Cazalla, on his trial, had at first equivocated and denied that he had
dogmatized, asserting that he had only spoken of these matters to those
already converted. As a rule, all the prisoners eagerly denounced their
associates; he may have been more reticent at first, for he was
sentenced to torture _in caput alienum_, but when stripped he promised
to inform against them fully, which he did, including Carranza among
those who had misled him as to purgatory.[1165] He recanted, professed
conversion and eagerly sought reconciliation. The tribunal insisted on
regarding him as chief of the conventicle and, on the afternoon
preceding the auto, it sent to his cell the prior of the Geronimite
convent of Nuestra Señora de Prado, with one of his monks, Fray Antonio
de la Carrera, to endeavor to extract further information. As officially
reported by Fray Antonio, they found him in a dark cell, loaded with
chains and with a _pié de amigo_ encircling his head. He greeted them
warmly but, when informed of their object, protested that he had nothing
to add to his confessions without bearing false witness against himself
or others. For two hours they labored with him in vain and then told him
that he was condemned to die. In the seclusion of his prison he knew
nothing of the papal brief; he had fully expected to be admitted to
reconciliation, and the announcement came like a thunder-stroke--one
version of the interview states that he fainted and lay insensible for
an hour; another, that he was incredulous, asking whether it could be
possible and whether there was no escape. He was told that he might be
saved if he would make a more complete confession, but he repeated that
he had already told the whole truth. Then he confessed sacramentally and
received absolution, after which he spent the time until morning in
begging mercy of God and thanking God for sending him this affliction
for his salvation; he blessed and praised the Holy Office and all its
ministers, saying that it had been founded, not by the hand of man but
by that of God; he willingly accepted the sentence, which was just and
merited; he did not wish for life and would not accept it for, as he had
misused it in the past, so would it be in the future. All this was
repeated when the usual confessors were admitted to his cell and, when
morning came and the sanbenito was brought, he kissed it, saying that he
put it on with more pleasure than any garment he had ever worn. He
declared that, when opportunity offered in the auto, he would curse and
detest Lutheranism and persuade everyone to do the same, with which
purpose he took his place in the procession.[1166]
So great was his emotional exaltation that he fulfilled this promise
with such exuberance during the auto that he had to be checked. After
the sentences were read and those who were to be relaxed were brought
down, when he reached the lowest step he met his sister, who was
condemned to perpetual prison; they embraced, weeping bitterly and, when
he was dragged away, she fell senseless. On the way to the brasero he
continued to exhort the people and directed his efforts especially to
the heroic Herrezuelo, who had stedfastly refused to abandon his faith
and was to be burnt alive. We might possibly feel some suspicion of the
accuracy of all this, especially as the Inquisition took the unusual
step of having an official report of his behavior drawn up and a briefer
one attested, June 5th, by Simon de Cabezon and Francisco de Rueda, the
notaries who recorded the delivery of the relaxed to the
magistrates.[1167] We have, however, the independent testimony of an
eye-witness, the Abbot Illescas, who tells us that, after the
degradation, Cazalla, with mitre on head and halter around his neck,
shed tears so copiously and loudly expressed his repentance with such
unexampled fervor that all present were satisfied that, through divine
mercy, he was saved. He said and did so many things that everyone was
moved to commiseration. Most of his comrades in death showed resignation
and all retracted publicly, though it was understood that with some this
was rather to escape burning alive than with any good purpose.[1168]
[Sidenote: _SECOND AUTO DE FE_]
It was otherwise with Herrezuelo, the only martyr in the group. He
avowed his faith and resolutely adhered to it, in spite of all effort to
convert him and of the dreadful fate in store for him. On their way to
the brasero, Cazalla wasted on him all his eloquence. He was gagged and
could not reply, but his stoical endurance showed his unyielding
pertinacity. When chained to the stake, a stone thrown at him struck him
in the forehead, covering his face with blood but, as we are told, it
did him no good. Then he was thrust through the belly by a pious
halberdier, but this moved him not and, when the fire was set, he bore
his agony without flinching and, to the general surprise, he thus ended
diabolically.[1169] Illescas, who stood so near that he could watch
every expression, reports that he seemed as impassive as flint but,
though he uttered no complaint and manifested no regret, yet he died
with the strangest sadness in his face, so that it was dreadful to look
upon him as on one who in a brief moment would be in hell with his
comrade and master, Luther.[1170]
Perhaps the most pitiful case of all was that of his young wife, Leonor
de Cisneros. But twenty-three years old, with life opening before her,
she had yielded so promptly to the methods of the Inquisition that she
escaped with perpetual prison. In the weary years of the _casa de la
penitencia_, the burden on her soul grew more and more unendurable and
the example of her martyred husband stood before her in stronger light.
At last she could bear the secret torture no longer; with clear
knowledge of her fate, she confessed her heresy and, in 1567, she was
put on trial again. As a relapsed there could be no mercy for her, but
recantation might at least preserve her from death by fire, and earnest
efforts were made to save her soul. They were unavailing; she declared
that the Holy Spirit had enlightened her and that she would die as her
husband had died, for Christ. Nothing could overcome her resolution and,
on September 28, 1568, she atoned for her weakness of ten years before
and was burnt alive as an obstinate impenitent.[1171]
The remainder of the Valladolid reformers were reserved for another
celebration, October 8th, honored with the presence of Philip II, who
obediently took the customary oath, with bared head and ungloved hand.
It was, if possible, an occasion of greater solemnity than the previous
one. A Flemish official, who was present, estimates the number of
spectators at two hundred thousand and, though he must have been
hardened to such scenes at home, he cannot repress an expression of
sympathy with the sufferers.[1172] Besides a Morisco who was relaxed, a
Judaizer reconciled and two penitents for other offences, there were
twenty-six Protestants. The lesson was the same as in the previous auto,
that few had the ardor of martyrdom. Thirteen had made their peace in
time to secure reconciliation or penance. Even Juana Sánchez, who had
managed to bring with her a pair of scissors and had cut her throat,
recanted before death, but her confession was considered imperfect and
she was burnt in effigy. Of the twelve relaxed in person, five
manifested persistence, but only in two cases did this withstand the
test of fire. Carlos de Seso was unyielding to the end and, when we are
told that he had to be supported by two familiars to enable him to stand
when hearing his sentence, we can guess the severity of torture endured
by him. Juan Sánchez was likewise pertinacious; when the fire was set it
burnt the cord fastening him to the stake; he leaped down and ran in
flames; it was thought that he wanted to confess but, when a confessor
was brought, he refused to listen to him; one account says that the
guards thrust him back into the flames, another, that he looked up and
saw Carlos de Seso calmly burning and himself leaped back into the
blazing pile. Fray Domingo de Rojas presented a brave front and, after
his degradation, addressed the king, asserting his heresies until
dragged away and gagged, but when brought to the stake his heart failed
him; he declared that he wished to die in the faith of Rome and was
garroted. It was the same with Pedro de Cazalla and Pedro de Sotelo, who
were gagged as unrepentant, but were converted at the brasero. Those who
had merited mercy by prompt confession and denunciation of accomplices
were, as a rule, not severely penanced and, in many cases, their
punishment was abbreviated.[1173] There would appear to have been some
especially severe disabilities inflicted on the descendants of Carlos de
Seso, extending to the female line, removable only by the Holy See for,
in 1630, Urban VIII, at the special request of Philip IV, granted to
Caterina de Castilla, grand-daughter of Isabel de Castilla, wife of
Carlos de Seso, a dispensation to hold honors and dignities, secular and
spiritual.[1174]
[Sidenote: _SEVILLE AUTO DE FE_]
Thus was exterminated the nascent Protestantism of Valladolid. Meanwhile
the Seville tribunal had been struggling with the mass of work thrown
upon it by the capture of Julian Hernández and Don Juan Ponce de Leon.
So numerous were the arrests that the rule had to be broken which
forbade the confinement of accomplices together and, as the circle
widened, arrests had to be postponed in expectation of an auto de fe
that should empty the cells until, on June 6, 1559, the tribunal asked
for power to requisition houses to serve as prisons. To hasten the work,
early in 1559, Bishop Munebrega of Tarazona, an old inquisitor, was sent
to Seville to aid the tribunal, but he was excessively severe, desiring
to burn everyone; he soon became involved in bickering and recrimination
with the inquisitors Carpio and Gasca, of whom he complained bitterly;
votes in discordia were frequent, appeals to the Suprema were constant
and the work was delayed.[1175] It was not until September 24, 1559,
that an auto could be celebrated. If all Old Castile had poured into
Valladolid, so all Andalusia manifested its religious zeal by crowding
into Seville. Three days in advance the people began to assemble, until
the city could hold no more and they were obliged to sleep in the
fields. The stagings and scaffoldings were on the most extensive scale
and a place was specially provided for the Duchess of Bejar and her
friends, who apparently desired the pleasure of seeing her kinsman, Juan
Ponce de Leon relaxed.[1176] As was so often the case, the solemnities
were somewhat marred by an unseemly contest for precedence, between the
civil and ecclesiastical authorities, which was renewed at the auto of
1560 and was not settled for several years.[1177]
The services of thirty-eight frailes and Jesuits were required to
prepare for their doom those who were to be relaxed. The most prominent
of the victims was Don Juan Ponce de Leon, who had remained hardened,
during his two years of confinement, in the belief that a man of his
rank would not be burnt. He was an ardent Protestant; he had founded in
his lands a sort of church, where worship was conducted in secret; he
had gone to the brasero where, raising his hands to heaven, he had
wished to God that he could be burnt there to ashes, with his wife and
children, in defence of his faith, and he had said that if he had an
income of twenty thousand ducats he would spend it all in evangelizing
Spain but, when he learned his fate that night, he professed conversion;
on the staging, he busied himself in urging his fellow-convicts to
abandon their errors, and he made an exemplary end with tears and
repentance. The next most conspicuous sufferer was the Licenciado Juan
González, a famous preacher. He was of Moorish descent and, when only
twelve years old, had been penanced at Córdova for Moorish errors.
Throughout his trial he had steadily refused to incriminate others and,
during the night, he answered the padres' exhortations with the psalms
of David. On the staging he talked heresy with his two sisters until he
was gagged and all three were burnt. The most interesting victim was
María de Bohorques, aged 26, natural daughter of Pero García de Xeres,
a prominent citizen of Seville. She was a disciple of Cassiodoro de
Reina, highly educated and thoroughly conversant with scripture, in both
its literal and spiritual senses. When the confessors entered her cell
that night, she received them pleasantly and expressed no surprise at
their fateful message. It was in vain that relays of frailes sought her
conversion--Dominicans following Jesuits and Franciscans succeeding to
Carmelites. She met all their arguments with biblical texts, and was the
only one of the condemned who defended her faith. Thus she passed the
night until summoned to the procession. On the staging Ponce de Leon
sought to convert her but she silenced him, saying that it was a time
for meditation on the Savior. She treated the frailes who surrounded her
as troublesome intermeddlers but, at three o'clock, she yielded to their
entreaties, relapsing soon afterwards, however, to her errors, and she
was burnt. Another prominent culprit was Hernando de San Juan, master of
the _Doctrina Christiana_ for children in Seville. He was an obstinate
heretic, who resisted all efforts at conversion. After his sentence was
read, the inquisitors asked whether he persisted in his errors, when he
emphatically answered in the affirmative. Thereupon he was gagged, which
he endured as though thanking God that it was given him to suffer for
His sake. At length, however, he was persuaded by the frailes to escape
burning alive by conversion, but his salvation, we are told, was
uncertain as he had been impenitent until then.[1178]
[Sidenote: _SEVILLE AUTOS DE FE_]
Altogether, at this auto, there were relaxed in person eighteen
Lutherans, besides the effigy of the fugitive Francisco de Zafra. Two of
these were foreigners--Carlos de Brujas, a Fleming and Antonio Baldie a
Frenchman, master of the ship Unicornio. Evidently full use was made of
the power to execute repentant converts, but whether any persisted to
the end and were burnt alive cannot be gathered with certainty from any
of the relations. The only guide we have is the general assertion of
Illescas that, in this and subsequent autos in Seville, there were forty
or fifty Lutherans executed, of whom four or five suffered themselves to
be burnt alive.[1179] Besides those executed there were eight Lutherans
reconciled, three abjured for vehement suspicion and ten for light
suspicion, making forty in all. Two houses were ordered to be torn down
and sowed with salt--those of Luis de Abrego and Isabel de Baena--which
had been used for meetings. There were also thirty-four culprits for
other offences--fourteen Moriscos of whom three were relaxed, one
Judaizer reconciled, four bigamists, two blasphemers, twelve for holding
fornication not to be a sin, and one false-witness, making a total of
seventy-four and giving the crowd ample entertainment.[1180]
The work went on with unrelaxing vigor, but it was not until December
22, 1560, that another gaol-delivery could be arranged. Of this auto we
have the dry official report, which shows that there were fourteen
relaxations in person and three in effigy, the latter being the deceased
Doctor Egidio and Doctor Constantino, and the fugitive Juan Pérez de
Pineda. There were fifteen reconciled and imprisoned, five abjurations
_de vehementi_ and three de levi, and there was one acquittal, making
forty-one in all, but soon afterwards there were sixteen Spaniards and
twenty-six foreigners discharged as innocent, showing how reckless and
indiscriminating had been the arrests. Whether any of the relaxed
persisted to the end and were burnt alive is not recorded, for the only
remark accompanying the report is that there were no offensive speeches,
because those likely to utter them were duly gagged in advance.[1181]
Of these there were two or three deserving special notice. At the head
of the list of sufferers stood Julian Hernández, who had left his safe
retreat in Frankfort on the desperate errand of evangelizing Spain. He
had lain three years in prison and, if González de Montes is to be
believed, he bore unshrinkingly repeated torture without betraying his
associates and, when carried back to his cell, would inspirit his
fellow-prisoners by chanting along the corridors
Vencidos van los frayles,
Vencidos van.
Corridos van los lobos,
Corridos van.
Montes adds that he persisted to the end, when, after the faggots were
lighted, a fraile had his gag removed in hopes of his yielding and,
disgusted with his obduracy, cried "Kill him! kill him!" when the guards
thrust their weapons into him. It may be hoped that he was spared the
final agonies, but there are not wanting indications that, towards the
close of his imprisonment, his resolution gave way and that he furnished
evidence against his comrades.[1182]
The one acquittal was that of Doña Juana de Bohorques, wife of Don
Francisco de Vargas and sister of the María de Bohorques who had
perished in the previous auto. She died in prison and it was her fame
and memory that were absolved. González de Montes says that her death
was caused by atrocious torture and the case has, thanks to Llorente,
served as a base for one of the severest accusations against the
Inquisition. In the absence of the documents the truth of the story
cannot be ascertained but, if true, it manifests more readiness to
render a righteous judgment at the cost of self-condemnation than we are
accustomed to attribute to the Inquisition.[1183]
[Sidenote: _SEVILLE AUTOS DE FE_]
Seville, as the chief commercial centre of Spain, naturally attracted
many merchants and mariners, and this auto furnishes an illustration of
inquisitorial methods in discouraging commerce. Among the relaxed there
were three foreigners--a Frenchman named Bartolomé Fabreo and two
Englishmen, William Bruq (Brooks) and Nicolas Bertoun (Burton or
Britton). Of the two former we know only their fate, but of the latter
we chance to have some details. Burton was a shipmaster or supercargo,
who made no secret of the reformed faith in which he had been trained,
wherefore he was arrested and all the merchandize in his charge was
sequestrated. One of the owners, seeking to recover his property, sent a
young man named John Frampton to reclaim it. After months of delay he
was told that his papers were insufficient, when he went back to London
and returned to Seville with what was needed. More delays ensued and
then he was cast into the secret prison on the charge that a suspicious
book had been found in his baggage--the book being an English
translation of Cato. His trial was protracted, though he made no secret
of his belief; he was tortured until he fainted and, when his endurance
was exhausted, he consented to adopt Catholicism. Burton was more
persistent and was burnt. Frampton, after fourteen months of
confinement, escaped with reconciliation, confiscation and a year of
sanbenito and prison, with orders never to leave Spain. All the goods
under Burton's charge were confiscated; Frampton figured his own loss at
£760 and the whole confiscations at the auto at the enormous sum of
£50,000--doubtless an exaggeration, but the whole affair indicates that
the profitable side of persecution was not lost to sight.[1184]
The next auto was celebrated April 26, 1562, and comprised forty-nine
cases of Lutheranism. There were nine relaxed in person and, as none of
them are described as obstinate, it may be assumed that all were
garrotted. There was one effigy of the dead and fifteen of fugitives. Of
the latter, nine were monks of San Isidro, among whom were Cipriano de
Valera and Cassiodoro de Reina. That the native stock of heretics was
becoming exhausted is seen in the fact that, of the thirty-three persons
figuring in the auto, twenty-one were foreigners, mostly Frenchmen. This
was followed by another auto, October 28th of the same year, in which
there were thirty-nine cases of Lutheranism, of which nine were
relaxations in person and three of fugitives in effigy, none of the
culprits being described as impenitent. There were nine reconciliations,
seventeen abjurations _de vehementi_ and one _de levi_. The number of
ecclesiastics is a noteworthy feature of this auto for, besides the
Prior of San Isidro, Maestro Garcí Arias Blanco, there were four priests
burnt in person and one in effigy, and seven who abjured _de vehementi_.
They contributed largely to the fines levied, amounting to 5050 ducats
and 50,000 maravedís, besides four confiscations of half the property.
It may be remarked, moreover, that the officers and crew of the ship
Angel seem to have fallen victims in a body, for three were burnt, six
were reconciled and four abjured _de vehementi_.[1185] Trading with
Spain was becoming more and more perilous.
The little band of Seville Protestants was thus almost rooted out, and
the succeeding autos show a constantly preponderating number of
foreigners. That of April 19, 1564, only presented six relaxations in
person and one in effigy, of which all the former were of Flemings, and
two abjurations _de vehementi_, both of foreigners.[1186] The next was
celebrated May 13, 1565, in which there were six relaxations in effigy
for Protestantism, the offenders having fled. Of these only two were
Spaniards, one being the last inculpated monk of San Isidro. Of seven
reconciliations, all were of foreigners, six being Flemish or Breton
sailors. Of five abjurations _de vehementi_, three were of Flemings.
There was also a cruel warning against harboring and protecting these
foreign heretics, for two Flemings of Puerto Real, for this offence,
were visited, one with four hundred lashes and the other with two
hundred, besides fines and banishment.[1187]
We have thus virtually reached the end of native Spanish Protestantism,
but the impression produced by the Valladolid and Seville heretics was
still profound. Philip II addressed, November 23, 1563, to the Spanish
bishops, a letter enlarging upon the efforts of the Lutherans to spread
their doctrines throughout Spain. In these perilous times, he says, the
Inquisition must be aided by having everywhere those who will report to
it all suspect of Lutheran or other errors. The bishop is to see to this
and also that preachers shall confine themselves to setting forth
Catholic belief, making no allusions to heresies, even to confute them.
Confessors are to be instructed to charge their penitents to denounce to
the Inquisition all whom they know to entertain these errors. No one is
to be allowed to teach school without a preliminary examination, by both
the ecclesiastical and secular authorities, who must be satisfied with
his character and habits.[1188] It is evident that extraordinary
precautions and universal vigilance were deemed necessary to exclude the
obnoxious doctrines.
[Sidenote: _MISSIONARY EFFORTS_]
Yet these efforts were rewarded with no new discoveries, for Spanish
Protestantism was a mere episode, of no practical moment save as its
repression fortified the Inquisition and led to the segregation of Spain
from the intellectual and industrial movement of the succeeding
centuries. A few sporadic cases may be noted from time to time, but the
persecution of Jew and Morisco had trained the nation too thoroughly in
enthusiastic fanaticism, and the organization of monarchy and Church was
too absolute for there to be any real danger that Protestantism could
obtain a foothold. Yet the danger was deemed so pressing that extreme
measures were justified to protect the land from the intrusion of
foreign ideas. Philip II had lost no time, after his return from
Flanders, in issuing the pragmática of November 22, 1559, by which all
Spanish youth studying abroad were ordered home within four months, and
all Spanish subjects for the future were forbidden to seek foreign lands
for study under penalty, for laymen, of confiscation and perpetual
exile, and for clerics, of forfeiture of temporalities and loss of
citizenship. The only exceptions allowed were the college of Albornoz in
Bologna and those of Rome and Naples, for Spaniards residing in Italy
and that of Coimbra for the professors there.[1189] It would be
difficult to exaggerate the unfortunate influence of this in retarding
Spanish development, yet it was but the first of a series of measures
which, by isolating Spain, crippled its energies in every direction.
The spectre of active proselytism on the part of Protestants abroad was
vigorously conjured up to stimulate vigilance and justify repression.
Undoubtedly the refugees in the Rhinelands and Switzerland were
earnestly desirous of evangelizing their native land, and they labored
industriously to this end, but the difficulties in the way were too
great and the reports as to their efforts were systematically
exaggerated. Carranza, in his defence, dwelt on his exertions in
Flanders to check this traffic, but though he was told of barrels full
of a forged letter of Philip II and of a papal bull, at the Frankfort
fair for shipment to Spain, and of shops in Medina del Campo and Málaga
to which heretic books were sent, the net results of his energy show how
little substratum of fact there was in all this.[1190] The career of
Julian Hernández proves that men who took their lives in their hands
might occasionally bring in a few books, but his fate was not
encouraging. If some times a missionary undertook such work his mission
was apt to be brief. Hughes Bernat of Grenoble landed at Lequeitio
(Biscay) August 10, 1559, on such an errand. On the road to Guadalupe he
fell in with a Minim named Fray Pedro, who pretended inclination to
Lutheranism and led Bernat to unbosom himself as to his plans and hopes,
resulting in his speedy arrest by the tribunal of Toledo, when he boldly
confessed as to himself and was tortured to discover his accomplices.
He was sentenced to relaxation in the auto of September 25, 1560, and as
he is not described as pertinacious, he probably professed conversion
when, for some reason, his sentence was not executed.[1191] In the trial
of Gilles Tibobil (or Bonneville), at Toledo, in 1564, we hear of
Francisco Borgoñon, a French haberdasher who, in his trips from France,
brought with him heretic books, but they were for the benefit of a
little Huguenot colony in Toledo; the number of such Frenchmen and
Flemings in Spain was large and this, rather than projects of
evangelization, probably explains the greater part of the smuggling,
attempted or performed.[1192]
[Sidenote: _MISSIONARY EFFORTS_]
There were constant rumors, however, of propagandism on a larger scale
which served to magnify the importance of the Inquisition and to justify
interference with commerce. In 1566, Don Francisco de Alava, a Spanish
envoy to France, was busy in Montpellier endeavoring to trace the agency
by which heretic books were conveyed to Catalonia, where the number of
Frenchmen was large,[1193] and, in the same year, Margaret of Parma,
from the Netherlands, sent to Philip the absurd statement that thirty
thousand of Calvin's books had been transmitted through Seville,
whereupon the Suprema issued vigorous orders for their seizure.[1194] In
January, 1572, it announced to all the tribunals that the Princess of
Béarn (Jeanne d'Albret) had recently held an assembly of Lutherans, in
which it was resolved to send some of their ministers in disguise to
Spain as missionaries. The utmost vigilance was enjoined to counteract
this effort; all the commissioners were to be warned and prelates be
asked to order all priests and preachers to be on the watch.[1195] In
June, 1578, it sent letters to a number of tribunals, stating that
advices from Valladolid showed that the heretics had printed a New
Testament in Spanish, with a Venetian imprint, and were flooding the
land with copies, and also that the heretic ministers had correspondents
in Spain. Great watchfulness was therefore commanded at all sea-ports
and frontier towns, and all persons found in possession of the
prohibited volume were to be sent to Madrid for trial. A month later,
this scare was renewed on the strength of information from Flanders, but
the records of the Toledo tribunal at this period do not indicate that
these efforts were rewarded with any captures.[1196]
Whatever proselyting zeal Protestantism may have had passed away with
the early years of the seventeenth century. The latest work of the kind
of which we hear is that, in 1603, the Prince of Anhalt introduced into
Seville a number of copies of the Bible of Cipriano de Valera and, when
Catherine, Duchess of Bar, sister of Henry IV, heard of this, she
ordered six hundred copies printed and sent a Huguenot gentleman, named
Hierosme de Taride, to the Duke of la Force at Pau, to learn how to
transmit them to Saragossa, when la Force gave him the names of parties
there who could be trusted to handle them, but the death of the duchess
in 1604 put an end to the project.[1197] The Thirty Years' War gave the
German Protestants ample occupation at home and, after the Peace of
Westphalia, proselytism was out of fashion.
Yet it was a curious episode of the War of Succession that when, in
1706, the Archduke Charles and his English allies seemed for a brief
space to be at the point of success, when all the kingdoms of the Crown
of Aragon had acknowledged him and he even for a time occupied Madrid,
the opportunity was seized to circulate a catechism of Anglican doctrine
in Spanish and other books prejudicial to the faith. The energetic
measures adopted by the Inquisition to meet this assault show the
strength of its apprehension. It ordered the most careful watch to be
kept at all ports and frontier towns. Edicts were to be published
forbidding these and all other works of evil doctrine introduced by
heretics, and inquisitors were told to be energetic in punishing the
guilty, enforcing their sentences by censures, interdicts and cessatio a
divinis when, if these proved futile they were to abandon, in solemn
procession, the disobedient cities, even at the risk of their
lives.[1198] The rising of the Spanish people, in this same year, soon
limited the territory occupied by the Allies; we hear nothing more of
this attempt at conversion under the shadow of the sword and, taken as
a whole, the efforts to evangelize Spain have attracted vastly more
attention than their intrinsic importance deserves.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _OCCASIONAL VICTIMS_]
Unsuccessful as were the endeavors to introduce the new doctrines in
Spain, there continued to be occasional cases of Spaniards embracing
them partially or wholly, of which a few examples may be cited. There
was arrested and brought to the Toledo tribunal, December 24, 1562,
Hernando Díaz, a cowherd of San Roman, near Talavera. He was a
simple-minded creature, who had been at times _melancolico_. In the
Sierra Morena there had been much talk among the shepherds of the
Lutheran doctrines made known in the Seville autos. While working there
he had heard of them, they fixed themselves in his wandering mind and,
when the fit was on him, he could not help talking of his
_imaginaciones_ as he called them, although his wife and daughter and
his neighbors, cautioned him against it. At his first audience he freely
admitted having denied the power of pope and priest and asserted that
salvation came by faith and love of God and charity and love of one's
neighbor, and not by the laws of the Church or by indulgences and images
and pilgrimages. The inquisitors treated him kindly, exhorting him to
cast aside these fancies, which he professed willingness to do but could
not control them. Physicians were called in who bled and purged him; he
begged for mercy, but could not conquer his beliefs. This went on for a
couple of months when he announced his conversion through the teaching
of his cell-companion, a priest named Juan Ramírez, who confirmed it,
stating that Díaz had talked like a Lutheran until the feast of the
conversion of St. Paul, when he had read to him from his breviary the
services of the day and had urged his conversion; Díaz had wept and
professed his belief in the Church and Ramírez held him to be sincere.
Thus far the conduct of the case had been eminently humane and
considerate, but when the consulta de fe met, May 17th, two of the
consultors voted for relaxation, while the two inquisitors, the Ordinary
and two others voted for reconciliation, confiscation and irremissible
perpetual prison and sanbenito. At an auto held, September 19th, this
sentence was duly pronounced and, when the city of Toledo was assigned
to him for a prison, he was thrust into the streets to take his chance
of starvation.[1199] The case is not without interest as showing that
the sentences read at the autos might be as effective as the dreaded
missionaries.
A heretic of different calibre was Don Caspar Centellas of Valencia, a
gentleman of birth and culture. During his trial, he evaded the
accusation with skill but, when his counsel drew up for him a defence in
which he was made to recognize the Roman Church and pope as the Church
of God, in which he wished to live and die, he refused to sign it. He
renounced all defence and was obdurate to the arguments of the
theologians, who were repeatedly summoned to convert him; there was
nothing to do but to burn him, which was executed accordingly, September
17, 1564.[1200] His brother, Don Miguel Centellas, Comendador of
Montesa, was likewise exposed to a prolonged trial, but was acquitted in
1567.[1201] Connected with Don Gaspar was Doctor Sigismondo Arquer who,
though not a Spaniard, was a Spanish subject, being from Cagliari. His
trial at Toledo occupied nine years; he was unrepentant to the last and
when, in the auto of June 4, 1571, he was delivered to the secular arm,
a curious debate arose. The official entrusted with the execution of the
sentences declared that, under the law in other offences, there was no
burning alive and he ordered Arquer to be garroted. The pious zeal of
the populace could not endure this ill-timed mercy; a riot occurred in
which Arquer was pierced with halberds and other weapons; fire was
finally set and so, half dead already, he was burnt.[1202]
By this time it was rare to find a native Spaniard tried for
Protestantism, and women virtually disappear as culprits. Moreover, the
cases which are classed in the records as cosas de Luteranos are nearly
all those in which some trifling aberration or careless speech was
qualified by the calificadores as savoring of Lutheranism, so that the
statistics unconsciously exaggerate greatly the prevalence of
Protestantism. Such cases were mostly treated with leniency, as that of
Mosen Monserrat, a beneficed priest of the church of San Salvador,
accused in 1567 of Calvinism, to the Valencia tribunal, for saying that
extreme unction was not as efficacious as formerly, that it was mortal
sin to administer the sacraments in mortal sin, and that the religious
Orders were not as strong as they had been. He escaped with having to
revoke his utterances in presence of the chapter of San Salvador and
with celebrating nine masses.[1203] So, in 1581, Juan de Aragon, a
peasant, was tried at Toledo, on a charge of saying that masses for the
dead were absurd, for the priest was a sinner who could do nothing with
God, and that it sufficed to recommend oneself to God and the saints. He
denied the accusation, the consulta de fe voted in discordia and the
Suprema merely sentenced him to abjure _de levi_, to hear mass as a
penitent and to pay a fine of twelve ducats.[1204]
While such trivial matters form the bulk of the cases of so-called
Lutheranism there were occasionally more serious ones, such as that of
Juan López de Baltuena of Calatayud in 1564, at Saragossa. In his
written defence there were sundry heresies, qualified as Lutheran, for
which he was condemned to abjure _de vehementi_, to serve in the galleys
for life and never to read, write or talk about theology.[1205] Nor were
there altogether lacking cases, like those of Centellas and Arquer, in
which conscientious conviction carried the delinquent to the stake, as
that of Pedro Mantilla, a student of Vezerril in Old Castile, who, in
1585, was relaxed at Saragossa as a pertinacious heretic, who was Arian
in denying the Trinity and Lutheran in rejecting papal authority.[1206]
[Sidenote: _OCCASIONAL VICTIMS_]
The last relic of the movement of 1558 was the Catalan, Pedro Galés,
reckoned as one of the most learned Spaniards of the age, and highly
valued as a correspondent by such scholars as Isaac Casaubon, Cujas and
Arias Montano. As early as 1558 he had commenced to reject some of the
Catholic dogmas, but he escaped suspicion and enjoyed intimate relations
with Archbishop Antonio Agustin, who made him one of the interlocutors
in his celebrated _Dialogi de Emendatione Gratiani_--the first assault
on the authority of the False Decretals. About 1563 he left Spain for
Italy, where he made progress in heresy, leading to his prosecution by
the Roman Inquisition and the loss of an eye under torture. Abjuration
saved him and, in 1580, he returned to Spain, where Don Juan de Idiaquez
sought to secure him as tutor to his son Alonso. In 1582 he passed
through Italy to Geneva, where he married and occupied the chair of
philosophy until 1586. He rejected some of the Calvinist doctrines and,
leaving Geneva, he taught in Nîmes, Orange and Castres, holding
frequent disputes with Huguenot preachers. Accompanied by his wife and
two little daughters, he was on his way to Bordeaux, in August, 1593,
when the Leaguers at Marmande arrested him as a Huguenot, with his
precious accumulation of MSS. and books in ten bales. He was delivered
to the Capitan Pedro Saravía, who had been placed by Philip II at the
service of the Marquis of Villars, Governor of Guyenne. He made no
secret of his belief and Sarravía was impressed with the extreme
importance of the information which the Inquisition could extract from
him as to his co-religionists, but the Governor of Marmande refused to
convey him across the border and, when Villars was applied to, he
obligingly offered to hang or drown the heretic, but shrunk from the
responsibility of extraditing him. The distracted wife was imploring the
officials to liberate her husband and Sarravía was consumed with anxiety
lest she should succeed while he was seeking the intervention of Philip.
In this he succeeded; Galés was surrendered to the tribunal of
Saragossa, where he freely admitted his faith and stubbornly refused
conversion, but his endurance was mercifully spared by sickness and
death after his third audience and, as an impenitent, his bones and
effigy were burnt in the auto of April 17, 1597.[1207]
In all, the cases of so-called Lutheranism, collected by Dr. Schäfer, up
to 1600, amount to 1995, of which 1640 are of foreigners and 355 of
Spaniards, and he estimates that he has succeeded in finding about
two-fifths of the autos de fe of the thirteen tribunals of the
mainland.[1208] This probably conveys a reasonably accurate impression
as to the comparative numbers of the two classes, but it would be a
gross error to regard all the Spaniards as real Protestants, for the
great majority may be assumed to have been Protestant only in the
imagination of the calificadores.
In the seventeenth century scattering cases continue to occur from time
to time among Spaniards, but their treatment indicates that there was no
longer felt the necessity of making examples. Fray Juan González de
Carvajal, a Benedictine who had been expelled from his Order for
repeated escapes, embraced Calvinism, which he confessed in France and
obtained absolution; again he confessed it judicially in the Roman
Inquisition, and yet again in the Toledo tribunal and was reconciled.
Then, in 1622, he was tried in Valladolid, where he told all this
freely, but with such signs of repentance that the consulta de fe voted
only to reconcile him in a public auto, with ten years of galley-service
and perpetual prison. While waiting an auto he sought an audience and
confessed that he had again relapsed; there was no choice now but to
sentence him to degradation and relaxation, but the Suprema mercifully
modified this to reading his sentence in the audience-chamber, where his
sanbenito was to be removed, perpetual deprivation of his functions as
deacon and life-long imprisonment.[1209] There was less disposition to
mercy, in 1630, in the case of María González, widow of Pedro Merino of
Canaca, one of the exceedingly rare instances of a Spanish female
Protestant. To the Valladolid tribunal she freely confessed her belief
and persisted in it, despite earnest and prolonged efforts to undeceive
her. There was no escape from condemning her to relaxation and the
Suprema confirmed the sentence, but whether it would have been executed
cannot be told for persistent labors were crowned with success; she was
finally converted and the sentence was changed to reconciliation.[1210]
There may have been subsequent cases of Spaniards relaxed for
Protestantism, but I have not met with them. In 1678, Thomas Castillanos
was kindly sent to an insane hospital by the tribunal of Toledo. In
1718, Pedro Ortiz of Valencia was reconciled with perpetual prison in
the Córdova auto of April 24th, and, in that of November 30, 1722, at
Seville, Joseph Sánchez of Cádiz appeared as a "Calvinist and Lutheran"
and was reconciled with irremissible prison.[1211]
[Sidenote: _FOREIGNERS_]
The Augustinian Fray Manuel Santos de San Juan, better known as
Berrocosa, would, in the sixteenth century, have been burnt as an
undoubted Lutheran, although when arrested, in 1756, it was merely as a
_regalista_ or upholder of the supremacy of the State. His _Ensayo de el
Theatro de Roma_, circulated in MS., was an essay to prove this, in a
manner highly offensive to the hierarchy, and for this he was relegated
for ten years to the strict convent of Risco. During his confinement he
wrote tracts to prove that Rome was Babylon, that the existing Church in
no way resembled that of the Apostles, that there should be no Order
higher than the priesthood, that capital punishment for heresy was in
itself a heresy, and other doctrines which no calificador could help
qualifying as the rankest Lutheranism, but Berrocosa was not relaxed,
although he found associates to copy these heretical documents and
circulate them. When his ten years' confinement ended, in 1767, he was
again strictly secluded in a cell, from which, in 1768, he managed to
escape, eluding pursuit until, in January, 1770, he was recaptured and
delivered to the Toledo tribunal. Here he underwent a second trial,
resulting in a sentence of confinement for life in the convent of Sarria
(Galicia), where he was to be kept _incomunicado_.[1212]
This case illustrates why, during the decadence of the Inquisition, we
hear little or nothing of Protestantism among Spaniards, although the
spirit of persecution was unabated. Revolt against Ultramontanism was no
longer styled Lutheranism but Regalism or Jansenism. With those whose
dissidence went beyond discipline to dogma, it took the shape of the
fashionable philosophy of the period and became Naturalism or
Philosophism, Deism or Atheism, as the case might be. The Inquisition
still did its work with more or less rigor, but the arena had shifted.
* * * * *
While thus there had been little tendency to Protestantism among
natives, since the inconsiderable outbreaks of 1558, foreigners
furnished an ample field of labor. Spain had a reputation for wealth
which rendered it attractive to the stranger; its people held in
contempt the arts and crafts in which Frenchmen and Flemings and
Italians were adepts, and its internal peace seemed to offer a refuge to
those whose industries were precarious in the incessant clash of arms
through which the old order of things gave way to the new. Consequently
every city in Spain had a considerable population of foreigners, intent
on earning a livelihood without much thought of spiritual matters. Some
trials in the Toledo tribunal, about 1570, allude to French and Flemish
printers then under arrest in Toledo, Barcelona, Alcalá, Salamanca,
Valladolid and Granada.[1213] In 1600, the Count of Benavente, Viceroy
of Valencia, estimated the number of Frenchmen there at fourteen or
fifteen thousand and added that there were vast numbers in Aragon.[1214]
While many of these were undoubtedly Calvinists, sedulously concealing
their faith, the majority were Catholics, more or less sincere, but
even their orthodoxy was not of a quality to suit the Spanish standard.
They had been accustomed to live in contact with heretics; they had no
such fanatical horror of heresy as was universal in Spain, and they were
apt to be careless in the observances which the Spaniard regarded as
indispensable. All foreigners were thus objects of suspicion, and the
Catholic was as liable to arrest as the Calvinist. Jacques Zacharie, a
dealer in rosaries and images in Burgos, in 1637, chanced to be relating
his adventures with the heretics in France who, in examining his
baggage, had said "Let him take these wares to Spain and bring us back
good money," when one of his hearers expressed surprise that the Most
Christian king would let heretics dwell in his land. This led Jacques
patriotically to defend them as good baptized Christians, who lived
righteously according to their law. He was asked how they could be
Christians when they did not go to mass and confess to priests, when, in
the heat of discussion, he replied that there was not scriptural command
of sacramental confession. For this he was denounced to the Valladolid
tribunal; he was arrested and tried and all his property was
sequestrated.[1215]
[Sidenote: _FOREIGNERS_]
It is no wonder therefore that the tribunals were kept busy with these
cases and that the records are full of them, especially under the crown
of Aragon, owing to the propinquity of south-western France, where
Huguenotism was in the ascendant. In Saragossa the relaxations for
Lutheranism, from 1546 to 1574, though amounting to only seven, were all
of Frenchmen.[1216] Barcelona was more active. In an auto of May 16,
1561, there appeared for Lutheranism, eleven Frenchmen, one Piedmontese
and one Maltese. In that of July 11, 1563, there were thirty-four
Frenchmen, two Italians and two Catalans, of whom eight Frenchmen were
relaxed in person and three in effigy. In that of March 5, 1564, there
were twenty-eight Frenchmen, two Catalans and one Swiss, of whom eight
Frenchmen were relaxed in person and two in effigy.[1217] From a report
by Dr. Zurita of his visitation in the summer of 1564, we obtain a
glimpse of how these autos were fed. At Perpignan, for Lutheranism, five
persons were arrested with sequestration, of whom four, and possibly all
five, were French. At Castellon de Ampurias, Maestre Macian, a
Frenchman, was sent to Barcelona for trial. Jean de Adin, a Frenchman
of Aldas, escaped arrest by flight, and the arrest was ordered of Pere
Bayrach, a Frenchman of Flasa.[1218] When, simultaneously with this, the
ambassador Saint-Sulpice complained to Philip II of the cruelty
exercised on his fellow-countrymen, who were peaceably plying their
industries, without creating scandal, the king coolly replied that the
Inquisition acted without regard to persons, but nevertheless he would
speak with the inquisitor-general.[1219]
The complaint of cruelty was justified. In the rebuke which the Suprema
administered to the tribunal of Barcelona, in 1568, as the result of de
Soto Salazar's visitation, allusion is made to a case, in 1565, of a
Frenchman named Antoine Aymeric, arrested without evidence; his first
audience was held at his own request February 23d, the second on July
27th, when, without more ado, he was tortured and sentenced to
reconciliation and confiscation. In another case of a Frenchman, Armand
Jacobat, he was tortured without confession, but subsequently admitted
some Lutheran errors, begged for mercy and desired to be converted, in
spite of which he was relaxed and burnt, for which the Suprema held the
tribunal to be gravely in fault.[1220] What became of those not burnt is
seen in a report of December, 1566, to Charles IX, by his ambassador M.
de Fourquevaux, that seventy poor Frenchmen, prisoners of the Barcelona
tribunal, had been condemned to the galleys and had been delivered, in
November, to Don Alvar de Bazan, who had taken the fleet to winter near
Cádiz. In February, 1567, he writes that, on complaint to the Duke of
Alva, the latter had assured him on his honor that they were all
dogmatizing Huguenots; that Frenchmen were never arrested for
Protestantism if they had not said or done something scandalous. This
was as mendacious as the repeated promises to release the galley-slaves,
which were always evaded until Fourquevaux recommended the seizure as a
hostage, at Narbonne, of Andrea Doria, the naval commander-in-chief. At
last, on December 20th, he reported the sending of royal letters to
Doria to release them, but it is fairly questionable whether the order
was obeyed. Again, in a list of complaints made by Charles IX to Philip,
there was one concerning five of his subjects arrested in Havana and
sent to Seville for trial, to which Philip replied that he was not
accustomed and did not desire to interfere in such affairs, but
nevertheless he would have the inquisitor-general requested to order the
tribunal to despatch these cases with all speed.[1221]
A more pleasing international episode is connected with the case of
Robert Fitzwilliam, an Englishman, condemned by the Seville tribunal to
ten years of galleys and perpetual prison. He was received on board,
February 25, 1578 and, in November 1582, his wife Ellen presented
herself in the court of Madrid, with a letter from Queen Elizabeth to
Philip II, representing that the poor woman had beseeched her
interposition, and that the liberation of the husband would be a favor
which she would be glad to reciprocate. Under any other jurisdiction,
the granting of such a royal request would have been a matter of course,
but the assent of the Holy Office had to be secured. The existing papers
fail to inform us of the result, but that it was favorable can scarce be
doubted, for the devotion of the faithful wife made a strong impression
even on the hardened officials, whose correspondence alludes to her in
terms of respect and admiration.[1222] More summary was the process
when, in 1572, the Barcelona tribunal sent a commissioner into French
territory on some duty, and he was seized and held as a hostage for a
Frenchman arrested by the tribunal, leading to an exchange of
prisoners.[1223]
The Val d'Andorra furnished another source of international questions,
for the Barcelona tribunal claimed jurisdiction over it, while Jeanne
d'Albret, as Queen of Navarre, held that it was her fief. In 1572, she
put a French veguer there to administer justice, whereupon the
inquisitors commenced to gather information about him, as a presumable
Huguenot, and the Suprema ordered them to arrest him if sufficient
evidence could be found, but, as the attempt was likely to prove
dangerous, it need not be made unless the viceroy would furnish a
sufficient guard, which apparently he declined to do.[1224]
[Sidenote: _DIMINISHING NUMBERS_]
All foreigners thus were objects of suspicion, and the jurisdiction of
the Inquisition was stretched to the utmost to prevent their infecting
the faithful. In 1572, the Suprema ordered the tribunals of Aragon,
Catalonia and Valencia to see that no Frenchmen were employed as
teachers of reading and writing anywhere within their districts,
experience having shown the dangers thence arising.[1225] Intercourse
with foreigners was dangerous and was discouraged. In 1568, Inquisitor
Moral, in reporting a visit to San Sebastian, expressed a desire to
punish those who received and entertained and had particular friendship
and dealings with French and English strangers, sometimes even giving
them information enabling them to escape arrest, on all of which the
Suprema commented by characterizing these as grave cases, which should
have been sent to Logroño for trial.[1226] The Spaniard, too, who went
abroad was an object of suspicion, and was held to strict accountability
for his acts during absence. In the Barcelona auto of June 21, 1627,
there appeared a merchant of Manresa who, while in France, had listened
to Huguenot preaching and had eaten flesh on Friday, for which he was
penanced in a thousand ducats and was recluded in a convent for three
years.[1227]
That, under these influences, coupled with the growing poverty of Spain
and the curse of its debased currency, the number of resident foreigners
diminished greatly after the opening of the seventeenth century, may be
assumed from the reduction in the cases of Protestantism in the records.
Those of Toledo, from 1575 to 1610, show a total of forty-seven, of
which the last one occurred in 1601, while those from 1648 to 1794
contain only eleven.[1228] In Valladolid, the reports of twenty-nine
years, between 1622 and 1662, show only eighteen cases.[1229] In the
Madrid tribunal, from 1703 to 1751, there is only a single case of a
"Huguenot."[1230] In the sixty-four autos celebrated by all the
tribunals between 1721 and 1727, there are only three cases.[1231] In
Valencia, between 1705 and 1726, there was but a single case--a
Calvinist who spontaneously denounced himself.[1232] Scattering and
imperfect as are these statistics, they suffice to indicate how rapidly
the number of foreign delinquents fell off, after the year 1600, and
that this was not the result of progress in enlightenment and toleration
we shall see hereafter. It was simply that the Inquisition had succeeded
in its efforts to limit intercourse between Spain and its neighbors, and
to isolate it from European civilization.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _FOREIGN HERETICS_]
If this was the case in regard to nations presumably Catholic, we can
readily conceive how much greater vigilance was exercised towards those
which had lapsed into heresy. Commercial intercourse with them was
unavoidable, but it was a necessary evil, to be restricted within the
narrowest limits by deterrent regulations. For awhile, indeed, the
heretic trader took his life and fortune in his hands when he ventured
to make a Spanish harbor, as we have seen in the case of the good ship
Angel. Even castaways were the legitimate prey of the Inquisition, as
was experienced by seventeen English sailors of a fishing-boat, who were
captured by a French vessel and were thrown on shore on Fuerte Ventura,
one of the Canaries. They were tried and escaped burning by conversion,
after which four of them, Richard Newman, Edward Stephens, John Ware,
and Edward Stride managed to escape. As this showed them to be
impenitent, they were prosecuted in absentia for relapse, and their
effigies were solemnly burnt in an auto of July 22, 1587.[1233] The
number of merchant vessels touching at the Canaries, in fact, furnished
to the tribunal at one time the major portion of its work. A record of
prisoners entered in its secret prison, during six months of 1593, shows
thirteen belonging to the German ship San Pedro, seventeen to the
Flemish ship La Rosa, and fifteen to the Flemish ship El Leon Colorado,
besides a dozen English sailors whose vessel is not specified. These
comprise all hands, officers and crews, merchants and passengers, and
presumably, if the cargoes were not confiscated, they were effectually
looted in the absence of their guardians.[1234] That such was the
motive, rather than the protection of Spain from the infection of
heresy, is inferable from a sentence of the Granada tribunal, in 1574,
condemning to reconciliation and life-long galley-service Jean Moreno, a
Frenchman, resident in Málaga, because he had warned some Protestant
sailors not to enter the port of Almería.[1235] When there was prospect
of a fat confiscation, indeed, the Inquisition paid little respect to
the justice of the case or to the parties who might suffer. There was a
long dispute between Rome and Madrid over two cargoes of alum, which the
papal camera was sending to England, when the ships were seized and the
cargoes sequestrated by the tribunal of Seville, on the ground that the
English crews were heretics.[1236]
This barbarous policy necessarily made itself felt in the cost of
foreign commodities, especially after the troubles in the Netherlands
had cut off or reduced that portion of the carrying trade. Under this
pressure, in 1597, an exception was made in favor of the Hansa.
Instructions were issued by the Suprema that, when its ships arrived
with merchandise, the persons in them were not to be interrogated about
their religion, nor on that account were the ships or cargoes to be
sequestrated or confiscated, unless while in port they had offended
against the Catholic faith and, in such case, only the property of
delinquents was to be seized; search, however, for prohibited books was
to be made, as was customary with Catholic vessels.[1237] There was also
an approach to admitting the Dutch, in a royal order of February 27,
1603, providing that Holland vessels and crews, bearing passports from
the Archdukes of the Netherlands, were to be allowed entrance to Spanish
ports, and their persons and property were to be secure, but this was
revoked, December 11, 1604, subject to the twelve months' notice
provided in the order.[1238]
A treaty of peace with England, covering this matter, was ratified by
James I, August 29/19, 1604 and by Philip III, June 16, 1605. During
this interval, in November, 1604, an English ship, with a crew of twenty
men, coming for a load of corn, touched at Messina and then at Palermo.
In the latter port it was visited by the officials of the Inquisition,
when the men admitted that they were Protestants and wished to live in
that faith. They were all arrested and appealed to the viceroy, the Duke
of Feria. He was powerless save to write a private letter in which he
declared that the arrest was a disservice to the king and tended to
destroy the treaty agreed upon, wherefore the Inquisition ought to
dissemble and treat the heretics well, for the public good. The
inquisitors thereupon assembled ten consultors, reaching the conclusion
that the Englishmen could be liberated only on condition of giving ample
security that they would go to Spain and present themselves before the
inquisitor-general. For strangers this was a virtual impossibility, and
it doubtless proved to be so for, in 1605, we hear of certain
Englishmen, who had been admitted to penance with the sanbenito and
required to live for two years in certain monasteries for instruction in
the faith; they had contrived to escape, but were tracked and found on
board a French ship, without their sanbenitos. As the tribunal did not
care to support them, they were ordered to be distributed separately to
monasteries in the mountains, far from the sea, where they were, for ten
years, to perform labor without pay.[1239]
When such irrational cruelty was habitual, international comity and
commercial interests alike demanded that a curb should be placed on the
irresponsibility of the Inquisition. Accordingly, in the English treaty
of 1604, Article 21 provided that the vassals of King James, coming to
or residing in the Netherlands or Spain, should not be molested or
disturbed on account of matters of conscience, so long as they gave no
occasion for scandal, and that corresponding instructions should be
issued by the king. This Philip did, under the same date of June 15,
1605, ordering that English subjects should not be held accountable for
acts prior to their coming to Spain. While in Spain they were not to be
compelled to enter churches but, if entering voluntarily, due respect
must be paid to the Venerable Sacrament and, if it was met on the
street, they must kneel, or take another street or enter a house. If any
one were prosecuted for contravention of these rules, only his own
property was to be seized, and not a vessel or cargo, or the goods of
others in his charge, and to the observance of all this the king pledged
his royal faith and word. The Suprema had previously, December 11, 1604,
issued instructions similar to those of 1597 for the Hansa; on July 14,
1605, it transmitted to the tribunals the articles of the treaty, but it
seems to have objected to the royal declaration, for it delayed until
October 8th embodying its provisions in a carta acordada.[1240]
[Sidenote: _FOREIGN HERETICS_]
This was too reasonable to be acceptable to Spanish fanaticism.
Archbishop Ribera, in 1608, varied his efforts for Morisco expulsion
with an earnest appeal to the king, expressing the grief which he had
never ceased to feel since he heard of the peace with England, fearing,
as he did, the offence given to God which would bring many evils on
Spain. His affliction had increased in view of the excesses committed by
the English in Valencia, living publicly in their religion and causing
great scandal and evil example to the faithful and, at much length and
with many instances, he proved that peace with infidels was forbidden by
Holy Writ. This memorial was duly considered in the Council of State,
when the Comendador Mayor of Leon reported that the king had ordered the
inquisitor-general to be notified, so that he might instruct the
tribunals to exercise great vigilance and to punish all who gave
occasion for scandal.[1241]
When, in 1609, the twelve years' truce was concluded with the United
Provinces, the Dutch naturally claimed the same privileges as the
English, and these were embodied in Article 7 of the treaty.[1242] The
Inquisition did not submit quietly to this restriction on its powers
and, in 1612, it issued a carta acordada, repeated in 1616, asserting
that these privileges applied only to transient strangers, and that
those who were resident and kept houses were subject to the tribunals in
all matters of faith like any Spanish subjects; it invoked, moreover, an
old regulation of 1581, ordering special watch to be kept on them, so
that what they did in private as well as in public might be known, full
reports being sent to the Suprema. In 1620 it revived another
instruction of 1581 forbidding foreigners in the seaports to keep inns
or lodging houses.[1243] Whether any trouble arose from these arbitrary
constructions of international compacts does not appear, but at least
they manifested a desire to render the position of foreign heretics as
precarious and uncomfortable as possible.
When the truce with Holland expired, in 1621, of course the privileges
of the Dutch were withdrawn and, when war with England came in 1624, the
Inquisition eagerly assumed the office of purifying Spain from heretical
infection. Inquisitor-general Pacheco informed the king that papal
permission had been necessary to enable Philip III to enter into the
treaty of 1605; now that the peace had been broken and the causes of the
papal permission had ceased, he was, as inquisitor-general, obliged in
conscience to obviate the evils of Catholic intercourse with such
pertinacious and pernicious heretics as the English and Scotch, by not
permitting them to remain in his Majesty's dominions, for otherwise he
would be lacking in his duty to the king and to his office. He had
therefore ordered an edict to be published that all Englishmen and
Scotchmen, who were not Catholics, should leave the king's dominions
within twenty days, notifying them that after that date they would be
punished by the Holy Office. As it was a weighty matter, of which the
king should be notified, Pacheco added that he had not wished to execute
it without informing him and he could issue such orders as he saw
fit.[1244] It may be assumed that Philip did not approve of this
insolent invasion of the royal power, for it was not till April 22,
1626, that he issued a proclamation forbidding all commercial
intercourse with England and ordering the confiscation of all English
goods imported in contravention of its commands, when the Inquisition
followed by a carta acordada of May 29th, prescribing the prosecution,
in the regular way, of all English heretics who had sinned against the
faith.[1245]
[Sidenote: _FOREIGN HERETICS_]
When peace was restored, in 1630, article 19 of the treaty revived the
article of 1604 and Philip, as before, promised to provide that English
subjects should not be molested so long as they caused no scandal.[1246]
As before, the Suprema followed this, January 28, 1631, with detailed
instructions that those who kept house should be treated as Spanish
subjects and be subjected to special surveillance.[1247] This
unjustifiable distinction between transient and resident foreigners
gave ample opportunity for molestation and blackmail. It was construed
as applying the Index of prohibited books to residents for, in 1645, we
find the Canary tribunal ordering its commissioner at Orotava to search
the houses of the English merchants and report whether they found any
forbidden books or books that had not passed the censure. The duty was
performed and lists were forwarded, not only of books but of pictures
and prints and, as nothing objectionable was reported, we may not
uncharitably surmise that the commissioner's labor was not
unprofitable.[1248] As the rule had no legal basis, it probably called
forth protests for, in 1652, the Suprema submitted the question of its
legality to a number of calificadores, who unanimously agreed that it
was not in accordance with the treaties, when presumably it was
withdrawn.[1249] The espionage to which foreign merchants were exposed
is portrayed, in 1648, by Pedro de Villareal, commissioner at Bilbao,
who reports that there were sixteen houses in which the English and
Dutch traders were lodged; he was confident that nothing heretical could
escape his knowledge, for the keepers of the houses were faithful spies
and very zealous in matters of religion.[1250]
A treaty of commerce with Denmark, in 1641, placed the Danes on the same
footing as the English and, in the treaty of Munster, January 30, 1648,
the Dutch obtained the same terms, while a special article placed the
Hanse towns on the same footing as Holland.[1251]
Meanwhile, in 1645, the English merchants in Andalusia, by a payment of
twenty-five hundred ducats in silver, had secured certain commercial
privileges, one of which indicates how grudgingly their treaty rights
had been interpreted. A foreign heretic appearing in court, either as
party or witness, was asked whether he was a Catholic; if he replied in
the negative, his oath was not received. This humiliating and injurious
distinction was abrogated, and the Englishman's oath was declared to be
legal and binding, like the Spaniard's, but it was difficult to make the
courts accept the innovation, and the royal order, issued March 19th had
to be repeated June 26th and again November 9th. By the Munster treaties
this privilege was extended to Holland and the Hanse towns, and it was
confirmed by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713.[1252]
[Sidenote: _FOREIGN HERETICS_]
We have seen how difficult it was to make the Inquisition respect
municipal law, and it was not likely to regard international
obligations. Excuses could readily be found to bring the hated foreign
heretic under its jurisdiction and, in the chronic penury of the time,
the opportunity of rich confiscations was not likely to be lost sight
of. In 1621 we hear of a number of Englishmen arrested in Málaga, with
sequestration of property, and the same occurred in Seville, in
1622.[1253] Of one case we chance to have details--that of George Penn,
brother of Admiral--then Captain--Penn, and uncle of William Penn, the
Founder of Pennsylvania. He was in no sense a bigoted Protestant, or he
would scarce have married a Catholic wife in Flanders. He took her to
Seville, where he conducted a prosperous business until 1643, when he
was arrested. His account of his sufferings is manifestly exaggerated
though we may believe him when he says that he was tortured until he
confessed all that was required of him--that he was a heretic who had
married a Catholic in Antwerp, intending to take her to England and
pervert her and their children from the faith. He was required to abjure
in a public auto and ordered to leave Spain within three months, while
his wife was taken from him and he says was married to a Spaniard. The
property confiscated amounted, according to disinterested appraisers, to
£6000 of his own and £6000 belonging to other parties. On his return to
England, beggared and broken in health, he sought to obtain redress and,
about 1664, Charles II appointed him envoy to Spain, to enable him to
urge his claims to advantage, but being then 63 years old he did not
venture to go. During the negotiations at Utrecht, William Penn
endeavored to obtain consideration of this case, but apparently without
success.[1254]
The superb imperturbability of the Inquisition as to international
obligations is evinced in a case occurring soon after the treaty of
Munster. Paul Jerome Estagema, a citizen of Hoorn, was arrested at
Alicante and tried by the Valencia tribunal. Influential people in
Holland urged his release, and the Dutch ambassador, Anthony Brun, made
forcible representations to the king, who wrote, September 15, 1651, to
the Suprema, urging a prompt decision of the case and pointing out that,
under the treaty, Estagema, as a citizen of the United Provinces, was
not subject to the Inquisition. The royal request was treated with
absolute indifference; Ambassador Brun kept urging the matter and, on
December 16th, Philip repeated his application to the Suprema, and
asserted the necessity of satisfying the Hollanders. Then the Suprema
condescended to forward the royal letters to the tribunal, telling it to
despatch the case without delay, which could readily be done as the
trial had been finished on September 7th, and ordering it to report the
sentence when pronounced.[1255]
At this period, political exigencies rendered both France and Spain
desirous of an alliance with England. Don Alonso de Cardenas, the
Spanish ambassador, endeavored to negotiate a treaty with Cromwell in
1653 and again in 1655, but the Protector insisted on larger toleration.
In the draft of the projected treaty, Articles 22 and 35 not only
repeated the previous provisions but added that Englishmen conducting
business in Spain should be permitted, in their houses and ships, to
perform divine service in their own manner, and to use their Bibles and
other books, and that they should not be arrested for so doing or their
property be sequestrated. When the treaty was submitted to Philip, he
sent these articles to the Suprema for its advice, protesting that he
was unalterably resolved to risk all his dominions and spill the last
drop of his blood, rather than to yield anything that would be to the
disservice of God, or prejudice in the least degree the purity of
religion. In response to this the Suprema declared that the royal words
ought to be recorded in imperishable bronze; it easily proved that by
divine, canon and municipal law, a sovereign had no right to permit
such toleration; it quoted Gregory XV as ordering, in 1622, all rulers,
under heavy penalties, to expel all heretics from their dominions, and
it pointed out that heretics employed Catholic servants who would be
corrupted, and that all cognizant of heresy incurred mortal sin and
excommunication if they did not denounce it. These arguments were as
applicable to the treaties of 1605, 1630, and 1648 as to the proposed
one, but they sufficed; it was rejected, and Cromwell turned to
France.[1256] Doubtless Admiral Penn felt a special personal
satisfaction, when he avenged his brother by wresting Jamaica from Spain
in 1655.
A secret treaty, in 1656, between the wandering Charles II and Philip,
pledged the former to bring about freedom of conscience in England, but
was discreetly silent about toleration in Spain. With the Restoration,
in 1660, peace ensued and the treaty of 1630 was revived. In 1663, when
a new treaty was discussed, England again put forward the stipulations
of Cromwell, and Philip again consulted the Suprema with the same
result. On Philip's death, in 1665, the treaty of December 17th
continued in force the provisions of 1630 and extended to all Englishmen
the privileges granted, in 1645, to those of Andalusia. Then, in 1667,
the treaty of May 23d defined more clearly that the pretext of
conscience should not be used to inflict injury on Englishmen or raise
any dispute so long as no manifest public scandal was caused nor offence
committed. In this shape the relations between the kingdoms continued;
the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and those of 1763 and 1783 merely
confirmed that of 1667.[1257]
[Sidenote: _FOREIGN HERETICS_]
With France, of course, relations were wholly different. When the
Huguenot was grudgingly tolerated at home, he could expect no
protection for his religion abroad, especially when, as in Spain, he
could reside only by pretending Catholicism. The peace of the Pyrenees,
November 7, 1659, merely provides, in article 5, that the vassals of
each power shall have free ingress, residence and egress in the
territories of the other, observing the laws and customs of the
country.[1258] This did not, however, preclude reclamation in cases of
special malfeasance, as when, in 1672, the French ambassador Villars
complained of an outrage in Majorca. A French ship, arriving there from
Barbary, September 6th, with a cargo of wheat, chanced to have as a
passenger a Huguenot of position, M. de la Fent, governor of the Bastion
de France, with a large sum of money. On learning this, the inquisitor
arranged to seize him and embargo his property; he assembled a force and
armed two vessels with which to take possession of the French ship, and
he would have done so had not M. de la Fent prevailed upon the master to
make sail. The queen-regent forwarded this to the Suprema, October 28th,
for explanation, but it was not until November 19th that it replied,
merely saying that the inquisitor of Majorca had reported, on September
21st, the arrival of a heretic and that, on October 3d, it had ordered
him to take such action as comported with the service of the queen, the
public peace, and the consideration due to the subjects of the French
king, who were to be treated like the English and the Dutch.[1259]
As the attempt had failed, the Suprema made the best excuse it could,
but with manifest equivocation, for the French heretic had not such
treaty protection as the English. This was manifested, after the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, when it was thought that
fugitive Huguenots might have settled in Spain. In 1687, the papal
nuncio and the French ambassador called the attention of the
inquisitor-general to the matter, suggesting that the Holy Office should
not permit their residence. Carlos II seconded their representations,
and issued a cédula, February 28th, ordering his officials to lend all
necessary assistance to the Inquisition. The Suprema sent this to the
tribunals and followed it, June 14th, with detailed instructions,
ordering a general perquisition to be conducted through the parish
priests throughout Spain. Each tribunal was to collect the results,
investigate them and vote, reporting the vote to the Suprema. Extreme
vigilance was enjoined and the Suprema was to be kept informed.[1260]
Judging from such statistics of the period as are accessible, this
proved to be a false alarm, leading to no results, but none the less it
indicates the dread inspired by the prospect of the intrusion of foreign
heretics. There seems to have been a similar scare, in 1698, when the
Suprema instructed the tribunals to order all their commissioners to
report whether, in their districts, there were any heretics, transient
or resident, giving in detail the nationality, sect, occupation etc. of
each one, and this without loss of time.[1261]
This policy continued. In 1784 similar lists were called for. The answer
from Valencia showed how successful had been the exclusion of
Protestants, and how precarious was the position of those who ventured
to reside in Spain. The tribunal reported, August 29, 1785, that it had
instructed its commissioners everywhere and, where there were no
commissioners, satisfactory persons, to make this secret investigation,
with the result that there were no Protestants in the kingdom of
Valencia, except in the city, where there were two--Mons. Champane, a
Frenchman and Dueclaux, whose nationality could not be ascertained. Both
were Protestants, although it was difficult to verify the fact, on
account of their extreme care in attending church and in accompanying
the sacrament when it was carried to the sick.[1262]
[Sidenote: _FOREIGN HERETICS_]
With the outbreak of the French Revolution, the desire to exclude
heretics extended itself to foreigners generally, with the view of
completely isolating Spain. In 1791 a decree of Carlos IV required all
foreigners to be registered; those who desired to be naturalized must be
Catholics and take the necessary oath of allegiance; transient residents
were compelled to take out licences in which, among other details, their
religion was specified; they were not allowed to exercise any profession
or art or craft, or to follow any retail trade, or even to be servants,
and all engaged in such pursuits were given two months in which to leave
the country.[1263] When, however, the peace of 1795 put an end to the
disastrous war with the French Republic and aroused apprehension of an
approaching rupture with England, there was a feverish desire to placate
France, showing itself in a royal cédula of May 1, 1796, prohibiting
all tribunals, including the Inquisition, from molesting Frenchmen on
account of religion, but those only were to be recognized as Frenchmen
who wore the tricolor cockade. When war broke out with England, a
further advance was made; Carlos ordered his representatives abroad to
assure all foreign powers that in Spain strangers enjoyed full liberty
of conscience, and in August, 1797, he forbade the Inquisition to
trouble foreigners about their faith.[1264] We may be permitted,
however, to doubt the sincerity of this. When, in the same year, the
attention of the Valencia tribunal was drawn to a German merchant named
Johann Foch, who called himself a Protestant, it applied at once to the
captain-general to know whether he held the licence authorizing his
residence in Spain, not being a Catholic. It proceeded with the case but
suspended it because of his marriage with Bernarda María Pellicer, a
parishioner of Santo Tomás.[1265]
This liberality, whether genuine or not, was only a passing episode. A
document of 1801 shows that the decree of 1791 was still in force, and
that the Inquisition was relied upon to carry it into effect. It is a
series of questions addressed by the Suprema to the tribunals, with the
answers from Valencia, and explains itself.
Q. Whether, prior to the royal order of 1791, foreigners not
Catholics were allowed to reside, in the cases provided by the
treaties and, if they were not permitted, what measures were taken
to ascertain whether they professed Calvinism?
A. In case of their not having the benefit of those treaties, as
soon as the tribunal had knowledge of them, it made the requisite
investigation and, on ascertaining it to be true, it notified them
to quit the kingdom, if they had not special permission from the
king.
Q. If investigation led to the belief that a stranger was Catholic
and it was subsequently found that he was not, but that he did not
speak ill of our religion, or cause scandal, or insult sacred
objects, to what punishment was he condemned?
A. No recent case of this kind has occurred but, from some former
ones, it is deduced that the Suprema was consulted.
Q. Have those who established themselves in Spain, in virtue of the
royal order of 1791, complied with the formalities which it
prescribes?
A. As no advice has been sent to this tribunal by the Junta del
Comercio y Moneda, nor by the Intendente of the kingdom, it is
inferred that no non-Catholic artists have established themselves,
or else that the prescription to advise the tribunal has not been
obeyed.
Q. Whether they (non-Catholic foreigners) contract marriage with
Catholics and, in that case, what is the religion of the children?
A. But one case of such marriage is known--that of Juan Foch, a
German of Lindau, who called himself a travelling merchant, with
Bernarda María Pellicer of this city. This was in virtue of a papal
brief, passed by the Council of Castile and with the royal
exequatur, providing that he should allow his wife to remain a
Catholic and his children to be brought up in the same faith, and
she promising to persuade him to conversion. They were married
privately, outside of the church and without banns or other public
ceremonies. We learn from the Vicar of Los Santos Juanes, where
they live, that they cause no scandal, comply with the obligations
and that a boy has been baptized.
Q. Since the royal order, about how many non-Catholic strangers
have established themselves, naming some of the principal ones and
their nation or sect?
A. This could be answered only by examining the registers required
to be kept by the captain-general and royal justicias. This
tribunal can only have notice by denunciations, which has occurred
only with Foch.
Q. How many _autillos públicos_ have been held with strangers since
1759 when Carlos III ascended the throne? State the name, country,
religion and principal offences.
A. Since 1759 there has been no autillo público for
strangers.[1266]
This document has interest not only as showing the continued vigilance
as to foreign heretics, but as indicating how thoroughly successful had
been the policy of exclusion. The district of the tribunal embraced a
long stretch of sea-coast, including such commercial cities as Valencia
and Alicante, yet the non-Catholic stranger was still almost unknown, as
he had been when the report of 1785 was made. Spain was a land to be
shunned by all who were liable to be dealt with by the Inquisition, and
it was left to its isolation. For those who ventured it, concealment of
heresy was worse than its avowal. David Bonoran, a French Protestant,
domiciled in Bilbao, succeeded in passing as a good Catholic. Becoming
converted, he applied to the tribunal of Logroño to abjure his errors
and be incorporated in the Church, when, in 1791, he was promptly
prosecuted for having feigned Catholicism.[1267]
This sensitiveness survived the Peninsular War and was vigorous to the
last. In 1816 there is considerable correspondence respecting the wife
of Don Rufino de Acha, settled in Bilbao as a merchant, who had married
in England a Protestant named Doña Juana de Ancell--presumably Jane
Hansell. From this it appears that, after a discussion lasting nearly a
year, she was given the alternative of leaving Spain or of conversion
and that she accepted the latter.[1268]
[Sidenote: _HERETIC TROOPS_]
This persistent dread of heretics is vividly reflected in one of the
last acts of the Suprema prior to its suppression. In 1819 it issued an
elaborate series of instructions for the guidance of commissioners at
the sea-ports in the _visitas de navios_, or examination of all ships on
their arrival. This was principally intended to prevent the introduction
of prohibited books, which will be considered hereafter, but the
sections devoted to heretics show that the regulations adopted at the
treaty of 1605 were still in force. Foreign heretics were not to be
prosecuted for acts committed abroad but, for anything done in Spain and
causing scandal, they were to be arrested and transmitted to the
tribunal for trial. They were not to be compelled to enter churches but,
if they did so, they were to pay due respect to the Sacrament and, on
meeting it in the street, they were to kneel or remove themselves out of
the way. Strangers were forbidden to keep public houses for the
entertainment of Protestant shipmasters and sailors or travellers. The
commissioner was to be vigilant in ascertaining and reporting to the
tribunal everything they said against the Catholic faith, how they
behaved in public and in private and whether any scandal was caused to
the faithful.[1269] Spain was the same as it had been two centuries
before.
* * * * *
There was one exception, however, to the prohibition of the hated
presence of heretics on Spanish soil. Constantly recurring war
necessitated the employment of whatever troops could be had,
irrespective of their spiritual condition. It was the German bands of
Lutherans under Georg Fronsberg who sacked Rome for Charles V in 1527.
Foreign mercenaries were continually in Spanish service, and they grew
more indispensable in the seventeenth century with the decline both in
population and military ardor. The revolts of Portugal and Catalonia, in
1640, rendered Spain the battle-field, and recruits from any source were
welcome, who of course could not be subjected to inquisitorial
interference, no matter what their faith. The Inquisition in vain
pointed out the dangers thence arising. In a consulta of November 13,
1647, the Suprema related with grief that four hundred German soldiers,
landed at San Sebastian, on their way to Catalonia, were disseminating
their errors, distributing heretic books and outraging images.[1270]
There was no help for it and, after war had ceased on Spanish
territory, the employment of foreign regiments continued to excite its
susceptibilities. In 1668, the Suprema arguing in a consulta for the
maintenance of its prerogatives, urged that they were especially
necessary, in view of the presence of such bodies of soldiers, many of
whom were heretics.[1271]
Still, there was an effort made to preserve the Spanish organizations
from wolves in sheep's clothing. Fernando VI issued a decree, December
31, 1756, imposing the death-penalty on any heretic who pretended to be
a Catholic in order to enlist and, in 1765, Carlos III modified this to
expulsion from the kingdom under pain of ten years' labor in the
_bagne_, adding that, if the heretic when enlisting had sworn that he
was a Catholic, he should run the gauntlet twice before expulsion.[1272]
[Sidenote: _ADMISSION OF CONVERTS_]
There was some slight compensation, for the presence of these heretics,
in the field which they furnished for missionary work. There were
frequent conversions, especially when the chaplains were zealous for the
salvation of souls. One of these was Francisco Columbano Burke, chaplain
of the first Swiss battalion, who held a faculty for this purpose as
commissioner of the Inquisition. He writes, May 23, 1764 from Tarragona
to the Barcelona tribunal, forwarding the abjurations of six converts in
the Swiss regiment of St. Gall and giving the names of twenty-four
others, who were ready for conversion. They were duly gathered in when
there proved to be ten Calvinists and fifteen Lutherans.[1273] The
exclusive jurisdiction of the Inquisition over heresy rendered its
interposition necessary in this, for it alone could admit the heretic to
incorporation in the Church, it alone could judge of the degree of his
sin, determine whether he was rightfully a son of the Church through
baptism, and whether he was worthy of admission through repentance. In
theory he was a heretic spontaneously denouncing himself and, when these
conversions became frequent, early in the seventeenth century, they took
the form of a regular trial, in which the fiscal acted on one side and
the convert had counsel assigned to him on the other while, in the form
of abjuration administered, he pledged submission to the penalties of
relapse in case of backsliding.[1274] Indeed the Suprema felt it
necessary, April 22, 1605, to warn the tribunals that foreigners coming
forward voluntarily and confessing their errors were not to be
imprisoned but were to be welcomed; their reconciliation was to be in
the audience chamber, without sanbenito or confiscation, and with
spiritual penances only; then they were to confess their errors
sacramentally and receive absolution for their sins.[1275] Heresy, even
congenital, was a mortal sin, to be duly atoned for.
Subsequently the rigor of these formalities was abandoned and the
process was facilitated, although it was still formidable. Printed
instructions for commissioners, apparently drafted in the eighteenth
century, prescribe a minute examination into the life and history of the
convert and his motives, so as to be satisfied that his object is really
salvation. All details as to his baptism are to be specially inquired
into, so as to be assured whether or not he is really baptized, and, if
there is any doubt, proceedings are to be suspended until the tribunal
can be consulted. He is also made to specify all the errors of his
former religion, and to utter a profession of faith in which he promises
to reduce, as far as he can, all heretics to Catholicism and to denounce
them to the Inquisition. He is also to be asked whether he knows of any
heretics save those permitted for the sake of trade, and whether any of
the latter have transgressed the conditions of their residence. Also,
whether he has ever professed Catholicism, and whether he has been
instructed in it sufficiently to incur the obligation of its profession,
in which case he is required to abjure and to be formally reconciled and
is absolved from the excommunication which he has incurred, while, if he
has never known Catholicism, he is absolved _ad cautelam_. If he is less
than 25 years of age, a curador is to be appointed, with all the
formalities, who is to be present and to consent to all the proceedings.
There is suggestiveness in the contrast of this cautious detail with the
multitudinous sprinkling by which Jews and Moors were incorporated in
the Church.
[Sidenote: _PROTESTANTISM_]
Among converts the most curious case in the records is that of Joh.
Heinrich Horstmann--with many aliases--of Borgenstreich, who supported
himself during a long life by trading on the rivalry between
Protestantism and Catholicism. Born about 1663, he was educated as a
Catholic by the Jesuits of Prague. When about 25, he changed his
religion at Dresden, studied at Wittenberg, and for many years wandered
through Germany, living on charitable contributions given to him as a
convert. He even went to England, where the Archbishops of Canterbury
and York assisted him. Then, in the Protestant cantons of Switzerland,
he supported himself as a Catholic ready for conversion, and in the
Catholic ones as a Lutheran seeking salvation in the Church. Finally in
the latter capacity he hit upon the lucrative device of saying that he
had been baptized in the Lutheran fashion of one person administering
the material and another the form; theologians would pronounce this
invalid, and that rebaptism was necessary; some prominent person would
be induced to act as godfather and would encourage him with a donation
of twenty or thirty ducats, and possibly there was an additional
collection from the faithful. On this he traded for the rest of his
life, varied with an episode of having himself circumcised in Amsterdam
and living for some years on the Jews there. This subsequently gave him
trouble, for in Rome he was recognized as a Jew, he was tried by the
Inquisition and sent to the galleys for ten years, after which he
resumed the profession of a candidate for baptism. From Lisbon to Paris
and Naples, he imposed on the credulity of the faithful, and it was
reckoned that in all he had been baptized twenty-one times. A second
visit to Spain, however, brought his career to an end in his
eighty-ninth year. Repeated baptisms in Cádiz, Madrid and Valencia
aroused suspicion. All the tribunals were ordered to be on the watch for
him and, after a year of searching, he was arrested at Valencia in 1751.
He told his story freely and fully; at first he said that his repeated
baptisms were merely to gain a living, but subsequently he asserted that
he was possessed by a demon, whom he hoped to eject by the repetition of
the rite. The _consulta de fe_ voted that, as an apostate and relapsed
heretic and _diminuto_ he had forfeited his life, but that efforts
should be made to save his soul, after which another vote should be
taken. At this conjuncture he fell mortally sick; he refused to speak to
those who sought his salvation and, when one of them told him, if he
desired to die in Calvinism, to squeeze his hand, he seized it with such
a grip that assistance was necessary to unloosen it. Thus he passed away
in his heresy on February 28, 1752; the body was buried in unconsecrated
ground in a box of quick-lime and, in an auto held August 26, 1753, the
bones and effigy were reduced to ashes and scattered.[1276]
* * * * *
Thus, when divested of legendary amplification, Spanish Protestantism is
seen to have been of importance only as serving to tighten the bonds
which restricted the development of the nation. One of the most
efficient means to this end remains to be considered in the censorship
of the press.
CHAPTER IV.
CENSORSHIP.
Censorship of the press was not the least effective function of the
Inquisition in arresting the development of the Spanish intellect. That
it should suppress the utterance of heresy in print as well as in speech
would appear to be inevitable, and yet no such power was included in the
commissions of the earlier inquisitors-general, nor at first was this
regarded as one of its duties. It is true that, as early as 1490, it
burnt a large number of Hebrew Bibles and other Jewish books and, soon
afterwards in Salamanca, it consigned to the flames in an auto some six
thousand volumes of works on Judaism and sorcery.[1277] We have seen
also that Ximenes in Granada burnt a mass of Moorish MSS., but these
were extra-judicial acts, which there was none to call in question. In
the Instructions issued by Torquemada and his immediate successors,
there is no reference to censorship as an inquisitorial duty and, in the
earliest manual, printed in Valencia in 1494, the only allusion to it is
the prescription, derived from the canon law, that any one obtaining
possession of an heretical book is bound, within eight days, to burn it
or to deliver it to the bishop or inquisitor.[1278]
[Sidenote: _EARLY TOLERATION_]
In fact, the matter was not regarded as pertaining especially to the
Inquisition. The earliest provision for censorship, called forth by the
development of the art of printing, is a faculty granted, March 17,
1479, by Sixtus IV to the rector and dean of the University of Cologne,
to proceed with censures against the printers, sellers and readers of
heretical books.[1279] Alexander VI, in 1501, assumed it to be an
episcopal function, when he called on the German bishops to keep a
vigilant watch on the press.[1280] So Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1502,
when they promulgated the earliest law regulating the issue of books,
made no mention of the Inquisition. This law formed the basis of all
subsequent legislation, and its uncompromising character foreshadowed
the relations that were henceforth to exist between the government and
the intelligence of Spain. No book was to be printed, imported or
exposed for sale without preliminary examination and licence. In
Valladolid this duty was imposed on the president judges of the royal
courts; in Toledo, Seville and Granada on the archbishops, in Burgos on
the bishop, and in Salamanca and Zamora on the Bishop of Salamanca, who
were to act through examiners, paid by a moderate salary, not oppressive
to booksellers and printers. When a MS. had been thus licensed, it was,
after printing, to be carefully compared with the sheets to see that no
changes had been made. Any book printed or imported and offered for
sale, without such licence, was to be seized and publicly burnt; the
printer or vendor was incapacitated from continuing in business and was
fined in twice the amount received for any copies that he might have
sold.[1281] That the censorship thus created was enforced with more or
less regularity may be inferred from a remark of Chancellor Gattinara,
in 1527, reassuring Erasmus against expected attacks--that nothing was
permitted to be published in Spain without careful previous examination,
and he fervently wished that an equally wholesome rule could be
established in Germany.[1282]
The motive for this sharp and comprehensive legislation can only be
conjectured. Before the Reformation there was little demand for the
services of the censor. The Church was worldly; its supremacy in all
matters of faith and discipline seemed to be so immutably established
that it regarded with good-natured indifference abstract speculations
such as those of Marsiglio Ficino, Pomponazzi and Agustino Nifo, and
concrete ridicule like that of Sebastian Brandt, Thomas Murner and
Erasmus. It was otherwise when the Lutheran revolt threatened the
overthrow of Latin Christianity and spread with such rapidity that no
man could foretell its limits. We have seen that, as early as 1521, Rome
called upon Spain to prevent the introduction and dissemination of
Lutheran writings, and that Cardinal Adrian promptly assumed that it was
the function of the Inquisition to do so. There is no trace of any
delegation of such faculty, from either the Holy See or the civil power,
but his action was not likely to be called in question, and the civil
authorities were under oath to obey the mandates of the inquisitors,
where the faith was concerned Accordingly, his decree of April, 1521, is
couched in the most absolute terms; the books in question had been
prohibited by the inquisitors and spiritual judges, wherefore the
tribunals were instructed to order, under heavy censures and civil
penalties, that no one should possess or sell them, whether in Latin or
Romance, but should, within three days after notice, bring them to the
Inquisition to be publicly burnt; the edict was to be published in a
sermon of faith and, after publication, any one possessing or selling
them, or knowing that others possessed them and not denouncing the
offenders, was to suffer the penalties announced by the inquisitors,
while all ecclesiastical and secular authorities were ordered to render
whatever aid might be necessary.[1283]
Thus, at a bound, the Inquisition claimed and exercised the power of
enforcing the prohibition of condemned books. The next step--that of
condemning books--would seem to have been taken, in 1525, in an order to
the vicar of Alcalá de Henares to seize all copies of a certain book of
expositions of the Psalter.[1284] Then followed, in 1530 and 1531,
various edicts showing the activity of the Inquisition in exploiting its
new field of action. The heretics were printing their works under
assumed names, or adding heretic commentaries to authorized books, for
the detection of which the utmost vigilance of the tribunals was
invoked; a clause was to be added to the Edict of Faith requiring the
denunciation of all such works; the tribunals were to send executory
letters to all towns demanding the surrender of Luther's writings, and
discreet persons were to be appointed to investigate the book-shops in
search of this evil literature. When, in 1535, the tribunal of Valencia
admitted that it had neglected to do this it was commanded to make the
appointments forthwith and to have all condemned books seized.[1285]
[Sidenote: _CONFIDED TO THE INQUISITION_]
The Inquisition had assumed and was exercising authority to condemn
books, to seize those in circulation and to punish their possessors,
although it had no formal authority for any of these acts. It seems to
have felt that the punishment of offenders, at least, required papal
faculties and, when Inquisitor-general Tavera, in 1539, succeeded
Manrique, a clause was inserted in his commission empowering him and
his successors to proceed against those who owned or read heretical
books.[1286] The authority of the Holy Office was thus complete with
regard to books after they were printed, but as to the equally important
function of granting licences to print, its policy at first varied
somewhat. The law of 1502 had confided this duty explicitly to judges
and bishops, but, in 1527, the Inquisition invaded this by granting
licences for Antonio de Obregon's translations of some of St. Bernard's
and San Vicente de Ferrer's works. Even individual inquisitors seem to
have arrogated to themselves power to grant licences for, in 1530, the
Suprema forbade them to do so, but it assumed for itself entire control
over the matter, in 1536, by issuing orders that no book should be
printed without a preliminary examination by the Holy Office.[1287]
Reflection, and possibly experience, however, showed that this
assumption of power carried with it a responsibility that occasionally
might prove embarrassing, for books which it thus approved might
subsequently, in the growing sensitiveness of orthodoxy, be condemned,
and a carta acordada of 1550 definitely prohibited all such licences,
adding that the Suprema did not grant them.[1288] It was wiser that
preliminary approval and subsequent judgement should be in different
hands, and this was provided for in an edict of Charles V and Prince
Philip, in 1554, confining to the Royal Council the duty of issuing
licences, after careful examination of the MSS. submitted, which, in the
case of all important works, were to be retained for comparison with the
printed sheets.[1289] Yet the Inquisition retained the right to stop the
printing of any book denounced to it as heretical, and it seems for
awhile to have occasionally issued licences, for a carta acordada of
1575 alludes to the approval of books and their licensing by
inquisitors.[1290] This was probably the end of it, and the Inquisition
tacitly declined to risk its reputation for infallibility by approving
books in advance, which it might subsequently have to condemn.
The Inquisition thus restricted itself to the duty of condemnation. The
prohibition might be total and the book be wholly suppressed, or
partial, in which case its circulation was suspended _donec
corrigatur_--until it should be expurgated of passages regarded as
erroneous, misleading or offensive. For this duty it provided no
machinery and did not profess to take the initiative. In the Edicts of
Faith, it was made the duty of everyone to denounce whatever was
contrary to the faith, and there were plenty of acute theologians and
captious critics to whom it was an agreeable task to call attention to
any word or sentence or proposition to which exception could be taken.
The book was then submitted to calificadores, and their verdict, whether
for suppression or expurgation, was submitted to the Suprema, or the
book itself might be sent there for examination; in any case the
decision rested with it and was communicated to the tribunals by an
edict, which was read in all the churches and affixed to their portals,
so that no one could plead ignorance. All who possessed the inculpated
book were summoned, within a limited time, to surrender it for
suppression, if it were prohibited, or for expurgation if objectionable
passages were to be blotted out, and this under penalty of
excommunication and fine, with threat of prosecution for persistent
disobedience.[1291]
[Sidenote: _THE INDEX_]
Everything thus centred in the Suprema, whose action was required in
even the most trivial matters, and its correspondence on these affairs
was incessant. As condemnations and expurgations multiplied, it became
impossible to trust the records of the tribunals or the memory of the
faithful. Some authentic list or catalogue was required to aid
inquisitors in their work, and to warn booksellers and readers, and thus
gradually was developed the _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_ or
_Expurgandorum_, which has become one of the most efficient of
instrumentalities for repressing the human intellect and aiding the
forces of reaction. Henry VIII has the credit of setting the example, in
a brief list of prohibited books, issued in 1526, although in the same
year Charles V published in the Netherlands a _plakaat_ naming half a
dozen authors whose books were to be burnt. The earliest allusion that I
have met to such a catalogue in Spain occurs in a letter of September,
1540, from the Suprema to Loazes, then Inquisitor of Barcelona,
complaining of the inefficiency of the efforts to prevent the
importation of prohibited books, which the Germans were using every
means to disseminate, while merchants and booksellers felt no fear of
the penalties imposed by the Inquisition. Greater activity and heavier
punishment were necessary, for which instructions were enclosed, with a
list of prohibited and suspected books, to which Loazes was to add his
suggestions.[1292]
This was merely for use within the Inquisition. The first formal printed
Index was compiled, in 1546, by the University of Louvain. A copy of
this was sent, in 1547, to Inquisitor-general Valdés, at Seville, who
forwarded it to the Suprema. This had it printed, with an Appendix
containing the books prohibited in Spain, and sent it out, September
1st, to the tribunals, with some MS. additions of later
prohibitions.[1293] This is the earliest Spanish Index, hitherto
unknown, which has left no other trace, and it serves to mark the
commencement of another duty undertaken by the Suprema, that of
examining books for the purpose, without awaiting denunciations, for, in
1545 there is an order to pay Dr. Alvaro de Moscoso forty ducats for
labor of this kind.[1294] Then, in 1550, the University of Louvain
issued an enlarged list and this, by order of Charles V, was reprinted
and circulated by the Inquisition in 1551, with its own additions,
constituting what has been reckoned as the first Spanish Index.[1295]
The energies of the Suprema were now turned to the Scriptures. Vast
numbers of Latin Bibles had been circulated, correct as to the text, but
rendered insidiously dangerous by heretical notes and commentaries. Many
of these were contained in the Index of 1551, and diligent search was
made for others at Salamanca and Alcalá, and their errors were
scrupulously noted. The results of these labors were communicated to the
tribunals, with orders to examine all the Bibles seized under the Index
of 1551; if among them were found editions not in the list enclosed,
they were to be scrupulously examined by learned men and be sent to the
Suprema, which would then determine what was to be done with the great
accumulation of corrupt Bibles in the land. It concluded not to order a
wholesale destruction and, in 1554, it issued the first Expurgatory
Index, devoted to the Scriptures, specifying the edition and the
passages to be _borrado_ or blotted out; this was sent to the tribunals
with orders for its publication everywhere. All the Bibles seized and
all that might be brought in were to be expurgated and returned to their
owners, with a certificate. After the expiration of the term of grace
allowed, the most strenuous efforts were to be made to ascertain whether
any prohibited or unexpurgated Bibles remained in the hands of
individuals or institutions, the owners of which were to be punished
with the utmost rigor.[1296]
[Sidenote: _GENERAL INSPECTION_]
It was evidently the books conveyed by Julian Hernández that furnished a
fresh list sent to the tribunals, October 22, 1557, of works described
as printed in Venice and brought from Flanders and Germany by a Spaniard
to Seville. Edicts concerning them were to be published everywhere, the
book-shops were to be sedulously searched and any one found in
possession of them was to be punished with the greatest severity. This
was followed, September 2, 1558, by an additional list of books ordered
to be burnt.[1297] The Suprema was thus obtaining material for an
independent Index. Paul IV had caused one to be compiled in 1557, which
was printed and suppressed, to appear, in 1559, in an authentic
form.[1298] The Spanish Inquisition, however, already asserted its
independence of the Roman Holy Office in these matters; the excitement
over the Lutherans of Valladolid and Seville suggested a comprehensive
prohibition of heretic books; Valdés procured from the pope the
necessary delegation of power and, in 1559, the first indigenous Index
appeared. It was distributed to the tribunals with instructions that all
books contained in it were to be called in; those of heretic authors
were to be publicly burnt in the autos, and the rest carefully stored,
making lists of them and of their owners, which were to be sent to the
Suprema for its action. Books on the humanities and Catholic books with
heretic notes, if the latter could be effaced, were to be returned to
the owners; all anonymous books and books without imprint of place and
printer and all books printed abroad since 1519 were to be seized and
examined and, if found suspicious, were to be detained. The general
clause in the Index, covering all books savoring of heresy, was
explained to mean that everything not contained in it that was heretical
or suspect was to be seized, and whenever there was doubt the Suprema
was to be consulted.[1299]
The preparation of the Index had been a work of no little labor and
perplexity. Among others, the learned Doctor Francisco Sancho had for
some years been employed by the Suprema in examining and seizing books
and, early in 1559, he wrote that he had a large number in his
possession and that, in the course of his duties many doubts had arisen,
which he set forth in a series of questions. One of these suggests the
difficulty of censorship applied to a theology undergoing reconstruction
at the Council of Trent, but which was assumed to have been unalterable
from the beginning. Sancho calls attention to the clause in the edicts
forbidding all books containing any thing against the faith and the
Church and its observances. There are many books, he continues,
containing such errors, as those of Richard of Armagh, Durandus,
Caietano, the Master of Sentences, Origen, Theophylact, Tertullian,
Lactantius, Lucian, Aristotle, Plato, Seneca and others, much used both
in and out of the schools, and it is doubted whether they can be
permitted under condition of noting the errors. The Suprema shrank from
the absurdity of suppressing the works of the most eminent medieval
theologians and the leading classics, and it graciously allowed their
circulation until further orders.[1300]
The issue of the Index was followed by a vigorous search through all the
book-shops and libraries of Spain. Examiners or revisors were appointed
everywhere, with instructions to scrutinize all collections of books,
whether in shops, monasteries, universities and private libraries, to
detect not only those named in the Index but all others containing
suspicious matter. All owners of books were commanded to submit them for
examination, under penalty of excommunication and two hundred ducats.
Not only the prohibited books but all regarded as suspicious were to be
sent, together with information as to their owners, to the Suprema,
which would do justice in the premises.[1301]
The examination of all the books accumulated in Spain was a formidable
undertaking, but it was attempted to the discomfiture of all men of
culture and learning, and the raising of innumerable questions which
gave ample occupation to the Suprema. A specimen of this is found in the
report of Fray Pedro de Quintanilla of Valladolid, concerning books in
his hands belonging to Bartolomé de Robles, a prominent bookseller. Most
of these, he says, are of Erasmus, such as the Adagia, Paraphrases and
Anotaciones which are not prohibited, and he thinks may be returned to
the owner, to which the response is that books of Erasmus not in the
Index may be returned. Then there is Conrad Gesner _de Piscibus et de
Avibus_, containing only the painted bird and fish, which he thinks may
be returned, which is assented to. Then there is a book called Petrus
Galatinus, containing a tract "De Arte Cabalistica;" if this were
removed, some who have examined it say that the rest is good, to which
the reply was to take out the cabalistic tract and return the book. Then
there are other books, which have prologues or annotations by heretics,
and he thinks that if the names of such authors were blotted out, the
books might be returned, as to which he was told to specify the
books.[1302] We can readily conceive the exasperation caused by this
laborious and meddlesome trifling, and its repressive influence on the
studies of the learned.
[Sidenote: _SECULAR LEGISLATION_]
All this was in furtherance of a savage pragmática evidently motived by
the Lutheran scare. It was issued September 7, 1558, by the Infanta
Juana in the name of Philip II, and shows that the civil power
coöperated with the Inquisition, while providing an effective machinery
for a state censorship. It recited that, in spite of the law of 1502 and
the labors of inquisitors and bishops, there were many heretical works
in circulation, and that foreign heretics were making great efforts thus
to disseminate their doctrines, while there were also many useless and
immoral books, so that the Córtes had petitioned for a remedy. It was
therefore ordered, under penalty of death and confiscation, that no
bookseller or other person should sell or keep any book condemned by the
Inquisition, and all such books should be publicly burnt. The Index of
prohibited books must be printed and every bookseller must keep a copy
exposed, where the public could consult it. No books in Romance printed
abroad, even in the kingdoms of Aragon, were to be imported, under the
same terrible penalty, unless they had a printed licence from the Royal
Council, but books in Romance previously printed abroad, and not
prohibited by the Inquisition, were to be presented to the local
magistrates, who were to send lists of them to the Royal Council for
decision, pending which they were not to be kept for sale under pain of
confiscation and exile. Moreover, a general inspection was ordered of
all books in the kingdom; those in book-shops and private libraries by
the bishops, in conjunction with royal officials and universities, and
those in religious houses by the superiors of the Orders. Everything
regarded as suspicious or immoral was to be sequestrated, until
judgement should be passed upon it by the Royal Council, and this was to
be repeated annually.
Existing and foreign books being thus provided for, a stringent
censorship of the press was organized. Death and confiscation were
decreed for any one who should give out for printing a book without
first submitting it to the Royal Council for examination when, if found
unobjectionable, a licence would be issued. To prevent alterations,
every page of the MS. must be signed by a secretary of the royal
chamber, who must rubricate every correction and state at the end the
number of pages and corrections. After printing, the MS. must be
returned with one or two printed copies for comparison. Every book must
have in front the licence, the _tassa_ or price at which it was sold,
the privilege, if there was one, and the names of author, printer and
place of publication. New editions were subject to the same regulations,
but legal documents and official papers of the Inquisition and the
Cruzada Indulgence were excepted. Even writing was subjected to the same
restrictions as printing, for death and confiscation were threatened for
all who should own or exhibit to others a MS. on any religious subject
without submitting it to the Council, which should either license it or
destroy it. This ferocious law was confirmed, in 1627, by Philip IV and
remained unrepealed until the Revolution, its enforcement being
rigorously enjoined by Carlos IV, in 1804.[1303] That any one suffered
death for its violation is unlikely, and inquisitorial trials of
theologians show that they accumulated masses of papers on religious
subjects without thought of submitting them to the Royal Council, but
the impediments which it threw in the way of authorship were rigidly
enforced and coöperated with the Inquisition in exercising a most
repressive influence on the intellectual progress of Spain.
It was not difficult to secure from the papacy its aid in rendering this
censorship effective. The Suprema, in its letter of September 9, 1558,
to Paul IV respecting the Lutheran development, called attention to the
negligence of confessors in requiring their penitents to surrender
prohibited books and to denounce offenders, and Paul, in a brief of
January 5, 1559, commanded all confessors in the Spanish dominions to
enquire of penitents whether they owned or read such works, or knew of
any one owning or printing or selling them, when absolution was to be
refused, unless the books were surrendered or the culprits denounced.
For obedience to this, on the part of confessors, remission of sins was
promised, while negligence was threatened with fines, deprivation of
functions and benefice and disability for reinstatement, penalties which
were discretional with the inquisitor-general.[1304]
[Sidenote: _CAPTIOUS EXPURGATION_]
Thus papal, royal and inquisitorial powers were concentrated in the
effort to purify the land of heretical literature. By the Edicts of
Faith and by the confessional the whole population was enlisted as spies
and informers on those who contravened the prohibitions, which rapidly
succeeded each other in the inquisitorial edicts, and all readers of
books were required to denounce any passages which might seem to them
suspicious or offensive. It is probably to this latter source that are
attributable most of the incredibly trivial expurgations with which the
later Indexes are burdened. How it sometimes fared with authors,
indubitably orthodox but careless in expression, is exemplified in the
case of the Maestro Fray Hernando de Santiago who, in 1597, published at
Salamanca, of course after the preliminary censorship, his
_Consideraciones sobre todos los Domingos y Fiestas de la Quaresma_. It
was denounced to the Inquisition as containing some heretical
propositions and many that were erroneous and scandalous. The Toledo
tribunal summoned him and after examination voted to suspend his case
with a reprimand and order to be more reticent in his sermons and to
write no more scandalous books, which was an admission that the work
contained nothing especially objectionable. The Suprema, however, set
the vote aside and ordered his trial to be vigorously pushed and all his
papers to be seized. A struggle, prolonged until 1602, ensued over an
infinite number of expressions to which the calificadores took
exception, resulting in his being severely reprimanded in the presence
of representatives of all the religious Orders, with banishment from
Castile and suspension from preaching for three years, the first year of
which was to be passed in reclusion in the monastery of Cuenca as a
penitent. From his book were to be expurgated all the passages noted as
objectionable by the calificadores, and the list of these as printed in
the Indexes is formidable in length rather than in quality, for captious
criticism had wreaked itself on the minutest points. It was justified in
correcting "Assur King of Persia" to "Assur King of Assyria;" possibly
also in altering "the day when Peter renounced Christ" to "denied
Christ," but only slavish adulation could require that "the day when a
tyrant king" should be changed to "tyrant captain." Still, the
indomitable maestro was not silenced, for in the following year, 1603,
he issued another book, _Consideraciones sobre los Evangelios de los
Santos_, for which he escaped prosecution, though his book likewise
found its way into the Index, with, however, a smaller array of
expurgations.[1305]
Inquisitorial censorship, it will thus be seen, by no means confined
itself to suppressing the works of foreign heretics, for which it was
primarily instituted. Had it done so, it would have exercised a
sufficiently benumbing influence on Spanish intelligence, for it
excluded many works because of their authors rather than of their
contents and it never was able to settle definitely the troublesome
questions arising from works of high scientific and intellectual merit,
in which the authorship or an occasional passage might offend the
hyper-sensitiveness so zealously cultivated. This was sufficiently
restrictive on culture, not only in itself but in the obstruction which,
as we shall see, it imposed on the introduction of all books from
abroad, but even more unfortunate in its influence was the censorship
extended over the whole field of native literature, interposing barriers
on authorship seeking publicity, and exposing even the most orthodox
writers to the danger of seeing their works suppressed, or to the
humiliation of having them disfigured with blotted passages in which the
perverse ingenuity of some theological expert might detect possible
danger to the unwary.
Yet, to do the Spanish Inquisition justice, in this it was more
considerate than the Roman censorship. In 1564 appeared the Index of
Pius IV, known as the Tridentine Index. This is the basis of all
succeeding Roman Indexes, which are strictly of prohibited books--that
is, all books, to which exception of any kind could be taken, were
prohibited, whether their errors were systematic or only occasional. No
indication was given as to what were the objectionable points, although
the author, by humble supplication to the Congregation of the Index,
might obtain information and reprint his book with corrections, at the
risk of its being again prohibited.[1306] The Spanish Inquisition was
more laborious, for it prepared Expurgatory Indexes, in which, when
books were not absolutely prohibited, the objectionable passages were
designated and, when these were _borrado_, or blotted out, the book
could be circulated.
[Sidenote: _THE INDEXES_]
Working thus on different lines, there was little harmony between Spain
and the Holy See. In fact, as we shall have occasion to observe, the
Inquisition asserted entire independence of the Roman censorship,
disregarding its prohibitions and issuing its own without reference to
Rome. This commenced early, as is shown in some curiously contradictory
utterances, in 1568, respecting the Tridentine Index. February 7th, a
carta acordada orders the observance of the Spanish Index of 1559; then
another, of June 14th, recites that the Tridentine Index is not observed
and that persons are using books prohibited in it, wherefore inquisitors
are to order it to be obeyed and to tell preachers to urge this from
their pulpits; finally a third carta, a fortnight later, on June 29th,
practically revokes this by commanding that the Index of 1559 is the
only one to be followed.[1307]
What between the activity of the press, the widening knowledge of
heretical literature, and the increasing sensitiveness of criticism, the
work promised to be endless and preparations were soon under way for the
preparation of a new Index. The labor proved to be no light one. The
tribunals, the prelates and the universities were called upon for
information; as this was received it was sent to Maestro Francisco
Sancho, who selected from the University of Salamanca a junta to frame
from these materials the new Index. Then Sancho left Salamanca and
recommended as his successor his assistant Doctor Diego de Vera. The
Suprema grew impatient and, in a letter of December 6, 1572, it charged
the theologians of the university with the prosecution of the work; in
view of its importance and the urgency of speedy completion, it was to
be preferred to all other business and was to be pushed forward
unremittingly.[1308] They doubtless labored conscientiously and disputed
zealously, but the result was still far off. In 1574 we hear that the
Index was expected to be completed shortly; in 1575, the Licenciado
Velarde, in charge of the matter, was urged to complete it; in 1578 it
was so far advanced that it was submitted to the Universities for their
revision and in 1579 they were asked for their opinions on the general
rules drawn up to accompany it.[1309] Still there was delay, for the
outcome of this careful and prolonged labor was a vast increase over
previous indexes, appearing in two volumes, known as the Indexes of
Quiroga, the inquisitor-general. The first was an Index of prohibited
books, issued in 1583, consisting mostly of the names of authors all of
whose works were forbidden. This was followed, in 1584, by an
Expurgatory Index--the first of its kind--giving the expurgations
necessary to render current the works enumerated. A carta acordada of
October 16th contained directions for the enforcement of its
prescriptions. Although it had been published in the principal towns, it
was to be published again, on a Sunday or feast-day, after convoking the
people by proclamation, when it was to be read after the sermon in the
same way as the Edict of Faith. The preacher was to announce that all
persons having prohibited books were to deliver them at once to the
tribunal, or to a person designated in each town; those having books to
be expurgated could do so in their own houses, but within six months
must submit them to the said persons for approval and signing, without
which they would not be considered as expurgated. Obedience seems to
have been slack; on June 13, 1585, the time limit was extended for four
months; then successive prorogations followed and, in 1587, a further
delay was accorded until the end of 1588.[1310]
The business was as interminable as the labors of the Danaïdes. Already,
in 1586, the theological faculties of Salamanca, Alcalá and Valladolid
were informed that omissions had been reported, and they were asked to
assemble and consider what should be done. In 1594 we hear of
preparations on foot for another Index and Doctor Neroni, Abbot of
Alcalá was instructed to form a junta of doctors and masters competent
for the work.[1311] Progress, however, was interrupted by the strife
which arose between the Dominicans and the Jesuits over the propositions
of Molina and the insoluble questions connected with sufficing and
efficacious grace. The correspondence on the subject was continuous and
voluminous; all the theologians of Spain, who were numerous and highly
vocal, were involved in a prodigious uproar which monopolized the
energies of the censorship. Even the Inquisition was powerless to
restore peace between the raging factions and, in 1598, the strictest
orders were sent to all the universities, forbidding debate or
discussion on the subject and any allusion to it in lectures. Yet the
tempest continued to growl and even in 1612 we find an edict concerning
it.[1312]