PEDRO ARBUÉS DE EPILA
There is no difficulty in believing Llorente’s statement--based
upon extracts from contemporary chronicles--to the effect that the
Inquisition was not looked upon with favour in Castile. It was
impossible that a civilized and enlightened people should view with
equanimity the institution of a tribunal whose methods, however based
fundamentally upon those of the civil courts, were in the details of
their practice so opposed to all conceptions of equity.
In no Catholic country does the cherishing of a fervent faith, in
itself, imply respect for the clergy. Nor, for that matter, does
the respect of any religion in itself signify respect for those who
administer it. It appears to do so; it is even prescribed that it
should; but in point of fact it seldom does, other than with simple
peasant classes. The ministers, after all, are men; but by virtue of
their office they labour under disadvantages greater than the ordinary
man’s. When they display the failings to which all men are subject,
these failings wear a much graver aspect by virtue of the office they
hold and the greater purity which that office implies. Holiness is
looked upon as the priest’s trade, and it is expected that he should
conduct that trade honestly, as any layman conducts the affairs by
which he earns his livelihood. The only test of honesty in the priest,
of whatever denomination, lies in his own conduct; and when this falls
short of that high standard in which he claims to deal, he earns a
contempt akin to that which overtakes the trader who defrauds his
creditors. It is remembered then, to his disadvantage, that under his
cassock the cleric is a man, and so subject to all the faults that
are man’s heritage. But it happens that in addition to these he is
subject to other failings that are peculiarly of the cassock, failings
which the world has never been slow to discern in him. The worst of
these is the ecclesiastical arrogance, the sacerdotal pride which
has been manifested by priests of all cults, but which in none is so
intolerable as in the Christian, who expounds a gospel of humility and
self-abnegation. He is akin to a feudal tyrant who grinds the faces of
his serfs whilst he lectures them upon the glories of democracy.
Of such priests Spain of the fifteenth century had an abundant share.
She knew them and mistrusted them, and hence she mistrusted any
organization of theirs which should transcend the strict limits of
their office.
Now, the tribunal of the Inquisition laid itself peculiarly open to
this mistrust in consequence of the secrecy of its proceedings--a
secrecy, as we know, greatly increased by the enactments of Torquemada.
Its trials were not conducted in open court; the examination of
witnesses took place in secret and under the veil of anonymity, so that
the world had no assurance of the honesty of the proceedings. When it
happened that a man was arrested, the world, as a rule, knew him no
more until he came forth, candle in hand, arrayed in a _sanbenito_ to
play his tragic part in an Auto.
By virtue of this secrecy the Inquisition had invested itself with a
power far greater, more subtle, and farther-reaching than that of any
civil court. The might of the Grand Inquisitor was almost boundless,
and he was unanswerable to any temporal authority for the arbitrariness
with which he exercised it. Rivalling the sovereign power in much, in
much else the Grand Inquisitor’s went above and beyond it, for not even
the King himself could interfere in matters of the Faith with one who
held his office directly from the Pope.
The net which Torquemada cast was of the very widest; the meshes of
that net were of the closest, so that no man, however humble, could
account himself safe; its threads were of the strongest, so that no
man, however powerful, could be sure of breaking through were he once
brought within its scope.
What, then, but terror could Torquemada and his grim machinery
inspire? It is not difficult to believe the sometime secretary of the
Inquisition when he assures us that the Holy Office was not favourably
viewed in Spain. The marvel is that whilst the Castilians were chilled
by awe into inactivity and meek submission, it should have remained for
Aragon, which already had known an inquisition for a century, to rise
up in rebellion.
And yet what may seem at first glance a reason why Aragon should have
submitted to Torquemada’s rule in matters of the Faith, may be the
very reason of its rash and futile rebellion. For a hundred years
already the court of the Holy Office had been operating there; but its
operations, never vigorous, had become otiose. In this inactive form
Aragon had suffered it to continue. But of a sudden it was roused from
that lethargy by Torquemada. It was bidden to enforce its stern decrees
and other sterner decrees which he added to those already in existence,
and to follow the course of arbitrary procedure which he laid down.
Never welcome in Aragon, it now became intolerable. The New-Christians,
who knew the fate of their Castilian brethren, went with fear in their
countenances, and despair and its fierce courage in their hearts.
In the spring of 1484 Ferdinand held his Cortes at Tarragona. He was
attended on the occasion by Torquemada, and he seized the opportunity
to present to his kingdom the gaunt Prior of Holy Cross, its
pontifically-appointed Grand Inquisitor.
Torquemada’s activity matched his boundless zeal. At once he
convened a council composed of the Vice-Chancellor of Aragon, Alonso
de Caballeria--himself a New-Christian--the Royal Councillor Alonso
Carillo, and some doctors of canon law, that they might decide upon the
course to be adopted in Aragon to the end that the Inquisition might be
conducted with absolute uniformity there, as in Castile. This done, he
proceeded to appoint inquisitors to the Archbishopric of Zaragoza, and
his choice fell upon Frey Gaspar Yuglar and Frey Pedro Arbués de Epila,
Master of Theology and Canon of the Metropolitan Church of Zaragoza.
After the publication of the “Instructions” drawn up that same year in
Seville, Torquemada further appointed to the Holy Office of Zaragoza a
fiscal advocate, an apparitor, notaries, and receivers, whereupon that
office began immediately to exercise its functions under the new system.
At once the courage of despair roused the New-Christians to opposition.
Amongst them were many who held high positions at court, persons of
great influence and esteem, and these immediately determined to send a
deputation to the Vatican and another to the Sovereigns to voice their
protests against the institution of this tribunal in Aragon, and to
beseech that it be abolished, or at least curtailed in its powers and
inhibited from proceeding to confiscation, which was contrary to the
law of the land.
This last was a shrewd request, based no doubt upon the conviction
that, deprived of the confiscations upon which it battened, the
tribunal must languish and very soon return to its former inoperative
condition.
Nor were the _conversos_ the only ones to denounce the procedure of the
Holy Office. Zurita records that many of the principal nobles of Aragon
rebelled against it, protesting that it was against the liberties of
the kingdom to confiscate the property of men who were never allowed to
learn the names of those who bore witness against them.
As well might they have appealed against death--for death itself was
not more irresistible or inexorable than Torquemada. All the fruit
borne by their labours was that those who had lent their names to the
petition were ultimately prosecuted as hinderers of the Holy Office.
But this did not immediately happen.
In the meanwhile Torquemada’s delegates, Arbués and Yuglar, went about
the business entrusted to them with that imperturbability which the
“Directorium” enjoins. They published their edicts, ordered arrests,
carried out confiscations, and proceeded with such thoroughness that it
was not long before Zaragoza began to present the same lurid, ghastly
spectacles that were to be witnessed in the chief cities of Castile.
In the following May (1485) they celebrated with great solemnity the
first Auto de Fé, penancing many and burning some. This was followed by
a second Auto in June.
The despair and irritation of the New-Christians mounted higher at
these spectacles. It is believed to have reached its climax with the
sudden arrest of Leonardi Eli, one of the most influential, wealthy,
and respected _conversos_ of Zaragoza.
Those who had put the petition afoot, abandoning now all hope of
obtaining any response either from the Sovereigns or from Rome, met
to concert other measures. Their leader was a man of influence named
Juan Pedro Sanchez. He had four brothers in influential positions at
Court, who had lent their services in the matter of the petition to the
Sovereigns.
A meeting took place in the house of one Luis de Santangel, and Sanchez
urged a desperate remedy for their desperate ills. They must strike
terror into their terrorizers. He proposed no less than the slaughter
of the inquisitors, urging with confidence that if they were slain
no others would dare to fill their places. In this he seems to have
underestimated the character of Torquemada.
The proposal was adopted, an oath of secrecy was pledged, plans
were laid, measures were taken, and funds were collected to enable
these plans to be executed. Six assassins were chosen, among whom
were Juan de Abadia and his Gascon servant Vidal de Uranso, and Juan
de Esperandeu. This last was the son of a _converso_ then lying in
the prisons of the Inquisition, whose property had already been
confiscated; so that he was driven by the added spur of personal
revenge. There was, too, the further incentive of a sum of five hundred
florins promised by the conspirators to the slayer of Arbués, and
deposited by them for that purpose with Juan Pedro Sanchez.[127]
Several early attempts to execute this project were baffled by
circumstances. It would seem, moreover, that Arbués had received some
warning of what was in store for him--or else he was simply conscious
of the general hatred he had incurred--for he exercised the greatest
prudence, took to wearing body armour, and was careful not to expose
himself in any way; all of which does not suggest in him that eagerness
for the martyr’s crown with which his biographer Trasmiera would have
us believe that he was imbued.
At last, however, the assassins found their opportunity. Late on the
night of September 15 of that year, 1485, they penetrated into the
Metropolitan Church to lie in wait for their victims when these should
come to the midnight office imposed by the rule of their order.
Juan de Abadia, with his Gascon servant Uranso and another, entered by
the main door. Esperandeu and his companions gained admittance through
the sacristy.
About the pillars of the vast church, in the gloom that was scarcely
relieved by the altar-lamp, they waited silently, “like bloody wolves,”
says Trasmiera, “for the coming of that gentle lamb.”
Towards midnight there was a stir overhead; lights beat faintly upon
the darkness; the canons were assembling for matins in the choir.
A note of the organ boomed through the silence, and then Arbués entered
the church from the cloisters.
It seemed that even now chance did not favour them, for Arbués came
alone, and their aim was to take both the inquisitors.
The dominican was on his way to join his brethren in the choir. He
carried a lantern in one hand and a long bludgeon in the other. Nor did
his precautions end in this. He wore a shirt of mail under his white
habit, and there was a steel lining to his black velvet skull-cap.
He must indeed have gone in fear, that he could not trust himself to
matins save armed at all points.
He crossed the nave on his way to the staircase leading to the choir.
But as he reached the pulpit on the left he halted and knelt to offer
up the prescribed prayer in adoration of the Sanctissimum Sacramentum.
He set the lantern down upon the ground beside him, and leant his club
against a pillar.
Now was the assassins’ opportunity. He was at their mercy. And
although to strike now was to leave half their task undone, they must
have resolved that rather than postpone the matter again in the hope
of slaying both inquisitors, they had better take the one that was
delivered up to them.
The chanting overhead muffled the sound of their steps as they crept
up behind Arbués, out of the blackness into the faint wheel of yellow
light cast by his lantern.
Esperandeu was the first to strike, and he struck clumsily, doing no
more than wound the inquisitor in the left arm. But swift upon that
blow followed another from Uranso--a blow so violent that it smashed
part of the steel cap, and, presumably glancing off, opened a wound in
the inquisitor’s neck, which is believed to have been the real cause of
his death.
It did not, however, at that moment incapacitate him. He staggered up,
and turned to the staircase that led to the choir. But now Esperandeu
returned to the assault, and drove at the Dominican so furiously
with his sword that, despite the shirt of mail with which Arbués was
protected, the blade went through him from side to side.
The inquisitor fell, and lay still. The organ ceased abruptly, and the
assassins fled.
There was confusion now in the choir. Down the stairs came the
friars with their lanterns, to discover the unconscious and
bleeding inquisitor. They took him up and carried him to bed. He
died forty-eight hours later at midnight on Saturday, September 17,
1485.[128]
By morning all the town had heard of the deed, and the effect which
it produced was very different from that for which its perpetrators
had hoped. The Old-Christians, some moved by religious zeal, some by a
sense of justice, snatched up weapons and went forth to the cry of “To
the fire with the _conversos_!”
The populace--an uncertain quantity, ever ready to be swayed by the
first voice that is loud enough, to follow the first leader who points
the way--took up the cry, and soon Zaragoza was in turmoil. Through
every street rang the clamours of the multitude, which threatened to
offer up one of those hecatombs in which fire disputes with steel the
horrid laurel of the day.
The uproar penetrated to the Palace of Alfonso of Aragon, the
seventeen-year-old Archbishop of Zaragoza. It roused that bastard of
Catholic Ferdinand from his slumbers. A high-spirited lad, he summoned
the grandees of the city and the officers of justice, and rode out at
their head to meet and quell the rioters. But only by a promise that
the fullest justice should be done upon the murderers did he succeed
in dispersing them and restoring order to that distracted city.
* * * * *
“Divine Justice,” says Trasmiera, “permitted the deed, but not its
impunity.”
Rash indeed had been the action of the New-Christians, and terrible
was the penalty exacted, terrible the price they were made to pay for
the life they had taken. In conceiving that they could intimidate by
such an act a man of Torquemada’s mettle, they displayed a lamentable
want of judgment, as was speedily proved. To fill the place of the
dead inquisitor, and to set about the stern business of avenging him,
Torquemada instantly dispatched to Zaragoza Fr. Juan Colvera, Fr. Pedro
de Monterubio, and Dr. Alonso de Alarcon. For the greater security of
themselves and their prisoners, these delegates set up their tribunal
in the royal alcazar of the Castle of Aljaferia, and proceeded to
institute an active search for the culprits. Several were seized,
amongst whom was Abadia’s servant, Vidal de Uranso. He was put to the
question, and an admission of his own guilt extracted from him. He was
tortured further in the endeavour to wring from him the names of his
associates in the deed, and finally he was promised “grace” if he would
divulge them.
At this price the unfortunate Gascon consented to speak, betraying
all whom he had known to be in the plot and all whom he had known
to sympathize with it. And Llorente, who saw the records of the
proceedings, tells us that when Uranso claimed the promised grace, he
was benignly answered that he should receive the grace of not having
his hands hacked off--as must the others--before being hanged, drawn,
and quartered.
Amongst those taken were Juan de Abadia, Juan de Esperandeu, and Luis
de Santangel.
Esperandeu and Uranso suffered together at the Auto of June 30,
1486--the seventh held in Zaragoza that year. Esperandeu was dragged
through the city on a hurdle, his hands were hacked off on the steps
of the Cathedral, whereafter he was hanged, drawn, and quartered. Five
other conspirators suffered in the same Auto, being abandoned to the
secular arm and burnt alive. Two others, who had escaped, were burnt
in effigy, and one of these was that Juan Pedro Sanchez who had been
the leading spirit in the affair. And together with these living men
and the grotesque effigies of straw arrayed in _sanbenito_ and _coroza_
they burnt the corpse of Juan de Abadia. He had cheated in part the
Justice of the Holy Office. He had committed suicide in prison by
eating a glass lamp.[129]
Autos succeeded one another at such a rate now in Zaragoza that no less
than fourteen were held in that year 1486; 42 persons were burnt alive,
14 in effigy, and 134 were penanced in varying degrees from perpetual
imprisonment to public whippings. And to the end that the publicity of
these Autos might be increased and the salutary lesson inculcated by
them might be as far-reaching as possible, Torquemada ordered that a
fortnight before the holding of each it should be announced by public
proclamation, with great solemnity and parade of mounted familiars of
the Holy Office--a matter which upon this precedent became customary
throughout Spain.
In his allusion to these Autos Trasmiera[130] advances one of the usual
sophistries employed by the Inquisition to justify its constant claim
that its proceedings were dictated by mercy.
He assures us that it was a happiness (_dicha_) for the culprits to
die so soon, and he explains that to have allowed them to live would
have shown a greater rigour of justice--“as witnesseth Cain, upon whom
God placed a sign ordering that none should kill him since by the
prolongation of his life, his nature being what it was, he must commit
more sins, and thus more surely deserve greater degrees of punishment
in his eternal damnation.”
It is a priest who puts forward this blasphemous assertion that God
desires the damnation of a sinner, and suggests that by burning
that sinner betimes, God is to be cheated--at least in part--of His
unspeakable purpose. It serves excellently to show to what desperate
shifts of argument men could be urged in the attempt to justify the
practices of the Holy Office.
With precisely the same degree of authority does he assure us that all
the murderers died penitent--in consequence of the affectionate prayers
offered up for them by Arbués in the hour of his death.
Vidal de Uranso’s confession had yielded up to the inquisitors the
names not only of participators in the murder of Arbués, but of those
who were believed by the Gascon to be in sympathy with the deed. By
pursuing the methods peculiarly their own to cause a prosecution to
spread like an oil-stain, slowly and surely covering an ever-widening
area, the inquisitors were able to cause the indictment of many whose
connection with the crime was of the remotest, and of others who,
moved by a very Christian pity, had afforded shelter to New-Christians
fleeing in terror before the blind vengeance of the Holy Office.
Among the latter many were prosecuted where there was no proof that
the fugitives they had sheltered were Judaizers or unfaithful. It
is believed that sheer panic had driven many perfectly innocent
New-Christians to depart from a city where no New-Christian might
account himself secure. But in consequence of the clause introduced by
the merciless Torquemada into his “Instructions,” a man’s flight was in
itself a sufficient reason for the presumption of his guilt.
A reign of terror was established in Zaragoza. The tribunal of that
city became one of the busiest in Spain, and it is computed that
altogether some two hundred victims paid in one way and another for the
death of Pedro Arbués, so that there was hardly a family, noble or
simple, that was not plunged into mourning by the Justice of the Faith.
Amongst those against whom proceedings were instituted were men of the
very first importance in the kingdom. One of these was that Alonso
de Caballeria, Vice-Chancellor of Aragon, who had been prominent in
the council summoned by Torquemada to determine the details of the
introduction of the Inquisition into Aragon. Nor did they confine their
attention to New-Christians. Amongst those they summoned to render to
the Holy Office an account of their deeds we find no less a person than
Don Jaime de Navarre, known as the Infante of Navarre or the Infante
of Tudela, the son of the Queen of Navarre, and King Ferdinand’s own
nephew.
A fugitive New-Christian coming to Tudela cast himself upon the mercy
of the prince, and found shelter in Navarre for a few days until he
could escape into France. The inquisitors, whom nothing escaped, had
knowledge of this, and such was their might and arrogance that they
did not hesitate to arrest the Infante in the capital of his mother’s
independent kingdom. They haled this prince of the blood-royal
to Zaragoza to stand his trial upon the charge of hindering the
Holy Office. They cast him into prison, and subjected him to the
humiliating penance of being whipped round the Metropolitan Church by
two priests in the presence of his bastard cousin, the seventeen-year
old Archbishop, Alfonso of Aragon. Thereafter he was made to stand
penitentially, candle in hand, in view of all during High Mass, before
he could earn absolution of the ecclesiastical censure he had incurred.
* * * * *
Alonso de Caballeria is one of the few men in history who was able
successfully to defy and withstand the terrible power of that
sacerdotal court.
This Vice-Chancellor was a man of great ability, the son of a wealthy
baptized Hebrew nobleman, whose name had been Bonafos, but who had
changed this to Caballeria upon receiving baptism, in accordance with
the prevailing custom. He was arrested not only upon the charge of
having given shelter to fugitives, but also upon suspicion of being,
himself, a Judaizer.
Presuming upon his high position, and also upon the great esteem in
which he was held by his king, Caballeria showed the Inquisition an
intrepid countenance. He refused to recognize the authority of the
court and of Torquemada himself, appealing to the Pope, and including
in his appeal a strong complaint of the conduct of the inquisitors.
This appeal was of such a character and the man’s own position was
so strong that on August 28, 1488, Innocent VIII dispatched a brief
inhibiting the inquisitors from proceeding further against the
Vice-Chancellor, and avocating to himself the case. But such was
Torquemada’s arrogance by now that he was no longer to be intimidated
by papal briefs. Under his directions the inquisitors of Zaragoza
replied that the allegations contained in Caballeria’s appeal were
false. The Pope, however, was insistent, and he compelled the Holy
Office to bow to his will and supreme authority. On October 20 of
that year the minutes of the case were forwarded to the Vatican. As a
result of their perusal His Holiness must have absolved Caballeria, for
not only was he delivered of the peril in which he had stood, but he
continued to rise steadily in honour and consequence until he became
Chief Judge and head of the Hermandad of Aragon.[131]
* * * * *
Llorente informs us[132] that he perused the records of some thirty
trials in connection with the Arbués affair, and that the publication
of any one of them would suffice to render the Inquisition detested,
were it not sufficiently detested already in all civilized countries,
including Spain.
He mentions, however, two cases of interest and importance,[133]
to show how arbitrary was the spirit of the Inquisition, and how
far-reaching its arm.
Juan Pedro Sanchez, the leader of the affair, having fled to Toulouse,
was, as we have seen, sentenced as contumacious and burnt in effigy
pending the seizure of his person.
In Toulouse at this time there was a student named Antonio Agustin, a
member of an illustrious family of Aragon and a man destined to rise to
great dignity and honour. Under the impulse of fanaticism, and acting
in conjunction with several other Spaniards in Toulouse, he petitioned
for the arrest of Sanchez. When this had been effected, he indited a
letter to the inquisitors of Aragon, and forwarded it to his brother
Pedro in Zaragoza for delivery.
Pedro, however, first discussed the matter with Guillerme Sanchez,
brother of the fugitive, and three friends, and all were opposed to
Agustin’s purpose. They decided not to deliver the letter, and they
wrote to Agustin begging him to withdraw his plea against Sanchez and
consent to the fugitive’s being restored to liberty.
Agustin was persuaded, and replied informing his brother that he had
done as they had requested. Once Pedro Agustin in Zaragoza was assured
of this, he delivered the letters to the inquisitors--though why he
should have done so is not by any means clear. Possibly he conceived
that this was the wisest course to pursue, lest it should afterwards
transpire that he had suppressed such a communication. But from what
follows it will be seen how ill-advised he was.
The Holy Office having received the letters, and supposing Juan Pedro
Sanchez still under arrest in Toulouse, ordered him to be brought to
Zaragoza. The courts of Toulouse replied that he had already been
released and that his whereabouts were now unknown.
The inquisitors inquired into the matter with that terrible
thoroughness of which they commanded the means. They controlled the
most wonderful police system that the world has ever seen. A vast
civilian army was enrolled in the service of the Holy Office, as
members of the tertiary order of St. Dominic. These were the lay
brothers of the family, and as the position conferred upon those who
held it certain signal benefits, of which immunity from taxation was
one,[134] it will be understood that their number had to be limited, so
very considerable were the applications for enrolment.
Originally this had been a penitential order, but very quickly it came
to be known as the Militia Christi, and its members as familiars of the
Holy Office--_i.e._ part of the family of St. Dominic. They dressed
in black, and wore the white cross of St. Dominic upon their doublets
and cloaks, and they were made to join the Confraternity of St. Peter
Martyr. The inquisitors seldom went abroad without an escort of these
armed lay-brothers.
In the ranks of the Militia Christi were to be found men of all
professions, dignities, and callings. They formed the secret police
of the Inquisition, they were the eyes and ears of the Holy Office,
ubiquitous in every stratum of social life.
Through these agents the inquisitors were not long in ascertaining what
had taken place in the matter of Juan Pedro Sanchez, and soon the five
friends were under arrest and forced to answer the serious charge of
hindering the Holy Office.
They were paraded in public in the Auto of May 6, 1487, as
suspects--_leviter_--of Judaizing; they were penanced to stand in full
view of the people, candle in hand and wearing the _sanbenito_, during
Mass, and they were thereafter disqualified from holding any office or
benefice or pursuing any honourable profession during the good pleasure
of the inquisitors.
As it was, they escaped lightly. That they were suspected _leviter_ of
Judaizing, shows us how easily that suspicion might be incurred. It was
purely constructive in this instance--an inference to be drawn from the
fact that they had befriended a Judaizer who was under sentence.
* * * * *
The other case is far more horrible. It shows in operation Torquemada’s
decree regarding the children of heretics, and reveals in the fullest
measure its appalling inhumanity.
Another who had fled to Toulouse, fearing implication in the affair of
the murder of Arbués, was one Gaspar de Santa Cruz. It happened that
he died there, after having been sentenced as contumacious and burnt
in effigy at Zaragoza. It came to the ears of the inquisitors that he
had been assisted in his flight by his son; and not content with the
heavy punishment of infamy that must fall automatically upon that son
for sins that were not his own, not content with having reduced him to
destitution by confiscating his inheritance and by disqualifying him
from office, benefice, or honourable employment, they now seized his
person and indicted him for hindering.
Arrayed in a yellow _sanbenito_, this son, who had discharged by his
father the sacrosanct duty which nature and humanity impose, was
exhibited to scorn in an Auto, and further penanced by being compelled
to come before the court of the Holy Office and testify to his father’s
contumacious flight. Nor did that ghoulish tribunal count itself
satisfied even then. It was further imposed upon him that he must
repair to Toulouse, exhume his father’s remains, and publicly burn
them, returning to Zaragoza with a properly attested report of the
performance, when he should receive absolution of the censures incurred.
Santa Cruz carried out that barbarous command, as the only means of
saving his liberty and perhaps his life. For it is certain that had he
refused, it would have been argued that he had rejected the offered
means of reconciliation with the Church he had so grievously offended,
and he would have been prosecuted as impenitent; whilst had he availed
himself of the only alternative and fled, he must have been sentenced
as contumacious and would have gone to the stake if he were ever taken.
* * * * *
From the hour of his death Pedro Arbués de Epila was looked upon as a
saint and martyr, the notion being carefully fostered by the members of
his order in the minds of the faithful.
And, as is usual in such cases, miraculous manifestations of his
sanctity are alleged to have begun in the very hour of his death.
Trasmiera tells us that the bells rang of themselves when he died, and
he opines that this serves to approve their use in a time when Luther
and others were condemning them as vain.
The blood of the inquisitor, we learn from the same source, boiled
upon the stones of the church where it had fallen, and continued to
do so for a fortnight afterwards; whilst on any of the twelve days
immediately following the night of his murder, a handkerchief pressed
to the stones upon which his blood had been shed, when removed, was
found to be blood-stained.
These, says Trasmiera, were miracles of which all were witnesses. There
is much more of the same kind--including an account of the inquisitor’s
apparitions after death, as testified by Mosen Blanco, to whom the
ghost appeared, and with whom it conversed at length--to be found in
Trasmiera’s “Vida y Muerte del Venerable Inquisidor, Pedro Arbués.”
The sword with which he was slain was preserved in the Metropolitan
Church of Zaragoza, a relic sanctified by the blood that had embrued it.
He was buried in the same church, and on the spot where he fell
Isabella raised a beautiful monument to his memory in 1487. Part of its
inscription ran: “Happy Zaragoza! Rejoice that here is buried he who is
the glory of the martyrs.”
He was beatified two hundred years later by Alexander VII, largely in
consequence of the efforts of the Spanish inquisitors, who perceived
what an added prestige it would give their order if one of its
members were worshipped as a martyr. His canonization followed in
the nineteenth century. It was effected by Pope Pius IX, and was the
subject of much derisory comment in the Rome of that day, which had
just broken the shackles of clerical government that had trammelled it
for some fifteen hundred years.