OF THE ANCIENT INQUISITION OF SPAIN.
In 1233, when the Inquisition in France had received the established
form which was bestowed on it by St. Louis, Spain was divided into four
Christian kingdoms, besides the Mahometan states. Castile was under the
dominion of St. Ferdinand, who added to it the kingdoms of Seville,
Cordova, and Jaen. James I. governed Aragon, and conquered the kingdoms
of Valencia and Majorca; Navarre was possessed by Sancho VIII., who died
in the course of the following year, and left his crown to Theobald I.,
Count de Champagne and de Brie. Sancho II. reigned in Portugal.
Many convents of Dominicans existed in these kingdoms after the
establishment of the order, but there are no authentic records, to prove
that the Inquisition was introduced before the year 1232, when Pope
Gregory IX. addressed a brief to Don Esparrago, Archbishop of Taragona,
and to his suffragan bishops, in which he most earnestly exhorted them
to oppose the progress of heresy by every means in their power.
The archbishop sent the bull to Gil Rodriguez de Valladares, first
provincial of the Spanish Dominicans; he also sent it to Don Bertrand,
Bishop of Lerida, in whose diocese the first Spanish Inquisition was
founded. Pope Innocent VI. conferred many privileges on the Dominican
Friars, and in 1254 extended the rights of the Inquisitors, and in the
same brief decreed that the depositions of witnesses should be
considered valid, although their names were unknown. Urban VI. and
Clement VI. also augmented their privileges.
The Kings of Aragon continued to protect the Inquisition, and James II.,
in 1292, published a decree, commanding the tribunals of justice to
assist the Dominicans, to imprison all who might be denounced, to
execute the judgments pronounced by the monks, to remove every obstacle
which they might meet with, _&c_. The hatred which the office of an
inquisitor everywhere inspired in the first ages of the Inquisition
caused the death of a great number of Dominicans and some Cordeliers:
the honours of martyrdom were assigned to them, but St. Peter of Verona
was the only one canonized by the pope. Nothing certain is known of the
state of Portugal during this period: it appears that in the thirteenth
century the Inquisition was established only in the dioceses of
Taragona, Barcelona, Urgel, Lerida, and Girona.
The convents of Dominicans having multiplied in Spain, a chapter-general
of the order decreed, in 1301, that it should be divided into two
provinces; that the first in rank should be named the province of Spain,
and comprise Castile and Portugal; and that the second should have the
title of Aragon, and be composed of Valencia, Catalonia, Rousillon,
Cerdagne, Majorca, Minorca, and Iviza.
The provincial of the Dominicans of Castile, designated as the
provincial of Spain, possessed the right of naming the apostolical
inquisitor in the other provinces. In 1302 Father Bernard was inquisitor
of Aragon, and celebrated several _autos-da-fe_ in the same year.
In 1308 Pope Clement V. commanded the King of Aragon and the inquisitors
to arrest all the knights templars who had not been prosecuted, and to
confiscate their property for the use of the holy see; the templars in
Castile and Portugal were also arrested.
In 1314, other heretics were discovered in the kingdom of Aragon;
Bernard Puigceros, the inquisitor-general, condemned several to
banishment, the others were burnt. Many who abjured were reconciled.
In 1325, F. Arnaldo Burguete, inquisitor-general of the kingdom,
arrested Pierre Durand de Baldhac, who had relapsed into heresy, and he
was burnt alive in the presence of King James, his sons, and two
bishops.
In 1334, F. William da Costa condemned F. Bonato to the flames, and
reconciled many persons who had been perverted by that monk.
In 1350, Father Nicholas Roselli discovered a sect of heretics named
_Begards_, whose chief was named Jacobus Justis; they were all
reconciled, and Jacobus was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. The
bones of three of these heretics who had died impenitent were
disinterred and burnt. Roselli being elected Cardinal in 1356, Nicholas
Eymerich succeeded him. Eymerich composed a book entitled "The Guide of
Inquisitors," in which the most minute details of his judgments, and
those of other inquisitors of Aragon, are found.
It is not certain whether the provincial of Castile exercised his
privilege of naming inquisitors; perhaps heresy had not penetrated into
the states of Castile.
Pope Gregory IX. dying in 1378, the Romans named Urban VI. as his
successor; but several cardinals assembled out of Rome, and elected
another Pope under the name of Clement VII.
The great schism of the West then began, and lasted till the election of
Martin V., in the Council-general of Constance in 1417, where Don Gil
Munoz, who had been elected as Clement VIII., renounced the papacy. This
revolution influenced the state of the Inquisition as much as the other
points of ecclesiastical discipline. Castile followed the party of
Clement VII., and Portugal that of Urban VI. The order of Dominicans was
equally divided, and elected different vicars-general. Urban VI. died in
1389, and his party elected Boniface IX., who appointed F. Rodrigo de
Cintra apostolical inquisitor-general of Portugal. He afterwards named
F. Vicente de Lisboa inquisitor-general of Spain. Castile, Navarre, and
Aragon were under the dominion of Benedict XIII., who was elected Pope
after the death of Clement VII. Such was the state of the Inquisition in
Spain towards the end of the fourteenth century.
It is uncertain if the Inquisition existed in Castile in the beginning
of the fifteenth century; for, though Boniface IX. appointed F. Vicente
de Lisboa inquisitor-general, his authority was not recognized, as that
kingdom belonged to the party of Benedict XIII., who, after the Council
of Constance, was designated as the anti-pope Peter de Luna. The town of
Perpignan was the seat of one of the provincial Inquisitions of Aragon,
whose jurisdiction extended over the countships of Rousillon and
Cerdagne, and over the islands of Majorca, Minorca, and Iviza. Benedict
XIII., who was recognized in this part of Spain, divided this province
and appointed two inquisitors, who celebrated several _autos-da-fe_, and
burnt a considerable number of people.
The election of Martin V. having put an end to the great schism of the
West, the Portuguese monks ought to have submitted to the authority of
the Provincial of Spain, who was then a monk of their nation, named F.
Juan de Santa Justa; but the Dominicans who were at Constance persuaded
the Pope that his jurisdiction was too extensive, which induced the
pontiff to subdivide the province of Spain into three parts: the first
part was named the province of Spain, and comprised Castile, Toledo,
Murcia, Estremadura, Andalusia, Biscay, and the Asturias de Santillana;
the second, Santiago, was composed of the kingdom of Leon, Galicia, and
the Asturias of Oviedo; and the third, that of Portugal, extended over
all the dominions of the monarch.
Martin V. established a provincial Inquisition at Valencia, in 1420, at
the request of Alphonso V., King of Aragon; hitherto commissioners had
only been sent there.
The Inquisitor of Aragon, 1441, was F. Michael Ferriz, and that of
Valencia, F. Martin Trilles, who reconciled in their districts several
Wickliffites, and condemned many others to be burnt. Several inquisitors
succeeded these till 1474, when Isabella, wife of Ferdinand of Aragon,
King of Sicily, ascended the throne of Castile, after the death of Henry
IV. her brother. John II., King of Aragon, dying in 1479, his son,
Ferdinand, united that kingdom to Sicily; he soon after conquered the
kingdom of Grenada, which belonged to the Moors, and lastly that of
Navarre, which was secured to him by the capitulation of the
inhabitants.