresy, if record were made

that he was already a galley-slave to be returned to the royal prison.

The next day the tribunal sent to the prison and claimed him, on the

pretext that the case had been transferred to it, whereupon the alcaide

of the prison surrendered him without orders from the judges. When the

latter heard of this they also learned that the transfer had been

effected through the efforts of the prisoner's friends and liberal

bribery of the officials of the tribunal, who had been active in getting

him out of prison. After satisfying themselves of this by investigation,

they ordered the arrest of four laymen--a notary, a messenger and two

familiars--and they further imprisoned in their houses the alcalde mayor

and alcaide of the prison for acting without informing the Sala. The

tribunal concluded Palomino's trial within forty-eight hours, sentencing

him to hear a mass in the audience chamber, and it appears that it

returned him. It further commenced proceedings against the alcaldes,

summoning them to liberate the officials within three hours under pain

of excommunication. The alcaldes protested against this and demanded a

competencia, as provided under the Concordia, but the next day they were

excommunicated in all the churches and this was followed by an interdict

laid on the city. This forced a compromise by which the prisoners were

liberated, subject to rearrest in case the competencia should result in

justifying the alcaldes, and the latter were absolved from the censures.

The matter seemed to be settled, but all parties had counted without the

impetuous and aggressive Inquisitor-general Pacheco. Without awaiting

further information, and in disregard of the laws prescribing peaceful

settlement by competencias, he had evoked the case to himself and acted

upon it off-hand. Two days after the absolution, the inquisitors

reimposed the excommunication by his command, and notices were served on

the alcaldes and their alguazil mayor to appear before him within

fifteen days to stand trial. Against this they protested and, on their

failure to appear, they were not only excommunicated afresh but

anathematized in all the churches. The scandal had thus assumed national

proportions.[1173]

The alcaldes were the direct and highest judicial representatives of the

king, but such was Philip's subservience to the Inquisition that he

would not permit a competencia following the regular course but took the

affair into his own hands. The President of the Council of Castile, in

remitting to the royal favorite Olivares, July 4, 1623, a memorial from

the Council, declared that the condition to which the chancellery of

Granada was reduced, owing to the methods of the Inquisition, was the

most ignominious that had ever been heard of in Spain, especially

considering how slight was the cause of all this disquiet, for, when

everything was settled it was again enkindled at the mandate of the

inquisitor-general. As the matter was in the king's hands, the Council

could do nothing but appeal to his majesty, with all the disadvantages

under which it labored in combating the inquisitor-general; had its

hands been free it might already have conquered, to the benefit of the

royal jurisdiction and service of the king, for every day brought

greater disturbance to the Republic.[1174]

In spite of this appeal, Philip decided in favor of the Inquisition and

the humiliation of the chancellery was complete. Yet Pacheco was not

satisfied with victory and proceeded to trample on the vanquished. In

the course of the quarrel, Gudiel de Peralta, one of the judges, and

Matias González de Sepúlveda, the fiscal of the court, had drawn up

legal arguments in its justification. These Pacheco submitted to his

censors, who of course discovered latent heresies lurking in them,

whereupon he ordered them to be suppressed as heretical and announced

his intention of proceeding rigorously against the authors. The Council,

on October 7th, again appealed to Philip. The accused, it said, had only

defended the royal jurisdiction in a perfectly legitimate manner; the

inquisitor-general should not have attacked royal officials and

inflicted irreparable injury on them and their posterity by denouncing

them as heretics, without consulting the king. He was begged to

intervene and order Pacheco to suspend proceedings, while a junta of the

two Councils should consider the papers and decide what course should be

taken.[1175] It is probable that in some such way this indefensible

attempt was suppressed, for neither of the inculpated names appear in

the Expurgatory Index of Zapata, in 1632.

It would seem difficult to set bounds to the power of an organization

which could thus arbitrarily employ the censures of the Church on any

department of the government, without being subject to control save to

that of a king docile to its exigencies. Yet the Suprema, which always

sustained the tribunals in their wanton excesses, adopted their quarrels

and fought them unsparingly to the end, was thoroughly conscious of

their wrong-doing. While this conflict was in progress, it issued a

carta acordada, April 23d, earnestly exhorting the tribunals to maintain

friendly relations with the royal officials and not to waste time in

dissensions to the neglect of their duties in matters of faith;

competencias were always to be admitted and no censures were to be

employed without consulting the Suprema, unless delay was

inadmissible.[1176]

[Sidenote: _CASTILE_]

How nugatory were these counsels of moderation, under the dominance of

such a man as Pacheco, was soon afterwards manifested in a still more

scandalous outbreak in Seville, under his direction, in 1625. The

assistente or governor, Fernando Ramírez Fariñas, himself a member of

the Council of Castile and a man of high consideration, was

excommunicated and thus prevented from concluding a negotiation for a

donation to the king of eighty thousand ducats; his alguazil, an

honorable man, was wounded and was shut up in prison to keep him out of

the hands of the tribunal, which declared that he was wanted on a matter

of faith, thus covering him and his family with infamy. The king and

Olivares were besieged by Pacheco on the one hand and the Council of

Castile on the other. The king, as usual, sided with the Inquisition and

the President of the Council tendered his resignation with the

suggestion that his office had better be given to Pacheco who, by

holding both positions, could cover up these scandals, while the royal

jurisdiction could scarce be reduced to greater degradation. It is no

wonder that Olivares, in a letter to the president, declared himself to

be the most unfortunate of men, for he could satisfy nobody; his best

course would be to ask the king to let him abandon the management of

affairs; when the kingdom was in such straits that he could scarce take

time to breathe in devising remedies, his efforts were wasted in

competencias and he concluded with the despairing declaration that he

lost his senses in thinking over it without knowing what to say.[1177]

The statesmen who were guiding the destinies of Spain in those perilous

times might well groan under the superfluous burden of deciding these

contests over trifles so ferociously waged, but they were not to be

spared. Arce y Reynoso was not so violent as Pacheco but he was equally

obstinate and was determined to emancipate the Inquisition wholly by

relieving it from royal supervision. There was an instructive case at

Cuenca, in 1645, where the corregidor, Don Alonso Muñoz de Castilblanque

sent a band of assassins to murder a woman with whom he had illicit

relations, together with a priest named Jacinto. The crime created great

excitement, but Muñoz was a contador, or accountant of the tribunal, and

as such a titular official. He presented himself before the inquisitors

who assumed his case and promptly excommunicated the judge who attempted

to prosecute him. Philip had the matter investigated and was told that

both the woman and the priest had been killed. He sent to the Suprema a

decree ordering the removal of the excommunication and the delivery of

the criminal to the Council of Castile, to be tried by the judge which

it had appointed, for the inquisitors could not properly punish so

atrocious a crime without incurring irregularity. This was clear and

peremptory enough, but, in place of obeying it, Arce y Reynoso replied,

May 4, 1645, that this would be a great and unheard of violation of the

rights of the Holy Office. The woman was not dead but was in Valencia,

where the tribunal was busily collecting evidence; to hand Muñoz over to

the secular judges for trial and execution would incur the same

irregularity as sentencing him; the case would be tried by the Suprema,

which had a wide range of suitable penalties that did not infer

irregularity; meanwhile Muñoz would be safely guarded and he trusted

that the king would not set so pernicious an example.

When Philip rejected this appeal and repeated his order, a learned and

elaborate argument was prepared to show that he had no power to

interfere. It took the ground, to which we have already referred, that

the temporal jurisdiction of the Inquisition over its officials was a

grant from the papacy; it was exclusive and unlimited and no secular

ruler could deprive the Holy Office of it; the pope had power to make

this grant and the king had none to remove this or any other case from

its cognizance, for he was not supreme over the ecclesiastical and papal

jurisdiction--the truth being that the papal commissions to the

inquisitor-general conferred power to remove and punish subordinates but

said nothing as to its being exclusive, and equally fallacious was the

citation of three authorities whose utterances had no bearing on the

question at issue.[1178] This audacious reliance on the ignorance of

Philip and his secular advisers was successful. Philip made one or two

efforts more, but Arce y Reynoso held good. A memorial, in 1648, on the

general subject, from a member of the Council of Castile, tells the king

that his repeated commands in the case of Muñoz had been disobeyed and

that, although the criminal had so long been in the hands of the

inquisitors, he had not yet been sentenced, which he held to be clear

proof that their aim was to defend their officials from the royal

justice and not to punish them.[1179]

[Sidenote: _CASTILE_]

How liberal was the construction placed on this term of titular official

was illustrated when, in 1622, at Toledo, the corregidor arrested the

butcher of the tribunal for intolerable frauds on the public. The

inquisitor demanded the prisoner and the papers, published the

corregidor in all the churches as excommunicate, seized the alguazil and

apparitor who had made the arrest, cast them into the secret prison,

tried them as if for heresy, shaved their heads and beards and banished

them and refused to their families any evidence that would preserve

their posterity from infamy. There was danger of a rising in Toledo

against the Inquisition, but it was averted; the Council of Castile

protested and a junta was held which adopted measures to prevent a

repetition of such outrages but, as usual, no attention was paid to

them.[1180]

It would be superfluous to multiply examples of the perennial struggle

which was distracting the energies of the government and weakening the

respect for law in every quarter of Spain. Each tribunal contributed its

share, and there was an unending stream of cases pouring into Madrid for

settlement. Each side blamed the other for this anomalous condition. In

1632, the Suprema, in defending the tribunal of Valencia for its

protection of criminal familiars, bitterly complained that the object of

the Concordias was the relief of the tribunals, the punishment of

offenders, the quick despatch of cases, and the diminished oppression of

pleaders, but that this had been converted into perpetual strife,

regardless of forms and rules of procedure.[1181] For this it was itself

primarily to blame, for though there were doubtless faults on both

sides, the cases recorded in the reports and the arguments of the

Inquisition show that it was the chief offender. Its aggressive powers

were too much greater than those of its adversaries, and its methods

were too sharp, for the secular authorities often to risk the

consequences of being in the wrong.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _THE SPIRITUAL COURTS_]

There was another direction in which the Holy Office sought to interfere

with the administration of justice. So complete is the independence of

secular authority claimed by the Church for those in holy orders, that a

licence from a bishop is held to be necessary before a cleric can obey a

summons to appear as a witness in a lay court, even in civil

cases.[1182] The Inquisition included this among the exemptions of all

connected with it, whether lay or clerical, and even extended it to

familiars. The privilege seems generally to have been conceded, as

respects the salaried officials but, as applied to familiars, it was too

grotesque not to excite opposition. The Concordia of 1568, as we have

seen, provided that familiars should testify before secular judges

without requiring licence from inquisitors and that the latter should

not prohibit them from so doing, which infers that it was an abuse

requiring correction and also that officials were conceded to enjoy the

exemption. The power to summon a witness necessarily includes that of

coercing him to testify, and this was exercised by imprisoning

recalcitrants, which came to be regarded as an infraction of privilege.

In 1649, in the case of Claudio Bolano, a familiar imprisoned for

refusing to give evidence, the tribunal of Valencia formed a

competencia, pending which he was released under bail to both

jurisdictions. The question was of difficult solution and the

competencia dragged on for ten years without settlement. Then, in 1659,

the same thing occurred and another competencia was formed, in which the

most that the Inquisition would concede was that, when the evidence was

indispensable, a notary should be sent to the familiar's house to take

it in secret, basing this upon the danger to which witnesses were

exposed in the violent factions of the time.[1183] The question,

however, was settled, in 1699, in the case of Felipe Bru. At Játiva, on

August 14, 1698, Don Luis Salzedo, Lord of Pamis, was shot and killed

when standing at a window of his house. Don Vicente Monserrat, judge of

the Audiencia of Valencia, found Bru, who was a familiar, a contumacious

witness. He was first given the town as a prison, then his house, and

finally was confined in chains. He appealed to the tribunal, which

ordered his release within three days, under pain of excommunication and

five hundred ducats. A competencia was formed which, in November, 1699,

was decided in favor of the royal jurisdiction. It was probably in

consequence of this discussion that, on July 15th, a royal decree was

issued compelling familiars to give evidence in secular courts. Even

this did not abate the pretensions of the Inquisition for when, in 1702,

Joseph Pérez of Montesa, a familiar, was ordered, under penalty of a

thousand ducats, not to leave that town because a deposition was wanted

from him, he appealed to the tribunal of Valencia which, with the usual

threats, commanded the revocation of the order. On this being refused,

Pérez went to Valencia and had himself incarcerated in the secret

prison, where he was inaccessible. The Audiencia pursued the matter,

there was considerable correspondence and preparations for a

competencia, but finally the affair was settled by sending Pérez to the

house of the regent of the Audiencia, where he made his deposition. To

the end, however, the tribunal maintained the position that, if any

constraint was used, it would resist and protect the familiar unless a

competencia decided to the contrary.[1184]

* * * * *

It was not the secular courts alone that had these perpetual conflicts

with the Inquisition. Like Ishmael, its hand was against every man and

every man's hand was against it--but, in fact, this was to a great

extent the case between all the different jurisdictions among which the

various classes of society were parcelled out by their several

privileges and exemptions. Next to the royal courts ranked the spiritual

courts in the number and complexity of debatable questions with the

Inquisition. With these there were two sources of contention, for they

not only claimed by prescriptive right exclusive jurisdiction in all

temporal matters over all who wore the tonsure, but there was a broad

field for discussion in the somewhat hazy delimitation of spiritual

offences justiciable by one or the other. This latter subject will

engage our attention hereafter; at present we are concerned only with

the questions arising from the personnel of the Holy Office. Notoriously

lax as were the episcopal courts with offenders of the cloth, the

Inquisition had the reputation of still greater indulgence with those

who were under its protection; clerics who were also officials therefore

preferred its tribunals, giving rise to frequent quarrels in which the

inquisitors treated their clerical opponents as remorselessly as they

did the secular officials and judges. The episcopal Ordinaries,

provisors and vicars-general contended that they had, except in cases of

faith, exclusive jurisdiction over all clerics; that the temporal

jurisdiction of the Inquisition was a royal grant which could not

supersede the canon law and that the papal commissions only gave

faculties for punishing official malfeasance. To this unanswerable

argument the inquisitors paid little heed and the prelates were worse

off than the judges for these at least had the Councils of Castile or

Aragon to struggle for them, but the Councils admitted that they had no

standing in ecclesiastical quarrels. The natural recourse of the

prelates for protection was to Rome, but this was a subject of intense

jealousy, traditional in the Spanish monarchy, and Philip III, in a

cédula of January 21, 1611, addressed to all the prelates of his

dominions, told them that they must appeal only to the Suprema and

forbade them to carry any case to the Holy See.[1185]

[Sidenote: _THE SPIRITUAL COURTS_]

There could thus be no competencia; the conflicts between the two

jurisdictions were one-sided and were conducted by the tribunals with

the same overbearing arrogance as that displayed towards secular

magistrates. The first summons on the provisor or vicar-general

inhibited him, under pain of excommunication and a heavy fine, from

further action, ordering him, within twenty-four hours, to remit the

case to the Inquisition and to discharge the prisoner under bail to

present himself before the tribunal, while the notary was required to

surrender all the papers. If this was not obeyed, it was followed by

another, commanding obedience within six hours, in default of which all

beneficed priests were required, under similar penalties, to publish the

provisor and notary as excommunicates and to place their names on the

lists as such. A circular letter was also addressed to all priests,

chaplains and sacristans of the district, to admonish all persons,

within six hours and under pain of excommunication, to avoid the

provisor and notary, to make no pleadings before them, to hold no

communication with them and not to furnish them with bread or wine, fish

or flesh, while a public edict to the same effect was issued to all the

people. In case of continued obduracy, these measures were promptly

followed by an edict to all the clergy, ordering them to anathematize

the provisor and notary with tolling bells and extinguished candles,

proclaiming them accursed of God and his saints--"accursed be the bread

that they eat and the bed on which they sleep and the beasts on which

they ride, and may their souls perish in hell like the candles in the

water: let them be comprehended in the sentence of Sodom and Gomorrha

and of Dathan and Abiram, whom the earth swallowed for disobedience, and

may all the curses of Psalm _Deus laudem meam_ (Ps. CVIII, a fearful

commination) light on them!" If this did not suffice within twenty-four

hours, an interdict followed, tolling bells and performing divine

service in low tone with locked doors, until otherwise ordered. In case

this failed, the last step was a _cessatio a divinis_, or cessation of

church services in the city where the offenders lived, in order to

coerce them with popular clamor.[1186] It was difficult for either lay

or clerical officials to contend with opponents who wielded such weapons

as these.

The irresponsible exercise of such powers inevitably led to their abuse.

In the Concordia of 1568 it is highly suggestive to find a clause

forbidding inquisitors to issue, as they have been accustomed, to

familiars and officials, general inhibitions protecting them from the

ecclesiastical courts; such inhibitions are to be special and issued

only in each case as it may occur. Equally significant is another which

says that in no case belonging by law to the provisor shall the

inquisitor intervene against his will.[1187] The strained relations

resulting between the ecclesiastical body and the Holy Office are

alluded to in the project of reform, presented to the Suprema in 1623,

which says that the clerical commissioners and their notaries bring

about many conflicts with the ecclesiastical judges and, as there are no

Concordias, the inquisitors are wont to arrogate to themselves greater

jurisdiction than belongs to them, which causes much murmuring and

resentment of the prelates and clergy. The writer piously wishes that

this could be avoided, but he evidently has no remedy to propose.[1188]

A conflict caused by one of these local notaries in 1609 amply justified

the murmurs of the prelates. The priest of Cabra, who occupied the

almost nominal position of local notary, was a notorious incestuous

concubinarian, who had not for eight years celebrated mass or recited

prayers. The provisor of Córdova commenced a prosecution and threw him

into the episcopal gaol, when he claimed the fuero of the Inquisition.

The provisor had been on friendly terms with the three inquisitors and

sought an amicable settlement of the matter when, by a trick, they

obtained possession of the papers and inhibited him from further

proceedings. He appealed to the Suprema and was excommunicated. Four

times the Suprema ordered the inquisitors to abandon the case and remove

the censure, but they persistently disobeyed. All the officials of the

episcopal court were ordered to hold no communication with him, which

threw the whole business of the diocese into confusion, for the bishop

was absent and the provisor was his representative. The culprit escaped

from the episcopal gaol and was harbored by the tribunal. Passion was

becoming acute; a band of familiars and officials broke into the

episcopal palace and endeavored to carry off the provisor, but he was

rescued by the canons in a dilapidated condition and took to his bed.

Then the inquisitors pronounced the magic word--a matter of faith--which

brought to their aid the corregidor and municipal authorities, who came

with a troop of soldiers and carried him off on his bed, to the sound of

drums and trumpets. He was taken to the Inquisition and confined for two

months in a small cell, tried without opportunity for defence and

sentenced to forfeit his office of provisor, to four years of banishment

and other penalties, and copies of the sentence were circulated

throughout the city. The bishop had sought to come to his rescue by

excommunicating the inquisitors; they disregarded the censures,

threatened to prosecute him if he did not remove them and did prosecute

some of the canons as conspiring against the Inquisition, because they

had been elected by the chapter to aid the bishop in defending the

provisor.[1189]

[Sidenote: _THE SPIRITUAL COURTS_]

Such a sentence against a church dignitary of high rank required

confirmation by the Suprema, which must have been given, for appeal was

made to Philip III. He rendered some satisfaction by dismissing and

banishing all secular officials who had been concerned in the arrest and

wounding of the provisor, but the inquisitors, whose mere tools they had

been, were left undisturbed.[1190] Yet it was impossible that an affair

which had aroused the attention of all Spain should pass without an

attempt to prevent the recurrence of such scandals. There had been a

threat, and possibly more than a threat, to appeal to Rome in defence of

the bishop and clergy of Córdova, which led to the cédula of January 21,

1611, alluded to above, restricting their recourse to the Suprema. In

urging this the Suprema, in a consulta of November 15, 1610, admitted

that these troubles arose from the aggressions of the tribunals and

their unnecessary multiplication of nominal officials; it had recently

issued three _cartas acordadas_ on the subject and had written to all

the bishops asking reports of such excesses so as to remedy them. Philip

in reply authorized the Suprema to draft such a cédula as it desired but

ordered it to be so framed as not to encourage the inquisitors, who were

every day intervening in matters beyond their competence for the purpose

of extending their jurisdiction; it was this that gave rise to these

troubles, nor would they cease till the cause was removed.[1191]

Thus it was admitted on all hands that the fault lay with the tribunals,

yet the wrong committed by that of Córdova remained unredressed and

unpunished. Philip permitted himself, in spite of his better judgement,

to be persuaded to cut off all recourse to the court of last resort in

Rome, and some nominal relief must be offered to the oppressed churches

and prelates. The memorial from Córdova had concluded with a prayer for

some law to prevent these discords and to maintain the episcopal

jurisdiction over the clergy, as the king had promised in a letter

transmitted through the Council of Castile. The promise was kept after a

fashion, though not until after a delay which shows how prolonged was

the resistance encountered. In a carta acordada of November 28, 1612,

the tribunals were informed that in order that the ministers of the

Inquisition may not sin through confidence of impunity, and to prevent

the conflicts which disturb the peace, the Suprema has resolved that in

the cases of unsalaried clerical officials, the episcopal ordinaries

shall have exclusive jurisdiction over offences relating to clerical

duties and offices, to simony and spiritual matters, while inquisitors

shall have cumulative jurisdiction with the ordinaries, depending on

priority of action, in public and scandalous offences, such as

incontinence, usury, gambling and the like.[1192] This remained in force

nominally at least, until the last, but the allusion to the perpetual

troubles arising from this source, in the project presented to the

Suprema in 1623, shows how futile it was in curbing the aggressions of

the tribunals.

Throughout Peninsular Spain the episcopal jurisdiction was thus left

defenceless to the encroachments of the Inquisition, but the Church of

Majorca was fortunate in obtaining the protection of Rome, leading to a

series of conflicts, waged on less unequal terms, which are worth

consideration as revealing a peculiar phase in these affairs. There was

a long-standing quarrel between the cathedral canons and the

Inquisition. In 1600, one of the former, Pere Enseñat, assisted in the

escape of a man who had wounded a familiar, whereupon the inquisitor,

Francisco de Esquinel, threw him in prison and made him give bail in

three hundred ducats. In 1605, another canon, Francisco Sanceloni, had a

verbal altercation with Bernardo Luis Cotoner, advocate of prisoners,

for which Esquinel imprisoned him, tried him and condemned him in the

costs, with his past incarceration as a punishment. The indignant canons

addressed a strong remonstrance to the Suprema. They had an old

privilege, confirmed by the Council of Trent (Sess. XXV, De Reform. cap.

6) that they could be arrested only by the Ordinary sitting in judgement

with two of their number; in matters of faith they admitted subjection

to the Holy Office, but they claimed exemption in civil and criminal

cases. The number of familiars and officials, and their petulance

arising from the protection of the tribunal, rendered it impossible to

be always incurring the expense and dangers of appeals to Rome for the

preservation of their privileges. This was ineffective and, in the

course of another outbreak in 1630, there was a correspondence between

the Congregation of the Roman Inquisition and the nuncio at Madrid

respecting an appeal from the canons. In this the nuncio reported that

he had applied to Inquisitor-general Zapata, who promised to instruct

the inquisitor not to molest the canons.[1193]

[Sidenote: _THE SPIRITUAL COURTS_]

If he did so, he was disobeyed as usual and, in 1636, a canon named

Domenge was involved in a civil suit before the tribunal, resulting in a

judgement against him of five thousand reales, the execution of which he

resisted by force. This brought on him a prosecution, in spite of

protests interjected by the bishop and chapter, which was carried on

appeal to the Suprema, where he was condemned in seven hundred reales

which he paid. Meanwhile, notwithstanding the cédula of 1611, the bishop

and chapter had applied to Rome for a brief declaring that the canons

were subject to the Inquisition only in matters of faith. The question

was exhaustively discussed, in the Congregation of the Holy Office, with

Luis de los Infantes, the Roman agent of the Inquisition. The conclusion

reached was that the Majorca tribunal had no jurisdiction over the

canons save in matters of faith and this was duly embodied in the brief

_Cum sicut dilecti_, March 31, 1642, which is preserved in the

Bullarium. It names the bishop and dean or treasurer as executors, with

power to inflict censures and to invoke if necessary the aid of the

secular arm. It was received in Majorca with general rejoicing; it was

printed and circulated and a syndicate was formed by the clergy to

obtain, without regard to expense, a similar one for the whole

ecclesiastical body, an effort which was successful in the following

September.

The brief was duly served on the inquisitor, who refused to recognize it

as not having been transmitted through the Suprema; besides he asserted

that it was surreptitious and obreptitious as having been granted

without a hearing of the other side and moreover it was in derogation of

the bull _Si de protegendis_. In a consulta of December 11th, the

Suprema represented energetically to Philip IV the manner in which his

predecessors had compelled the surrender of papal letters adverse to the

Inquisition; it asked him to have the present one suppressed and to

instruct the prelates that all cases of difference must be referred to

it, that no recourse be had to Rome, under the penalties decreed by

Ferdinand, that the Viceroy of Majorca be required to compel the chapter

to desist and that the ambassador to Rome be instructed to obtain the

revocation of the obnoxious letters.

Unluckily for the Suprema the times were unpropitious. Majorca was too

near to rebellious Catalonia for the imperious methods of the Holy

Office to be judicious. Philip replied that the revival of Ferdinand's

laws would cause trouble and the remedy sought must be practicable. The

inquisitor of Majorca had been guilty of gross excesses and must be

ordered to exercise moderation, and he suggested a junta of members of

the Suprema and Council of Aragon to devise a Concordia. Whether such

compromise was reached does not appear; if it was, subsequent events

show that it was not observed by either side and no reference to it

occurs. The papal briefs were maintained and ten years later, after the

collapse of the Catalan rebellion, instructions of April 23, 1652, to an

ambassador departing for Rome, order him to labor for their revocation;

their evil example was contagious; the Knights of St. John in Majorca

were seeking to obtain a similar favor through the Maltese ambassador,

which must be resisted in every way, for it would be followed by all the

other Orders.[1194]

The Suprema continued to treat the papal briefs as surreptitious and, in

1658, Arce y Reynoso enjoyed a momentary triumph in a contest by

summoning the vicar-general to Madrid and forcing him to come.[1195]

Under the feebler government of the queen-regent, his successor Nithard

was not so fortunate, in a fierce quarrel which involved the whole

island in confusion and embroiled the rival departments of the

government. May 9, 1667, on a feast-day, in the church of San Francisco,

Don Jorje Dameto struck his son-in-law, Don Joseph Vallejo, with a

crutch, causing effusion of blood and thus polluting the church. Both

gentlemen were familiars. The inquisitor, before noon-day, ordered the

arrest of both; in the afternoon Bishop Manjarre cited Dameto to appear

for sacrilege and violation of the church. The rival jurisdictions

locked horns and proceeded to extremities. The viceroy and Audiencia,

with the bulk of the community, sided with the bishop, but disturbances

were commencing and they repeatedly urged postponement of action until

the government could be heard from, but the inquisitor refused. The

bishop published him as excommunicate, anathematized him and caused the

psalm of malediction to be repeatedly sung against him, but the

inquisitor continued to celebrate mass, exhibited himself conspicuously

in public, forbade the bishop entrance into his own church and

threatened to suspend his sacerdotal functions. On August 29th the

bishop assembled a synod where arrangements were made to send an envoy

to Rome to prosecute the case, with a printed statement of all the

proceedings, a copy of which was furnished to the Council of Aragon.

[Sidenote: _THE SPIRITUAL COURTS_]

From Madrid, Nithard imperiously summoned the bishop to appear before

him and plead his case. Under the canon law, the Inquisition had no

jurisdiction over bishops, without a special delegation of papal

faculties, and Manjarre was justified in declaring the summons null and

void. Although, as an ecclesiastical question, the Council of Aragon had

no direct competence, still as the peace of Majorca was seriously

threatened and the viceroy was involved, it took a hand in the matter

and thus were presented the gravest questions with regard to the

relations of the Inquisition with the episcopate, with the Holy See, and

with the secular authorities.

Secure in the blind obedience of the queen, Nithard adopted the most

aggressive attitude, and the queen submissively did whatever he

required, for he assured her that the case was the most serious that had

arisen since the foundation of the Inquisition and that, on its rightful

decision, depended the preservation or extinction, not alone of the

Majorca tribunal, but of all those under the crown of Aragon. To

emphasize this he summoned the bishop to appear before him, personally

or by procurator, within a term designated, in default of which he would

be prosecuted _in contumacia_. To this the queen, in October, added her

commands to the Council of Aragon; as the preservation of the Catholic

faith required the maintenance of the authority of the Inquisition, the

Council was ordered to write to the bishop to comply with the summons,

and to the viceroy to assist the tribunal if necessary; the bishop must

not appeal to Rome and if he had done so the letters must be intercepted

and placed in her hands.

The Council of Aragon did not obey. It held the matter until January 21,

1668, when it presented a consulta warning the queen of the consequences

of her action and pointing out that the pope was the sole judge of

bishops in important cases, as were provincial synods in trivial

matters. Nithard, however, was superior to the Council of Trent, and the

Suprema commenced a criminal prosecution of Bishop Manjarre, while, on

February 5th, an answer was prepared for the Council of Aragon, couched

in a tone of bitterness and scarcely veiled contempt, which showed how

fierce were the passions at work. The queen was assured that her action

was in accordance with all previous royal provisions and she was asked

to order the Council of Aragon to obey and not to interfere hereafter

with ecclesiastical controversies. Before this missive was delivered,

however, news came from Majorca that the culprit Dameto had withdrawn

his appeal to the tribunal and had applied for absolution to the bishop,

who considered the whole matter as settled. This was a staggering blow

from which it took Nithard a month to recover, but finally he sent the

consulta of February 5th with a postscript of March 12th, arguing that a

subject cannot impair his judge's jurisdiction by accepting another and

consequently that the situation was unaltered.

The queen of course adopted this view and repeated her orders, but again

the Council disobeyed her and presented, March 18th, a consulta adjuring

her in solemn terms to reflect calmly, for she was making the

inquisitor-general a judge of all the bishops in her dominions, not only

as to conflicts of jurisdiction but also as to criminal accusations,

without his holding faculties from the pope, while, at the same time,

she was forbidding appeals to the Holy See which was the only proper

judge. She was warned that it was impossible to exaggerate the

importance of the questions at issue and she was implored, before making

so momentous a decision, to consult the Councils of Castile, Italy and

the Indies, for the interests of the whole monarchy were involved as

well as the supreme power of the pope. To this her reply was merely a

repetition of her former orders and a demand for a duplicate of the

letters of the Council to the Viceroy. For the third time it disobeyed

her and sent none and there are intimations that it was engaged in

arousing the whole Spanish episcopate to a sense of the impending

danger.

Then the affair suddenly assumed another phase. On March 7th the queen

had written to her ambassador in Rome to procure the abstention of the

pope from the matter, but, on that very day, the Congregation of the

Inquisition, with the approval of the pope, had pronounced invalid the

censures fulminated by the inquisitor. It was late in May before this

was communicated to the queen by the nuncio, who said that the pope had

recognized the gravity of the assault by an inquisitor on the episcopal

dignity and the magnitude of the ensuing scandal, and had caused the

whole subject to be carefully considered by the Congregation with the

above result. The pope had felt deeply, not only the indignity offered

to the episcopal office, but also that the fiscal of the Inquisition had

applied to the queen to summon the bishop before it, solely on the

ground of his having appealed to the Holy See. In the name of the pope

the nuncio therefore asked the queen to order inquisitors not to proceed

against bishops and to reject the application of the fiscal.

[Sidenote: _THE SPIRITUAL COURTS_]

Even this did not shake the determination of Nithard to reduce the

episcopate to subjection. A long and argumentative consulta was

presented to the queen, proving that the papal decision was

surreptitious and therefore invalid, and that anyhow the decrees of the

Roman Inquisition had no currency in Spain. The old prohibitions of

appeals to Rome were invoked and the queen was told that one of the most

precious jewels of the Spanish crown was at stake, for, unless the

regalías were preserved, the Inquisition must disappear, delinquents

would be unpunished, religion would suffer and, with the loss of its

unity, there would no longer be obedience to the throne. The queen was

therefore urged to stand firm; the prosecution of the bishop must not be

suspended and the Council of Aragon must be forced to obey the royal

commands.

Nithard was ready to risk an open breach with the Holy See in his

audacious ambition to render the Inquisition supreme in the Spanish

Church. How far the queen would have suffered herself to be carried in

the execution of his plans cannot be told, as the documents fail us

here. His career, however, was drawing to a close. In February, 1669, he

was driven from Spain amid universal execration, yet the prosecution of

Bishop Manjarre was not abandoned, for the Inquisition was not

accustomed openly to admit defeat. It dragged until his death, December

26, 1670, when it was quietly dropped.[1196]

Practically the intervention of Rome gave the victory to the

Mallorquins, of which they took advantage. In 1671 there arose another

quarrel over a fine incurred by a canon who was also a consultor of the

tribunal. Both sides exchanged excommunications and Inquisitor-general

Valladares, profiting by his predecessor's experience, showed

moderation. On the plea that it was a matter of government rather than

of jurisdiction, the Suprema ordered the tribunal to abandon the case

and remove the censures imposed on the canons, but the latter were not

content with this and procured from the Roman Holy Office a decree

declaring invalid the censures of the inquisitors and valid those of the

executors of the brief. The Council of Aragon communicated this to the

queen who submissively signed a letter, January 25, 1672, to the

chapter, expressing her confidence that in its use they would pay

fitting attention to the peace and advantage of the Church.[1197]

The Inquisition was not accustomed to defeat and it chafed under this,

as was shown when, in 1690, a quarrel arose because a priest of

Minorca, named Juan Bruells, used insulting words to the commissioner,

Rafael Pons. For this he was prosecuted and the case threw all the

islands into confusion. The viceroy, the Audiencia and the clergy all

united against the Inquisition. The Ordinary of Minorca, as executor of

the brief of 1642, forcibly released Bruells, forbade the inquisitor to

proceed and, on his disobeying, excommunicated him. About this time the

Mallorquin tribunal had claims to consideration arising from its

vigorous proceedings against Judaizers and the large resultant

confiscations. The Suprema espoused its cause with the usual energy and,

in repeated consultas to Carlos III, denounced the papal briefs as

surreptitious and invalid, full of defects and nullities. The feeble

king issued repeated commands for the prosecution of Bruells and the

surrender of the briefs, but no one paid attention to them. The

Mallorquin clergy procured from the Congregation of the Inquisition a

decree validating the censures pronounced by the Ordinary and annulling

those of the inquisitor; the pope confirmed this but subsequently

suspended it at the earnest solicitation of the Spanish ambassador, at

the same time ordering his nuncio to make the king understand that the

Congregation had supreme power to decide all questions of jurisdiction.

The affair did not result to the satisfaction of the Inquisition for the

last we hear of it is a bitter complaint by the Suprema, March 11, 1693,

of the contumacious Mallorquins and the miserable condition to which

they had reduced the Inquisition. In Minorca, the clergy and their

dependents were so hostile that Pons could not find a church in which to

celebrate mass, while the officials were shunned as excommunicated

heretics.[1198]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _MILITARY ORDERS_]

Another jurisdiction with which there were occasional quarrels was that

of the army, for soldiers were exempt from the secular courts. In such

competencias settlements were made by a junta of two members each of the

Suprema and the Council of War, with final reference to the king in case

of disagreement. I have happened to meet with but few cases of this and

they seem never to have attained the importance of those with the

secular and ecclesiastical courts. One occurred in 1629, arising from

disputes with the garrison that had occupied the Aljafería since the

troubles of 1591. A somewhat curious case was that of Don Fernando

Antonio Herrera Calderon, of Santander, who was alguazil and familiar

and who resigned, in 1641, from his military company, although warned

that, by so doing during hostilities, he would be tried by the Council

of War. It naturally claimed him and the Suprema endeavored to protect

him.[1199] It would seem that, towards the end of the eighteenth

century, the exemption of the military was causing special troubles, for

a royal cédula of February 9, 1793, declares that, to put an end to

them, in future the military judges shall have exclusive cognizance of

all cases, civil and criminal, in which soldiers are defendants, except

inheritances, and that no tribunal or judge of any kind shall form a

competencia concerning them under any pretext.[1200]

* * * * *

There was yet another independent jurisdiction with which the

Inquisition occasionally came into collision. In Spain the Military

Orders formed so important a body that, among the State Councils, there

was one of Orders, which had exclusive jurisdiction over their members.

It will be recalled that one of Ferdinand's most efficient measures to

ensure the peace of the kingdom was to obtain the perpetual

administration of those of Santiago, Calatrava and Alcántara, while the

queen assumed that of Montesa. Yet he was not disposed to favor their

claims of exemption in temporal matters from the jurisdiction of the

Inquisition. A letter of September 15, 1515, to the tribunal of Jaen,

says that certain confiscations involve property held by knights of the

three Orders who may claim exemption and refuse to plead before the

judge of confiscations; if so they are not to be listened to and, if

necessary, are to be prosecuted with the full rigor of the law.[1201]

In civil and criminal matters the members of the Orders asserted

exemption from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, leading to disputes

more or less acrimonious. In 1609, at Córdova, Don Diego de Argoté, a

Knight of Santiago, with levelled pistol, prevented the arrest of one of

his servants by officials of the tribunal. A competencia resulted which,

when carried up to Philip III, was decided by him in favor of the

Council of Orders. To this the Suprema replied in a consulta, fortelling

the entire destruction of the Inquisition in case the decision was

allowed to stand and so worked on Philip that he reversed his decree

and allowed the Suprema to prosecute the culprit.[1202] The

complication caused by these class privileges is illustrated in the case

alluded to above, occurring in 1648, at Cuenca, of Muñoz de

Castilblanque for the murder of the priest Jacinto. He was a Knight of

Calatrava which led to an additional competencia, when the junta could

not agree and the king had to decide.[1203]

In their contests with the Orders, the tribunals were apt to exhibit the

same unscrupulous spirit as in those with other contestants. In Majorca

Doctor Ramon Sureda, canon, chancellor and judge of competencias, was

likewise conservator of the Military Orders. In 1657 he complained that,

in conflicts of jurisdiction, the inquisitor would not form competencias

with him in order that the papers might take the regular course of

transmission for settlement by the Suprema and Council of Orders. The

king and queen therefore, as administrators of the Orders, instructed

him in such case to send to the inquisitor three successive messages and

report them and their replies to the Council; if, in spite of this, the

tribunal continued to prosecute the case, he was to proceed against the

inquisitor and the viceroy was to render him all proper support. The

inquisitor ingeniously evaded this in the case of Gaspar Puygdorfilio, a

Knight of Santiago, in 1661, by refusing to receive any messages, saying

that he received them only from the viceroy. Sureda's report of this was

left unnoticed and the inquisitor adopted the same device, in 1662, in

the case of Francisco de Veri, a Knight of Montesa, prosecuted for

wounding a familiar who had drawn a sword upon him. He refused to

receive messages and proceeded to sequestrate Veri's property, including

his crops and cattle. To save them from destruction the viceroy

interposed and the Council of Orders appealed to the queen, as

administrator of the Order, to take some action that should enable such

questions to be settled peaceably, but apparently without result.[1204]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _MILITARY ORDERS_]

As though the exempted classes were not numerous and troublesome enough,

there was a project, in 1574, of adding another which, if carried into

effect, would have altered the destiny of Spain by subjecting it

eventually to the Inquisition and reducing the nominal monarch to the

position of a _roi fainéant_ under a Mayor of the Palace. It is a most

impressive illustration of the spirit of the age that such a project

should have been formulated, that it received enthusiastic support and

that a sovereign so jealous of his prerogative as Philip II should have

even allowed it to be debated, much less have let it assume a menacing

shape and have given it serious consideration. A Military Order was to

be established under the name of _Santa María de la Espada Blanca_, with

a white sword as a symbol, like the red sword of Santiago. At its head

was to be the inquisitor-general, to whom all members were to swear

allegiance and whose orders in peace and war all were to obey. To him

likewise they were to assign their property, receiving back at his hands

what was necessary for their support, and after death their widows were

to be pensioned by him. They were to be exempt from all jurisdiction

save his, which was to be delegated to priors appointed in all the

provinces. The ostensible object was the defence of the faith and of

Spain, for which they were at any time liable to be called to the field,

or to serve in garrison, under the orders of the inquisitor-general.

Thus the Inquisition was to be furnished with an organized force, sworn

to blind obedience and released from all other obligations. The only

requisite for membership was _limpieza_, or purity of blood, free from

all taint of Judaic or Moorish contamination, or descent from those who

had been sentenced for heresy. At this period limpieza was becoming a

popular mania; the cost of proving it through four generations was

considerable, and there was strong temptation in the promise that the

expenses of all applicants would be defrayed from the common fund.

The project may seem to us too wild to merit a thought, but it responded

so perfectly to the temper of the time that it was enthusiastically

adopted by the provinces of Castile, Leon, Biscay, Navarre, Aragon,

Valencia, Catalonia, Asturias and Galicia. Procurators from these

provinces submitted it to Philip for his approval and were supported by

representatives of forty-eight noble houses and of the archiepiscopal

sees of Toledo, Santiago, Seville, Saragossa, Valencia, Tarragona and

Granada. It was debated earnestly and at much length, but the argument

of Pedro Vinegas de Córdova decided its fate. He pointed out the

troubles which were already arising on the subject of limpieza, causing

jealousies, hatreds and contentions, to be increased enormously if the

population was thus to be divided into two classes; also the fact that

the royal courts would have left to their jurisdiction only the New

Christians, while the Old Christians would have their special judges

and, if the comparatively few existing familiars caused such

all-pervading troubles, what the effect would be of increasing without

limit the number of the exempt. On the one hand the ambitious and able

men among the New Christians, being thus cast out, would foment

disaffection and disturbance; on the other, if the old Military Orders

had been a source of danger to the monarchy, what would be the effect of

creating a new one, united and vastly more numerous and subject as

vassals to an inquisitor-general, whose power was already so great, and

who would control the property and have jurisdiction over all members,

while in case of rebellion the frontiers and strongholds would be in his

hands? This reasoning was unanswerable; Philip ordered all papers

connected with the project to be surrendered; he imposed perpetual

silence on its advocates and wrote to the ecclesiastical and secular

bodies to abandon it, for justice and protection would never be

lacking.[1205]

* * * * *

We shall probably do no injustice to the Inquisition in attributing to

the profits accruing from the exercise of its temporal jurisdiction the

ruthless vigor with which the tribunals sought to vindicate and extend

it. The remarks of the Visitor Cervantes with regard to Barcelona, in

1561 (p. 468), indicate how lucrative it could be made and how welcome

was the addition of fees and fines to the somewhat meagre salaries of

the officials. This explains the reckless violence which became habitual

in the conduct of quarrels, because this not only was an assurance to

the parties concerned as to the vigor with which they were defended, but

it also served to discourage the secular authorities from resisting

encroachments. It also explains the multiplication of the unsalaried

officials such as familiars, commissioners and their notaries,

assessors, deputies etc., which no laws or Concordias or regulations

could restrain, for each one was a possible source of profit to the

tribunal and a probable cause of disturbance in his vicinage, through

the comfortable assurance of immunity from the law.

[Sidenote: _EVILS OF THE SYSTEM_]

The natural result of this was that unprofitable business was neglected

for profitable, and the suppression of heresy was postponed to the trial

of civil and criminal cases which yielded fees. We have seen how

Cervantes reported that in Barcelona this seemed to be the real duty of

the tribunal and that there was nothing else to be attended to; his

animadversions produced no amendment and, in 1567, de Soto Salazar

repeated the complaint.[1206] This continued unchecked. The project of

reform presented to the Suprema, in 1623, expresses the wish that other

tribunals would follow the example of Saragossa, where one of the

inquisitors was delegated every four months to conduct this business, so

that prisoners on trial for heresy could have their cases despatched and

not be kept languishing interminably in prison, which, as we shall see,

was one of the sorest abuses inflicted on them.[1207] This pious wish

was fruitless and the records of the Inquisition for the following

century show how large a portion of its activity was devoted to these

cases and to the competencias incessantly springing from them.

One feature which aggravated the oppression in these matters, especially

in civil suits, was not only the favoritism which inevitably inclined

the tribunal to the side of its own people, but the fact that the

inquisitors were usually strangers, unfamiliar with the local laws and

customs peculiar to each province, which they presumed to interpret and

enforce. This justified the frequent demands that inquisitors should be

natives--demands which received no attention, for the appointing power

thought only of their qualifications as judges of the faith while, to

the mass of the population, their duties in this respect were of small

account in comparison with their activity in their temporal

jurisdiction. Another well-grounded source of complaint was that the

inquisitorial habits of secrecy could not be wholly overcome; the

parties and their counsel were not allowed to be present, as in the

royal courts; witnesses were examined by the inquisitor on lists of

interrogatories furnished to him, and there was no cross-examination;

written arguments were presented to him which he handed to the other

side for reply and the procedure, in both civil and criminal cases, was

assimilated as nearly as might be to the secret trials for heresy which

was the inquisitorial ideal of the dispensation of justice. The cases

were decided by the inquisitors in session together, on a majority vote.

In the sixteenth century there was no appeal to the Suprema, even when

the vote was not unanimous, but, in 1645, a writer assumes that either

side could appeal.[1208]

We have seen how tenaciously the kingdoms of Aragon struggled against

the evils of the system. Castile felt them equally but it had not the

same institutions and could only remonstrate. The Córtes of Madrid, in

1607-8, represented that those of 1579 and 1586 had petitioned for the

reform of the abuses arising from the temporal jurisdiction of the

Inquisition to the great injury of the kingdom; that Philip II had

promised relief, but had died without granting it, and therefore the

request was now repeated in view of the increasing evils. Especially was

attention called to the cruelty of imprisoning ordinary offenders, for

the people could not distinguish and imagined all prisoners to be

heretics, thus entailing infamy upon them and disqualifying them for

marriage, wherefore it was asked that they be confined in the public

gaols. Philip III promised to do what was proper and of course did

nothing. The Córtes of 1611 repeated the petition, with similar lack of

result.[1209]

[Sidenote: _EVILS OF THE SYSTEM_]

The Council of Castile, the highest tribunal in the land, in a consulta

of 1631, represented forcibly the existing evils, especially the

prodigal use of censures under which corregidores and other magistrates

lay under excommunication for months together, while individuals were

impoverished by the long delays in settling competencias. It urged the

remedy of permitting appeals to the Council _por via de fuerza_, in

cases not of faith and this it repeated in 1634, 1669 and 1682.[1210]

More outspoken was a memorial presented, in 1648, to Philip by a member

of the Council, on the abuses of the criminal jurisdiction, those in

civil cases being treated in a separate paper. The writer alludes to

having repeatedly made the same representations orally and in writing;

he dwells upon the interminable delays and other obstacles which impede

justice and discourage sufferers from seeking it. The resultant immunity

creates audacious criminals; the number of familiars and of soldiers who

never serve in the field has increased so greatly that nothing is seen

but crimes and the offenders are unpunished. Everywhere men of the most

dissolute type and the largest fortunes seek appointment so as to enjoy

immunity; the royal revenues are defrauded and prohibited goods are

imported, while no corregidor or alcalde dares to curb them, for they

are at once excommunicated by the inquisitors, even to casting

interdicts over whole communities. Those who suffer remain without

redress, so that those who are able are led to take it into their own

hands, for they can get it nowhere else. Justice is trampled under foot;

there is no alguazil who dares to make an arrest, or scrivener to draw

up papers, so many have been slain or wounded for so doing and the death

of an alguazil is held at naught, as though the officers of justice were

common enemies. If the king would re-establish the jurisdiction of the

royal courts there would be an end to the excommunications with which

the inquisitors defend their delinquents, as though they were vessels of

the Temple; the time of the Councils and of the king would not be

consumed by these perpetual competencias and the plagues would cease

wherewith God afflicts these kingdoms for the injustice, the violence

and the dissolute life of the people.[1211]

These warnings and remonstrances fell on deaf ears. The Suprema was

skilled to work upon the piety of the king, and to promise him relief

from perils if he would placate God by increasing the privileges of the

Inquisition, the very existence of which depended upon its ability to

protect its familiars from the law and from the universal hatred in

which they were held.

After the fall of Inquisitor-general Nithard, there was a bustling

attempt to check the enormous evils admitted to exist. In 1677 Carlos II

deprecated the abuses common, both in excessive charges and in forcing

his pious subjects to submit by censures which deprived them of the

consolations of religion. He declared excommunication to be illegal in

matters connected exclusively with laymen and temporal possessions, and

forbade its employment, a command which he addressed to the Suprema in

1678 with directions to enforce it and which he repeated in 1691, but

without effect.[1212] Then a more comprehensive effort was made to

effect a radical reform. In 1696, Carlos was induced to assemble what

was known as the Junta Magna, consisting of two members each of the

Councils of State, of Aragon, of Castile, of Italy, of Indies and of

Orders. The decree creating it recites the disturbance and interference

with justice, the continual collisions and competencias between the

Inquisition and the courts over question of jurisdiction and privileges,

and the necessity of establishing some fixed principles and rules to

avert these troubles for the future and to preserve the Holy Office in

the love and reverence of the people, without its interfering in matters

foreign to its venerable purpose. The Junta was to meet at least once a

week and it was furnished with materials from the records of all the

Councils, through which it obtained a thorough insight into the evils to

be remedied. These labors resulted in a memorial known as the Consulta

Magna, drawn up by Doctor Joseph de Ledesma of the Council of Castile.

[Sidenote: _EVILS OF THE SYSTEM_]

It constituted a terrible indictment of the abuse, by the Inquisition,

of the temporal jurisdiction bestowed on it by the sovereigns, with

ample proof of flagrant cases and incidents. Then followed a

consideration of possible remedies, of which the most indispensable was

declared to be the prohibition of censures, which were so formidable

that no one could resist them. Persons arrested for offences not of

faith should be confined in the royal prisons to save them from the

indelible disgrace of the secret prison. The _recurso de fuerza_ should

be admitted when excommunication was used in temporal cases. The _fuero_

should be withdrawn from the servants and commensals of officials whose

insolence gave occasion to arrests and censures causing dissensions that

scandalized the whole kingdom. It was admitted that familiars now gave

little trouble, save in Majorca, where there was no Concordia, but the

salaried officials were the source of infinite contention and they

should be put on the footing of familiars. A grievance of the greatest

magnitude was the interminable delay in the settlement of competencias,

during which prisoners languished in confinement and excommunicates

could not obtain absolution; this could be averted if the Concordias and

royal orders were enforced. As all attempts to curb the Inquisition had

proved useless, and in spite of them it had continually increased its

abuses, the ultimate remedy of depriving it wholly of the royal

jurisdiction might be found necessary, but meanwhile these milder

measures might be tried in hope of relief.[1213] These proposed

remedies, it will be seen, were moderate enough and in no way limited

the Inquisition in its ostensible functions as the preserver of the

faith.

This was the most formidable assault that the Inquisition had

experienced, coming as it did from the combined forces of all the other

organizations of the State, under the auspices of the king, but it was

easily averted. Llorente tells us that Inquisitor-general Rocaberti,

working through the royal confessor Froilan Diaz, who was ex-officio a

member of the Suprema, and also Rocaberti's subject in the Dominican

Order, succeeded in inducing Carlos to consign the consulta to the limbo

in which reposed so many previous memorials.[1214] The manner in which

this was effected was simple enough. In 1726 Don Santiago Augustin Riol

drew up for Philip V a report on the creation and organization of the

state councils, in which he states that the consulta was submitted to

the Council of Castile for its action; this was delayed by the illness

of the governor of the Council; when he returned to duty the matter was

forgotten and the consulta disappeared so completely that, when Philip V

called for it, in 1701, no copy could be found in the archives, as

appeared from a certificate furnished by the archivist.[1215]

* * * * *

This narrow escape did not teach moderation. In 1702 the Valencia

tribunal refused even to join in a competencia over a case in which it

entertained a suit brought to collect the interest on a censo, by the

widow of an alguazil mayor as guardian of her children. It was in vain

that the regent of the Audiencia pointed out that, under the Concordia

of 1568, the widow of an official only enjoyed the fuero as defendant

and not as plaintiff and that the children had no claim whatever, and

cited precedents that had been so decided; the tribunal was stubborn and

would not even admit that the question could be carried up to the

Suprema and Council of Aragon for decision.[1216] It was not long after

this, however, that the Suprema was obliged to admit that reforms in the

methods of the Holy Office were essential. In its carta acordada of June

27, 1705, is embodied a rebuke of the recklessness with which the

tribunals undertook the defence of their officials, resulting in the

universal complaints of the abuse of its jurisdiction, so that it was

popularly said that everything was made a _caso de Inquisicion_, to the

disrepute of its officials and their families. Therefore, unless the

jurisdiction was indisputable, the Suprema must be consulted before

assuming the defence, amicable adjustments must always be sought and

friendly relations be maintained with the royal officials, thus avoiding

competencias which ordinarily arose from passionate conflicts over

trifles.[1217]

[Sidenote: _CURTAILMENT OF PRIVILEGES_]

These were wise admonitions to which as usual scant attention was paid,

but in time the tribunals were made to recognize the change which had

come in with the Bourbons. There was a highly illustrative case in 1720,

at Toledo, where Don Pedro Paniagua, contador or auditor of the

tribunal, received in October twenty sacks of cocoa from Cadiz. In the

intricate details of the Spanish system of internal imposts, it would be

impossible now to say whether he had observed the formalities requisite

in the transmission of merchandise, but the local authorities assumed

that there was a violation of law and also an infraction of quarantine,

imposed in August, owing to an epidemic in Marseilles. The corregidor

was prompt; at 2 A.M. of the day following the arrival of the cocoa, he

searched Paniagua's country house and at 9 A.M. his town house and

sequestrated the cocoa. The inquisitors responded by imprisoning the

civic guards who had been employed. A fortnight later, another visit

paid to Paniagua's house showed that five sacks of the sequestrated

article had been removed, whereupon he was confined in the royal prison.

Then the inquisitors proceeded against the corregidor and alcalde mayor

with censures, and aggravated them so energetically that in twenty-four

hours they had an interdict and _cessatio a divinis_ in four parishes of

the city. These active demonstrations, however suited to the seventeenth

century, were out of place in the eighteenth. As soon as news of them

reached Madrid, hurried orders were despatched by the Suprema to remove

the interdict, absolve the officials and release the guards, and when

the formal report came from the tribunal the orders were repeated, with

the addition that the senior inquisitor should start for Madrid within

twenty-four hours. Prior to receiving this the inquisitors had written

to Inquisitor-general Camargo lamenting his abandonment of them and the

dishonor inflicted on the tribunal; they blushed to be accomplices in

this ruin and they tendered their resignations. The answer to this was

sending the senior Inquisitor of Madrid to take charge of the tribunal,

with orders to the two remaining inquisitors to report in Madrid but,

on learning that they had obeyed the first orders, they were allowed to

remain in Toledo.

How strong had been the pressure exerted on the Suprema to produce this

action may be inferred from a protest in which, a month later, it poured

forth to Philip V its bitterness of soul. The corregidor had violated

the privileges and immunities of the Inquisition; the inquisitors had

been perfectly justified in their action, although too speedy in

aggravating the censures; they had been humiliated, while the corregidor

and his underlings were boasting of their triumph over the Inquisition

and of depriving it of the rights granted by the popes and the kings of

Spain. The Suprema therefore asked that the senior inquisitor be allowed

to return to Toledo, that Paniagua be released by the hands of the

inquisitors, that his cocoa be restored and that the corregidor and

alcalde mayor be duly punished. This accomplished nothing and two months

later it again appealed to the king for the release of Paniagua and the

restoration of the senior inquisitor, but this time it professed its

zeal to see that in future the tribunals should practise more

moderation.[1218] The lesson was a hard one, but it had a still harder

one, in 1734, when Philip decided that a salaried official should be

tried by the ordinary courts.[1219]

Step by step the old-time privileges were being curtailed. Soon after

the accession of Fernando VI, some trouble arose at Llerena over the

taxation of familiars. It seems to have been aggravated in the usual

manner and, when it reached the king, it was of a character that induced

him to issue a decree, October 5, 1747, by which the Council of Castile

was given jurisdiction over the officials of the Inquisition. This

called forth a heated remonstrance, dated November 1st, which must have

proceeded from the Inquisitor-general Prado y Cuesta, for no other

subject would have dared thus to address his sovereign. The writer tells

him that the decree is unworthy of his name and his faith, nor is it

well that the world should see him, in the first year of his reign,

discharge such a thunderbolt against the Holy Office, such as it had

never received since its foundation, leaving it prostrated by the shock.

He affirms before God, and would wish to write it with his blood, that

the service of Jesus Christ and the prosperity of the king and his

kingdoms require that the decree be returned to the royal hands, without

a copy being allowed to remain.[1220]

Although this decree was not effective as to the salaried officials, the

Inquisition was falling upon evil days. It no longer inspired the

old-time awe; it was no longer striving to extend its prerogatives, but

was fighting a losing battle to maintain them. A writer of about this

period deplores its decadence; its commissioners and familiars serve

without pay and the only reward for their labors and the cost of making

their proofs of limpieza is the exemptions of pure honor granted by the

kings, but now scarce one of these is observed and no fit persons seek

the positions, although they are much needed, for there are not a tenth

part of those allowed by the Concordias.[1221] There is probably some

truth in this, for Inquisitor-general Prado y Cuesta, in appointing, at

the request of the tribunal of Valencia, Fray Vicente Latorre as

_calificador_ or censor, asks why, when there are so many learned canons

and professors in Valencia, who formerly were eager in seeking the

position, it had now fallen so greatly in estimation.[1222]

[Sidenote: COMPETENCIAS]

It was difficult for the Inquisition to reconcile itself to the

tendencies of the age and several cases, about this time, in which the

tribunal of Valencia refused even to admit competencias, asserting that

its combined ecclesiastical and royal jurisdictions rendered it the sole

judge of all that concerned its officials, show that the old spirit

still lingered and found expression whenever it dared.[1223] Carlos III,

however, was even more assertive of the royal prerogative than his

brother Fernando. We have seen his orders of 1763 concerning municipal

and police regulations which included the prohibitions of carrying

concealed weapons and exporting money, in all of which familiars were

wholly removed from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, and in 1775 a

competencia in Córdova caused him emphatically to order the inviolable

observance of this decree.[1224] All this led to the change in the

commissions of familiars as regards carrying arms, which was brought

about, in 1777, by the authorities of Alcalá la Real and Seville

refusing to register commissions issued by the tribunals of Toledo and

Seville, because they were not in accordance with the new regulations.

In place, as of old, of blustering and coercing the magistrates, the

Suprema collected from all the tribunals the formulas employed by them

and framed a new one, phrased in a very different spirit and in

accordance with the royal edicts.[1225]

* * * * *

That the endless quarrels which we have been considering ought to be

settled in an amicable manner was so self-evident that, from an early

period, persistent efforts had been made to accomplish it, resulting in

the "competencia" so frequently alluded to above. Originally it would

seem that there was no established procedure and that the Inquisition

settled for itself all questions arising with the magistrates. After the

first opposition had been broken down these were not numerous, until the

attribution of the fuero to the officials, and the enormous

multiplication of familiars and other unsalaried officers, gave occasion

for collisions with the courts. The earliest attempt that I have met to

provide a method of settlement is a cédula, issued about 1535 by the

empress-regent in the absence of Charles V, ordering that, when there

was a dispute about jurisdiction, the president and judges of the royal

court should meet the inquisitors and arrange matters harmoniously, so

that it should not be known that there had been a difference between

them. It was in conformity with this that, in 1542, when Joaquin de

Tunes was tried in Barcelona for the murder of Juan Ballell, a familiar,

the inquisitor, Miguel Puig, held a conference with the regent and

judges of the royal chancellery, prior to the arrest, and the custody of

the accused was settled without difficulty. It was impossible, however,

to preserve peace between classes mutually jealous, and we have seen (p.

435) the troubles which Prince Philip endeavored to settle by the cédula

of May 15, 1545. This favored the royal jurisdiction and produced

complaints from the Suprema as when, in 1548, it represented to Charles

V that in Granada the judges made the cédula a pretext to intervene in

the business of the tribunal, whenever any one made a complaint,

requiring the inquisitors to interrupt their work and come to the

Audiencia, when they were ordered not to proceed and, if this was

disobeyed, the judges raised a great disturbance. All this would cease

if the old rule were restored that any one feeling aggrieved must

appeal to the Suprema where he would get justice.[1226] Prince Philip's

cédula of 1553 settled this as far as concerned matters of faith, but

neither it nor the Castilian Concordia of the same year could prevent

disputes over the immunities of the officials and familiars which the

Inquisition was persistently endeavoring to extend. The Concordia,

however, endeavored to provide for the settlement of these by the

process described above (p. 436) which became technically known as

competencia. It is remarkable that, in the Valencia Concordia of 1554,

there is no such provision, but in that of 1568, for the Aragonese

kingdoms, it appears in the slightly different form that the regent of

the Audiencia and the senior inquisitor should consult and endeavor to

come to some agreement. If they could not do so, the regent was to send

his side of the case to the Council of Aragon and the inquisitor his to

the Suprema, when the king would arrange how the matter should be

decided.[1227] The two formulas were combined in practice and remained

the established method of settling conflicts of jurisdiction.

This should have produced peace but we have seen that it only gave

occasion for fresh subjects of discord. The inquisitors were restive

under any restraint on their arbitrary methods and already in 1560, a

carta acordada of November 14th warns them that they are not to proceed

with censures against the judges, when the latter offer competencias,

but are to send the papers to the Suprema and await the result, under a

penalty of twenty ducats for every infraction of the rule.[1228] The

inquisitors however avoided competencias as far as they could and, when

obliged to concede them, the opportunity was taken of humiliating the

royal judges and make them feel their inferiority in a manner most

galling to men so tenacious of the respect due to position and so

insistent on courtesy. When de Soto Salazar reports of the inquisitors

of Barcelona that, when they had occasion to notify the lieutenant of

the king or the regent of the Audiencia, they sent a messenger to summon

him and then kept him waiting in the antechamber and that sometimes they

called the judges before them and scolded them without cause, we can

readily appreciate the intensity of the hatred thus excited.[1229]

[Sidenote: _COMPETENCIAS_]

So, when the Inquisition established its formula for competencias, they

were sedulously framed to be as arrogantly insulting as possible. The

first mandate inhibits peremptorily the judge from action and orders him

to remit the case to the tribunal within twenty-four hours. If an arrest

has been made the prisoner is to be discharged on bail to present

himself before the inquisitors and any property seized or sequestrated

is to be released. If the secular judge has any reason to allege to the

contrary he is to present himself in person or by procurator to the

tribunal, which will render justice, and all this is under holy

obedience and the threat of major excommunication and a heavy fine. If

there are any papers in the case the scrivener is ordered to surrender

them, and the accuser or plaintiff is to appear within a time specified

and receive justice, in default of which the case will be heard without

him and without further notice. Then, if a reply is made to this

alleging reasons for not obeying, a second mandate is issued pronouncing

them insufficient and ordering the first one to be obeyed within a

specified time under the above penalties. If the judge then proposes a

competencia, a mandate is sent to him reciting the previous ones and

saying that, to avoid, troubling the higher powers, he is ordered to

surrender all papers and suspend all action, or the excommunication and

fine will be enforced on his person and property. The next mandate

accepts the competencia, states that the tribunal is ready to forward

its papers and orders the judges to send their side within twelve days,

adding a threat of excommunication and fine if any additional testimony

be taken in the case. All this is phrased in the most mandatory fashion

as of a superior addressing a subordinate and all these missives are

ordered to be returned to the tribunal. If, after a competencia was

formed, the familiar or official accepted the jurisdiction of the

secular court, he was deprived of his commission. As we have frequently

seen, there was no hesitation, at any stage of the proceedings, to

excommunicate the judges, to anathematize them and to lay an interdict

on the city, followed by a _cessatio a divinis_.[1230]

In addition to the gratification of thus humiliating the magistrates,

there was also in this truculence the object of rendering the process so

offensive as to make them shrink from resisting the encroachments of the

Inquisition. When this failed the tribunal had abundant sources of

annoyance in raising interminable questions of precedence and

formalities, which were sometimes fought so bitterly and long as

virtually to supersede the original case. The points that could be

raised were endless. In 1602, the Count of Benavente, then Viceroy of

Valencia, issued letters ordering a conference over the arrest of

Gerónimo Falcon; the tribunal surrendered him, admitting that the case

did not pertain to it, but demanded that the viceroy and chancellery

should cancel the letters on their records and, on refusal, it

excommunicated the regent. The matter was carried up to the Suprema and

Council of Aragon, when the king decided that the letters must be

expunged and it was done in presence of a secretary of the Inquisition.

The same humiliation had been inflicted on the count's father, when he

was viceroy, and also on the Duke of Segorbe.[1231]

This arrogance continued until Carlos III, in his decree of 1775,

informed the Inquisition that the royal jurisdiction which it exercised

was on precisely the same level as that of his judges and magistrates;

there must be entire equality between them; all threats of

excommunication and fines must be abandoned; there must be free

interchange of papers, mutual courtesy and no assumption of superiority.

It was difficult for the tribunals to abandon the formulas which

flattered their vanity and a second command was necessary, issued in

1783, on the occasion of a prolonged conflict of the Valencia tribunal

with the alcalde of Consentaina. This finally produced obedience and the

Suprema transmitted the royal order to Valencia with instructions for

its observance.[1232]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _MODERATION UNDER THE RESTORATION_]

While this doubtless diminished the exasperation of these conflicts, it

did not check their frequency. They continued to be a constant source of

trouble and it was from a desire to diminish this, as well as to extend

its authority, that the Suprema, in 1806, forbade the tribunals from

instituting them without submitting the case to it and receiving its

approval.[1233] When, under the Restoration, the Inquisition was

revived, in 1814, the officials naturally claimed the fuero, active and

passive, civil and criminal, and Fernando VII, in the decision of a

case carried up to him from Seville, announced, February 15, 1815, in no

uncertain tones, that they should be protected in its enjoyment, but the

cases appear to be rare and the aggressive spirit had disappeared.[1234]

When, in Seville, the creditors of Francisco de Paula Esquivol

complained of him to the tribunal, in place of defending him, it

promptly dismissed him, June 27, 1815, an action which was confirmed by

the Suprema.[1235] Even more significant was a case, in 1816, when in

Seville Lorenzo Ayllon abused a priest while celebrating mass and

endeavored to seize the sacrament, and the secular authorities arrested

and proceeded to try him. In such a case there could be no question as

to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, but there was no disturbance,

and when the tribunal claimed his transfer to the secret prison the

Suprema interposed and ordered that he should be allowed to remain in

the public gaol, a detainer being lodged to prevent his discharge during

his trial--a concession to the royal jurisdiction which would have

petrified Pacheco or Arce y Reynoso.[1236]

There was the same disposition to avoid coming to extremes with the

spiritual courts. In 1816 the provisor of the see of Tuy prosecuted

Joseph Metzcler for impious, execrable and sacrilegious blasphemies. The

tribunal of Santiago applied, in a courteous note, to the provisor for

the papers and received a reply without signature. This the Suprema

directed it to return and explain that there was no desire to invade the

episcopal jurisdiction, but as the blasphemous propositions and acts of

Metzcler might be heretical, of which the Inquisition had exclusive

cognizance, it must insist on seeing the evidence to extract what

appertained to it, after which the papers would be returned. It seems to

have obtained the evidence for, on October 15, 1817, it voted to

imprison Metzcler, as soon as his trial by the provisor should be ended,

but the Suprema instructed it not to wait for this, as the jurisdiction

of the Inquisition was privileged.[1237]

* * * * *

There was one peculiarly irritating feature in the position of the

Inquisition in these quarrels, which exacerbated them greatly and often

neutralized all efforts to maintain harmony--the power which it

arrogated to itself of refusing to form competencias on the ground that

its rights were too clear to admit of debate. Thus it held that the

salaried and titular officials, with their families and servants, were

so wholly beyond all secular jurisdiction that it refused to entertain

any proceedings in contest of their claims. It was in vain that Philip

III, by a royal letter of 1615, declared that if inquisitors refused a

conference, on the ground that the matter was too clear to justify it,

the regent of the chancellery should form a competencia and forward the

papers as usual.[1238] It was equally useless for Philip IV to decree,

in 1630, that when a contention was started by either party, the other

must entertain it, no matter how clear it might be, under pain, for a

first offence, of five hundred ducats and, for a second, of suspension

during the royal pleasure. To ensure the imposition of the fine, each

Council was to give the other faculties for its collection from

offenders, but, when the Suprema forwarded this decree to the tribunals,

with orders for its strict observance, it added significantly that it

did not apply to cases of salaried and titular officials, though no such

exception was made in the decree. It knew that Philip would never summon

courage to enforce his law and it was right. When, in 1633, the Council

of Aragon endeavored to collect such a fine, the Suprema interposed,

asserting that it could only be done by consent of both Councils, which

was, in effect, to invalidate the law, and Philip himself violated it,

in 1634, when Augustin Vidal, messenger of the tribunal of Valencia, was

arrested by the royal court for the murder of Juan Alonso Martínez, a

Knight of Santiago and Bayle of Alicante. The tribunal demanded him and

refused a competencia, when Philip weakly ordered him to be surrendered

"for this time and without prejudice to my royal jurisdiction."[1239]

[Sidenote: _REFUSAL OF COMPETENCIAS_]

The Inquisition carried its point. Philip, by decisions of 1645 and

1658, admitted that there could be no competencias in the case of

salaried officials and the Suprema enforced these decisions by a carta

acordada of August 7, 1662, pointing out that they must not be

entertained where such officials were concerned; at the same time

tribunals were warned to exercise moderation and not to employ censures

without consulting it, unless delay was inadmissible.[1240] Even Philip

however had to intervene against the consequences of his own acts, in

1664, when the portero of the tribunal of Logroño killed in his house a

priest, apparently through jealousy. The alcalde mayor prosecuted the

murderer and arrested his wife; the tribunal excommunicated the alcalde

and cast an interdict on the town. The Council of Aragon formed a

competencia and claimed that during it the censures should be raised

according to custom, but the Suprema refused on the ground that there

could be no competencia. Philip was appealed to and ordered the censures

raised for the unanswerable reason that as judges under excommunication

could not hold their courts, if it were allowed thus to paralyze all

judicial business it would have arbitrary control over all cases and

frustrate all legal remedies.[1241] This decision was disregarded. It

seems extraordinary that any community would endure for centuries the

indefinite stoppage of the administration of justice, constantly

occurring through the reckless abuse of the power of excommunication, as

when, in 1672, we find the queen-regent applying to the

inquisitor-general to know how she is to answer the complaints of the

town of Logroño at the prolonged suspension of the powers of the

corregidor who lay under excommunication, seeing that there is no

conclusion of the competencia which has been so long pending.[1242]

The Inquisition evidently aggravated as far as it could the public

distress as a means of establishing its claims. In an effort to limit

the abuse of refusing competencias, there was a junta formed, in 1679,

from the Suprema and Council of State with the assistance of some

theologians. This admitted that there could be no competencia in the

cases of salaried officials, except when they held public office and

were prosecuted for malfeasance, but it laid down the rule that, when

the Suprema refused a competencia, the Council of State could appeal to

the king who could appoint a junta to decide this secondary question. A

limited time was allowed to the Suprema to state its reasons for refusal

and during a competencia the accused was to be liberated on bail and

all censures were to be raised.[1243] This removed some of the

hardships, but the Suprema seems to have sought to evade it by sullenly

refusing to form the juntas with the Royal Councils, for another decree

of Carlos II ordered it to attend when summoned so that these affairs

might be settled.[1244] It was in vain that, in 1730, the Council of

Castile urged that competencias be admitted in all cases, for Philip V

decided that the agreement of 1679 should stand.[1245] Probably not much

was gained in the latest attempt to settle these perennial quarrels by

Carlos IV in 1804, who ordered that when a conflict arose between a

royal court and a tribunal, in a matter not of faith concerning an

official, the court should refer the case to the governor of the Royal

Council and the tribunal to the Suprema. These should then select an

examiner who was to report to the Secretaría de Gracia y Justicia for

the royal decision.[1246]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _PROTRACTED DELAYS_]

The evils of the system were admitted on all hands, but it was so

vicious in principle that remedies were impossible. The customary juntas

of two members each from the Suprema and the Council of Castile or of

Aragon was at best a clumsy device, onerous on the Councils and usually

leading only to procrastination. To systematize it, in 1625, a permanent

Junta Grande de Competencias was formed of two members from each

Council, whose duty it should be to despatch all cases, and rules for it

were framed in April, 1626, but it was short-lived. In 1634 Philip IV

ordered the formation of a junta of two members each of the Suprema and

Council of Castile to formulate a plan of relief, but, on June 9th of

that year, the Suprema reported that it had never been able to

accomplish a meeting of the Junta. Then, in 1657, the Junta Grande was

resuscitated and we meet with an allusion to it in 1659, but it appears

to have been abandoned soon afterwards.[1247] Ingenuity was at fault to

alleviate the evils inseparable from the permanent antagonism between

the rival jurisdictions. Of these evils the one most keenly felt was

the interminable delay in the settlement of cases. The councils from

which the members were drawn were crowded with their more legitimate

business; there was rarely accord in the junta; the matter would be

argued without expectation of agreement; each side would be obstinate;

perhaps the case would be referred to the king or years would pass

before a settlement would be reached; perhaps, indeed, it would be

silently dropped without a decision, especially when a decision might be

undesirable because one or both sides feared a troublesome precedent.

Meanwhile the case remained petrified in the condition existing at the

time the competencia was formed. Until the so-called Concordia of 1679

permitted the release of prisoners on bail, if any one had been

arrested, he remained in prison, perhaps to die there as sometimes

occurred. In 1638 the Inquisition complained of this, when its officers

happened to be the prisoners, for competencias were always slow of

settlement and the work of the tribunals was crippled for lack of their

ministers, while their poverty precluded their giving adequate salaries

to substitutes.[1248] It was not until 1721 that a remedy for this

procrastination was sought by Philip V in a decree reciting the long

delays and the frequency of cases remaining undecided by reason of a

dead-lock in the junta, wherefore in future when a junta was formed, he

was to be notified in order that he might appoint a fifth member, thus

assuring a majority.[1249] It does not seem however that this

accomplished its purpose and, when Carlos III consolidated the cumbrous

framework of government by instituting the _Junta de Estado_, composed

of the ministers of the several departments, Floridablanca enumerates,

among the benefits accruing, the expediting of cases of competencia and

avoiding the interminable delays caused by the etiquette of the

tribunals and the intrigues of the parties concerned.[1250]

* * * * *

I have dwelt thus in detail on this subject, not only because it

absorbed so large a portion of the activity of the Inquisition, but

because of its importance in the relations between the Holy Office and

the other institutions of Spain and in explaining the detestation which

the Inquisition excited. If the people regarded it as a whole with awe

and veneration, as the bulwark of the Catholic faith, their hatred was

none the less for its members, and the perpetual struggle against the

tremendous odds of its power, supported by the unflinching favor of the

Hapsburgs, bears equal testimony to the tenacity of the Spanish

character and to the magnitude of the evils with which the Inquisition

afflicted the nation.