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Cornell  University  Library 
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V.4 
History  of  the  Inquisition  of  Spain, 


3   1924  026  125  116 


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THE  INQUISITION  OE  SPAIN 


WORKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


A  HISTORY  OF  THE  INQUISITION  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 
In  three  volumes,  octavo. 

THE  INQUISITION  IN  THE  SPANISH  DEPENDENCIES. 
In  one  volume,  octavo.     {Shortly.) 

A  HISTORY  OF  AURICULAR  CONFESSION  AND  INDUL- 
GENCES IN  THE  LATIN  CHURCH.  In  three  volumes, 
octavo. 

AN  HISTORICAL  SKETCH  OF  SACERDOTAL  CELIBACY  IN 
THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  Third  edition,  (/n  prepara- 
tion.) 

A  FORMULARY  OF  THE  PAPAL  PENITENTIARY  IN  THE 
THIRTEENTH  CENTURY.  One  volume,  octavo.  (Out  of 
print. ) 

SUPERSTITION  AND  FORCE.  Essays  on  The  Wager  of  Law, 
The  Wager  of  Battle,  The  Ordeal,  Torture.  Fourth  edition, 
revised.     In  ono  volume,  12mo. 

STUDIES  IN  CHURCH  HISTORY.  The  Rise  of  the  Temporal 
Power,  BeneRt  of  Clergy,  Excommunication,  The  Early 
Church  and  Slavery.     Second  edition.     In  one  volume,  12mo. 

CHAPTERS  FROM  THE  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  SPAIN, 
CONNECTED  WITH  THE  INQUISITION.  Censorship  of 
the  Press,  Mystics  and  Illuminati,  Endemoniadas,  El  Santo 
Nifio  de  la  Guardia,  Brianda  de  Bardaxi.   In  one  volume,  12mo. 

THE  MORISCOS  OF  SPAIN,  THEIR  CONVERSION  AND 
EXPULSION.    In  one  volume,  12mo. 


A   HISTORY 


INQUISITION  OF  SPAIN 


BY 

HENRY  CHAELES  LEA,  LL.D. 


IN    FOUR   VOLUMES 


VOLUME   IV. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 

1907 
All  rights  reserved 


/  !■,  \\  S\  ti  I  ■' 


y\.  %\'^CLSa 


Copyright,  1907 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  September,  1907 


of^ 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  lY. 


BOOK  VIII— SPHERES  OF  ACTION  (Continued). 
Chapter  V — Mysticism. 


PAGE 


Antiquity  of  Mystic  Aspirations 1 

Dangers — Impeccability — Independence 2 

Illuminism  and  Quietism — Confusion  with  Protestantism — • 

Uncertainty    as    to    Source    of    Visions — Contempt    for 

Theology 4 

Development  in  Spain 6 

Commencement  of  Persecution — The  Mystics  of  Guadalajara     .  7 

Francisca  Hernandez 9 

Maria  Cazalla — ^The  Group  in  Toledo — Ignatius  Loyola  ...  13 
Archbishop  Carranza — San  Francisco  de  Borja — Luis  de  Granada 

— the  Jesuits 15 

Fray  Alonso  de  la  Fuente — his  struggle  with  Jesuitism     ...  19 

The  Alumbrados  of  Llerena 23 

>^ostility  of  the  Inquisition  to  Mysticism 24 

Padre  Ger6nimo  de  la  Madre  de  Dios 26 

Mistica  Theologia  of  Fernando  de  Caldera 29 

Prosecution  of  the  Mystics  of  Seville — Condemnation  of  Alum- 

brado  Errors 29 

Illuminism  becomes  formal  Heresy — Procedure 34 

Madre  Luisa  de  Carrion 36 

Influence  of  Mystics — Sor  Maria  de  Agreda 39 

Mysticism  in  Italy — Canon  Pandolfo  Ricasoli — ^The  Impostor 

Giuseppe  Borri — The  Sequere  me 42 

The  Pelagini  of  Lombardy 46 

Miguel  de  Molinos — Condemnation  of  Mysticism  ....  49 

The  Beccarellisti 61 

Mysticism  in  France — Condemnation  of  Fenelon 62 

Molinism  in  Spain — Persecution 68 

Bishop  Toro  of  Oviedo 71 

Madre  Agueda  de  Luna 76 

Fray  Eusebio  de  Villaroja — abusive  Methods 77 

(V) 


vi  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Mysticism  regarded  as  delusion 79 

Prevalence  of  Imposture 81 

Magdalena  de  la  Cruz 82 

Madre  Maria  de  la  Visitacion 83 

Variable  Treatment  of  Imposture 86 

The   Beata  Dolores — ^The   Beata   de   Cuenca — The  Beata 

Clara 89 

Sor  Patrocinio 92 


Chapter  VI — Solicitation. 

Frequency  of  Seduction  in  the  Confessional 95 

Invention  of  the  Confessional  Stall 96 

Leniency  of  Spiritual  Courts 97 

The  Inquisition  indirectly  seeks  Jurisdiction 98 

Paul  IV  and  Pius  IV  grant  Jurisdiction 99 

The  Regular  Clergy  endeavor  to  obtain  Exemption     ....  100 
Legislation  of  Gregory  XV — Struggle  with  Bishops  over  Juris- 
diction      100 

Solicitation  included  in  Edict  of  Faith 105 

Difficulty  of  inducing  Women  to  denounce  Culprits     .            .      .  106 
Solicitation  a  technical   Offence   against  the  Sacrament,   not 

against  Morals 109 

Difficulty  of  practical  Definition 110 

Passive  Solicitation Ill 

Absolution  of  the  Partner  in  Guilt 113 

Facility  of  evading  Penalty 114 

Flagellation — Connection  with  lUuminism 116 

Procedure — ^Tenderness  for  Delinquents 119 

Two  Denunciations  required 123 

Registers  kept  of  Soliciting  Confessors 125 

Moderation  of  Penalties 126 

Self-Denunciation — It  finally  secures  immunity 130 

Statistics  of  Cases — Predominance  of  the  Regular  Orders       .      .  134 

Chapter  VII — Propositions. 

Growth  of  Jurisdiction  over  Utterances,  pubHc  and  private      .      .  138 

Influence  of  habitual  Delation 13g 

Danger  incurred  by  trivial  Remarks 140 

Severity  of  Penalties — Question  of  Behef  and  Intention   ...  142 

Special  Propositions — Marriage  better  than  Celibacy  ....  144 

Fornication  between  the  Uimiarried  no  Sin 145 


CONTENTS  vii 


PAGE 


Theological  Propositions — Case  of  Fray  liuis  de  Leon       .     .     .  148 

Scholastic  Disputation,  its  Dangers 150 

Fray  Luis  accused  of  Disrespect  for  the  Vulgate  ....  151 

Arrested  and  imprisoned  March  27,  1572 153 

Endless  Debates  over  multiplying  Articles  of  Accusation     .  154 

Vote  in  discordia,  September  18,  1576 156 

Acquitted  by  the  Suprema,  December  7,  1576      ....  157 

Second  trial  in  1582  for  Utterances  in  Debate — Acquittal   .  159 

Francisco  Sdnchez,  his  Contempt  for  Theology 162 

He  is  summoned  and  reprimanded,  September  24,  1584       .  164 
Again  summoned  and  imprisoned,  September  25,  1600 — ^his 

Death 166 

Fray  Joseph  de  Sigiienza — Plot  against  him  in  his  Order       .     .  168 

Prefers  Trial  by  the  Inquisition — is  acquitted      ....  170 

Case  of  Padre  Alonso  Romero,  S.  J 171 

Prosecutions  of  incautious  Preachers 172 

Increasing  Proportion  of  Cases  of  Propositions,  continuing  to 

the  last 176 

Chapter  VIII — Sorcery  and  Occult  Arts. 

Accumulation  of  Superstitious  Beliefs  in  Spain 179 

Toleration  in  the  early  Middle  Ages 180 

John  XXII  orders  Persecution  of  Sorcery 181 

Persistent  Toleration  in  Spain 182 

The  Inquisition  obtains  Jurisdiction 183 

Question  as  to  Heresy — Pact  with  the  Demon 184 

The  Demon  omnipresent  in  Superstitious  Practices — Hermaph- 
rodites      186 

Belief  thus  strengthened  in  Divination  and  Magic       ....  189 
The  Inquisition  thus  obtains  exclusive  Jurisdiction     ....  190 
Astrology — Its  Teaching  suppressed  in  the  University  of  Sala- 
manca       192 

Procedure — Directed  to  prove  Pact  with  the  Demon  ....  195 

Penalties — Less  severe  than  in  secular  Courts 197 

Rationalistic  Treatment  in  Portuguese  Inquisition      ....  202 

Prosecuted  as  a  Reality  in  Spain,  to  the  last 203 

Increase  in  the  Number  of  Cases 204 

Belief  remains  undiminished  to  the  present  time 205 

Chapter  IX — Witchcraft. 

Distinctive  Character  of  Witchcraft— The  Sabbat       ....  206 

Origin  in  the  14th  Century — Rapid  Development  in  the  15th     .  207 


viii  CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Genesis  of  Belief  in  the  Sabbat — The  Canon  Episcopi       .     .     .  208 

Discussion  as  to  Delusion  or  Reality — Witch-Burnings     .     .     .  209 

Congregation  of  1526  deliberates  on  the  Subject 212 

Witch  Epidemics — ^Active  Persecution 214 

The  Suprema  restrains  the  Zeal  of  the  Tribunals 216 

Enlightened  Instructions 219 

Auto-suggestive  Hypnotism  of  confessed  Witches 220 

Conflict  with  secular  Courts  over  Jurisdiction 222 

Lenient  Punishment 223 

Retrogression — ^The  Logrono  Auto  of  1610 225 

Revulsion  of  Feeling — Pedro  de  Valencia 228 

Alonso  de  Salazar  Frias  commissioned  to  investigate  ....  230 

His  rationalistic  Report 231 

Instructions  of  1614  virtually  put  an  end  to  Persecution  .     .     .  235 

Persistent  Belief — Torreblanca 239 

Witchcraft  Epidemics  disappear 240 

Witchcraft  in  the  Roman  Inquisition 242 

The  Witchcraft  Craze  throughout  Europe 246 

^  Chapter  X — Political  Activity. 

•Assertion  that  the  Inquisition  was  a  political  Instrument    .      .      .  248 

v'^No  Trace  of  its  Agency  in  the  Development  ©f  Absolutism    .     .  249 

Rarely  called  upon  for  extraneous  Service 251 

Case  of  Antonio  P^rez 253 

Assassination  of  Juan  de  Escobedo 254 

P^rez  replaced  by  Granvelle — is  imprisoned — escapes  to 

Saragossa — ^is  condemned  in  Madrid 255 

Futile  Attempts  to  prosecute  him  before  the  Justicia  of 

Aragon 258 

The  Inquisition  called  in  and  prosecutes  him  for  Blasphemy  .  258 
He  is  surrendered  to  the  Tribunal — ^the  City  rises  and  rescues 

him 259 

Philip's  Army  occupies  Saragossa — P6rez  escapes  to  France 

— Execution  of  the  Justicia  Lanuza 263 

Prosecutions  by  the  Inquisition  in  opposition  to  the  policy 

of  Philip  II— Auto  de  fe  of  October  20,  1592      ...  267 

C6rtes  of  Tarazona  in  1592  curtail  the  Liberties  of  Aragon  269 

Death  of  P6rez  in  1611 — his  memory  absolved  in  1615    .     .  272 

•^Sporadic  Cases  of  Intervention  by  the  Inquisition       ....  273 

-'^It  is  used  in  the  War  of  Succession 275 

^  Gradually  becomes  subservient  under  the  Bourbons    ....  276 

"^s  a  political  Instrument  under  the  Restoration 277 

J  Sometimes  used  to  enforce  secular  Law — ^The  Export  of  Horses     .  278 


CONTENTS  ,         ix 


Chapter  XI — Jansenism. 


PAGE 


Indefinable  Character  of  Jansenism,  except  as  opposed  to  Ultra- 

montanisfn 284 

Struggle  in  Spanish  Flanders 286 

Quarrel  with  Rome  over  the  Condemnation  of  Cardinal  Noris  in 

the  Index  of  1747 288 

Opposition   to   Ultramontanism   and   Jesuitism   persecuted   as 

Jansenism 292 

Expulsion  of  the  Jesuits — Reaction  under  Godoy 294 

Chapter  XII — Free-Masonry. 

Development  of  Masonry — Condemned  by  the  Holy  See     .      .     .  298 

Persecuted  by  the  Inquisition  and  the  Crown 300 

It  becomes  revolutionary  in  Character 303 

Persecution  under  the  Restoration 304 

Its  pernicious  Activity  in  the  Constitutional  Period    ....  306 

Chapter  XIII — Philosophism. 

Growth  of  Incredulity  towards  the  End  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  307 

Olavide  selected  as  a  Victim 308 

Impression  produced  by  his  Trial 311 

Struggle  between  Conservatism  and  Progress 312 

Chapter  XIV — Bigamy. 

Assumption  of  Jurisdiction  over  Bigamy 316 

Based  on  inferential  Heresy 318 

The  Civil  and  Spiritual  Courts  strive  to  preserve  their  Jurisdiction  319 

Penalties 321 

Contest  over  Jurisdiction  revived— Carlos  III  subdivides  it  into 

three       .     .  ' 323 

The  Inquisition  reasserts  it  under  the  Restoration 326 

Number  of  Cases 327 


Chapter  XV — Blasphemy. 

Distinction  between  heretical  and  non-heretical  Blasphemy     .     .     328 
Contests  over  Jurisdiction  with  the  spiritual  and  secular  Courts  .     329 


X  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Attempts  at  Definition  of  heretical  Blasphemy 330 

Cumulative  Jurisdiction 333 

Moderation  of  Penalties 334 

Number  of  Cases 335 


Chapter  XVI — Miscellaneous  Business. 

Marriage  in  Orders 336 

Personation  of  Priesthood 339 

Roman  Severity  and  Spanish  Leniency 340 

Hearing  of  Confessions  by  Laymen 344 

Personation  of  Officials 344 

Demoniacal  Possession 348 

Insults  to  Images 352 

Uncanonized  Saints 355 

The  Plomos  del  Sacromonte 357 

The  Immaculate  Conception 359 

Unnatural  Crime 361 

Jurisdiction  conferred  in  the  Kingdoms  of  Aragon     .      .      .  363 

The  Portuguese  Inquisition  obtains  Jurisdiction  .            .      .  365 

Trials  conducted  under  secular  Procedure 366 

Penalties .367 

Case  of  Don  Pedro  Luis  Galceran  de  Borja 370 

Usury 371 

Jurisdiction  abandoned 374 

Morals 375 

The  Seal  of  Confession 377 

General  Utility 378 


X 


BOOK  IX— CONCLUSION. 

Chaptee  I — Decadence  and  Extinction. 
Independence  of  the  Inquisition  in  the  XVII  Century   ....     385 

The  Bourbons. 

Increased  Control  exercised  by  Philip  V 386 

Gradual  Diffusion  of  Enlightenment 387 

Progress  under  Carlos  III — he  limits  Inquisitorial  Privilege      .     .     389 


CONTENTS  xi 


PAGE 


Influence  of  the  French  Revolution 390 

Diminished  Respect — Increasing  Moderation 392 

Projects  of  Reform — Jovellanos — Urquijo 394 

Growth  of  Opposition — Bishop  Gr^goire  and  his  Opponents  .     .  397 

The  Coktes. 

The  Napoleonic  Invasion  and  the  Uprising  of  Spain    ....  399 

The  Inquisition  supports  the  Intrusive  Government    ....  400 

Its  desultory  Functions  during  the  War  of  Liberation      .     .      .  402 

The  Extraordinary  C6rtes  assemble,  September  24,  1810  .     .      .  403 

Freedom  of  the  Press  decreed — Controversy  on  the  Inquisition     .  404 

The  Constitution  adopted 406 

Prolonged  Struggle  over  the  Suppression  of  the  Inquisition — 

Carried  January  26,  1813 407 

Resistance  of  the  Clergy 414 

Reaction  preceding  the  Return  of  Fernando  VII 418 

The  Restoration. 

Character  of  Fernando  VII 420 

Proscription  of  the  Liberals 421 

The  Inquisition  re-established 424 

Its  Reconstruction  and  financial  Embarrassments       ....  426 

Resumption  of  Functions 429 

Its  diminished  Authority— Its  Moderation 430 

The  Revolution  of  1820. 

Growing  Disaffection  culminates  in  successful  Revolution  .     .     .  434 

Fernando  compelled  to  abolish  the  Inquisition,  March  9, 1820  .      .  436 

Suicide  of  Liberahsm 438 

Quarrel  with  the  Church — Increasing  Anarchy 440 

The  Congress  of  Verona  orders  Intervention 444 

The  French  Invasion — Ferdinand  carried  to  Cddiz      ....  446 

Proscription  of  the  Liberals 448 

Fernando  released  and  returns  to  Power 449 

Ten  Years  of  Reaction. 

Absolutism  revenges  itself  on  Liberalism 450 

Fernando  refuses  to  revive  the  Inquisition 453 

Discontent  of  the  Extremists— Rising  in  Catalonia      ....  456 

Dormant  Condition  of  the  Inquisition 458 

Episcopal /wntas  de /e— Execution  of  Cayetano  RipoU      ...  460 


xii  CONTENTS 


Ckistina. 

PAGE 

The  Question  of  Succession  causes  Reversal  of  Policy       .     .      .  462 
Death  of  Fernando  VII — The  Carlist  War — Alliance  of  the  Regent 

Cristina  with  the  Liberals 466 

The  Inquisition  definitely  abolished,  July  15,  1834      ....  467 

Gradual  Development  of  Toleration 469 


Chapter  II — Retrospect. 

Vicissitudes  in  the  History  of  Spain 472 

Causes  of  Decadence — Misgovernment  of  the  Hapsburgs        .      .  473 

Industry  crushed  by  Taxation 478 

Lack  of  Means  of  Intercommunication — The  Mesta  .  480 

Debasement  of  the  Coinage .  482 

Aversion  for  Labor ....  483 

Multiplication  of  Offices — Empleomania 485 

Gradual  Recuperation  under  the  Bourbons      .      .  486 

I/Inordinate  Growth  of  the  Church  in  Numbers  and  Wealth    .  488 

pd5emoralization  of  the  Clergy ...  496 

Clerical  Influence — Development  of  Intolerance 498 

Superficial  Character  of  Religion 502 

Results  of  Intolerance 504 

J/Infiuence  of  the  Inquisition  on  the  People 507 

Contemporary  opinion  of  its  Services 508 

Indifference  to  Morals 509 

Disregard  for  Law — Aspirations  to  Domination 511 

(/Suppression  of  adverse  Opinion 513 

Statistics  of  its  Operations 516 

Conscientious  Cruelty 525 

Persecution  Profitable 527 

j/Influence  on  Intellectual  Development 528 

w^esult  of  seeking  to  control  the  Human  Conscience     .      .      .      .531 

Appendix  op  Documents 535 

Index 547 


THE  INQUISITION  OF  SPAIN. 


BOOK   VII I.    (Continued). 


CHAPTER  V. 

MYSTICISM.' 

The  belief  that,  by  prolonged  meditation  and  abstraction  from 
the  phenomenal  world,  the  soul  can  elevate  itself  to  the  Creator, 
and  can  even  attain  union  with  the  Godhead,  has  existed  from 
the  earliest  times  and  among  many  races.  Passing  through  ecstasy 
into  trance,  it  was  admitted  to  the  secrets  of  God,  it  enjoyed 
revelations  of  the  invisible  universe,  it  acquired  foreknowledge 
and  wielded  supernatural  powers.  St.  Paul  gave  to  these  beliefs 
the  sanction  of  his  own  experience  f  Tertullian  describes  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  the  devotee  in  manifestations  which  '/ 
bear  a  curious  similitude  to  those  which  we  shall  meet  in  Spain,'  \ 
and  the  anchorites  oTThe  Nitrian  desert  were  adepts  of  the  same 
kind  to  whom  all  the  secrets  of  God  were  laid  bare.^  These  super- 
nal joys  continued  to  be  the  reward  of  those  who  earned  them  by 
disciplining  the  flesh,  and  the  virtues  of  mental  prayer,  in  which 
the  soul  lost  consciousness  of  all  earthly  things,  were  taught  by 
a  long  series  of   doctors — Richard  of  Saint  Victor,  Joachim  of 

'  I  have  considered  this  subject  at  greater  length  in  "Chapters  from  the 
Religious  History  of  Spain,"  but  the  views  there  expressed  have  been  some- 
what modified  by  access  to  additional  documents. 

2  II.  Corinth,  xii,  2-4. 

'  Est  hodie  soror  apud  nos  revelationum  charismata  sortita  quas  in  ecclesia 
inter  Dominica  solemnia  per  ecstasin  in  spiritu  patitur;  conversatur  cum  angelis, 
ahquando  etiam  cum  Domino,  et  vidit  et  audit  sacramenta  et  quorumdam  corda 
dignoscit  et  medicinas  desiderantibus  submittit. — De  Anima,  cap.  ix. 

*  Rufini  Aquileiensia  Historia  Monachorum,  passim. — Vitse  Patrum,  Lib. 
Ill,  c.  141. 

VOL,    IV  1  (  1  ) 


^  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

Flora,  St.  Bonaventura,  John  Tauler,  John  of  Rysbroek,  Henry 
Suso,  Henry  Herp,  John  Gerson  and  many  others.  If  Cardinal 
Jacques  de  Vitry  is  to  be  beheved,  the  nuns  of  Liege,  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,  were  largely  given  to  these  mystic  raptures;  of 
one  of  them  he  relates  that  she  often  had  twenty-five  ecstasies  a 
day,  while  others  passed  years  in  bed,  dissolved  in  divine  love;* 
and  Richard  Rolle,  the  Hermit  of  Hampole,  who  missed  his 
deserved  canonization,  was  fully  acquainted  with  the  superhuman 
delights  of  union  with  God.^"  These  spiritual  marvels  are  reduced 
to  the  common-places  of  psychology  by  modern  researches  into 
hypnotism  and  auto-suggestion.  The  connection  is  well  illus- 
trated by  the  Umbilicarii,  the  pious  monks  of  Mount  Athos  who, 
by  prolonged  contemplation  of  their  navels,  found  their  souls 
illiuninated  with  light  from  above.' 

Yet  there  were  dangers  in  the  pursuit  of  the  via  purgativa  and 
the  via  illuminativa.  The  followers  of  Amaury  of  B^ne,  who 
came  to  be  popularly  known  in  Germany  as  Begghards  and  Begui- 
nes,  invented  the  term  Illuminism  to  describe  the  condition  of  the 
soul  suffused  with  divine  Ught  and  held  that  any  one,  thus  filled 
with  the  Holy  Ghost,  was  impeccable,  irrespective  of  the  sins 
which  he  might  commit;  he  was  simply  following  the  impulses 
of  the  Spirit  which  can  do  no  sin.  Master  Eckhart,  the  founder 
of  German  mysticism,  was  prosecuted  for  sharing  in  these  venture- 
some speculations  and,  if  the  twenty-eight  articles  condemned^y 
John  XXII  were  correctly  drawn  from  his  writings,  he  admitted 
the  common  divinity  of  man  and  God  and  that,  in  the  sight  of 
God,  sin  and  virtue  are  the  same.''  Zealots  too  there  were  who 
taught  the  pre-eminent  holiness  of  nudity  and,  in  imitation  of 
the  follies  of  early  Christian  ascetics,  assumed  to  triumph  over 
the  lusts  of  the  flesh  by  exposing  themselves  to  the  crucial  temp- 
tation of  sleeping  with  the  other  sex  and  indulging  in  lascivious 
acts.^     The  condemnation,  by  the  Council  of  Vienne  in  1312,  of 

*  Chapeavilli  Gestt.  Pontiff.  Leodiens.,  11,  256-7. 

2  Treatises  of  Richard  Rolle,  viii,  pp.  14-15  (Early  English  Text  Society). 
'  Basnage  in  Canisii  Thes.  Monum.  Ecclesiss,  TV,  366-7. 

*  Johann.  PP.  XXII,  Bull.  In  agro  dominico  (RipoU.  Bullar.  Ord.  Prsedic. 
VII,  57). 

»  S.  Cypriani  Epist.  iv  ad  Pomponium.— Concil.  Antioch.  (Harduin  Concil. 
I,  198). — Lactant.  Divin.  Institt.  vi,  xix. 

Tiiis  test  of  continence  was  tried  by  St.  Aldhelm  (Girald.  Cambrens.  Gemm. 
Eccles.,  Dist.  n,  cap.  xv)  and  was  practised  by  the  followers  of  Segarelli  and 
Dolcino  (Bern.  Guidonis  Practica,  Ed.  Douais,  p.  260). 


Chap.  V]  IMPECCABILITY  3 

the  tenets  of  the  so-called  Begghards  respecting  impeccability' 
was  carried  into  the  body  of  canon  law  and  thus  was  rendered 
familiar  to  jurists,  when  mysticism  came  to  be  regarded  as  danger- 
ous and  was  subjected  to  the  Inquisition. 

That  it  should  eventually  be  so  regarded  was  inevitable.  The 
mystic,  who  considered  himself  to  be  communing  directly  with 
God  and  who  held  meditation  and  mental  prayer  to  be  the  highest 
of  religious  acts,  was  apt  to  feel  himself  released  from  ecclesias- 
tical precepts  and  to  regard  with  indifference,  if  not  with  contempt, 
the  observances  enjoined  by  the  Church  as  essential  to  salvation. 
If  the  inner  hght  was  a  direct  inspiration  from  God,  it  superseded 
the  commands  of  the  Holy  See  and,  under  such  impulse,  private 
judgement  was  to  be  followed,  irrespective  of  what  the  Church  f  , 
might  ordain.  In  all  this  there  was  the^gCTm  of  a  rebelHon  as  i  / 
defiant  as  that  of  Luther.  Justification  by  faith  might  not  be 
taught,  but  justification  by  works  was  cast  aside  as  unworthy  of 
the  truly  spiritual  man.  The  new  Judaism,  decried  by  Erasmus, 
which  relied  on  external  observances,  was  a  hindrance  rather  than 
a  help  to  salvation.  Francisco  de  Osuna,  the  teacher  of  Santa 
Teresa,  asserts  that  oral  prayer  is  a  positive  injury  to  those 
advanced  in  mental  prayer.^  San  Juan  de  la  Cruz  says  that 
church  observances,  images  and  places  of  worship  are  merely  for 
the  uninstructed,  like  toys  that  amuse  children;  those  who  are 
advanced  must  liberate  themselves  from  these  things  which  only 
distract  from  internal  contemplation.^  San  Pedro  de  Alcantara, 
in  his  enumeration  of  the  nine  aids  to  devotion,  significantly 
omits  all  reference  to  the  observances  prescribed  by  the  Chm-ch.'' 
In  an  ecclesiastical  establishment,  which  had  built  up  its  enormous 
wealth  by  the  thrifty  exploitation  of  the  text  "Give  alms  and 
behold  all  things  are  clean  unto  you"  (Luke,  xi,  41),  Luis  de 
Granada  dared  to  teach  that  the  most  dangerous  temptation  in 
the  spiritual  life  is  the  desire  to  do  good  to  others,  for  a  man's 
first  duty  is  to  himself.^  Yet  these  men  were  all  held  in  the 
highest  honor,  and  two  of  them  earned  the  supreme  reward  of 
canonization. 


'  Clementin.  Lib.  v,  Tit.  iii,  cap.  3. 

'  Abecedario  spiritual',  P.  iii,  Trat.  xiii,  cap.  3,  fol.  122  (Burgos,  1544). 
'  Subida  del  Monte  Carmelo,  iii,  38. 
*  De  la  Oracion  y  Meditacion,  ii,  ii. 

'  De  Oratione  et    Meditatione,  cap.  Iv. — Cf.  S.  Pedro  de  Alcantara,  De  la 
Oracion  ii,  iv. 


4  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

There  was  in  this  a  certain  savor  of  Lutheranism,  but  it  was  not 
until  the  danger  of  the  latter  was  fully  appreciated  that  the  Inqui- 
sition awoke  to  the  peril  lurking  in  a  system  which  released  the 
devotee  from  the  obligation:  of  obedience  to  authority,  as  m  the 
Alumbrado  or  Illuminated,  who  recognized  the  supremacy  of  the 
internal  light,  and  the  Dejado  or  Quietist,  who  abandoned  himself 
to  God  and  allowed  free  course  to  the  impulses  suggesting  them- 
selves in  his  contemplative  abstraction,  with  the  corollary  that 
there  could  be  no  sin  in  what  emanated  from  God.  The  real 
significance  of  that  which  had  been  current  in  the  Church  for  so 
many  centuries  was  unnoticed  until  Protestantism  presented  itseK 
as  a  threatening  peril,  when  the  two  were  classed  together,  or 
rather  Protestantism  was  regarded  as  the  development  of  mys- 
ticism. In  the  letter  of  September  9,  1558,  to  Paul  IV,  the  Inqui- 
sition traced  the  origin  of  the  former  in  Spain  farther  back  than 
to  Doctor  Egidio  and  Don  Carlos  de  Seso;  the  heresies  of  which 
Maestro  Juan  de  Oria  (Olmillos?)  was  accused  and  of  those  called 
Alumbrados  or  Dejados  of  Guadalajara  and  other  places,  were  the 
seed  of  these  Lutheran  heresies,  but  the  inquisitors  who  tried  those 
heretics  were  insufficiently  versed  in  Lutheranism  to  apply  the 
proper  vigor  of  repression.^  It  is  necessary  to  bear  all  this  in 
mind  to  imderstand  the  varying  attitude  of  the  Inquisition  in  its 
gradual  progress  towards  the  condemnation  of  all  mysticism. 

The  distinction  at  first  attempted  between  the  mysticism  that 
was  praiseworthy  and  that  which  was  dangerous  was  compli- 
cated by  the  recognized  fact  that,  while  visions  and  revelations 
and  ecstasies  might  be  special  favors  from  God,  they  might  also 
be  the  work  of  demons,  and  there  was  no  test  that  could  be  applied 
to  differentiate  them.  The  Church  was  in  the  imfortunate  posi- 
tion of  being  committed  to  the  belief  in  special  manifestations  of 
supernatural  power,  while  it  was  confessedly  unable  to  determine 
whether  they  came  from  heaven  or  from  hell.  This  had  long  been 
recognized  as  one  of  the  most  treacherous  pitfalls  in  the  perilous 
paths  of  illumination  and  union  with  God.  As  early  as  the  twelfth 
century,  Richard  of  St.  Victor  warns  his  disciples  to  beware  of  it, 
and  Aquinas  points  out  that  trances  may  come  from  God,  from 
the  demon  or  from  bodily  affections.^    John  Gerson  wrote  a  special 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Sala  40,  Lib.  iv,  fol.  231  (see  Vol.  Ill,  p.  570). 
'  R.  S.  Victor    Benjaminis   Minoris,  c.  Ixxxi. — S.  Th.  Aquin.  Summae  Sec, 
Sec.  Q.  clxxv,  Art.  1. 


Chap.  V]  CONTEMPT  FOB  THEOLOGY  5 

tractate  in  which  he  endeavored  to  frame  diagnostic  rules/  The 
Blessed  Juan  de  Avila  emphatically  admonishes  the  devout  to 
beware  of  such  deceptions,  but  he  fails  to  guide  them  in  discrimi- 
nating between  demonic  illusions  and  the  effects  of  divine  grace.^ 
Arbiol  describes  the  uncertainty  as  to  the  sources  of  these  mani- 
festations as  the  greatest  danger  besetting  the  path  of  perfection, 
causing  the  ruin  of  innumerable  souls.'  When,  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  mysticism  had  become  discredited,  Dr.  Amort  argues 
that,  even  if  a  revelation  is  from  God,  there  can  be  no  certainty 
that  it  is  not  falsified  by  the  operation  of  the  fancy  or  the  work 
of  the  demon.''  "When  to  this  we  add  the  facility  of  imposture, 
by  which  a  livelihood  could  be  gained  from  the  contributions  of 
the  credulous,  we  can  appreciate  the  difficulty  of  the  task  assumed 
by  the  Inquisition,  in  a  land  swarming  with  hysterics  of  both 
sexes,  to  restrain  the  extravagance  of  the  devout  and  to  punish 
the  frauds  of  impostors,  without  interfering  with  the  ways  of  God 
in  guiding  his  saints.  It  is  merely  another  instance  of  the  failure 
of  humanity  in  its  efforts  to  interpret  the  Infinite. 

Apart  from  visions  and  revelations,  there  was  another  feature  of 
mysticism  which  rendered  it  especially  dangerous  to  the  Church 
and  odious  to  theologians.  Though  the  mystic  might  not  con- 
trovert the  received  doctrines  of  the  faith,  yet  scholastic  theology, 
on  which  they  were  founded,  was  to  him  a  matter  of  careless 
contempt.  Mystic  theology,  says  Osuna,  is  higher  than  specu- 
lative or  scholastic  theology ;  it  needs  no  labor  or  learning  or  study, 
only  faith  and  love  and  the  grace  of  God.^  In  the  trial  of  Marfa 
Cazalla,  one  of  the  accusations  was  that  she  and  her  brother  Bishop 
Cazalla  ridiculed  Aquinas  and  Scotus  and  the  whole  mass  of  scho- 
lastic theology."  When  Geronimo  de  la  Madre  de  Dios  was  on 
trial,  one  of  his  writings  produced  in  evidence  was  a  comparison 
between  mystic  and  scholastic  theology,  to  the  great  disadvantage 
of  the  latter.  Its  learning,  he  says,  is  perfectly  compatible  with 
vice;  its  masters  preach  the  virtues  but  do  not  practise  them; 
they  wallow  in  the  sins  that  they  denounce;  they  are  Pharisees, 

•  Joh.  Gersoni,  Tract,  de  Distinct,  verar.  Visionum  a  falsis  (0pp.  Ed.  1494, 
T.  I,  xix  L). 

'  B.  Juan  de  Avila,  Audi  Filia  et  vide,  cap.  li-lv. 

'  Arbiol,  Disengafios  misticos.  Lib.  iii,  cap.  xv  (1707). 

'  Amort  de  Revelationibus  etc.     P.  i,  pp.  259-68  (Aug.  Vindel.  1744). 

"  Abecedario  spiritual,  P.  iii,  Trat.  vi,  cap.  2,  fol.  52. — Cf.  Molinos,  Guida,  Lib 
III,  cap.  xvii,  n.  163-4. 

"  Melgares  Marin,  Procedimientos  de  la  Inquisicion,  II,  88  (Madrid,  1886). 


g  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

and  this  is  so  general  a  pest  that  there  is  scarce  one  who  is  not 
infected  with  the  contagion.^ 

Medieval  Spain  had  been  little  troubled  with  mystic  extrava- 
gance. Eymerich  who,  in  his  Directorium  Inquisitorum,  gives  an 
exhaustive  account  of  heresies  existing  towards  the  close  of  the 
fourteenth  century,  makes  no  allusion  to  such  errors,  except  in 
his  denunciation  of  his  special  object  of  hatred  Raymond  Lully, 
to  whom  he  attributes  some  vagaries  of  mystic  illuminism,  and  the 
Repertorium  Inquisitorum  of  1494  is  equally  silent.^  Spiritual 
exaltation,  however,  accompanied  the  development  of  the  fanati- 
cism stimulated  by  the  establishment  of  the  Inquisition  and  its 
persecution  of  Jews  and  Moors.  Osuna,  in  1527,  alludes  to  a  holy 
man  who  for  fifty  years  had  devoted  himself  to  recojimiento,  or 
the  abstraction  of  mental  prayer,  and  already,  in  1498,  Francisco 
de  Villalobos  complains  of  the  Aluminados  or  lUtuninati,  derived 
from  Italy,  of  whom  there  were  many  in  Spain,  and  who  should 
be  reduced  to  reason  by  scourging,  cold,  hunger  and  prison.^  This 
indicates  that  mysticism  was  obtaining  a  foothold  and  its  spread 
was  facilitated  by  the  beatas,  women  adopting  a  religious  life  with- 
out entering  an  Order,  or  at  most  simply  as  Tertiaries,  living 
usually  on  alms  and  often  regarded  as  possessing  spiritual  gifts 
and  prophetic  powers.  The  first  of  the  class  to  obtain  prominence 
was  known  as  the  Beata  de  Piedrahita.  A  career  such  as  hers  was 
common  enough  subsequently,  as  we  shall  see,  and  the  discussion 
which  she  aroused  shows  that  as  yet  she  was  a  novel  phenomenon. 
The  daughter  of  a  fanatic  peasant,  she  had  been  carefully  trained 
in  mystic  exercises  and  was  wholly  given  up  to  contemplative 
abstraction,  in  which  she  enjoyed  the  most  intimate  relations  with 
God,  in  whose  arms  she  was  dissolved  in  love.  Sometimes  she 
asserted  that  Christ  was  with  her,  sometimes  that  she  was  Christ 
himself  or  the  bride  of  Christ;  often  she  held  conversations  with  the 
Virgin  in  which  she  spoke  for  both.  As  her  reputation  spread,  her 
visions  and  revelations  won  for  her  the  character  of  a  prophetess. 
Many  denounced  them  as  superstitious  and  demanded  her  sup- 


'  Proceso  contra  Hieron.  de  la  M.  de  Dios  (MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle, 
Yo,  20,  T.  VII) 

2  Eymerici  Director.  P.  ii,  Q.  ix,  n.  5.— Repertor.  Inquisit.  s.  YV  Beatoe, 
Begardoe,  Beguince,  Hoeresis,  Hoeretid,  etc. 

'  Abecedario  spiritual,  P.  iii,  Trat.  xxi,  cap.  4,  fol.  204. — Menendez  y  Pelayo, 
Heterodoxos,  II,  526. 


Chap.  V]  COMMENCEMENT  OF  PERSECUTION  7 

pression,  but  Ximenes  who,  as  inquisitor-general,  had  jurisdiction 
in  the  matter,  argued  that  she  was  inspired  with  divine  wisdom 
and  Ferdinand,  who  visited  her,  expressed  his  behef  in  her  inspi- 
ration. In  1510  the  matter  was  referred  to  the  Holy  See,  and 
Julius  II  appointed  his  nuncio,  Giovanni  Ruffo,  and  the  Bishops 
of  Burgos  and  Vich,  as  commissioners  to  examine  her  and  to  sup- 
press the  scandal  if  it  proved  to  be  only  female  levity.  Peter 
Martyr,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  the  account,  was  unable  to 
ascertain  their  decision  but,  as  they  discharged  her  without  reproof, 
it  may  be  assumed  that  their  report  was  favorable,  for  it  could 
scarce  have  been  otherwise  with  such  supporters  as  Ferdinand 
and  Ximenes.^  Such  success  naturally  stimulated  imitation  and 
was  the  foreshadowing  of  wide-spread  delusion  and  imposture. 

In  this  case  there  appears  no  trace  of  carnality,  but  it  is  the 
distinguishing  feature  of  another  soon  afterwards,  reported  in  1512 
to  Ximenes  by  Fray  Antonio  de  Pastrana,  of  a  contemplative 
fraile  of  Ocana  "illuminated  with  the  darkness  of  Satan."  To 
him  God  had  revealed  that  he  should  engender  on  a  holy  woman 
a  prophet  who  should  reform  the  world.  He  was  a  spiritual  man, 
not  given  to  women  and,  in  his  simplicity,  he  had  written  to  Madre 
Juana  de  la  Cruz,  apparently  inviting  her  cooperation  in  the  good 
work.  Fray  Antonio,  who  was  custodian  of  the  Province  of  Cas- 
tile, imprisoned  the  alumbrado  and  subjected  him  to  treatment 
so  active  that  he  speedily  admitted  his  error.^ 

Guadalajara  and  Pastrana  were  becoming  centres  of  a  group 
of  mystics  who  attracted  the  attention  of  the  Inquisition  about 
1521,  when  it  commenced  gathering  testimony  about  them.  The 
earliest  disseminator  of  the  doctrine  appears  to  have  been  a  semp- 
stress named  Isabel  de  la  Cruz,  noted  for  her  ability  in  the  expo- 
sition of  Scripture,  who  commenced  about  1512  and  was  a  leader 
until  superseded  by  Francisca  Hernandez,  of  whom  more  here- 
after. The  Seraphic  Order  of  St.  Francis  naturally  furnished 
many  initiates,  whose  names  are  included  among  the  fifty  or  sixty 
forming  the  group.  The  Franciscan  Guardian  of  Escalona,  Fray 
Juan  de  Olmillos,  had  ecstasies  when  receiving  the  sacrament  and 
when  preaching,  in  which  he  talked  and  acted  extravagantly. 
When  removed  to  Madrid,  this  attracted  crowds  to  watch  his  con- 
tortions and  he  was  generally  regarded  as  a  saint;  he  was  promoted 
to  the  provincialate  of  Castile  and  died  in  1529.     The  Marquis  of 

'  Pet.  Mart.  Angler.     Epistt.  428,  431. 

'  D.  Manuel  Serrano  y  Sans  (Revista  de  Archives  etc.,  Enero,  1903,  p.  2). 


8  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

Villena,  at  Escalona,  was  inclined  to  mysticism,  induced  perhaps 
by  Fray  Francisco  de  Ocafia,  who  was  stationed  there  and  had 
prophetic  visions  of  the  reform  of  the  Church.  Villena,  in  1523, 
employed  as  lay-preacher  Pedro  Ruiz  de  Alcaraz,  one  of  the  most 
prominent  of  the  Guadalajara  mystics,  who  seems  to  have  con- 
verted all  the  members  of  the  household.  The  name  of  Alcaraz 
appears  frequently  in  the  trials  of  the  group;  he  was  a  married 
layman,  uneducated  but  possessing  remarkable  familiarity  with 
Scripture  and  skilled  in  its  exposition,  and  he  was  an  earnest 
missionary  of  mysticism.  When  sufficient  evidence  against  him 
was  accumulated,  he  was  arrested  February  26, 1524,  and  impris- 
oned by  the  Toledo  tribunal.  The  formal  accusation,  presented 
October  31st,  indicates  that  the  mysticism,  of  at  least  some  of 
the  accused,  embraced  Quietism  or  Dejamiento  to  the  full  extent, 
with  its  consequent  assumption  of  impeccability,  no  matter  what 
might  be  the  acts  of  the  devotee ,  that  mental  prayer  was  the  sole 
observance  necessary,  that  all  the  prescriptions  of  the  Church — 
confession,  indulgences,  works  of  charity  and  piety — were  useless, 
and  that  the  conjugal  act  was  Union  with  God.  There  was  also 
the  denial  of  transubstantiation  and  of  the  existence  of  hell,  which 
may  probably  be  left  out  of  account  as  foreign  to  the  recognized 
tenets  of  mysticism.  The  latter,  in  fact,  was  presumably  an  exag- 
geration of  an  utterance  of  Alcaraz,  who  said  that  it  was  the 
ignorant  and  children  who  were  afraid  of  hell,  for  the  advanced 
served  the  Lord,  not  from  servile  fear  but  from  fear  of  offending 
Him  whom  they  loved,  and  moreover  that  God  was  not  to  be 
prayed  to  for  anything— principles  subsequently  approved  in  S. 
Frangois  de  Sales  and  condemned  in  F^nelon.  There  was  no  spirit 
of  martyrdom  in  Alcaraz,  and  the  severe  torture  to  which  he  was 
exposed  would  seem  a  superfluity.  He  confessed  his  errors,  pro- 
fessed conversion  and  begged  for  mercy.  His  sentence,  July  22, 
1529,  recited  that  he  had  incurred  relaxation  but  through  clemency 
was  admitted  to  reconciUation  with  confiscation,  irremissible  prison 
and  scourging  in  Toledo,  Guadalajara,  Escalona  and  Pastrana, 
where  he  had  disseminated  his  errors.  This  severity  indicates 
the  inquisitorial  estimate  of  the  magnitude  of  the  evil  to  be  sup- 
pressed but,  after  ten  years,  on  February  20,  1539,  the  Suprema 
liberated  him,  with  the  restriction  of  not  leaving  Toledo  and  the 
imposition  of  certain  spiritual  exercises.' 

•  See  the  trial  of  Alcaraz,  epitomized  by  D.  Manuel  Serrano  y  Sans,  in  the 
Revista  de  Archivos,  Enero,  1903,  pp.  1-16;  Febrero,  pp,  127,  130  sqq. 


Chap.  VJ  FRANC  ISO  A  HERNANDEZ  9 

In  the  ensuing  trials,  pursued  with  customary  inquisitorial 
thoroughness,  the  question  of  sexual  aberrations  constantly  ob- 
trudes itself  and  offers  no  little  complexity.  That  the  majority 
of  the  Spanish  mystics  were  thoroughly  pure  in  heart  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  but  spiritual  exaltation,  shared  by  the  two  sexes,  had  the 
ever-present  risk  that  it  might  insensibly  become  carnal,  when 
those  who  fancied  themselves  to  be  advancing  in  the  path  of  per- 
fection might  suddenly  find  that  the  flesh  had  deceived  the  spirit. 
This  was  an  experience  as  old  as  mysticism  itself,  and  the  eloquent 
warning  which  St.  Bonaventura  addressed  to  his  brethren  shows, 
by  the  vividness  of  its  details,  that  he  must  have  witnessed  more 
than  one  such  fall  from  grace.^  The  danger  was  all  the  greater  in 
the  extreme  mysticism  known  as  Illuminism,  with  its  doctrines 
of  internal  light,  of  Dejamiento,  or  abandonment  to  impulses 
assumed  to  come  from  God,  and  of  the  impeccability  of  the 
advanced  adept,  combined  with  the  test  of  continence.  Unques- 
tionably there  were  cases  in  which  these  aberrations  were  honestly 
''entertained;  there  were  numerous  others  in  which  they  were 
assiimed  for  purposes  of  seduction,  nor  can  we  always,  from  the 
evidence  before  us,  pronounce  a  confident  judgement. 

Of  the  trials  which  have  seen  the  light  several  centre  around 
the  curious  personality  of  Francisca  Hernandez,  who  succeeded 
Isabel  de  la  Cruz  as  the  leader  of  the  mystic  disciples.  She 
seems  to  have  possessed  powers  of  fascination,  collecting  around 
her  devotees  of  the  most  diverse  character.  We  have  seen  how 
she  entangled  Bernardino  de  Tovar  and  how  his  brother,  Juan  de 
Vergara,  became  involved  with  the  Inquisition,  after  detaching 
him  from  her.  Francisco  de  Osuna,  the  earliest  Spanish  writer 
on  mysticism  and  the  teacher  of  Santa  Teresa,  was  one  of  her 
disciples  and  so  was  Francisco  Ortiz,  a  Franciscan  of  the  utmost 
purity  of  heart.  A  devotee  of  a  different  stamp  was  Antonio  de 
Medrano,  cura  of  Navarrete,  who  had  made  her  acquaintance  in 
1516  when  a  student  at  Salamanca.  She  was  attractive  and  penni- 
less but,  through  a  long  career,  she  always  managed  to  live  in 
comfort  at  the  expense  of  her  admirers.  Though  she  claimed  to  be 
a  bride  of  Christ,  she  practised  no  austerities;  she  was  fastidious  in 
her  diet  and  slept  in  a  soft  bed,  which  she  had  no  scruple  in  scaring 
with  her  male  devotees.  This  required  funds  and  she  and  Med- 
rano persuaded  an  imlucky  youth  named  Calero  to  sell  his  patri- 


S.  Bonaventurse  de  Puritate  Conscientiae,  cap.  14. 


IQ  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

mony  and  devote  the  proceeds  to  support  the  circle  of  Alumbrados 
whom  she  gathered  around  her.  The  episcopal  authorities  com- 
menced investigations,  ending  with  a  sentence  of  banishment  on 
Medrano,  when  the  pair  betook  themselves  to  Valladolid,  whither 
Tovar  followed  them,  and  where  the  Inquisition  commencecTpro^ 
ceedings  in  1519;  it  was  as  yet  not  aroused  to  dealing  harshly  with 
these  eccentric  forms  of  devotion,  and  it  merely  forbade  him  and 
Tovar  from  further  converse  with  Francisca;  this  they  eluded, 
the  tribunal  insisted  and  Medrano  went  to  his  cure  at  Navarrete. 
She  was  kept  under  surveillance,  but  her  reputation  for  holiness 
was  such  that  Cardinal  Adrian,  after  his  election  to  the  papacy, 
in  1522,  ordered  his  secretary  Carmona  to  ask  her  prayers  for 
him  and  for  the  whole  Church. 

In  1525  the  Inquisition  again  arrested  her;  she  was  accused 
of  suspicious  relations  with  men  and,  when  discharged,  was  obliged 
to  swear  that  she  would  permit  no  indecent  familiarities.  Mean- 
while Medrano,  at  Navarrete  continued  his  career  as  an  Alum- 
brado,  holding  conversations  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  declaring 
himself  to  be  impeccable.  In  1526  the  Logroiio  tribunal  arrested 
him  and,  after  nearly  eighteen  months,  he  was  discharged  June  4, 
1527,  with  the  lenient  sentence  of  abjuration  de  levi  and  such  spir- 
itual penance  as  might  be  assigned  to  him.  This  escape  embold- 
ened him  to  greater  extravagance  and  to  renewed  devotion  to 
Francisca,  leading  to  another  prosecution,  in  1530,  by  the  Toledo 
tribunal.  There  was  evidence  of  highly  indecent  character  as  to 
their  relations,  but  he  stoutly  denied  it,  asserting  that  he  was  so 
favored  by  God  that  all  the  evil  women  in  the  world  and  all  the 
devils  in  hell  could  not  move  him  to  carnal  sin — a  grace  which 
came  to  him  after  he  knew  Francisca;  he  could  lie  in  bed  with  a 
woman  without  feeling  desire  and  it  gave  him  grace  to  do  so  with 
Francisca  and  to  fondle  and  embrace  her,  which  she  enjoyed; 
he  believed  her  to  be  free  from  both  mortal  and  venial  sin,  and 
he  held  her  to  be  a  greater  saint  than  any  in  heaven  except  Our 
Lady.  Under  torture,  however,  he  confessed  whatever  was 
wanted — that  when  he  told  people  that  she  could  not  sin,  because 
she  was  illuminated  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  it  was  to  spread  her  repu- 
tation and  gain  money  for  them  both;  that  he  was  jealous  of  all 
her  other  disciples,  among  whom  he  named  Valderrama,  Diego 
de  Villareal,  Munoz,  Cabrera,  Gumiel,  Ortiz  and  Sayavedra  and 
his  brother,  showing  that  she  had  a  numerous  following.  He 
admitted  teaching  that  male  and  female  devotees  could  embrace 


Chap.  V]  FRANC  ISC  A  HERNANDEZ  11 

each  other  naked,  for  it  was  not  clothes  but  intention  that  counted. 
By  this  time  the  Inquisition  was  deahng  harshly  with  these  aber- 
rations, and  his  sentence,  April  21, 1532,  excused  him  from  relaxa- 
tion as  an  incorrigible  heretic  because  he  was  only  a  hypocritical 
swindler  whose  object  was  to  raise  money  for  a  life  of  pleasure; 
he  was  to  retract  his  propositions  in  an  auto  de  fe,  to  abjure  de 
vehementi  and  to  be  recluded  for  life  in  a  monastery,  with  two 
years'  suspension  from  his  sacerdotal  functions,  and  was  to  hold 
no  further  communication  with  Francisca,  under  pain  of  impeni- 
tent relapse,  but  he  was  not  deprived  of  his  cure  of  Navarrete. 
In  1537  the  Duke  of  Najera  interceded  for  his  release,  with 
what  result  the  records  fail  to  inform  us.^ 

Francisca's  strange  powers  of  fascination  were  manifested  by 
the  influence  which  she  acquired  over  a  man  of  infinitely  higher 
character  than  Medrano.  Fray  Francisco  Ortiz  was  the  most 
promising  member  of  the  great  Franciscan  Order,  who  was  rapidly 
acquiring  the  reputation  of  the  foremost  preacher  in  Spain.  He 
was  not  fully  a  mystic,  but  his  pulpit  exhortations,  stimulating  the 
love  of  God,  caused  him  to  be  regarded  as  wandering  near  to  the 
dangerous  border.  In  1523  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Fran- 
cisca and  his  feelings  towards  her  are  emphatically  expressed  in 
a  defiant  declaration  to  the  Inquisition  during  his  trial. — "No 
word  of  love,  however  strong,  is  by  a  hundredth  part  adequate 
to  describe  the  holy  love,  so  pure  and  sweet  and  strong  and  great 
and  full  of  God's  blessing  and  melting  of  heart  and  soiil,  which 
God  in  his  goodness  has  given  me  through  His  holy  betrothed, 
my  true  Mother  and  Lady,  through  whom  I  hope,  at  the  awful 
Day  of  Judgement,  to  be  numbered  among  the  elect.  I  can  call 
her  my  love  for,  in  loving  her,  I  love  nothing  but  God."  There 
can  be  no  doubts  as  to  the  purity  of  his  relations  with  her  whom 
he  thus  reverenced,  but  they  were  displeasing  to  his  superiors  who 
viewed  with  growing  disquiet  the  distraction  of  one  whom  they 
regarded  as  a  valuable  asset  of  the  Order.  It  was  in  vain  that  he 
was  ordered  to  break  off  all  relations  with  her;  he  replied  vehe- 
mently that  God  was  to  be  obeyed  rather  than  man  and  that  if  he 
was  to  be  debarred  from  seeing  that  beloved  one  of  God  he  would 
transfer  himself  to  the  Carthusians.  To  effect  the  separation  the 
Franciscan  prelates  induced  the  Inquisition  to  arrest  Francisca, 

'  Don  M.  Serrano  y  Sans  has  published  (Boletin,  XLI,  105-37)  the  principal 
features  and  documents  of  this  trial.  He  states  that  much  of  the  testimony  is 
utterly  unfit  for  transcription. 


12  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

but  the  unexpected  result  of  this  was  that  Ortiz,  in  a  sermon  before 
all  the  assembled  magnates  of  the  city  April  7,  1529,  arraigned 
the  Inquisition  for  the  great  sin  committed  in  her  arrest.  Such 
revolt  was  unexampled  and  he  was  forthwith  prosecuted,  not  so 
much  to  punish  him  as  to  procure  his  retractation  and  submission, 
but  he  was  obstinate  and  defiant  for  nearly  three  years.  It  was 
in  vain  that  the  Empress  Isabel  twice,  in  1530,  urged  his  liberation 
or  the  expediting  of  his  case,  and  equally  vain  was  a  brief  of  Clem- 
ent VII,  July  1,  1531,  to  Cardinal  Manrique,  asking  his  discharge 
if  his  only  offence  was  his  public  denvmciation  of  the  arrest  of  that 
holy  woman,  Francisca  Hernd,ndez.^  At  length,  in  April  1532, 
Ortiz  experienced  a  revulsion  of  feeling,  and  the  same  emotional 
impulsiveness  that  had  led  to  his  outbreak  now  prompted  him  to 
declare  that  God  had  given  him  the  grace  to  recognize  his  errors 
and  that  he  foimd  great  peace  in  retracting  them.  He  escaped 
with  public  abjuration  de  vehementi,  five  years'  suspension  from 
priestly  functions,  two  years'  confinement  in  a  cell  of  the  convent 
of  Torrelaguna,  and  absolute  simdering  of  relations  with  Francisca. 
He  betook  himself  to  his  place  of  reclusion  and,  although  papal 
briefs  released  him  from  all  restrictions  and  his  prelates  repeatedly 
urged  him  to  leave  his  retreat,  he  seems  never  to  have  abandoned 
the  solitude  which  he  said  had  become  sweet  to  him.  Until  his 
death,  in  1546,  he  remained  in  the  convent,  the  object  of  over- 
flowing honor  on  the  part  of  his  brethren.^ 

Francisca  herself  seems  to  have  been  treated  with  remarkable 
leniency,  in  spite  of  her  previous  trials  and  the  evidence  of  Me- 
drano.  Her  arrest  had  been  merely  with  the  object  of  separating 
her  from  Ortiz,  and  her  trial  seems  to  have  been  scarce  more  than 
formal  for,  in  September  1532,  we  find  her  merely  detained  in  the 
house  of  Gutierre  P^rez  de  Montalvo,  at  Medina  del  Campo,  with 
her  maid  Maria  Ramfrez  in  waiting  on  her.^  Possibly  this  favor 
may  have  been  earned  by  her  readiness  to  accuse  her  old  friends 
and  associates,  among  whom  were  two  brothers  and  a  sister,  Juan 
Cazalla,  Bishop  of  Troy  in  partibus,  Pedro  Cazalla  and  Maria 
Cazalla,  wife  of  Lope  de  Ruida.'    The  trial  of  the  latter  is  worth 

'  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  iii,  fol.  133. 

'  This  account  of  Francisco  Ortiz  is  derived  from  the  skilful  analysis  of  his 
trial  by  JEduard  Bohmer  in  his  "  Pranzisca  Hernandez  und  Frai  Franzisco  Ortiz" 
(Leipzig,  1865). 

•'  Melgares  Marin,  Procedimientos  de  la  Inquisicion,  II,  94-5 

'  Juan  and  Maria  were  uncle  and  aunt  of  the  Cazallas  who  suffered  for  Protes- 
tantism. 


Chap.  V]  CONNECTION  WITH  PROTESTANTISM  13 

brief  reference  as  it  throws  some  light  on  the  confusion  existing 
at  the  time  between  Illuminism  and  Protestantism. 

Maria  Cazalla  was  a  resident  of  Guadalajara  who  visited  Pas- 
trana,^  where  women  assembled  to  listen  to  her  readings  and 
expositions  of  Scripture.  When  proceedings  were  commenced 
against  the  group,  in  1524,  she  was  arrested  and  examined  but 
was  discharged.  For  six  years  she  remained  undisturbed,  when 
the  testimony  of  Francisca  Herndndez  caused  a  second  prosecu- 
tion, in  which  the  heterogeneous  character  of  the  fiscal's  accusa- 
tion shows  how  little  was  understood  as  to  the  heresies  under 
discussion.  She  was  a  Lutheran  who  praised  Luther,  denied 
transubstantiation  and  free-will,  ridiculed  confession,  decried 
scholastic  theology  and  held  indulgences  as  valueless;  she  was  an 
Alumbrada  who  regarded  Isabel  de  la  Cruz  as  superior  to  St. 
Paul,  who  rated  matrimony  higher  than  virginity,  who  wrote 
letters  full  of  Illuminism  and  taught  the  Alumbrados  their  doc- 
trines from  Scripture,  decrying  external  works  of  adoration  and 
prayer;  she  was  an  Erasmist  who  pronounced  Church  observances 
to  be  Judaism,  despised  the  religious  Orders  and  ridiculed  the 
preachers  of  sermons.'  She  had  been  arrested  about  May  1,  1532, 
and  her  trial  dragged  on  as  usual.  As  a  solvent  of  doubts  she  was 
tortured  smartly  and,  on  December  19,  1534,  her  sentence  pro- 
nounced that  the  fiscal  had  not  proved  her  to  be  a  heretic  but 
that,  for  the  suspicions  arising  from  the  trial,  she  should  abjure 
de  levi  and  undergo  solemn  public  penance  in  her  parish  church, 
she  should  avoid  all  intercourse  with  Alumbrados  or  other  sus- 
pects and  pay  a  fine  of  a  hundred  ducats.^ 

An  affiliated  group  comes  before  us  in  Toledo,  centering  around 
Petronila  de  Lucena,  an  unmarried  woman  of  25,  living  with  her 
brother,  Juan  del  Castillo.  She  had  a  high  reputation  for  sanctity 
and  was  credited  with  thaumaturgic  powers;  when  the  Duke  del 
Infantazgo  was  mortally  ill,  she  was  sent  for,  but  too  late.  We 
hear  of  Maria  Cazalla,  Bernardino  de  Tovar  and  Francisca  Her- 
nd,ndez ;  there  are  allusions  to  Erasmus,  and  Diego  Hernandez  had 
included  her  in  his  denxmciations  of  Lutheranism.  Letters  to  her 
from  her  brother,  Gaspar  de  Lucena,  are  mere  mystical  maun-  \ 
derings,  showing  the  atmosphere  in  which  they  lived,  but  the  ' 
other  brother,  Juan  del  Castillo,  then  on  trial,  admitted  many 


'  Melgares  Marin,  op.  cit.,  II,  74- 
'  Ibidem,  pp.  147-53. 


14  MYSTICISM  [Book  VHI 

Lutheran  doctrines — works  were  not  necessary,  Church  precepts 
were  not  binding,  man  had  not  free-will,  indulgences  were  useless 
and  a  book  by  OEcolampadius  had  led  him  to  disbelieve  in  tran- 
substantiation.  Both  Juan  and  Gaspar  were  on  trial,  and  we 
hear  of  another  prisoner,  Catalina  de  Figueredo.  Petronila  was 
arrested,  with  sequestration,  May  7, 1534,  and  her  trial  pursued  the 
ordinary  course  imtil  March  20,  1535,  when,  as  we  have  seen 
(Vol.  Ill,  p.  Ill),  it  was  decided  that,  as  the  principal  witness 
against  her,  Juan  del  Castillo,  had  revoked  the  evidence  given 
^  under  torture,  she  might  be  released  on  bail  of  a  hundred 
thousand  maravedis,  which  was  promptly  entered.  In  June 
she  petitioned  to  be  wholly  discharged  and  that  the  seques- 
tration be  lifted ;  to  this  no  attention  was  paid  but  a  second  appli- 
cation, October  20, 1536  procured  the  removal  of  the  sequestration. 
Gaspar  de  Lucena  was  sentenced  to  reconciliation  and  this  was 
presumably  the  fate  of  Juan  del  Castillo  unless  he  was  impenitent.' 
These  cases  show  that  the  prevalence  of  the  mingled  heresies 
of  Illuminism  and  Lutheranism  was  calling  for  repression,  nor  was 
this  confined  to  Castile.  In  1533,  Miguel  Galba,  fiscal  of  the 
tribunal  of  L^rida,  in  a  letter  to  Cardinal  Manrique,  declared  that 
only  the  vigilance  of  the  Inquisition  prevented  both  kingdoms 
from  being  filled  with  the  followers  of  the  two  heresies.^  There 
was  of  course  exaggeration  in  this,  but  the  fears  of  the  authorities 
led  them  to  see  heresies  everywhere.  As  Juan  de  Vald^s,  himself 
inclined  to  mysticism,  says,  when  any  one  endeavored  to  manifest 
the  perfection  of  Christianity,  his  utterances  were  misinterpreted 
and  he  was  condemned  as  a  heretic,  so  that  there  was  scarce  any 
one  who  dared  to  live  as  a  Christian/  Many  suffered  from  the 
results  of  this  hyper-sensitiveness.  When  Ignatius  Loyola,  after 
his  conversion,  came  in  1526  to  AlcaU  to  study,  he  was  joined 
by  four  young  men;  they  assumed  a  pecuhar  gray  gown  and  their 
fervor  brought  many  to  the  H6pital  de  la  Misericordia,  where 
they  lodged,  to  consult  with  them  and  join  in  their  spiritual  exer- 
cises. This  excited  suspicion  and  invited  investigation.  What 
was  the  exact  authority  of  Doctor  Miguel  Carrasco,  confessor  of 
Fonseca  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  and  of  Alonso  Mexia,  who  bore  a 


^^^  Archive,  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  Ill,  u.  46.— «.  Schafer,  II, 

^  MS.  penes  me. 

'  Didlogo  de  Mercuric  y  Caron,  cap.  Ixv. 


Chap.  V]  PEBYADINQ  SUSPICION  15 

commission  as  inqmsitor,  does  not  appear,  but  they  examined 
witnesses  and  the  sentence  rendered  by  the  Vicar-general,  Juan 
Rodriguez  de  Figueroa,  was  merely  that  the  associates  should  lay 
aside  their  distinctive  garments.  After  this  the  number  who  went 
to  listen  to  Loyola  continued  to  increase,  and  the  women  had  a 
fashion  of  falling  in  convulsions,  there  was  nothing  of  illuminism 
in  his  exhortations,  but  he  was  open  to  suspicion,  and  it  was  inad- 
missible that  a  yoimg  layman  should  assume  the  function  of  a 
director  of  souls.  This  time  it  was  Vicar-general  Figueroa  who 
took  the  matter  in  hand  and  threw  Loyola  into  prison,  in  1527, 
finally  sentencing  him  and  his  companions  not  to  appear  in  public 
until  they  had  assumed  the  ordinary  lay  garments,  nor  for  three 
years  to  hold  assemblages  public  or  private  and  then  only  with 
permission  of  the  Ordinary.^  It  was  this  experience  that  drove 
Loyola  to  complete  his  studies  in  Paris,  where  he  was  not  siibject 
to  the  intrusion  of  excitable  devotees. 

Carranza  offered  a  mark  too  vulnerable  to  be  spared.  He  was 
incUned  to  mysticism,  and  there  were  many  passages  in  his  unfor- 
tunate Comentarios  which,  separated  from  their  context,  afforded 
material  for  reprehension.  The  keen-sighted  Melchor  Cano  was 
able  to  cite  isolated  texts  to  prove  that  he  held  the  alumbrado 
doctrines  of  impeccabihty,  of  interior  illumination,  of  the  supreme 
merits  of  contemplation,  of  despising  all  exterior  works  and  obser- 
vances—in short  that  he  defended  the  errors  of  the  Begghards 
and  Beguines,  of  Pedro  Ruiz  Alcaraz  and  of  the  Alumbrados  who 
figured  in  the  autos  of  Toledo.^  It  is  significant  of  the  advanced 
position  of  Spanish  orthodoxy  on  the  subject  of  mysticism  that 
these  accusations  had  no  weight  with  the  Council  of  Trent,  which 
approved  the  Comentarios,  nor  with  Pius  V,  when  he  permitted 
the  publication  of  the  book  in  Rome.  When,  at  last  in  1576, 
Gregory  XIII  yielded  and  condemned  the  book  and  its  author,  of 
the  sixteen  propositions  which  he  was  required  to  abjure^  only 
three  bore  any  relation  to  mysticism,  and  these  were  on  the  border 
fine  between  it  and  Protestantism — that  all  works  without  charity 
are  sins  and  offend  God,  that  faith  without  works  suffices  for 


•  So  much  has  been  said  about  this  prosecution  of  Loyola  that  Padre  Fidel 
Fita  has  performed  a  service  in  printing  the  documents  of  the  case  in  the  Boletin, 
XXXIII,  431-57. 

'  Caballero,  Vida  de  Melchor  Cano,  pp.  549-SO,  557-9,  568-9,  572-7,  582-3, 
592-3,  598,  601. 


Ig  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

salvation,  and  that  the  use  of  images  and  veneration  of  relics  are 
of  human  precept/ 

In  this  inquisitorial  temper  it  was  a  matter  of  chance  whether 
a  devotional  writer  should  be  canonized  or  condemned  and  mayhap 
both  might  befall  him,  as  occurred  to  San  Francisco  de  Borja, 
whose  Obras  del  Cristiano  was  put  on  the  Index  of  1559,  though  it 
disappeared  after  that  of  Quiroga  in  1583.^  Santa  Teresa  herself, 
the  queen  of  Spanish  mystics  and,  along  with  Santiago,  the  patron 
saint  of  Spain,  was  confined  in  a  convent  by  the  Nuncio  Sega,  who 
denounced  her  as  a  restless  vagabond,  plunged  in  dissipation  under 
pretext  of  religion,  and  an  effort  was  made  to  transport  her  to 
the  Indies,  which  were  a  sort  of  penal  settlement.  But  for  the 
accident  that  Philip  II  became  interested  in  her,  she  would  prob- 
ably have  come  down  to  us  as  one  of  the  beatas  revelanderas 
whom  it  was  the  special  mission  of  the  Inqmsition  to  suppress. 
When,  in  1575,  she  founded  a  convent  of  her  Barefooted  Carme- 
lites in  Seville,  they  were  denounced  as  Alumbradas;  the  inquis- 
itors created  a  terrible  scandal  by  going  to  the  house  with  the 
guards  to  investigate,  but  they  could  substantiate  nothing  to  justify 
prosecution.  So,  when  in  1574  her  spiritual  autobiography  was 
denounced  to  the  Inquisition,  it  was  held  for  ten  years  in  suspense, 
and  the  Duchess  of  Alva,  who  possessed  a  MS.  copy,  was  obliged 
to  procure  a  licence  to  read  it  in  private  until  judgement  should 
be  rendered — although  finally,  in  1588,  it  was  printed  by  Fray 
Luis  de  Leon  at  the  special  request  of  the  empress.  Even  after 
canonization  her  Conceptos  del  Amor  divino,  when  printed  with 
the  works  of  her  disciple  Jeronimo  Gracian,  were  put  on  the  Index 
and  remained  there.^    Her  most  illustrious  disciple,  San  Juan  de 


'  Salazar  de  Mendoza,  Vida  de  Carranza,  cap.  xxxiii. 

The  first  of  these  undoubtedly  is  found  in  the  Comentarios  (E  iii,  Obra  iii, 
cap.  3),  but  it  was  perfectly  admissible  doctrine  at  the  period.  Azpilcueta, 
who  was  no  mystic,  tells  us,  in  1577,  that  prayer  is  worthless  unless  uttered  in 
lively  faith  and  ardent  charity;  innumerable  priests  are  consigned  to  purgatory 
or  to  hell  on  account  of  their  prayers,  each  one  of  which  is  at  least  a  venial 
sin. — De  Oratione,  cap.  viii. 

It  illustrates  the  progress  of  the  movement  against  mysticism  that  the  Index 
of  Zapata,  in  1632  (p,  980)  orders  a  passage  in  Don  Quixote  to  be  borrado  in  which 
this  is  expressed  much  less  offensively — "Las  obras  de  Charidad  que  se  hazen 
tibia  y  floxamente  no  tienen  merito  ni  valen  nada." 

'  Reusch,  Die  Indices^  pp.  237,  438. 

'  V.  de  la  Fuente,  Escritos  de  S.  Teresa,  I,  3-4,  557;  II,  439-40,  557,  568, 
571.— Index  of  Sotomayor,  1640,  p.  529.— Indice  Ultimo,  p.  118. 


Chap,  V]  SANCTITY  OB  HERESY  17 

la  Cruz,  escaped  prosecution,  though  repeatedly  denounced  to  the 
Inquisition,  and  his  writings  were  not  forbidden,  but  he  was  most 
vindictively  persecuted  as  an  Alumbrado,  first  by  his  unreformed 
Carmelite  brethren  and  then  by  the  Barefooted  Order,  and  he 
ended  his  days  in  disgrace,  reduded  in  a  convent  in  the  Sierra 
Morena/  Yet  Francisco  de  Osuna,'the  preceptor  of  Santa  Teresa, 
although  his  writings  are  of  the  highest  mysticism,  escaped  perse- 
cution himself,  and  his  Abecedario  Spiritual  incurred  only  a  single 
expurgation.^ 

The  Venerable  Luis  de  Granada  was  not  canonized,  for  the  pro- 
ceedings were  never  completed.  He  was  one  of  the  most  moderate 
of  those  who  taught  the  supreme  virtues  of  recojimiento  and  his 
Guia  de  Pecadores  ranks  as  one  of  the  Spanish  classics,  yet  his 
works  were  prohibited  in  the  Index  of  1559.^  Melchor  Cano 
declared  that  his  books  contained  doctrines  of  Alumbrados  and 
matters  contrary  to  the  faith,  while  Fray  Alonso  de  la  Fuente, 
who  was  a  vigorous  persecutor  of  illuminism,  endeavored  to  have 
him  prosecuted  and  pronotmced  his  De  la  Oracion  the  worst  of  the 
books  which  presented  these  errors  so  subtly  that  only  the  initiated 
could  discover  them.  It  illustrates  the  difference  between  Spanish 
and  Roman  standards,  at  this  period,  that  his  writings  v/ere  trans- 
lated and  freely  current  in  many  languages  and  that,  in  1582, 
Gregory  XIII  wrote  to  him  eulogizing  them  in  the  most  exu- 
berant terms  and  urging  him  to  continue  his  labbrs  for  the  curing 
of  the  infirm,  the  strengthening  of  the  weak,  the  comfort  of  the 
strong  and  the  glory  of  both  Churches,  the  militant  and  the  trium- 
phant. When  he  died,  in  1588,  it  was  in  the  odor  of  sanctity,  and 
he  subsequently  appeared  to  a  devotee  arrayed  in  a  cloak  of  glory, 
glittering  with  innumerable  stars,  which  were  the  souls  of  those 
saved  by  his  writings.* 

Ignatius  Loyola  was  inclined  to  mysticism,  and  the  mental 
prayer  which  he  taught^ — the  Ejercicio  de  las  tres  Potencias  or 
exercise  of  the  memory,  intellect  and  will — differed  little  from 


'  Jos6  de  Jesus  Marfa,  Vida  de  San  Juan  de  la  Cruz  (Escritos  de  S.  Teresa, 
II,  611-14). 

'  Index  of  Sandoval,  1612,  p.  379  (Ed.  Genevse,  1620). 

'  Reusch,  Die  Indices,  p.  224. 

'  Caballero,  Vida  de  Melchor  Cano,  p.  597. — Barrantes,  Aparato  para  la 
Historia  de  Extremadura,  II,  346-7. —Giovanni  da  Capugnano,  Vida  del  P. 
Luigi  Granata.— Theiner,  AnnaL  Eccles.,  Ill,  861.— Palafox  y  Mendoza,  Obras, 
VII,  65. 

VOL.  IV  2 


jg  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

the  meditation  which,  with  the  mystics,  was  the  prelude  to  contem- 
plation.' Yet  he  was  sceptical  as  to  special  graces  vouchsafed 
to  mystic  ardor;  such  things  were  possible,  he  said,  but  they  were 
very  rare  and  the  demon  often  thus  deludes  human  vanity.^  His 
disciples  were  less  cautious  and  indulged  in  the  extravagance  of 
the  more  advanced  school,  producing  many  adepts  gifted  with  the 
highest  spiritual  graces.  Luis  de  la  Puente,  who  died  in  1624, 
at  the  age  of  69  may  be  mentioned  as  an  example,  for  in  him  the 
intensity  of  divine  love  was  so  strong  that  in  his  ecstasies  he  shone 
with  a  hght  that  filled  his  cell;  he  would  be  elevated  from  the 
floor  and  the  whole  building  would  shake  as  though  about  to  fall; 
during  his  sickness,  which  lasted  for  thirty  years,  angels  were  often 
seen  ministering  to  him;  he  had  the  gift  of  prophecy  and  of  reading 
the  thoughts  of  his  penitents  and,  when  he  died,  his  garments  were 
torn  to  shreds  and  his  hair  cut  off  to  be  preserved  as  relics.  He 
taught  the  heretical  doctrine  that  prayer  is  a  satisfaction  for  sin, 
while  his  views  as  to  resignation  to  the  will  of  God  approach  closely 
to  the  Quietism  which  we  shall  hereafter  see  condemned  by  the 
Holy  See.  Yet  he  escaped  condemnation  and  his  works  have  con- 
tinued to  the  present  time  to  be  multiplied  in  innvmierable  editions 
and  translations.' 

It  was  probably  the  impossibility  of  differentiation  between 
heresy  and  sanctity  that  explains  the  vacillation  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion. During  the  active  proceedings  of  the  Toledo  tribunal,  the 
Suprema,  in  1530,  issued  general  instructions  that  there  should 
be  appended  to  all  edicts  requiring  denunciation  of  prohibited 
books  a  clause  including  mystics  given  to  Illuminism  and  Quiet- 
ism.'' There  seem  to  be  no  traces  of  any  result  from  this  and 
the  whole  matter  appears  to  have  ceased  to  attract  attention  for 
many  years,  until  the  animosity  excited  by  the  Jesuits  led  to  an 
investigation  of  the  results  of  their  teachings.  Melchor  Cano,  who 
hated  them,  denounced  them  as  Alumbrados,  such  as  the  Devil 
has  constantly  thrust  into  the  Church,  and  he  foretold  that  they 
would  complete  what  the  Gnostics  had  commenced.' 


'  Alfonso  Rodriguez,  Ejercicio  de  la  Perfeccion,  P.  I,  Trat.  v,  cap.  7,  12. 

'  Ribadeneira,  Vit.  S.  Ig.  Loyote,  Lib.  v,  cap.  10. 

'"  Alegambe,  Bibl.  Scriptt.  Soc.  Jesu,  p.  136.— Nieremberg,  Honor  del  Gran 
Patriarca  San  Ignacio,  p.  513.— L.  de  la  Puente,  Guia  Spirituale,  P.  ii,  Trat.  1, 
cap.  15,  n.  3;  cap.  18,  n.  2  (Roma,  1628).— De  Backer,  III,  639-53. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  76,  fol.  343. 

'  Caballero,  op,  cit,  p.  526.— Cf,  p.  359. 


Chap.  V]  THE  JESUITS  19 

The  warning  was  unheeded  and,  some  ten  years  later,  another 
Dominican,  Fray  Alonso  de  la  Fuente,  was  led  to  devote  himself 
to  a  mortal  struggle  with  Illuminism,  and  with  the  Society  of 
Jesus  as  its  source.  In  a  long  and  rambling  memorial  addressed, 
in  1575,  to  Philip  II,  he  relates  that,  in  1570,  he  chanced  to  visit 
his  birth-place,  la  Fuente  del  Maestre,  near  Cuidad  Rodrigo,  and 
found  there  a  Jesiiit,  Gaspar  Sdnchez,  highly  esteemed  for  holiness, 
but  who  was  blamed  for  perpetually  confessing  certain  beatas 
and  granting  daily  communion.  Sdnchez  appealed  to  him  for 
support  and  he  preached  in  his  favor,  which  brought  to  him  nume- 
rous beatas,  whose  revelations  of  their  ecstasies  and  other  spiritual 
experiences  surprised  him  greatly.  This  led  him  to  investigate, 
when  he  found  that  the  practice  of  contemplation  was  widely 
spread,  but  its  inner  secrets  were  jealously  guarded,  until  he 
persuaded  a  neice  of  his,  a  girl  of  17,  to  reveal  them.  She  said 
that  her  director  ordered  her  to  place  herself  in  contemplation 
with  the  simple  prayer,  "Lord  I  am  here,  Lord  you  have  me  here!" 
when  there  would  come  such  a  flood  of  evil  thoughts,  of  filthy 
imaginings,  of  carnal  movements,  of  infidel  conceptions,  of  blas- 
phemies against  God  and  the  saints  and  the  purity  of  the  Mother 
of  God,  and  against  the  whole  faith,  that  the  torment  of  them 
rendered  her  crazy,  but  she  bore  it  with  fortitude,  as  her  director 
told  her  that  this  was  a  sign  of  perfection  and  of  progress  on  the 
path.^ 

Thenceforth  Fray  Alonso  devoted  himself  to  the  task  of  investi- 
gating and  exterminating  this  dangerous  heresy,  but  the  work  of 
investigation  was  complicated  by  the  concealment  of  error  under 
external  piety.  Before  discovering  a  single  false  doctrine,  we 
meet,  he  says,  a  thousand  prayers  and  disciplines  and  commun- 
ions and  pious  sighs  and  devotions.  It  is  like  sifting  gold  out 
of  sand;  to  reach  one  heresy  you  must  winnow  away  a  thousand 
pious  works.  So  it  is  everywhere  in  Spain  where  there  are  Jesuits 
and  thus  we  see  what  great  labor  is  required  to  overcome  it,  since 
there  are  not  in  the  kingdom  three  inqtiisitors  who  understand  it 
or  have  the  energy  and  requisite  zeal.  Yet  he  penetrated  far 
enough  into  it,  after  sundry  prosecutions,  to  draw  up  a  list  of 
thirty-nine  errors,  some  of  which,  like  those  ascribed  to  witch- 
craft, suggest  the  influence  of  the  torture-chamber  in  extracting 

'  Fray  Alonso's  Memorial,  from  which  the  subsequent  details  are  drawn,  has 
been  printed  by  Don  Miguel  Mir  in  the  Revista  de  Archivos  for  Aug.-Sept.,  irC3; 
Jan.,  1904;  Aug.-Sept.,  1904j   June,  1905;  July,  1905;   and  Aug.-Sept.,  1905. 


20  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

confessions  satisfactory  to  the  prosecutor.  Not  only  are  the  adepts 
guilty  of  all  the  heresies  of  the  Begghards,  condemned  in  the 
Clementines,  and  of  teaching  that  mental  prayer  is  the  sole  thing 
requisite  to  salvation,  but  the  teachers  are  great  sorcerers  and 
magicians,  who  have  pact  with  the  demon,  and  thus  they  make 
themselves  masters  of  men  and  women,  their  persons  and  property, 
as  though  they  were  slaves.  They  train  many  saints,  who  feel 
in  themselves  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  see  the  Divine  Essence  and 
learn  the  secrets  of  heaven;  who  have  visions  and  revelations  and 
a  knowledge  of  Scripture,  and  all  this  is  accomplished  by  means  of 
the  demon,  and  by  magic  arts.  By  magic,  they  gain  possession 
of  women,  whom  they  teach  that  it  is  no  sin,  and  sometimes  the 
demon  comes  disguised  as  Christ  and  has  commerce  with  the 
women. 

If  Fray  Alonso  found  it  difficult  to  inspire  belief  in  these  horrors, 
it  is  easily  explicable  by  his  account  of  the  origin  of  the  sect  in 
Extremadura,  the  region  to  which  his  labors  were  devoted.  When 
Cristobal  de  Rojas  was  Bishop  of  Badajoz  (1556-1562)  there  came 
there  Padre  Gonzalez,  a  Jesuit  of  high  standing,  who  introduced 
the  use  of  Loyola's  Exercicios;  there  were  already  there  two  priests, 
Hernando  Alvarez  and  the  Licentiate  Zapata,  who  were  familiar 
with  it,  and  the  practice  spread  rapidly,  under  the  favor  of  the 
bishop  and  his  pro  visor  Melendez,  and  none  who  did  not  use  it 
could  be  ordained,  or  obtain  licence  to  preach  and  hear  confes- 
sions, for  the  bishop  placed  all  this  in  the  hands  of  Alvarez;  and 
when  he  was  translated  to  Cordova  (1562-1571)  and  subsequently 
to  Seville  (1571-1580)  he  continued  to  favor  the  Alumbrados. 
He  was  succeeded  in  Badajoz  (1562-1568)  by  Juan  de  Ribera, 
subsequently  Archbishop  of  Valencia,  who  was  at  first  adverse 
to  the  Alumbrados,  but  they  won  him  over,  and  he  became  as 
favorable  to  them  as  Rojas  had  been,  especially  to  the  women, 
whose  trances  and  stigmata  he  investigated  and  approved  and 
rewarded.  If  any  preacher  preached  against  lUuminism,  Ribera 
banished  him  and,  under  this  protection,  the  sect  multiplied 
throughout  Extremadura.  It  is  true  that  Bishop  Simancas,  who 
succeeded  Ribera  (1569-1579)  was  not  so  favorable,  and  his  pro- 
visor,  Picado,  at  one  time  prosecuted  a  number  of  Alumbrados, 
who  took  refuge  in  Seville  under  Rojas,  among  whom  was  Her- 
nando Alvarez,  but  the  Llerena  tribunal  took  no  part  in  this  and 
the  great  body  of  the  sect  was  undisturbed. 

It  is  easy  to  conceive,  therefore,  the  obstacles  confronting  Fray 


Chap.  V]  THE  JESUITS  21 

Alonso,  when  he  commenced  his  crusade  in  1570.  He  relates 
at  much  length  his  labors,  against  great  opposition,  especially  of 
the  Jesuits,  and  he  found  no  little  difficulty  in  arousing  the  Llerena 
inquisitors  to  action,  for  they  said  that  it  was  a  new  matter  and 
obscure,  which  required  instructions  from  the  Suprema.  It  is 
true  that,  in  February  1572,  they  lent  him  some  support  and 
made  a  few  arrests,  but  nothing  seems  to  have  come  of  it.  He 
wished  to  go  to  Madrid  and  lay  the  matter  before  the  Suprema, 
but  his  superiors,  who  apparently  disapproved  of  his  zeal,  sent 
him,  in  October  1572,  to  Avila,  to  purchase  lumber,  and  then 
to  Usagre,  to  preach  the  Lenten  sermons  of  1573.  After  this  his 
prior  despatched  him  to  Arenas  about  the  lumber,  and  it  was  a 
providence  of  God  that  this  business  necessitated  action  by  the 
Council  of  Military  Orders,  so  that  he  had  an  excuse  for  visiting 
Madrid.  There  he  sought  Rodrigo  de  Castro — the  captor  of  Car- 
ranza — to  whom  he  complained  of  the  negligence  and  indifference 
of  the  Llerena  inquisitors,  and  gave  a  memorial  reciting  the  errors 
of  the  Altunbrados.  This  resulted  in  the  Suprema  sending  for 
the  papers,  on  seeing  which  it  ordered  the  arrest  of  the  most 
guilty,  when  Hernando  Alvarez,  Francisco  Zamora  and  Gaspar 
Sdnchez  were  seized  in  Seville,  where  they  had  taken  refuge.  This 
produced  only  a  momentary  effect  in  Extremadura,  where  the 
Alumbrados  comforted  themselves  with  the  assurance  that  their 
leaders  would  be  dismissed  with  honor. 

It  had  been  proposed  to  remove  the  tribunal  from  Llerena  to 
Plasencia,  where  houses  had  been  bought  for  it,  but,  early  in  1574, 
Fray  Alonso  remonstrated  with  the  inquisitor-general,  pointing 
out  that  the  land  was  full  of  Alumbrados,  many  of  them  powerful, 
and  what  preaching  had  been  done  against  them,  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Inquisition,  would  be  silenced  if  it  was  removed. 
This  brought  a  summons  and  in  May  he  appeared  before  the 
Suprema,  where  his  revelations  astonished  the  members  and  they 
asked  his  advice.  He  urged  a  visitation  of  the  district,  to  be  made 
by  the  fiscal  Montoya,  who  had  studied  the  matter  and  imderstood 
it,  while  the  inquisitors  did  not  comprehend  the  subtile  mysteries 
and  distinctions  involved.  It  was  so  ordered,  and  Montoya  com- 
menced his  visitation  at  Zafra,  where,  on  July  25th  he  pubhshed 
the  Edict  of  Faith,  and  a  special  one  against  Illuminism  and  Quiet- 
ism. At  first  he  was  much  disconcerted  in  finding  among  the 
Alumbrados  nothing  but  fasts  and  discipHnes,  prayers,  contem- 
plation, hair-shirts,   confessions  and  communions  or,  if  traces 


22  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

appeared  of  evil  doctrines,  so  commingled  with  the  words  of  God 
and  the  sacraments  that  evil  was  concealed  in  good.  Fray  Alonso 
however  encouraged  him  to  investigate  the  lives  and  conversation 
of  those  who  enjoyed  trances  and  visions  and  the  stigmata,  when 
it  became  evident  that  all  was  magic  art,  the  work  of  Satan  and 
of  hell.  For  four  months  Montoya  gathered  information  and 
sent  the  papers  to  the  Suprema,  which  ordered  the  arrest  with 
sequestration  of  five  persons,  four  of  the  adepts  and  a  female 
disciple.  Towards  the  close  of  December  he  returned  to  Llerena, 
to  resume  the  visitation  in  March,  1575.  During  the  interval 
Fray  Alonso  was  summoned  to  Madrid,  where  he  was  ordered 
to  accompany  Montoya,  and  the  inquisitors  were  instructed  to 
pay  him  a  salary;  this  at  first  they  refused  to  do  and  then  assigned 
him  four  reales  a  day  for  each  day  on  which  he  should  preach, 
but  the  Suprema  intervened  with  an  order  on  the  receiver  to  pay 
him  a  certain  sum  that  would  enable  him  to  perform  the  duty. 
The  visitation  lasted  from  March  till  the  beginning  of  November, 
and  comprised  sixteen  places,  in  which  Fray  Alonso  tells  us  that 
there  were  found  great  errors  and  sins.  Unfortunately  he  omits 
to  inform  us  what  were  the  practical  results  or  what  was  done 
with  the  culprits  arrested  the  previous  year,  and  he  concludes  his 
memorial  by  assuring  us  that  the  Jesuits  and  the  Alumbrados 
are  ahke  in  doctrine  and  are  the  same,  which  is  so  certain  that 
to  doubt  it  would  be  great  sin  and  offence  to  God. 

Fray  Alonso  might  safely  thus  attack  the  children  of  Loyola 
in  Spain,  but  he  made  a  fatal  error  when  his  zeal  induced  him  to 
carry  the  war  into  Portugal.  In  the  following  year,  1576,  he 
addressed  memorials  to  the  Portuguese  ecclesiastical  authorities, 
ascribing  to  the  Jesuits  all  the  Illuminism  that  afflicted  Spain; 
they  taught,  he  said,  that  their  contemplation  of  the  Passion  of 
Christ  was  rewarded  with  the  highest  spiritual  gifts,  including 
impeccability,  with  the  corollary  that  carnal  indulgence  was  no 
sin  in  the  Illuminated,  while  in  reality  their  visions  and  revela- 
tions were  the  work  of  demons,  whom  they  controlled  by  their 
skill  in  sorcery.  The  Jesuits,  however,  by  this  time  were  a  domi- 
nant power  in  Portugal;  Cardinal  Henry,  the  inquisitor-general, 
transmitted  the  memorials  to  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  with  a 
request  for  the  condign  punishment  of  the  audacious  fraile.  It 
was  no  more  than  he  had  openly  preached  and  repeatedly  urged 
on  the  Suprema,  but  the  time  was  fast  approaching  for  the  absorp- 
tion of  Portugal  under  the  Castilian  crown,  and  Cardinal  Henry 


Chap.  V]  THE  ALUMBBADOS  OF  LLEBENA  23 

was  to  be  propitiated.  Fray  Alonso  was  forced  to  retract,  and 
was  recluded  in  a  convent,  but  this  did  not  satisfy  the  Cardinal, 
who  asked  for  his  extradition,  or  that  the  matter  he  submitted  to 
the  Holy  See,  when  the  opportune  death  of  the  fraile  put  a  happy 
end  to  the  matter.^ 

Yet,  in  Spain,  Fray  Alonso  exerted  a  decisive  influence  on  the 
relations  of  the  Inquisition  to  mysticism  and,  before  this  unlucky 
outburst  of  zeal,  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  the  indifference 
of  the  Llerena  tribunal  excited  to  active  work.  In  1576,  while 
preaching  in  that  city,  he  said  that  he  had  heard  of  persons  who, 
under  an  exterior  of  special  sanctity,  gave  free  rein  to  their  appe- 
tites. On  this,  an  imprudent  devotee,  named  Mari  Sanz,  inter- 
rupted him,  exclaiming  "Padre,  the  lives  of  these  people  are 
better  and  their  faith  sounder  than  your  own"  and,  when  he 
reproved  her,  she  declared  that  the  Holy  Spirit  had  moved  her. 
This  was  a  dangerous  admission;  she  was  arrested,  and  her  con- 
fessions led  to  the  seizure  of  so  many  accomplices  that  the  tribunal 
was  obliged  to  ask  for  assistance.  An  experienced  inquisitor, 
Francisco  de  Soto,  Bishop  of  Salamanca,  was  sent,  who  vigorously 
pushed  the  trials  until  he  died,  January  29,  1578,  poisoned,  as  it 
was  currently  reported,  by  his  physician,  who  was  long  detained 
in  prison  under  the  accusation.  How  little  the  sectaries  imagined 
themselves  to  have  erred  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  one  of  them,  a 
shoemaker  named  Juan  Bernal,  obeyed  a  revelation  which  directed 
him  to  appeal  to  Philip  II,  to  tell  him  of  the  injustice  perpetrated 
at  Llerena  and  to  ask  him  why  he  did  not  intervene  and  evoke 
the  matter  to  himself — hardihood  which  earned  for  him  six  years 
of  galley-service  and  two  hundred  lashes. 

The  evidence  elicited  in  the  trials  showed  the  errors  ordinarily 
attributed  to  lUuminism,  including  trances  and  revelations  and 
sexual  abominations  unfit  for  transcription.  After  three  years 
spent  in  this  work,  an  auto  was  held,  June  14,  1579,  in  which, 
among  other  offenders,  there  appeared  fifteen  Alumbrados — ten 
men  and  five  women.  Of  the  men,  all  but  the  unlucky  shoe- 
maker were  priests,  and  among  them  we  recognize  Hernando 
Alvarez,  against  whom  there  appeared  no  less  than  a  hundred 
and  forty-six  witnesses.  Many  were  curas  of  various  towns  and 
naturally  the  illicit  relations  were  principally  between  confessors 
and  their  spiritual  daughters.     From  a  doctrinal  standpoint,  their 


Barrantes,  Aparato  para  la  Historia  de  Extremadura,  II,  332-47. 


21 


MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 


olTcnce  seems  not  to  have  been  regarded  as  serious,  for  none  of 
ilu'in  were  degraded,  and  the  abjvirations  were  for  light  suspicion, 
but  this  leniency  was  accompanied  by  deprivation  of  fimctions, 
galley-service,  reclusion  and  similar  penalties,  while  the  fines 
inflicted  amounted  to  fifteen  hundred  ducats  and  eight  thousand 
niaravedis.  The  unfortunate  Mari  Sanz,  who  had  caused  the 
explosion,  expiated  her  imprudence  by  appearing  with  a  gag  and 
a  sentence  to  perpetual  prison,  two  himdred  lashes  in  Llerena  and 
two  hundred  more  at  la  Fuente  del  Maestre,  her  place  of  residence.^ 
From  the  number  of  those  inculpated  it  may  be  assumed  that 
this  auto  did  not  empty  the  prisons,  and  that  it  was  followed  by 
others,  but  if  so,  we  have  no  record  of  them.  The  impression 
produced  by  the  affair  was  wide  and  profound.  Pdramo,  writing 
towards  the  end  of  the  century,  speaks  of  it  as  one  in  which  the 
vigilance  of  the  Inquisition  preserved  Spain  from  serious  peril.^ 

In  fact,  it  marks  a  turning-point  in  the  relations  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion to  Spanish  mysticism,  of  which  the  persecution  became  one  of 
its  regular  and  recognized  duties.  Even  before  the  auto  of  1579, 
the  Suprema,  in  a  carta  acordada  of  January  4,  1578,  ordered 
the  tribunals  to  add  to  the  Edict  of  Faith  a  section  in  which  the 
errors  developed  in  the  trials  were  enumerated.  These  consisted 
in  asserting  that  mental  prayer  is  of  divine  precept  and  that  it 
fulfils  ever3d;hing,  while  vocal  prayer  is  of  trivial  importance;  that 
the  servants  of  God  are  not  required  to  labor;  that  the  orders  of 
superiors  are  to  be  disregarded,  when  conflicting  with  the  hours 
devoted  to  mental  prayer  and  contemplation ;  decrying  the  sacra- 
ment of  matrimony;  asserting  that  the  perfect  have  no  need  of 
performing  virtuous  actions;  advising  persons  not  to  marry  or  to 
enter  religious  Orders;  saying  that  the  servants  of  God  are  to  shine 
in  secular  life;  obtaining  promises  of  obedience  and  enforcing  it 
in  every  detail;  holding  that,  after  reaching  a  certain  degree  of 


'  BibUoteca  nacional,  MSS.,  S.  151,  fol.  54-67.— Ban-antes,  op.  cit.,  II,  329, 
347-57.— Miscelanea  de  Zapata  (Memorial  hist,  espanol,  XI,  75).— Cipriano  de 
Valera,  Dos  Tratados  (Reformistas  antig.  espafioles,  p.  272).— Dorado,  Com- 
pendio  historico  de  Salamanca,  p.  423. 

In  1576  Alonso  Gonzdlez  Carmena  was  tried  at  Toledo  forsajnng  that  the  only 
object  of  the  Inquisition  was  to  get  money,  and  instancing  a  wealthy  damsel 
of  Llereua  recently  arrested  as  an  Alumbrado.  He  probably  considered  his 
assertions  verified  by  having  to  pay  a  fine  of  4000  maravedls,  in  addition  to  six 
months'  e.xile.— MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Ye,  20,  T.  I. 

'  Pdramo,  p.  302. 


Chap.  V]  HOSTILITY  OF  THE  INQUISITION  25 

perfection,  they  cannot  look  upon  holy  images  or  listen  to  sermons, 
and  teaching  these  errors  under  pledge  of  secrecy/ 

It  is  noteworthy  that  here  there  is  no  allusion  to  ecstasies  or 
trances  or  to  sexual  aberrations,  as  in  subsequent  edicts,  although 
Paramo,  some  twenty  years  later,  in  his  frequent  allusions  to  the 
Alumbrados,  dwells  especially  on  the  latter  and  on  the  dangers 
to  which  they  led  in  the  confessional.^  That  this  danger  was  not 
imaginary  is  indicated  by  the  case  of  Fray  Juan  de  la  Cruz,  a 
discalced  Franciscan,  so  convinced  of  the  truth  of  alumbrado 
doctrine  that,  in  1605,  he  presented  himself  to  the  Toledo  tribimal 
with  a  memorial  in  which  he  argued  that  indecent  practices  between 
spiritual  persons  were  purifying  and  elevating  to  the  soul,  and 
resulting  in  the  greatest  spiritual  benefit  when  imaccompanied 
with  desire  to  sin.  He  was  promptly  placed  on  trial  and  six  wit- 
nesses testified  to  his  teaching  of  this  doctrine.  Ordinary  seduction 
in  the  confessional,  as  will  be  seen  hereafter,  when  the  culprit 
admitted  it  to  be  a  sin,  was  treated  with  comparative  leniency, 
but  doctrinal  error  was  far  more  serious,  and  the  unlucky  fraile, 
who  maintained  throughout  the  trial  the  truth  of  his  theories,  was 
visited  with  much  greater  severity.  Humiliations  and  disabilities 
were  heaped  upon  him;  he  received  a  circular  scourging  in  a 
convent  of  his  order  and  a  monthly  discipline  for  a  year,  with  six 
years  of  reclusion.^ 

Simple  mysticism,  however,  even  without  the  advanced  doc- 
trines of  Illuminism  and  Quietism,  was  becoming  to  the  Inqui- 
sition an  object  of  pronounced  hostility.  The  land  was  being 
filled  with  beatas  revelanderas;  mystic  fervor  was  spreading  and 
threatening  to  become  a  part  of  the  national  religion,  stimulated 
doubtless  by  the  increasing  cult  paid  to  its  prominent  exemplars, 
for  Santa  Teresa  was  beatified  in  1614  and  canonized  in  1622, 
while  San  Pedro  de  Alcantara  was  beatified  in  the  latter  year. 
Apart  from  all  moral  questions,  the  mystic  might  at  any  moment 
assert  independence;  his  theory  was  destructive  to  the  intervention 
of  the  priest  between  man  and  God,  and  Illtmiinism  was  only  a 


'  Arcihvo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  939,  fol.  108;  Lib  979,  fol.  30.— The  details 
of  the  Edict  are  derived  from  a  copy  published  in  Mexico,  July  17,  1579,  which 
I  owe  to  the  kindness  of  the  late  General  Don  Riva  Palacio.  In  the  Edict  pub- 
lished at  the  opening  of  the  Mexican  Inquisition,  Nov.  3,  1571,  there  is  no  allusion 
to  the  subject.     See  Appendix  to  Vol.  II,  p.  587. 

»  Pdramo,  pp.  302,  681-2,  688-9,  854. 

'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I 


26  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

development  of  mysticism.  The  Inquisition  was  not  wholly  con- 
sistent, but  its  determination  to  stem  the  current  which  was  setting 
so  strongly  was  emphatically  expressed  in  the  trial  of  Padre 
Geronimo  de  la  Madre  de  Dios  by  the  Toledo  tribimal  in  1616. 

The  padre  was  a  secular  priest,  the  son  of  Don  Sdnchez  de 
Molina,  who  for  forty-eight  years  had  been  corregidor  of  Malagon. 
He  had  entered  the  Dominican  Order,  had  led  an  irregular  life 
and  apparently  had  been  expelled  but,  in  1610,  had  been  con- 
verted from  his  evil  ways  by  a  vision  and,  in  1613,  obeying  a 
voice  from  God,  he  had  come  to  Madrid  and  taken  service  in  a 
little  hospital  attached  to  the  parish  church  of  San  Martin.  His 
sermons  speedily  attracted  crowds,  including  the  noblest  ladies 
of  the  court;  his  fervent  devotion,  the  austerity  of  his  life,  the  rigor 
of  his  mortifications  and  the  self-denial  of  his  charities  won  for 
him  the  reputation  of  a  saint,  which  was  enhanced  by  the  trances 
into  which  he  habitually  fell  when  celebrating  mass,  and  popular 
credulity  credited  him  with  elevation  from  the  ground.  There  is 
absolutely  no  evidence  that  in  this  there  was  hypocrisy  or  impos- 
ture, and  the  most  searching  investigation  failed  to  discover  any 
imputation  on  his  virtue.  All  that  he  received  he  gave  to  the  poor, 
even  to  clothes  from  his  back,  and  his  sequestrated  property  con- 
sisted solely  of  pious  books,  rosaries  and  objects  of  devotion. 
He  speedily  gathered  around  him  disciples,  prominent  among 
whom  was  Fray  Bartolome  de  Alcala,  vicar  of  the  Geronimite 
convent;  the  number  of  their  penitents,  all  espirituales  was  large, 
and  these  usually  partook  of  the  sacrament  daily  or  oftener ;  many 
of  them  had  revelations  and  were  consulted  by  the  pious  as  being 
in  direct  relations  with  God,  from  whom  they  received  answers  to 
petitions. 

In  all  this  there  was  nothing  beyond  the  manifestations  of  devo- 
tional fervor  customary  to  Spanish  piety,  but  an  accusation  was 
brought  against  Padre  Geronimo,  September  20, 1615,  for  teaching 
that  the  soul  could  reach  a  state  of  perfection  in  which  it  would 
be  an  act  of  imperfection  to  ask  God  for  anything.  This,  which 
was  one  of  the  refinements  of  mysticism,  was  subsequently  proved 
by  the  calificadores  to  be  subversive  of  existing  observances, 
because  the  saints  in  heaven  were  in  a  state  of  perfection  and,  if 
they  could  ask  nothing  of  God,  what  would  become  of  their  suffrage 
and  intercession  and  what  would  be  the  use  of  the  cult  and  obla- 
tions offered  to  them  ?  Still,  at  the  time,  the  tribunal  took  no  action 
beyond  examining  a  few  witnesses,  and  Geronimo  would  probably 


Chap.  V]  CfEBOMMO  BE  LA  MADME  DE  DI08  27 

not  have  been  disturbed  in  his  useful  career  had  he  not  written  a 
book.  In  his  mystic  zeal  he  imagined  himself  inspired  in  the 
composition  of  a  work  entitled  El  Discipulo  espiritual  que  trata 
de  oracion  mental  y  de  espiritu,  which  he  submitted  to  several 
learned  theologians,  whose  emendations  he  adopted.  This  had 
considerable  currency  in  MS. ;  a  demand  arose  for  its  printing,  and 
he  laid  it  before  the  Royal  Council  for  a  licence,  when  he  was 
informed  that  the  approbation  of  the  episcopal  provisor  of  Toledo 
was  a  condition  precedent.  After  sending  it  to  that  official  and 
receiving  no  answer  for  six  months,  he  submitted  a  copy  to  the 
Suprema,  October  20,  1615,  explaining  what  he  had  done  and 
asking  for  its  examinationj  if  there  was  in  it  anything  contrary  to 
the  faith,  he  desired  its  correction,  for  he  wished  the  work  to  be 
unimpeachably  orthodox  and  would  die  a  thousand  deaths  in 
defence  of  the  true  reUgion. 

He  waited  some  seven  months  and,  on  May  17,  1616,  he  ven- 
tured an  inquiry  of  the  Suprema,  but  a  month  earlier  three  cali- 
ficadores  had  reported  on  it  unfavorably,  the  Suprema  had  ordered 
the  Toledo  tribunal  to  act  and,  on  May  28th,  the  warrant  for  his 
arrest  with  sequestration  was  issued.  A  mass  of  papers,  MS. 
sermons,  tracts  and  miscellaneous  accumulations  were  distributed 
among  fifteen  calificadores,  who,  as  scholastic  theologians,  were 
not  propitiated  by  his  contempt  for  schoolmen.  They  performed 
their  task  with  avidity  and  accumulated  an  imposing  array  of 
a  hundred  and  eighty-six  erroneous  propositions — many  of  them 
the  veriest  trifles,  significant  only  of  their  temper,  but,  after  all  his 
explanations,  there  was  a  formidable  residuum  of  twenty-five 
qualified  as  heretical,  twenty-nine  as  erroneous,  three  as  sacri- 
legious, and  nimierous  others-  as  scandalous,  rash  and  savoring 
of  heresy. 

Despite  the  piteous  supplications  of  his  aged  father,  his  trial 
lasted  imtil  September,  1618— some  twenty-seven  months  of  incar- 
ceration, during  which  his  health  suffered  severely.  Throughout 
it  all  he  never  varied  from  his  attitude  of  abject  submission; 
kneeling  and  weeping  he  begged  for  penance  and  punishment,  as 
he  would  rather  be  plunged  in  hell  than  commit  a  sin  or  give  utter- 
ance to  aught  offensive  to  pious  ears.  This  availed  him  little. 
He  was  sentenced  to  appear  in  the  auto  of  September  2,  1618,  as 
a  penitent,  to  abjure  de  vehementi  and  to  retract  pubHcly  a  fist  of 
sixty-one  errors.  He  was  forbidden  for  life  to  preach  or  to  hear 
confessions,  or  to  write  on  religious  subjects;  he  was  recluded  for 


28  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

a  year  in  a  designated  convent  and  for  five  more  was  banished 
from  Madrid  and  Toledo,  and  a  public  edict  commanded  the  sur- 
render of  all  his  writings.  Thus  he  was  not  only  publicly  pro- 
claimed a  heretic,  but  his  career  was  blasted,  he  was  virtually 
deprived  of  the  means  of  subsistence,  yet  his  first  act  on  reaching 
his  place  of  confinement  was  to  write  humbly  thanking  the 
inquisitors  for  their  kindness.  Seven  months  later  he  appealed 
to  them,  saying  that  he  was  sick  and  enfeebled,  he  had  been  bled 
four  times  and  he  begged  for  the  love  of  God  that  he  might  be 
spared  the  rest  of  his  reclusion  and  be  allowed  to  comfort  his 
aged  father.  To  this  no  attention  was  paid  and  we  hear  nothing 
more  of  him. 

For  us  the  interest  of  the  case  lies  not  so  much  in  the  cruelty 
with  which  the  bruised  reed  was  broken,  as  in  the  revelation  of 
the  silent  revolution  in  the  Spanish  Church  with  regard  to  mysti- 
cism. In  the  sixty-one  condemned  propositions  there  were  one  or 
two  properly  liable  to  censure,  the  most  dangerous  being  that 
ascribed  to  the  Begghards — that  the  perfected  soul  enjoys  the 
spirit  of  liberty,  going  at  will  without  laws  or  rules,  and  that  in 
this  state  God  gives  it  the  power  of  working  miracles.  Another 
which  asserted  that  devotion  to  images,  rosaries,  blessed  beads  etc. 
was  an  error  so  great  that  souls  so  employed  could  have  no  hope 
of  salvation  was  scarce  more  than  an  exaggeration  of  the  precepts 
of  Francisco  de  Osuna  and  Juan  de  la  Cruz.  For  the  most  part, 
the  condemned  propositions  were  merely  the  common-places  of 
the  great  mystics  of  the  sixteenth  century — that  the  perfected  soul 
enjoys  absolute  peace,  for  the  appetites  and  passions  are  at  rest  and 
the  flesh  in  no  way  contradicts  the  spirit — that  trances  are  the 
highest  of  God's  gifts — that  the  supreme  grade  of  contemplation 
becomes  habitual,  and  that  the  soul  at  will  can  thus  enter  God's 
presence— that,  in  the  trance,  God  can  be  seen— that  the  perfected 
soul  should  ask  only  that  God's  will  be  done.  Other  condemna- 
tions were  directed  against  the  claims  of  inspiration  and  revelation, 
against  the  suspension  of  the  faculties  in  mental  prayer,  against 
the  Union  with  God  which  had  been  the  aim  of  all  the  mystics. 
In  short,  it  was  a  condemnation  of  the  doctrines  and  practices 
which,  for  centuries,  had  been  recognized  by  the  Church  as  mani- 
festations of  the  utmost  holiness.  Had  Francisco  de  Osuna,  Luis 
de  Granada,  San  Pedro  de  Alcdntara,  Santa  Teresa,  San  Juan  de 
la  Cruz  and  their  disciples  been  judged  by  the  same  standard, 
they  would  have  shared  the  fate  of  Padre  Geronimo  unless,  indeed, 


Chap   V]  THE  MYSTICS  OF  SEVILLE  29 

their  convictions  had  led  them  to  refuse  submission,  in  which  case 
they  would  have  been  burnt.'  This  was  shown  at  ValladoUd 
when,  in  1620,  Juan  de  Gabana,  priest  of  San  Martin  de  Valverri 
and  Ger6nima  Gonzalez,  a  widow,  were  prosecuted  for  mysticism. 
He  died  in  prison,  pertinacious  to  the  last  and  was  duly  burnt  in 
effigy,  in  1622.  She  was  less  firm  and  was  voted  to  reconciha- 
tion,  but  the  Suprema  ordered  her  to  be  tortured ;  this  she  escaped 
by  dying,  and  her  effigy  was  reconciled.^ 

Yet  the  mystic  cult  was  too  firmly  planted  in  the  religious  habits 
of  Spain  to  be  readily  eradicated,  nor  was  the  Inquisition  prepared 
to  be  wholly  consistent.  While  Padre  Geronimo  was  thus  harshly 
treated  for  unpublished  writings,  the  Minim  Fray  Fernando  de 
Caldera  was  allowed  undisturbed  to  publish,  in  1623,  his  Mistica 
Teologia,  perhaps  the  craziest  of  the  mystic  treatises.  It  is  cast 
in  the  form  of  instructions  uttered  by  Christ,  in  the  first  person, 
and  teaches  Illuminism  and  Quietism  of  the  most  exalted  kind. 
The  intellect  is  to  be  suspended  and  the  will  abandoned  to  God, 
who  does  with  it  as  he  pleases,  infusing  it  with  divine  light  and 
admitting  it  to  a  knowledge  of  the  divine  mysteries.  Lubricious 
temptations,  if  they  come  from  the  flesh  are  to  be  overcome  with 
austerities;  if  from  pride,  with  humifity;  if  they  are  passive,  they 
are  to  be  met  with  patience  and  resignation,  for  God  who  sends 
them  will  remove  them  at  his  own  time  and  with  great  benefit  to 
the  soul.'  No  teaching  more  dangerous  is  to  be  fotmd  in  Molinos 
but,  although  a  translation  of  the  work  appeared  in  Rome  in 
1658,  it  escaped  condemnation  both  there  and  in  Spain. 

During  this  time  there  was  a  storm  gathering  in  Seville  which 
enabled  the  Inquisition  to  impress  its  definite  policy  on  the  mys- 
tically inclined.  We  have  seen  how  mysticism  flourished  there 
under  the  patronage  of  Archbishop  Rojas,  and  the  persecution 
in  Extremadura  seems  not  to  have  extended  to  Andalusia,  so  that 
it  continued  unrepressed.  While  Padre  Geronimo  was  awaiting 
his  doom  in  Toledo,  a  much  more  extravagant  performer  was 
enjoying  the  cult  of  the  devout  in  Seville.  A  priest  named  Fer- 
nando Mendez  had  a  special  reputation  for  sanctity;  when  cele- 
brating mass  he  fell  into  trances  and  uttered  terrible  roars;  he 
taught  his  disciples  to  invoke  his  intercession,  as  though  he  were 
already  a  saint  in  heaven ;  fragments  of  his  garments  were  treas- 

'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  VII. 
'  Archivo  de  Simanoas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552,  fol.  1. 
'  Mfstica  Teologia,  Lib.  ii,  cap.  1,  4,  5,  6, 


30  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

ured  as  relics;  he  gathered  a  congregation  of  beatas  and,  after 
mass  in  his  oratory,  they  would  strip  off  their  garments  and  dance 
with  indecent  vigor — drunk  with  the  love  of  God — and,  on  some  of 
his  female  penitents,  he  would  impose  the  penance  of  lifting  their 
skirts  and  exposing  themselves  before  him.  His  disciples  were 
not  drawn  merely  from  the  lower  classes,  for  we  are  told  that  as 
many  as  thirty  coaches  could  be  counted  of  a  morning  around  the 
gate  of  the  Franciscan  convent  to  which  he  had  retired/ 

This  hysteric  contagion  spread  through  Seville,  affecting  a 
considerable  portion  of  the  population.  There  was  no  concealment 
and  evidently  no  thought  that  it  involved  suspicion  of  heresy,  or 
that  it  departed  in  any  way  from  orthodoxy.  A  special  group 
of  mystics,  known  as  la  Granata,  under  successive  spiritual  direc- 
tors, had  long  held  their  meetings  in  the  chapel  of  Nuestra  Seiiora 
de  la  Granada,  without  exciting  animadversion  or  calling  for  inter- 
ference from  the  Inquisition.^  When,  however,  the  imperious 
Pacheco,  in  1622,  assumed  the  ofRce  of  inquisitor-general,  he 
speedily  ordered  the  Seville  tribunal  to  investigate  and  report  as 
to  the  mystic  extravagances  current  in  the  city,  and  there  could 
have  been  no  difficulty  in  collecting  ample  material  for  condem- 
nation according  to  the  new  standard.  This  resulted  in  the  publi- 
cation of  a  special  Edict  of  Grace,  May  9,  1523,  granting  the  cus- 
tomary thirty  days  in  which  those  feeling  themselves  inculpated 
could  denoimce  themselves  and  their  accomplices  and  be  admitted 
to  absolution  with  salutary  penance  and  without  confiscation  or 
disabilities  affecting  their  descendants.  That  all  might  under- 
stand what  these  new  heresies  were,  the  edict  embodied  a  list  of 
seventy-six  errors  ascribed  to  the  Alumbrados,  which  marks  the 
advance  made  since  1578  in  suppressing  mysticism  in  general 
and  in  attributing  to  it  additional  evil  practices.  There  was  a 
fuller  condemnation  of  the  beliefs  common  to  all  mystics,  which 
had  so  often  earned  canonization — that  their  trembling  or  burn- 
ing or  fainting  was  a  sign  of  grace  and  of  the  influence  of  the 
Holy  Spirit— that  a  stage  of  perfection  could  be  reached  in  which 
they  could  see  the  Divine  Essence  and  the  mysteries  of  the 
Trinity  and  that,  in  this  state,  grace  drowned  all  the  faculties— 
that  they  were  governed  directly  by  the  Holy  Spirit  in  what 
they  did  or  left  undone— that  in  contemplation  they  dismissed 


>  Menfodez  y  Pelayo,  II,  647-8.— MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch  S,  130. 
'  Barrantes,  Aparato,  II,  363. 


Chap.  V]  THE  MYSTICS  OF  SEVILLE  31 

all  thought  and  concentrated  theniselves  in  the  presence  of  God 
—that,  in  the  state  of  Union  with  God,  the  will  is  subordinated— 
that  in  trances  God  is  clearly  seen  in  his  glory- that  mental 
prayer  renders  other  works  superfluous— that  other  duties,  both 
religious  and  worldly,  can  be  neglected  to  devote  oneself  wholly 
to  this  supreme  devotion. 

Besides  these,  there  was  an  enumeration  of  the  errors  commonly 
attributed  to  the  Alumbrados  with  more  or  less  justice — impec- 
cability— ^the  elevation  of  mental  prayer  to  the  dignity  of  a 
sacrament — communion  with  more  than  one  wafer — promiscuous 
intercotu-se  among  the  elect — indecent  actions  in  the  confessional 
regarded  as  meritorious — teaching  wives  to  refuse  cohabitation — 
forcing  girls  to  take  vows  of  chastity  or  to  become  nuns — requiring 
vows  of  absolute  obedience  to  the  spiritual  director — breathing 
on  the  mouths  of  female  penitents  to  communicate  to  them  the 
love  of  God — violation  of  the  seal  of  the  confessional — that  the 
perfected  have  power  of  absolution  even  in  reserved  cases — that 
those  who  follow  this  doctrine  will  escape  purgatory  and  that 
many  who  refused  to  do  so  have  returned  to  beg  release,  when  they 
give  them  an  Evangelio  and  see  them  fly  to  heaven.  One  article 
would  indicate  that  among  the  devotees,  as  was  usually  the  case, 
there  was  at  least  one  who  boasted  of  bearing  the  stigmata,  of 
conversing  with  God  and  of  living  solely  upon  the  sacrament, 
while  a  clause  requiring  the  surrender  of  all  statutes  and  instruc- 
tions for  their  congregations  and  assemblies  shows  that  they  were 
organized  into  more  or  less  formal  associations.' 

The  audacious  assumption  of  power  in  this  pronouncement 
was  forcibly  pointed  out  by  Juan  Djonisio  Portocarrero,  in  an 
opinion  furnished  to  the  Archbishop  Pedro  de  Castro  y  Quinones. 
There  was  gross  disrespect  shown  to  him,  who  had  been  kept  in 
ignorance,  though  it  was  known  that  an  edict  was  in  preparation, 
of  which  the  nature  was  sedulously  concealed  until  it  was  suddenly 
published  in  all  the  churches.  Inquisitors  could  not  decide  cases 
without  the  participation  of  the  Ordinary,  while  here  the  cases 
were  tried  and  the  parties  admitted  to  reconciliation,  without 
caUing  in  the  episcopal  authority.     Similar  usxirpation  was  mani- 

'  Barrantes,  op.  cit.,  II,  364-70.  This  copy  is  somewhat  imperfect;  a  better 
one  is  in  the  Bibliotheque  nationale,  fonds  Dupuy,  673,  fol.  181. 

Malvasia  (Cathalogus  omnium  Hseresum  et  Conciliorum,  Romse,  1661,  p.  269) 
gives  a  list  of  fifty  Uluminist  errors  from  this  edict  of  Pacheco.  Cf.  Bemino, 
Historia  di  tutte  I'Heresie,  IV,  613  (Venezia,  1717). 


32  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

fested  in  the  definition  of  heresies,  which  was  the  attribute  of  the 
Holy  See  and  of  general  councils,  not  of  the  Inquisition.  No 
general  council  could  do  more  than  the  inquisitor-general  had  done 
in  defining  the  seventy-six  errors,  and  to  say  that  these  errors 
were  widely  disseminated  in  Seville,  not  without  fault  of  those 
permitting  it,  and  to  do  so  without  calling  upon  the  archbishop 
to  explain  the  condition  of  his  flock,  was  to  condemn  him  without 
a  hearing.  These  seventy-six  propositions  were  all  styled  matters 
of  faith,  although  many  of  them  were  rather  matters  of  discipline, 
pertaining  to  the  Ordinary,  yet  all  were  reserved  to  the  Inquisition. 
Moreover,  the  inquisitor-general  was  not  competent  to  decide  the 
disputed  question  whether  the  power  assured  to  bishops  to  absolve 
for  secret  heresy  was  annulled  by  the  buU  in  Ccena  Domini.  Then 
Portocarrero  proceeded  to  examine  one  by  one  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  condemned  propositions  and  showed  that  some  of 
them  expressed  the  accepted  teaching  of  the  Church,  while  many 
were  not  cognizable  by  the  Inquisition,  because  they  had  nothing 
to  do  with  faith,  and  others  again  he  omitted  as  being  unintelligible. 
He  urged  the  archbishop  to  vindicate  his  jurisdiction  quietly, 
without  causing  scandal,  and  that  the  edict  be  examined  and  quali- 
fied by  learned  men,  not  Dominicans,  for  it  had  originated  with 
them — the  truth  being  that  the  inculpated  mystics  were  mostly 
under  the  direction  of  Franciscans  and  Jesuits  and  that,  in  the 
bitter  hatred  between  the  Orders,  the  Dominicans  had  stirred 
up  the  matter  to  strike  a  blow  at  their  rivals.^ 

The  poor  old  archbishop,  who  died  in  December  of  the  same  year, 
of  course  did  nothing.  The  edict  was  published  on  June  4th  and 
again  on  the  11th,  when  the  most  pious  circles  in  Seville  suddenly 
found  themselves  arraigned  for  heresy.  Mysticism  had  become 
fashionable,  especially  among  the  women,  from  the  noblest  to 
the  lower  classes,  and  they  rushed  at  once  to  obtain  the  pardon 
promised  within  the  thirty  days.  A  Seville  letter  of  June  15th 
says  that  an  inquisitor  with  a  secretary  established  himself  in 
San  Pablo  (the  Dominican  church  used  in  autos  de  fe),  eating  and 
sleeping  there,  and  on  duty  from  5  a.m.  until  10  p.m.,  with  an 
hour's  intermission  for  meals,  but  that  he  could  not  attend  to  a 
twentieth  part  of  the  applicants,  and  that  another  thirty  days 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  927,  fol.  475. 

This  bold  protest  seems  to  have  called  attention  to  Portocarrero's  ability 
for,  in  1624,  we  find  him  appointed  Inquisitor  of  Majorca  and  writing  a  book  in 
defence  of  the  Inquisition  against  the  royal  jurisdiction. 


Chap.  V]  THE  MYSTICS  OF  SEVILLE  33 

would  have  to  be  granted.  In  this  there  is  doubtless  exaggeration, 
but  another  authority  states  the  number  of  those  inculpated  at 
695.'  There  had  of  course  been  no  intentional  heresy  and  there 
were  no  pertinacious  heretics,  although  among  them  were  impos- 
tors who  had  traded  upon  popular  credulity  and  love  for  the 
marvellous.  Still,  an  auto  de  fe  was  necessary  to  confirm  the 
impression  and  it  was  held  on  November  30,  1624,  in  which  eleven 
Alumbrados  appeared,  but  eight  of  them  were  confessed  impostors. 
Of  the  remaining  three,  one  was  the  Padre  Fernando  M^ndez,  who 
in  dying  had  distributed  his  garments  and  his  virtues  among  his 
disciples;  no  special  punishment  was  decreed  against  his  memory, 
but  his  effigy  was  displayed  in  the  auto,  his  revelations,  trances, 
visions  and  prophecies  were  declared  to  be  fictitious,  and  his  dis- 
ciples were  required  to  surrender  the  articles  which  they  had 
treasured  as  relics.  Another  was  a  mulatto  slave  named  Antonio 
de  la  Cruz,  who  had  united  to  his  mysticism  some  unauthorized 
speculations  respecting  the  power  of  Satan;  he  escaped  with  abju- 
ration de  levi  and  deprivation  of  the  sacrament  except  at  Easter, 
Pentecost  and  Christmas.  The  third  was  Francisco  del  Castillo, 
a  priest  whose  trances  were  so  frequent  and  uncontrollable  that 
they  would  seize  him  in  the  act  of  eating ;  he  was  at  the  head  of  a 
congregation,  the  members  of  which  he  boasted  were  all  saved, 
and  through  which  the  Church  was  to  be  reformed,  he  being 
possessed  of  the  spirit  of  Jesiis  Christ  and  his  disciples  of  that  of 
the  Apostles— all  of  which  had  not  prevented  him  from  maintaining 
improper  relations  with  his  female  penitents.  He  was  sentenced 
only  to  abjuration  de  levi,  perpetual  deprivation  of  confessing 
and  reclusion  for  four  years  in  a  convent,  with  exile  from  Seville— 
the  usual  penalty,  as  we  shall  see,  for  solicitation  ad  turpia  in  the 
confessional— with  warning  of  severer  punishment  if  he  did  not 
abandon  his  visions  and  revelations.^ 

Evidently  the  object  of  the  Edict  had  been  to  warn  rather  than 
to  punish;  but  few  examples  were  deemed  necessary,  and  in  these 
the  mildness  of  the  penalties  indicates  a  recognition  of  the  fact 
that  these  so-called  heresies  had  not  previously  been  regarded  as 
culpable.  It  sufficed  to  set  an  impressive  stamp  of  reprobation 
on  mysticism  without  unnecessary  severity. 

Seville,  however,  was  not  yet  cleansed  of  the  infection.  At  an 
auto  held  some  two  years  later,  on  February  28,  1627,  there  were 

'  Barrantes,  op.  cit.,  II,  363,  371-2. 
'  MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch  S,  130. 
VOL.  IV  3 


34 


MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 


two  conspicuous  mystics,  Maestre  Juan  de  Villalpando,  a  priest  in 
charge  of  one  of  the  city  parishes,  and  Madre  CataUna  de  Jesus, 
a  Carmelite  beata.  Notwithstanding  the  Edict  of  1623,  Villal- 
pando had  maintained  a  congregation  of  both  sexes,  who  obeyed 
him  implicitly  in  all  things,  temporal  and  spiritual.  No  less  than 
two  hundred  and  seventy-five  erroneous  propositions  were  charged 
against  him,  and  he  was  required  to  retract  twenty-two  articles. 
He  was  deprived  of  his  priestly  functions,  recluded  for  four  years 
in  a  convent  and  confined  subsequently  to  the  city  of  Seville,  with 
a  fine  of  two  hundred  ducats.  Madre  Catalina,  for  thirty-eight 
years,  had  been  sick  with  the  love  of  God,  and  her  continued  exist- 
ence was  regarded  as  a  miracle  by  her  numerous  disciples,  who 
treasm-ed  as  relics  whatever  had  touched  her  person.  She  was 
accused  of  improper  relations  with  a  priest— probably  Villal- 
pando—who  reverenced  her  as  his  guide  and  teacher,  and  she  was 
a  dogmatizer,  for  her  writings,  both  MS.  and  printed,  were  required 
to  be  surrendered.  On  the  testimony  of  a  hundred  and  forty- 
eight  witnesses,  she  was  sentenced  to  reclusion  for  six  years  in  a 
hospital,  where  she  was  to  earn  her  support  by  labor.^ 

This  shows  increasing  severity,  and  a  still  more  deterrent  exam- 
ple was  furnished,  in  1630,  by  an  auto  in  which  eight  Alumbrados, 
as  we  are  told,  were  burned  alive  and  six  in  effigy.  There  were 
also  sixty  reconciliations,  of  which  some  were  doubtless  for  the 
same  heresy.^  We  have  no  further  details  of  this  auto,  save  that 
Bernino  characterizes  the  victims  as  obstinate;  possibly  they  may 
have  been  relapsed  but,  as  we  have  seen,  the  abjurations  had  been 
for  light  suspicion,  which  did  not  entail  relaxation  for  relapse.  Be 
this  as  it  may,  the  affair  would  indicate  that  lUuminism  was  now 
regarded  as  formal  heresy,  not  as  merely  inferring  suspicion,  and 
that  pertinacity  incurred  the  stake. 

Obstinacy,  in  fact,  converts  into  formal  heresy  what  may  be 
otherwise  regarded  as  light  suspicion,  as  it  infers  disobedience  to 
the  decisions  of  the  Church.  This  is  seen  in  an  interesting  review 
of  the  whole  subject  by  an  inquisitor  about  1640.  He  describes 
the  evidence  customarily  brought  against  alumbrado  confessors 
and  preachers,  of  teaching  sensuality  under  cover  of  mortification. 
Some  hold  that  indecent  handling  and  sleeping  with  a  woman 

>  MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch  Seld.  A.,  Subt.  11;  Arch  Seld.  130. 

'  Llorente,  Hist,  crit.,  cap.  xxxviii,  n.  5. — Llorente's  statement  is  confirmed 
by  the  account  in  Bemino's  Historia  di  tulle  VHeresie,  IV,  613.  See  also  Terzago, 
Theologia  historico-mystica,  p.  6  (Venetiis,  1764). 


Chap.  V]  TREATMENT  35 

are  meritorious  as  trampling  on  the  devil  and  overcoming  temp- 
tation; so  it  is  with  making  the  penitent  strip  and  stand  against  a 
wall  with  arms  outstretched,  and  other  details  that  may  well  be 
spared.  There  is  also  teaching  that  obedience  is  better  than  the 
sacrament  and  that  it  excuses  what  would  otherwise  be  evil,  or 
that  God  has  revealed  to  them  that  such  things  are  not  sin,  or  that 
interior  impulses  are  to  be  followed  in  doing  or  not  doing  an37thing. 
Such  persons,  he  tells  us  are  confined  in  the  secret  prison,  without 
sequestration,  although,  if  there  is  suspicion  of  heresy,  there  is 
sequestration.  If,  as  usually  occurs,  they  confess  to  these  teach- 
ings, extenuating  them  as  the  result  of  thoughtlessness  or  ignorance 
without  errors  of  belief,  and  if  they  are  priests  or  frailes,  the  sen- 
tence is  read  in  the  audience-chamber  and  the  punishment  is  the 
same  as  for  solicitation  in  the  confessional — that  is  to  say,  reclusion 
in  a  monastery  for  a  term  of  years  and  deprivation  of  the  faculty 
of  confessing.  But,  if  this  evil  doctrine  has  caused  much  injury, 
as  at  Llerena,  they  appear  in  a  public  auto  with  some  years  of 
galley-service  and,  if  they  are  priests  owning  property,  they  are 
fined  at  discretion. 

If  there  should  be  obstinacy  and  rejection  of  the  arguments  of 
the  theologians  deputed  to  reason  with  them,  there  is  postpone- 
ment for  some  months  to  allow  time  for  conversion,  as  happened 
in  Logrono  with  a  certain  priest,  and  in  Valladolid  with  a  fraile. 
The  priest  taught  his  female  penitents  that  there  was  no  sin  in 
kisses  and  in  indecent  handling  and  in  sleeping  with  a  woman  so 
long  as  the  final  act  was  omitted.  He  revoked  repeatedly  and 
varied  between  submission  and  persistence,  but  was  convinced 
at  last  and  appeared  in  a  public  auto,  abjured  de  vehementi,  was 
verbally  degraded  with  five  years  of  galleys  and  ten  more  of  exile, 
besides  perpetual  deprivation  of  confessing.  If  the  culprit  is 
impervious  to  argument  and  will  not  abandon  errors  of  behef, 
he  must  be  treated  as  a  heretic  and  be  relaxed  even  if  he  denies 
intention.  There  was  one  who  abjured  de  vehementi  and  relapsed. 
It  was  alleged  by  his  Order  that  he  was  insane,  for  he  was  a 
person  of  high  repute  for  virtue  and  learning;  he  was  given  secret 
penance,  but  so  severe  that  he  was  never  heard  of  again.^ 

From  this  statement  it  would  appear  that  the  extreme  position 
assumed  by  Pacheco  had  not  been  maintained  and  that  simple 
mysticism   was  tolerated  unless    it  was  complicated   with  the 


'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xxi. 


36  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

follies  of  lUuminism,  especially  as  concerned  the  relations 
between  the  sexes.  The  policy  of  the  Inquisition,  in  fact, 
was  by  no  means  uniform;  for  a  time  many  harmless  mys- 
tics were  allowed  to  enjoy  in  peace  the  veneration  of  their 
disciples  while,  if  there  was  scandal  or  imposture  or  some  ulte- 
rior motive,  prosecution  was  easy.  One  such  case  was  that 
of  Fray  Francisco  Garcia  Calderon  whom  we  have  seen  (Vol. 
II,  p.  135)  concerned  with  the  case  of  the  nuns  of  San  Placido  and 
the  Marquis  of  Villanueva,  in  1630.  A  contemporary  was  Dona 
Luisa  de  Colmenares,  popularly  known  as  Madre  Luisa  de  Carrion, 
a  nun  of  the  convent  of  Santa  Clara,  at  Carrion  de  los  Condes, 
who,  at  the  age  of  seventy,  had  passed  fifty-three  years  in  a  cloister. 
She  was  not  strictly  an  Alumbrado  but  a  mystic  of  the  type  of 
Santa  Teresa,  and  her  case  is  instructive  as  showing  how  general 
was  the  belief  attributing  supernatural  powers  to  beings  favored 
by  God,  how  profitably  this  belief  could  be  exploited  by  shrewd 
management,  and  how  effectively  the  Inquisition  could  intervene, 
in  the  face  of  the  most  intense  popular  opposition.  There  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  Madre  Luisa  was  consciously  an  impostor; 
she  was  merely  an  ignorant  old  woman,  hypnotically  habituated 
to  trances  and  visions  Hke  so  many  others,  and  the  Franciscan 
Order,  to  which  she  belonged,  saw  in  her  a  speculative  value  of 
which  they  made  the  most.  Philip  IV  venerated  her  and  popes 
were  her  correspondents;  there  was  an  immense  demand  for  ob- 
jects sanctified  by  her — crosses,  beads,  images  of  the  Christ-child 
and  similar  trifles — the  sales  of  which  brought  in  large  profits  and, 
between  these  and  the  offerings  of  pilgrims,  the  Order  was  said  to 
have  realized  two  hundred  thousand  crowns  and  to  look  forward 
to  much  more  if  it  could  secure  her  canonization  after  death. 

Suddenly,  in  1635,  the  Inquisition  imdertook  to  investigate  her. 
There  had  been  nothing  exceptional  in  her  career,  except  its  suc- 
cess and,  under  Franciscan  management  she  had  been  mostly 
kept  clear  of  the  errors  condemned  in  Pacheco's  edict.  The 
motive  for  action  is  obscure,  and  the  most  probable  suggestion  is 
that  the  opponents  of  Count-Duke  Olivares  had  sought,  after  the 
fashion  of  the  time,  to  make  use,  for  political  ends,  of  the  boundless 
popular  veneration  of  which  she  was  the  object.  Yet  there  was 
significant  caution  in  the  preliminaries.  Juan  Santos,  senior 
Inquisitor  of  Valladolid,  was  ordered  to  examine  her,  when  he 
pretended  a  visit  to  the  Bishop  of  Palencia  and  on  the  road  stopped 
for  a  fortnight  at  Carrion.    It  was  not  difficult  to  involve  an  untu- 


Chap.  V]  MADRE  LUIS  A  BE  CARBION  37 

tored  nun  in  erroneous  theological  speculations,  and  a  warrant 
for  her  arrest  followed ;  she  was  placed  in  a  carriage  with  a  female 
relative  of  one  of  the  inquisitors,  when  her  journey  to  Valladohd 
was  a  triumphal  procession.  A  pillar  of  light,  changing  into  a 
cross,  was  seen  in  the  sky;  everywhere  the  population  gathered 
in  mass,  and  the  precaution  of  entering  Valladolid  at  night  was 
unavailing,  for  the  crowds  were  so  great  that  she  was  with  difficulty 
carried  in  safety,  through  the  surging  mob  striving  to  gather  some 
fragment  of  her  dress  as  a  talisman.  She  was  housed  in  the 
Augustinian  convent,  where  she  was  the  object  of  veneration  to 
the  nuns,  who  declared  her  destined  to  be  the  most  powerful  saint 
in  the  annals  of  the  Church ;  but  it  was  observed  that  she  no  longer 
had  ecstasies,  although  at  Carrion  they  had  been  of  daily  occurrence 
and  were  celebrated  by  sounding  the  organ,  when  everyone  rushed 
to  see  them. 

The  Franciscans  officially  undertook  her  defence;  the  population 
of  Valladolid,  with  the  bishop  at  their  head,  were  so  demonstrative 
in  her  favor  that  the  tribunal  hesitated,  and  the  Suprema  had  to 
send  a  special  commissioner,  who  was  no  other  than  our  old  ac- 
quaintance Juan  Dionisio  Portocarrero,  soon  afterwards  rewarded 
with  the  bishopric  of  Guadix.  It  was  easy  to  make  her  convict  her- 
self of  heresy,  for  she  was  foolish  and  ignorant,  full  of  vain-glory, 
and  merely  a  tool  of  the  rapacious  friars  who  had  exploited  her. 
Papers  signed  by  her  were  in  circulation  in  which  she  declared 
that  she  had  seen  the  Divine  Essence,  that  she  Was  confirmed 
in  grace,  that  at  six  years  of  age  Christ  had  removed  her  heart  of 
flesh  and  substituted  his  own,  that  he  had  given  her  an  apple  of 
paradise  by  which  she  would  remain  immortal  until  the  Day  of 
Judgement,  when  she  would  accompany  Enoch  and  Elias  in  the 
war  with  Antichrist;  that  God  sustained  her  without  food,  and  much 
more  that  testifies  to  the  incredible  credulity  of  the  people,  and  to 
the  unscrupulous  audacity  of  the  friars.  Under  examination,  she 
declared  that  she  had  seen  the  Divine  Essence,  but  she  proved 
herself  wholly  ignorant  of  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and 
uttered  a  thousand  follies,  including  a  revelation  from  God  that 
all  who  possessed  her  crosses,  beads,  rosaries  or  other  objects  of 
devotion  would  be  saved  unconditionally  and  could  rest  secure 
of  their  predestination. 

The  fore-ordained  condemnation  was  preceded  by  an  edict  of 
October  23,  1636,  requiring  the  surrender  of  all  letters,  portraits, 
crosses,  beads  etc.,  which  were  so  numerous  that  in  a  few  days  the 


38  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

cura  of  the  parish  of  San  Miguel  had  a  room  full  of  them.  The 
poor  old  crone  was  blind,  toothless  and  exhausted  with  a  life  of 
hysteria;  the  shock  of  these  experiences  was  too  great  for  her 
feeble  vitality,  and  she  died  in  November.  This  was,  of  course, 
no  impediment  to  her  trial,  and  the  tribimal  was  justly  incensed 
to  learn  that  the  bishop  had  buried  her  without  its  permission. 
When  summoned  to  answer  for  this  he  threatened  a  popular  up- 
rising, but  the  tribunal  held  good,  exhimied  the  body  and  verified 
its  identity,  after  which  the  Suprema  ordered  a  second  exhumation 
and  burial  under  its  authority. 

It  seems  that  no  formal  sentence  was  ever  rendered.  The 
Franciscans  talked  of  appealing  to  the  pope,  but  were  only  laughed 
at.  Madre  Luisa  had  ceased  to  be  of  importance,  but  that  her 
devotees  had  not  lost  all  veneration  for  her  is  shown  by  the  Inqui- 
sition, in  1638,  forbidding  all  discussion  of  the  case.  In  1643  it 
was  referred  to  Arce  y  Reynoso,  together  with  that  of  San  Placido 
and,  in  1644,  he  was  said  to  be  pushing  it  with  energy,  but  prob- 
ably it  was  wisely  allowed  to  be  forgotten,  without  reaching  a 
conclusion.  Yet,  notwithstanding  the  inquisitorial  edict,  her 
crosses  were  not  all  surrendered  and  continued  to  be  regarded  as 
enriched  with  indulgences,  for  we  find  them  condemned  by  the 
Roman  Congregation  of  Indulgences  in  1668  and  again  in  1678.' 

But  for  the  presumably  political  motive  prompting  her  prose- 
cution it  may  be  assumed  that  Madre  Luisa  would  have  been 
enrolled  in  the  calendar  of  saints.  Her  career  was  no  more  extra- 
vagant than  that  of  her  contemporary,  the  Blessed  Maria  Ana  de 
Jesus,  a  Madrilena,  who  was  born  in  1565  and  died  in  1624.  She 
belonged  to  the  Order  of  La  Merced,  and  her  biography  was  written 
in  1673,  by  Fray  Juan  de  la  Presentacion,  official  historiographer 
of  Philip  IV,  who  informs  us  that,  when  an  infant  at  the  breast, 
she  gave  evidence  of  her  future  sanctity ;  at  the  age  of  four  she  was 
constantly  at  prayer,  and  at  six  she  had  ecstasies,  visions  and 
revelations.  She  says  herself  that  her  soul  was  ordinarily  illu- 
minated by  God,  who  manifested  his  will  to  her  unmistakably. 
The  effort  for  her  canonization  began  shortly  after  her  death  and 

'  Cartas  de  Jesuitas  (Mem.  hist,  espafiol,  XIII,  122,  150-62,  165,  173,  175, 
177-80,  184,  205-7,  214,  222,  245,  267,  324,  435,  528,  543,  547;  XIV,  12,  21, 
47;  XV,  80;  XIX,  383).— Pellicer,  Avisos  historicos  (Semanario  enidito,  XXXIII, 
99,  168).— Index  of  Vidal  Marin,  1707,  II,  19.— Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de 
Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  6,  fol.  691.— Deeret.  authent.  Sacrse  Congr.  Indulgentt. 
n.  4,  14. 


Chap.  V]  INFLVENCE  OF  MYSTICS  39 

was  renewed  at  intervals,  until  she  was  beatified  in  1783.'  Another 
contemporary  of  Maria  Ana  de  Jesus  was  she  of  Peru,  known  as  la 
Azucena  de  Quito.  Born  in  1618  and  dying  in  1645,  her  miracles 
commenced  before  her  birth,  and  she  began  to  mortify  the  flesh 
by  refusing  to  suckle  before  noon-day.  It  was  in  vain  that,  in 
her  humility,  she  prayed  to  be  denied  the  favor  of  visions  and 
miracles.  Efforts  were  commenced,  in  1670,  to  procure  her  canoni- 
zation, but  it  was  not  until  1850  that  she  was  beatified  by  Pius  IX.^ 

These  saintly  mystics,  with  their  direct  communications  from 
God,  wielded  an  influence  which  we  can  scarce  realize.  They 
had  become  so  numerous  and  their  revelations  were  so  unhesi- 
tatingly accepted,  that  Spain  was  enveloped  in  an  atmosphere  of 
mysticism,  in  which  the  divine  guidance  was  sought,  rather  than 
the  councils  of  human  wisdom.  Olivares  might  well  fear  any 
adverse  utterances  of  Madre  Luisa,  for  his  downfall,  in  1643,  was 
accelerated  by  visions  enjoyed  by  Don  Francisco  de  Chiribaga, 
although  the  Jesuit  Padre  Galindo,  who  was  concerned  in  making 
them  known,  was  imprisoned  by  his  superiors  for  acting  without 
their  permission.^  When  the  affairs  of  the  Spanish  monarchy 
were  at  their  lowest  ebb  at  this  time,  it  is  a  cuiious  revelation  of 
the  impulses  under  which  it  was  governed  to  find  Philip  IV  com- 
plaining of  the  perplexities  to  which  he  was  exposed  by  the  visions 
brought  to  him  by  the  frailes ;  this  matter  of  revelations,  he  says, 
is  one  which  requires  much  consideration,  especially  when  he  is 
told  that  God  orders  him  to  punish  those  who  have  rendered  him 
good  service,  and  to  elevate  those  whose  methods  have  not  earned 
them  a  good  reputation.  All  that  is  lacking  to  complete  this 
picture  of  unreasoning  superstition  is  found  in  the  fact  that  this 
utterance  is  made  to  another  mystic  to  whom  he  appeals  for 
guidance  and  for  intercession  with  God  to  send  him  light.* 

Maria  de  Jesus,  commonly  known  as  Sor  Maria  de  Agreda,  to 
whom  Philip  thus  turned  for  counsel,  was  too  strongly  entrenched 
in  the  royal  favor  to  be  in  danger  from  the  Inquisition  yet, 
notwithstanding  that  favor,  her  revelations  were  rejected  by 
Rome,  thus  furnishing  another  example  of  the  difficulty  of  differen- 

'  Vida,  pp.  6,  10,  275  (Ed.  1784). 

'  Various  biographies  of  her  have  been  written  by  Moran  de  Butron,  Pietro 
del  Spirito  Santo,  P.  Gijon  y  Leon,  P.  Gius.  Boero  and  Juan  del  Castillo,  of 
some  of  which  repeated  editions  have  appeared. 

'  Pellicer,  Avisos  historicos  (Semanario  erddito,  XXXIII,  171). 

*  Ochoa,  Epistolario  espanol,  II,  81. 


40  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

tiating  between  sanctity  and  heresy.  She  had  practised  mental 
prayer  from  the  time  when  she  was  able  to  use  her  reason,  and 
she  was  in  coastant  communication  with  God,  the  Virgin  and 
the  angels.^  Her  fame  filled  the  land,  and  her  voluminous  writings, 
which  claim  to  be  inspired,  still  form  part  of  the  devotional  litera- 
tiu-e  of  the  faithful.  She  so  captured  the  confidence  of  Philip 
that  he  made  her  his  chief  adviser;  for  twenty-two  years,  until 
her  death  in  1665,  four  months  before  his  own,  he  maintained 
constant  correspondence  with  her  by  every  post.  Her  influence 
thus  was  almost  unbounded,  but  she  seems  never  to  have  abused 
it;  her  advice  was  usually  sound,  and  she  never  sought  the  enrich- 
ment of  the  impoverished  convent  of  Agreda,  of  which  she  was 
the  superior. 

With  all  the  power  of  the  Franciscan  Order  and  of  the  Spanish 
court  to  sustain  her  claims  to  sanctity,  the  canonization  of  such  a 
personage  would  seem  almost  a  matter  of  course,  and  it  would 
doubtless  have  been  effected  if  she  had  not  reduced  her  revelations 
to  writing.  However  they  might  suit  the  appetite  of  Spanish  piety, 
nourished  so  long  on  mystic  extravagance,  they  did  not  appeal  to 
the  sober  judgement  of  the  rest  of  the  Catholic  world.  In  spite  of 
their  divine  inspiration,  her  Letarda  y  nombres  misteriosos  de  la 
Reina  del  Cielo  and  her  Mistica  Oiudad  de  Dios  were  condemned 
in  Rome,  and  the  decree  as  to  the  latter  was  posted  on  the  doors 
of  St.  Peter's,  August  4, 1681.  The  Mistica  Ciudad  was  eminently 
popular  in  Spain  and,  at  the  instance  of  the  Spanish  court,  its 
prohibition  was  suspended.  The  Inquisition  took  advantage  of 
this,  in  1686,  to  issue  a  decree  permitting  its  circulation,  at  which 
the  Congregation  of  the  Index  was  naturally  offended  and,  in  1692, 
the  papal  decree  of  condemnation  appeared  in  the  Appendix  to 
the  Index  of  Innocent  XI,  in  spite  of  which  the  book  was  formally 
permitted  by  the  Spanish  Inquisition.^  When,  in  1695,  a  trans- 
lation by  Pere  Thomas  Croset  appeared  in  France,  the  Sorbonne, 
by  decree  of  September  27,  1696,  condemned  it  as  containing 
propositions  contrary  to  the  rules  of  ecclesiastical  modesty,  and 
many  fables  and  dreams  from  the  Apocrypha,  exposing  Catholi- 

'  Vita  Ven.  Maria  de  Agreda,  §§  4,  6,  8,  13,  38.— Prsefat.  ad  Lib.  I,  Vite  B. 
Virginia. 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.  Leg.  1465,  fol.  101.— Index  Libb.  prohib.  Innoc. 
PP.  XI,  p.  167;  Append,  p.  41.— Reusch,  Der  Index,  II,  253.— Mendham,  Literary 
Policy  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  pp.  272-4  (London,  1830).— Phelippeaux,  Rela- 
tion de  I'Origine  etc.  du  Quietisme,  I,  178-83  (s.  1.  1732). 


Chap.  V]  SOU  MARIA  BE  AOBEDA  41 

cism  to  the  contempt  of  the  heretics/  The  Spanish  court  labored 
earnestly  to  obtain  a  renewal  of  the  suspension  and  finally  suc- 
ceeded, so  that  the  book  was  omitted  from  thfi  1716  Index  of 
Clement  XI.  Then  in  1729,  the  subject  was  again  taken  up,  when, 
after  a  long  debate,  the  book  was  permitted,  though  Dr.  Eusebius 
Amort  tells  us  that  in  Rome,  in  1735,  he  was  shown  a  decree  of 
Benedict  XIII  renewing  the  prohibition  and  asserting  that  its  with- 
drawal had  been  obtained  fraudulently;  still,  the  book  has  never 
since  reappeared  in  the  Index.^  There  was  a  similar  struggle 
over  the  Letania,  which  was  still  included  in  the  1716  Index  of 
Clement  XI  and  the  first  Index  of  Benedict  XIV,  in  1744,  but  has 
disappeared  from  all  succeeding  issues.'  Less  successful  thus  far 
has  been  the  persistent  effort  to  procure  the  canonization  of  Madre 
Marfa,  leading  to  a  papal  decree  of  April  27,  1773,  forbidding  all 
future  proceedings  in  the  case.  Notwithstanding  this,  Leo  XIII, 
on  March  10,  1884,  ordered  the  Congregation  of  Rites  to  consider 
in  secret  whether  this  prohibition  could  be  removed.  To  suggest 
such  a  discussion  is  almost  equivalent  to  prejudging  it  affirmatively 
but,  before  the  decision  was  reached,  chance  led  to  the  publication 
in  the  Deutscher  Merkur  of  December  29,  1889,  of  the  whole  secret 
history  of  the  case,  which  has  probably  put  an  end,  at  least  for 
the  present,  to  the  prospect  of  enrolling  in  the  calendar  of  saints 
one  whose  revelations  have  been  so  repeatedly  condemned  as  illu- 
sory or  as  emanating  from  Satan. 

While,  as  we  shall  see,  the  pest  of  beatas  revelanderas  and  more 
or  less  conscious  impostors  continued  to  afflict  the  land,  the  cases 
recognized  as  Alumbrados  are  comparatively  few  during  the 
remainder  of  the  seventeenth  century.  In  a  Toledo  record,  com- 
mencing in  1648,  the  first  one  occurs  in  1679,  when  the  Franciscan 
Fray  Francisco  de  Toledo  was  convicted.  In  this  the  offence  is 
treated  as  formal  heresy,  requiring  reconciUation,  and  the  punish- 
ment was  extremely  severe.    He  was  to  receive  a  circular  discipline 


'  D'Argentrd,  Collect.  Judic.  de  novis  Erroribus,  III,  I,  156. 

'  Analecta  Franciscana,  I,  92. — Reusch,  Der  Index,  II,  256. — Amort  de  Reve- 
lationibus,  P.  II,  p.  226. 

'  Index  dementis  PP.  XI,  p.  292.— Index  Bened.  PP.  XIV,  1744,  p.  313. 
It  is  significant  of  the  resultant  dubious  position  of  the  books  that  Caetano 
Marcecalea,  in  his  Enchiridium  mysticum  (Veronse,  1766),  while  giving  two  lists 
of  mystic  works,  one  permitted  and  the  other  prohibited,  whoUy  omits  the 
writings  of  Marfa  de  Agreda. 


42  MYSTICISM  [Book  Vin 

in  his  convent;  he  was  to  be  confined  in  a  cell  for  two  years  and  for 
two  years  more  was  to  be  recluded,  during  which  time  he  was  to 
be  occupied  in  works  of  humility.  In  addition,  he  was  perpetually 
suspended  from  orders,  deprived  of  active  and  passive  voice,  and 
reduced  to  lay  communion.  It  is  possibly  to  this,  or  to  some 
movement  in  which  Fray  Francisco  bore  a  part,  that  Miguel  Mol- 
inos  refers,  in  a  letter  of  February  16,  1680,  to  the  Jesuit  General 
Oliva,  saying  that  when,  in  1679,  Satan  sought  to  revive  the  sect 
of  Illuminists  in  Spain,  and  they  had  applied  to  him,  he  had  given 
an  opinion  so  contrary  to  their  follies  that  it  frightened  them  and 
stopped  the  attempt.^ 

While  Spain  had  thus  been  combatting  Mysticism,  Rome 
had  remained  comparatively  indifferent,  for  in  Italy  it  had  not 
developed  into  a  popiilar  mania  to  be  suppressed  irrespective  of 
the  immoral  extravagances  to  which  it  sometimes  led.  In  the 
Edict  of  the  Inquisition  requiring  denunciation  of  all  offences 
subject  to  its  jurisdiction,  there  is  no  mention  of  Mysticism  or 
lUuminism.^  The  elaborate  folios  of  the  writers  on  the  Holy 
Office — Carena,  Del  Bene,  Lupo,  Dandino — are  silent  as  to  its 
eccentricities.  Yet  these  were  by  no  means  unknown  to  the  Roman 
Holy  Office,  which  took  cognizance  of  them  when  brought  to  its 
notice.  Occasionally  some  book  too  extravagant  in  its  teachings 
was  put  upon  the  Index.^  Cardinal  Scaglia  (f  1639),  a  member  of 
the  Congregation  of  the  Inquisition,  in  his  little  manual  of  practice, 
which  was  circulated  only  in  MS.,  when  treating  of  the  troubles 
customary  in  nunneries,  says  that  through  giddiness  of  brain, 
or  vain-glory,  or  illusion,  nuns  often  claim  to  have  celestial  visions 
and  revelations  and  intercourse  with  God  and  the  saints  when,  if 
the  confessor  is  imprudently  given  to  spirituality,  he  reduces 
their  utterances  to  writing  and,  if  he  is  learned,  he  defends  them, 
very  often  with  propositions  punishable  by  the  Inquisition.  Some- 
times, he  adds,  sensuality  is  involved,  leading  to  the  assertion  that 
carnal  acts  are  not  sinful  but  meritorious,  when,  if  the  confessor 
desires  to  take  advantage  of  this,  he  seeks  with  revelations  and 
false  doctrines  to  prove  that  they  are  lawful.     Cases  of  this  kind 

^  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. — Biblioteca  Casanatense, 
MS.  X.  V,  27,  fol.  235. 

'  Bordoni  Sacrum  Tribunal  Judicum,  p.  508  (Romae,  1648). — Ign.  Lupi  Ber- 
gomens.  Nova  Lux  in  Edictum  S.  Inquisit.  (Bergomi,  1648). 

'  Reusch,  Der  Index,  II,  610-11. 


Chap.  V]  ITALIAN  MYSTICS  43 

have  occurred  in  the  Holy  Office,  when  priests  who  so  justify 
themselves  become  liable  to  the  penalties  of  heresy.  Such  cases 
also  occur  between  women  assuming  to  be  spiritual  and  their  con- 
fessors, who  so  teach  them,  even  without  revelations  and  visions, 
leading  their  spiritual  daughters  to  believe  these  to  be  works  of 
merit  and  mortification.^ 

Bernino  tells  us  that,  early  in  the  seventeenth  century,  Illu- 
minism  was  widely  diffused  throughout  Italy,  where  abjurations 
enforced  by  the  Inquisition  were  frequent,  but  this  is  probably 
the  exaggeration  so  frequent  with  heresiologists.^  A  well-marked 
case,  however,  startled  Florence  in  1640,  when  the  Canon  Pandolfo 
Ricasoli,  a  highly  respected  member  of  the  noble  house  of  the 
Barons  of  Trappola  and  a  man  of  wide  learning  and  handsome 
fortune,  was  arrested  with  his  chief  accomplice  Faustina  Mainardi, 
her  brother  Girolamo,  and  the  Maestro  Serafino  de'  Servi,  Dottor 
Carlo  Scalandrini,  the  priest  Giacomo  Fantoni,  Andrea  Biliotti, 
Francesco  Borgeschi  and  two  others,  Mozzetti  and  Cocchi.  Some 
nuns  of  Santa  Anna  sul  Prato  were  also  implicated,  but  if  they 
were  prosecuted  no  knowledge  of  it  was  allowed  to  reach  the 
public.  They  seem  to  have  formed  a  coterie  of  Illuminists  to 
whom  Ricasoli  taught  that  all  manner  of  indecent  acts  conduced 
to  purity,  if  performed  with  the  mind  fixed  on  God ;  they  claimed 
special  relations  with  heaven  and  were  free  from  sin  in  whatever 
they  did  for  the  greater  glory  of  God.  This  continued  for  eight 
years;  rumors  spread  abroad  and  were  conveyed  to  the  Inquisi- 
tion, when  Ricasoli  came  forward  and  denounced  himself  with 
expressions  of  contrition.  A  public  atto  di  fede  was  held,  Novem- 
ber 28,  1641,  in  the  great  refectory  of  the  convent  of  Santa  Croce, 
attended  by  the  Grand  Duke,  the  Cardinal  de'  Medici,  the  nuncio 
and  other  notabilities.  One  of  the  culprits,  Serafino  de'  Servi, 
had  died  in  prison  and  appeared  in  effigy,  the  rest  abjured  de 
vehementi.  Ricasoli,  Faustina  and  Fantoni  were  condemned  to 
perpetual  irremissible  prison,  others  to  prison  with  the  privilege 
of  asking  for  pardon,  while  two,  Cocchi  and  Borgeschi,  had  a 
private  atto  di  fede  and  were  confined  in  the  Stinche  prison  at 
the  pleasure  of  the  Inquisition.  Ricasoli,  as  he  was  led  away, 
declared  that  he  had  acted  foolishly  and  ignorantly,  and  he  asked 

'  Scaglia,  Prattica  per  le  cause  del  Sant'  Officio,  cap.  25  (MS.  penes  me).  There 
are  copies  in  the  Bibliothfeque  nationale,  fonds  itaJien,  139;  in  the  Royal  Library 
of  Munich,  Cod.  Ital.  598,  and  in  the  Municipal  Library  of  Piacenza. 

'  Bemino,  Historia  di  tutte  I'Heresie,  IV,  712  (Venezia,  1717.) 


44  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

pardon  of  the  people  for  the  scandal  which  he  had  caused;  he 
lingered  in  his  prison  until  July  1657,  when  he  died  at  the  age  of 
78,  protesting  to  the  end  that  he  had  erred  through  ignorance  and 
not  through  lust;  there  was  some  question  as  to  his  interment, 
but  finally  he  received  Christian  burial.  The  inquisitor,  Fra  Gio- 
vanni MuzzareUi,  was  sternly  rebuked  for  misplaced  mercy  by 
the  Roman  Congregation  and  was  speedily  replaced  by  one  of 
severer  temper.^ 

Impostors  likewise  were  not  unknown,  as  appears  in  the  career 
of  Francesco  Giuseppe  Borri,  a  briUiant  but  dissolute  scion  of  a 
noble  Milanese  house.  A  misadventure  in  Rome  forced  him  to 
take  asylum  in  a  church  where,  in  recognition  of  the  mercy  of 
God,  he  changed  his  life.  He  soon  had  visions  and  revelations, 
from  which  he  constructed  a  new  theology,  showing  an  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  mysteries  of  the  Trinity  and  of  the  imiverse. 
That  St.  Anne  was  conceived  by  the  operation  of  the  Spirit  and 
the  Virgin  consequently  was  Deity,  was  one  of  the  twenty  errors  set 
forth  in  his  sentence.  Moreover  he  had  been  selected  to  found  the 
Kingdom  of  the  Highest,  in  which  all  mankind  would  be  brought 
under  papal  rule,  and  the  world  would  live  in  peace  for  a  thousand 
years;  the  philosopher's  stone,  of  which  he  had  the  secret,  would 
furnish  the  means  of  raising  the  papal  armies,  in  the  leadership 
of  which  he  would  be  guided  by  St.  Michael.  Rome  soon  became 
dangerous  for  the  new  prophet  and,  in  1655,  he  transferred  his 
propaganda  to  Milan,  where  he  founded  a  secret  mystical  Order,  the 
members  of  which  were  trained  in  meditation  and  mental  prayer, 
pledged  themselves  to  shed  their  blood  in  the  execution  of  the 
work  and,  what  was  more  to  the  purpose,  contributed  all  their 
property  to  the  common  fund.  The  Milanese  inquisitor  got  wind 
of  the  new  sect  and  arrested  some  of  the  members;  Borri  thought 
of  raising  a  tumult  but  decided  in  favor  of  the  safer  alternative 
of  flight.  His  case  was  transferred  to  the  Roman  Congregation, 
which  cited  him,  March  20,  1659,  to  appear  within  ninety  days 
and  then  tried  him  in  absentia,  with  the  result  that  his  effigy,  with 
all  his  impious  writings,  was  burnt  on  January  3,  1661.  His 
dupes  were  duly  prosecuted,  but  seem  not  to  have  been  severely 
punished. 

'  Royal  Library  of  Munich,  Cod.  Ital.  185,  pp.  1-7. — Library  of  the  Seminario 
della  Curia  arcivescovile  di  Firenze,  Chiese,  Spogli,  Vol.  I,  pp.  407  sqq. — [Modesto 
Rastrelli]  Fatti  attinenti  all'  Inquisizione,  pp.  173-77  (Venezia,  1782). — Cf. 
Cantil,  Eretici  d'  Italia,  III,  336. 


Chap.  V]  ITALIAN  MYSTICS  46 

Meanwhile  he  was  starting  on  a  fresh  career  in  Northern  Europe, 
as  a  man  possessed  of  all  the  secrets  of  alchemy  and  medicine, 
with  a  success  that  even  Cagliostro  might  have  envied.  Strass- 
burg  and  Amsterdam  had  reason  to  repent  of  his  seductive  arts. 
In  Hamburg,  Christina  of  Sweden  furnished  him  with  means  to 
prosecute  the  work  of  the  Grand  Arcanum.  Frederic  III  of 
Denmark  lavished  large  sums  on  him  and  even  made  him  chief 
political  adviser,  which  aroused  the  hatred  of  the  heir-apparent, 
Christian  V,  on  whose  accession,  in  1670,  he  was  obliged  to  save 
his  life  by  flight.  He  sought  to  find  refuge  in  Turkey,  but  in 
Moravia,  when  within  a  day's  journey  of  the  frontier,  he  was 
arrested  by  mistake,  on  suspicion  of  comphcity  in  a  conspiracy  in 
Vienna.  There  the  papal  nuncio  recognized  and  claimed  him,  but 
Leopold  I,  whose  favor  he  had  speedily  acquired  by  his  chemical 
marvels,  surrendered  him  only  on  condition  that  his  life  should 
be  spared.  Before  the  Inquisition  he  confessed  his  errors  and 
attributed  them  to  diabolical  inspiration,  and  his  sentence,  Septem- 
ber 25,  1672,  was  merely  to  perpetual  prison  and  certain  spiritual 
penances.  Even  here  his  good  luck  befriended  him,  for  Cardinal 
d'Estrees,  the  influential  ambassador  of  Louis  XIV,  in  dangerous 
illness,  asked  to  consult  him  and,  on  recovery,  procured  his  transfer 
to  easier  confinement  in  the  castle  of  St.  Angelo,  where  he  was 
allowed  special  privileges  and  sometimes  to  go  out  and  visit  the 
sick.  There  he  remained  until  his  death,  August  20,  1695 — just 
a  century  before  Cagliostro  came  to  the  same  end.^ 

Although  the  Roman  Inquisition  issued  no  general  denuncia- 
tions, there  was  a  surveillance  kept  over  the  votaries  of  mental 
prayer  and  contemplation,  in  view  of  the  extravagances  to  which 
they  might  be  led  when,  abandoning  themselves  wholly  to  God, 
they  felt  themselves  irresponsible  for  what  God  might  cause  them 
to  do,  in  the  rapture  of  Quietism.  There  was  a  little  community 
of  this  kind  formed  in  Genoa,  where  they  were  known  as  Sequere 
me,  from  the  phrase  used  when  addressing  those  whom  they  elected 
to  join  them.  Under  the  lead  of  a  Trinitarian  friar,  they  bought 
a  house  in  the  suburbs,  where  they  lived  in  the  utmost  austerity, 
devoting  themselves  to  contemplation.  Thus  came  visions  and 
revelations  that  the  Chiirch  was  to  be  reformed  through  them  by 

'  Biblioteca  del  R.  Archivio  di  Stato  in  Roma,  Miscellanea  MS.,  pp.  577-630. — 
Royal  Library  of  Munich,  Cod.  Itat.  185,  pp.  13-26. — L'Ambasciata  di  Romolo 
a'Romani,  p.  689  (Colon.  1676).— Collect.  Decret.  S.  Congr.  S.  Officii,  p.  7  (MS. 
penes  me). — Cantil,  op.  cit.,  Ill,  330. 


46  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

a  new  pope,  of  whom  they  were  to  be  the  apostles.  One  of  them 
communicated  this  to  a  vicar  of  the  Inquisition  who  promptly 
reported  to  the  tribunal.  They  were  all  summoned  before  it; 
some  went  into  ecstasies  and,  as  a  body,  they  threatened  the 
inquisitor  with  the  vengeance  of  God  and  were  thrown  into  prison. 
The  Congregation  of  the  Inquisition  ordered  their  prosecution, 
which  resulted  in  their  being  adjudged  to  be  crazy  rather  than 
evil-minded.  The  friar  was  deprived  of  active  and  passive  voice 
in  his  Order  and  the  rest  were  dismissed  with  threats  of  the  galleys 
if  they  reassembled  and  continued  to  wear  the  habit  which  they 
had  adopted.^ 

More  persistent  was  the  sect  known  as  the  Pelagini  which,  about 
1650,  developed  itself  in  the  Valcamonica  and  spread  throughout 
Lombardy.  Giacomo  Filippo  di  Santa  Pelagia  was  a  layman  of 
Milan,  highly  esteemed  for  conspicuous  piety.  From  Marco  Moro- 
sini.  Bishop  of  Brescia  (1645-1654)  he  obtained  permission  to 
found  conventicles  or  oratories  in  the  Valcamonica,  but  it  shows 
that  mental  prayer  was  regarded  as  a  dangerous  exercise  when 
Morosini  imposed  the  condition  that  it  should  not  be  practised 
in  these  little  assemblies.  The  prohibition  was  disregarded  and 
the  devotees  largely  gave  themselves  up  to  contemplation,  with 
the  result  that  they  had  trances  and  revelations;  they  threw  off 
subjection  to  their  priests  and  were  accused  of  claiming  that  mental 
prayer  was  essential  to  salvation,  that  none  but  Pelagini  could 
be  saved,  that  those  who  practised  it  became  impeccable,  that 
laymen  could  preach  and  hear  confessions,  that  indulgences  were 
worthless  and  that  God  through  them  would  reform  the  world. 
In  1654,  Cardinal  Pietro  Ottoboni  (afterwards  Alexander  VIII) 
obtained  the  see  of  Brescia  and  by  accident  discovered  some  col- 
porteurs distributing  the  Catechism  of  Calvin,  along  with  the  tracts 
of  the  Pelagini.  In  March,  1656,  he  sent  to  the  Valcamonica 
three  commissioners  with  verbal  instructions  and  armed  with  full 
powers,  who  temporarily  suppressed  the  oratories  and  made  a 
number  of  arrests,  but  the  Inquisition  intervened,  taking  the 
affair  out  of  his  hands  and  prosecuting  the  leaders.^ 

We  hear  nothing  more  of  Filippo,  except  that  he  never  was 
condemned.     He  probably  died  early  in  the  history  of  the  sect 


'  MSS.  of  Ambrosian  Library  of  Milan,  H,  S,  VI,  29,  fol.  140. 

'  Bemino,  Historia  di  tutte  I'Heresie,  IV,  722-6. — MSS.  of  Ambrosian  Library, 
H,  S,  VI,  29,  fol.  14.  This  latter  is  a  considerable  body  of  documents  from  which 
are  derived  the  facts  that  follow. 


Chap.  V]  THE  PELAGINI  47 

and  his  memory  was  cherished  as  that  of  a  saint  with  thaumaturgic 
power.  In  1686,  the  Archpriest  of  Morbegno,  in  the  Valtelhne, 
was  found  to  be  distributing  reUcs  of  him  and  collecting  materials 
for  his  life  and  miracles,  all  of  which  he  was  obliged  to  abandon, 
after  obeying  a  summons  from  Calchi,  the  Inquisitor  of  Como. 
There  were  also  inquiries  made  of  the  Provost  of  Talamona  as  to 
his  motives  in  keeping  a  picture  of  Filippo  and  whether  it  was 
prayed  to.* 

After  Filippo's  disappearance  we  hear  of  Francesco  Catanei  and 
of  the  Archpriest  Marc  Antonio  Ricaldini  as  leaders  of  the  sect, 
but  Agostino  Ricaldini,  a  brother  of  the  latter  and  a  married  lay- 
man, was  really  the  centre  around  which  it  gathered.  In  Otto- 
boni's  prosecution,  he  was  imprisoned  in  1656  and  thrice  tortured, 
and,  on  September  19,  1660,  he  was  sentenced  by  the  Brescia 
tribunal  to  exile  from  the  Valcamonica  and  was  relegated  to 
Treviso.  Persisting  in  his  errors,  he  was  again  tried  in  Treviso, 
obliged  to  abjure  de  vehementi  and  sentenced  to  perpetual  prison, 
while  a  book  which  he  had  written  was  publicly  burnt.  How 
long  his  imprisonment  lasted  does  not  appear  but,  in  1680,  we 
find  him  living  in  Treviso,  under  surveillance  of  the  episcopal 
vicar-general.^ 

If  Ottoboni  and  the  Inquisition  fancied  that  they  had  crushed 
the  sect,  they  were  mistaken.  It  maintained  a  secret  existence 
for  over  twenty  years,  which  enabled  it  to  spread  far  beyond  its 
original  seat  and,  about  1680,  it  had  associations  and  oratories  for 
mental  prayer  established  in  Brescia,  Verona,  Vicenza,  Treviso, 
Padua,  Pesaro,  Lucca  and  doubtless  many  other  places,  while  its 
votaries  expected  it  to  spread  through  the  world.  Ricaldini,  at 
Treviso,  was  busy  in  corresponding  with  the  heads  of  the  associa- 
tions and  receiving  their  visits.  In  Brescia,  Bartolommeo  Bona, 
priest  of  S.  Rocco,  presided  over  an  oratory  of  sixty  members  and 
was  even  said  to  have  six  hundred  souls  under  his  direction. 
They  were  called  Pellegrini  di  S.  Rocco,  they  practised  mental 
prayer  assiduously  and  had  even  procured  an  episcopal  licence 
for  the  association.  In  Verona,  Giovanni  Battista  Bonioli  guided 
a  membership  of  thirty  disciples,  many  of  them  persons  of  high 
consideration.  For  the  most  part  the  devotees  seem  to  have  been 
quiet  and  pious  folk,  humbly  seeking  salvation  by  the  interior  way. 


>  Ambrosian  MSS.  uU  sup.  fol.  Ill,  113,  117,  119,  121,  135,  137,  138. 
'  Ibidem,  fol.  58,  61,  66,  80,  83,  86. 


48  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

but  there  were  some  who  were  given  to  extravagance.  Margarita 
Rossi  had  visions  and  revelations,  strangely  repeating  portions  of 
the  fantastic  theology  of  Borri,  and  when  written  out  by  a  believer, 
Don  Giovanni  Antonio,  it  was  not  difficult  to  extract  from  them 
a  hundred  and  thirty-four  errors,  concerning  which  she  was  tor- 
tured as  to  intention  as  well  as  in  caput  alienum.  Two  others, 
Cosimo  Dolci  and  Francesco  Nigra  had  visions  and  prophetic 
insight,  for  which  the  latter  was  sentenced,  in  1684,  to  five  years' 
incarceration.* 

The  sect  could  not  continue  spreading  indefinitely  without  dis- 
covery. In  1682  the  Inquisition  suddenly  awoke  to  the  necessity 
of  action  and  it  repeated  an  edict  which  it  had  issued  in  1656, 
forbidding  all  oratories  and  assemblages  for  mental  prayer.  Rical- 
dini  felt  his  position  critical,  for  he  had  abjured  de  vehementi 
and  was  liable  to  the  stake  for  relapse.  He  disappeared  from 
Treviso  and  all  that  the  Inquisition  could  learn  was  that  he  was 
somewhere  on  the  Swiss  border.  At  length,  in  1684,  his  retreat 
was  found  to  be  Chiuro,  in  the  Valtelline,  and  Antonio  Ceccotti, 
Inquisitor  of  Brescia,  made  fruitless  attempts  to  induce  the  authori- 
ties of  the  Valtelline  and  the  Podest^  of  Brescia  to  unite  in  procur- 
ing his  extradition,  but  in  March,  1685,  Ceccotti  had  the  mortifi- 
cation to  learn  that  he  had  died  on  the  previous  October  6th, 
having  received  all  the  sacraments  and  with  the  repute  of  a  most 
pious  Christian.^ 

The  prominent  Pelagini  were  duly  prosecuted,  but  there  seems 
to  have  been  little  vindictiveness  aroused  in  regard  to  them 
and  little  heresy  attributable  to  them.  The  punishments  in- 
flicted were  light,  for  we  hear,  in  1685,  of  Bona,  one  of  the  leaders, 
having  returned  to  his  district  and  living  in  retirement,  and  of 
Belleri,  another,  being  in  the  Valcamonica,  where  the  bishop  had 
appointed  him  missionary  for  the  whole  district.  Evidently  the 
disciples  must  have  escaped  with  a  warning.  What  the  eccle- 
siastical authorities  objected  to  was  not  Mysticism  and  its  long- 
accepted  practices,  but  organization,  more  or  less  secret,  under 
leaders  outside  of  the  hierarchy  and  free  from  its  supervision, 
when  heated  brains,  under  divine  inspiration,  indulged  in  dreams 
of  regenerating  the  Church.  It  was  not  until  the  case  of  Molinos 
had  called  attention  to  other  dangers  that  there  came  from  Rome 

'  Ambrosian  MSS.  ubi  sup.,  fol.  18,  22,  24,  34,  38,  39,  40,  41,  42,  43,  44,  45, 
49,  50,  51,  53,  54,  61,  81,  91. 
'  Ibidem,  fol.  44,  54,  66,  81. 


Chap.  V]  MOLINOS  49 

strict  orders  for  the  suppression  of  all  oratories  and  of  the  practice 
of  mental  prayer — that  rapture  of  meditation  which  had  been  the 
distinguisUng  habit  of  mystics  through  the  ages.' 

Miguel  de  Molinos  was  a  Spaniard,  born  probably  about  1630 
at  Muniesa  (Teruel).  After  obtaining  at  Coimbra  the  degree 
of  doctor  of  theology,  he  came  to  Rome  in  1665,  in  connection 
with  a  canonization — probably  of  San  Pedro  Arbu^s,  who  was 
beatified  in  1668.  There  he  speedily  acquired  distinction  as  a 
confessor  and  spiritual  director.  Innocent  XI  prized  him  so 
highly  as  to  give  him  apartments  in  the  papal  palace;  the  noblest 
women  placed  themselves  under  his  care;  his  reputation  spread 
throughout  Italy  and  his  correspondence  became  enormous.  On 
the  day  of  his  arrest  it  is  said  that  the  postage  on  the  letters 
delivered  that  day  at  his  house  amounted  to  twenty-three  ducats ; 
he  made  a  small  charge  to  cover  expenses  and,  in  the  seques- 
tration of  his  property,  there  were  found  four  thousand  gold 
crowns  derived  from  this  source.  The  letters  seized  were  reported 
variously  as  numbering  twelve  or  twenty  thousand,  of  which 
two  hundred  were  from  Christina  of  Sweden  and  two  thousand 
from  the  Princess  Borghese.  The  mysticism  which  proved  so 
attractive,  when  set  forth  by  his  winning  personality,  had  in  it — 
ostensibly  at  least — nothing  that  had  not  long  since  received  the 
approbation  of  the  Church  in  the  writings  of  the  great  Spanish 
mystics  and  of  St.  Frangois  de  Sales.  It  is  true  that  Molinos 
dropped  the  machinery  of  ecstasies  and  visions,  which  loom  so 
largely  in  the  writings  of  Santa  Teresa,  and  confined  his  way  of 
perfection  to  the  Brahmanical  ideal  of  the  annihilation  of  sense 
and  intellect,  the  mystic  silence  or  death,  in  which  speech  and 
thought  and  desire  are  no  more  and  in  which  God  speaks  with 
the  soul  and  teaches  it  the  highest  wisdom.^  This  spiritualized 
hypnotism  was  in  no  way  original  with  Molinos,  but  was  the  goal 
which  all  the  mystic  saints  sought  to  attain.     To  reach  it  he  tells 


'  Ambrosian  MSS.  uU  sup.,  fol.  65,  82,  113,  117,  119. 

'  Guida  spirituale,  Lib.  i,  n.  128.—"  Non  parlando,  non  pensando,  non  desi- 
derando,  si  giunge  al  perfetto  silenzio  mistico,  nel  quale  Iddio  paria  con  Tanima 
e  a  lei  si  communica  e  le  insegna  nel  pill  intimo  fondo  la  piil  perfetta  e  alta 
sapienza." 

Cf.  Osuna,  Abecedario  spiritual,  P.  in,  Trat.  xxi,  Cap.  3,  fol.  203.— Santa 
Teresa,  Libre  de  las  Revelaciones. — San  Juan  de  la  Cruz,  Subida  del  Monte 
Carmelo,  ii,  vii. 

VOL.  IV  4 


50  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

US  the  soul  must  abandon  itself  wholly  to  God;  it  must  make  no 
resistance  to  the  thoughts  or  impulses  which  God  might  send  or 
allow  Satan  to  send ;  if  assailed  by  intruding  or  sensual  thoughts, 
they  should  not  be  opposed  but  be  quietly  contemned  and  the 
resultant  suffering  be  offered  as  a  sacrifice  to  GM:*'  This  was 
the  Quietism — the  Spanish  Dejamiento — which  was  subsequently 
condemned  so  severely;  there  is  no  question  that  it  had  its 
dangers  if  the  senses  were  allowed  to  control  the  spirit,  and  the 
adversaries  of  Molinos  made  the  most  of  it,  but  he  taught  that  the 
soul  must  overcome  temptation  through  patience  and  resignation. 
When  souls  have  acquired  control  of  themselves,  he  says,  if  a  temp- 
tation attacks  them  they  soon  overcome  it;  passions  cannot  hold 
out  against  the  divine  strength  which  fills  them,  even  if  the  violence 
is  continued  and  is  supported  by  suggestions  of  the  enemy;  the 
soul  gains  the  victory  and  enjoys  the  infinite  resultant  benefit.^ 

All  this  Molinos  was  allowed  to  teach  for  years  in  the  Holy 
City  with  general  applause,  though  it  had  been  persecuted  in  the 
Pelagini.  In  1675,  at  the  height  of  his  popularity,  he  embodied 
his  doctrine  in  the  Guida  spirituale,  a  little  volimae  which  came 
forth  with  the  emphatic  approbation  of  five  distinguished  theo- 
logians— four  of  them  consiiltors  or  censors  of  the  Inquisition  and 
all  of  them  men  of  high  standing  in  their  respective  Orders  of 
Franciscans,  Trinitarians,  Jesuits,  Carmelites  and  Capuchms.  The 
book  had  an  immediate  and  wide  circulation  and  was  translated 
into  many  languages.  Even  in  Spain  there  was  a  Madrid  edition 
in  1676,  one  at  Saragossa  in  1677  and  another  at  Seville  as  late 
as  1685,  without  exciting  animadversion.  Yet  such  a  career  as 
that  of  Molinos  could  not  continue  indefinitely  without  exciting 
hostility,  none  the  less  dangerous  because  prudently  concealed. 
His  immense  success  was  provocative  of  envy  and,  if  mystic  con- 
templation was  largely  adopted  as  the  surest  path  to  salvation, 
what  was  to  be  the  result  on  the  infinite  variety  of  exterior  works 
to  which  the  Church  owed  so  much  of  its  power  and  wealth?  It 
was  found  that  in  many  nunneries  in  Rome,  whose  confessors  had 
adopted  his  views,  the  inmates  had  cast  aside  their  rosaries  and 
chaplets  and  depended  wholly  on  contemplation.  It  was  observed 
that  at  mass  the  mystic  devotees  did  not  raise  their  eyes  at  the 
elevation  of  the  Host  or  gaze  on  the  holy  images,  but  pursued 
uninterruptedly  their  mental  prayer.    Molinos  gave  further  occa- 


'  Guida,  Lib.  i,  n.  68-70.  '  Guida,  Lib.  in,  n.  3,  40. 


Chap.  V]  MOLINOS  51 

sion  for  criticism  by  a  tract  on  daily  communion,  in  which  he 
asserted  that  a  soul,  secure  that  it  was  not  in  mortal  sin,  could 
safely  partake  of  the  sacrament  without  previous  confession — a 
doctrine  which,  however,  theologically  defensible,  threatened,  if 
extensively  practised,  largely  to  diminish  the  authority  of  the 
priesthood,  while  encouraging  the  sinner  to  settle  his  account 
directly  with  God. 

To  attack  as  a  heretic  a  man  so  universally  respected  and  so 
firmly  entrenched  as  MoHnos  might  well  seem  desperate,  and  it 
is  not  surprising  that  the  credit  for  the  work  was  attributed  to 
the  Jesuits,  as  the  only  body  daring  and  powerful  enough.  The 
current  story  is  that,  having  resolved  upon  it,  they  procured  Pere 
La  Chaise  to  induce  Louis  XIV  to  order  his  ambassador.  Cardinal 
d'Estrees  to  labor  unceasingly  for  the  removal  of  the  scandal 
caused  by  the  teaching  of  MoUnos.  Whether  this  was  so  is  doubt- 
ful, but  it  is  certain  that  the  first  attack  came  from  the  Jesuits, 
and  that  d'Estrees,  who  had  professed  the  warmest  admiration 
for  Molinos,  became  his  unrelenting  persecutor.  The  campaign 
was  opened  in  1678,  when  Gottardo  Bell'  Uomo,  S.  J.,  issued  at 
Modena  a  work  on  the  comparative  value  of  ordinary  and  mystic 
prayer,  which  was  duly  denounced  to  the  Inquisition.  Molinos 
had  been  made  to  recognize  in  various  ways  the  coming  storm, 
and  he  sought  to  conjure  it  in  a  fashion  which  revealed  his  con- 
scious weakness.  February  16,  1680,  he  addressed  to  the  Jesuit 
General  Oliva  a  long  exculpatory  letter.  He  had  not  attacked 
the  Society  but  had  always  held  it  in  the  highest  honor,  and  when, 
in  Valencia,  the  University  had  forbidden  the  Jesuit  College  to 
teach  theology,  he  was  the  only  one  who  had  disobeyed  the  order 
and  had  come  to  its  aid.  He  had  never  decried  the  Spiritual 
Exercises  of  Loyola,  but  had  recognized  the  vast  good  accom- 
plished by  them,  though  he  held  that,  for  those  suited  to  it,  con- 
templation was  better  than  meditation.  He  had  for  some  years 
been  persecuted  and  stigmatized  as  a  heretic,  in  writing  and  preach- 
ing, by  the  most  distinguished  members  of  the  Society,  but  he 
rejoiced  in  this  and  only  prayed  God  for  those  who  reviled  him 
nor,  in  his  defence  of  the  Guida,  had  he  sought  aught  but  the  glory 
of  God  and,  so  far  from  defending  the  Begghards  and  Illuminati, 
he  had  always  condemned  them.  Evidently  the  work  of  the 
Jesuits  in  discrediting  him  had  been  active  and  better  organized 
than  the  records  show,  and  he  thought  it  wiser  to  disarm,  if  possible, 
rather  than  to  struggle  with  adversaries  so  powerful.     Oliva's 


52  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

answer  of  February  28th  was  by  no  means  reassuring.  He  com- 
plimented Molinos  on  his  Christian  spirit  in  returning  good  for 
evil  and  on  the  flattering  terms  bestowed  on  the  Society  and  its 
founder.  He  had  never  read  the  books  of  Molinos  and  could  not 
speak  of  them  with  knowledge  but,  if  they  corresponded  with  his 
letter,  his  disciples  were  doing  him  great  wrong  in  applying  his 
system  of  contemplation,  of  which  only  the  rarest  souls  were 
capable,  indiscriminately  to  nuns  and  worldly  young  women. 
Finally,  he  could  not  understand  why  so  distinguished  a  member 
of  the  Society  as  Padre  Bell'  Uomo  should  have  been  brought 
before  the  Congregation  of  the  Index,  and  he  gave  infinite  thanks 
to  God  for  defending  him  before  it. 

Promptly  on  the  next  day,  February  29th,  Molinos  replied  to 
this  discouraging  epistle.  At  much  length  he  disculpated  himself 
for  writings  and  sayings  falsely  attributed  to  him.  He  held  medi- 
tation in  the  highest  esteem  as  an  exercise  suited  to  all ;  the  loftiest 
form  of  contemplation  was  a  gift  of  God  bestowed  on  the  rare  souls 
fitted  for  it.  He  again  spoke  of  the  persecution  to  which  he  was 
exposed  and,  as  for  Padre  Bell'  Uomo,  whom  he  did  not  know, 
if  his  doctrine  was  as  sound  as  represented  by  Oliva,  God  would 
enlighten  his  ministers  to  recognize  it.  Oliva's  rejoinder  to  this, 
on  March  2d,  would  appear  to  be  written  in  a  style  of  studied 
obsctirity,  saying  much  and  meaning  little,  but  one  passage  reveals 
a  source  of  Jesuit  enmity,  in  alluding  to  the  number  of  convents 
which  had  passed  out  of  the  direction  of  the  Society  to  practise 
the  new  method.^ 

The  effort  of  Molinos  to  propitiate  his  enemies  had  only  encour- 
aged them  by  its  confession  of  weakness.  Their  next  step  was  a 
dextrous  one.  Padre  Paolo  Segneri  was  not  only  the  most  popular 
Jesuit  preacher  in  Italy,  but  his  favor  with  Innocent  XI  was 
almost  as  great  as  that  of  Molinos.  He  was  selected  as  the  next 
athlete  and,  in  1680,  he  issued  a  little  volume — "Concordia  tra 
la  fatica  e  la  quiete  nell'  oratione,"  in  which  he  argued  that  the 
highest  life  is  that  which  combines  activity  with  contemplation. 
He  was  promptly  answered  by  Pietro  Matteo  Petrucci,  an  ardent 
admirer  of  Molinos,  who  was  rewarded  by  Innocent  with  the  see 
of  Jesi.  Segneri  rejoined  in  a  "Lettera  di  riposta  al  Sig.  Ignacio 
Bartalini"  and  the  controversy  was  fairly  joined.  A  more  aggres- 
sive antagonist  was  the  Minorite  Padre  Alessandro  Reggio  whose 


'  Biblioteca  Casanatense,  MS.  X,  v,  27,  fol.  231  sqq. 


Chap.  V]  MOLINOS  53 

"Clavis  Aiirea  qua  aperiuntur  errores  Michaelis  de  Molinos" 
appeared  in  1682  and  boldly  argued  that  the  Guida  revived  the 
condemned  errors  of  the  Begghards,  that  Quietism  destroyed  all 
conceptions  of  the  Trinity,  while  the  practice  of  prayer  without 
works  was  destructive  of  all  the  pious  observances  prescribed  by 
the  Church,  and  the  teaching  that  temptation  should  be  endured 
without  resistance  was  dangerous  and  contrary  to  Scripture  and 
to  the  doctors.  Petrucci  responded  vigorously,  while  Molinos 
remained  silent.  He  had,  at  least,  the  advantage  of  official  sup- 
port, for  Beir  Uomo's  book  was  forbidden  donee  corrigatur;  Seg- 
neri's  "Lettera"  and  the  "Clavis  Aurea"  were  condemned  uncon- 
ditionally, and  Segneri's  "Concordia,"  while  it  escaped  the  Index, 
was  quietly  forbidden  and  he  was  instructed  to  revise  it.^ 

The  Jesuits,  however,  were  not  the  only  body  interested  in  the 
downfall  of  Molinos.  There  is  a  curious  anonymous  tract  devoted 
to  explaining  what  it  calls  the  secret  policy  of  the  Quietists, 
assuming  their  main  object  to  be  the  destruction  of  all  the  religious 
Orders  and  especially  of  the  Dominicans  and  Franciscans.  Appar- 
ently taking  advantage  of  the  development  of  the  Pelagini  about 
this  time,  it  asserts  that  the  Quietists  had  organized  conventicles 
and  oratories  throughout  Italy ;  that  they  had  a  common  treasury 
in  which  14,000  ducats  were  found ;  that  they  flattered  the  secular 
clergy  and  sought  to  unite  them  in  opposition  to  the  regulars, 
whom  they  systematically  decried,  raking  together  all  the  stories 
of  their  corruption  and  ignorance.  In  short,  Quietism  was  a  deep- 
laid  conspiracy,  through  which  Molinos  expected  to  revolutionize 
the  Church  and  reduce  the  religious  Orders  to  impotence.^  The 
only  importance  of  the  tract  is  as  a  manifestation  of  the  attitude 
of  the  regulars  towards  Molinos  and  the  hostility  aroused  by  his 
success  in  winning  from  them,  for  his  disciples,  the  directorship 
of  souls  which  was  their  special  province. 

The  enormous  influence  of  the  elements  thus  combining  for  his 
destruction  left  little  doubt  of  the  result.  The  first  open  attack 
was  made  in  June,  1682,  when  Cardinal  Caraccioli,  Archbishop 
of  Naples,  a  pupil  of  the  Jesuits,  reported  to  the  pope  that  he 
found  his  diocese  deeply  infected  with  this  new  Quietism,  subver- 

'  Reusch,  Der  Index,  II,  612-14.  Of  these  controversial  works  I  have  been 
able  to  examine  only  Segneri's  Lettera  and  the  Clavis  Aurea,  The  chief  impres- 
sion made  by  these  polemics  is  the  elusiveness  of  these  mystic  dreams  when 
an  attempt  is  made  at  rigid  definition  and  differentiation. 

^  Biblioteca  Casanatense,  MS.  X,  iv,  39,  fol.  19  sqq. 


54  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

sive  of  the  received  prescriptions  of  the  Church,  and  he  asked 
instructions  for  its  suppression,  nor  was  he  alone  in  this  for  similar 
appeals  came  from  other  Italian  bishops.  Molinos  was  too  firmly 
established  in  the  papal  favor  for  this  to  dislodge  him,  but  the 
hostile  forces  gradually  gathered  strength  and,  in  November,  1684, 
the  Congregation  of  the  Inquisition  formally  assumed  considera- 
tion of  the  matter.  At  its  head  was  Cardinal  Ottoboni,  a  fanatic 
whose  experience  with  the  Pelagini,  when  Bishop  of  Brescia,  had 
sharpened  his  hatred  of  mysticism.  The  spirit  in  which  he  con- 
ducted the  inquest  is  revealed  in  a  memorandum  in  his  handwrit- 
ing of  the  points  to  be  elaborated  in  the  next  day's  meeting  of 
the  Congregation — that  this  heresy  is  the  worst  of  all  and  if  left 
alone  will  become  inextinguishable;  that  it  is  spreading  in  Spain 
through  the  Archbishop  of  Seville  and  in  France  with  many  books 
of  the  most  dangerous  nature;  that  it  destroys  the  Catholic  faith 
and  all  the  religious  Orders;  that  in  Jesi  the  canons  and  the  cura 
of  the  cathedral  keep  a  school  for  its  propagation ;  that  a  rich  and 
powerful  citizen  of  Jesi  threatens  the  witnesses  and  that  a  vigorous 
commissioner  must  be  sent  there;  that  the  monasteries  of  Faenza 
and  Ravenna  are  infected  and  one  in  Ferrara  has  a  Quietist  con- 
fessor; that  this  pestilence  calls  for  fire  and  steel.'  In  a  court 
presided  over  by  so  bitter  a  prosecutor,  the  judgement  was  fore- 
ordained. 

For  awhile  the  contending  forces  seem  to  have  been  equally 
balanced  and  eight  months  were  spent  in  gathering  testimony 
sufficient  to  justify  arrest.  At  last,  on  July  3,  1685,  at  a  meeting 
of  the  Congregation,  Cardinal  d'Estr^es  insisted  that  no  one  should 
leave  the  chamber  until  the  arrest  was  ordered  and  executed. 
This  was  agreed  to;  the  sbirri  were  despatched  and  Molinos  was 
lodged  in  the  prison  of  the  Inquisition.^  Yet  when,  on  November 
9th  the  Spanish  Holy  Office  condemned  the  Guia  espirituale  as 
containing  propositions  savoring  of  heresy  and  lUuminism,  the 
Congregation  addressed  to  the  pope  a  vigorous  protest  against  its 
action  on  a  matter  which  was  still  under  consideration  at  head- 
quarters.^ 

The  influence  of  Queen  Christina,  we  are  told,  was  exerted  to 

'  Bemino,  op.  cit.,  IV,  726. 

'  Biblioteca  Casanatense,  MSS.  X,  vii,  46,  fol.  289  sqq.  This  is  an  account  of 
the  affair  by  one  evidently  in  position  to  have  accurate  knowledge  of  details. 

'  Archivo  hist6rico  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Legajo  1,  n.  4,  fol.  164.— Archivo 
de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Legajo  1465,  fol.  101. 


Chap.  V]  MOLINOS  56 

procure  for  Molinos  better  treatment  than  was  usual  with  prisoners. 
Of  the  details  of  the  trial  we  know  little  or  nothing,  but,  as  torture 
was  habitual  in  the  Roman  Inquisition,  it  is  not  probable  that  he 
was  spared.  As  his  books  had  not  been  condemned,  the  evidence 
employed  was  drawn  exclusively  from  the  immense  mass  of  his 
correspondence  and  MSS.  which  had  been  seized,  the  depositions 
of  witnesses  and  his  own  confessions,  so  that  we  are  unable  to 
judge  how  far  it  justified  the  conclusions  set  forth  in  the  sentence, 
though,  from  the  manner  in  which  that  discriminates  between  what 
he  admitted  and  what  he  denied,  it  is  but  fair  to  assume  that  it 
represents  correctly  the  evidence  before  the  tribunal.  The  trial 
was  necessarily  prolonged.  In  his  defence  interrogatories  were 
forwarded  to  Saragossa  and  Valencia,  in  1687,  where  his  witnesses 
were  duly  examined.^  Two  hundred  and  sixty-three  erroneous 
propositions  were  extracted  by  the  censors  from  the  mass  of  matter 
before  them,  to  which  he  of  course  was  required  to  answer  in  detail, 
and  these  seem  to  have  been  condensed  into  nineteen  for  the 
consideration  of  the  Congregation.^ 
Petrucci  .was  threatened  and  his  elevation  to  the  cardinalate, 

•  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Legajo  12,  n.  1,  fol.  106. 

'  Trois  lettres  touchant  I'Etat  present  d'ltahe,  pp.  90-120  (Cologne,  1688) 

These  nineteen  errors  are  here  printed  with  their  confutations,  but  without 
indication  of  date  or  of  the  authority  under  which  they  were  prepared.  They 
are  also  contained,  with  a  different  series  of  confutations,  in  the  mass  of  papers 
concerning  the  Pelagini,  in  the  Ambrosian  Library,  H,  S.,  vi,  29,  fol.  28. 

This  also  contains  (fol.  30)  a  series  of  instructions  for  detecting  the  Quietist 
heresy,  consisting  of  a  list  of  forty-three  errors.  Some  of  these  set  forth  so  con- 
cisely the  leading  tenets  ascribed,  with  tolerable  accuracy,  to  the  Quietists,  that 
they  are  worth  presenting  here. 

21.  They  seeli  to  annihilate  the  memory,  the  intellect  and  the  will;  to  remember 
nothing,  to  understand  nothing,  to  desire  nothing,  and  they  say  that  when 
they  have  thus  emptied  themselves  they  are  refilled  by  God. 

22.  They  say  that  God  operates  in  their  souls  without  cooperation;  that 
their  spirit  is  identified  with  God,  so  that  they  are  purely  passive,  surrendering 
their  freewill  to  God  who  takes  possession  of  it. 

23.  Thus  such  souls  are  preserved  from  even  venial  sins  of  advertence  and, 
if  they  commit  some  inadvertently  they  are  not  imputed. 

24.  Also  some  proceed  to  claim  impeccability,  because  they  cannot  sin  when 
God  operates  in  them  without  their  participation. 

25.  If  these  souls  commit  sinful  acts,  they  say  it  is  through  the  violence  of 
the  demon,  with  the  permission  of  God,  for  their  torment  and  purgation. 

28.  Examination  of  conscience  to  ascertain  if  there  has  been  consent  to  such 
acts  is  not  expedient,  for  it  distracts  introversion  and  disturbs  the  quiet  of  the 
soul. 


66  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

September  2,  1686,  was  ascribed  to  the  desire  of  Innocent  to  save 
him  from  prosecution.  Shortly  afterwards,  two  of  the  principal 
assistants  of  Molinos,  the  brothers  Leoni  of  Como,  of  whom  Simone 
was  a  priest  and  Antonio  Maria  was  a  tailor,  were  arrested.  Then, 
on  February  9, 1687,  followed  the  arrest  of  the  Count  and  Countess 
Vespiniani,  of  Paolo  Rocchi,  confessor  of  the  Princess  Borghese, 
and  of  seventy  others,  causing  general  consternation,  not  dimin- 
ished by  the  subsequent  imprisonment  of  some  two  hundred  more. 
The  Congregation  was  doing  its  work  thoroughly  and  it  was  even 
said  that,  on  February  13th,  it  appointed  a  commission  which 
examined  the  pope  himself.  A  revolution  in  the  traditional  stand- 
ards of  orthodoxy  could  not  be  effected  without  compromising 
multitudes,  and  the  victors  were  determined  that  their  victory 
should  be  complete.  On  February  15th,  Cardinal  Cibo,  the  secre- 
tary of  the  Congregation,  addressed  to  all  the  bishops  of  Italy  a 
circular  stating  that  in  many  places  there  existed  or  were  forming 
associations  called  spiritual  conferences,  under  ignorant  directors, 
who,  with  maxims  of  exquisite  perfection,  misled  them  into  most 
pernicious  errors,  resulting  in  manifest  heresy  and  abominable 
immorality.  The  bishops  were  therefore  ordered  to  investigate 
and,  if  such  assemblies  were  found,  to  abolish  them  forthwith, 
taking  moreover  especial  care  that  this  pestilence  was  not  allowed 
to  infect  the  monasteries. 

There  could  be  but  one  end  to  the  trial.  Every  possible  accu- 
sation was  brought  against  Molinos,  even  to  a  foolish  self -laudatory 
speech  made  to  the  sbirri  who  arrested  him,  and  his  admiring 
certain  anagrams  made  of  his  name.  One  charge,  which  he  denied, 
was  his  giving  to  a  certain  person  the  soiled  shirt  in  which  he  had 
come  from  Spain,  saying  that,  after  his  death,  it  would  be  a  great 
relic.  He  seems  to  have  responded  with  candor  to  the  various 
articles,  denying  some  and  admitting  others.  Of  the  articles  the 
most  important  were  his  justifying  the  sacrilege  of  breaking  images 
and  crucifixes;  depreciating  religious  vows  and  dissuading  persons 
from  entering  religious  Orders;  saying  that  vows  destroyed  per- 
fection; that,  by  the  prayer  of  Quiet,  the  soul  is  rendered  not  only 
sinless  but  impeccable,  for  it  is  deprived  of  freedom  and  God 
operates  it,  wishing  us  sometimes  to  sin  and  offend  him,  and  the 
demon  moves  the  members  to  indecent  acts;  that  the  three  ways 
of  the  spirit,  hitherto  described  by  the  doctors,  are  absurd  and 
that  there  is  but  one,  the  interior  way;  that  he  had  formed  conven- 
ticles of  men  and  women  and  permitted  them  to  perform  immoral 


Chap.  V]  MOLINOS  57 

acts  and  to  eat  flesh  on  fast  days.  He  admitted  excusing  the 
breaking  of  images  and  crucifixes;  he  denied  depreciation  of  solemn 
vows,  but  admitted  it  as  respects  private  ones,  and  he  had  only 
dissuaded  from  entering  religion  those  whom  he  knew  would 
create  scandal.  He  denied  teaching  that  in  Quietism  the  soul 
becomes  impeccable,  but  only  that  it  did  not  consent  to  the  act  of 
sin  and  he  said  that  he  knew  many  persons  practising  it  who  lived 
many  years  without  committing  even  venial  sin.  He  denied  also 
that  Quietism  deprived  the  soul  of  freewill,  but  said  that,  in  that 
perfect  union  with  God,  it  was  God  who  worked  and  not  the  facul- 
ties, and  when  he  said  that  God  sometimes  wished  sin,  he  meant 
material  sin  (as  distinguished  from  formal),  and  that  the  demon, 
as  God's  instrument  to  mortify  the  flesh  and  purify  the  soul,  causes 
sometimes  the  hand  and  other  members  to  perform  lascivious  acts. 
He  denied  condemning  the  three  ways  of  the  spirit,  having  meant 
only  that  the  interior  way  was  so  much  more  perfect  that  the  others 
were  negligible  by  comparison.  He  denied  forming  conventicles 
in  which  lascivious  acts  were  permitted  and  he  had  excluded  some 
persons  who  would  not  refrain  from  them.  He  admitted  eating 
flesh  on  prohibited  days,  and  that  he  had  not  perfectly  observed 
a  single  Lent  since  he  came  to  Rome,  but  said  that  this  was  by 
licence  of  his  physician.  He  confessed  that  for  many  years  he 
had  practised  the  most  indecent  acts  with  two  women,  the  details 
of  which  need  not  be  repeated;  he  had  not  deemed  this  sinful,  but 
a  purification  of  the  soul  and  that  in  them  he  enjoyed  a  closer 
union  with  God ;  these  were  merely  acts  of  the  senses,  in  which  the 
higher  faculties  had  no  part,  as  they  were  united  with  God.  When 
he  was  told  that  these  were  propositions  heretical,  bestial  and 
scandalous,  he  replied  that  he  submitted  himself  in  all  things  to 
the  Holy  Office,  recognizing  that  its  lights  were  superior  to  his 
own.^ 
A  sentence  of  condemnation  was  inevitable.     It  was  drawn  up, 

•  Bibl.  Casanatense  MSS.,  X,  vii,  45,  fol.  289. 

I  cannot  but  regard  this  as  a  truthful  report.  It  accords  with  the  briefer 
abstract  in  the  final  sentence,  which  distinguishes  between  the  articles  proved 
by  witnesses  and  denied  by  Molinos  and  those  which  he  admitted.  Reusch 
(Der  Index,  II,  617-18)  states  that  the  sentence  has  been  printed  in  the  Ana- 
lecta  Juris  Pontiflcii,  6,  1653,  and  in  the  Appendix  to  Francke's  translation  of 
the  Guida  Spiritvale,  published  in  1687.  I  have  a  copy  from  the  Royal  Library 
of  Munich,  Cod.  Ital.  185,  and  there  is  one  in  the  BibliothSque  nationale,  fonds 
italien,  138,  which  also  contains  the  263  articles  drawn  from  his  correspondence, 
with  his  answers. 


58  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

August  20,  1687;  on  the  28th  an  inquisitorial  decree  was  signed 
embodying  sixty-eight  propositions,  drawn  from  the  evidence  and 
confessions,  which  were  condemned  as  heretical,  ,  suspect,  erro- 
neous, scandalous,  blasphemous,  offensive  to  pious  ears,  subver- 
sive of  Christian  discipline  and  seditious;  they  were  not  to  be  taught 
or  practised  under  pain  of  deprivation  of  office  and  benefice  and 
perpetual  disability,  and  of  an  anathema  reserved  to  the  Holy 
See.  All  the  writings  of  Molinos,  in  whatever  language,  were 
forbidden  to  be  printed,  possessed  or  read,  and  all  copies  were, 
under  the  same  penalties,  to  be  surrendered  to  the  inquisitors  or 
bishops,  who  were  to  burn  them/  This  was  posted  in  the  usual 
places  on  September  3d,  the  day  fixed  for  the  atto  di  fede  in  which 
Molinos  was  to  appear. 

Under  a  heavy  guard  he  was  brought,  on  the  previous  evening, 
from  the  inquisitorial  prison  to  the  church  of  Santa  Maria  sopra 
Minerva,  in  which  the  atto  was  to  be  celebrated.  In  the  morning, 
in  a  room  next  to  the  sacristy,  he  was  exhibited  to  some  curious 
persons  of  distinction,  eliciting  from  him  an  expression  of  indig- 
nation, construed  as  indicating  how  little  he  felt  of  real  repentance. 
This  was  confirmed  by  what  followed,  explicable  possibly  by  Span- 
ish imperturbability,  but  more  probably  by  the  Quietism  which 
led  him  to  regard  himself  as  the  passive  instrument  of  God's  will, 
and  superbly  indifferent  to  whatever  might  befall  him,  so  long  as 
his  soul  was  rapt  in  the  joys  of  the  mystic  death,  which  he  had 
taught  as  the  summum  bonum.  Called  upon  to  order  a  meal,  he 
specified  one  which  in  quantity  and  quality  might  satisfy  the  most 
voracious  gourmet  and,  after  partaking  of  it,  he  lay  down  to  a 
refreshing  siesta,  until  he  was  roused  to  take  his  place  on  the 
platform  where,  in  spite  of  his  manacles,  his  bearing  was  that 
of  a  judge  and  not  of  a  convict. 

The  vast  church  was  thronged  to  its  farthest  corner  with  all 
that  was  notable  in  Rome,  including  twenty-three  cardinals,  and 
the  spacious  piazza  in  front  and  all  the  neighboring  streets  were 
crowded.  An  indulgence  of  fifteen  days  and  fifteen  quarantines 
had  been  proclaimed  for  all  in  attendance,  but  in  Rome,  where 
plenary  indulgences  could  be  had  on  almost  every  day  in  the  year 
by  merely  visiting  churches,  this  could  not  account  for  the  eager- 
ness which  brushed  aside  the  Swiss  guards  stationed  at  the  portals, 
requiring  a  reinforcement  of  troops  and  resulting  in  considerable 


'  D'Argentre,  Collect,  judic.  de  novis  Erroribus,  III,  ii,  357-62. 


Chap.  V]  CONDEMNATION  OF  MOLINISM  69 

bloodshed.  As  the  long  sentence  was  read,  with  its  details  of 
Molinos's  enormities,  occupying  two  hours,  it  was  interrupted  with 
the  frequent  roar  of  Burn  him!  Burn  him!  led  by  an  enthusiastic 
cardinal  and  echoed  by  the  mob  outside.  Through  all  this,  we 
are  told,  his  effrontery  never  failed  him,  which  was  reckoned  as 
an  infallible  sign  of  his  persistent  perversity.  The  sentence  con- 
cluded by  declaring  him  convicted  as  a  dogmatizing  heretic  but, 
as  he  had  professed  himself  repentant  and  had  implored  mercy 
and  pardon,  it  ordered  him  to  abjure  his  heresies  and  to  be  rigidly 
imprisoned  with  the  sanbenito  for  life,  without  hope  of  release, 
and  to  perform  certain  spiritual  exercises.  This  was  duly  executed 
and  he  lingered,  it  was  said  repentant,  until  his  death,  December 
28,  1696.  The  day  after  the  atto  di  fede  his  disciples  performed 
their  abjuration.  There  was  no  desire  to  deal  harshly  with  them, 
and  they  were  dismissed  with  trivial  penances,  except  the  brothers 
Leoni.  Simone  the  priest,  who  had  been  a  popular  confessor, 
was  sentenced  to  ten  years'  imprisonment;  Antonio  Maria,  the 
tailor,  who  had  been  a  travelling  missionary  and  organizer,  was 
incarcerated  for  life.  There  was  still  another  victim,  the  secretary 
of  Mohnos,  Pedro  Pefia,  arrested  May  9,  1687,  for  defending  his 
master.  He  was  fully  convicted  of  Quietism  and,  on  March  16, 
1689,  he  was  condemned  to  life-long  prison.^ 

There  still  remained  the  publication  to  Christendom  of  the  new 
position  assumed  by  the  Holy  See  towards  Mysticism.  The  sixty- 
eight  propositions,  condemned  in  the  inquisitorial  decree  of  August 
28th,  were  printed  in  the  vernacular  and  placed  on  sale,  but  were 
speedily  suppressed.  There  must  still  have  been  opposition  in 
the  Sacred  College,  or  on  the  part  of  Innocent  XI,  for  the  btill 
Cmlestis  Pastor  was  not  drawn  up  and  signed  until  November  20th, 
and  was  not  finally  pubUshed  to  the  world  until  February  19, 
1688.    This  recited  the  same  series  of  propositions  and  the  con- 


»  The  account  of  the  atto  di  fede  is  derived  from  the  MS.  Casanatense,  X,  vii, 
45  and  a  relation  printed  by  Laemmer,  Meletematum  Romanorum  Mantissa, 
pp.  407  sqq.,  who  also  prints  (pp.  412-22)  the  sentence  of  Pedro  Pena. 

The  contemporary  printed  sources  of  the  whole  affair  are  Trois  Lettres  touchant 
I'Etat  present  d'ltalie,  Cologne,  1688;  Recveil  de  diverses  pieces  concemant  le 
Quietisme  et  Us  Quietistes,  Amsterdam,  1688,  and  Bemino,  Historia  di  tutte 
VHeresie,  IV,  711  sqq.  The  concise  account  by  Reusch  (Der  Index,  II,  611 
sqq.)  is  written  with  his  accustomed  thoroughness  and  careful  use  of  all  accessible 
sources.  John  Bigelow's  "Molinos  the  Quietist"  (New  York,  1882)  is  a  popular 
narrative  which  rejects  the  charges  of  immorahty.  See  also  Heppe,  Geschichte 
der  qmetistischm  Mystik,  pp.  110  sqq.,  260  sqq.  (Beriin,  1875). 


60  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

demnation  of  Molinos  and  confirmed  the  decree  of  August  28th. 
The  propositions  condemned  consisted,  for  the  most  part,  of  the 
untenable  extravagances  of  Quietism,  including  impeccability  and 
the  sinlessness  of  acts  committed  while  the  soul  was  absorbed  with 
God,  but  it  was  impossible  to  do  this  without  condemning  much 
that  had  been  taught  and  practised  by  the  mystic  saints,  and  there 
were  no  saving  clauses  to  differentiate  lawful  from  unlawful  con- 
verse of  the  soul  with  its  Creator.  The  Church  broke  definitely 
with  Mysticism,  and  by  implication  gave  the  faithful  to  under- 
stand that  salvation  was  to  be  sought  in  the  beaten  track,  through 
the  prescribed  observances  and  under  the  guidance  of  the  hierar- 
chical organization.' 

This  change  of  front  was  emphasized  in  various  ways.  Inno- 
cent's favor  saved  Cardinal  Petrucci  from  formal  prosecution;  to 
the  vexation  of  the  Inquisition,  his  case  was  referred  to  four  car- 
dinals, Cibo,  Ottoboni,  Casanate  and  Azzolini;  he  professed  himself 
ready  to  retract  whatever  the  pope  objected  to  and,  though  the 
Inquisition  held  an  abjuration  to  be  necessary,  he  was  not  required 
to  make  it;  he  was  relegated  to  Jesi  and  then  recalled  to  Rome, 
where  he  was  kept  under  surveillance.  He  could  not,  moreover, 
escape  the  mortification  of  seeing  the  books,  which  had  been  so 
warmly  approved,  condemned  by  a  decree  of  February  5,  1688. 
Many  other  works,  which  had  long  passed  current  as  recognized 
aids  to  devotion,  were  similarly  treated — those  of  Benedetto  Biscia, 
Juan  Falconi,  Frangois  Malaval  and  of  numerous  others — even 
the  Opera  della  divina  Gratia  of  the  Dominican  Tommaso  Men- 
ghini,  himself  Inquisitor-general  of  Ferrara  and  author  of  the  Regole 
del  Tribunal  del  Santo  Officio,  which  long  remained  a  standard 
guide  in  the  tribunals.  What  had  been  accepted  as  the  highest 
expression  of  religious  devotion  had  suddenly  become  heresy.^ 
Apparently  it  was  not  until  May,  1689,  that  instructions  were  sent 
everywhere  to  demand  the  surrender  of  all  books  of  Molinos  and 
to  report  any  one  suspected  of  Molinism.' 

Persecution  received  a  fresh  impulse  when  Cardinal  Ottoboni, 
as  Alexander  VIII,  succeeded  Innocent  XI,  October  6,  1689. 
Bernino  tells  us  that  he  appeared  to  him  an  angel  in  looks  and  an 
apostle  in  utterance  when  he  declared  that  there  was  no  creature 


'  Innocentii  PP.  XI,  Bull.  Caelestis  Pastor  (Bullar.  X,  212). 
'  Reusch,  Der  Index,  II,  618.— Index  Innoc.  XI,  Append,  pp.  7,  28,  45,  47 
(Romae,  1702). 
'  MSS.  of  Ambrosian  Library,  H.  S.  vi,  29,  fol.  67  sqq. 


Chap.  V]  THE  BECCARELLISTI  61 

in  the  world  so  devoid  of  sense  as  a  heretic  for,  as  he  was  deprived 
of  faith  so  also  was  he  of  reason.  His  first  care  was  to  remove 
from  office  and  throw  into  irremissible  prison  every  one  who  was 
in  the  slightest  degree  suspect  of  Molinism;  in  this  he  did  not  even 
spare  his  Apostolic  camera,  for  he  arrested  an  Apostolic  Prothono- 
tary  and,  although  in  the  Congregation  of  the  Inquisition  there 
were  four  kinsmen  of  the  prisoner,  zeal  for  the  faith  preponderated 
over  blood/  Fortunately  his  pontificate  lasted  for  only  sixteen 
months,  so  that  he  had  but  limited  opportunity  for  the  gratifi- 
cation of  his  ardent  fanaticism  and  scandalous  nepotism. 

In  spite  of  all  this,  there  were  still  found  those  who  indulged 
their  sensual  instincts  under  cover  of  exalted  spirituality.  In 
1698  there  was  in  Rome  the  case  of  a  priest,  named  Pietro  Paolo  di 
San  Giov.  Evangelista,  who  had  already  been  tried  by  the  tri- 
bunals of  Naples  and  Spoleto,  so  that  his  career  must  have  been 
prolonged,  while  references  to  a  Padre  Benigno  and  a  Padre 
Filippo  del  Rio  show  that  he  was  not  alone.  He  had  ecstasies 
and  a  following  of  devotees;  he  taught  that  communion  could  be 
taken  without  preliminary  confession  and  that,  when  the  spirit 
was  united  with  God,  whatever  acts  the  inferior  part  might  commit 
were  not  sins.  He  freely  confessed  to  practices  of  indescribable 
obscenity  with  his  female  penitents,  whom  he  assured  afterwards 
that  they  were  as  pure  as  the  Blessed  Virgin.  He  was  sentenced 
to  perpetual  prison,  without  hope  of  release,  and  to  a  series  of 
arduous  spiritual  penances,  while  Fra  Benigno  escaped  with  seven 
years  of  imprisonment.^ 

Another  development  of  the  same  tendencies — probably  a  sur- 
vival of  the  Pelagini — was  discovered  in  Brescia  in  1708.  The 
sectaries  called  themselves  disciples  of  St.  Augustin,  engaged  in 
vindicating  his  opinions  on  predestination  and  grace,  but  they 
were  popularly  known  as  Beccarellisti,  from  two  brothers,  priests 
of  the  name  of  Beccarelli,  whom  they  regarded  as  their  leaders. 
For  twenty-five  years— that  is,  since  the  ostensible  suppression  of 
the  Pelagini— the  sect  had  been  secretly  spreading  itself  through- 
out Lombardy,  where  it  was  said  to  number  some  forty-two 
thousand  members,  including  many  nobles  and  wealthy  families 
and  ecclesiastics  of  position.  They  had  a  common  treasury  and  a 
regular  organization,  headed  by  the  elder  Beccarelli  as  pope,  with 

•  Bemino,  op.  cit,  TV,  727-8. 

'  Royal  Library  of  Munich,  Cod.  Ital.  209,  fol.  67  sqq.— Cf.  Phelippeaux, 
Relation  du  Quietisme,  II,  117,  154. 


62  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

cardinals,  apostles  and  other  dignitaries.  The  immediate  object  of 
the  movement,  we  are  told,  was  to  break  the  power  of  the  religious 
Orders  and  to  restore  to  the  secular  priesthood  the  functions  of 
confession  and  the  direction  of  souls  which  it  had  well-nigh  lost, 
but  there  was  taught  the  Quietist  doctrine  of  divine  grace  to  which 
the  devotee  svirrendered  all  his  faculties.  This  was  allowed  to 
operate  without  resistance,  and  BeccarelU  held  that  Molinos  was 
the  only  true  teacher  of  Christian  perfection,  but  we  may  safely 
reject  as  exaggeration  the  statement  that  carnal  indulgence  was 
regarded  as  earning  a  plenary  indulgence,  applicable  to  souls  in 
purgatory.  Cardinal  Badoaro,  then  Bishop  of  Brescia,  took  ener- 
getic measures  to  stamp  out  this  recrudescence  of  the  condemned 
doctrines;  the  leaders  scattered  to  Switzerland,  Germany  and 
England,  while  Beccarelli  was  tried  by  the  Inquisition  of  Venice 
and  was  condemned  to  seven  years  of  galley-service.^ 

Probably  the  latest  victims  who  paid  with  their  lives  for  their 
belief  in  the  efhcacy  of  mental  prayer  and  mystic  death  were  a 
beguine  named  Geltruda  and  a  friar  named  Romualdo,  who  were 
burnt  in  a  Palermitan  atto  di  fede,  April  6,  1724,  as  impenitent 
Molinists  after  languishing  in  gaol  since  1699.^ 

If,  in  the  condemnation  of  Molinos,  Mysticism  was  not  wholly 
condemned,  what  was  lacking  was  supplied  when  the  duel  between 
the  two  glories  of  the  Galilean  Church — Bossuet  and  Fenelon — 
induced  an  appeal  to  the  Holy  See.  Beyond  the  Alps,  mystic 
ardor  was  not  widely  diffused  in  the  seventeenth  century,  yet  there 
were  those  who  revelled  in  the  agonies  and  bUss  of  the  interior 
way.  St.  Frangois  de  Sales,  who  died  in  1622,  was  beatified  in 
1661  and  canonized  in  1665,  taught  Quietism  as  pronounced  as 
that  of  Molinos,  although  he  avoided  the  application  to  sensuality. 
The  soul  abandoned  itself  wholly  to  God;  when  divine  love  took 
possession  of  it,  God  deprived  it  of  all  human  desires,  even  for 
spiritual  consolations,  exercises  of  piety  and  the  perfection  of 
virtue.  He  said  that  he  had  scarce  a  desire  and,  if  he  were  to 
live  again,  he  would  have  none;  if  God  came  to  him,  he  would  go 
to  meet  him  but,  if  God  did  not  come,  he  would  remain  quiescent 
and  would  not  seek  God.  Freedom  of  the  spirit  consisted  in 
detachment  from  everything  to  submit  to  the  will  of  God,  caring 


'  Laemmer,  op.  cit.,  p.  427. — Heppe,  Geschichte  der  quietistischen  Mystik, 
p.  445. 

^  Mongitore,  L'Atto  pubblico  di  Fede  celebrate  k  6  Aprile,  1724  (Palermo 
1724). 


Chap.  V]  F^NELON  AND  BOSSUET  63 

neither  for  places,  or  persons,  or  the  practice  of  virtue.'  It  followed 
that  the  soul,  absorbed  in  divine  love,  had  nothing  to  ask  of  God  ; 
it  rested  in  the  quiet  of  contemplation,  while  vocal  prayer  and 
all  the  received  observances  of  religion  were  cast  aside,  as  fitted 
only  for  those  who  had  not  attained  these  mystic  altitudes.  Then 
there  was  Antoinette  Bourignon  (1616-1680)  who,  in  her  volumi- 
nous writings,  taught  the  supremacy  of  the  interior  Ught,  the 
abandonment  of  the  faculties  to  the  will  of  God,  and  the  utter 
renunciation  of  self  in  the  ardor  of  divine  love.^  There  was  Jean 
de  Bernieres-Louvigny  (1602-1659)  whose  writings  had  an  im- 
mense circulation  and  whose  views  as  to  mystic  death  were  vir- 
tually the  same  as  those  of  Molinos.'  All  these  and  others  taught 
and  wrote  without  interference,  save  from  polemics,  such  as  those 
of  Pere  Archange  Ripaut,  Guardian  of  the  Capuchin  convent  of 
S.  Jacques  in  Paris,  who  devoted  a  volume  of  near  a  thousand 
pages  to  their  refutation  and  reprobation.  If  we  are  to  believe 
him,  these  superhuman  heights  of  spirituality  were  accompanied 
in  France,  as  elsewhere,  with  sensuality.'' 

The  condemnation  of  Molinos  and  the  sixty-eight  propositions 
attributed  to  him  naturally  attracted  attention  to  the  more  or  less 
quietistic  developments  of  Mysticism,  but  it  is  probable  that  no 
action  on  the  subject  would  have  been  taken  in  France  had  not 
personal  motives  suggested  the  persecution  of  one  who  chanced 
at  the  moment  to  be  the  most  prominent  representative  of  the 
interior  way — that  very  curious  personality,  Jeanne  Marie  Bou- 
vieres  de  la  Mothe  Guyon,  whose  autobiography,  written  with 
a  frank  absence  of  reserve,  affords  a  living  picture  of  the  self- 
inflicted  martyrdom  endured  in  the  struggle  to  emancipate  the 
soul  from  the  ties  of  earth.  When  she  reached  the  final  stage  she 
tells  us  that  formerly  God  was  in  her,  now  she  was  in  him,  plunged 
in  his  immensity  without  sight  or  Hght  or  knowledge;  she  was  lost 
in  him  as  a  wave  in  the  ocean ;  her  soul  was  as  a  leaf  or  a  feather 
borne  by  the  wind,  abandoning  itself  to  the  operation  of  God  in  all 
that  it  did,  exteriorly  or  interiorly.     She  acquired  the  faculty  of 


•  See  the  extracts  from  S.  Franpois  de  Sales  collected  by  F&elon,  in  his 
Fifth  Letter.— CEuvres,  II,  95-98  (Paris,  1838). 

'  Noack,  Die  christliche  Mystic,  II,  236  (Konigsberg,  1853). 
^  Heppe,  op.  cit.,  p.  88. 

*  Abomination  des  Abominations  des  fausses  Devotions  de  ce  Terns  divistes, 
en  Trois,  la  premiere  des  lUuminez;  la  seconde  des  nouveaux  Adamites;  la 
troisieme  des  Spirituels  k  la  mode,  p.  88  (Paris,  1632). 


64  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

working  miraculous  cures  and  her  power  over  demons  was  such 
that,  if  she  were  in  hell,  they  would  all  abandon  it.  At  times 
the  plenitude  of  grace  was  so  superabundant  and  so  oppressive 
that  she  could  only  lie  speechless  in  bed;  it  so  swelled  her  that  her 
clothes  would  be  torn  and  she  could  find  relief  only  by  discharging 
the  surplus  on  others.^ 

It  is  beyond  our  province  to  enter  into  the  miserable  story  of 
her  persecutions,  commenced  by  some  of  her  relatives  and  carried 
on  by  Bossuet,  leading  to  her  reclusion  in  convents  and  imprison- 
ment in  Vincennes  and  the  Bastile.  It  suffices  for  us  that  her 
influence  stimulated  F^nelon's  tendency  to  Mysticism  and  con- 
verted into  bitter  hostility  the  friendship  between  him  and  Bossuet. 
A  commission,  appointed  to  examine  her  doctrine  and  headed  by 
Bossuet,  drew  up,  in  1694,  a  list  of  thirty-four  errors  of  Mysticism, 
which  F^nelon  willingly  signed  and  which  Bossuet  and  Noailles, 
then  Bishop  of  Chalons-sur-Marne,  issued  with  instructions  for 
their  dioceses,  including  condemnations  of  the  Guide  of  Molinos, 
the  Pratique  facile  of  Malaval,  the  R^gle  des  Associes  de  I'Enfant 
J6sus,  the  Analise  of  Lacombe  and  Madame  Guyon's  Moyen 
court  and  Cantique  des  Cantiques.  By  this  time  Madame  Guyon 
had  been  put  out  of  the  way,  and  the  matter  might  have  been 
allowed  to  rest  under  the  comprehensive  definitions  of  the  bull 
Ccelestis  pastor,  but  Bossuet's  combative  spirit  had  been  aroused 
and  he  was  determined  to  crush  out  all  vestiges  of  Mysticism, 
heedless  of  what  the  Church  had  accepted  for  centuries.  He  drew 
up  an  Instruction  on  the  various  kinds  of  prayer,  in  which  he 
pointed  out,  in  vigorous  terms,  the  dangers  attendant  on  contem- 
plation. Noailles,  now  Archbishop  of  Paris,  signed  it  with  him, 
and  they  invited  Fenelon  to  join  but  he  refused,  in  spite  of  entrea- 
ties and  remonstrances,  for  it  attributed  to  Madame  Guyon  all 
that  was  most  objectionable  in  Illuminism. 

The  breach  between  the  friends  had  commenced  and  it  widened 
irrevocably  when  Fenelon,  in  justification  of  himself,  published, 
in  February  1697,  his  Explication  des  Maximes  des  Saints  sur  la 
Vie  int&rieure,  with  a  letter  to  Madame  de  Maintenon  animad- 
verting sharply  on  Bossuet's  inj  ustice.  The  book  was  based  chiefly 
on  the  utterances  of  St.  Frangois  de  Sales,  but  it  carefully  guarded 

'  Bossuet,  who  read  her  autobiography  in  MS.  tells  us  of  this  tympanitic  con- 
dition and  the  splitting  of  her  garments  (De  Quietismo,  ap.  Laemmer,  op.  cit, 
p.  423).  In  the  printed  life,  this  special  feature  is  omitted,  but  the  passage  has 
every  appearance  of  curtailment  (II,  33,  cf.  234;  III,  9). 


Chap.  V]  F^NELON  AND  BOSSUET  65 

the  practice  of  Quietism  from  all  objectionable  deductions.  There 
was  no  self-abandonment  to  temptations  and  no  claim  of  impecca- 
bility; souls  of  the  highest  altitude  could  commit  mortal  sin;  they 
were  bound  daily  to  ask  God  for  forgiveness,  to  detest  their  sins 
and  seek  remission,  not  for  the  mercenary  motive  of  their  own 
salvation  but  in  obedience  to  the  wishes  of  God.  It  is  true  that 
they  were  not  tied  down  to  formal  observances,  but  vocal  prayer 
was  not  to  be  decried, — though  its  value  depended  upon  its  being 
animated  by  internal  prayer.  The  indifference,  which  was  the 
point  most  objected  to  in  Quietism,  was  greatly  limited  by  Fenelon. 
The  senseless  determination  to  wish  for  nothing  was  an  impious 
resistance  to  the  known  will  of  God,  and  to  all  the  impulses  of  his 
grace;  it  is  true  that  the  advanced  soul  wishes  nothing  for  itself 
but  it  wishes  everything  for  God;  it  does  not  wish  perfection  or 
happiness  for  itself,  but  it  wishes  all  perfection  and  happiness,  so 
far  as  it  pleases  God  to  make  us  wish  for  these  things,  by  the 
impulsion  of  his  grace.  In  this  highest  state  the  soul  does  not 
wish  salvation  in  its  own  interest,  but  wishes  it  for  the  glory  and 
good  pleasure  of  God,  as  a  thing  which  he  wishes  and  Avishes  us 
to  wish  for  his  sake. 

It  is  difficult  to  see  what  objection  could  be  raised  to  a  Quietism 
thus  strictly  limited  and  guarded,  and  no  one  who  compares  the 
Maximes  des  Saints  with  the  extravagance  of  the  great  mystic 
saints  can  fail  to  recognize  that  the  violent  quarrel  which  arose 
was  a  purely  personal  matter.  In  this  Fenelon  defended  himself 
with  dignity  and  moderation,  while  the  violence  of  Bossuet's  attack 
sometimes  bordered  on  truculence.  He  was  secure  in  the  support 
of  the  court.  Louis  XIV  had  been  won  over,  and  it  soon  became 
to  him  a  matter  of  personal  pride  to  overcome  all  resistance  to 
his  will.  Fenelon  was  banished  to  his  diocese  of  Cambrai  and 
deprived  of  his  position  of  preceptor  to  the  royal  children,  showing 
that  he  was  in  complete  disgrace  and  warning  all  time-servers  to 
abandon  him. 

It  was  soon  evident  that  the  matter  would  have  to  be  settled  in 
Rome.  Bossuet  sent  an  advance  copy  of  his  Instruction  to  Inno- 
cent XII,  pointing  out  that  he  was  applying  in  France  the  principles 
affirmed  in  the  condemnation  of  Molinos.  Fenelon  followed  his 
example  and,  on  April  27th,  sent  the  Maximes,  stating  that  he 
submitted  it  to  the  judgement  of  the  Holy  See.  The  curia  gladly 
accepted  the  task,  rejoiced  at  the  opportunity  of  intervening 
authoritatively  in  a  quarrel  within  the  Gallican  Chm'ch.     Fenelon 

VOL.  IV  5 


66  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

was  refused  permission  to  go  to  Rome  and  defend  himself,  but  he 
had  a  powerful  protector  in  the  person  of  the  Cardinal  de  Bouillon, 
then  French  ambassador  and  a  member  of  the  Congregation  of 
the  Inquisition,  who  loyally  stood  by  him  even  at  the  expense  of  a 
rebuke  from  his  royal  master.  He  also  secured  the  support  of 
the  Jesuits,  whose  College  de  Clermont  had  approved  of  the 
Maximes,  and  who  promised  to  manifest  as  much  energy  in  his 
defence  as  they  had  shown  in  procuring  the  condemnation  of 
Cornells  Jansen.  These  weighty  influences  might  secure  delay  and 
discussion,  but  they  could  not  control  the  result  against  the  over- 
mastering pressure  of  such  a  monarch  as  Louis  XIV  who,  on  July 
27, 1697,  wrote  to  the  pope  that  he  had  had  the  Maximes  examined 
and  that  it  was  pronoimced  "tres  mauvais  et  tres  dangereux," 
wherefore  he  asked  to  have  judgement  pronounced  on  it  without 
delay.  Then,  on  May  16,  1698,  the  nuncio  at  Paris  reported  that 
the  king  complained  of  the  delay;  it  was  in  contempt  of  his  person 
and  crown,  and  if  Rome  did  not  act  promptly  he  would  take  such 
measures  as  he  saw  fit.  Threats  such  as  this  were  not  to  be  lightly 
disregarded,  and  still  more  ominous  was  an  autograph  letter  to 
the  pope,  December  23d,  expressing  his  displeasure  at  the  pro- 
longation of  the  case  and  urging  its  speedy  conclusion. 

To  Bossuet's  representative  and  grand-vicar,  the  Abbe  Phelip- 
peaux,  we  owe  a  minute  report  of  the  long  contest,  which  affords 
an  interesting  inside  view  of  the  conduct  of  such  affairs,  showing 
how  little  regard  was  paid  to  the  principles  involved  and  how 
completely  the  result  depended  on  intrigue  and  influence.  The 
case  passed  through  its  regtilar  stages.  A  commission  of  seven 
consultors  had  been  found,  to  whom,  after  a  struggle,  three  were 
added.  These  disputed  at  much  length  over  thirty-seven  proposi- 
tions extracted  from  the  book  and,  when  at  length  they  made 
their  report  to  the  Congregation  of  the  Inquisition,  they  stood  five 
to  five,  showing  that  each  side  had  succeeded  in  putting  an  equal 
number  of  friends  on  the  commission.  In  the  Congregation,  the 
struggle  was  renewed  and  continued  through  thirty-eight  sessions. 
Had  the  fate  of  Europe  been  at  stake,  the  matter  could  not  have 
been  more  warmly  contested.  At  length  the  inevitable  con- 
demnation was  voted,  and  then  came  a  fresh  contest  over  the 
phraseology  of  the  decree.  Bossuet's  agents  were  not  content  wii.h 
the  simple  condemnation  of  twenty-three  propositions  and  the 
prohibition  of  the  book,  and  they  struggled  vigorously  for  clauses 
condemning  and  humiliating  F^nelon  himself,  showing  how  purely 


Chap.  V]  F^NELON  AND  B08SVET  67 

personal  was  the  controversy.  In  this  they  failed,  as  well  as  in  the 
endeavor  to  have  the  propositions  characterized  as  heretical;  they 
were  only  pronounced  to  be  respectively  rash,  scandalous,  ill- 
sounding,  offensive  to  pious  ears,  pernicious  in  practice  and  erron- 
eous. The  principal  doctrine  aimed  at  was  that  the  pure  love 
of  God  should  be  wholly  disinterested,  and  that  its  acts  and  motives 
should  be  divested  of  all  mercenary  hope  of  reward.  The  brief 
was  finally  agreed  to,  on  March  12,  1699,  and  published  on  the 
13th.  It  was  in  the  form  of  a  motu  propria  which,  under  the  rules 
in  force  in  France  respecting  papal  decrees,  precluded  its  accept- 
ance and  registration  by  the  Parlement,  but  Louis,  ordinarily  so 
tenacious  about  papal  intrusion,  found  indirect  means  of  eluding 
the  diflficulty. 

Fenelon,  however,  had  not  awaited  this  cumbrous  procedure. 
In  a  dignified  letter  of  submission  to  the  pope,  April  4,  1699,  he 
stated  that  he  had  already  prepared  a  mandement  for  his  diocese, 
condemning  the  book  with  its  twenty-three  propositions,  which 
he  would  publish  as  soon  as  he  should  receive  the  royal  permission. 
This  was  promptly  given  and,  on  April  9th  he  issued  it,  forbidding 
the  possession  and  reading  of  the  Maximes,  and  condemning  the 
propositions  "simply,  absolutely  and  without  a  shadow  of  restric- 
tion." Innocent  XII,  who  had  more  than  once  indicated  sym- 
pathy with  Fenelon,  responded  May  12th,  in  a  brief  expressing 
his  cordial  satisfaction,  bestowing  on  him  his  loving  benediction 
and  invoking  the  aid  of  God  for  his  pastoral  labors.  Bossuet, 
with  the  royal  assistance,  had  triumphed,  at  the  cost  of  a  stain 
on  his  reputation;  what  the  Church  had  gained,  in  condemning 
the  sublimated  speculations  of  a  rarefied  and  impracticable 
Mysticism,  it  would  be  hard  to  say.^ 

Yet,  as  though  to  indicate  that  there  is  no  finality  in  these 
matters,  Pius  VI,  in  1789,  beatified  the  Blessed  Giovanni  Giuseppe 

'  Bossuet's  side  in  this  controversy  is  elaborately  set  forth  in  Phelippeaux's 
posthumous  "  Relation  de  I'Origine,  du  Progres  et  de  la  Condemnation  du  Qui^t- 
isme,"  2  vols.,  1732  (s.  L).  Also  in  Bossuet's  "Relation  sur  le  Qui(5tisme"  and 
subsequent  controversial  writings,  Paris,  1698.  Madame  Guyon's  statements 
are  contained  in  "  La  Vie  de  Madame  J.  M.  B.  de  la  Mothe  Guion,  ^crite  por 
Elle-mtoe,"  3  vols.  Cologne,  1720.  She  is  defended  in  the  "Lettres  de  M.  xxx 
(Abb6  de  la  Blatterie)  ^  un  Ami  au  sujet  de  la  Relation  du  Qui^tisme,"  1733 
(s.  l).    F^nelon's  writings  on  the  subject  are  in  his  (Euvres,  T.  II,  Paris,  1838. 

Comprehensive  accounts  may  be  found  in  Matter,  "Le  Mysticisme  en  France 
au  temps  de  Fenelon,"  Paris,  1865  and  Heppe,  "  Geschichte  der  quietistischen 
Mystik  in  der  katholischen  Kirche,"  Berlin,  1865. 


68  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

della  Croce  (f  March  5,  1734),  who  was  much  given  to  contem- 
plation and  to  union  with  God,  in  which  all  his  faculties  were 
lost,  as  completely  as  in  the  trances  of  his  prototype,  San  Juan  de 
la  Cruz,  or  as  in  the  mystic  death  of  Molinos.  That  his  Mysticism 
did  not  forfeit  the  favor  of  heaven  was  shown  by  his  possessing 
the  gift  of  bilocation — of  being  in  two  places  at  one  time — of  which 
numerous  instances  were  cited  in  the  beatification  proceedings.' 

The  Spanish  Inquisition  which  had  so  long  carried  on  single- 
handed  the  struggle  against  Mysticism,  watched  with  satisfaction 
the  Roman  proceedings  against  Molinos.  As  we  have  seen,  his 
arrest,  on  July  3,  1685,  was  promptly  followed,  November  9th 
with  a  condemnation  of  the  Guida  which,  for  nine  years,  had  been 
allowed  to  circulate  freely  in  Spain.  The  edict  pronounced  it  to 
contain  propositions  ill-sounding,  offensive  to  pious  ears,  rash, 
savoring  of  the  heresy  of  the  Alumbrados,  and  some  erroneous 
ones,  and  the  title  was  denounced  as  misleading  because  it  spoke 
only  of  the  interior  way.^  When  the  sentence  of  the  Roman 
Inquisition  was  published,  September  3,  1687,  although  as  a  rule 
the  Spanish  Holy  Office  paid  no  attention  to  its  decrees,  the  sixty- 
eight  propositions  were  speedily  translated  into  the  vernacular 
and  widely  distributed.  On  October  11th,  sixty  copies  were  sent 
to  Valencia  to  be  posted,  with  orders  to  print  more  if  they  should 
be  required.  These  were  accompanied  with  an  edict,  commanding 
obedience  and  threatening  the  most  rigorous  prosecution  for  remiss- 
ness, while  all  persons  were  ordered  to  denounce,  within  ten  days, 
contraventions  of  any  kind  coming  to  their  knowledge.  This 
edict  was  to  be  published  in  all  churches  of  the  capitals  of  partidos 
and  an  authentic  record  of  such  pubUcation  was  to  be  affixed  to 
the  doors.  In  due  time,  when  the  bull  Coelestis  pastor  was  issued, 
it  was  circulated  with  the  same  prescriptions.^  There  was  evi- 
dently a  determination  to  make  the  most  of  this  new  ally  in  the 
struggle  with  Mysticism. 

The  Seville  tribunal,  indeed,  had  not  waited  for  this,  as  it  had 
already,  April  24,  1687,  arrested  a  canon  of  the  church  of  San 
Salvador,  Joseph  Luis  Navarro  de  Luna  y  Medina,  who  was  a 


'  Compendio  de  la  asombrosa  Vida  del  gran  Siervo  de  Dies,  Fr.  Juan  Joseph 
de  la  Cruz,  pp.  276  sqq.  (Madrid,  1790). 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  4,  fol.  164. 

'  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  V,  fol.  103;  Lib.  Ill  de  copias,  fol. 
703,  704.— Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  12,  n.  4,  fol.  124. 


Chap.  V]  MOLINISM  69 

correspondent  of  Molinos  and  had  sent  him  his  autobiography,  in 
order  to  obtain  instructions  for  his  spiritual  guidance.  He  had 
previously  been  deprived  of  his  licence  as  confessor,  on  charges 
of  imprudent  conduct  as  spiritual  director  of  a  nunnery,  but 
Jaime  de  Palafox,  Archbishop  of  Seville,  who  was  a  warm  admirer 
of  Molinos,  had  restored  the  licence,  introduced  him  in  all  the 
convents  and  adopted  him  as  confessor  of  himself  and  his  family. 
For  four  years  Navarro  endured  incarceration  and  the  torture 
which  was  not  spared,  but  he  succumbed  at  last,  confessed  and 
sought  reconciliation.  His  sentence  declared  him  guilty  of  the 
errors  of  the  Lutherans,  Calvinists,  Arians,  Nestorians,  Trini- 
tarians, Waldenses,  Agapetse,  Baianists  and  Alumbrados,  besides 
being  a  dogmatizer  of  those  of  Molinos,  with  the  addition  that  evil 
thoughts  arising  in  prayer  should  be  carried  into  execution,  and 
also  that,  when  his  disciples  assembled  in  his  house,  the  lights 
would  be  extinguished  and  he  would  teach  doctrines  too  foul  for 
description.  The  tribunal  itself  could  scarce  have  believed  all 
this,  for  he  was  only  required  to  abjure,  to  be  deprived  of  benefice 
and  functions,  to  be  recluded  for  two  years  and  be  exiled  for  six 
more.  When  the  term  had  expired  he  returned  to  Seville  and  then, 
imtil  his  death,  in  1725,  he  passed  his  days  in  the  churches,  where 
the  Venerable  Sacrament  was  exposed  for  adoration,  carrying  with 
him  a  hinged  stool  on  which  he  sat,  gazing  at  the  Host.*  He  was 
not  the  only  Mohnist  in  Seville  for  in  1689,  after  three  years' 
trial.  Fray  Pedro  de  San  Jos6  was  condemned  as  a  disciple  of 
MoUnos,  for  committing  obscenities  with  his  penitents  and  fore- 
teUing  his  election  as  pope  and  his  suffering  under  Antichrist,  who 
was  already  in  Jerusalem,  twenty  years  old.  He  was  sentenced 
to  abjure  de  vehementi,'  to  undergo  a  circular  discipline  in  his 
convent,  to  perpetual  deprivation  of  teaching  and  confessing,  and 
to  six  years'  reclusion  in  a  convent,  with  the  customary  disabilities.^ 
Soon  afterwards  there  was  penanced  in  an  auto.  May  18,  1692,  a 
woman  named  Ana  Raguza,  popularly  known  as  la  pabeza,  as 
an  Alumbrada  and  Molinista.  She  had  come  from  Palermo  as  a 
missionary  to  convert  the  wicked,  probably  in  the  train  of  Palafox, 
who  had  been  Archbishop  of  Palermo.  She  called  herself  a  bride 
of  Christ,  she  had  visions  and  revelations,  she  denied  the  efScacy  of 

'  MSS.  of  Archivo  municipal  de  Sevilla,  Seccion  especial,  Siglo  XVIII,  Letra 
A,  Tomo  rV,  n.  48-49. — These  are  relations  of  the  auto,  one  of  which  I  have 
printed  in  "  Chapters  from  the  Religious  History  of  Spain." 

'  Relacion  hist,  de  la  Juderfa  de  Sevilla,  pp.  99-103. 


70  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

masses  and  fasts,  and  she  had  the  faculty  of  determining  the  con- 
dition of  consciences  by  the  sense  of  smell.  She  escaped  with 
two  years  of  reclusion  and  six  more  of  exile/ 

The  condemnation  of  Molinos  seems  to  have  stimulated  the 
Inqiiisition  to  greater  activity  in  the  suppression  of  mysticism,  for 
cases  begin  to  appear  more  frequently  in  the  records  and  hence- 
forth the  term  Molinism,  to  a  great  extent,  takes  the  place  of  lUu- 
minism.  We  hear  of  a  Molinist  penanced  in  a  Cordova  auto  of 
May  12,  1693,^  and  he  cannot  have  been  the  only  one  there  for 
Fray  Francisco  de  Possadas  of  that  city  tells  us  that  he  was  led  to 
write  his  book  against  the  carnal  errors  of  Molinos  by  his  experience 
in  the  confessional,  showing  that  some  of  his  penitents  had  been 
misled  by  them.^  The  report  of  the  Valencia  tribunal,  for  1695, 
contains  three  cases  then  on  trial.  The  Franciscan,  Fray  Vicente 
Selles,  had  been  arrested  in  1692.  He  had  led  a  life  exteriorly 
austere,  practising  meditation  and  contemplation,  and  he  freely 
admitted  that  when  Molinos  was  condemned  he  held  that  the  pope 
was  wrongly  informed.  His  overwrought  brain  gave  way  under 
the  stress  of  confinement;  at  times  he  was  full  of  religious  emotion 
and  solicitous  as  to  his  salvation,  while  at  others  he  was  violently 
insane,  performing  various  crazy  freaks.  On  August  24th  he 
attempted  suicide  by  dashing  his  head  against  a  projecting  piece 
of  iron,  causing  a  wound  so  serious  that  several  pieces  of  skull 
were  discharged  and,  on  February  6,  1693,  the  surgeons  reported 
his  life  to  be  still  in  danger.  He  remained  melancolico,  variable 
in  mood,  confessing  and  retracting  until,  on  October  23d,  he  con- 
fessed fully  to  Molinism,  naming  eleven  women  with  whom  he  had 
had  relations  in  the  confessional  and  also  admitting  •  unnatural 
crime  and  other  offences.  At  the  date  of  the  report  his  trial  was 
still  unfinished.  Another  phase  of  these  eccentric  methods  of 
salvation  is  presented  in  the  case  of  Vicente  Hernan,  a  hermit  of 
San  Cristobal  of  Concentayna,  accused  by  three  women  of  teaching 
them  the  way  of  bruising  the  head  of  the  serpent  by  sleeping  with 
them  and  resisting  temptation,  and  of  attempting  indecencies, 
which  they  denied  permitting.     He  was  arrested  September  23, 


'  Archive  municipal  de  Sevilla,  loc.  cit.,  n.  52. 
'  Matute  y  Luquin,  p.  211. 

'  Possadas,  Triumphos  de  la  Castidad  contra  la  Luxuria  diabolica  de  Molinos, 
C6rdova,  1698. 
This  is  a  second  edition;  a  third  appeared  in  Madrid,  in  1775. 


Chap.  V]        '  MOLINISM  ■  71 

1692,  and  in  two  audiences  he  was  a  negativo.  Then  on  December 
17th  he  asked  for  an  audience  in  which  he  said  that  for  eight  days 
some  little  flies  and  black  pigeons  had  been  biting  him  and  remind- 
ing him  of  things  forgotten,  whereupon  he  told  of  the  women  whom 
he  had  got  to  sleep  with  him,  sometimes  two  or  three  at  a  time, 
and  he  also  mentioned  numerous  miraculous  cures  which  he  had 
wrought.  In  January  1693,  he  said  that  the  demons  with  the 
voice  of  flies  had  been  recalling  his  sins,  and  he  told  of  three  other 
women.  Doubts  arose  as  to  his  sanity  and,  at  the  end  of  1693 
steps  were  taken  to  investigate  it,  which  were  still  in  progress  at 
the  time  of  closing  the  report.  The  third  case  was  that  of  Mosen 
Antonio  Serra,  whose  doctrines  the  cahficadores  reported  to  be 
Molinistic.  He  was  arrested  December  19,  1695,  so  that  his  trial 
had  only  begun.' 

In  1708  the  Toledo  tribunal  arrested  Fray  Manuel  de  Paredes, 
a  contemplative  fraile,  who  encouraged  mystic  practices  among 
his  penitents,  leading  to  several  trials,  which  illustrate  the  increased 
severity  visited  upon  these  condemned  forms  of  devotion.^  The 
same  tendency  is  visible  soon  afterwards  at  Cordova,  where  a 
little  conventicle  of  MoUnistas  alumbrados  was  discovered  in  the 
Dominican  convent  of  San  Pablo,  imder  the  leadership  of  a  beata 
named  Isabel  del  Castillo.  Her  disciples  abandoned  to  her  their 
free-will  and  all  their  faculties;  they  had  no  need  of  fasts  and 
penances  but  could  transfer  their  sins  to  her  and  the  path  of  sal- 
vation lay  through  sensual  indulgence.  In  the  auto  of  April  24, 
1718,  there  were  seven  of  them  penanced,  Isabel  being  visited  with 
two  hundred  lashes  and  perpetual  prison;  the  friars  were  recon- 
ciled, deprived  of  their  functions  and  imprisoned,  some  irremis- 
sibly  and  some  perpetually,  while  the  laymen  had  penances  of 
various  degrees  of  severity.^ 

During  this  period  there  occurred  a  case  deserving  of  consider- 
ation in  some  detail,  not  only  because  of  the  prominence  of  the 
culprit  but  because  it  affords  a  clearer  view  than  others  of  the 
strange  intermixture  of  sensuality  and  spirituality,  which  was 
distinctly  known  as  Molinism,  and  of  the  self-deception  which 
enabled  men  and  women  to  indulge  their  passions  while  believing 
themselves  to  be  living  in  the  mystic  altitude  of  Union  with  God. 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  2,  n.  15;  Leg.  12,  n.  2,  fol.  126. 
'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Ye,  20,  T.  XI. 
'  Matute  y  Luquin,  pp..  216-23. 


72  '  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

Perhaps  this  may  partly  be  explicable  by  the  teachings  of  the 
laxer  morality,  current  in  the  sixteenth  century  and  known  under 
the  general  name  of  Probabilism,  and  by  the  distinction  between 
material  and  formal  sin,  whereby  that  alone  was  mortal  sin  which 
the  conscience  recognized  as  such,  the  conscience  being  still  further 
eased  by  refinements  as  to  advertence  and  consent.  In  the  skilful 
hands  of  the  casuists,  the  boundaries  between  right  and  wrong 
became  dangerously  nebulous,  and  arguments  were  plentiful 
through  which  men  could  persuade  themselves  that  whatever  they 
chose  to  do  was  lawful. 

Joseph  Ferndndez  de  Toro  was  an  inquisitor  in  Murcia,  deeply 
imbued  with  quietistic  Mysticism.  In  1686  he  issued  anony- 
mously in  Seville  a  little  tract  with  the  significant  title  of  "  Remedio 
facilissimo  para  no  pecar  en  el  uso  y  exercicio  de  la  Oracion," 
which  in  time  duly  found  its  way  into  the  Index.^  As  inquisitor 
he  had  manifested  his  tendencies,  when  a  prelate  of  high  repute 
and  Station  in  a  religious  Order  was  tried  before  him  for  solici- 
tation ad  turpia  in  the  confessional.  Guided  by  the  light  within, 
Toro  was  satisfied  that  it  was  merely  a  case  of  obsession  by  the 
demon;  he  persuaded  the  Suprema  to  accept  this  view,  and  the 
culprit  escaped  with  suspension  from  celebrating  mass  and  hearing 
confessions  until  the  obsession  should  pass.  In  1706,  he  was 
promoted  to  the  see  of  Oviedo,  of  which  he  took  possession  October 
1st.  Unluckily  for  him  there  was  at  Oviedo  the  Jesuit  college  of 
San  Mathias;  his  reputation  for  Quietism  seems  to  have  preceded 
him,  and  the  heads  of  the  college  resolved  themselves  into  a  corps 
of  detectives.  Professing  the  utmost  friendship,  they  speedily 
acquired  his  confidence  and  he  talked  with  them  freely.  They 
were  prompt  in  action  for,  in  January  1707,  Padre  Jose  del  Campo 
drew  up  for  the  inquisitor-general  an  elaborate  secret  denunciation, 
setting  forth  how  Toro  in  conversation  had  offered  to  explain  to 
him  the  contemplation  of  MoUnos;  since  coming  to  Asturias,  he 
had  spoken  to  no  one  about  these  things,  for  he  knew  that  they 
had  occasioned  much  murmuring  against  him,  but  he  described 
the_  mode  in  which  the  soul  reached  the  summit  of  perfection  in 
Union  with  God,  while  the  inferior  sensual  part  might  be  aban- 
doned to  the  foulest  temptation.  These  dangerous  speculations 
were  reported  in  full  detail  and  were  accompanied  by  a  long  and 
skilful  argument  to  prove  that  Toro  was  in  every  sense  a  Molinist. 


Index  of  Vidal  Marin,  1707,  II,  195. 


Chap.  V]  BISHOP  TOBO  OF  OVIEDO  73 

Other  Jesuits  drew  up  similar  denunciations,  or  attested  their 
truth,  and  the  case  was  fairly  before  the  Holy  Ofl&ce.  It  was 
too  serious  for  hasty  action  and  investigation  was  made  in  Murcia, 
where  his  female  accomplices  were  arrested,  and  ample  confirma- 
tory evidence  was  obtained  from  their  confessions  and  from  eigh- 
teen of  his  letters.  The  Carranza  case  had  taught  the  lesson  that 
bishops  could  be  reached  only  through  papal  authority  and,  on 
November  7,  1709,  Inquisitor-general  Ybdnez  forwarded  to  Clem- 
ent XI  the  accumulated  evidence,  to  which  the  pope  replied,  March 
8,  1710,  that  the  matter  would  be  thoroughly  examined  and  the 
necessary  action  be  taken.  Toro  had  at  first  been  disposed  to 
make  a  contest,  asserting  that  God  would  work  miracles  in  defence 
of  the  women,  and  that  their  imprisonment  was  a  martyrdom; 
that  the  light  infused  in  him  by  God  rendered  him  superior  to 
the  Inquisition,  and  that  he  was  illuminated  above  all  other  men. 
By  this  time,  however,  he  realized  his  position;  on  February  8, 
1710,  he  made,  through  his  confessor,  a  partial  confession,  and  he 
followed  this  with  several  letters  to  the  pope,  begging  permission 
to  come  to  Rome  for  judgement.  Then  a  papal  brief  of  June  7th 
ordered  Ybanez,  within  three  years  and  under  the  advice  of  the 
Suprema,  to  frame  a  prosecution,  for  which  full  powers  were 
granted;  if  the  evidence  sufficed,  Toro  was  to  be  arrested  and  the 
case  carried  on  up  to  the  point  of  sentence,  when  all  the  docu- 
ments were  to  be  transmitted  to  Eome,  where  the  pope  would 
render  the  decision. 

Toro  was  duly  imprisoned  and  his  trial  proceeded.  Ybdnez 
died,  September  3,  1710  and  was  succeeded  by  Giudice,  who  was 
empowered,  by  a  brief  of  October  3,  1711,  to  carry  on  the  process. 
Toro  was  found  to  be  diminuto  on  a  hundred  and  four  of  the  articles 
of  accusation;  he  was  reticent  and  refused  to  answer  interrogations, 
begging  earnestly  to  be  sent  to  Rome.  His  request  was  granted, 
by  a  brief  of  June  7,  1714,  but  his  departure  was  delayed,  and  it 
was  not  until  June  11,  1716,  that  he  reached  Rome  and  was  lodged 
in  the  castle  of  Sant'Angelo.  Andres  de  Cabrejas,  fiscal  of  the 
Suprema,  accompanied  him,  to  represent  the  Spanish  Inquisition 
in  the  trial  which  proceeded  slowly.  Toro's  confessions  and  letters 
were  a  rich  mine  for  the  calificadores,  who  extracted  from  them 
four  hundred  and  fifty-five  propositions  of  various  degrees  of 
error— some  of  them  being  identical  with  those  of  Mohnos. 
Finally  he  abandoned  all  defence  and  acknowledged  that  he  had 
been  a  dogmatizing  heretic,  a  soliciting  seducer,  a  blasphemer 


74  MYSTICISM  [Book  Vm 

against  the  purity  of  God,  Jesus  Christ  and  the  Blessed  Virgin, 
a  reviver  of  the  filthy  sects  of  the  Begghards,  lUuminists  and  Moli- 
nists  and  subject  to  the  same  penalties. 

In  fact  he  seems  to  have  recognized  his  errors  and  to  have  con- 
fessed with  a  freedom  indicative  of  sincere  repentance.  Much 
of  his  confessions  is  unfit  for  transcription,  but  a  brief  extract  will 
indicate  the  self-deception  that  reconciled  the  grossest  sensuality 
with  aspirations  for  perfection.  Thus  of  one  of  his  accomplices 
he  says  that,  believing  himself  to  be  illuminated  in  the  sacrifice 
of  the  mass,  he  had  written  that  none  of  her  directors  could  esti- 
mate her  spiritual  state  as  regards  her  perfection  and  Union  with 
God,  in  spite  of  the  concussions  of  her  inferior  part,  excited  by 
obsession,  through  which  those  could  be  deceived  who  were  unable 
to  understand  her  interior  virtues  and  perfect  state.  Although  in 
obscene  acts  the  woman  might  seem  externally  to  be  a  sinner,  yet, 
by  asserting  that  she  had  not  yielded  consent,  she  might  internally 
be  perfect  and  be  in  Union  with  God.  That,  as  the  Incarnate 
Word  did  not  contract  original  sin  in  his  imion  with  humanity,  so 
with  persons  annihilated,  purged  and  perfected,  God  could  direct 
them  to  supernatural  operations  in  such  wise  that  the  operations 
of  the  inferior  part  worked  no  prejudice  to  their  state  of  perfec- 
tion, and  that  the  woman's  obscene  acts  might  proceed  from 
obsession,  and  she  be  passive  without  consent  ....  That  he  had 
believed  this  doctrine  to  be  infused  in  him  by  God,  and  thus  to 
be  true,  like  the  doctrine  of  the  Church,  to  be  held  unhesitatingly, 
especially  by  those  obsessed,  and  he  had  written  that  he  was  ready 
to  give  his  life  in  its  defence  ....  That  he  had  believed  the 
indecencies  committed  with  this  same  woman  might  be  an  exercise 
and  martyrdom  sent  by  God  for  the  humiUation  and  purification 
of  both,  but  nevertheless  he  made  confession  of  them,  and  took 
care  that  she  should  do  so.  She  was  accustomed  to  say  that,  in 
the  inferior  part,  she  was  without  sensuality  and  in  the  superior 
part  was  absorbed  in  contemplation  and  love  of  God  ....  That 
in  his  oratory  after  mass  and  her  communion  he  had  embraced 
her  and  told  her  that  she  received  the  light  and  that  this  was  the 
love  of  God  for  his  creatures  ....  That  Jesus  was  in  him  and 
worked  in  him,  because  neither  he  nor  the  woman  experienced 
sensuality  in  what  they  did  nor  did  it  from  corrupt  intention 
....  That  he  had  had  this  belief  for  seven  years  prior  to  his 
episcopate,  and  had  maintained  it  subsequently  up  to  July  1708, 
but  then,  in  confessing  his  sins,  a  worthy  confessor  enlightened 


Chap.  V]  MOLINISM  75 

his  blindness,  and  since  then  he  had  detested  his  errors  and  had 
followed  the  way  of  Catholic  truth. 

At  length  the  pope  designated  July  27,  1719  for  pronouncing 
sentence.  Cabrejas  had  the  records  of  Carranza's  condemnation 
looked  up,  and  the  same  ceremonial  was  observed.  Toro  was 
brought  from  the  castle  of  Sant'Angelo  to  one  of  the  halls  of  the 
papal  palace,  and  there  the  sentence  was  read.  It  deposed  him 
from  his  bishopric  and  all  other  benefices,  it  incapacitated  him 
from  holding  any  preferment,  and  suspended  him  perpetually 
from  sacerdotal  functions;  it  required  him  to  abjure  his  heresy 
and  errors,  it  called  upon  him  to  pay  for  pious  uses,  as  far  as  he 
could,  all  revenues  accrued  since  his  lapse  into  heresy,  and  it 
burdened  his  see  with  a  pension  for  his  support,  to  be  determined 
by  the  pope;  it  condemned  him  to  reclusion,  in  some  convent  out- 
side of  Spain,  when  he  was  to  perform  perpetual  penance,  on  the 
bread  of  sorrow  and  water  of  grief,  and  it  prescribed  certain  spirit- 
ual observances.  After  listening  to  his  sentence,  Toro  made  the 
required  abjuration,  accepted  the  penance  and  disappeared  from 
view.^ 

Another  prominent  culprit  was  the  priest,  Don  Francisco  de 
Leon  y  Luna,  a  Knight  of  Santiago  and  member  of  the  Council 
of  Castile,  who  was  tried  by  the  tribunal  of  Madrid  for  Molinism 
and  formal  solicitation.  As  a  negativo  he  was  liable  to  relaxation 
but,  on  November  24, 1721,  it  was  voted  to  give  him  nine  audiences, 
in  which  the  inquisitors,  with  some  calificadores,  should  exhort 
him  to  confession  and  conversion,  under  threat  of  administering 
the  full  rigor  of  the  law.  He  seems  to  have  yielded  and,  on  August 
11, 1722,  his  sentence  con  meritos  was  read  in  the  presence  of  twelve 
members  of  the  Councils  of  Castile,  Indies,  Orders  and  Hacienda. 
He  was  required  to  abjure  de  vehementi,  he  was  deprived  perpet- 
ually of  confessing  men  and  women,  of  guiding  souls  and  instruct- 
ing them  in  prayer,  and  of  the  honors  of  the  Order  of  Santiago; 
half  of  his  property  was  confiscated,  and  he  was  recluded  for  three 
years  with  suspension  of  all  sacerdotal  functions,  to  be  followed 
by  five  years  of  exile.^ 


'  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  V,  fol.  141,  144,  146,  150.— Archive 
de  Simancas,  Inq.  Legajos  418,  419  (niimeros  antiguos). — See  Appendix  for  the 
abjuration,  which  summarizes  the  errors. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  876,  fol.  153.— Llorente  (Hist.  crft.  Cap. 
XLii,  n.  15)  places  this  case  under  Carlos  III. 


76  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

Llorente  gives,  in  great  detail,  an  account  of  a  Molinist  move- 
ment which,  soon  after  this,  afforded  ample  occupation  to  the 
tribunals  of  Logrono  and  Valladolid.  Juan  de  Causadas,  a  pre- 
bendary of  Tudela,  was  an  ardent  disciple  of  Molinos  and  propaga- 
tor of  his  doctrines.  He  was  burnt  at  Logrono,  but  whether  for 
pertinacity  or  denial  we  are  not  informed.  His  nephew,  Fray 
Juan  de  Longas,  of  the  Barefooted  CarmeUtes,  was  also  a  dog- 
matizer  and  was  sentenced,  in  1729,  to  two  hundred  lashes  and 
ten  years  of  galleys,  followed  by  perpetual  prison.  This  severity 
seems  not  to  have  discouraged  the  proselytes  who,  apparently, 
were  not  betrayed  by  Longas.  The  principal  among  them  was 
Dona  Agueda  de  Luna,  who  had  entered  the  Carmelite  convent 
of  Lerma  in  1712,  with  the  reputation  of  a  saint.  Her  ecstasies 
and  miracles  were  spread  abroad  by  Juan  de  Longas,  by  the  Prior 
of  Lerma,  by  the  Provincial  of  the  Order,  Juan  de  la  Vega,  and  by 
the  leading  frailes,  who  foimd  their  account  in  the  crowds  of  devo- 
tees seeking  her  intercession.  Juan  de  la  Vega  himself  acquired 
the  name  of  el  extdtico  and  was  represented  as  the  holiest  mystic 
since  the  days  of  Juan  de  la  Cruz.  A  convent  was  founded  at 
Corella  for  Madre  Agueda,  of  which  she  was  made  prioress,  and 
the  nuns  were  fully  indoctrinated  in  the  principles  and  practice 
of  Molinism.  By  Madre  Agueda,  Juan  de  la  Vega  had  five  children 
who  were  strangled  at  birth  and,  with  other  untimely  fruits  of  the 
prevailing  licence,  were  buried  in  the  vicinity.  After  a  long  course 
of  iniquity  and  deception,  Madre  Agueda  was  denounced  to  the 
Logrono  tribunal ;  her  accomplices  and  disciples  were  arrested  and 
their  trials  were  pushed  with  unsparing  severity.  She  perished 
under  torture  and,  in  1743,  the  frailes  were  recluded  in  various 
houses  and  the  nuns  were  distributed  among  convents  of  their 
Order.^  Madre  Agueda's  case  had  been  decided  some  years  pre- 
viously for,  in  the  Supplement  to  the  Index  of  1707,  published  in 
1739,  the  first  entry  relates  to  her,  "of  whom  the  apocryphal  life 
has  been  written,  and  of  whom  are  circulated  stones,  cloths,  medals 
and  papers  as  relics,"  all  of  which  were  to  be  surrendered  as  well 
as  relations  of  her  prodigies  and  virtues.  The  stones  here  alluded 
to  are  evidently  those  described  by  Llorente,  made  of  brick-dust 
and  stamped  with  a  cross  on  one  side  and  a  star  on  the  other, 
which  were  said  to  be  voided  by  her  with  child-birth  pains,  and 
were  universally  treasured  as  amulets.    It  may  be  assumed  that 


'  Llorente,  Hist,  crit.,  cap.  xl,  art.  ii,  n.  1-14. 


Chap.  V]  MOLINISM  77 

this  case  led  to  the  issue,  in  1745,  by  the  Inquisition  of  an  edict 
directed  against  five  MoUnist  errors.' 

Cases  still  continued  to  occur,  but  infrequently  and  of  minor 
importance.  The  inquisitors  had  begun  to  merge  immoral  mysti- 
cism with  solicitation  in  the  confessional,  of  which  more  hereafter, 
while  the  more  harmless  kinds  were  classified  as  emhusteros  (impos- 
tors) or  ilusos  (deluded) .  There  is  a  Mexican  case,  however,  which 
is  so  illustrative  of  the  abuses  to  which  inquisitorial  methods  were 
liable,  that  it  deserves  mention.  The  Franciscan,  Fray  Eusebio 
de  Villaroja,  was  distinguished  for  learning,  eloquence  and  blame- 
less life.  He  was  incUned  to  mysticism  and  had  written  a  work 
entitled  Oracion  de  Fe  interior,  which  the  Inquisition  admitted  to 
contain  no  reprobated  doctrine  but  yet  to  be  dangerous  for  popu- 
lar use.  The  convent  at  Pachuca  obtained  his  assignment  there 
and  in  1783,  at  the  age  of  38,  he  arrived  in  Mexico,  where  his  kindly 
earnestness  speedily  won  universal  regard.  After  two  or  three 
years  he  happened  to  assume  the  spiritual  direction  of  two  girls, 
Gertrudis  and  Josefa  Palacios,  who  were  adepts  in  the  mystic 
devices  of  ecstasies  and  revelations.  Gertrudis  died  and  Villa- 
roja became  completely  engrossed  in  Josefa.  He  reduced  to 
writing  her  visions  and  prophecies,  until  he  had  filled  seventy- 
six  books  and,  in  his  ardor,  he  committed  freaks  attracting  unde- 
sirable attention.  The  convent  physician  suggested  that  undue 
austerity  had  engendered  hypochondriac  humors,  and  the  Guar- 
dian interposed  by  ordering  him  to  attend  to  other  duties,  to  limit 
Josefa  to  an  hour  in  the  confessional,  and  never  to  go  to  her  house. 
His  obedience  was  implicit  and  prompt;  he  ceased  to  talk  of  her 
visions  and  prophecies,  and  she  naturally  ceased  to  have  them. 
A  year  later,  when  questioned  by  Fray  Juan  Sanchez,  the  visitor 
of  the  Province,  he  said  that,  as  soon  as  the  Guardian  reproved  him, 
he  recognized  his  error  and  would  not  relapse  into  it — so  the  affair 
seemed  to  have  died  a  natural  death. 

Unluckily  the  Guardian,  not  anticipating  such  docility,  had 
reported  the  matter  to  the  Inquisition,  which  commenced  to  gather 
testimony,  but  when  he  was,  some  months  later,  in  the  city  of 
Mexico  and  was  summoned  as  a  witness,  he  stated  that  Villaroja's 
eccentricities  had  ceased,  and  he  evidently  regarded  the  matter  as 
closed.     Still  the  tribunal  persisted  and,  in  July  1789,  it  seized 


'  There  is  an  allusion  to  this  edict  in  the  Relacion  de  la   Causa  contra  Don 
Pedro  Fernandez  Ybarraran  (MSS.  of  David  Fergusson  Esq.). 


78  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

Villaroja's  diaries,  in  which  the  latest  entry  was  one  humbly  sub- 
mitting to  the  judgement  of  the  Church  both  himself  and  the 
authenticity  of  the  visions. 

After  a  formidable  mass  of  testimony  was  accumulated,  bearing 
witness  to  Villaroja's  eminent  piety  and  virtue,  he  was  summoned, 
in  July  1790,  to  present  himself.  He  was  not  informed  that  he 
was  on  trial  for,  in  his  profound  humility,  he  would  at  once  have 
submitted  his  opinions  to  the  judgement  of  the  tribunal,  but  he 
was  drawn  into  a  discussion  as  to  whether  God,  for  the  greater 
perfection  of  the  creature,  would  permit  the  demon  to  incite  to 
foul  and  obscene  actions — a  position  which  he  had  taken  to  justify 
some  filthy  habits  of  Josefa.  This  was,  as  we  have  seen,  one  of 
the  dangerous  tenets  of  Quietism,  and  over  this  there  was  a  pro- 
longed and  subtle  disputation.  He  subsequently  declared  that 
he  supposed  the  inquisitor  to  be  only  seeking  to  learn  his  opinions 
when  in  fact  he  was  being  cunningly  led  to  pile  up  evidence  against 
himself,  at  the  same  time  arousing  the  controversial  pride  of 
Inquisitor  Prado  y  Obejero,  who  pronoimced  futile  his  efforts  to 
differentiate  his  doctrine  from  that  of  Molinos. 

He  was  thrown  into  the  secret  prison,  October  13,  1791,  and  his 
trial  proceeded  in  regular  form.  Nothing  could  exceed  his  sub- 
missive humility.  On  every  fitting  occasion  he  protested  that  he 
had  been  miserably  led  into  error  by  ignorance;  he  begged  to  be 
undeceived  in  whatever  he  had  erred  and  he  submitted  himself 
to  the  correction  of  the  Holy  Office,  for  he  desired  above  all  things 
the  discharge  of  his  conscience  and  the  salvation  of  his  soul.  It 
required  uncommon  perversity  in  his  judges  to  make  a  pertina- 
cious heretic  out  of  so  humble  and  contrite  a  spirit  but,  when  his 
sentence  was  pronounced,  April  26,  1793,  it  represented  him  as  a 
hardened  and  obstinate  Alumbrado  and  Molinist,  condemning 
him  to  abjure  de  vehemenit,  to  be  forever  deprived  of  the  faculty 
of  confessing,  to  be  recluded  for  three  years  in  the  Franciscan 
convent  of  Mexico,  and  to  be  sent  to  Spain  whenever  the  inqui- 
sitors should  see  fit.  Had  he  been  an  habitual  seducer  of  his 
spiritual  daughters,  the  sentence  would  have  been  less  severe. 

The  treatment  of  a  fraile  recluded  in  a  convent  of  his  brethren 
was  usually  harsh  in  the  extreme,  but  Fray  Eusebio's  kindliness 
and  gentleness  so  won  on  his  hosts  that  they  declared  his  daily 
life  to  be  an  edification,  while  those  of  Pachuca,  who  had  to  bear 
the  expenses  of  his  trial,  continued  to  regard  him  with  undimin- 
ished affection.     His  punishment,  however,  was  far  more  severe 


Chap.  V]  DELUSION  79 

than  the  mere  provisions  of  his  sentence.  Incarceration  for 
eighteen  months  in  a  humid  cell  had  developed  a  former  rheu- 
matic tendency  and  he  was  crippled.  His  request  to  be  transferred 
to  Pachuca  was  refused  and,  in  March,  1795,  he  appealed  to 
Inquisitor-general  Lorenzana.  His  sufferings,  he  said,  were  on  the 
increase  and,  if  he  were  kept  in  the  city  of  Mexico  or  sent  to  Spain, 
he  would  surely  die.  The  result  of  this  was  a  command  to  trans- 
mit him  to  Spain,  which  was  notified  to  him,  in  June  1796,  when 
he  protested,  to  no  purpose,  that  it  would  kill  him.  His  removal 
was  postponed  until  October,  when  he  was  carried  by  easy  stages 
to  Vera  Cruz  and  placed  on  board  the  good  ship  Aurora,  November 
9th,  consigned  to  the  commissioner  at  Seville.  The  Aurora  sailed 
the  next  day,  but  his  prophetic  spirit  proved  true  and,  when  nine 
days  out,  his  gentle  spirit  passed  to  a  judge  more  merciful  than 
his  earthly  ones.^ 

Fray  Eusebio  would  have  fared  better  in  Spain,  where  there  was 
a  growing  tendency  to  regard  the  accused  as  subject  to  delusion, 
when  there  was  no  conscious  imposture  and  no  teaching  of  danger- 
ous Mysticism.  Delusion  was  recognized  at  an  early  period,  but 
the  first  case  which  I  have  met  in  which  it  formed  the  basis  of 
prosecution  occurs  in  the  Barcelona  tribunal  which,  in  1666, 
reported  that  it  had  found  a  process  brought,  in  1659,  against  Sor 
Maria  de  la  Cruz,  mm  of  the  convent  of  la  Concepcion  of  Tortosa, 
for  ilusa,  which  had  never  been  concluded.^  In  1694,  Don  Fran- 
cisco de  las  Cuevas  y  Rojas,  of  Madrid,  was  sentenced  by  the  Toledo 
tribunal,  as  an  Huso  pasivo,  to  reprimand,  absolution  ad  cautelam, 
retractation  of  certain  propositions,  abstention  from  spiritual 
matters,  and  a  year's  reclusion,  during  which  a  calificador  would 
teach  him  the  safest  method  of  prayer,  while  all  his  writings  were 
to  be  suppressed.  The  same  year  a  beata  named  Marfa  de  la 
Paz,  as  ilusa,  was  required  merely  to  abjure  de  levi,  to  be  severely 
reprimanded  and  to  be  handed  over  to  a  calificador  for  instruction. 
So,  in  1716,  Don  Eugenio  Aguado  de  Lara,  cura  of  Algete,  was 
sentenced,  by  the  same  tribunal,  for  suspicion  of  illusion  in  the 
direction  of  a  beata,  to  abjure  de  levi,  with  reprimand  and  prohibi- 
tion of  further  communication  with  her,  while  he  was  to  abstain 


•  Proceso  contra  Fray  Eusebio  de  Villaroja  (MSS.  of  David  Fergusson  Esq.). 
'  Lib.  XIII  de  Cartas,  fol.  192  (MSS.  of  Am.  Philosophical  Society). 


80  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

from  the  direction  of  souls  as  far  as  was  compatible  with  his  priestly 
functions.  The  beata  his  accomplice,  Agustina  Salgado,  was 
regarded  as  more  reprehensible  for,  besides  being  ilusa,  she  was 
held  guilty  of  false  revelations ;  she  ab j  ured  de  levi,  with  perpetual 
exile  from  Algete  and  reclusion  in  a  hospital  for  two  years,  for 
instruction.' 

Even  this  moderation  increased  with  time.  In  1785,  the  Valen- 
cia tribunal  suspended  the  case,  and  sent  to  an  insane  hospital, 
Esperanza  Bueno  of  Puig,  popularly  known  as  la  Santa,  denounced 
for  pretended  revelations  and  asserting  that  she  could  absolve 
from  sin.^  The  same  tendency  appears  in  the  case  of  Maria 
Rivero,  of  Valladolid,  in  1817,  whom  the  Suprema  characterized 
as  erroneously  and  presumptuously  believing  herself  to  be  adorned 
with  revelations  and  special  graces.  She  was  ordered  to  place 
herself  unreservedly  under  the  guidance  of  a  spiritual  director, 
with  the  warning  that  otherwise  she  would  be  treated  with  judicial 
rigor,  while  the  director  was  instructed  to  disillusion  her,  and  to 
call  in  medical  advice  as  to  her  sanity,  which  was  doubtful.^ 

Although  the  Inquisition  was  thus  growing  rationaUstic  in  its 
treatment  of  these  cases,  it  was  impossible  to  eradicate  popular 
credulity  with  its  accompanying  temptation  to  exploitation.  In 
the  last  case  before  the  Cordova  tribunal,  it  ordered,  July  9,  1818, 
the  incarceration  in  the  secret  prison,  as  an  ilusa,  of  the  beata 
Francisca  de  Paula  Caballero  y  Garrida  of  Lucena,  while  her 
sister  Maria  Dominga  Caballero  was  confined  in  the  carceles  medias, 
and  the  two  curas  of  Lucena,  Joaquin  de  Burgos  and  Josef  Bar- 
ranco,  were  recluded  in  a  convent  without  communication  with 
each  other.  The  beata  performed  miracles  and  had  revelations, 
which  seem  to  have  found  credence  among  a  circle  of  disciples 
for  when,  after  full  investigation,  the  Suprema,  on  July  5,  1819, 
ordered  the  prosecution  of  the  four  prisoners,  it  directed  proceed- 
ings to  be  commenced  against  seven  other  parties,  including  clerics 
and  laymen  of  both  sexes.  Fortunately  for  this  group  of  ilusos, 
the  revolution  of  1820  came  to  put  an  end  to  all  proceedings,  and 
when  the  Cordova  tribunal  was  suppressed,  the  only  inmates  found 
in  its  prison  were  the  two  beatas  of  Lucena.* 

While  the  Inquisition  was  thus  merciful  towards  those  whom  it 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 
'  Ibidem,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 
^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  890,  fol.  82. 
'  Ibidem,  Lib.  890. — Matute  y  Luquin,  p.  296. 


Chap.  V]  IMPOSTORS  81 

considered  to  be  merely  deluded  in  claiming  spiritual  graces,  it 
grew  to  be  severe  with  those  who  traded  on  popular  credulity. 
That  credulity  was  so  universal  and  so  boundless  that  the  profes- 
sion of  beata  revelandera  was  an  easy  and  a  profitable  one.  The 
people  were  eager  to  be  deceived ;  no  fiction  was  too  gross  to  find 
ready  credence,  and  the  believers  invented  miracles  which  they 
ascribed  to  the  objects  of  their  reverence.  The  punishment  of  the 
impostor  and  the  exposure  of  the  fraud  failed  to  repress  either 
belief  or  imposition,  and  the  land  in  time  was  overrun  by  a  horde 
of  these  practitioners,  mostly  female.  It  was  a  spiritual  pestilence 
of  the  most  degrading  character,  shared  by  all  classes,  with  the 
extenuating  circumstances  that  some  of  the  boldest  cases  of  impos- 
ture enjoyed  the  approbation  of  the  Holy  See.  The  Inquisition 
did  good  work  in  its  ceaseless  efforts  to  repress  this  prostitution 
of  Mysticism — a  work  which  no  other  tribunal  could  venture  to 
attempt.  If  it  found  suppression  impossible,  at  least  it  checked 
the  development  which  at  one  time  threatened  to  render  the 
popular  religion  of  Spain  a  matter  of  hysterics. 

In  its  inception,  there  was  some  hesitation  as  to  the  treatment  of 
these  speculators  on  the  credulity  of  the  people.  When  the 
Beata  of  Piedrahita  was  allowed  to  continue  her  career,  she  nat- 
urally had  imitators.  In  1525,  Alonso  de  Mariana,  a  Toledan 
inquisitor,  on  a  visitation  of  his  district,  had  his  attention  called 
to  Dofia  Juana  Maldonado  of  Guadalajara,  widow  of  the  alcaide 
of  la  Vega  de  la  Montana.  She  was  arrested  and  presented  written 
statements  or  confessions  of  her  dreams  and  visions  of  the  Virgin 
and  Christ,  St.  John  the  Evangelist  and  St.  Bernard.  The  pro- 
ceedings were  informal  and,  in  an  audience,  March  27th,  at 
Alcald,  de  Henares,  after  publication  of  the  evidence,  she  admitted 
its  truth,  stating  that  she  had  talked  about  her  visions  in  order  to 
obtain  some  aid  in  her  poverty  and  she  begged  for  mercy  and 
penance.  There  was  evidently  no  desire  to  treat  her  harshly  or 
to  regard  her  as  an  impostor,  for  she  is  spoken  of  as  an  ilusa  or 
sonadera  (dreamer)  and  she  was  required  only  to  fast  on  five 
Fridays  and  Saturdays,  in  honor  of  Christ  and  the  Virgin,  with 
fifteen  Paters  and  Aves  each  day,  to  keep  her  house  as  a  prison 
until  released  by  the  tribunal,  after  which,  on  six  Saturdays,  she 
was  to  visit  the  church  of  the  Virgin,  outside  of  the  town.^  A 
century  later  she  would  have  fared  much  worse. 


'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  114,  n.  18. 

VOL.    IV  6 


82  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

The  exposure,  in  1543,  of  a  more  accomplished  practitioner, 
Magdalena  de  la  Cruz,  removed  any  further  hesitation  in  deahng 
with  such  cases.  She  had  long  been  the  wonder  of  Spain  and 
even  of  Christendom.  Tempest-tossed  mariners  would  invoke  her 
intercession,  when  she  would  appear  to  them  and  the  storm  would 
subside.  The  noblest  ladies,  when  nearing  confinement,  would 
send  the  layette  to  be  blessed  by  her,  as  did  the  Empress  Isabel 
before  the  birth  of  Philip  II.  When,  in  1535,  Charles  V  was 
starting  from  Barcelona  for  the  expedition  to  Ttinis,  he  sent  his 
banner  to  Cordova  that  she  might  bestow  on  it  her  blessing. 
Cardinal  Manrique,  the  inquisitor-general,  and  Giovanni  di  Reggio, 
the  papal  nuncio,  made  pilgrimages  to  her,  and  the  pope  sent  to 
ask  her  prayers  for  the  Christian  Republic.  It  is  true  that  Ignatius 
Loyola  was  incredulous  and,  in  1541,  severely  reproved  Martin 
de  la  Santa  Cruz,  who  endeavored  to  win  him  over,  for  accepting 
exterior  signs  without  seeking  for  the  true  ones;  the  Venerable 
Juan  de  Avila  was  also  sceptical  and,  when  he  was  in  Cordova, 
he  was  discreetly  denied  access  to  her. 

When,  in  1504,  at  the  age  of  17,  she  entered  the  Franciscan 
convent  of  Santa  Isabel  de  los  Angeles  of  Cordova,  she  was  already 
regarded  as  a  vessel  overflowing  with  divine  grace,  a  belief  con- 
firmed by  a  series  of  ecstasies,  trances,  visions,  revelations  and 
miracles.  Space  is  lacking  to  recount  the  varied  series  of  marvels, 
many  of  which  do  infinite  credit  to  her  imaginative  invention,  while 
some  of  them  required  confederates,  who  seem  not  to  have  been 
lacking,  in  view  of  the  benefit  to  the  convent  accruing  from  its 
containing  so  saintly  a  person.  Elected  prioress  in  1533,  she 
retained  the  position  until  1542,  and  during  this  time  she  devoted 
to  it  the  large  stream  of  offerings  which  poured  in  on  her.  Defeated 
for  re-election  in  1542,  she  no  longer  made  this  use  of  her  funds 
and  the  successful  faction  denounced  her  to  the  Guardian  and 
the  Provincial  as  an  impostor,  but  the  credit  of  the  Order  was  at 
stake  and  they  were  silenced.  She  was  not  destined  however  to 
adorn  the  calendar  of  mystic  saints  for,  in  1543,  she  fell  danger- 
ously sick  and  was  warned  to  prepare  for  death.  Under  this 
pressure  she  made  a  full  confession,  ascribing  her  deceits  to 
demoniacal  possession.  She  recovered  and  the  Inquisition  seized 
her.  The  trial  lasted  until  May  3,  1546,  an  immense  body  of 
testimony  being  taken,  corroborative  of  her  confession,  which 
was  skilfully  framed  to  throw  the  blame  on  her  demons  Balban 
and  Patorrio,    In  short,  she  had  commenced  as  a  mystic,  had  been 


Chap.  V]  IMPOSTORS  83 

unable  to  resist  the  temptation  of  accepting  the  miracles  thrust 
upon  her  by  popular  superstition,  she  had  stimulated  this  with  her 
frauds,  and  finally  sought  extenuation  by  alleging  demonic  influ- 
ence. An  immense  crowd  attended  the  auto  held  May  3,  1546, 
when  the  reading  of  her  sentence  con  meritos  occupied  from  6  a.m. 
to  4  P.M.,  while  she  sat  on  the  staging  with  a  gag  in  her  mouth,  a 
halter  around  her  neck  and  a  lighted  candle  in  her  hand.  Her 
sentence  was  moderate— perpetual  reclusion  in  a  convent,  without 
active  or  passive  voice,  and  occupying  the  last  place  in  choir, 
refectory  and  chapter,  together  with  some  spiritual  penances.  She 
was  relegated  to  the  convent  of  Santa  Clara,  at  Andujar,  where 
she  lived  an  exemplary  life  and,  at  her  death,  in  1560,  it  was 
piously  hoped  that  her  sins  were  expiated.' 

Had  human  reason  any  share  in  these  beliefs,  such  an  exposure 
would  have  put  an  end  to  the  industry  of  the  heatas  revelanderas, 
but  the  popular  appetite  for  the  marvellous  was  insatiable,  and 
there  were  abundant  practitioners  ready  to  dare  the  attendant 
risks  for  the  accompanying  glory  and  profit.  Everywhere  there 
were  women  accomplished  in  these  arts  and  skilled  in  impressing 
their  neighbors  with  their  revelations  and  prophecies;  every  town 
and  almost  every  hamlet  had  its  local  saint,  who  was  regarded 
with  intense  veneration  and  assured  of  an  abimdant  livelihood.^ 
All  branches  of  the  supernatxiral  were  exploited :  some  could  pre- 
dict the  future;  others  had  prophetic  dreams  or  could  expound 
those  of  their  devotees;  others  could  release  souls  from  purgatory; 
others  could  perform  curative  miracles;  popular  faith  in  these 
gifted  spirits  was  boundless  and  innmnerable  sharpers  of  both 
sexes  fattened  upon  it. 

The  people  might  well  be  credulous  when  th^y  but  followed  the 
example  of  those  highest  in  Church  and  State.  Magdalena  de  la 
Cruz  had  a  worthy  imitator  in  the  Dominican  Madre  Maria  de  la 
Visitacion,  of  the  convent  of  the  Annvmciada  of  Lisbon,  whose 

'  Bibl.  nationals  de  France,  fonds  espagnol  354,  fol.  248-69. — Llorente,  Hist, 
crit.,  cap.  XVI,  art.  iv. — Miscelanea  de  Zapata  (Mem.  hist,  espanol,  XI,  70). — 
Cipriano  de  Valera,  Dos  Tratados,  p.  480  (Reformistas  antiguos  espaiioles). — 
Ribadeneira,  Vit.  Ign.  Loyolae,  Lib.  v,  cap.  10. — Luigi  de  Granata,  Vita  di 
Giovanni  d'AvUa,  p.  143  (Rom£e,  1746). — Matuto  y  Luquin,  p.  18. — Simancx 
de  Cath.  Institt.  Tit.  xxi,  n.  24. 

A  French  translation  of  the  sentence  and  confession  has  been  printed  by  M. 
Campan,  in  the  appendix  to  the  Memoires  de  Francisco  de  Enzinas. 

'^  Godoy  Alcantara,  Historia  de  los  falsos  Cronicones,  p.  2. — Cf .  V.  de  la  Fuente, 
Hist,  ecles.,  Ill,  255. 


84  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

intimate  relations  with  Christ  began  at  the  age  of  16,  in  1572. 
About  1580  Christ  crucified  appeared  to  her,  when  a  ray  of  fire 
from  his  breast  pierced  her  left  side,  leaving  a  wound  which  on 
Fridays  distilled  drops  of  blood  with  intense  pain.  In  1583  she 
was  elected  prioress  and,  in  1584,  in  another  vision  of  Christ  cruci- 
fied rays  of  fire  from  his  hands  and  feet  pierced  hers  and  thus 
completed  the  Stigmata.  No  time  was  lost  by  the  Dominican 
Provincial,  Antonio  de  la  Cerda,  in  spreading  the  news  of  this,  in 
a  statement  dated  March  14,  1584,  and  sent  to  Rome  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  Gregory  XIII.  It  was  corroborated  by  the  signatures 
of  several  frailes,  among  which  is  the  honored  name  of  the  great 
mystic,  Luis  de  Granada.'  The  Provincial  followed  this,  March 
30th,  with  another  letter  to  Rome  stating  that  the  impression 
produced  had  been  so  great  that  many  gentlemen  had  been  induced 
to  abandon  the  world  and  enter  the  Order,  and  even  that  three 
Moors  had  come  to  look  upon  Sor  Maria,  whose  appearance  had  so 
impressed  them  that  they  sought  baptism  on  the  spot — to  which 
he  added  two  miraculous  cures  effected  through  articles  touched 
by  her.^ 

Sor  Maria's  fame  penetrated  through  Christendom  and  even,  we 
are  told,  to  the  Indies.  Gregory  XIII  was  duly  impressed  and 
wrote  to  her  urging  to  persevere  without  faltering  in  the  path 
which  she  had  entered.  She  might  have  continued  to  do  so,  with 
the  reputation  of  a  saint,  if  she  had  abstained  from  politics. 
Unluckily  she  allowed  herself  to  be  drawn  into  a  movement  to 
throw  off  the  Spanish  yoke,  and  the  authorities,  who  had  been 
content  to  allow  her  to  acquire  influence,  found  it  necessary  to 
expose  her,  when  that  influence  threatened  to  be  potent  on  the 
side  of  rebellion.   * 

The  Annimciada  was  not  without  internal  jealousies  which  facili- 
tated the  obtaining  of  information  justifying  investigation.  A 
commission  was  appointed  consisting  of  the  Archbishops  of  Lisbon 
and  Braga,  the  Bishop  of  Guarda,  the  Dominican  Provincial,  the 


'  Relatione  del  Miracolo  delle  Stimmate,  venate  nuovamente  ad  una  Monacha 
deir  Ordine  di  S.  Domenico,  in  Portogallo,  nella  Cittil  di  Lisbona. — Bologna, 
1584. — Printed  also  in  Rome  and  in  Verona. 

'  Cipriano  de  Valera,  Enjambre  de  falsos  Milagros,  pp.  564,  sqq.  TJsoz  y 
Rio,  in  his  notes  to  this  reprint,  in  his  Beformistas  antiguos,  says  that  Valera's 
versions  are  faithfully  made  from  "  Les  grands  Miracles  et  les  Tressainctes  Plaies 
advenuz  h,  la  R.  Mfire  Prieure  du  Monasteire  de  I'Anonciade."  A  Paris  par  Jean 
Bressant,  1586. 


Chap.  V]  IMPOSTORS 


86 


Inquisitors  of  Lisbon  and  Doctor  Pablo  Alfonso  of  the  Royal 
Council.  Assembling  in  the  convent  they  took  the  testimony 
of  many  of  the  nuns  that  Sor  Maria's  sanctity  was  feigned  and 
her  stigmata  were  painted.  She  was  then  brought  before  them 
and  sworn,  when  she  persisted,  in  spite  of  threats  and  adjurations, 
in  the  story  of  the  stigmata  and  of  her  communications  with  Christ. 
The  next  day,  hot  water  and  soap  were  called  for;  she  protested 
and  pretended  to  suffer  extreme  agony,  but  a  vigorous  application 
of  the  detergents  to  the  palms  of  her  hands  caused  the  wounds  to 
disappear,  when  she  threw  herself  at  the  feet  of  her  judges  and 
begged  for  mercy.  At  a  subsequent  audience  she  gave  a  detailed 
explanation  of  the  devices  by  which  she  had  deceived  the  faithful- 
how  she  had  managed  the  apparent  elevation  from  the  ground 
and  the  divine  light  suffused  around  her  and  the  cloths  stained 
with  blood  from  her  side.  The  severity  of  the  sentence,  rendered 
December  6,  1588,  shows  how  much  greater  than  mere  sacrilegious 
imposture  was  the  offence  of  her  meddling  with  politics.  She  was 
recluded  for  life  in  a  convent  of  a  different  Order  from  her  own; 
for  a  year  she  was  to  be  whipped  every  Monday  and  Friday  for 
the  space  of  a  Miserere ;  in  the  refectory  she  was  to  take  her  meals 
on  the  floor,  what  she  left  was  to  be  cast  out  and,  at  the  end  of  the 
meal,  she  was  to  lie  in  the  door-way  and  be  trampled  on  by  the 
sisters  in  their  exit;  she  was  to  observe  a  perpetual  fast;  she  was 
incapacitated  from  holding  office;  she  was  always  to  be  last  and 
was  to  hold  converse  with  none  without  permission  of  the  abbess; 
she  was  not  to  wear  a  veil ;  on  Wednesdays  and  Fridays  she  was 
to  have  only  bread  and  water,  and  whenever  the  nuns  assembled 
in  the  refectory  she  was  to  recite  her  crimes  in  an  audible  voice. 
In  this  living  death  she  is  said  to  have  performed  her  cruel  penance 
with  such  patience  and  humility  that  she  became  saintly  in  reality.^ 
It  is  not  improbable  that  she  may  have  been  from  the  beginning 
a  tool  in  designing  hands.  A  contemporary  relates  that,  before 
the  exposiu^e,  he  wrote  to  Fray  Alberto  de  Aguajo  in  Lisbon,  asking 
whether  he  should  go  thither  to  consult  her  on  a  case  of  conscience, 
and  was  told  in  reply  that  there  was  nothing  wonderful  about  her 
except  the  goodness  of  God  in  granting  her  such  graces,  for  she 
was  as  simple  as  a  child  of  six.     She  was,  however,  a  rich  source 

'  Cipriano  de  Valera,  pp.  575— 80.— Pdramo,  pp.  233^,  302-4. 

In  1650,  Padre  Diego  Tello,  S.  J.,  in  an  opinion  given  to  the  Granada  tribunal 
alludes  to  the  political  objects  of  Sor  Maria's  impostures,  as  though  it  was  a 
well-known  fact.— MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  17. 


86  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

of  income,  for  the  Portuguese  in  the  Indies  used  to  send  her  gold 
and  diamonds  and  pearls  to  purchase  her  intercession  with  God.' 
Even  her  condemnation  did  not  wholly  disabuse  her  dupes.  Four 
years  later,  a  certain  Martin  de  Ayala,  prosecuted  in  1592  for 
revelations  and  impostures,  claimed  to  have  spiritual  communi- 
cation with  her  and  foretold  direful  things  about  the  conquest  of 
Spain  by  foreigners,  when  a  cave  in  Toledo  would  be  the  only 
place  where  the  few  elect  could  find  safety.  He  had  a  colleague, 
Don  Guillen  de  Casans,  who  was  likewise  prosecuted.' 

One  would  have  supposed  that  a  case  like  that  of  Sor  Maria, 
to  which  the  utmost  pubHcity  mxist  have  been  given,  would  have 
discredited  the  stigmata  as  a  special  mark  of  divine  favor,  but  it 
seems  r£\,ther  to  have  stimulated  the  ambitious  to  possess  them  by 
showing  how  easily  they  could  be  imitated.  They  became  a  matter 
of  almost  daily  occurrence.  In  1634  a  Jesuit  casually  alludes  in 
a  letter  to  two  new  cases  just  reported— one  of  a  ntin  of  la  Concep- 
cion  in  Salamanca  and  the  other  in  Burgos— adding  that  they  had 
become  so  common  that  no  woman  esteems  herself  a  servant  of 
God  unless  she  can  exhibit  them.' 

When  uncomplicated  with  politics,  imposture  continued  to  be 
leniently  treated  and  it  was  an  exception  when,  in  1591,  the  Toledo 
tribunal  visited  with  two  hundred  lashes  Maria  de  Morales  for 
trances  and  revelations  and  other  deceits  to  acquire  the  reputation 
of  a  saint.^  Thus  at  the  Seville  auto  of  1624,  when  Pacheco  was 
intent  on  suppressing  the  errors  of  Mysticism,  there  were  eight 
impostors  guilty  of  every  device  to  exploit  superstition,  six  of 
whom  escaped  with  a  year  or  two  of  reclusion.  Only  two  were 
more  severely  dealt  with.  Mariana  de  Jesus,  a  barefooted  Car- 
melite, was  a  Maestra  de  Espiritu,  who  taught  Illuminism  and  had 
a  record  of  endless  visions,  prophetic  inspiration  and  conflicts 
with  Satan.  She  maintained  herself  in  luxury  by  selling  her 
spiritual  gifts,  and  it  was  in  evidence  that  poor  people  had  pledged 
their  household  gear  to  purchase  her  intercession  for  the  souls 
of  their  kindred,  but  she  was  only  paraded  in  vergiienza  with  four 
year's  reclusion  in  a  convent  and  perpetual  exile  from  Seville. 
The  heaviest  punishment  was  that  visited  on  Juan  de  Jesus,  known 
as  el  Hermito,  who  professed  to  be  insensible  to  carnal  temptation, 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  939,  fol.  700. 

'  Ibidem,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  113,  n.  6. 

'  Cartas  de  Jesuitas  (Mem.  hist,  espanol,  XIII,  49,  61). 

*  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  111,  fol.  127. 


Chap.  V]  IMPOSTORS  87 

for  God  had  deprived  him  of  all  free-will  and  he  was  governed 
only  by  the  spirit.  Religious  observances  for  him  were  super- 
fluous, for  he  was  always  in  the  presence  of  God,  and  so  fervent 
was  his  love  for  God  that  water  hissed  when  he  drank  it.  He  not 
only  claimed  that  he  healed  the  sick  but  that  once  he  had  prayed 
eight  thousand  souls  out  of  purgatory,  thirty  thousand  at  another 
time,  then  twenty-two  thousand  and  finally  all  that  were  left. 
In  general  his  relations  with  women  are  unfit  for  description,  and 
he  shrewdly  had  a  revelation  that  all  who  gave  him  alms  would 
be  saved.  His  devotees  were  not  confined  to  the  ignorant,  for  he 
was  received  in  the  houses  of  the  principal  ladies  of  Seville  and 
men  of  high  distinction  admitted  him  to  their  tables.  He  received 
less  than  his  deserts  when  he  was  sentenced  to  a  hundred  lashes 
and  life  confinement  in  a  convent  or  hospital,  where  he  was  to 
work  for  his  board  and  to  pray  daily  a  third  of  the  rosary.' 

In  its  persistent  and  fruitless  efforts  to  stamp  out  this  pestilence, 
the  Inquisition  was  beginning  to  adopt  severer  treatment,  as  in 
the  case  of  Sor  Lorenza  Murga  of  Simancas,  a  Franciscan  tertiary, 
who  for  sixteen  years  enjoyed  great  reputation  in  Valladolid.  She 
had  ecstasies  and  revelations  whenever  wanted,  and  her  little 
house  was  an  object  of  pilgrimage,  when  she  would  throw  herself 
into  a  trance  at  the  request  of  any  one.  It  was  a  profitable  pur- 
suit, for  she  rose  from  abject  poverty  to  comfortable  affluence. 
Her  arrest,  April  29,  1634,  caused  no  little  excitement,  and  it  was 
whispered  that  she  had  been  detected  in  keeping  two  lovers  besides 
her  confessor.  In  her  audiences  she  persistently  maintained  the 
truth  of  her  revelations,  constantly  adding  fresh  marvels,  till  the 
inquisitors  tortured  her  smartly,  when  she  confessed  it  to  be  all 
an  imposture.  Her  career  was  cut  short  with  two  hundred  lashes 
and  exile  for  six  years  from  all  the  places  where  she  had  lived  .^ 

The  experienced  inquisitor  whom  I  have  so  often  quoted 
tells  us,  about  this  time,  that  these  impostors  were  very  common; 
that  there  were  rules  for  teaching  them  their  trade  and,  as  it  was 
so  prejudicial  and  so  discreditable,  they  must  be  punished  with 
all  rigor.  He  mentions  a  case  at  Llerena,  where  the  woman 
persisted  in  asserting  the  truth  of  her  revelations  and  miracles, 
until  she  was  tortured,  when  she  confessed  the  fraud  and  was  con- 

>  MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  S.,  130.— Bibl.  nacional,   MSS.,  V,  377, 
cap.  XXI,  §  7. 
2  Cartas  de  Jesuitas  (op.  cit,  XIII,  42,  51,  457).— Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq., 

Leg.  552,  fol.  17. 


88  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

demned  to  scourging  and  reclusion,  at  the  discretion  of  the  tribu- 
nal, with  fasting  on  bread  and  water .^  Yet  one  cannot  help  f eeUng 
sympathy  for  Maria  Cotanilla,  a  poor  blind  crone,  sentenced  in 
1676,  by  the  Toledo  tribunal,  to  a  hundred  lashes  and  to  pass 
iow  years  in  a  designated  place,  where  she  could  support  herself 
by  beggary,  reporting  herself  monthly  to  the  commissioner.^ 

Severity  might  check,  but  could  not  suppress,  a  profession  which 
was  the  inevitable  outcome  of  popular  demand.  How  it  was 
stimulated  is  well  exemplified  in  the  case  of  Maria  Manuela  de 
Tho — ,  a  young  woman  of  23,  arrested  by  the  Madrid  tribunal, 
in  April,  1673.  She  confessed  imreservedly  a  vast  variety  of 
impostures,  pretended  diabolical  possession,  visits  from  the  angels 
Gabriel  and  Raphael  and  numerous  others.  She  told  how  she 
was  venerated  as  a  saint;  her  signature  written  on  scraps  of  blank 
paper  was  distributed  by  her  confessor  and  was  treasured  as  though 
it  were  that  of  Santa  Teresa;  he  had  crosses  made  of  olive  wood 
which  she  blessed  and  they  were  valued  as  relics  and  amulets; 
she  cured  the  sick  and  performed  many  other  miracles.  The 
origin  of  all  this,  as  she  related  it,  is  highly  illuminating.  She 
chanced  to  tell  certain  persons  that  in  a  dream  she  saw  a  soul  in 
purgatory;  they  shook  their  heads  wisely  and  said  it  was  more 
than  a  dream  and  contained  great  mysteries.  Then  they  began 
to  admire  her  and  she,  finding  that  she  was  esteemed  and  admired 
and  regaled  with  presents,  and  that  money  came  to  her  without 
labor,  went  on  from  one  step  to  another  with  her  visions  and 
miracles.  She  knew  that  it  was  wrong  but,  as  there  were  learned 
and  distinguished  persons  cognizant  of  it,  who  cotdd  have  unde- 
ceived her  and  did  not  and,  as  there  was  no  pact  with  the  demon, 
she  continued  for,  though  she  had  been  a  miserable  sinner,  she 
had  always  been  firm  in  the  faith  of  Christ  as  a  true  Catholic 
Christian.'  When  the  appetite  for  marvels  was  so  universal  and 
unreasoning,  the  supply  could  not  be  lacking,  no  matter  what 
might  be  the  efforts  of  the  Inquisition. 

These  practitioners  naturally  continued  to  give  occupation  to 
the  tribunals,  but  their  cases  can  teach  us  little  except  to  note  the 
severity  with  which  they  were  occasionally  treated.  In  the  Madrid 
auto  of  1680  there  were  four  impostors,  of  whom  a  carpenter  named 


•  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xxi,  §  5. 

*  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 
'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  405,  n.  66. 


Chap.  V]  IMPOSTORS  89 

Alfonso  de  Arenas  was  visited  with  abjuration,  two  hundred  lashes, 
and  five  years  of  galleys  followed  by  five  more  of  exile/     In  the 
little  conventicle  arrested,  in  1708,  by  the  Toledo  tribunal  (p.  71), 
four  women  and  a  man  were  p\mished,  in  1711,  as  impostors,  the 
man,  Pablo  Dfez,  an  apothecary  of  Yepes,  with  reconcihation,  con- 
fiscation and  perpetual  prison,  while  one  of  the  women,  Maria 
Ferndndez,  had  two  hundred  lashes  and  exile.^     In  1725,  the 
Murci'a  tribunal  inflicted  the  same  scourging  and  eight  years  of 
exile  on  Mariana  Matozes,  who  added  to  her  other  impostures  a 
claim  to  the  stigmata,  and  in  1726,  in  Valencia,  Juan  Vives  of 
Castillon  de  la  Plana  had  the  same  allowance  of  stripes,  with  a 
year's  reclusion  and  eight  years'  exile  from  Valencia  and  Cata- 
lonia.^   It  is  therefore  not  easy  to  understand  the  clemency  shown 
by  the  Toledo  tribunal,  in  1729,  to  Ana  Rodriguez  of  Madridejos, 
who  is  described  as  a  scandalous  impostor,  deluded  and  deluding, 
audacious,  sacrilegious,  boasting  of  her  exemption  from  the  sixth 
commandment^  heretically  blasphemous,  vehemently  suspect  and 
formally  guilty  of  the  heresy  of  Molinos  and  the  Alumbrados, 
insulting  to  the  Blessed  Virgin  and  St.  Bernard  and  contumacious 
in  all  her  errors.     Her  contumacy  gave  way,  thus  saving  her  from 
relaxation  and  she  escaped  with  formal  abjuration,  reconciliation 
and  confinement  for  instruction  in  the  Jesuit  college  of  Naval- 
carnero,  during  such  time  as  the  tribunal  might  deem  necessary 
for  her  soul.* 

Further  enumeration  of  these  obscure  cases  is  scarce  worth  while 
and  we  may  pass  to  one  which  excited  lively  interest.  Maria 
de  los  Dolores  Lopez,  known  as  the  Beata  Dolores,  had  a  success- 
ful and  scandalous  career  for  fifteen  or  twenty  years,  commencing 
at  the  age  of  twelve,  when  she  left  her  father's  house  to  live  as  a 
concubine  with  her  confessor.  Her  fame  spread  far  and  wide 
and,  for  ten  years,  the  Inquisition  received  occasional  denuncia- 
tion of  her  misdeeds  without  taking  action  until,  in  1779,  one  of 
her  confessors,  to  relieve  his  conscience,  denounced  both  himself 
and  her  to  the  Seville  tribunal.  On  her  trial  she  resolutely  main- 
tained the  truth  of  the  special  graces  which  she  had  enjoyed  since 
the  age  of  four.     She  had  continued  and  familiar  intercoiu-se  with 

>  Olmo,  Relacion,  pp.  201-3,  240. 

'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  XI.— Archive  hist,  nacional, 
Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 
'  Royal  Library  of  Berlin,  Qt.  9548. 
*  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 


90  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

the  Virgin,  she  had  been  married  in  heaven  to  the  child  Jesus, 
with  St.  Joseph  and  St.  Augustin  as  witnesses,  she  had  hberated 
milUons  of  souls  from  purgatory,  with  much  more  of  the  kind  so 
famihar  to  us,  to  which  she  added  one  of  the  errors  of  Molinism 
by  maintaining  that  evil  actions  cease  to  be  sinful  when  God  so 
wills  it.  She  was  thus  not  merely  an  impostor  but  a  -formal  and 
impenitent  heretic,  for  whom  relaxation  was  the  only  penalty 
known  to  the  Inquisition.  Burning,  however,  had  well-nigh 
gone  out  of  fashion,  and  the  tribunal  honestly  spared  no  effort  to 
save  her  from  the  stake.  Eminent  theologians  wasted  on  her 
their  learning  and  eloquence.  Fray  Diego  de  Cadiz,  the  foremost 
preacher  of  his  time,  labored  with  her  for  two  months,  and  finally 
reported  that  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  burn  her.  It  was  all 
in  vain.  God,  she  said,  had  revealed  to  her  that  she  should  die  a 
martyr,  after  which,  in  three  days,  he  would  prove  her  innocence. 
The  law  had  to  take  its  course  and,  on  Augiist  22,  1781,  she  was 
formally  sentenced  to  relaxation.  As  this  left  her  unmoved  the 
execution  was  postponed  for  three  days  to  try  the  effect  of  fresh 
exhortations.  This  failed  and,  during  the  sermon  and  ceremonies 
of  the  auto,  she  had  to  be  gagged  to  suppress  her  blasphemy. 
As  so  frequently  happened  however,  her  nerves  gave  way  on  the 
road  to  the  brasero ;  she  burst  into  tears  and  asked  for  a  confessor, 
thus  gaining  the  privilege  of  strangulation  before  the  faggots  were 
fired.' 

Imposture  continued  to  flourish.  In  1800  the  Valladolid  tri- 
bunal was  occupied  with  an  extensive  "  comphcidad,"  resulting 
in  the  prosecution  of  Madre  Maria  Ignacia  de  la  Presentacion, 
a  Mercenarian  of  the  convent  of  Toro,  for  pretended  miracles, 
along  with  nine  frailes  of  the  same  Order  as  accomplices.^  Con- 
temporary with  this  was  a  case  at  Cuenca,  which  almost  transcends 
belief.  The  wife  of  a  peasant  of  Villar  del  Aguila,  Isabel  Marfa 
Herraiz,  known  as  the  Beata  de  Cuenca,  who  had  a  reputation 
for  sanctity,  announced  that  Christ  had  revealed  to  her  that,  in 
order  to  be  more  completely  united  to  her  in  love,  he  had  trans- 
fused his  body  and  blood  into  hers.  The  theology  of  the  period 
is  illustrated  by  the  learned  disputation  which  arose,  some  doctors 
arguing  this  to  be  impossible  because  it  would  render  her  more 


'  Men^ndez  y  Pelayo,  III,  405. — MSS.  of  Archivo  municipal  de  SeviUa,  Sec- 
cion  especial,  Siglo  XVIII,  Letra  A,  T.  4,  n.  56. — Cartas  del  Fil6sofo  rancio, 
II,  495  (Madrid,  1824). 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 


Chap.  V]  IMPOSTOBS  91 

holy  than  the  Blessed  Virgin  and  would  deprive  the  sacrament 
of  the  exclusive  distinction  of  being  the  body  and  blood  of  the 
Lord ;  others  held  it  to  be  possible  but  that  the  proofs  in  the  present 
case  were  insufficient;  others,  again,  accepted  it  and  urged  the 
virtues  of  the  beata  and  the  absence  of  motive  for  deception.  The 
people  felt  no  scruple,  and  were  encouraged  in  their  credulity  by 
two  Franciscan  frailes,  Joaquin  de  Alustante  and  Domingo  de 
Canizares,  and  a  Carmelite,  Sebastian  de  los  Dolores.  Her  believers 
worshipped  her,  carrying  her  through  the  streets  in  procession, 
lighting  candles  before  her  and  prostrating  themselves  in  ado- 
ration. The  scandal  attained  proportions  calling  for  repression, 
and  the  Inquisition  arrested  her,  June  25,  1801,  together  with  her 
accomplices.  It  is  possible  that  she  was  severely  handled,  for 
she  died  in  the  secret  prison  without  confession,  and  was  conse- 
quently burnt  in  efhgy.  The  cura  of  Villar  and  two  of  the  frailes 
were  banished  to  the  Philippines;  two  laymen  received  two  hundred 
lashes  each,  with  service  for  life  in  a  presidio,  and  her  hand-maid, 
Manuela  Perez,  was  consigned  for  ten  years  to  the  Recojidas  or 
house  of  correction  for  women.* 

While  this  comedy  was  in  progress  in  Cuenca,  a  similar  one  was 
performing  in  Madrid,  in  the  highest  social  ranks.  Sor  Marfa 
Clara  Rosa  de  Jesus,  known  as  the  Beata  Clara,  had  acquired 
great  reputation  by  her  visions  and  miracles.  She  was,  or  pre- 
tended to  be,  paralyzed  and  unable  to  leave  her  bed  and,  when 
she  annomaced  that  a  special  command  of  the  Holy  Ghost  required 
her  to  join  the  Capuchin  Order,  Pius  VI  granted  her  a  dispensation 
to  take  the  vows  without  residence.  Atanasio  de  Puyal,  subse- 
quently Bishop  of  Calahorra,  obtained  licence  to  erect  a  private 
altar  in  her  chamber,  where  mass  was  celebrated  daily,  and  she 
received  commtmion,  pretending  to  take  no  other  nourishment. 
All  the  great  ladies  of  the  court  were  accustomed  to  implore  her 
intercession  in  their  troubles  and  gave  her  large  sums  to  be 
expended  in  charity.  It  is  to  the  credit  of  the  Inquisition  that 
it  broke  up  this  speculative  imposture  by  arresting  her,  in  1801, 
together  with  her  mother  and  confessor  as  accomplices.     It  was 


1  Llorente,  Hist,  crit.,  cap.  xliii,  art.  iv,  n.  1.— Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq. 
de  Toledo,  Leg.  115,  n.  25;  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 

By  edict  of  Jiine  23,  1805,  all  writings  in  which  credit  of  any  kind  was  given 
to  the  favors  which  the  beata  pretended  to  have  received  from  heaven  were 
absolutely  prohibited.— Suplemento  al  Indice  expurgatorio,  p.  25  (Madrid,  1805). 


92  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

not  difficult  to  prove  their  guilt  and,  in  1803,  they  were  merci- 
fully sentenced  to  reclusion/ 

For  three  hundred  years,  up  to  the  time  of  its  suppression,  the 
Inquisition,  thus  vainly  labored  to  put  an  end  to  these  speculations 
on  the  credulity  of  the  faithful.  It  did  its  best,  but  the  popular 
craving  for  the  marvellous,  for  concrete  evidence  of  divine  inter- 
position in  human  affairs,  was  too  universal  and  too  strong  to  be 
controlled,  even  by  its  supreme  authority.  After  its  downfall, 
the  career  of  the  notorious  Sor  Patrocinio  proves  how  ineradicable 
was  this  and  serves  to  bring  medievalism  down  to  our  own  time. 

Maria  Raf  aela  Quiroga,  known  in  religion  as  Sor  Maria  Cipriana 
del  Patrocinio  de  San  Jose,  in  1829  took  the  veil  in  the  convent 
of  San  Jose,  and  soon  commenced  to  have  visions  and  revelations, 
followed  by  the  development  of  the  stigmata.  Her  reputation 
spread  and  cloths  stained  with  the  blood  of  her  wounds  were  in 
request  as  curative  amulets.  When  the  death  of  Fernando  VII, 
September  29,  1833  was  followed  by  the  Carlist  war,  the  clericals, 
who  favored  Don  Carlos,  saw  in  her  a  useftd  instrvunent.  She 
was  made  to  prophesy  the  success  of  the  Pretender  and  to  furnish 
proof  of  the  illegitimacy  of  the  young  Queen  Isabel.  As  in  the 
case  of  the  Portuguese  Maria  de  la  Visitacion,  this  dangerous 
factor  in  the  political  situation  called  for  governmental  interven- 
tion and,  after  some  resistance,  in  November  1835,  the  Sor  was 
removed  from  the  convent  to  a  private  house,  where  she  was  kept 
under  the  care  of  her  mother  and  of  a  priest,  while  three  physicians 
were  summoned  to  examine  the  stigmata.  They  pronounced  them 
artificial  and  promised  a  speedy  cure  if  interference  was  prevented. 
This  was  verified  and,  in  spite  of  a  scab  being  torn  off  from  one 
of  them,  they  were  healed  by  December  17th.  On  January  21, 
1836,  an  official  inspection  by  a  number  of  dignitaries  confirmed 
the  fact,  which  was  assented  to  by  the  Sor  and,  on  February  7th, 
she  made  a  full  confession,  stating  that  a  Capuchin,  Padre  Firmin 
de  Alcaraz,  had  given  her  a  caustic  with  directions  to  use  it  on 
hands,  feet,  side  and  head,  telling  her  that  the  resultant  pain  would 
be  a  salutary  penance.  Prosecution  was  duly  commenced  against 
her  and  the  Vicar,  Prioress  and  Vicaress  of  the  convent,  Padre 
Firmin  having  prudently  disappeared.  Sentence  was  rendered, 
November  25,  1836,  from  which  an  appeal  was  taken,  resulting 
in  a  slight  increase  of  rigor.    The  convent  was  suppressed;  the 


'  Llorente,  loc.  cit.,  n.  2. — Archive,  hist,  naoional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 


Chap.  V]  IMPOSTORS  93 

vicar,  Andres  Rivas,  was  banished  from  Madrid  for  eight  years, 
and  the  three  women  were  sent  to  convents  of  their  Order,  Sor 
Patrocinio  being  conveyed,  on  April  27,  1837,  to  the  nunnery  at 
Talavera.^ 

Years  passed  away  and  she  seemed  to  be  forgotten  when  the 
reaction  of  1844  suggested  that  she  might  again  be  utilized.  In 
1845  the  convent  of  Jesus  was  built  for  her;  she  returned  with  the 
stigmata  freshened  and  her  saintly  reputation  enhanced.  Impos- 
ing ceremonies  rendered  her  entrance  impressive,  and  she  was 
conveyed  to  her  convent  imder  a  canopy,  like  a  royal  personage. 
In  conjtinction  with  Padre  Fulgencio,  confessor  to  Don  Francisco 
de  Asis  the  king-consort,  and  with  her  brother  Manuel  Quiroga, 
whom  she  made  gentleman  of  the  royal  bed-chamber,  she  became 
the  power  behind  the  throne.  Dr.  Argumosa,  who  had  cured  her 
stigmata,  was  persecuted  and  Fray  Firmin  Alcaraz,  who  had 
emerged  from  his  hiding-place,  was  made  Bishop  of  Cuenca.  In 
1849  she  was  held  to  have  forced  Isabel  to  dismiss  the  Duke  of 
Valencia  (Narvaez)  and  his  cabinet.  This  was  followed  by  what 
was  known  as  the  Ministerio  Reldmpago,  or  Lightning  Ministry, 
which  held  office  for  three  hours  on  October  19,  1849,  and  was 
forced  to  retire  by  the  threatening  aspect  of  the  people.  Narvaez 
was  recalled  and  forthwith  relegated  to  a  distance  Sor  Patrocinio, 
her  brother,  Padre  Fulgencio  and  some  of  their  confederates. 

She  was  soon  recalled,  however,  and  wielded  an  influence  which 
Narvaez  could  not  resist.  His  successor.  Bravo  Mmllo,  sought 
to  get  a  respite  by  persuading  the  Nuncio  Brunelli  to  send  her  to 
Rome,  but  this  availed  little,  for  she  soon  returned,  more  powerful 
than  ever,  with  the  blessing  of  Pius  IX.  Under  her  guidance, 
during  the  remainder  of  the  reign  of  Isabel  II,  the  camarilla  practi- 
cally ruled  the  kingdom  and  precipitated  the  revolution  of  1868, 
which,  for  a  time,  supplanted  the  monarchy  with  a  republic.  With 
the  fall  of  Isabel  she  disappeared  from  public  view,  in  the  retire- 
ment of  the  convent  of  Guadalajara,  of  which  she  was  the  abbess. 
There  she  lingered  in  seclusion,  imtil  January  27,  1891,  when  she 
died  serenely,  comforted  in  her  last  moments  with  a  telegraphic 
blessing  from  Leo  XIII.^ 

•  Extracto  de  la  Causa  seguida  &  Sor  Patrocinio  (Madrid,  1865). 

'  Revista  Cristiana,  Marzo-Abril,  1891  (Madrid). 

Spain  is  by  no  means  the  only  seat  of  these  manifestations.  In  1848  there 
was  at  Niederbronn,  near  Strassburg,  a  bride  of  Christ  named  Elizabeth  Eppinger 
•who,  though  denied  the  supreme  favor  of  the  stigmata,  had  trances  and  visions 


94  MYSTICISM  [Book  VIII 

The  Inquisition  could  suppress  Judaism,  it  could  destroy  Pro- 
testantism, it  cotild  render  necessary  the  expulsion  of  the  Moriscos, 
but  it  failed  when  it  sought  to  eradicate  the  abuses  of  Mysticism, 
which  not  only  signalized  the  ardor  of  Spanish  faith,  but  were 
so  difficult  of  differentiation  from  beliefs  long  recognized  and 
encouraged  by  the  Church.  There  seems  to  be,  in  the  average 
himian  mind,  an  insatiable  craving  for  manifestations  of  the 
supernatural.  Modern  science,  with  its  materialism,  may  weaken 
or  even  eradicate  this  in  the  majority,  and  may  explain  psycho- 
logically much  of  what  seems  to  be  marvellous,  but  the  success 
in  our  own  land  of  the  curious  superstition  known  as  Christian 
Science  shows  us  how  superficial  is  latter-day  enlightenment,  and 
should  teach  us  sympathy  rather  than  disdain  for  the  fantastic 
exhibitions  of  credulity  which  we  have  passed  in  review. 


and  the  gift  of  prophecy.  She  founded  the  Order  of  Filles  du  Redempteur,  over 
which  she  presided  as  Soeur  Alphonse. — Abb6  Busson,  Lettres  sur  I'Extatique 
de  Niederbronn  (Besanpon,  1849-53). 

The  grace  of  the  stigmata  is  likewise  not  uncommon.  About  1825  there 
flourished  Katharine  Emmerich,  the  nun  of  Diilmen,  and  contemporary  with 
her  were  three  girls  in  Tyrol,  Maria  von  Mori,  Domenica  Lazzari  and  Crescenzia 
Nicklutsch,  all  of  whom  enjoyed  also  the  customary  visions  and  ecstasies.  The 
learned  Joseph  Gorres  was  one  of  the  beheving  pilgrims  who  put  on  record  his 
experiences.  At  the  same  time  Provence  boasted  of  a  similar  beata,  Madame 
Miollis,  known  as  the  stigmatisee  du  Var,  at  Villecroze. — Die  Tyrolen  ekstasischen 
Jungfrauen  (Regensburg,  1843). — Nicolas,  L'extatique  et  les  stigmatisfes  du 
Tyrol  (Paris,  1844).— Borg,  Les  stigmatis^es  du  Tyrol,  2e.  Ed.  (Paris,  1846). 

The  more  recent  case  of  Louise  Lateau,  in  Belgium,  is  well  known.  All  this, 
however,  is  trivial  in  comparison  with  the  development  of  stigmatisation  among 
the  followers  of  Pierre-Michel  Vintras,  in  France.  In  1850  it  was  reckoned 
that  no  less  than  three  hundred  were  favored  with  this  distinguishing  mark  of 
divine  approval. — Andrd,  Affaire  Rose  Tamisier,  p.  5  (Carpentras,  1851). 


CHAPTER     VI. 

SOLICITATION. 

The  seduction  of  female  penitents  by  their  confessors,  euphemis- 
tically known  as  solicitatio  ad  turpia  or  "solicitation,"  has  been 
a  perennial  source  of  trouble  to  the  Church  since  the  introduction 
of  confession,  more  especially  after  the  Lateran  Cotmcil  of  1216 
rendered  yearly  confession  to  the.  parish  priest  obligatory.  It 
was  admitted  to  be  a  prevailing  vice,  and  canonists  sought  some 
abatement  of  the  evil  by  arguing  that  the  priest  notoriously 
addicted  to  it  lost  his  jurisdiction  over  his  female  parishioners, 
who  were  thus  at  liberty  to  seek  the  sacrament  of  penitence  from 
others.*  A  Spanish  authority,  however,  holds  that  this  requires 
the  licence  of  the  parish  priest  himself  and,  when  he  refuses  it,  the 
woman  must  confess  to  him,  after  prayer  to  God  for  strength  to 
resist  his  importunities.^ 

It  was  an  evil  of  which  repression  was  impossible,  notwithstand- 
ing penalties  freely  threatened.  A  virtue  of  uncommon  robustness 
was  required  to  resist  the  temptations  arising  from  the  confidences 
of  the  confessional,  and  so  well  was  this  understood  that  an  excep- 
tion was  made  to  the  rule  requiring  perfect  confession,  for  reticence 
as  to  carnal  sins  was  cotmselled,  when  the  reputation  of  the  priest 
rendered  it  advisable.'  Few  women  thus  approached,  whether 
yielding  or  not,  could  be  expected  to  denounce  their  pastors  to 
the  bishop  or  provisor,  and  for  her  who  yielded  the  path  to  sin 
was  made  easy  through  the  universal  abuse  of  absolution  by  her 
accomplice,  and  this,  although  objected  to  on  ethical  grounds,  was 
admitted  to  be  valid.''  On  the  other  hand,  the  peccant  confessor 
could  rely  on  obtaining  absolution  from  a  sympathizing  colleague, 
at  the  cost  of  penance  which  had  become  habitually  trivial. 

The  intercourse  between  priest  and  penitent  was  especially 


•  S.  Th.  Aquin.  Summse  Suppl.  Q.  viii,  art.  4. — Astesani  Siunmse,  Lib.  v,  Tit. 
xiii,  Q.  2. — Summa  Sylvestrina  s.  v.  Confessor,  i,  §§  10-11. 

'  Guidonis  de  Monte  Rocherii  Manip.  Curator.  P.  ii,  Tract,  iii,  cap.  9. 
'  S.  Antonini  SummEE,  P.  in,  Tit.  xiv,  cap.  19,  §  8. 

*  S.  Th.  Aquin.  in  IV  Sentt.,  Dist.  xix,  Q.  1,  art.  3. — Joh.  Friburgens.  Sum- 
mse Confessor.,  Lib.  iii,  Tit.  xxxiv,  Q.  65. 

(95) 


96  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

dangerous  because  there  had  not  yet  been  invented  the  device  of 
the  confessional — a  box  or  stall  in  which  the  confessor  sits  with  his 
ear  at  a  grille,  through  which  the  tale  of  sins  conceived  or  com- 
mitted is  whispered.  Seated  by  his  side  or  kneehng  at  his  feet, 
there  was  greater  risk  of  inflaming  passion  and  much  more  oppor- 
tunity for  provocative  advances.  It  was  not  until  the  middle  of 
the  sixteenth  century  that  the  confessional  was  devised,  doubtless 
in  consequence  of  the  attacks  of  heretics,  who  foimd  in  these 
scandals  a  fertile  subject  of  animadversion.  The  earhest  allusion 
to  it  that  I  have  met  occurs  in  a  memorial  from  Siliceo  of  Toledo 
to  Charles  V,  in  1547.^  In  1565  a  Council  of  Valencia  prescribed 
its  use  and  contemporaneously  S.  Carlo  Borromeo  introduced  it  in 
his  Milanese  province,  while  in  1614  the  Roman  Ritual  commanded 
its  employment  in  all  churches.^  It  was  easier  to  command  than 
to  secure  obedience,  for  the  priesthood  offered  a  passive  resistance 
which  even  the  Inquisition  found  it  almost  impossible  to  over- 
come. As  early  as  1625  it  forbade  parish  priests  from  hearing 
confessions  in  their  houses;  between  1709  and  1720  we  find  it 
occupied  in  endeavoring  to  enforce  the  use  of  confessionals  and, 
to  prevent  evasions,  such  as  hearing  confessions  in  cells  and  chapels, 
and  not  in  the  body  of  the  church.^  How  long-continued  was 
the  opposition,  and  how  transparent  were  the  artifices  to  elude  the 
regulations,  are  visible  in  an  edict  of  November  3,  1781,  which 
led  to  considerable  trouble.  After  alluding  to  the  repeated  orders 
on  the  subject,  and  the  deplorable  results  of  their  disregard,  it 
prescribed  that  women  should  be  heard  only  through  the  gratings 
of  closed  confessionals,  or  of  open  stalls  in  the  body  of  the  churches, 
or  in  chapels  open  and  well  lighted.  It  forbade  the  use  of  hand- 
gratings  or  handkerchiefs,  sieves,  bundle  of  twigs,  fans,  or  other 
derisive  substitutes,  and  it  prescribed  minute  and  highly  suggest- ' 
ive  regulations  as  to  oratories  and  private  chapels,  while  a  similar 
series  concerning  male  penitents  shows  the  dread  of  contamination 
even  with  them.^ 


'  Burriel,  Vidas  de  los  Arzobispos  de  Toledo  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.  Ff,  194, 
fol.  9). 

'  Concil.  Valentin,  ann.  1565,  Tit.  ii,  cap.  17  (Aguirre,  V,  417). — C.  Mediola- 
nensis  I,  arm.  1565,  cap.  6  (Harduin.  X,  653). — C.  Provin.  Mediolanens.  IV,  ann. 
1576  (Acta  Eccles.  Mediolanens.  I,  146). — Rituale  Roman.,  Tit.  iii,  cap.  1. 

'  MSS.  of  David  Fergusson,  Esq. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  BaJa  39,  Leg.  4, 
fol.  34,  55,  81. — Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  9,  n.  2,  fol.  236, 
237.— Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  PV,  fol.  C,  17,  n.  38. 

*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  16,  n.  6,  fol.  9, 


Chap.  VI]  TOLERANCE  OF  SPIRITUAL  COURTS  97 

The  crime  of  solicitation  was  subject  to  episcopal  jurisdiction 
and,  throughout  the  middle  ages,  there  was  no  general  legislation 
prescribing  its  penalties.  Some  apocryphal  canons  visited  it  with 
well-deserved  severity  and,  in  1217,  Richard  Poore,  the  reforming 
Bishop  of  Sahsbury,  threatened  it  with  fifteen  years  of  penance 
followed  by  confinement  in  a  monastery/  The  spiritual  courts, 
however,  were  notoriously  lenient,  and  the  prevalent  sexual  laxity 
tended  to  sympathy  which  disarmed  severity  in  the  rare  cases 
coming  before  them.  When,  during  the  Reformation,  this  offence 
afforded  a  favorite  topic  for  the  heretics,  there  arose  a  demand  for 
sharper  treatment.  In  1587,  liiigo  L6pez  de  Salcedo  gives  this 
as  a  reason  for  rigorous  pvmishment,  and  he  greatly  lauds  Matteo 
Ghiberti,  the  reforming  Bishop  of  Verona  (f  1543)  for  decreeing 
a  series  of  heavy  penalties  for  attempts  on  the  virtue  of  female 
penitents,  culminating  in  deprivation  and  perpetual  imprison- 
ment when  they  were  successful.^ 

This  virtuous  rigor,  however,  was  purely  exceptional.  The 
usual  tolerant  view  adopted  is  manifested  in  a  case  which,  in  1535 
at  Toledo,  came  before  the  vicar-general.  Bias  Ortiz,  a  man  so 
respected  that  he  was  promoted  to  the  inquisitorship  of  Valencia 
soon  afterwards.  Alonso  de  Valdelamar,  parish  priest  of  Almo- 
dovar,  was  charged  with  a  black  catalogue  of  offences — theft, 
blasphemy,  cheating  with  Cruzada  indulgences,  charging  penitents 
for  absolution,  frequenting  public  brothels  and  solicitation.  It  was 
in  evidence  that  he  refused  absolution  to  a  girl  unless  she  would 
surrender  herself  to  him,  that  he  seduced  a  married  penitent 
whose  husband  was  obhged  to  leave  Almodovar  in  order  to  get 
her  away  from  him,  while  Dona  Leonor  de  Godoy  admitted  that 
he  repeatedly  used  violence  on  her  in  the  church  itself.  His  sen- 
tence, rendered  February  26,  1535,  stated  that  the  fiscal  had  fully 
proved  his  charges,  but  for  all  these  crimes  he  was  punished  only 
with  thirty  days'  penitential  reclusion  in  his  church,  with  a  fine 
of  ten  ducats,  besides  four  reales  to  the  fiscal,  a  ducat  to  the 
episcopal  advocate,  ten  days'  wages  to  the  notary  who  went  to 
Almodovar  to  take  testimony,  and  the  costs  of  the  trial.  From 
this  the  fiscal  appealed  to  the  archbishop  but  the  next  day  with- 

1  Gratiani  Decret.  Caus.  xxx,  q.  i,  can.  8,  9,  10.— Constitt.  R.  Poore,  cap.  9 
(Harduin.  VII,  91). 

^  Salcedo,  Practica  criminalis  canonica,  p.  276  (Compluti,  1587). 

For  an  instructive  sketch  of  Ghiberti  by  Miss  M.  A.  Tucker,  see  English  Hist. 
Review,  Jan.-July,   1903. 

VOL.  IV  7 


98  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

drew  the  appeal;  Valdelamar  accepted  it  and  was  sent  back  to 
his  parish  to  pursue  his  course  of  profligacy.  Evidently  the  epis- 
copal tribunal  was  more  concerned  with  the  profits  of  its  juris- 
diction than  with  the  suppression  of  solicitation.^ 

It  may  be  inferred  from  this  that  peccant  confessors  were  not 
likely  to  be  prosecuted,  imless  there  were  other  circumstances  or 
offences  to  stimulate  action,  and  this  is  confirmed  by  another  case, 
about  the  same  time,  which  also  shows  the  readiness  of  the  tribunal 
to  claim  jurisdiction.  Pedro  Bermudez,  incumbent  of  Ciempo- 
zuelos,  employed  a  priest  named  Pareja  as  vicar,  from  1525  to 
1529.  They  quarrelled;  Pareja  was  dismissed,  found  employment 
at  Valdemoro,  and  commenced  suit  against  Bermudez.  The 
latter  retorted  by  instigating  a  certain  Catalina  Roldan,  who  had 
borne  a  child  to  Pareja,  and  her  mother,  to  complain  to  Romero, 
a  visiting  inquisitor  from  Toledo,  about  the  seduction,  asking  that 
he  be  forced  to  provide  a  dower  and  find  a  husband  for  her. 
Romero  took  up  the  case.  Bermudez  busied  himself  in  collecting 
testimony  and  was  aided  by  a  priest  named  Solorzano,  whose 
enmity  had  been  excited  by  Pareja  having  served  as  commissioner 
in  taking  evidence  as  to  his  seduction  of  a  married  woman,  for 
which  he  was  prosecuted  in  Alcald.  The  proof  collected  against 
Pareja  was  conclusive.  Two  of  his  penitents  admitted  to  having 
yielded  to  him,  and  several  others  testified  as  to  his  advances  in 
the  act  of  confession.  When  one  of  them  was  asked  whether  she 
confessed  to  him  their  mutual  sin,  she  said  that  he  told  her  not  to 
do  so,  and  afterwards  admitted  her  to  communion.  There  was 
also  evidence  as  to  his  violating  the  seal  of  confession,  and  to  irreve- 
rence in  administering  the  sacrament.  The  trial  pursued  the  usual 
course,  the  main  charges  being  his  misdeeds  with  his  female  peni- 
tents, which  he  admitted  more  or  less  explicitly.  When  the  papers 
were  sent  to  the  Suprema,  it  returned  them,  saying  that  the  charges 
for  the  most  part  were  beyond  the  competence  of  the  tribunal, 
and  appertained  to  the  episcopal  court,  to  which  they  should  be 
transferred,  while  the  tribunal  could  proceed  with  the  little  that 
remained.  The  charges  thus,  after  omitting  the  soHcitation,  were 
reduced  to  four — that  he  persuaded  his  accomplices  that  their 
mutual  sin  need  not  be  confessed,  that  he  told  them  that  they 
could  take  the  sacrament  without  confessing,  that  he  said  it  was 
better  to  have  masses  celebrated  than  to  pay  debts,  and  that 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  2,33,  n.  100. 


Chap.  VI]  SUBJECTED  TO  THE  INQUISITION  99 

almost  all  the  witnesses  held  him  to  be  a  bad  Christian,  a  heretic 
and  an  evil  man. 

Pareja  and  his  advocate  argued  that  the  case  was  outside  of 
inquisitorial  jurisdiction,  but  the  tribunal  pushed  it  to  the  end 
on  these  subsidiary  points  and,  on  May  23,  1532  sentenced  him 
to  perpetual  deprivation  of  hearing  the  confessions  of  women, 
to  a  fine  of  twenty  thousand  maravedfs,  and  to  have  Toledo  as  a 
prison  for  two  years,  during  which  he  was  to  fast  and  recite  psalms 
on  Fridays.  As  he  was  not  required  to  abjure,  even  for  light 
suspicion,  the  charge  of  heresy  was  abandoned,  and  as  solicitation 
was  not  included  in  the  sentence,  he  was  liable  to  further  prose- 
cution by  the  Ordinary.  Yet  the  character  of  the  penalties  shows 
that  sohcitation  was  the  real  gravamen,  over  which  the  tribrmal 
was  seeking  indirectly  to  acquire  jurisdiction.' 

Evidently,  if  there  was  to  be  any  cure  or  mitigation  of  this 
corroding  cancer,  some  less  sympathetic  tribunal  than  the  episco- 
pal court  was  requisite,  and  the  Inquisition  was  eager  to  supply 
the  want,  yet  matters  were  allowed  to  drift  for  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury longer.  Possibly  it  may  have  been  the  Lutheran  alarm  of 
1558  that  led  Archbishop  Guerrero  of  Granada  to  seek  the  remedy 
and  to  call  to  the  attention  of  the  Holy  See  the  frequency  of  the 
crime  and  the  need  of  its  more  energetic  repression.^  His  appeal 
was  heard,  and  Paul  IV,  in  a  brief  of  February  18,  1559,  expressed 
his  sorrow  at  learning  that  certain  priests  of  Granada  misled  their 
penitents  and  abused  the  sacraments,  wherefore  he  granted,  to 
the  inquisitors  of  Granada,  jurisdiction  over  the  heresy  implied 
in  the  crime  and  withdrew  all  exemptions  of  the  religious  Orders.' 
What  activity  the  Granada  tribunal  manifested  in  the  exercise 
of  its  new  fimction  is  not  recorded,  but  the  field  thus  thrown  open 
was  sufficiently  inviting  for  Vald^s,  in  1561,  to  obtain  from  Pius 
IV  a  brief  granting  to  him  and  to  his  delegates  throughout  Spain 
the  same  faculties.*  It  required  some  ingenuity  to  bring  the  crime 
within  the  purview  of  the  Inquisition,  but  it  was  alleged  that  no 
one  whose  faith  was  correct  could  thus  abuse  the  sacraments  of 
the  Church  of  God.  The  point  is  not  without  importance,  for  it 
made  the  matter  one  of  faith  and  not  of  morals,  leading,  as  we  shall 
see,  to  a  notable  limitation  in  the  efficacy  of  the  reform  attempted. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  231,  n.  71. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  939,  fol.  374. 

'  Pauli  PP.  IV  Bull.  Cum  sicut  nuper,  16  Apr.,  1559  (Bullar.  Roman.  II,  48). 

'  Paramo,  p.  880. 


100  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

The  regular  clergy  sought  to  escape  to  the  milder  mercies  of 
their  own  superiors,  and  claimed  that,  in  the  constitution  of  Pius 
IV,  in  1562,  which  subjected  them  in  general  to  the  Inquisition, 
there  was  an  exception  of  cases  in  which  the  superiors  had  taken 
the  earlier  action.^  The  application,  however,  of  this  exception 
to  the  crime  of  solicitation  was  negatived,  in  1592,  by  a  decree 
of  Clement  VIII,  which  declared  that  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inqui- 
sition in  this  matter  was  exclusive  and  not  cumulative,  and  it 
ordered  the  members  of  all  privileged  Orders  to  denounce  to  the 
Inquisition  their  guilty  brethren.^  In  1608,  Paul  V  granted  the 
same  powers  to  the  Inquisition  of  Portugal  and,  in  1612,  he  settled 
in  favor  of  the  faith  a  question  which  had  arisen,  whether  the 
briefs  comprehended  the  solicitation  of  men  as  well  as  of  women.' 
Even  before  this,  solicitation  in  Italy  had  been  subjected  to  the 
Roman  Inquisition,  for  it  issued,  December  15,  1613  a  decree 
ordering  confessors  to  instruct  their  penitents  that  they  must 
denounce  to  the  tribunals  all  attempts  to  solicit  them  to  evil  and, 
on  July  5,  1614,  it  included,  what  it  described  as  a  frequent 
offence,  the  discussion  of  indecent  matters  with  women  in  the 
confessional,  even  without  confession/ 

Thus  the  Church  was  gradually  realizing  the  necessity  of  more 
stringent  measures  to  curb  the  evil  propensities  of  those  to  whom 
it  confided  the  salvation  of  souls,  but  as  yet  it  had  made  only 
local  regulations.  Gregory  XV  recognized  that  a  general  law 
was  required,  to  cover  all  the  lands  of  the  Roman  obedience, 
and  not  merely  those  possessed  of  an  Inquisition  and,  at  the  same 
time,  to  define  more  comprehensively  the  nature  of  the  offence. 
The  briefs  thus  far  had  limited  this  to  seduction  in  the  act  of  hearing 
confessions.  Papal  legislation  was  always  construed  in  the  strict- 
est manner,  and  confessors  felt  safe  if  they  confined  their  seductions 
to  the  time  preceding  and  following  the  actual  utterance  of  the 
confession.    Had  the  moral  and  spiritual  welfare  of  priest  and 


'  Pii  pp.  IV,  Const.  51,  Pasioris  ccierni,  1  Apr.  1562.  It  is  perhaps  suggestive 
that  in  the  Luxemburg  Bullarium  (III,  71)  the  omission  of  the  word  non  com- 
pletely reverses  the  purport  of  the  brief.  It  will  be  found  correctly  printed  in 
Cherubini's  edition. 

'  Pdramo,  p.  881. 

'  Pauli  PP.  V,  Const.  Cum  sicut  nuper,  16  Sept.  1608  (Trimarchi  de  Confessario 
abutente  etc.  Tractat.,  pp.  7,  10. — Genuse,  1636). — Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq., 
Leg.  1465,  fol.  16. 

*  Trimarchi,  pp.  10,  11. 


Chap.  VI]  LEGISLATION  OF  OBEOORY  XV  101 

penitent  been  the  only  matter  involved,  it  would  have  been  easy  to 
include  in  general  terms  any  indecent  or  illicit  passages  between 
them,  no  matter  when  or  where  committed,  but  sohcitation  had 
been  made  to  involve  suspicion  of  heresy,  in  order  to  bring  it  under 
the  Inquisition,  and  it  became  regarded  as  a  purely  technical 
offence,  punishable  only  when  it  could  be  connected  directly  with 
the  sacrament,  leading  to  the  unfortunate  corollary  that  otherwise 
it  was  a  trivial  matter,  undeserving  of  special  consideration. 

Accordingly  Gregory,  in  his  brief  Universi  Dominici  Gregis, 
August  30,  1622,  while  enlarging  the  definition,  confined  it  to  what 
was  said  or  done  in  the  place  destined  to  hearing  confessions, 
whether  it  was  before  or  after  confession,  or  even  if  there  was  only 
a  pretext  of  confession.  He  extended  the  provisions  of  his  prede- 
cessors to  all  lands,  and  delegated  all  inquisitors  and  Ordinaries 
as  special  judges,  with  exclusive  jurisdiction  to  inquire  into  and 
diligently  prosecute  such  cases,  according  to  the  canons  in  matters 
of  faith.  He  further  decreed  the  penalties  of  suspension  of  func- 
tions, deprivation  of  benefices  and  dignities  with  perpetual  disa- 
bility for  the  same  and,  for  regulars,  of  active  and  passive  voice ; 
besides  these  there  were  the  temporal  penalties  of  exile,  galleys, 
perpetual  and  irremissible  imprisonment  and,  in  cases  of  excep- 
tional wickedness,  of  degradation  and  relaxation.  In  view  of  the 
difficulty  of  proof,  single  witnesses  should  suffice  for  condemnation, 
when  circimistances  afforded  due  presumption.  Confessors,  who 
found  that  their  penitents  had  been  previously  solicited,  were 
required  to  admonish  them  to  denounce  the  offenders,  and  for 
neglect  of  this  they  were  to  be  duly  punished.  This  latter  pro- 
vision was  of  difficult  enforcement,  for  Urban  VIII,  in  1626,  felt 
obliged  to  address  all  archbishops,  instructing  them  to  call  the 
attention  of  confessors  to  it,  and  to  insert  a  corresponding  clause 
in  all  Ucences.  The  regular  clergy  seem  to  have  been  the  subject 
of  special  anxiety  for,  in  1633,  the  superiors  of  all  religious  houses 
were  ordered  to  assemble  the  inmates  yearly  and  warn  them  as  to 
the  observance  of  these  decrees,  and  this  was  also  to  be  done  in 
all  chapters,  general,  provincial  and  conventual.^ 

The  Holy  See  was  in  earnest,  but  the  result  did  not  correspond 
to  its  efforts.  France  and  Germany  paid  virtually  no  attention  to 
the  decrees,  and  in  Spain  the  Inquisition  made  no  change  in  its 
procedure  or  in  the  mildness  of  its  penalties.    The  only  effect  of 


Bullar.  Roman.  Ill,  4S4.— Trimarchi,  pp.  14-18. 


102  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

Gregory's  brief  was  to  raise  the  question  whether  it  did  not  confirm, 
at  least  cumulatively,  to  the  bishops  the  jurisdiction  of  which  they 
had  been  practically  deprived.  No  distinction  was  expressed 
between  lands  with  and  those  without  an  Inquisition,  and  the 
original  briefs  of  Paiil  IV  and  Pius  IV  had  not  deprived  the  bishops 
of  jurisdiction,  although  the  latter  had  made  little  effort  to  assert 
it  against  the  exclusive  claims  of  the  tribunals.  "We  chance  to 
hear  of  the  case  of  Dr.  Miguel  Bueso,  who  was  surrendered  by 
the  Archbishop  of  Valencia,  in  1608,  for  trial  on  this  charge  and, 
after  punishment,  was  returned  to  the  archiepiscopal  court.^  Soon 
after  this  de  Sousa  argues  that,  in  spite  of  the  papal  decrees,  bishops 
have  cumulative  jurisdiction,  although  the  inquisitor-general  can 
evoke  cases.^  In  1620,  Inquisitor-general  Luis  de  Aliaga  had  a 
struggle  with  his  brother  Isidor  de  Aliaga,  Archbishop  of  Valencia, 
over  the  case  of  Gaspar  Flori,  rector  of  Urgel,  who  was  on  trial 
by  the  vicar-general  for  various  offences,  including  solicitation. 
The  tribunal  demanded  cognizance  of  this  special  charge;  the 
vicar-general  asserted  cimiulative  jurisdiction,  adding  that  he  had 
already  tried  two  cases  of  the  kind.  The  inquisitor-general  argued 
strenuously  that,  as  a  matter  of  faith,  it  belonged  to  the  Inquisition; 
if  it  were  not  a  matter  of  faith  it  would  go  unpunished,  for  there 
would  be  no  obligation  to  denounce,  and  without  this  women 
woijld  never  imperil  their  honor,  for  experience  showed  how  rarely 
they  did  so  volimtarily,  and  they  had  to  be  compelled  by  the  refusal 
of  absolution.  Notwithstanding  all  this  the  archbishop  of  Valen- 
cia held  good;  his  vicar-general  tried  the  case  and  executed  the 
sentence.'  There  were  few  episcopal  courts,  however,  so  audacious 
as  this,  and  the  claim  of  the  Inquisition  to  exclusive  jurisdiction 
was  generally  conceded. 

The  brief  of  Gregory  XV  was  not  published  in  Spain  but,  by 
some  means,  the  Ordinary  of  Seville  obtained  a  copy  and  exhibited 
it  to  the  inquisitors.  The  Suprema  promptly,  on  January  14, 1623 
addressed  a  consulta  to  PhiUp  IV,  stating  that  it  had  not  learned 
that  the  brief  had  reached  any  other  bishop  and  dwelling  eloquently 
on  the  frequency  and  heinousness  of  the  crime,  the  energy  and 
rigor  of  the  Inquisition  in  its  repression,  and  the  disastrous  conse- 
quences of  concurrent  episcopal  jurisdiction,  where  the  leniency 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Lib.  viii  de  autos,  Leg.  2,  fol.  114. 
^  Ant.  de  Sousa,  Opusc.  circa  Constit.  Pauli  V,  Tract,  i,  cap.  20. 
'  Archive  de  Simancas,   Inq.,   Lib.   939,   fel.   371. — Arcliive  hist,  nacional, 
vbi  sup. 


Chap.  VI]         EXCLUSIVE  JURISDICTION  CLAIMED  103 

of  punishment  encouraged  evildoers,  and  the  publicity  of  procedure 
conveyed  knowledge  to  husbands  and  kinsmen.  The  king  was 
therefore  asked  to  apply  for  the  exemption  of  Spain  from  the 
operation  of  the  brief;  this  was  speedily  arranged  and,  on  April  10, 
Ambassador  Alburquerque  reported  the  forwarding  of  a  decree 
of  the  Congregation  of  the  Inquisition,  stating  that  it  was  not  the 
papal  intention  that  the  brief  should  apply  to  the  Spanish  domin- 
ions. Cardinal  Millino,  at  the  same  time,  wrote  that  the  pope  had 
declared  that  the  Inquisition  should  continue  to  prosecute  such 
cases  in  its  customary  form  and  manner.* 

This  simply  left  the  matter  where  it  was  before,  but  the  Inqui- 
sition boldly  asserted  that  it  had  been  given  exclusive  jurisdiction 
and,  when  Urban  VIII  granted,  to  the  Bishop  of  Astorga,  cogni- 
zance of  these  cases  among  the  regular  clergy,  it  had  the  effrontery 
to  raise  a  competencia  with  him.^  On  May  19, 1629,  it  sent  to  the 
tribunals  copies  of  Gregory's  brief,  with  instructions  to  follow  its 
prescriptions,  as  punishment  should  be  uniform  in  a  crime  of  such 
frequent  occurrence.  Although,  it  added,  the  brief  appeared  to 
confer  only  cumtilative  jurisdiction,  the  pope  had  declared  to  the 
king  that  in  his  dominions  it  was  exclusive  so  that,  if  any  Ordinary 
should  undertake  to  hear  such  a  case,  he  was  to  be  inhibited  and 
a  prompt  report  be  made  to  the  Suprema.  To  make  matters  sure, 
this  was  followed  by  an  order  of  August  9th,  that  this  exclusive 
cognizance  should  be  asserted  in  the  Edict  of  Faith.^ 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  940,  fol.  212;  Gracia  y  Justicia,  Inq.,  Leg. 
631,  fol.  27. 

2  MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch,  S,  130. 

^  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  6,  fol.  274,  393. — Archivo 
de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  1465,  fol.  16. 

The  clause  concerning  solicitation  in  the  Edict  of  Faith,  published  at  Valencia, 
Feb.  24,  1630,  shows  this  and  also  the  devices  used  to  elude  the  technical  defini- 
tion of  the  offence.  "  Or,  whether  any  confessor  or  confessors,  clerics  or  religious 
of  whatever  station  pre-eminence  or  condition,  in  the  act  of  confession  or  imme- 
diately before  or  after  it,  or  with  occasion  or  appearance  of  confession,  although 
there  is  no  opportunity  and  no  confession  may  have  followed,  but  in  the  con- 
fessional or  any  place  where  confessions  are  made,  or  which  is  destined  for  that 
purpose,  when  the  impression  is  produced  that  confession  is  being  made  or 
heard,  have  solicited  or  attempted  to  soUcit  any  one,  inducing  or  provoking  them 
to  foul  and  indecent  acts,  whether  between  the  penitent  and  confessor  or  others, 
or  have  held  indecent  and  illicit  conversation  with  them.  And  we  exhort  and 
order  all  confessors  to  admonish  their  penitents,  whom  they  understand  to  have 
been  solicited,  of  the  obligation  to  denounce  the  solicitors  to  this  Holy  Office, 
which  has  exclusive  cognizance  of  this  crime."^Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq. 
de  Valencia,  Lib.  7  de  Autos,  Leg.  2,  fol.  114. 


104  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

It  was  not  long  before  this  produced  another  quarrel  with  Arch- 
bishop Aliaga  of  Valencia.  In  1631,  Vicente  Palmer,  rector  of 
Jativa,  was  prosecuted  in  the  archiepiscopal  court  for  sundry 
offences,  including  a  charge  of  solicitation  preferred  by  Ana 
Martfnez.  The  notary  employed  was  a  familiar  who  informed  the 
tribimal.  It  promptly  notified  the  Ordinary  to  omit  that  speci- 
fication, to  which  Aliaga  replied  that  his  court  had  always  possessed 
jurisdiction  over  the  matter,  and  the  brief  of  Gregory  XV  had 
confirmed  the  cumulative  jurisdiction  of  both  tribimals;  if  Urban 
VIII  had  rendered  that  of  the  Inquisition  exclusive,  he  had  not 
seen  the  brief,  but  if  shown  to  him  he  wovild  of  course  obey  it. 
Then  came  a  pause  during  which  Palmer  returned  to  Jativa  and, 
from  the  pulpit,  denounced  all  who  had  testified  against  him, 
declaring  that  all  who  accused  ecclesiastics  were  excommunicated 
and  he  would  not  hear  them  in  confession,  especially  Ana  Martinez; 
the  town  was  in  an  uproar  and  one  man  died  without  confession. 
After  some  months  the  tribimal,  in  its  customary  arrogant  fashion, 
with  threats  of  excommunication,  simimoned  the  archbishop  to 
surrender  the  papers  and  admit  that  he  was  inhibited.  To  this 
he  replied  at  much  length,  pointing  out  that  it  was  unreasonable  to 
ask  him  to  strip  himself  of  an  established  jurisdiction  on  the  simple 
assertion  of  the  inquisitors  that  they  held  a  brief  of  Urban  VIII, 
which  they  would  not  exhibit.  He  offered  to  submit  the  question 
to  the  pope  or  to  form  a  competencia  in  the  regular  way,  but  both 
suggestions  were  rejected,  athough  the  tribimal  adopted  a  more 
moderate  tone.  The  records  are  imperfect  and  we  do  not  know 
the  outcome,  but  probably  the  Suprema  quietly  let  the  affair  drop 
out  of  sight  through  delay,  in  preference  to  provoking  an  investi- 
gation which  wotild  have  manifested  the  fraudulence  of  its  claims.^ 

The  audacity  of  the  claim  increased  with  time  and,  in  the  for- 
mula of  the  Edict  of  Faith,  in  use  in  1696,  there  was  an  absolute 
assertion  that  Gregory  XV  had  declared  that,  in  the  Spanish 
dominions,  the  offence  was  subjected  to  the  exclusive  cognizance 
of  the  Inquisition  and  not  to  that  of  the  bishops,  their  vicars, 
provisors  or  ordinaries.^    Notwithstanding  this,   when  bishops 


'  Arohivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Lib.  7  de  Autos,  I-eg.  2,  fol.  114. 

^  "  Cuyo  conocimiento  pertenece  al  Santo  Oficio  de  la  Inquisicion,  sin  embargo 
del  Breve  de  la  Santidad  de  Gregorio  XV  expedido  en  treinta  de  Agusto  de  1622 
anos,  por  declaracion  suj'a,  para  las  Inquisiciones  de  los  Reynos  de  su  Magestad, 
toca  privativamente  el  castigo  de  este  delito  al  Santo  Oficio  y  no  d,  los  obispos 
ni  d,  sus  vicarios,  provisores  ni  ordinaries. "—Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  118,  p.  148. 


Chap.  VI]  INCLUDED  IN  EDICT  OF  FAITH  105 

asserted  their  rights,  the  Suprema  shrank  from  a  direct  contest. 
Thus,  in  1755,  when  the  Bishop  of  Quito  undertook  to  try  cases 
of  the  kind,  the  Suprema  merely  presented  a  long  and  argumen- 
tative consulta  to  the  king.  So,  in  1807,  the  Bishop  of  Badajoz 
tried  Joseph  M^ndez  Rodriguez,  priest  of  Llerena,  for  solicitation, 
apparently  without  remonstrance  on  its  part  and  when,  in  1816, 
Rodrfguez  was  prosecuted  by  the  tribunal  of  Llerena  for  proposi- 
tions and  mala  doctrina,  the  Suprema  ordered  it  to  obtain  from 
the  bishop  the  papers  of  the  former  trial  and  add  them  to  the  new 
proceedings.* 

While  the  Inquisition  was  thus  aggressive  in  grasping  exclusive 
jurisdiction,  it  hesitated  for  some  time  as  to  the  vigorous  use 
of  its  powers.  It  could  evidently  do  little  more  than  the  inert 
episcopal  courts  unless  it  included  solicitation  in  the  Edicts  of 
Faith,  which  specified  offences  and  the  obHgation  of  denouncing 
them,  but  this  involved  the  ever-present  dread  of  scandal,  and  the 
necessity  of  caUing  attention  to  a  matter  so  delicate.  This  explains 
the  initial  fluctuations  of  policy.  When  jurisdiction  was  first  con- 
ferred, the  Suprema  ordered  the  omission  of  solicitation  and  then, 
by  edict  of  July  17, 1562,  that  it  should  be  included.^  This  speedily 
brought  forth  a  vigorous  remonstrance,  which  earnestly  lu-ged  the 
necessity  of  secrecy  to  prevent  scandal  and  the  rendering  of  con- 
fession odious.  It  should  never  be  admitted  that  such  wickedness 
was  possible;  it  had,  in  fact,  always  existed,  but  such  a  remedy 
had  never  been  imagined,  which  would  lead  men  to  keep  their 
wives  and  daughters  from  the  confessional,  nobles  to  refrain  from 
putting  their  daughters  into  convents,  religion  to  be  despised  and 
Christianity  itself  to  be  abhorred.  Good  confessors  would  be 
driven  to  abandon  the  confessional,  and  the  clergy,  seeing  that 
their  weaknesses  were  to  be  pvmished  by  the  Inquisition,  would 
withdraw  their  support  from  it,  leading  to  serious  results.  At 
least  the  punishment  should  be  secret,  so  that  the  people,  seeing 
no  results,  might  be  led  to  believe  that  there  were  no  wicked  men 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  28,  fol.  246;  Lib.  890. 

'  Ibidem,  Lib.  939,  foL  107;  Lib.  942,  fol.  23, 31;  Leg.  1465,  fol.  16.— It  is  scarce 
worth  while  to  refer  to  the  wild  story  of  Gonzdles  de  Montes  (Inquis.  hist,  artes 
detectte,  p.  185)  that  in  Seville  this  brought  in  so  many  denunciations  that 
twenty  secretaries  and  as  many  inquisitors  were  unable  to  take  them  down 
within  the  thirty  days  allowed  and  that  four  prolongations  of  the  time  were 
required. 


106  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

administering  the  sacrament.'  This  final  suggestion  was  super- 
fluous, for  clerical  offenders,  short  of  those  incurring  degradation 
and  relaxation,  were  always  punished  in  secret. 

The  opposition  to  this  public  admission  of  clerical  frailty  grew 
so  strong  that  the  Suprema,  in  a  carta  acordada  of  May  22, 1571, 
stated  that,  after  many  discussions,  it  had  been  decided  that  the 
disadvantages  attendant  on  it  required  its  omission,  and  inquisitors 
were  told  to  find  some  other  means,  including  notice  to  the  Ordi- 
naries to  instruct  confessors  to  admonish  penitents  to  denounce 
offenders  to  the  Holy  Office.  The  exception  thus  made  in  favor 
of  soliciting  confessors  evidently  led  to  a  marked  diminution  in 
the  number  of  denunciations,  causing  the  Suprema  to  hesitate 
for,  in  a  carta  of  September  20,  1574,  repeating  the  orders  to  omit, 
the  Suprema  spoke  of  it  as  possibly  a  temporary  regulation.^  The 
conviction  seems  to  have  grown  that  in  no  other  way  could  the 
abuse  be  checked  and,  in  a  carta  acordada  of  March  2,  1576, 
inquisitors  were  ordered  to  replace  the  clause  in  the  Edict  of  Faith.^ 

Notwithstanding  the  publicity  of  the  Edict,  which  imposed 
excommmiication  for  failure  to  denounce,  the  trials  show  that 
the  most  fertile  source  of  denunciation  was  the  refusal  of  confessors 
to  absolve  penitents  who  had  been  solicited,  unless  they  would 
accuse  their  guilty  partners  to  the  Inquisition.  In  spite  of  the 
assurance  of  secrecy,  women  were  naturally  reluctant,  whether 
they  had  yielded  or  not,  to  expose  themselves  to  the  necessity  of 
reciting  details  more  or  less  revolting,  and  subjecting  themselves 
at  least  to  suspicion.  One  feature  which  rendered  this  exposure 
peculiarly  distressing  was  the  necessity  of  ratification,  when  all  the 
foul  or  incriminating  matter  was  rehearsed  in  the  presence  of  two 
more  men  and,  as  much  of  this  testimony  was  taken  on  the  spot, 
by  commissioners  and  notaries  appointed  ad  hoc,  in  small  places 
where  everything  was  known,  such  revelations  would  only  be 
made  under  the  severest  pressure.  Again  there  was  the  enmity 
which  was  sure  to  be  excited  for,  in  these  cases,  the  device  of  sup- 
pressing the  names  of  witnesses  was  no  protection  against  identi- 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  216,  n.  60. 

2  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  1665,  fol.  16;  Lib.  939,  fol.  107;  Lib.  942, 
fol.  31. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  2,  n.  16,  fol.  254.— Archivo 
de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  83,  fol.  25. 

The  Roman  Inquisition  tardily  followed  the  example  of  the  Spanish  in  a 
decree  of  1677. — Berardi  de  SoUicitatione  et  Absolutions  Complicis,  p.  6  (Fa- 
ventiffi,  1897). 


Chap.  VI]  REPUGNANCE  TO  DENOUNCE  107 

fication,  which  was  a  risk  not  lightly  to  be  encountered,  especially 
when  the  culprit  was  a  parish  priest,  whose  capacity  for  revenging 
himself  was  unlimited .  The  Inquisition  sorrowfully  admitted  that, 
even  when  it  had  one  accusing  witness,  corroborative  evidence 
was  almost  impossible  to  obtain/ 

Even  where  no  direct  enmity  was  excited,  the  incidental  troubles 
to  which  a  denunciation  might  give  rise  are  illustrated  in  the  case 
of  Sor  Maria  de  Santa  Rita,  a  nun,  29  years  of  age,  in  the  convent 
of  La  Magdalena  at  Alcala  de  Henares,  in  1737.  During  the 
absence  of  the  regular  confessor,  she  confessed  thrice  a  week  for 
five  weeks  to  Maestro  Diego  de  Azumanes,  pastor  of  Alcala.  On 
her  alluding  to  certain  carnal  temptations,  he  pushed  his  inquiries 
to  the  furthest  extent  and  then,  day  after  day,  he  poured  into  her 
ears  a  flood  of  foul  and  indecent  talk,  with  personal  applications 
to  her  and  to  himself  in  a  manner  most  provocative  of  lust — or 
disgust.  The  regular  confessor,  on  his  return,  instructed  her  to 
report  Azumanes  to  the  Inquisition.  In  doing  so  she  unluckily 
mentioned  that  the  superior  of  the  house,  Sor  Teresa  de  San 
Bartolom^,  a  virgin  with  thirty-eight  years  of  conventual  experi- 
ence, observing  her  repugnance  to  confess  to  Azimianes,  told  her 
not  to  mind  him;  it  was  true  that  he  was  too  clear  and  explicit 
in  discussing  such  matters,  leading  to  temporary  excitement  of 
the  passions,  but  she  would  soon  overcome  this.  The  tribunal 
ordered  a  commissioner  to  examine  Sor  Maria  and,  on  receiving 
his  report,  instructed  him  to  interrogate  Sor  Teresa,  which  he  did 
with  a  directness  that  must  have  been  excessively  unpleasant, 
and  it  is  easy  to  conjecture  how  miserable  must  have  been  Sor 
Maria's  subsequent  life  in  the  convent.  The  tribunal,  it  may  be 
added,  did  nothing,  except  to  ascertain  that  no  other  denunciations 
had  been  made  against  Azumanes.  He  was  allowed  to  go  on 
infecting  the  minds  of  his  penitents  with  his  obscenity,  until  his 
death  a  few  years  afterwards,  in  happy  ignorance  that  any  com- 
plaint had  been  made  against  him.^  When  there  were  so  many 
reasons  to  deter  women  from  denunciation,  it  is  easy  to  understand 
how  small  a  proportion  of  the  cases  of  solicitation  reached  the 
Inquisition.     In  1695,  Fray  Luis  Aritio,  a  Recollect,  was  accused 

'  "La  experiencia  acredita  que  muchos  contestes,  singularaiente  mugeres  y 
en  causas  de  solicitaeion,  nada  declaraii,  ya  por  miedo,  ya  por  vergiienza,  ya 
por  una  falsa  caridad,  de  que  tiene  el  Santo  Oficio  freqiientes  y  lastimosas  ex- 
periencias." — Instrucion  que  han  de  guardar  los  Comisarios,  n.  21. 

2  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  227,  n,  7. 


108  SOLICITATION  [Book  "VTII 

to  the  tribunal  of  Valencia  by  two  women  and,  on  his  trial,  he 
confessed  to  ten/ 

The  most  available  means  of  overcoming  this  repugnance  was 
to  render  denunciation  a  binding  obligation  on  the  woman.  To 
effect  this  as  far  as  possible,  when,  in  1571,  the  clause  in  the  Edict 
of  Faith  was  suspended,  the  Suprema  issued  an  edict  requiring 
confessors,  under  pain  of  excommunication,  not  to  absolve  peni- 
tents confessing  to  having  been  solicited,unlessthey  would  promise 
to  denounce  the  offender.^  It  was  admitted,  however,  that  there 
were  degrees  of  danger  which  would  release  the  woman  from  the 
obhgation,  and  casioists  endeavored  to  define  this  with  their  usual 
acuteness  and  lack  of  imanimity.  One  learned  writer,  about  1620, 
even  laid  down  the  general  principle  that  natural  law  is  superior 
to  positive  law,  and  the  preservation  of  reputation  belongs  to  the 
former,  while  the  obligation  to  denounce  belongs  to  the  latter.' 
The  Roman  Inquisition,  in  1623,  made  a  concession  to  this  weak- 
ness, by  providing  that,  when  noble  or  modest  women  could  not 
be  induced  to  denounce,  there  might  be  granted  to  their  confessors 
faculties  to  absolve  them,  on  condition  that,  when  the  cause  of 
fear  was  removed,  they  would  fulfil  the  duty,  but  this  permission 
apparently  was  abused  for,  in  1626,  inquisitors  and  bishops  were 
warned  to  grant  such  faculties  only  when  there  were  serious 
grounds.*  That  danger  was  really  sometimes  incurred  would 
appear  from  some  fragmentary  cases  in  the  Valencia  records.  In 
one  of  these,  a  baffled  confessor  threatens  his  penitent  with  death 
if  she  betrays  him;  in  another  a  priest,  on  finding  himself 
denounced,  similarly  threatens  the  confessor  who  had  been  the 
medium  of  denunciation,  imless  he  will  write  that  the  women  had 
withdrawn  their  statements.^  The  Spanish  Inquisition,  however, 
made  no  allowances.  It  was  apparently  to  put  an  end  to  the 
refinements  of  casuistry  that  when,  in  1629,  it  distributed  to  the 
tribunals  the  brief  of  Gregory  XV,  it  granted  to  all  inquisitors  a 
faculty  to  punish  confessors  who  taught  that  penitents  were  not 
obliged  to  denounce  such  solicitors."    To  render  this  more  effective, 

'  Ibidem,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  2,  n.  15. 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  939,  fol.  371. 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  B,  159,  fol.  161-2.  For  various  speculations  on  the 
subject  see  Rod.  a  Cunha  pro  PP.  Pauli  V  Statute,  Q.  xix  (Benavente,  1611).— 
Ant.  de  Sousa  Opusc.  circa  Constit.  Pauli  V,  Tract,  ii,  cap.  7-10. 

*  Card.  Cozza,  Dubia  selecta  circa  Solicitationem,  Dub.  xlii  (Lovanii,  1750). 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  365,  n.  46. 
»  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xx. 


Chap.  VI]  IS  A  TECHNICAL  OFFENCE  109 

in  1713,  it  ordered  that  all  women  bringing  charges  of  solicitation 
,  should  be  interrogated  whether  any  confessor  had  neglected  to 
impose  on  them  the  obhgation  of  denunciation,  and  if  so  his  name, 
residence  and  all  the  circumstances  were  to  be  ascertained,  so 
that  he  could  be  called  to  account/ 

While  the  Spanish  Inquisition  was  thus  creditably  rigid  in  exact- 
ing denunciations,  it  was  equally  strict  in  construing  the  limits 
of  the  technical  offence  as  defined  in  the  papal  decrees.  As  stated 
above,  morals  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter;  the  business 
of  the  tribunals  was  not  to  prevent  women  from  being  ruined  by 
their  spiritual  fathers,  but  only  to  see  that  the  sacrament  of  peni- 
tence was  not  profaned  in  such  wise  as  to  justify  suspicion  of  the 
orthodoxy  of  the  confessor.  In  1577,  inqviisitors  were  warned 
that  it  did  not  suffice  for  prosecution  that  confessors  had  illicit 
relations  with  their  penitents,  or  that  they  solicited  in  the  confes- 
sional when  there  really  was  no  confession  and,  in  1580  it  was 
expressly  stated  that  they  were  not  to  be  prosecuted  if  they  said 
that  they  did  not  intend  to  have  their  penitents  confess.^  This 
covered  assignations  under  pretext  of  confession,  to  deceive  on- 
lookers, which  we  are  told  was  a  frequent  custom  and,  as  there  were 
no  confessional  stalls,  and  the  churches  were  largely  deserted,  there 
was  little  danger  of  interruption.  It  was  argued  that  there  was 
no  confession  and  no  sacrament,  so  there  could  be  no  heresy,  but 
the  Roman  Inquisition,  in  1614,  decided  it  to  be  solicitation,  and 
the  brief  of  Gregory  XV,  in  1622  settled  the  question,  although 
it  reqtiired  another  brief  of  Urban  VIII,  in  1629,  to  render  it 
authoritative  in  Spain.'  This  involved  the  question  as  to  the 
knowledge  which  either  party  might  have  of  the  other's  intention, 
opening  the  door  to  the  endless  refinements  of  antecedent  or 
consequent  invincible  ignorance,  in  which  the  casiusts  disported 
themselves.^ 

Even  more  dubious  and  fruitful  of  discussion  was  the  question 
as  to  what  constituted  the  solicitation  itself.  About  torpezas  or 
physical  indecencies,  there  could  be  no  rational  doubt,  though 


'  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagpn,  218b,  p.  264. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  1465,  fol.  16. — MSS.  of  Bibl.  naciocal  de 
Lima,  Protocolo  223,  Expte  5270. 

'  Rod.  a  Cunha,  Q.  xiv,  xv. — Ant.  de  Sousa,  Tit.  i,  cap,  19.— Matteucci 
Cautela  Confessarii,  Lib.  i,  cap.  5,  n.  3  (Venetiis,  1710).— Cozza,  Dub.  xvii.— 
Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xx. 

*  Ant.  de  Sousa,  Tract,  i,  cap.  xv. 


110  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

even  here  the  laxity  of  Probabilism  gave  scope  for  arguing  them 
away/  It  is  such  things  that  usually  meet  us  in  the  trials,  in  a 
shape  admitting  of  no  debate,  but  there  was  a  wide  range  of  less 
incriminating  acts,  such  as  words  of  flattery  and  endearment, 
praising  the  penitent's  beauty  or  telling  her  that  if  he  were  a  lay- 
man he  would  marry  her.  Theoretically,  what  were  known  to 
the  moralists  as  parvitas  materioe — trifles  insufficient  for  animad- 
version— were  not  admitted  in  solicitation.  Pressing  the  hand, 
touching  the  foot,  foul  expressions  and  the  like  were  admitted  to 
be  subjects  for  denunciation,  but  the  gradations  of  such  advances 
are  infinite,  and  the  elaborate  discussions  in  som.e  of  the  works 
on  the  subject  are  examples  of  perverted  ingenuity,  apparently 
directed  to  teach  libidinous  priests  how  to  gratify  sensuality  with- 
out incurring  risk.^  The  question  of  lewd  and  filthy  talk  was  an 
especially  puzzling  one,  for  the  confidences  of  the  confessional 
presuppose  a  licence  on  subjects  usually  forbidden  between  the 
sexes,  which  may  readily  be  abused  by  a  brutal  or  foul-minded 
priest,  and  it  is  impossible  to  frame  a  definition  which  in  practice 
shall  rigidly  differentiate  moral  instruction  from  heedless  pruriency 
or  deliberate  corruption.  How  difficult  it  is  to  draw  the  line  in 
such  matters  is  indicated  by  a  case  before  the  Valencia  tribunal 
in  1786.  A  nim  of  the  convent  of  Santa  Clara  in  Jdtiva  complained 
of  the  indecent  and  unnecessary  questions  repeatedly  put  to  her 
in  confession  by  the  Observantine  Fray  Vicente  Gonzdlez.  Under 
the  advice  of  the  definitor  of  the  Order  she  empowered  him  to 
denounce  Gonzdlez  to  the  Inquisition.  Then  the  regular  confessor 
of  the  convent  pronounced  that  the  questions  were  necessary  and 
proper,  and  persuaded  the  definitor  to  write  to  the  tribunal  to 
that  effect.^ 

'  There  were  many  probabilist  authorities  who  held  that  the  fact  that  such 
acts  as  kissing,  pressing  the  hands,  handling  the  breasts,  etc.,  were  committed 
in  the  confessional  did  not  change  them  from  venial  to  mortal  sins.  See 
Del  Bene  de  Officio  S.  Inquis.  P.  ii,  Dub.  237,  Sect.  3,  n.  3  (Lugduni,  1666). 
Cf.  Cozza,  Dub.  iii,  n.  18. 

In  1743  a  hvely  controversy  arose  between  the  rigorists  and  the  Jesuits  over 
the  Taiti  mammillari  caused  by  a  proposition  of  Father  Benzi  S.  J.  that  stroking 
the  cheeks  of  nuns  and  handling  their  breasts  were  venial,  when  unaccompanied 
with  depraved  intentions. — Concina,  Explicazione  di  quattro  Paradossi,  cap. 
1  §  1  (Lucca,  1746). 

^  Cozza,  Dub.  m,  iv,  v.— Fran.  Bordoni  Sacrum  Tribunal  Judicum,  cap. 
XXIII,  n.  53-61  (Romae,  1648);  Ejusd.  Manuale  Consultorum,  Sect,  xxv,  n.  91 
(Romffi,   1693). 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  365,  n.  46,  fol.  26. 


Chap.  VI]  DOUBTFUL  QUESTIONS  111 

There  were  other  intricate  questions  arising  from  human  per- 
versity. A  Cunha  tells  us  that  the  more  probable  opinion  affirms 
the  guilt  of  a  confessor  who  acts  as  a  pimp  with  his  penitent  for 
the  benefit  of  another,  and  also  in  the  more  frequent  case  in  which 
he  sohcits  the  penitent  to  serve  as  procuress  for  him  with  her 
daughter  or  a  friend.  De  Sousa,  however  draws  a  distinction 
and  asserts  positively  that,  in  the  former  case,  he  is  liable  under 
the  papal  briefs  and,  in  the  latter,  he  is  not,  nor  is  he  if  he  tries  to 
seduce  a  woman  who  is  confessing  to  another  priest.^  Then 
there  was  a  nice  question  as  to  priests  without  faculties  to  hear 
confessions,  or  who  were  under  suspension  or  excommunication, 
on  which  the  doctors  were  evenly  divided.^  Distantly  akin  to 
this  were  cases  in  which  laymen  would  secrete  themselves  in  con- 
fessionals and  listen  to  confessions,  whether  from  prurient  motives, 
or  through  jealousy,  or  to  obtain  opportunities  for  seduction. 
If  they  carried  deceit  to  the  point  of  conferring  absolution,  they 
incurred  serious  penalties,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter;  if  they  merely 
soUcited  the  penitent,  the  weight  of  authority  is  that  there  is  no 
sacrament  and  no  liability  to  the  papal  briefs.^ 

There  was  another  phase  of  the  subject  on  which  the  doctors 
were  hopelessly  divided — what  was  known  as  passive  solicitation, 
where  the  woman  was  the  tempter.  This  case,  we  are  told,  was 
rare,  and  we  can  readily  believe  it,  although  there  are  not  wanting 
zealous  defenders  of  the  cloth  who  assert  that  in  the  majority  of 
cases  the  penitent  is  really  the  guilty  party.  The  earliest  allusion 
to  the  matter  is  by  Paramo,  in  1598,  whose  treatment  of  it  shows 
that  as  yet  there  had  been  no  formal  decision;  if  the  confessor 
resists,  he  says,  he  should  denounce  the  woman;  if  he  yields,  he 
should  denounce  both  her  and  himself,  though  perhaps  it  would 
be  best  to  consult  the  pope.^  As  regards  the  confessor,  the  authori- 
ties differ  irreconcileably,  but  they  are  virtually  unanimous  in 
holding  that,  as  the  woman  is  not  mentioned  in  the  papal  briefs, 
she  is  not  subject  to  the  Inquisition.^     Yet,  notwithstanding  the 

'  Rod.  a  Cunha,  Q.  xvii. — Ant.  de  Sousa,  Tract,  i,  cap.  xiv. — Jo.  Sdnchez, 
Disputationes  Select*,  Disp.  xi,  n.  43,  44  (Ludguni,  1636). 

'  Rod.  a  Cunha,  Q.  xiv. — Ant.  de  Sousa,  Tract,  i,  cap.  xi. — Cozza,  Dub. 
xxxvii.— Trimarchi,  p.  160.— Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  B,  fol.  160. 

'  Trimarchi,  p.  145. — Cozza,  Dub.  xxxvin.  *  Pdramo,  p.  886. 

°  A  Cunha,  Q.  ix,  xi. — De  Sousa,  Tract,  i,  cap.  vi,  vii,  xvii. — Alberghini 
Manuale  Qualificatorum,  cap.  xxxi,  §  1,  n.  10,  11,  17. — Trimarchi,  pp.  193, 
199,  201,  212.— Cozza,  Dub.  ix,  x,  xi. — Bodoni  Manuale,  Sect,  xxv,  n.  169. — 
Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xx,  §§  5,  10. 


112  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

absence  of  papal  authority,  we  happen  to  find  Maria  Izquierda 
prosecuted  for  this  offence,  in  1715,  by  the  Valencia  tribunal  and, 
in  1772  Antonia  Coquis,  wife  of  Bruno  Vidal,  by  that  of  Madrid.' 
It  will  be  seen  that  solicitation  subject  to  inquisitorial  action 
was  so  purely  technical  an  offence,  and  one  so  difficiilt  of  precise 
definition,  that  it  offered  many  doubtful  points  affording  ample 
opportunity  of  evasion  by  the  adroit.  Gregory  XV  had  sought 
to  be  precise  and  expUcit,  but  the  ingenuity  of  casuists  and  e\dl- 
doers  continued  to  find  exceptions  and,  in  1661,  the  Roman 
Inquisition  rendered  sixteen  decisions  on  disputed  points,  but  its 
ingenuity  was  baffled  by  so  intricate  a  subject,  and  it  was  obhged 
to  leave  some  matters  rather  darkened  than  illuminated.^  Then  it 
was  pointed  out  that  the  papal  briefs  were  silent  as  to  handing 
love-letters  to  penitents  during  confession  and,  as  everything  not 
specifically  prohibited  was  held  to  be  Hcit,  this  was  assumed  to 
be  allowable,  until  Alexander  VII  stamped  the  proposition  as  erro- 
neous.' After  this  the  perverted  ingenuity  of  the  casuists  had  free 
scope  imtil,  in  1741,  Benedict  XIV,  in  the  solemn  bull  Sacramen- 
tum  Panitenticc,  deplored  that  human  wickedness  was  perverting 
to  the  destruction  of  souls  that  which  God  had  instituted  for  their 
salvation.  He  renewed  and  confirmed  the  brief  of  Gregory  XV, 
and  added  to  its  definitions  all  attempts  in  the  confessional  to 
lead  penitents  astray  by  signs,  nods,  touching,  indecent  words  and 
writings,  whether  to  be  read  there  or  subsequently.  In  eloquent 
words  he  warned  all  those  in  authority  to  see  that  the  wandering 
sheep,  endeavoring  to  re-enter  the  fold,  should  not  be  abandoned 

'  Archivo  hist,  naoional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  376. — Archive  de  Simancas, 
Inq.,  Registro  de  Solicitantes,  A,  7,  fol.  2  (Lib.  1002,  fol.  2). 
'^  The  more  important  of  these  decisions  were — 
3  There  is  no  parvitas  malerice  in  solicitation. 

8  When  the  solicitation  is  mutual,  the  confessor  is  to  be  denounced. 

9  A  confessor  yielding  to  solicitation  through  fear  is  to  be  denounced. 

10  Solicitation  in  other  sacraments  does  not  fall  within  the  papal  bulls. 

11  Solicitation  to  other  than  carnal  sins  during  confession  does  not  require 
denunciation. 

12  When  a  confessor  praises  the  beauty  of  a  penitent,  if  the  praise  is  serious 
and  without  evil  intention,  he  is  not  liable  to  denunciation;  if  otherwise,  he  is. 

13  If  a  confessor  sitting  in  a  confessional  solicits  a  woman  standing  before 
him  without  pretext  of  confession  he  is  probably  not  liable  to  denunciation. 

14  A  confessor  who  makes  during  confession  a  present  to  the  penitent, 
without  evil  intention  is  not  liable  to  denunciation;  otherwise  he  is. — Berardi 
de  Sollicitatione,  p.   5. 

^  Bullar.  Roman.  T.  VI,  Append,  p.  1. 


Chap.  VI]  ABSOLVTION  OF  ACCOMPLICE  113 

to  the  cruel  beasts  seeking  their  destruction,  and  he  branded 
the  sacrilegious  seducers  as  ministers  of  Satan,  rather  than  of 
Christ/  Still,  it  was  only  the  technical  heresy  and  not  morality 
that  was  considered,  and  iUicit  relations  between  spiritual  father 
and  daughter,  outside  of  the  confessional,  were  left  unpunished 
as  before. 

At  the  same  time  he  endeavored  to  suppress  the  most  flagrant 
abuse  connected  with  sohcitation— an  abuse  which,  more  than 
anything  else,  smoothed  the  path  for  the  seducer — the  absolution 
of  the  woman  by  her  partner  in  guilt.  Alexander  VII,  in  1665, 
had  only  gone  so  far  as  to  condemn  the  proposition  that  this  abso- 
lution relieved  her  from  the  obligation  of  denouncing  her  seducer — 
a  proposition  which  proves  how  audacious  were  the  laxer  moralists 
of  the  period  who  asserted  it.^  Benedict  now  formally  prohibited 
the  guilty  confessor  from  hearing  the  confession  of  his  accomplice, 
except  on  the  death-bed  when  no  other  confessor  could  be  had; 
he  deprived  him  of  the  power  of  granting  absolution,  which  con- 
sequently was  invalid,  and  the  attempt  to  do  so  imposed  ijiso 
facto  excommunication,  strictly  reserved  to  the  Holy  See.^  As  this 
excommunication  suspended  all  the  functions  of  the  priest  until 
removal,  its  observance  would  have  gone  far  to  check  any  abuse 
that  was  not  incurable,  but  neither  priest  nor  penitent  paid  to  it 
the  slightest  attention.  It  is  impossible  to  trace,  in  the  business 
of  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  any  result  from  Benedict's  well-meant 
legislation.  Trials  for  solicitation  continued  as  numerous  as  ever, 
and  the  only  difference  observable  is  that,  in  the  second  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  the  sentences  almost  invariably  assume 
that  the  culprit  has  incurred  excommunication  for  absolving  his 
accomphce;  that,  until  he  obtains  absolution  from  this,  he  must 
abstain  from  using  his  functions,  that  he  must  consult  his  con- 
science as  to  his  ministrations  hitherto  while  under  this  irregularity, 
and  that  his  penitents  must  be  discreetly  warned  to  repeat  their 
confessions  which,  having  been  made  to  him,  were  invalid.  This 
continued  to  the  end  and  is  a  feature  in  the  case  of  Fray  Josef 
Montero,  the  last  one  sentenced  by  the  Cordova  tribunal,  April 
24,  1819.^ 

»  BuUar.  Benedicti  PP.  XIV,  T.  I,  p.  23-4. 
'  Bullar.  Roman,  ubi  sup. 
'  Bullar.  Benedicti  PP.  XIV,  loc.  cit. 

*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1 ;  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  365, 
n.  46. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  890. 
VOL.  IV  8 


114  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

It  is  no  wonder  that  confessors  endeavored  to  evade  the  technical 
definitions  of  the  papal  briefs  for,  if  they  could  do  so,  no  matter 
how  heinous  was  their  guilt  there  was  practically  no  penalty.  Juan 
Sanchez  asserts  that  a  priest  who  has  commerce  with  his  penitent 
is  not  obliged  to  specify  the  fact  when  making  confession,  for  it 
is  not  incest  and  there  is  no  papal  prohibition  of  it/  All  authori- 
ties, from  that  time  to  this,  tell  us  that  he  can  obtain  absolution 
from  any  confessor,  for  it  is  not  a  reserved  case,  which  shows  the 
universal  benignity  of  the  bishops  and  the  popes,  who  have  the 
power  of  reserving  to  themselves  the  absolution  of  what  sins  they 
please.^  It  is  easy  to  understand,  therefore,  how,  in  the  trials,  the 
inquisitors  bent  their  energies  to  obtain  definite  evidence  as  to 
the  exact  location  and  time  of  the  acts  of  sohcitation,  and  how  the 
accused  sought  to  prove,  not  his  innocence,  but  his  dexterity  in 
evading  the  definitions  of  the  papal  decrees.  A  suggestive  example 
is  the  case  of  Doctor  Pedro  Mendizabal,  cura  of  the  parish  of  Santa 
Ana  in  the  City  of  Mexico.  He  was  denounced,  June  21,  1809, 
by  Dona  Maria  Guadalupe  Rezeiro,  by  command  of  her  confessor, 
when  she  stated  that,  in  January,  1807,  she  made  to  him  a  general 
confession,  too  long  to  be  finished  in  one  day.  On  returning  to 
his  church  to  complete  it,  she  was  told  to  go  up  to  his  room,  when 
he  said  he  was  too  busy  to  listen  to  her.  She  retired  but,  on  her 
way  down  stairs,  his  servant  recalled  her  and,  on  entering  his 
apartment,  he  threw  his  arms  aroimd  her,  professed  ardent  love  and 
promised  to  support  her  if  she  would  become  his  mistress,  which 
she  refused.  As  he  had  thus  eluded  the  definitions  of  Benedict 
XIV,  four  calificadores  out  of  six  reported  that  he  was  not  techni- 
cally guilty  of  solicitation.  The  demmciation  was  filed  away  and, 
in  1817,  there  came  another,  of  which  he  had  warning  in  order 
that  he  might  spontaneously  accuse  himself,  as  he  did.  It  was 
from  an  attractive  young  girl  of  17,  and  investigation  developed 
four  more  cases  of  girls  of  whom  he  was  confessor.     Abundant 


'  Joh.  Sdnchez  Disputt.  Select.,  Disp.  xi,  n.  3,  4. — Juan  Sdnchez  was  one  of  the 
laxer  moral  theologians  of  the  seventeenth  century,  some  of  whose  propositions 
incurred  papal  censure,  but  this  escaped.  Hurter  characterizes  him  as  "in 
morum  doctrina  versatissimus." — Nomenclator  Theol.  Cathol.  I,  414. 

^  Ant.  de  Sousa,  Tract.  II,  cap.  xx.— Berardi  de  Sollicitatione,  p.  129.— H 
Consulente  Ecclesiastieo,  Vol.  IV,  p.  19  (1899).— S.  Alph.  de  Ligorio  Theol. 
Moral.  Lib.  vii,  n.  519.  Podestft,  however,  tells  us  that  in  his  time,  in  the  diocese 
of  Naples,  it  was  reserved  to  the  bishop. — Examen  ecclesiasticum,  T.  II,  n.  601 
(Venetiis,  1728). 


Chap.  VI]  MORALITY  DISREGARDED  II5 

evidence  showed  habitual  indecent  liberties— hugging,  kissing, 
sitting  in  his  lap,  in  presence  of  their  families  or  even  in  public 
resorts.  He  had  been  ordered  out  of  two  houses  and,  on  appeal  to 
the  archbishop,  he  had  been  forbidden  to  confess  one  of  the  girls 
who  was  a  boarder  in  a  convent.  The  distraction  of  the  mother 
of  the  first  accuser,  endeavoring  to  save  her  daughter  from  one 
whose  authority  as  a  priest  overawed  her,  is  very  touching  and 
suggestive.  Yet  in  all  this  there  was  no  proof  of  anything  in  the 
act  of  confession— as  one  of  the  calificadores  piously  remarked, 
"God,  in  his  goodness,  preserved  him  from  this."  Two  califi- 
cadores argued  at  much  length  that  he  was  not  guilty  of  solici- 
tation; then  two  others  proved  that  he  was  guilty,  and  finally  two 
more  laboriously  demonstrated  that  the  first  pair  were  correct. 
This  is  the  last  document  in  the  case.  It  is  dated  November  3, 
1819,  and,  as  the  Inquisition  was  suppressed  in  June,  1820,  and 
as  there  is  no  endorsement  on  the  record  showing  that  the  case 
was  concluded,  Mendizabal  undoubtedly  escaped  to  continue  his 
corrupting  career,  especially  as  he  had  four  out  of  six  calificadores 
in  his  favor." 

The  technicalties,  which  eliminated  morality  from  consideration, 
resulted  in  curious  contrasts.  In  November  1762,  Fray  Clemente 
de  Cartagena  went  to  Toledo  to  assist  in  the  profession  of  his 
neice  Geronima,  in  the  Bernardine  convent,  where  he  already  had 
a  sister.  He  and  his  sister  were  in  the  confessional  near  the  altar, 
when  some  duty  called  her  away  and  she  told  Geronima  to  go  to 
her  uncle.  She  seated  herself  in  the  confessional,  while  he  occupied 
the  penitent's  place  outside  and,  in  an  affectionate  talk,  he  asked 
her  to  kiss  him.  The  next  day  he  said  to  her  that  he  had  forgotten 
at  the  moment  that  they  were  in  the  confessional ;  this  made  no 
impression  on  her,  until  she  heard  the  nuns  talking  about  the 
exceeding  delicacy  of  such  matters,  and  she  consulted  Fray  Fer- 
nando de  San  Josef,  who  ordered  her  to  denounce  her  uncle.  This 
she  did  in  writing,  and  Fray  Fernando  conveyed  it  to  the  tribunal, 
which  duly  took  up  the  case.  We  shall  see  that  prosecutions 
required  two  distinct  and  separate  denunciations ;  inquiries,  accord- 
ing to  custom,  were  made  of  all  the  other  tribunals;  fortunately 
for  Fray  Clemente  nothing  was  found  against  him  and  the  case  was 
suspended,  but  if  there  had  been,  or  if  subsequently  he  chanced 
to  draw  upon  himself  a  denunciation,  the  innocent  kiss  to  his  neice 

'  Proceso  contra  el  Dr.  Pedro  Mendizabal  (MS.  penes  me). 


116  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

would  count  as  though  he  had  deliberately  seduced  a  penitent.' 
It  was  the  spot  and  not  the  nature  of  the  act  that  was  decisive. 

Against  this  may  be  set  the  case  of  Cristobal  Ximeno,  parish 
priest  of  Manzanera,  a  brute  who  was  in  the  habit  of  violating  the 
young  giris  of  his  church,  who  came  to  his  house  for  examination 
in  the  Doctrina  Cristiana,  as  a  preparation  for  communion  at 
marriage,  until  mothers  would  not  trust  their  daughters  there  alone. 
They  were  his  penitents,  but  the  outrage  was  not  in  the  confes- 
sional and  he  had  nothing  to  fear  under  the  papal  decrees.  At 
length,  however,  he  made  himself  liable  to  the  Inquisition  by  pre- 
tending to  confess  Pasquala  Torres,-  at  her  marriage,  without 
absolving  her  and  then,  when  administering  communion  to  her 
and  her  bridegroom,  dropping  the  host  into  the  ciborium — a  sacri- 
lege for  which  he  was  duly  punished  by  the  Valencia  tribunal.^ 
So  complete,  indeed,  is  the  dissociation  of  morals  and  solicitation, 
that  some  doctors  hold  that,  when  a  priest  is  confessing  a  sick 
woman,  if  she  falls  into  deUrium  or  stupor,  he  can  violate  her 
without  exposing  himself  to  denunciation.  It  is  satisfactory,  how- 
ever, to  be  told  that  the  weight  of  authority  is  opposed  to  this 
opinion.' 

Yet  there  was  one  species  of  abuse  of  the  confessional,  not 
contemplated  in  the  papal  briefs,  which  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  by 
a  somewhat  forced  construction,  classed  with  solicitation.  This, 
which  was  known  as  flagellation,  consisted  in  imposing  penance 
of  the  discipline  and  administering  it  on  the  spot,  or  letting  the 
penitent  administer  it  herself,  in  either  case  requiring  her  to  dis- 
robe and  expose  herself  to  a  greater  or  less  degree.  Sometimes 
this  was  mingled  with  the  debased  mystic  ardor,  of  which  we  have 
seen  examples  above,  leading  both  parties  to  expose  themselves 
and  lash  one  another.  The  earliest  case  that  I  have  met  of  this 
occurred  in  1606,  at  Ndjera,  when  Maria  Escudero,  a  widow  aged 
40,  testified  that  she  had  long  confessed  to  the  Franciscan  Fray 
Diego  de  Burgos.  They  exchanged  vows  of  obedience  to  each 
other ;  he  would  visit  her  in  her  house  when  they  would  discipline 
each  other  with  exposure  almost  complete,  under  agreement  that 
their  eyes  should  be  kept  closed.  Then  he  introduced  a  pious 
exercise  still  more  indecent,  but  he  was  always  scrupulously  correct 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  228,  n.  18. 
'  Ibidem,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  365,  u.  46,  fol.  32. 
'  Berardi,  op.  cit.,  pp.  36-7. 


Chap.  VI]  FLAGELLATION  117 

in  the  confessional.  She  chanced  to  make  a  general  confession 
to  another  priest  who  refused  absolution  unless  she  would  denounce 
Fray  Diego.  The  case  was  evidently  novel  and  dragged  on  until 
1609,  when  it  reached  the  Suprema,  which  submitted  the  matter 
to  two  calificadores.  One  opined  that  the  acts  savored  of  the 
heresy  of  the  Adamites  and  Alumbrados;  the  other  attributed  it 
merely  to  imprudent  simplicity  and  ignorance.  Apparent!}'  there 
was  no  precedent  for  guidance  and  the  case  seems  to  have  been 
suspended.'  A  parallel  case,  with  a  different  ending,  was  one  in 
which  there  were  a  number  of  women  concerned  and  the  practices 
were  foul  almost  beyond-  belief.  The  priest  was  an  ignorant  and 
simple  man  who,  by  the  advice  of  another  confessor,  came  with 
the  women  to  denounce  themselves.  He  was  sentenced  to  rigid 
reclusion  in  a  convent,  where  he  died  after  giving  a  most  edifying 
example,  and  the  women  were  not  prosecuted,  as  they  were  mostly 
barefooted  Carmelites  and  Capuchins.^ 

The  flagelante  soon  came  to  be  recognized  as  an  offender  akin 
to  the  solicitor,  and  was  held  to  be  subject  to  the  papal  briefs. 
The  old  inquisitor,  who  relates  the  last  case,  and  writers  like  de 
Sousa  and  Alberghini,  all  speak  of  stripping  penitents  and  disci- 
plining them  as  a  species  of  solicitation,  to  be  visited  with  the 
same  penalties.'  As  a  rule,  in  fact,  it  was  regarded  as  rendering 
the  offence  more  serious,  for  it  inferred  more  than  the  technical 
suspicion  of  heresy,  especially  after  Molinism  had  deepened  the 
guilt  of  Illuminism,  and  we  find  allusions  to  hereges  flagelantes. 
Cases  become  frequent  in  the  records  and  we  even,  in  1730,  find 
a  Fray  Domingo  Calvo  spontaneously  denouncing  himself  to  the 
Madrid  tribunal  for  having  caused  himself  to  be  flagellated, 
showing  to  what  means  perverted  sexual  instincts  resorted  for 
gratification.^ 

The  extent  to  which  these  practices  were  sometimes  carried  is 
indicated  in  the  trial,  in  1795,  of  Padre  Paulino  Vicente  Arevalo, 
priest  of  Yepes,  as  "sohcitante  y  flagelante."  He  confessed  to 
the  most  flagrant  indecencies  committed  in  this  manner,  with  his 
female  penitents,  among  whom  were  nine  pupils  or  sisters  of  the 
Bernardine  convent.     Sometimes  he  made  them  discipline  them- 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.  de  Logroiio,  Procesos  de  fe,  Leg.  1. 
2  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xxi,  §  6. 

'  Ibidem,    cap.  xx,  §  3.— De  Sousa,  Aphorism.  Lib.  i,  cap.  xxxiv,  n.  40.— 
Alberghini,  Man.  Qualificator.  cap.  xxxi,  §  1,  n.  19. 
•  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  1006,  fol.  2.5. 


118  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

selves  in  his  presence  and,  as  the  scourge  had  to  be  appHed  to 
the  peccant  parts,  he  had  choice  of  such  exposure  as  he  desired, 
an  opportunity  of  which  he  admitted  avaihng  himself.  The  record 
is  discreetly  mute  as  to  worse  excesses  but,  as  six  of  his  penitents 
were  required  to  repeat  to  another  confessor  all  the  confessions 
specified  in  the  evidence,  it  follows  that  sins  must  have  been  com- 
mitted for  which  he  absolved  them.  For  this  perversion  of  so 
many  young  lives  he  was  only  sentenced  to  a  year's  reclusion  in 
a  monastery,  thirty  days'  spiritual  exercises,  deprivation  of  the 
faculty  of  confession,  perpetual  exile  from  Yepes  and  eight  years' 
exile  from  some  other  places — penalties  which,  although  severe 
under  the  mild  inquisitorial  standard,  were  wholly  inadequate  to 
his  offences.* 

A  considerable  portion  of  the  cases  in  the  later  years  of  the  Inqui- 
sition are  characterized  as  "solicitante  y  fiagelante"  and  many 
of  them  illustrate  the  easy  transition  from  lUuminism  to  soHci- 
tation.  As  early  as  1651  we  meet  the  case  of  the  Dominican  Fray 
Geronimo  de  las  Herreras,  condemned  by  the  Toledo  tribunal 
to  deprivation  of  the  faculty  of  confession  and  three  years'  reclu- 
sion in  a  convent,  as  an  "alumbrado  y  solicitante,"  convicted  of 
repeated  practices  of  obscenity  with  many  women.  When  Molin- 
ism  came  to  the  front,  those  who  taught  it  with  its  debauching 
consequences  were  more  severely  dealt  with,  as  in  the  case  of 
Buenaventura  Frutos,  cura  of  Mocejon,  who,  in  1722,  was  pro- 
nounced by  the  Toledo  tribunal  to  be  a  formal  heretic  and  dog- 
matizer,  a  contumacious  solicitor  and  seducer.  As  such  his  sen- 
tence was  read  with  open  doors,  he  appeared  in  a  sanbenito  de 
dos  aspas,  was  reconciled,  verbally  degraded  and  recluded  irre- 
missibly  for  life  in  a  convent  where,  for  two  years  he  was  shut  up 
in  a  cell,  under  instruction.^  Similar  cases  continued  to  occur 
occasionally,  but  more  numerous  in  the  later  period  were  those 
in  which  solicitation  is  conjoined  with  mala  doctrina,  showing  that 
the  evil  teaching  was  of  a  less  dangerous  character  than  fully 
developed  Molinism — a  mere  soothing  of  the  conscience  of  the 
penitent  with  assurances  that  what  her  confessor  desired  was  not 
mortal  sin — but  even  this  was  regarded  as  increasing  the  sus- 
picion of  heresy  and  requiring  severer  punishment.' 

It  is  perhaps  not  without  interest  to  note  the  advanced  age  to 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  luq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  227,  n.  4. 

'  Ibidem,  Leg.  1. 

°  Ibidem,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  4,  n.  2,  fol.  79. 


Chap.  VI]  PROCEDURE  119 

which  some  of  these  soliciting  confessors  retained  the  ardor  which 
impelled  them  to  the  offence.  Cases  of  septuagenarians  are  by 
no  means  rare.  The  Dominican,  Fray  Antonio  de  Aragon,  sen- 
tenced, July  24,  1734,  at  Toledo,  was  78  and  the  Observantine, 
Fray  Miguel  Granado,  denounced,  in  1786,  to  the  Cuenca  tribunal, 
was  80.  In  the  former  case  the  punishment  was  mitigated  in 
consideration  of  his  years,  though  a  less  sympathizing  court  would 
have  heightened  its  rigor,  in  view  of  the  evil  which  such  a  sinner 
must  have  wrought  during  so  prolonged  a  career.' 

When,  in  1561,  the  Inquisition  obtained  jurisdiction  over  solici- 
tation, it  had  no  precedents  on  which  to  frame  its  procedure  or 
to  regulate  the  penalties.  The  episcopal  courts  had  been  inert  and 
merciful,  and  the  fact  that  the  offence  had  been  transferred  from 
them  inferred  that  the  new  jurisdiction  was  expected  to  be  vigor- 
ous and  rigorous.  Its  first  care,  however,  was  to  preserve  secrecy 
and  avert  scandal,  so  that  no  layman  should  be  admitted  to  knowl- 
edge of  clerical  delinquencies.  The  earliest  utterance  is  a  carta 
acordada  of  1562,  prescribing  that,  when  the  denunciation  affords 
conclusive  evidence,  it  shall  be  considered  by  the  inquisitors  and 
Ordinary,  without  calling  in  the  usual  consultors,  and  the  arrest 
shall  be  made  with  the  utmost  circumspection;  the  accused  is  to 
be  admitted  to  bail ;  when  the  case  is  concluded,  if  he  is  a  f raile  he 
is  to  be  confined  in  his  convent  with  orders  not  to  preach  or  hear 
confessions',  or  to  have  active  and  passive  voice ;  if  he  is  a  secular 
priest,  he  is  to  be  confined  somewhere  else  than  where  the  offence 
was  committed,  he  is  not  to  exercise  his  functions  and  the  final 
disposition  of  the  case  is  to  rest  with  the  Suprema.^  In  1572, 
consultors  were  admitted  to  examine  the  evidence  before  arrest, 
but  they  were  to  be  exclusively  clerics,  and  the  result  was  to  be 
submitted  to  the  Suprema  before  action.  It  made  little  difference 
that  the  heinousness  of  the  offence  was  emphasized,  and  the  neces- 
sity of  exemplary  punishment,  when  the  culprit  was  treated  with 
this  exceptional  tenderness.'  In  1600,  even  the  Ordinary  was  ex- 
cluded from  the  preliminary  deliberations  and  the  Suprema  was  to 
be  consulted  before  any  action  was  taken.*    The  same  precautions 


1  Arcliivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1;  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  66. 

2  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  942,  fol.  23;  Leg.  1465,  fol.  16. 
'  Ibidem,  Lib.  939,  fol.  107;  Lib.  942,  fol.  38;  Leg.  1465,  fol.  16. 

*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  2,  n.  16,  fol.  264. — Archive 
de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  942,  fol.  52. 


120  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

as  to  publicity  were  to  be  observed  with  regard  to  the  sentences, 
which  were  to  be  read  in  the  audience-chamber  with  closed  doors, 
the  only  witnesses  present  being  a  prescribed  number  of  the  breth- 
ren of  the  culprit — members  of  his  Order  if  he  was  a  f  raile,  or  curas 
and  rectors,  if  a  secular  priest/  The  care  taken  to  avert  attention 
from  these  delinquencies  is  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Fray  Antonio 
de  la  Porteria,  in  1818;  he  was  resident  in  the  convent  of  Mondo- 
nedo,  and  the  guardian  was  ordered  to  send  him  on  some  pretext 
to  the  house  of  the  Order  at  Santiago,  where  he  was  duly  tried.^ 
Even  greater  favoritism  was  manifested  in  the  matter  of  evi- 
dence. We  have  seen  that,  in  ordinary  trials,  while  two  witnesses 
were  required  as  to  each  fact  yet,  in  practice,  a  single  witness 
sufficed,  not  only  for  arrest  but  for  torture  and  that  the  testimony 
of  the  vilest  persons  was  welcomed  without  discrimination.  In 
solicitation,  it  was  self-evident  that  there  could  be  but  one  witness 
to  each  specific  act,  so  that  perforce  the  tribunals  were  instructed 
that  they  must  be  content  with  "singular"  witnesses.  A  single 
denunciation  however,  did  not  suffice  for  arrest,  but  in  1571,  and 
again  in  1576,  they  were  allowed  to  deliberate  on  it  and  consult 
the  Suprema.  Even  this  was  thought  to  be  too  harsh  and,  in  1577, 
the  rule  was  adopted  that  there  must  be  two  separate  and  indepen- 
dent denunciations  before  arrest  and  trial — a  rule  fraught,  as  we 
shall  see,  with  far-reaching  consequences  for,  when  it  was  so  diffi- 
cult to  induce  women  to  accuse  their  seducers,  innumerable  culprits 
escaped  because  two  of  their  victims  did  not  happen  to  act  inde- 
pendently.' Similar  exceptional  consideration  was  shown  with 
regard  to  the  character  of  the  witnesses,  repeated  instructions  being 
issued  that  this  was  to  be  carefully  investigated,  and  the  results 
be  noted  upon  the  record  and  reported  to  the  Suprema,  so  that  due 
weight  be  given  to  it,  both  in  ordering  arrest  and  apportioning 
penalties — precautions  eminently  commendable,  but  deplorably 
lacking  in  trials  for  other  offences.^  Justification  for  this  solicitude 
was  sought  in  the  customary  monlcish  abuse  of  women  in  general. 
It  was  a  misfortune  that  their  evidence  was  to  be  received  at 
all  but,  from  the  nature  of  the  crime,  this  was  unavoidable,  and 


•  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  1465,  fol.  16. 

2  Ibidem,  Lib.  890. 

»  Ibidem,  Lib.  939,  fol.  107;  Lib.  941,  fol.  2;  Leg.  1465,  fol.  16.— Archive  hist, 
nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  2,  n.  16,  fol.  254. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  939,  fol.  107;  Lib.  942,  fol.  45;  Leg.  1465, 
fol.  16. 


Chap.  VI]  PBOCEDUBE  121 

Pd,ramo  tells  us  that  by  nature  they  are  lying,  deceitful,  perjurers, 
crafty,  changeable,  frail,  mutable  and  corruptible — a  daily  curse, 
the  gate  of  the  devil,  the  tail  of  the  scorpion,  a  whitened  sepulchre, 
an  incurable  sore,  but  they  are  the  only  witnesses  to  be  had  and 
two  of  them,  if  of  good  character,  must  suffice  for  full  proof.' 
Such  tirades  show  the  different  temper  in  which  inquisitors  ap- 
proached the  consideration  of  these  cases  and  those  of  Jews  or 
Protestants. 

After  arrest  the  culprit  could  be  committed  to  the  secret  priwon, 
but  this  was  exceptional,  the  custom  being  to  remand  regulars  to 
houses  of  their  Order,  and  to  admit  seculars  to  bail,  with  the  city 
as  prison,  in  a  manner  to  attract  as  little  attention  as  possible. 
The  trial  took  the  usual  course,  interrogation  being  made  as  to 
intention  and  belief  in  the  sacrament  of  penitence,  on  which 
inquisitorial  jurisdiction  was  based.  Of  course  all  heretical  ten- 
dencies were  disclaimed,  but,  in  the  possible  case  of  error  and 
pertinacity,  there  was  provision  for  confinement  in  the  secret 
prison  with  sequestration  of  property  and  seizure  of  papers.^ 

In  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  solicitation  uncomplicated  by  Illu- 
minism  or  Molinism,  inferred  only  light  suspicion  of  heresy,  requir- 
ing merely  abjuration  de  levi.  Consequently  the  accused  was 
not  exposed  to  torture.  It  is  true  that,  academically  speaking, 
though  he  could  not  be  tortured  as  to  intention  and  belief,  he  might 
be  subjected  to  it  if  he  denied  facts,  but  in  practice  it  was  never 
employed,  although  the  formal  accusation  contained  the  otrosi 
demanding  it.'  Yet,  when  there  was  mala  doctrina  or  lUuminism 
torture  was  employed  without  scruple,  as  in  the  case,  in  1725,  of 
Manuel  Madrigal,  in  Toledo,  accused  as  "  solicitante,  Molinista  y 
flagelante."^  In  the  Roman  Inquisition,  however,  after  the  brief 
of  Gregory  XV,  the  suspicion  of  heresy  was  vehement,  the  abjura- 
tion was  de  vehementi  and  there  was  no  exception  to  the  general  rule 
of  torturing  on  intention.  The  testimony  of  one  woman  of  good 
character,  supported  by  indications  such  as  the  evil  repute  of 


'  Pdramo,  p.  875. 

2  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  1465,  fol.  16. 

'  Ibidem,  Lib.  939,  fol.  342. — De  Sousa,  Opusc.  circa  Constit.  Pauli  V,  Tract. 
II,  cap.  13,  21;  Ejusd.  Aphor.  Inquis.  Lib.  i,  cap.  xxxiv,  n.  64,  65.— Alberghini, 
Man.  Qualif.  cap.  xxxi,  §  2,  n.  3,  4.— Bibl.  nacional  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xx,  9.— 
Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  61;  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  498.— 
MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218b,  p.  423. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  876,  fol.  208. 


122  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

the  confessor,  or  that  of  two  women  unsupported,  sufficed.  In 
every  way  Rome  treated  the  offence  with  less  charity  than  did 
Spain.' 

The  instructions  as  to  the  examination  of  accusers  offer  a  strong 
contrast  to  the  negligence  habitual  in  trials  for  formal  heresy,  of 
which  the  penalties  were  so  much  more  severe.  Tribunals  were 
warned  that  it  required  special  attention  and  the  utmost  exacti- 
tude; the  woman  must  declare  precisely  the  spot  and  the  time, 
whether  confession  was  real  or  simulated,  and  she  must  repeat  in 
full  detail  the  words  and  acts  of  the  confessor  without  omission. 
If  any  one  was  near  enough  to  see  or  to  hear,  she  must  state  who 
it  was ;  if  she  had  spoken  to  any  one,  the  name  must  be  given,  and 
the  inquisitor  was  urged  to  exercise  his  ingenuity  according  to 
the  circumstances  of  the  case.  If  she  had  subsequently  confessed 
to  the  same  priest,  she  must  give  her  reasons  and  state  whether 
he  had  absolved  her.  Special  inquiry  was  to  be  made  as  to  any 
cause  of  enmity  on  her  part  or  that  of  her  kindred;  whether  she 
had  heard  of  his  doing  the  same  with  other  women;  what  she 
thought  or  knew  as  to  his  character,  and  whether  any  other  con- 
fessor had  told  her  that  she  was  not  bound  to  denounce  him.^ 
All  these  were  salutary  precautions  which,  if  general  and  not 
exceptional,  would  have  prevented  much  injustice. 

This  instruction  would  appear  to  require  that,  in  case  of  consent, 
the  witness  should  be  forced  to  reveal  her  shame.  Protection 
from  this  would  seem  necessary  to  overcome  reluctance  to  make 
denunciation,  and  the  Roman  Inquisition,  by  decree  of  July  25, 
1624,  ruled  that  neither  the  woman  nor  the  accused  was  to  be 
questioned  as  to  this  and,  if  the  information  was  volunteered,  it 
was  to  be  omitted  from  the  record,  while  confessors  were  ordered 
to  assure  penitents  that  no  such  inquiries  would  be  made.'  If 
such  a  rule  existed  in  Spain,  it  was  not  observed  until  near  the 
end,  for  the  records  of  trials  show  that  the  examination  was  pushed 
to  the  last  point,  and  the  results  were  fully  set  forth  in  the  proceed- 
ings. As  late  as  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  instructions 
to  commissioners  taking  testimony  in  these  cases  require  them  to 
obtain  all  details  as  to  words  and  acts  and  to  write  them  out  fully 


'  Bodoni  Man.  Consultorum,  pp.  224,  232,  235. — Cf.  Trimarchum  pp.  288-92. 
2  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218b,  pp.  386-7. 
'  Cozza,  op.  ai.,  Dub.  XIV.      This  is  stillthe  rule.     See  Concil.  Plenar.  Ameries 
Latinae,  ann.  1899,  Append,  cxxxii,  T.  II,  p.  761  (Romae,  1900). 


Chap.  VI]  TWO  DENUNCIATIONS  BEQUIREB  123 

and  distinctly,  no  matter  how  obscene  they  may  be.'  Soon  after 
this,  however,  occurs  the  first  intimation  as  to  reticence  that  I 
have  met,  in  instructions  to  a  commissioner,  January  27,  1759, 
as  to  taking  testimony  from  a  nun,  in  which  he  is  told  to  notify 
her  that,  if  she  volunteers  to  relate  her  own  ruin,  this  is  not  to  be 
stated  or  included  in  the  testimony.^  Subsequently  this  became 
the  rule,  as  appears  by  instructions  in  1816  and  1819.' 

The  most  important  discrimination  in  favor  of  these  delinquents 
was  the  requirement  of  two  independent  denunciations  to  justify 
arrest  and  trial.  This  was  not  reached  without  some  hesitation. 
The  earliest  formal  instructions  that  we  have  on  the  subject  are 
embodied  in  a  letter  to  the  tribunal  of  Sardinia,  in  1574,  when 
forwarding  to  it  the  brief  of  Pius  IV.  As  the  crime  is  understood 
to  be  very  prevalent  in  the  island,  the  inquisitor  is  ordered  to  pro- 
secute it  with  rigor,  according  to  the  procedure  in  cases  of  heresy, 
no  exception  being  alluded  to  as  respects  single  denunciations.^ 
Instructions  to  the  tribunal  of  Peru,  about  the  same  time,  specify 
that  a  single  witness  suffices  for  prosecution  and  that  Indian  women 
can  be  admitted.'^  Then,  as  we  have  seen,  there  is  an  inclination 
in  favor  of  the  accused,  in  a  carta  acordada  of  March  2,  1576, 
ordering  single  accusations  to  be  received,  but  the  Suprema  is  to 
be  consulted  before  taking  action.  This  tendency  increased,  and 
fuller  instructions  to  Sardinia,  in  1577,  require  two  witnesses  with 
conclusive  evidence  as  a  condition  precedent  to  arrest."  This 
was  repeated  in  general  instructions  issued  in  1580  and,  after  some 
variations,  it  remained  an  absolute  rule  until  the  end.'  Even  this 
was  regarded  by  churchmen  as  too  harsh.  A  Cunha  holds  that, 
while  two  witnesses  may  suffice  for  prosecution,  there  should  be 
at  least  four  for  conviction,  and  he  grows  eloquent  in  pointing  out 
the  dignity  of  the  priest,  the  scandal  to  the  Church  and  the  exul- 
tation of  the  heretic.  De  Sousa  likewise  considers  two  witnesses 
insufficient  for  conviction,  though,  if  they  are  of  exemplary  charac- 
ter, their  evidence  may  justify  some  moderate  penalty.' 


'■  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  299. 
'  Ibidem,  Leg.  228,  n.  24. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  1473  (Cartilla  de  Comisarios,  §§  ix,  x). — 
Ibidem,  Lib.  890,  fol.  156. 
*  Ibidem,  Lib.  83,  fol.  25. 

=  MSS.  of  Bibl.  nacional,  de  Lima,  Protocolo  233,  Expte  5270. 
=  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  1465,  fol.  16.  '  Pdramo,  p.  879. 

'  A  Cunha,  op.  cit.,  Q.  xxiii. — De  Sousa,  op.  cit.,  Tract,  ii,  cap.  12. 


124  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

It  is  probable  that,  for  awhile,  practice  was  not  uniform  in  all 
tribunals.  In  that  of  Valladolid,  in  1621  and  1622,  there  are 
several  cases  in  which  arrest  was  voted  on  the  evidence  of  a  single 
witness  and  these  votes  were  confirmed  by  the  Suprema.'  On  the 
other  hand,  about  1640,  an  inquisitor  tells  us  that,  when  the 
accused  denies,  conviction  requires  the  evidence  of  three  witnesses 
whom  he  has  been  unable  to  disable  for  enmity,  low  rank  of  life, 
or  doubtful  repute.  Some  authors,  he  adds,  insist  that  four  are 
necessary,  but  he  admits  that,  when  there  are  two  whose  characters 
stand  thorough  investigation  and  there  are  supporting  indications, 
conviction  may  follow.^  It  is  impossible  not  to  recognize  the 
charitable  motives  that  prompted  this  reluctance  to  punish. 

The  requirement  thus  established  of  two  independent  denun- 
ciations threw  serious  impediments  in  the  way  of  suppressing  a 
crime  in  which  it  was  so  notoriously  difficult  to  find  accusers. 
The  routine  gradually  established  was,  when  a  denunciation  was 
received,  to  search  the  records  for  a  previous  one.  If  none  were 
found,  letters  were  addressed  to  all  the  other  tribunals  requesting 
a  similar  examination  of  their  registers  and,  if  this  was  unsuccess- 
ful, the  denunciation  was  filed  away  to  await  the  chances  of  another 
accuser  presenting  herself,  thus  giving  the  accused,  if  guilty,  the 
opportunity  of  continuing  his  profligate  career,  and  leading  the 
woman  to  believe  that  the  case  was  too  trivial  to  deserve  the 
attention  of  the  Inquisition.  These  long  intervals  of  impunity 
illustrate  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  denunciations,  and  the  prepon- 
derant chances  of  escape,  when  prosecution  was  thus  obstructed. 

Numberless  cases  show  how  prolonged  was  often  this  period  of 
immunity  in  a  career  of  crime,  to  say  nothing  of  the  yet  more 
frequent  instances  where  the  second  denunciation  never  came. 
Thus  at  Valencia,  on  September  22,  1734,  Maria  Theresa  Terrasa 
accused  Fray  Agustin  Solves  of  having  taken  her,  after  confession 
and  communion,  to  a  room  back  of  the  altar  and  committed  vio- 
lence on  her.  This  was  laid  aside  for  fourteen  years  when,  on 
November  12,  1748,  Sor  Vitoria  Julian,  of  the  convent  of  San 
Julian,  appeared  and  denounced  him  for  having,  some  fifteen  years 
before,  solicited  her  some  twenty  times  in  the  confessional  of  the 


'  Archive  de  Simanoas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552,  fol.  1. 

^  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xx. — In  modem  practice,  under  the  regu- 
lations issued  by  the  Roman  Inquisitors,  in  1867,  a  first  and  a  second  denuncia- 
tion only  cause  the  accused  to  be  watched  and  a  third  one  is  necessary  to  justify 
action. — Berardi,  p    126. 


Chap.  VI]  TWO  DENUNCIATIONS  REQUIRED  125 

convent  of  which  he  was  the  regular  confessor,  though  she  had 
not  understood  until  now  the  obligation  of  denunciation.  He  had 
meanwhile  been  removed  to  the  convent  of  Villajoiosa  and  had 
doubtless  profited  fully  by  the  interval  thus  afforded.^  This  is  by 
no  means  an  extreme  instance.  In  the  Hst  of  soliciting  confessors, 
kept  by  the  Madrid  tribunal,  there  occurs,  in  1772,  the  name  of 
Fray  Andres  Izquierdo  as  accused  in  Valladolid,  with  a  reference 
back  to  the  years  1751  and  1752.  Fray  Bartolom^  de  Montijo 
appears  as  denounced  in  1740  and  again  in  1776.  Fray  Fernando 
Lopez,  ex-provincial  of  the  Escuelas  pias,  was  denounced  in  1780 
for  tampering  with  the  children  under  his  charge,  and  again  in 
1795,  when  he  was  tried  and  exiled.  The  Jesuit  Juan  Francisco 
Nieto,  was  denounced  in  Toledo  in  1708  and  again  in  1731  in 
Madrid.  Fray  Joseph  de  San  Juan  was  accused  in  Toledo  in 
1732  and  in  Granada  in  1772.  Fray  Pedro  de  la  Madre  de  Dios 
was  denounced  in  Barcelona  in  1722  and  again  in  1744.  Even 
two  denunciations,  in  many  cases,  did  not  suffice  to  put  an  end 
to  these  corrupting  careers,  and  it  required  three  or  four.  Fray 
Alonso  de  Arroya  was  denounced  in  1768,  1788  and  1803;  Fray 
Francisco  de  la  Asuncion  Torquemada  in  1735,  1770  and  1776; 
Domingo  Galindo,  rector  of  Nules,  in  1790,  1792,  and  1795;  Fray 
Francisco  Escriva  in  1769,  1775,  1786  and  1787;  and  Padre 
Feliciano  Martinez,  S.  J.,  in  1767,  1771,  1784  and  1800.  It  is 
scarce  worth  while  to  multiply  instances  of  which  the  records 
furnish  an  abundant  supply.^ 

As  the  majority  of  offenders  were  frailes,  who  had  no  settled 
residence,  it  became  necessary,  in  order  to  meet  the  exceptional 
requirement  of  two  denunciations,  ,to  establish  communication 
between  the  several  tribunals.  This  was  felt  as  early  as  1601, 
when  each  one  was  ordered  to  send  to  all  the  rest,  information  as 
to  solicitantes,  whose  cases  had  been  suspended  without  prosecu- 
tion. This  seems  to  have  received  scant  obedience,  while  cases 
of  solicitation  were  constantly  becoming  a  more  important  portion 
of  inquisitorial  duty,  leading  to  a  more  comprehensive  effort  in 
1647.  The  tribunals  were  required  to  search  their  records  for 
thirty  years  back  and  make  out  lists  of  those  charged  with  solici- 
tation with  all  necessary  details;  copies  of  these  lists  were  to  be 
sent  to  the  Suprema  and  to  all  other  tribunals,  and  every  year  the 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  365. 

2  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  1002,  fol.  2-4. — Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq. 
de  Valencia,  Leg.  66;  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  233,  n.  108,  fol.  90,  97,  140,  181. 


126  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

new  cases  were  to  be  similarly  circulated.  A  complete  alpha- 
betical list  of  the  whole  was  to  be  compiled  and  copies  were 
to  be  furnished  to  all  tribunals  making  application.^  If  this  was 
obeyed  at  the  time,  it  must  soon  have  fallen  into  desuetude,  for 
the  custom  became  universal,  when  a  denunciation  was  received, 
of  addressing  all  the  sister  tribunals  with  the  inquiry  as  to 
whether  the  name  of  the  accused  appeared  on  their  records.  To 
facilitate  these  frequent  researches,  in  compiling  the  Lihros  Voean- 
dorum  and  other  registers,  a  separate  volume  was  reserved  for 
solicitation.^ 

When  all  impediments  were  overcome  and  conviction  was 
reached,  the  penalties  inflicted  were  singularly  disproportionate  to 
the  gravity  of  the  offence,  especially  when  compared  with  the 
severity  exercised  on  those  whose  guilt  consisted  in  putting  on 
clean  linen  on  Saturdays  and  avoiding  the  use  of  pork.  The 
earliest  definition  as  to  punishment  occurs  in  the  Sardinia  instruc- 
tions of  1577,  where  the  prescriptions  embody  the  general  features 
of  the  policy  pursued  to  the  end,  including  the  secrecy  preserved 
by  reading  the  sentence  in  the  audience-chamber.  The  penalties, 
it  is  stated,  are  customarily  arbitrary,  varying  with  the  character, 
degree  and  frequency  of  the  offence  but,  in  all  cases,  there  must 
be  abjuration  de  levi  and  perpetual  deprivation  of  the  faculty  of 
administering  the  sacrament  of  penitence;  as  to  the  other  sacra- 
ments and  preaching,  or  reclusion  or  exile,  it  is  discretional.  For 
religious  there  may  be  discipline  in  the  chapters  of  their  convents, 
while  a  notary  reads  the  sentence  or,  in  atrocious  cases,  a  disci- 
pline in  the  audience-chamber;  there  may  also  be  other  penances, 
such  as  reclusion  and  suspension  or  deprivation  of  sacerdotal 
functions,  deprivation  of  active  and  passive  voice,  being  last  in 
choir  and  refectory,  and  penance  for  heavy  sin,  discipline,  prayers 
etc.  For  secular  priests,  besides  the  general  penalties,  there  may 
be  reclusion,  deprivation  or  suspension  of  functions  and  benefice, 
fines,  secret  disciplines,  fasts  and  prayers.' 

How  these  general  rules  were  reduced  to  practice,  at  this  period, 
may  be  gathered  from  a  few  examples  in  Toledo,  all  of  whom 
had  of  course  the  regular  abjuration  de  levi  and  reprimand.  In 
1578  the  Carmelite,  Fray  Agustin  de  Cervera,  against  whom  there 

'■  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen  218b,  p.  264. — Archive  hist,  naeional, 
Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  9,  n.  2,  fol.  38. 
'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  1002. 
'  Ibidem,  Leg.  1465,  fol.16. 


Chap.  VI]  PUNISHMENT  127 

were  ten  witnesses,  was  sentenced  to  perpetual  deprivation  of 
confession,  reclusion  for  a  year  in  a  convent  of  his  Order,  where  he 
was  to  receive  a  discipline,  and  Friday  fasting  on  bread  and  water. 
The  Dominican  Fray  Domingo  de  Revisto,  against  whom  there 
were  forty-nine  witnesses,  besides  others  who  came  after  the  con- 
clusion of  the  case,  was  perpetually  deprived  of  confessing  and 
recluded  in  a  desert  convent  for  ten  years,  during  which,  for  a 
year,  he  was  deprived  of  active  and  passive  voice,  of  preaching 
and  of  saying  mass.  In  1581,  Pedro  de  Villalobos,  acting  cura  of 
Halia,  had  many  witnesses  as  to  his  acts  in  the  confessional  and 
an  infinite  number  as  to  his  general  licentiousness,  for  he  kept  a 
concubine,  had  debauched  two  sisters  and  their  aunt,  and  com- 
mitted much  else  of  the  same  kind.  These  latter  sins  were  outside 
of  inquisitorial  jurisdiction;  for  the  solicitation  he  was  exiled  from 
Haifa  for  three  years,  of  which  the  first  was  to  be  passed  in  a 
monastery  with  suspension  from  celebrating,  he  was  perpetually 
suspended  from  confessing,  and  was  fined  in  fifteen  thousand 
maravedis.  Fray  Juan  Romero  was  accused  by  five  women ;  he 
admitted  using  words  of  endearment,  but  innocently,  as  he  claimed 
to  be  impotent.  Either  the  claim  or  the  fact  seems  to  have  been 
regarded  as  an  aggravation,  for  he  was  deprived  of  confessing  and 
was  recluded  for  ten  years,  without  active  and  passive  voice,  to  be 
last  in  choir  and  refectory,  with  a  monthly  discipline  during  the 
first  year,  a  discipline  in  the  audience-chamber  and  one  in  the 
convent  of  San  Pablo  while  his  sentence  was  read.^ 

These  examples  will  suffice  to  show  the  spirit  in  which  aggra- 
vated cases  were  treated.  Those  of  less  gravity  had  concessions 
in  the  variable  factors,  but  the  deprivation  of  confessing  was  per- 
petual. About  1600,  Miguel  Calvo  summarizes  the  practice,  with 
a  distinct  inclination  towards  greater  severity,  and  adds  that,  when 
the  culprit  has  solicited  men,  the  penalties  are  to  be  increased.^ 
On  the  other  hand,  in  1611,  a  Cunha  pleads  for  moderation,  and 
warns  the  inquisitor  not  to  drive  the  culprit  to  despair,  while  de 
Sousa  endeavors  to  argue  away  the  stern  penalties  prescribed  by 
Gregory  XV,  and  repeats  the  warning  as  to  despair.^ 

It  was  wholly  superfluous  to  plead  for  leniency.  The  Spanish 
Inquisition  paid  no  attention  to  Gregory's  brief,  although,  in  1629, 

»  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  1465,   tol.  16.— MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of 
Copenhagen,  218b   p.  265. 
2  Archivo  de  Alcald,  Hacienda,  Leg.  544'  (Lib.  4). 
'  A  Cunha,  Q.  xxiv. — De  Sousa,  Tract,  ii,  cap.  16,  18,  21. 


128  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

it  ordered  the  tribunals  to  follow  its  prescriptions,  for  it  even 
began  to  show  an  increased  tendency  towards  benignity.  The 
severest  sentence  I  have  met  at  this  period  concerned  a  peculiarly 
scandalous  case  before  the  tribunal  of  VaUadolid  where,  in  1625, 
the  Trinitarian  Fray  Juan  de  Ramirez  was  accused  by  five  youths 
and  one  woman,  and  besides  he  had  once  celebrated  mass  without 
confessing.  He  was  verbally  degraded,  deprived  perpetually  of 
confessing  and  condemned  to  ten  years  of  reclusion,  hfelong  exile 
from  Burgos  and  a  circular  discipline  in  his  convent.  This  was 
justice  tempered  with  mercy,  but  there  was  much  mercy  and  little 
justice,  in  1637,  in  the  case  of  the  Franciscan  Fray  Alonso  del 
Valle  before  the  same  tribunal.  He  was  accused  by  two  sisters 
of  his  Order;  there  was  a  vote  in  discordia  and  the  Suprema 
ordered  suspension  of  the  case,  but,  before  this  could  be  done,  there 
supervened  two  more  witnesses  with  evidence  of  the  foulest  char- 
acter. The  result  was  a  sentence  April  14,  1638,  of  deprivation 
of  confessing  women,  one  year's  reclusion  and  four  years  of  exile 
from  Toro  and  Astorga.  Equally  fortunate  was  the  Dominican 
Fray  Juan  Gomez,  accused  by  two  women,  with  one  of  whom, 
for  fifteen  years,  he  had  illicit  relations  in  the  chapels  used  for 
confession.  Some  sisters  of  his  Order  likewise  denounced  him 
and,  for  all  this  he  was  sentenced,  February  4, 1638,  to  be  deprived 
of  confessing  women  and  to  Friday  fasting  for  six  months.  Even 
greater  was  the  benignity  shown,  in  1642,  to  the  Licenciate  Morales, 
cura  of  Robadillo,  against  whom  there  were  two  accusers.  The 
vote  of  the  consulta  de  fe  on  the  sumaria  was  not  unanimous, 
when  the  Suprema  cut  the  affair  short  by  ordering  suspension, 
with  a  private  reprimand  of  the  accused  in  the  apartments  of  the 
inquisitor.*  

>  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552,  fol.  6,  22,  23,  29. 

There  was  more  wholesome  severity  in  Rome.  In  1626  the  Congregation  of 
the  Inquisition  reserved  to  itself  the  designation  of  the  penalty  (Collect.  Decret. 
Sac.  Congr.  S.  Officii,  p.  397 — MS.  penes  me).  Some  ten  years  later  Trimarchus 
(op.  at.,  pp.  302,  304)  after  enumerating  the  punishments  decreed  by  Gregorj', 
adds  that  in  practice,  if  the  culprit  has  only  once  solicited  an  ordinary  woman, 
deprivation  of  confessing  suffices;  if  two,  repeatedly,  add  suspension  of  priestly 
functions  and,  for  a  regular,  especially  if  there  has  been  scandal,  perpetual 
reclusion  in  a  convent  or,  for  a  secular,  perpetual  service  in  a  hospital.  If  the 
penitent  solicited  is  a  nun  or  the  wife  of  a  magnate,  or  there  are  many  women 
and  much  popular  scandal,  degradation  or  the  galleys. 

Although  Gregory  included  relaxation,  Benedict  XIV  (De  Synodo  Dioecesana, 
Lib.  IX,  cap.  vi,  n.  7)  says  that  in  no  case,  however  aggravated,  can  it  be  found 
that  relaxation  had  been  inflicted,  and  this  is  repeated  by  Fray  Manuel  de 
Ndjera  in  his  Enchiridion  canonico-morale  de  Confess,  p.  161  (Mexico,  1764). 


Chap.  VI]  PUNISHMENT  129 

Evidently  the  Inquisition  was  beginning  to  regard  the  offence 
with  a  compassionate  eye,  and  it  would  be  superfluous  to  adduce 
more  cases  of  its  tenderness.  Still  the  regular  scheme  of  punish- 
ments was  nominally  held  in  force,  and  is  duly  recapitulated  by 
an  old  inquisitor  about  1640,  who  includes  fines  for  secular  priests 
and  adds  that  the  galleys  might  be  inflicted,  and  that  those  who 
relapsed  deserved  them.  Abjuration  de  vehementi  was  never 
imposed  and,  although  the  papal  constitution  permitted  relaxa- 
tion, this  was  never  used,  though  it  is  well  that  there  is  a  faculty 
for  it  in  extreme  cases  .^  Even  the  fines  here  alluded  to  were  not 
heavy.  Another  authority  of  about  the  same  date  says  that,  if 
the  priest  is  rich,  he  may  be  mulcted  in  from  six  to  ten  thousand 
maravedis.^  The  heaviest  pecuniary  penalty,  that  I  have  met  was 
imposed,  in  1744,  on  Fernandez  Puyalon,  cura  of  Ciempozuelos, 
who  was  fined  in  half  his  property,  but  here  solicitation  was  com- 
plicated with  heretical  propositions,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  greatly 
enhanced  guilt.' 

As  regards  the  galleys,  I  have  met  with  but  one  case  of  their 
employment — that  of  the  Licentiate  Lorenzo  de  Eldora,  assistant 
cura  in  Torre  de  Belena,  tried  in  Toledo  in  1691.  He  had  already 
been  punished  for  the  same  offence  in  Granada,  and  had  relapsed, 
which  explains  the  severity  of  the  sentence  suspending  him  from 
orders  and  banishing  him  from  a  number  of  places  for  ten  years, 
of  which  the  first  five  were  to  be  spent  in  the  galleys.^  That  this 
punishment  was  reserved  for  relapse  may  be  inferred  from  a  case 
which,  about  the  same  time,  was  occupying  the  Barcelona  tri- 
bunal and  which  certainly  deserved  it.  The  Mercenarian  Padre 
Estevan  Ramoneda  was  accused  in  1690,  but  it  was  not  until  1694 
that  a  second  denunciation  enabled  action  to  be  taken.  After 
many  evasions,  in  ignorance  of  the  exact  charge,  he  confessed  to 
much  more  than  was  required.  Since  entering  a  convent,  in  1660, 
as  a  boy  of  fifteen,  his  life  had  been  one  of  sexual  abominations, 
almost  warranting  the  belief  that  the  monasteries  of  the  time 
were  outposts  of  Sodom.  The  number  of  women  whose  testi- 
mony was  obtained  was  only  eight,  but  among  these  were  some 
with  whom  extraordinary  obscenities  were  practised  in  church. 
He  had  no  defence  to  offer  and,  in  his  sentence,  September  11, 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xx. 

2  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  299,  fol.  80. 

3  Ibidem,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  229,  n.  32. 
*  Ibidem,  Leg.  1. 

VOL.  IV  9 


130  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

1696,  all  reference  to  his  unnatural  crimes  of  all  kinds  was  care- 
fully omitted.  He  was  deprived  of  confession,  had  a  circular 
discipline  in  his  convent,  and  was  recluded  for  four  years  in  the 
house  of  N.  Senora  del  Olivar,  from  which  he  was  allowed  to  return 
in  October  1700.*  This  was  considered  sufficient  punishment  for 
a  brute  whose  life  had  been  spent  in  corrupting  men,  women  and 
beasts. 

There  is  one  feature  in  these  cases  which  shows  how  great  was 
the  dread  of  scandal.  We  frequently  find  details  of  the  worst 
excesses  committed  in  the  churches.  According  to  the  canon  law 
(Cap.  5,  Extra,  v,  xvi)  a  church  thus  polluted  required  to  be  recon- 
ciled, but  there  is  no  trace  in  any  of  the  records  of  the  observance 
of  this  rule.  It  was  presumably  for  the  purpose  of  averting 
knowledge  of  such  disgraceful  occurrences  that  casuists  discov- 
ered that  pollution  occurred  only  when  the  act  was  public  and 
not  occult.^ 

It  was  a  favorite  device,  when  a  confessor  had  reason  to  fear 
that  a  denunciation  was  impending,  for  him  to  denounce  himself, 
in  the  expectation  of  merciful  treatment.  Roman  practice  encour- 
aged this  by  conferring  virtual  immunity  in  such  cases,  as  was 
experienced  by  the  Minim  Hilario  Caone  of  Besangon,  who  fled 
from  Spain,  in  1653,  and  presented  himself  before  the  Roman 
Inquisition,  stating  that  for  ten  years  he  had  heard  confessions 
in  the  church  of  San  Francisco  de  Paula  in  Seville,  and  that  he 
had  come  in  post  to  confess  that  he  had  solicited  in  confession 
some  forty  women,  mostly  with  success.  When  questioned  as 
to  belief  and  intention,  he  answered  satisfactorily  and  was  only 
sentenced  to  abjure  de  vehementi,  to  visit  the  seven  privileged  altars 
of  St.  Peter's,  and  for  three  years  to  recite  weekly  the  chaplet  of 
the  Virgin.  This  was  not  exceptional  mercy  for,  in  the  same  year, 
an  equivalent  sentence  was  pronounced  on  Vincenzo  Barzi,  who 
similarly  denounced  himself,  and  the  existing  rule  is  to  impose 
only  spiritual  penance  on  the  self-accuser,  with  advice  to  avoid  in 
future  those  whom  he  has  solicited.^ 


*  Proceso  contra  Fray  Estevan  Ramoneda  (MSS.  of  Am.  Phil.  Society). 

^  Quia  ex  sola  publica  effusione  seminis  aut  sanguinis  humani  ecclesia  pol- 
luitur. — Clericati  de  Virtute  PiBnitentice  Decisiones,  p.  214  (Vinetiis,  1706). 

'  MSS.  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin.  Class  ii,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  63,  294.— Berardi, 
op.  cit.,  p.  129. — Cf.  Benedicti  PP.  XIV  de  Synodo  Dioecesana,  Lib.  vi,  cap. 
xi,  n.  8. 


Chap.  VI]  SELF-DENUNCIATION  J 31 

The  Spanish  Inquisition,  at  least  at  first,  was  not  so  lenient  and 
it  followed  its  rule  with  espontaneados  of  examining  for  confir- 
mation those  whom  the  delinquent  named  as  the  objects  of  his 
solicitations.  In  the  early  cases  there  is  little  difference  in  the 
sentences  between  those  who  denounced  themselves  and  those 
who  were  accused.  In  1582,  the  Franciscan  Fray  Sebastian  de 
Hontoria  accused  himself  to  the  Toledo  tribunal  for  having,  as 
vicar  of  a  nunnery,  corrupted  several  of  the  nuns  under  peculiarly 
aggravating  circumstances.  On  examination  they  confirmed  his 
confession,  and  he  was  sentenced  to  a  circular  discipline  in  the 
convent  of  San  Juan  de  los  Reyes,  to  be  deprived  of  confessing, 
and  reclusion  in  a  convent  for  ten  years,  without  active  or  passive 
voice  and  being  last  in  choir  and  refectory.^  He  had  confessed 
fully  and  freely.  In  another  case,  in  1589,  before  the  same  tribunal, 
the  Franciscan  Fray  Marcos  de  Latangon,  in  accusing  himself, 
suppressed  the  worst  features  of  his  offence.  He  confessed  that, 
at  Orche,  he  had  handled  indecently  some  five  or  six  unmarried 
and  perhaps  six  or  eight  married  women,  but  averred  that  this 
was  without  any  licentious  feeling  or  intention  to  induce  them 
to  sin.  Five  of  the  girls  were  examined,  whose  concurrent  testi- 
mony showed  that  the  confessions  were  heard  in  a  chamber  in 
which  there  was  a  bed.  As  each  one  entered  he  locked  the  door; 
when  the  confession  was  half  through  he  would  interrupt  it  with 
the  foulest  indecencies  and  violence,  after  which  the  confession 
was  resumed  and  absolution  was  granted.  For  this  profanation 
of  the  sacrament  the  sentence  was  the  same  as  in  the  last  case, 
except  that  the  reclusion  was  for  only  four  years.^ 

So  long  as  the  practice  of  examining  the  woman  was  continued, 
self-denunciation  always  had  the  advantage  that  they  would  very 
frequently,  in  defence  of  their  honor,  deny  everything.  The 
result  of  this,  and  the  prevaihng  tendency  towards  leniency,  are 
indicated  in  rules  expressed  about  1640,  which  tell  us  that,  if  one 
witness  has  already  testified  against  the  culprit,  self-denunciation 
ensures  a  lighter  penalty;  there  is  no  imprisonment  and  it  is  cus- 
tomary to  deprive  him  of  confessing  women.  If  he  accuses  him- 
self before  there  is  any  evidence  against  him,  and  if  the  women  are 
numerous  and  they  confirm  his  statements,  the  case  proceeds  to 
deprivation  of  confessing;  if  they  deny,  the  case  is  suspended. 


•  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. 
'  Ibidem,  T.  XI. 


132  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

with  a  warning  to  him.  If  there  is  but  one  and  the  case  is  not 
grave,  he  is  merely  reprimanded/ 

The  custom  of  examining  the  women  compromised  by  the  self- 
accuser  gradually  grew  obsolete,  doubtless  because  they  mostly 
protected  themselves  from  exposure  by  denial.  Thus,  in  1707, 
in  the  Madrid  tribunal,  when  Padre  Pablo  Delgado,  provost  of 
the  Casa  del  Espiritu  Santo,  accused  himself,  there  seems  to  have 
been  no  examination  of  the  women  and  his  case  was  promptly 
suspended,  with  a  monition  to  abstain  for  six  months  from  con- 
fessing women.^  So,  in  the  case  of  the  Observantine  Fray  Gabriel 
Panto j  a,  who  denounced  himself.  May  8,  1720,  to  the  Toledo 
tribunal,  for  offences  committed  during  the  previous  ten  years, 
which  show  him  to  have  lost  no  opportunity  of  seducing  women, 
in  the  confessional  or  out  of  it,  and  of  promising  absolution  if 
they  would  yield  to  his  desires,  the  absence  of  his  name  from  the 
record  of  autos  particulares  shows  that  none  of  the  women  were 
examined  and  that  no  action  was  deemed  necessary.'  Indeed, 
what  chiefly  impresses  one,  in  a  series  of  these  cases,  is  the  matter 
of  fact  way  in  which  every  body — priests,  penitents  and  inquis- 
itors— seems  to  take  it  for  granted  that  such  things  were  a  matter 
of  course  and  that  the  confessor  should  be  in  pursuit  of  every 
woman  who  came  before  him.  So,  in  a  letter  of  the  Mexican  tri- 
bunal. May  13,  1719,  to  its  commissioner,  in  the  case  of  Fray 
Antonio  Domfnguez,  who  had  denounced  himself,  the  instructions 
are  that  the  culprit  is  to  be  exhorted  to  abstain  in  future  and  to 
sunder  an  illicit  connection  with  a  daughter  of  confession ;  he  is  to 
be  absolved  sacramentally  which,  as  the  rule  in  all  cases  of  seK- 
denunciation,  is  to  be  made  known  to  all  confessors  in  the  district 
"for  the  solace  and  comfort  of  their  souls" — thus  assuming  them 
to  be  all  guilty  of  the  same  offence.* 

Still,  practice  as  yet  was  not  uniform.  In  1740,  the  Recollect 
Fray  Joseph  Rives  accused  himself  before  the  Valencia  tribunal, 
when  the  evidence  of  two  women  was  taken,  showing  the  beast- 
liness to  which  such  men  resorted  to  inflame  the  passions  of  their 
penitents.  A  formal  trial  resulted,  ending  in  his  deprivation  of 
confession  and  three  years'  exile  from  Valencia  and  the  scenes  of 


'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xx,  §  8. 

"  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  876,  fol.  32. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  231,  n.  70. 

*  MSS.  of  David  Fergusson  Esq. 


Chap.  VI]  INDIFFERENCE  133 

his  excesses.*  This  was  probably  one  of  the  latest  cases  in  which 
an  espontaneado  suffered.  A  writer  shortly  afterwards  complains 
of  the  uncertainty  of  practice,  as  the  Suprema  constantly  issued 
varying  decisions  under  conditions  precisely  similar,  but  he  states 
the  rule  to  be  that,  when  a  priest  accuses  himself,  the  registers 
are  searched  and,  if  nothing  is  found  of  record  against  him,  he  is 
discharged  with  a  charitable  warning,  and  a  recommendation  to 
abstain  from  the  confessional  save  when  necessary  to  avert  scan- 
dal.^ Complete  immunity  soon  followed  for  self-accusation.  In 
1780  the  Suprema  seems  to  have  desired  to  introduce  uniformity, 
and  enquired  of  the  tribunals  whether  they  were  accustomed  to 
make  espontaneados  abjure  and  then  absolve  them,  or  whether 
they  suspended  the  cases,  to  which  Valencia  replied  that  the  cus- 
tom was  to  suspend,  without  abjuration  or  absolution,  unless  there 
was  complication  of  mala  doctrinal  When  self-denunciation  thus 
secured  immunity  it  naturally  was  frequent.  In  a  list  of  a  hun- 
dred and  eight  cases  in  Madrid,  between  1670  and  1772,  thirty- 
two,  or  thirty  per  cent.,  are  espontaneados." 

In  fact,  during  the  later  period,  the  whole  matter  seems  to  have 
excited  but  a  languid  interest,  and  to  have  been  treated  commonly 
with  indifference.  We  meet  with  instances  in  which  accusations 
are  pigeon-holed  without  even  making  the  prescribed  inquiries 
of  other  tribunals,  or  cases  are  suspended  without  examining  the 
accuser.^  So  relaxed  was  discipline  that  when,  in  1806,  the 
Franciscan  Fray  Francisco  de  Paula  Lozano  had  been  deprived 
by  C6rdova  of  the  faculty  of  confessing,  and  not  only  disregarded 
the  inhibition  but  complicated  his  offence  by  opening  a  letter 
from  the  tribunal  of  Granada  to  the  cura  of  Salar,  he  was  tried  by 
Granada  and  merely  reprimanded  with  a  warning  of  what  would 
happen  to  him  if  he  persisted  in  his  evil  courses." 

It  would  be  interesting  sociologically  if  complete  statistics  could 
be  compiled,  from  the  time  when  jurisdiction  was  conferred  on 
the  Inquisition,  but  this  is  impossible,  for  there  are  only  a  few 


'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  lieg.  365,  n.  45,  fol.  4-12. 

^  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218b,  p.  387. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  4,  n.  2,  fol.  79. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  1006. 

=  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  227,  n.  10;  Leg.  228,  n.  28. 

°  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  890. 


134  SOLICITATION  [Book  VIII 

fragmentary  sources  of  the  earlier  period,  although  for  the 
eighteenth  century  there  are  satisfactory  materials  in  the  special 
registers  kept  of  this  class  of  cases.  In  no  case,  however,  do  they 
furnish  a  standard  by  which  to  estimate  the  frequency  of  the 
crime,  for  the  difficulty  of  inducing  women  to  accuse  left  the  great 
majority  of  cases  buried  in  secrecy,  in  addition  to  which  a  marked 
feature  of  the  records  is  the  disproportion  between  the  accusations 
and  the  trials,  owing  principally  to  the  impediment  arising  from 
the  requirement  of  at  least  two  accusations,  so  that  the  trials  and 
sentences  are  comparatively  few  in  number.  The  working  of  this 
is  exhibited,  as  early  as  1597,  in  a  report  by  Inquisitor  Heredia 
of  Barcelona  of  a  visitation  of  part  of  his  district,  in  which  ten 
cases  of  solicitation  were  brought  before  him.  Of  these  seven  are 
noted  as  suspended  in  consequence  of  there  being  but  one  witness; 
another  is  suspended  because  the  offender  had  been  already  tried 
and  punished,  leaving  but  two  in  which  arrest  and  trial  were 
ordered.  In  the  visitation  the  whole  number  of  cases  was  eighty- 
eight  and  the  only  offences  more  numerous  than  solicitation  were 
unnatural  lusts,  of  which  there  were  fifteen,  propositions  which  fur- 
nished twelve,  the  assertion  that  marriage  is  better  than  celibacy 
which  furnished  eleven,  while  blasphemy  was  on  an  equality  with 
ten.  All,  or  nearly  all,  of  these  latter  classes  doubtless  led  to 
prosecutions,  while  solicitation  resulted  in  only  two  trials.^ 

Llorente  explains  the  discrepancy  between  the  accusations  and 
the  convictions  by  misconstruction  put  on  the  interrogations  of 
confessors,  leading  simple-hearted  nuns  to  imagine  themselves 
solicited.^  This  implies  eagerness  on  the  part  of  women  to  bring 
such  accusations  when,  as  we  have  seen,  the  main  difficulty  was 
to  induce  them  to  denounce,  by  threats  of  excommunication  and 
refusal  of  absolution;  in  the  majority  of  cases  it  was  done  only 
by  order  of  a  subsequent  confessor,  and  this  frequently  five,  ten, 
or  more  years  after  the  occurrence.  The  fact  is  that  only  a  small 
portion  of  offenders  were  denounced,  and  of  these  but  a  fraction 
were  brought  to  trial.  So  far  moreover  from  the  evidence  being 
only  the  excited  imaginations  of  young  girls,  it  rarely  happened 
that  a  case  reached  trial  without  resulting  in  conviction — the  pre- 
liminaries were  too  carefully  guarded,  and  the  dread  of  scandal 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  5. 
'  Llorente,  Hist,  crft.,  cap.  xxviii,  art.  1,  n.  17. 


Chap,  VI]  STATISTICS  135 

too  vivid,  to  permit  the  arrest  of  a  priest  against  whom  the  evidence 
was  not  conclusive. 

The  number  of  cases  pushed  to  sentence  was  therefore  not  large. 
The  Toledo  record,  from  1575  to  1610,  only  furnishes  fifty-two  in 
a  total  of  eleven  hundred  and  thirty-four  of  all  kinds.^  In  the 
later  period,  when  the  activity  of  the  tribunals  had  greatly  slack- 
ened, solicitation  formed  a  much  larger  proportion  of  their  busi- 
ness.^ We  have  a  record  of  all  cases  despatched  in  Toledo,  from 
1648  to  1794,  in  which  those  for  solicitation  amount  to  only  sixty- 
eight.  This  seems  but  few  and  yet,  when  we  compare  this  total 
with  that  of  other  offences,  in  which  there  were  no  special  impedi- 
ments to  prosecution,  it  becomes  surprisingly  large,  for  there  were 
but  sixty-two  cases  of  bigamy,  thirty-seven  of  blasphemy,  seventy- 
four  of  propositions  and  one  hundred  of  sorcery  and  divination. 
Between  1705  and  1714,  the  whole  number  of  sentences  was 
but  twenty-six  and  of  these  eight  were  for  solicitation,  while 
between  1757  and  1763  it  contributed  six  cases  out  of  a  total  of 
eight.' 

When  we  turn  to  the  number  of  accusations  we  find  them  unex- 
pectedly large.  The  registers  of  solicitations,  kept  during  the  final 
century  of  the  Inquisition,  afford  trustworthy  statistics  showing 
that,  from  1723  to  the  final  suppression  in  1820,  the  total  number 
of  cases  entered  amounts  to  thirty-seven  hundred  and  seventy- 
five.  Of  these,  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  secular  clergy  only 
furnished  nine  hundred  and  eighty-one,  leaving  for  the  regulars 
twenty-seven  hundred  and  ninety-four,  or  nearly  three-quarters. 
Partly  this  is  explicable  by  the  greater  popularity  of  the  regulars 
as  confessors  but,  to  a  greater  extent,  by  the  opportunities  of  the 
beneficed  priests,  who  were  usually  well  off,  to  gratify  their  passions 
without  incurring  the  dangers  of  polluting  the  confessional.^     One 


'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. 

'  The  Dominican  Maestro  Alvarado,  in  his  heated  defence  of  the  Inquisition, 
in  1811,  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that,  in  its  later  period,  its  penitents  were 
largely  ecclesiastics,  because  firstly  their  theology  exposed  them  to  uttering 
compromising  propositions;  secondly,  "porque  solos  los  cMrigos  y  frailes  son  los 
que  confiesan  y  todos  saben  muy  bien  lo  peligroso  de  este  materia  y  los  muchos 
que  en  61  han  naufragado." — Cartas  del  Filosofo  Rancio,  I,  316  (Madrid,  1824). 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 

*  These  statistics  are  compiled  from  various  registers,  covering  respectively 
portions  of  the  period.  There  are  some  minor  breaks,  which  would  increase 
the  aggregate  somewhat,  but  not  materially,    See  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq. 


136 


SOLICITATION 


[Book  VIII 


noteworthy  fact  is  the  large  proportion  of  those  occupying  promi- 
nent positions  as  Provincials,  Guardians,  Ministers,  Priors,  Comen- 
dadores,  Visitadores,  Superiors,  Rectors,  Lectors,  and  the  hke, 
whose  titles  appear  in  the  registers  with  a  frequency  greater  than 
their  mere  numbers  would  seem  to  justify. 

In  1797,  Tavira,  then  Bishop  of  Osma  and  subsequently  of 
Salamanca,  assumed  that  the  crime  of  solicitation  had  greatly 
increased  and  was  increasing,  which  he  attributed  partly  to  the 
influence  of  lUuminism  and  Molinism,  but  still  more  to  its  cogni- 
zance having  been  taken  from  the  bishops  and  the  requirement  by 
the  Inquisition  of  two  denunciations  before  prosecution.'  That 
the  latter  provision  conferred  practical  immunity  on  many  culprits 
is  self-evident,  but  this  was  probably  less  effective  than  would 
have  been  the  habitual  indifference  and  leniency  of  the  spiritual 
courts,  their  dread  of  scandal  and  the  inevitable  disgrace  which 
deterred  women  from  appearing  in  their  public  proceedings. 
There  is  practically  no  reason  for  supposing  that  the  crime  was 


de  Toledo,  Leg.  233,  n.  108;  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  66. — Archivo  de  Simancas, 
Libros  1002,  1003,  1004. 

There  is  perhaps  some  interest  in  recording  the  respective  responsibilities  of 
the  various  classes  and  orders  of  the  clergy  for  these  delinquents,  as  follows: 


Secular  priests,  canons  etc 
Franciscans,     Conventual 
Barefooted     . 

Observantines  . 

Capuchins    . 

Recollects    .... 
Carmelites  .... 
Dominicans     .... 
Augustinians  . 
Trinitarians     .... 
Mercenarians   . 
Jesuits  .... 
Minims 

Benedictines    .... 
Geronimites     . 
San  Pedro  de  Alcantara  . 
Cl^rigos  Menores  . 
Congr.  of  San  Filippo  Neri 
Bernardines  (Cistercians) 


and 


981 

652 

606 

183 

66 

355 

288 

156 

144 

131 

92 

69 

35 

30 

29 

20 

20 

20 


Escuelas  Pias  . 
BasiUans    . 
S.  Francisco  de  Asis 
N.  Senora  de  la  Vitoria 
Order  of  Santiago 
Order  of  Calatrava 
Theatins     . 
Servites      .     . 
Misioneros 
Agonizantes    . 
Hermits  of  St.  Paul 
San  Juan   . 
Premonstratensians 
Ex-Jesuits  . 
Carthusians 
St.  Ursula 
San  Diego  . 
Not  specified  . 


16 
16 
5 
5 
4 
3 
3 
3 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
1 
1 
1 
38 


The  comparatively  small  number  of  Jesuits,  who  devoted  themselves  so  greatly 
to  the  confessional,  is  partly  explicable  by  the  expulsion  of  the  Society  in  1767. 
'  Puigblanch,  La  Inquisicion  sin  Mascara,  pp.  422-5  (Cidiz,  1811). 


Chap.  VI]  STATISTICS  137 

either  more  or  less  prevalent,  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
than  it  had  been  ever  since,  in  the  thirteenth,  auricular  confession 
was  made  obligatory,  or  than  it  has  been  since  the  nineteenth 
century  opened.  The  strain  of  the  confessional  is  too  great  for 
average  human  nature,  and  the  most  that  the  Church  can  do,  in 
its  most  recent  regulations,  is  to  keep  these  lapses  of  the  flesh 
from  the  knowledge  of  the  faithful.^ 


'  Instruct.  S.  Inquis.  Roman.  20  Feb.  1867  (Collect.  Concil.  Lacens.  Ill,  353).- 
Berardi,  oj).  cit. 


CHAPTER   VIL 

PROPOSITIONS. 

Although  the  Spanish  Inquisition  was  founded  for  the  sup- 
pression of  crypto-Judaism,  it  promptly  vindicated  its  jurisdiction 
over  all  aberrations  from  the  faith.  There  were,  at  the  time,  no 
other  formal  heresies  in  Spain,  but  the  people  at  large  were  not 
universally  versed  in  all  the  niceties  of  theology,  and  the  supine- 
ness  of  the  spiritual  courts  permitted  a  licence  of  speech  in  which 
the  trained  theologian  could  discern  potentialities  of  error.  All 
this  the  Inquisition  undertook  to  correct  and  ultimately,  under 
the  general  denomination  of  "Propositions,"  there  developed  an 
extensive  field  of  action,  which  towards  the  end  became  the  prin- 
cipal function  of  the  institution.  Reckless  or  thoughtless  expres- 
sions, uttered  in  anger  or  in  jest,  or  through  ignorance  or  careless- 
ness, gave  to  pious  zeal  or  to  malice  the  opportunity  of  secret 
denunciation,  which  in  time  impressed  upon  every  Spaniard  the 
necessity  of  caution,  and  left  its  mark  upon  the  national  character. 
As  we  have  seen,  the  closest  family  ties  did  not  release  from  the 
obligation  of  accusation,  and  every  individual  lived  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  suspicion,  surrounded  by  possible  spies  of  his  own  house- 
hold.' Men  of  the  highest  standing  for  learning  or  piety,  moreover, 
were  exposed  to  the  torture  of  prolonged  prosecution  and  possible 
ruin,  for  words  spoken  or  written  to  which  an  heretical  intent  could 
be  ascribed,  in  relation  to  the  obscurest  points  of  theology,  and  thus 
the  development  of  the  Spanish  intellect  was  arrested  at  the  time 
when  it  promised  to  become  dominant  in  Europe.  From  every 
point  of  view,  therefore,  the  miscellaneous  offences,  grouped  under 


'  A  priest,  who  could  speak  from  experience,  concisely  described,  in  1820,  the 
conditions  produced  by  the  system  "  En  donde  la  doctrina  infernal  de  la  delacion 
tenia  en  una  habitual  constemacion  &  las  familias  y  d,  los  individuos  que  se  corre- 
spondian  con  la  mutua  desconfianza  que  inspiraba  el  continuo  recelo  de  encon- 
trar  en  amigo,  en  el  padre,  en  el  hijo,  en  la  esposa,  un  verdugo  que  armado  con 
el  punal  del  fanatismo  reUgioso  contribuyese  i,  los  asesinatos  naturales  que 
solo  Dios  conosce  y  a  los  civiles  que  no  son  tan  desconocidos." — P.  Antonio 
Bemabeu,  Espana  venturosa,  p.  xvi  (Madrid,  1820). 
(138) 


Chap.  VII]  DELATION  HABITUAL  139 

the  general  term  of  Propositions,  was  by  no  means  the  least  note- 
worthy subject  of  inquisitorial  activity/ 

How  soon  began  the  espionage,  which  eventually  brought  every 
man  under  its  baneful  influence,  is  seen  in  the  case  of  Juan  de 
Zamora,  condemned  in  the  Saragossa  auto  of  February  10,  1488, 
to  perpetual  prison,  because  at  Medina,  in  chatting  with  some 
casual  aquaintances,  he  was  said  to  have  spoken  disrespectfully 
of  the  Eucharist  and  to  have  denied  the  real  presence,  while,  in 
the  auto  of  May  10, 1489,  Juan  de  Enbun,  a  notary,  was  penanced 
for  saying  that  he  cared  more  for  ten  florins  than  for  God.^  Even 
more  significant  of  the  danger  overhanging  every  man  was  the 
case  of  Diego  de  Uceda,  before  the  Toledo  tribunal,  in  1494,  on 
the  very  serious  charges  of  having  said  that  the  Eucharist  was 
only  bread,  that  so  villanous  a  crew  as  the  Jews  could  not  have 
put  Christ  to  death,  and  that  he  ate  meat  on  fast-days.  He 
explained  that,  some  six  or  eight  years  before,  at  Fuensalida,  a 
priest  in  celebrating  found  the  wafer  broken  and  angrily  cast  it 
on  the  floor,  ordering  the  sacristan  to  bring  him  another;  the  people 
were  scandalized  and  Diego  sought  to  quiet  them  by  explaining 
that  the  wafer  before  consecration  was  only  bread.     The  next 

'  Theologians  had  a  storehouse  of  epithets  with  which  to  characterize  the  various 
classes  of  propositions.  A  few  of  the  more  usual,  with  their  significance,  are 
given  by  Alberghini  (Man.  Quahficator.  cap.  xii,  n.  1-18)  as  follows: — 

Heretical — one  which  is  contrary  to  CathoHo  truth. 

Erroneous — that  which  does  not  directly  contradict  the  faith,  but  some  con- 
clusion evidently  deducible  from  the  faith. 

Savoring  of  heresy — not  contradicting  the  faith  by  evident  consequence,  but 
by  very  probable  and  morally  certain  consequence. 

Ill-sounding — that  which  has  a  double  sense,  one  Catholic  and  the  other 
heretic,  but  usually  accepted  in  the  latter. 

Bash — that  which  is  not  governed  by  reason  and  lacks  all  authority. 

Scandalous  or  offensive  to  pious  ears — that  which  gives  occasion  to  another 
to  err,  such  as  "  heretics  are  to  be  tolerated  and  not  to  be  slain." 

Schismatic  or  seditimts — tending  to  disrupt  the  unity  of  the  Church. 

Impious — contrary  to  CathoUc  piety. 

Insulting — defamatory   of   some   Christian   profession   or  illustrious  person. 

Blasphemous — insulting  to  God. 

Simancas  (Enchirid.,  Tit.  xxiv)  gives  a  similar  list.  Dandino  (De  Suspectis 
de  Hseresi,  pp.  477-512)  a  more  elaborate  exposition.  There  was  no  limit, 
however,  to  the  vituperative  vocabulary  of  the  Church.  A  choice  collection 
of  additional  ones  will  be  found  in  the  bull  Auctorem  fidei  of  Pius  VI  (1794), 
condemning  the  Jansenist  Council  of  Pistoja. 

2  MS.  Memoria  de  diversos  Autos,  Auto  27,  n.  10;  Auto  37,  n.  5  (See  Appendix 
to  Vol.  I). 


140  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

charge  arose  from  a  remark  in  a  discussion  on  an  exuberant 
sermon  on  the  Passion.  As  for  the  third,  he  proved  that  he  was 
a  devout  CathoUc,  punctual  in  all  observance,  with  a  special 
devotion  to  St.  Gregory,  to  whose  intercession  he  attributed  his 
relief  from  a  chronic  trouble  of  stomach  and  liver,  that  had  forced 
him  at  one  time  to  eat  meat  on  fast-days.  He  lay  in  the  secret 
prison  for  six  months,  with  sequestration  of  property,  and  was 
finally  sentenced  to  compurgation,  which  he  performed  with  the 
Count  of  Fuensalida  and  two  priests  as  his  compurgators,  but  had 
he  not  been  a  man  of  standing  and  influence  he  might  have  been 
burnt  as  an  impenitent  heretic.^  There  was  no  prescription  of 
time  for  heresy,  and  trivial  matters  occurring  years  before  might 
thus  at  any  moment  be  brought  up,  when  they  had  faded  from 
the  memory  of  all  but  those  who  had  a  grudge  to  satisfy. 

The  ever-present  danger  impending  over  every  man  is  well 
illustrated  by  the  case  of  Alvaro  de  Montalvan,  a  septuagenarian, 
in  1525.  Returning  to  Madrid,  after  a  day's  pleasure  excursion 
in  the  country,  Alonso  Ruiz,  a  priest,  who  was  of  the  party,  took 
occasion  to  moralize  on  the  troubles  of  life,  in  comparison  with 
the  prospects  of  future  bliss.  Alvaro  (who  subsequently  pleaded 
that  he  was  in  his  cups)  remarked  that  we  know  what  we  have 
here  but  know  nothing  of  the  future.  Some  six  months  later,  one 
of  the  party,  in  his  Easter  confession,  chanced  to  mention  this, 
and  was  instructed  to  denounce  Alvaro.  He  was  arrested  and, 
on  searching  the  records,  it  was  found  that,  nearly  forty  years 
before,  in  1486,  during  a  term  of  grace,  he  had  confessed  to  some 
Jewish  observances  without  intention,  and  was  discharged  with- 
out reconciliation  or  penance.  On  this  new  charge  he  was  made 
to  confess  intention  and  was  sentenced,  October  18,  1525,  to 
reconciliation,  confiscation  and  perpetual  prison,  the  latter  being 
commuted,  November  27,  1527,  to  confinement  in  his  own  house.^ 

There  was  scarce  anything,  however  innocently  spoken,  that 
might  not  be  tortured  into  a  censurable  sense  and  as,  in  so  wide 
and  vague  a  region,  no  formal  rules  could  be  enunciated  to  re- 
strain inquisitorial  zeal,  it  afforded  ample  opportunity  for  oppres- 
sion and  cruelty,  especially  before  the  tribunals  were  thoroughly 
subordinated  to  the  Suprema.    The  occasional  visitations  by  an 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  112,  n.  73. 

^  B.  Manuel  Serrano  y  Sanz  (Revista  de  Archivos,  Abril,  1902,  pp.  260-80). 
This  Alvaro  de  Montalvan  was  father-in-law  of  Francisco  de  Rojas,  author  of 
La  Celestina,  who  was  also  a  Converso. 


Chap.  VII]  TRIVIALITIES  141 

inspector  might  reveal  abuses  but  could  not  prevent  them.  That 
of  de  Soto  Salazar  at  Barcelona  affords  ample  evidence  of  the 
recklessness  with  which  inquisitors  exercised  their  power.  In 
1564  we  hear  of  a  physician,  Maestre  Pla,  prosecuted  for  saying 
that  his  wife  was  so  exhausted  that  she  looked  like  a  crucifix 
dead  with  hunger.  Juan  Garaver,  a  swineherd,  was  forced  to 
appear  in  an  auto  with  a  mitre,  followed  by  scourging,  for  saying 
that  if  he  had  money  and  enough  to  eat,  the  devil  might  take  his 
soul — which  the  Suprema  decided  to  belong  to  episcopal  and  not 
to  inquisitorial  cognizance.  It  rebuked  the  tribunal  sharply  for 
relaxing  Guillen  Berberia  Guacho  for  a  single  proposition,  without 
calling  in  learned  men  to  persuade  and  advise  him,  especially 
as  one  of  the  witnesses  stated  that  he  uttered  the  words  in  French. 
Clemensa  Paresa  was  fined  ten  ducats  and  penanced  for  saying 
"You  see  me  well  enough  off  in  this  world  and  you  will  not  see 
me  punished  in  the  other,"  and  Juana  Seralvis,  for  the  same 
utterance  was  condemned  to  public  penance.  Badia,  priest  of 
Falset,  was  fined  twenty  ducats,  with  spiritual  penances,  for  saying 
that  he  would  not  forgive  God.  Juan  Canalvero  was  fined  six 
ducats  and  penanced  for  saying  that  he  would  cheat  his  father 
or  God  in  buying  or  selling.  There  were  many  other  similar 
cases,  in  some  of  which  the  Suprema  ordered  the  fines  to  be 
returned  and  the  names  to  be  stricken  from  the  registers.^ 

The  very  triviality  of  these  cases  illustrates  the  atmosphere  of 
suspense  and  distrust  in  which  the  Spanish  population  existed, 
nor  can  their  full  import  be  realized  unless  we  remember  that, 
slight  as  the  penalties  may  seem,  they  were  the  least  part  of  the 
punishment,  for  penancing  by  the  Inquisition  was  fatal  to  Um- 
pieza.  How  readily  a  man's  career  could  thus  be  ruined  by 
rivals  or  enemies  is  seen  in  the  case  of  the  Dominican  Alonso  de 
los  Raelos  in  the  Canaries.  In  1568  some  assertions  of  his  respect- 
ing purgatory  attracted  attention,  but  led  to  no  formal  trial, 
because  he  did  not  deny  its  existence,  and  theologians  are  not 
agreed  as  to  its  exact  locality  and  character.  Some  years  later, 
there  were  feuds  in  the  Order,  due  to  an  attempt  to  erect  the 
Canaries  into  a  separate  province,  when  the  prior.  Bias  de  Merino, 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  9,  20. 

The  utterance  of  Clemenza  Paresa  seems  to  have  been  a  popular  saying.  In 
1572  Rodriguez  Rdiz  was  penanced  for  it  in  the  Canaries. — Ibidem,  Canarias, 
Exptes  de  Visitas,  Leg.  250,  Lib.  3,  fol.  8. 


142  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

who  hoped  to  become  provincial,  and  who  regarded  Fray  Alonso 
as  a  possible  rival,  accused  him  to  the  tribunal  for  this  proposition. 
He  was  thrown  into  prison  and,  in  1572,  was  sentenced  to  penance 
and  reclusion,  thus  rendering  him  ineligible.' 

We  have  seen  in  the  previous  chapter  the  penalties  regarded 
as  sufficient  for  the  crime  of  seduction  in  the  confessional,  and  a 
comparison  between  these  and  the  punishments  inflicted  for  utter- 
ances in  the  heat  of  discussion  and  indicative  of  no  settled  tendency 
to  heresy,  reveal  the  very  curious  standard  of  ethics  prevalent 
at  the  period.  In  1571,  a  priest  named  Miguel  Lidueiia  de  Osorio 
was  accused  in  Valencia  of  having  said  that  the  bishops  at  the 
Council  of  Trent  deserved  to  be  burnt,  because  they  assumed  to 
be  popes,  and  moreover  that  St.  Anne  was  deserving  of  higher 
honor  than  St.  Joaquin.  For  this  he  was  required  to  abjure  de 
vehementi,  he  was  suspended  from  orders,  recluded  for  six  years 
and  banished  perpetually  from  Valencia.^  It  was  not  often  that 
flagrant  cases  of  solicitation  were  visited  with  such  severity. 

The  infinite  varieties  and  intangible  nature  of  the  offence  rendered 
impossible  the  formulation  of  hard  and  fast  rules  for  the  tribunals, 
which  were  thus  left  to  their  discretion  in  a  matter  which  was 
constantly  forming  a  larger  portion  of  inquisitorial  business.  The 
space  devoted  to  it  by  Rojas,  in  his  little  book,  indicates  its  growing 
importance,  and  he  tells  us  that  he  was  led  to  treat  it  thus  at 
length  because  so  many  of  the  accused  admit  the  facts,  while 
denying  belief  and  intention,  and  he  had  seen  such  diametrically 
opposite  modes  of  treatment  and  punishment  adopted  in  different 
tribunals.  He  is  emphatic  in  insisting  on  the  allowance  to  be 
made  for  the  ignorance  and  rusticity  of  most  of  the  culprits,  and 
he  points  out  that,  in  view  of  the  restrictions  on  the  defence,  the 
inquisitor  should  be  especially  careful  to  give  weight  to  whatever 
could  be  alleged  in  favor  of  the  accused,  whether  he  were  ignorant 
and  rude,  or  learned  and  subtle.  The  manner  and  occasion  of  the 
utterance  ought  to  be  carefully  considered,  as  well  as  the  nativity 
of  the  speaker,  if  he  comes  from  lands  where  heresy  flourishes. 
How  much  depended  on  the  temper  of  the  tribunal  is  exhibited 
in  a  case  in  which  a  man,  going  to  hear  mass  and  finding  that  it 
was  over,  said  "faith  alone  suffices"  and  was  prosecuted  for  the 
remark.  Rojas  decided  that  he  was  not  to  be  held  as  asserting 
that  faith  without  works  suffices,  which  would  be  heretical,  for 

1  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Canar:as,  Exptes  de  Visitas,  Lib.  3,  fol.  16-17. 
'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  30. 


Chap.  VII]  BTJLES  OF  PBOCEDUBE  143 

doubtful  words  are  to  be  interpreted  according  to  circumstances, 
but  a  more  zealous  or  less  conscientious  inquisitor  could  readily 
have  convicted  him.  For  ordinary  cases,  he  tells  us,  the  accused 
should  rarely  be  confined  in  the  secret  prison;  the  abjuration  may 
be  de  levi  or  de  vehementi  according  to  circumstances,  and  the 
extraordinary  punishment  should  be  scourging  or  fines/ 

As  the  Suprema  gradually  assumed  control  over  the  tribunals, 
there  grew  up  certain  more  or  less  recognized  rules  of  procedure. 
Thus,  if  there  was  evidence  of  heretical  utterances,  and  the  accused 
confessed  them  but  denied  intention,  he  was  to  be  tortured;  if 
this  brought  confession  of  intention,  he  was  to  be  reconciled  with 
confiscation  in  a  public  auto  as  a  formal  heretic;  if  he  overcame 
the  torture  he  had  to  abjure  de  vehementi  in  an  auto,  with  scourging, 
vergiienza,  exile  etc.,  according  to  his  station  and  the  character  of 
the  propositions.  This,  we  are  told,  was  merciful,  for  the  common 
opinion  of  the  doctors  was  that,  if  the  propositions  were  formally 
heretical,  the  offender  should  be  relaxed,  in  spite  of  his  denying 
intention.  Mercy  was  carried  even  further  for,  if  ignorance  was 
alleged  with  probable  justification,  the  accused  was  not  tortured 
nor  condemned  as  a  heretic,  but  abjured  de  levi,  with  discretional 
penalties.  There  was  moreover,  as  we  have  seen,  a  vast  range 
of  propositions  in  which  heresy  was  only  inferential,  characterized 
as  scandalous,  offensive  to  pious  ears  etc.,  for  which  abjuration 
de  levi  was  considered  sufficient,  with  spiritual  penances.^ 

In  this  enumeration  of  penalties  there  is  no  allusion  to  fines, 
which,  however,  were  by  no  means  neglected.  In  1579,  for  in- 
stance, the  Bachiller  Montesinos,  in  defending  an  adultress,  put  in 
an  argument  of  cynical  ingenuity  to  prove  that  she  had  committed 
no  sin.  This  was  transmitted  to  the  Toledo  tribunal,  whose  cali- 
ficadores  found  in  it  four  heretical  propositions  besides  a  citation 
from  St.  Paul  amounting  to  heretical  blasphemy.  Montesinos 
threw  himself  on  the  mercy  of  the  tribunal,  wept  and  wrung  his 
hands,  protested  that  he  must  have  been  out  of  his  senses,  owing 
to  old  age,  and  offered  every  excuse  that  he  could  suggest.  He 
escaped  with  abjuration  de  levi,  six  months'  suspension  from  his 
functions  as  an  advocate,  and  a  fine  of  eight  thousand  maravedis. 
Many  similar  cases  could  be  cited  from  the  Toledo  record,  but 
two  more  will  suffice.  In  1582,  the  Bachiller  Pablo  Hernandez 
denounced  himself  for  having,  in  the  heat  of  discussion,  been  led  on 

'  Rojas  de  Haeret.  P.  i,  n.  2,  67,  96;  P.  ii,  n.  310-13. 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  299,  fol.  80. 


144  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

to  say  that  in  canonizations  the  pope  had  to  rely  upon  witnesses 
who  might  be  false  and  therefore  it  was  not  necessary  to  believe 
that  all  so  canonized  were  saints.  He  was  sentenced  to  abjure 
de  levi,  to  pay  six  thousand  maravedis,  and  to  have  his  sentence 
read  in  his  parish  church  while  he  heard  mass.  From  this  he 
appealed  to  the  Suprema,  which  remitted  the  humiliation  in  church, 
but  thriftily  increased  the  fine  to  twenty  thousand  maravedis.  In 
1604  the  tribunal  had  a  richer  prize,  in  an  old  German  named 
Giraldo  Paris,  a  resident  of  Madrid  who  seems  to  have  been  a 
dabbler  in  alchemy.  He  was  accused  of  saying  that  the  Old 
Testament  was  a  fable,  that  St.  Job  was  an  alchemist,  the  Christian 
faith  was  a  matter  of  opinion  and  much  more  of  the  same  kind. 
The  evidence  must  have  been  flimsy  for,  serious  as  were  these 
charges,  there  was  discordia  on  the  question  of  arresting  him,  and 
it  required  an  order  from  the  Suprema  before  he  was  confined  in 
the  secret  prison.  He  gradually  confessed  the  truth  of  the  charges, 
but  was  not  sentenced  to  reconciliation,  escaping  with  absolution 
de  vehementi,  a  year's  reclusion  in  a  monastery,  the  surrender  of 
all  books  and  papers  dealing  with  alchemy  and  quintessences,  and 
a  fine  of  three  thousand  ducats.  The  general  impression  produced 
by  a  group  of  these  cases  is  that  scourging  was  reserved  for  those 
too  poor  to  pay  a  moderate  fine,  and  that  fines  were  scaled  rather 
upon  the  ability  of  the  culprit  than  on  the  degree  of  his  guilt.' 
In  determining  penalties,  however,  it  was  advised  that  considerable 
weight  in  extenuation  should  be  allowed  for  drunkenness,  and  for 
the  readiness  and  frankness  of  the  culprit  in  confessing,  as  well 
as  for  his  ignorance  or  simplicity.^ 

There  were  two  special  propositions,  which  were  so  widely  held 
and  came  so  repeatedly  before  the  tribunals  that  they  almost  form 
a  special  class.  One  of  these  was  the  assertion  that  the  married 
state  is  as  good  as  or  better  than  that  of  celibacy  as  prescribed  for 
clerics  and  religious.  That  this  was  plainly  heretical  could  not  be 
doubted  after  the  anathema  of  the  Council  of  Trent  in  1563,  and 
its  prevalence  is  a  noteworthy  fact.^    In  the  Toledo  record,  from 


'  MSS.  of  the  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. 

2  Elucidationes  S.  Officii,  §  36  (Archivo  de  Alcald,  Hacienda,  Leg.  544',  Uh.  4). 

'  C.  Trident  Sess.  xxiv,  De  Statu  Matrimonii,  can.  10. — "  Si  quis  dixerit  statum 
conjugalem  anteponendum  esse  statui  virginitatis  vel  coelibatus  et  non  esse 
melius  ac  beatius  manere  in  virginitate  aut  ccelibatu  quam  jungi  matrimonio: 
anathema  sit." 


Chap.  VII]       MARRIAGE  BETTER  THAN  CELIBACY  146 

1575  to  1610,  there  are  thirty  cases  of  this:  in  strictness,  as  the 
assertion  of  a  doctrine  contrary  to  the  teachings  of  the  Church, 
and  condemned  as  heretical,  it  should  have  been  visited  with 
reconciliation,  or  at  least  with  abjuration  de  vehementi  and  heavy 
penalties,  but,  as  the  heresy  was  one  of  Tridentine  definition  and 
a  novelty,  it  was  mercifully  treated  with  abjuration  de  levi  and 
usually  with  a  moderate  fine  or  vergiienza,  or  even  with  less. 
Extreme  leniency  was  shown  to  Sebastian  Vallejo,  in  1581,  who 
had  declared  that  if  he  had  a  hundred  daughters  he  would  not 
make  nuns  of  them,  in  view  of  the  licentiousness  of  the  frailes,  for 
those  in  the  convents  were  as  lecherous  as  those  outside ;  no  parent 
should  put  his  children  in  religion  until  they  were  of  full  age  and, 
as  to  marriage,  he  advanced  the  customary  argument  that  it  was 
established  by  God,  while  monachism  was  the  work  of  the  saints. 
He  came  to  denounce  himself  and  pleaded  drunkenness  in  extenua- 
tion, which  probably  explains  his  escape  with  a  reprimand.  Soon 
after  this  Maria  de  Orduiia  was  treated  with  equal  mercy,  on 
denouncing  herself  for  the  same  offence,  the  reason  alleged  being 
that  she  was  a  very  simple-minded  woman.^  As  the  offence  was 
thus  Hghtly  regarded,  it  follows  that  torture  was  not  permitted 
in  the  prosecution.^  The  error  was  difficult  of  eradication.  In 
1623  a  writer  calls  attention  to  the  number  of  cases  still  coming 
before  the  tribunals,  and  suggests  for  its  repression  that  the  sen- 
tences be  read  in  the  churches  of  the  offenders,  so  that  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  erroneous  character  of  the  assertion  should  be  dissemi- 
nated.' Some  twenty  years  later  it  still  was  sufficiently  frequent 
to  be  treated  as  a  separate  class,  though  we  are  told  that  it  was 
visited  with  less  severity  than  of  old,  as  it  presumably  arose  from 
ignorance  and  was  not  to  be  considered  as  a  heresy.'  This  is 
remarkable  in  view  of  the  ease  with  which  it  might  have  been 
regarded  as  Lutheran. 

A  still  more  frequent  proposition,  which  gave  much  trouble  to 
eradicate,  was  that  fornication  between  unmarried  folk  is  not  a 
mortal  sin.  Although  the  theologians  held  that  this  assertion  in 
itself  was  a  mortal  sin,^  there  was  really  in  it  nothing  that  savored 
of  heresy,  and  its  cognizance  by  the  Inquisition  was  an  arbitrary 

'  MSS.  of  liibrary  of  Univ.  of  Halle, Yc,  20,  T.  I. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  299,  fol.  80. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  926,  fol.  25. 

*  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  2. 

*  S.  Antonini  Confessionale. 

VOL.   IV  10 


146  PBOPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

extension  of  jurisdiction  without  justification.  Perhaps  there  was 
some  confused  conception  that  it  was  derived  from  the  Moors 
whose  sexual  laxity  was  well  known,  but  the  usual  argument  offered 
in  its  defence,  by  those  who  entertained  it,  was  the  toleration  by 
the  State  of  public  women  and  of  brothels,  whence  the  inference 
was  natural  that  it  could  not  be  a  mortal  sin. 

It  seems  to  have  been  between  1550  and  1560  that  the  Inquisition 
commenced  its  efforts  to  suppress  this  popular  error.  The  earliest 
record  of  its  action  that  I  have  met  occurs  in  the  great  Seville  auto 
of  September  24, 1559,  where  there  were  no  less  than  twelve  cases, 
of  whom  eight  abjured  de  levi,  one  de  vehementi,  six  were  paraded 
in  vergiienza,  four  were  scourged  with  a  hundred  lashes  (of  whom 
one  was  a  woman)  and  two  heard  mass  as  penitents.'  The  re- 
quirement of  abjuration  shows  that  suspicion  of  heresy  was  already 
attributed  to  the  proposition,  but  this  as  yet  was  not  universally 
accepted  for,  in  1561,  the  Suprema  wrote  to  the  tribunal  of  Cala- 
horra  that  Pedro  Cestero,  whom  it  had  penanced  for  this  offence, 
ought  to  have  been  prosecuted  as  a  heretic,  for  it  would  seem  to  be 
heresy.^  Thus  heresy  was  injected  into  it  and  we  speedily  find 
it  to  be  a  leading  source  of  business  in  the  Castihan  tribunals. 
Seville  was  notably  active.  In  the  auto  of  October  28,  1562,  there 
were  nineteen  cases.'  In  that  of  May  13,  1565,  out  of  seventy- 
five  penitents,  twenty-five  were  for  this  proposition.  The  punish- 
ments were  severe.  All  abjured  de  levi  and  appeared  in  their 
shirts  with  halter  and  candle;  all  but  one  were  gagged;  fourteen 
were  scourged  with  an  aggregate  of  nineteen  hundred  lashes; 
five  were  paraded  in  vergiienza,  two  were  fined  in  two  hundred 
ducats  apiece,  and  two  others  in  a  thousand  maravedfs  each; 
six  were  exiled  and  one  was  forbidden  to  leave  Seville  without 
permission.  Besides  these  there  was  one  man  who  had  a  hundred 
lashes  for  saying  that  there  was  no  sin  in  keeping  a  mistress, 
and  three  women  were  penanced  for  saying  the  same  of  living  in 
concubinage,  of  whom  two  had  a  hundred  lashes  apiece  and  the 
third  was  paraded  in  vergiienza.  Two  men  appeared  for  saying 
that  keeping  a  mistress  was  better  than  marriage,  of  whom  one 
had  the  infliction  of  the  gag.  To  these  we  may  add  two  who  held 
that  marriage  was  better  than  the  celibacy  of  the  frailes,  and  we 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Hacienda,  Leg.  25,  fol.  3. 
'  Ibidem,  Inq.,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  264. 
'  Schafer,  Beitrage,  II,  324. 


Chap.  VII]  FORNICATION  NOT  SINFUL  147 

have  a  total  of  thirty-three  cases,  or  nearly  one-half  of  all  in  the 
auto,  for  errors  concerning  the  relations  of  the  sexes.' 

Active  as  was  this  work  it  did  not  satisfy  the  Suprema  which, 
in  a  carta  acordada  of  November  23, 1573,  speaks  of  the  prevalence 
of  the  offence  as  indicated  in  the  reports  of  autos,  and  the  little 
progress  thus  far  made  in  its  suppression ;  greater  vigor  was  there- 
fore ordered  and,  in  future,  all  delinquents  were  to  be  prosecuted  as 
heretics.  This  was  followed  by  another,  October  2, 1574,  ordering 
the  proposition  to  be  included  in  the  Edict  of  Faith,  and  yet  another 
December  2d,  of  the  same  year,  repeating  the  complaint  of  its 
frequency  and  the  little  improvement  accomplished.  It  was 
apparently  an  error  of  ignorance  and,  to  remedy  this,  a  special 
edict  was  ordered  to  be  published  everywhere,  declaring  it  to  be 
a  heresy  condemned  by  the  Church,  and  that  all  uttering  and 
believing  it  would  be  punished  as  heretics;  all  preachers  moreover 
were  to  be  instructed  to  warn  and  admonish  the  people  from  the 
pulpits.^ 

All  this  was  wholesome,  and  yet  it  is  difficult  to  understand 
this  ardent  zeal  for  the  morals  of  the  laity,  when  compared  with 
the  slackness  as  to  solicitation.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  activity  of 
the  tribunals  under  this  stimulus  was  rewarded  with  an  abundant 
harvest  of  culprits.  We  chance  to  hear  of  eight  cases  in  the  auto 
of  1579  at  Llerena  and  of  five  at  Cuenca  in  1585.'  A  more  effec- 
tive showing  is  that  of  the  Toledo  record  from  1575  to  1610,  in 
which  the  number  of  cases  is  two  hundred  and  sixty-four— by  far 
the  largest  aggregate  of  any  one  offence,  the  Judaizers  only  amount- 
ing to  a  hundred  and  seventy-four  and  the  Moriscos  to  a  hundred 
and  ninety.'  These  statistics  comprehend  only  the  tribunals  of 
the  crown  of  Castile;  those  at  hand  for  the  kingdoms  of  Aragon 
are  scanty  but,  from  such  as  are  accessible,  it  would  appear  prob- 
able either  that  there  was  less  energy  or  a  much  smaller  number 
of  culprits.  The  only  cases  that  I  have  happened  to  meet  are  two 
in  a  Saragossa  auto  of  June  6,  1585,  while,  in  a  Valencia  list  for 
the  five  years  1598-1602,  comprising  in  all  three  hundred  and 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  787. 

'  Ibidem,  Lib.  82,  fol.  228;  Lib.  939,  fol.  108;  Lib.  942,  fol.  38.— MSS.  of  Royal 
Library  of  Copenhagen,  218b,  p.  168. 

'  Bibl.  nacionaJ,  MSS.,  S,  121,  fol.  54. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  1157, 
fol.  155. 

*  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  HaUe,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. 


148  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

ninety-two  cases,  there  are  but  four  of  this  offence  and  not  a  single 
one  in  the  reports  for  the  three  years  1604-6.^ 

Notwithstanding  the  characterization  of  the  offence  as  heresy, 
torture  was  not  to  be  employed  in  the  trial,  although  confinement 
in  the  secret  prison  and  sequestration  were  permitted.^  The  energy 
and  severity  with  which  it  was  prosecuted  virtually  suppressed 
it  in  time.  In  1623  a  writer  speaks  of  it  as  less  common  than 
formerly  and,  in  a  list  of  the  cases  tried  at  Toledo,  commencing 
in  1648,  the  first  one  of  this  offence  occurs  in  1650,  the  next  in 
1665  and  the  third  in  1693.  Thenceforth  it  may  be  said  practi- 
cally to  disappear  from  the  tribunals,  although  as  late  as  1792, 
Don  Ambrosio  P^rez,  beneficed  priest  of  Candamas  was  tried 
for  it  in  Saragossa  and  in  1818  there  was  a  case  in  Valencia.' 
Thus  the  Inquisition  succeeded  in  suppressing  the  expression  of 
the  opinion  though,  as  it  took  no  action  against  the  sin,  its  influ- 
ence on  the  side  of  morality  was  inappreciable. 

A  reference  to  the  cases  of  propositions  tried  by  the  Toledo 
tribunal  between  1575  and  1610  (see  Vol.  II,  p.  552)  will  indicate 
the  very  miscellaneous  character  of  the  utterances  for  which  its 
interposition  was  invoked.  These  involved  culprits  of  all  classes 
of  society  and  as,  for  the  most  part,  they  concerned  theological 
questions  of  more  or  less  obscurity,  this  method  of  enforcing 
purity  of  faith  frequently  brought  under  animadversion  the  fore- 
most intellects  of  Spain  and  rendered  the  Inquisition  the  instru- 
ment through  which  rivals  or  enemies  could  mar  the  careers  of 
those  in  whom  lay  the  only  hope  of  intellectual  progress  and 
development.  What  between  its  censorship  and  the  minute 
supervision,  which  exposed  to  prosecution  every  thought  or 
expression  in  which  theological  malevolence  could  detect  lurking 
tendencies  to  error,  the  Spanish  thinker  found  his  path  beset  with 
danger.  Safety  lay  only  in  the  well-beaten  track  of  accepted 
conventionality  and,  while  Europe,  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries,  was  passing  through  a  period  of  evolution, 
Spanish  intellect  became  atrophied.     The  splendid  promise  of  the 


'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  PV,  3,  n.  20. — Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia, 
Leg.  99;  Leg.  2,  n.  10. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  939,  fol.  342;  Leg.  552,  fol.  1.— MSS.  of  Royal 
Library  of  Copenhagen,  21Sb,  p.  260. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  926,  fol.  25;  Lib.  1002. — Archivo  hist,  nacional, 
Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. — MS.  penes  me. 


Chap.  VII]  INTELLECTUAL  BEPRESSION  ,  149 

sixteenth  century  was  blasted  by  the  steady  repression  of  all 
originality  and  progress,  and  Spain,  from  the  foremost  of  the 
nations,  became  the  last. 

The  minuteness  of  the  captious  criticism  which  exposed  the 
most  eminent  men  to  the  horrors  of  inquisitorial  prosecution  can 
best  be  understood  by  two  or  three  cases.  Of  these  perhaps  the 
most  notable  is  that  of  the  Augustinian  Fray  Luis  de  Leon,  who 
was  not  only  one  of  the  most  eminent  theologians  of  his  day,  and 
who  was  unsurpassed  as  a  preacher,  but  who  ranks  as  a  Castilian 
classic  in  both  prose  and  poetry.'  It  is  so  suggestive  of  inquisi- 
torial procedure  in  such  matters  that  it  is  worthy  of  examination 
in  some  detail. 

To  a  brilliant  mtellect  Luis  de  Leon  united  a  personal  activity 
which  led  him  to  take  a  prominent  part  in  the  feverish  life  of  the 
schools,  not  only  in  disputations  but  in  the  frequent  rivalries  and 
competitions,  through  which  professorial  vacancies  were  filled,  for 
in  Salamanca  the  professors  were  elected  for  terms  of  four  years 
by  the  students  of  the  faculty  to  which  the  chair  belonged,  after 
a  disputation  between  the  candidates.  In  these  he  had  abundant 
opportunities  of  making  enemies  for,  at  the  age  of  34,  he  had  been 
elected  to  the  chair  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  from  which  he  passed 
to  that  of  Durandus.  These  opportunities  he  largely  improved, 
if  we  may  trust  his  characterizations  of  the  numerous  opponents 


'  Hurter,  Nomenclator  Theologis  Catholicse,  I,  158. — Nic.  Antonii  Bibl  nova, 
s.v.  Lvdovicus  de  Leon. — Greg.  Mayans  y  Siscar,  Vida  del  M.  Luis  de  Leon,  u. 
37.— Ticknor,  History  of  Spanish  Literature,  II,  87,  89  (Ed  1864). 

There  is  considerable  literature  on  the  subject  of  Fray  Luis's  troubles  with 
the  Inquisition.  The  records  of  his  first  trial,  omitting  superfluities,  occupy 
925  pages  in  Vols.  X  and  XI  of  the  Coleccion  de  Documenios  ineditos.  His  second 
trial  has  more  recently  seen  the  light,  with  an  introduction  by  Padre  Francisco 
Blanco  Garcia,  Madrid,  1896.  Fray  Luis  de  Leon.  Fine  Biographie  aus  der 
Geschichte  der  spanischen  Inquisition  u.  Kirche  (Halle,  1866)  by  Dr.  C.  A.  Wilkens 
is  an  eloquent  and  sympathetic  account  of  his  career,  while  Dr.  Fr.  Heinrich 
Reusch's  Luis  de  Leon  u.  der  spanische  Inquisition  (Bonn,  1873)  is  a  scholarly 
investigation  of  the  case,  in  so  far  as  documents  accessible  at  the  time  would 
permit.  The  Lie.  Arango  y  Escandon  has  contributed  the  Proceso  del  P.  M.  Luis 
de  Leon  (Mexico,  1856,  revised  and  enlarged  in  1866),  in  which  he  justifies  both 
the  Inquisition  and  the  sufferer.  The  latest  contribution  to  the  subject,  based 
on  additional  documents,  is  by  the  Dominican  Fray  Luis  G.  Alonso  Getino,  in 
the  Revista  de  Archives  (1903-4)  in  justification  of  the  Inquisition.  Padre 
Blanco  has  also  written  an  Estudio  biogrdfico-critico  de  Fr.  Luis  de  Leon,  which 
I  have  not  had  an  opportunity  of  consulting.  The  old  rivalry  between  Domini- 
cans and  Augustinians  seems  to  be  still  alive. 


150  FBOPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

whom  he  sought  to  disable  as  witnesses  in  the  course  of  his  trial. 
Even  in  his  own  Order  he  had  enemies,  owing  to  his  active  and 
influential  participation  in  its  internal  politics. 

Theological  disputes  are  rarely  wanting  in  rancor,  no  matter 
how  minute  may  be  the  points  at  issue.  In  Salamanca,  not  only 
were  there  frequent  disputations  but,  as  the  leading  school  of 
theology,  questions  were  frequently  submitted  to  it  by  the  Suprema 
on  which  conferences  and  congregations  were  held,  leading  to 
interminable  wrangles.  Azpilcueta  tells  us  that  this  disputaiious 
mania  led  the  participants  to  uphold  what  was  false,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  exhibiting  their  dexterity,  not  only  misleading  their  audi- 
tors but  often  blinding  themselves  to  the  truth,  and  Luis  de  Leon 
himself  says  that  the  warmth  of  debate  sometimes  carried  them 
beyond  the  bounds  of  reason,  and  so  confused  them  that  they 
could  scarce  recall  what  they  themselves  had  said.  One  of  his 
witnesses.  Fray  Juan  de  Guevara,  corroborates  this  with  the  re- 
mark that  Maestro  Leon  de  Castro  (Luis  de  Leon's  chief  accuser) 
sometimes  might  not  understand  what  was  said,  but  this  hap- 
pened to  all  theologians  when  heated  in  the  disputations.' 

A  fairer  field  for  inquisitorial  intervention  could  scarce  be  devised 
and,  from  one  point  of  view,  its  restraint  of  this  dialectic  ardor 
might  not  be  amiss,  but  its  influence  on  intellectual  development 
was  deplorable,  when  it  made  every  man  feel  that  he  stood  on 
the  brink  of  an  abyss  into  which,  at  any  moment,  he  might  be 
precipitated.  Nor  was  such  dread  uncalled  for;  while  Luis  de 
Leon  was  on  trial,  three  other  Salamanca  professors  were  in  the 
same  predicament — Antonio  Gudiel,  Gaspar  de  Grajal  and  Martin 
Martinez,  while  yet  another.  Dr.  Barrientos,  was  released  just 
prior  to  the  arrest  of  Luis.  Denunciation  was  an  easy  recourse 
for  a  defeated  disputant ;  an  incautious  utterance  in  heated  debate, 
imperfectly  understood,  or  distorted  in  remembrance,  furnished 
the  means.  Even  lectures  in  the  ordinary  courses  contributed 
their  share,  when  zealous  students  disagreed  with  their  teachers 
or  made  mistakes  in  their  hasty  notes. 

The  two  prime  movers  in  the  prosecution  of  Fray  Luis  were 
Leon  de  Castro  and  Bartolom^  de  Medina.  De  Castro  was  an 
elderly  man,  a  juhilado  professor  of  Grammar,  who  had  frequent 
wordy  encounters  with  Fray  Luis,  usually  to  his  discomfiture. 


'  Azpilcueta  Comment.  Cap.  Si  quis  auiem,  n.  ii-AI. — Coleccion  de  Docu- 
mentos,  X,   193;  XI,  276. 


Chap.  VII]  LUIS  DE  LEON  151 

He  had  based  great  hopes  on  a  Commentary  on  Isaiah,  the  publi- 
cation of  which  was  delayed  by  the  Suprema  requiring  him  to 
submit  it  to  examination;  he  had  to  spend  some  months  at  the 
court  before  he  could  obtain  permission  for  its  sale,  and  then  it 
proved  a  failure,  entailing  on  him  a  loss  of  a  thousand  ducats — 
all  of  which  he  attributed  to  Fray  Luis,  who  happened  at  the  time 
to  be  in  Madrid.  Bartolom6  de  Medina  was  a  younger  man, 
ambitiously  working  his  way  upward,  and  meeting  several  rebuffs 
from  Fray  Luis,  which  accentuated  the  traditional  hostility  between 
the  Dominicans  and  Augustinians,  to  which  they  respectively 
belonged.  They  were  habitually  opposed  in  the  disputations,  but 
it  seems  somewhat  eccentric  to  find  Medina  accusing  Luis  and  his 
friends  Grajal  and  Martinez  of  introducing  novelties  and  innova- 
tions, seeing  that  his  own  reputation  is  chiefly  based  on  his  inven- 
tion of  the  greatest  novelty  of  the  period — the  Probabilism  which 
revolutionized  the  ethical  teaching  of  the  Church  and  gave  rise  to 
the  new  science  of  Moral  Theology.^ 

It  was  not  difficult  for  these  enmities  to  find  means  of  gratifi- 
cation. Robert  Stephen's  edition  of  the  Latin  Bible,  with  the 
notes  of  Frangois  Vatable,  had  involved  that  printer  in  endless 
disputes  with  the  Sorbonne,  which  accused  him  of  having  hereti- 
cated  the  comments  of  the  thoroughly  orthodox  editor.  In  1555, 
the  University  of  Salamanca  undertook  its  correction,  but  the 
result  did  not  satisfy  the  sensitiveness  of  Spanish  theology,  and 
the  edition  was  forbidden  in  the  Index  of  1559.  Yet  the  work 
was  wanted  in  Spain  and,  at  command  of  the  Suprema,  in  1569, 
the  university  undertook  the  task  anew.  Numerous  congregations 
were  held,  in  which  every  point  was  hotly  disputed.  Medina, 
who  had  not  yet  attained  his  master's  degree,  took  no  part  in  the 
meetings,  but  Leon  de  Castro  and  Fray  Luis  had  many  passages 
at  arms.  De  Castro  accused  him  of  scant  respect  for  the  Vulgate 
text  of  the  Bible,  and  of  preferring  the  authority  of  the  Hebrew 
and  Greek  originals.  He  stigmatized  Luis,  who  was  of  converso 
descent,  of  being  a  Jew  and  a  Judaizer  and,  on  one  occasion, 
declared  that  he  ought  to  be  burnt.  In  truth  the  question  of  the 
Vulgate  was  one  of  importance.  The  new  heresies  were  largely 
based  on  the  assumption  of  its  imperfection,  and  sought  to  prove 
this  by  reference  to  the  originals.  Scholastic  theology  rested  on 
the  Vulgate  and,  in  self-defence,  the  Council  of  Trent,  in  1546, 


>  Coleccion,  X,  261;  XI,  256,  259. 


152  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

had  declared  that  it  was  to  be  received  as  authentic  in  all  public 
lectures,  disputations,  preaching  and  expositions,  and  that  no 
one  should  dare  to  reject  it  under  any  pretext.^  Yet  it  was  notori- 
ous that,  in  the  course  of  ages,  the  text  had  become  corrupt;  the 
Tridentine  fathers  included  in  their  decree  a  demand  for  a  perfected 
edition,  but  the  labor  was  great  and  was  not  concluded  until 
1592,  when  the  Clementine  text  was  issued,  with  thousands  of 
emendations.  Meanwhile  to  question  its  accuracy  was  to  venture 
on  dangerous  ground  and  to  invite  the  interposition  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion. As  one  of  the  calificadores,  during  Fray  Luis's  trial,  asserted 
"Catholic  doctors  affirm  that  now  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  are 
to  be  emended  by  the  Vulgate,  as  the  purer  and  more  truthful 
text.  To  emend  the  Vulgate  by  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  is  exactly 
what  the  heretics  seek  to  do.  It  is  to  destroy  the  means  of  confu- 
ting them  and  to  give  them  the  opportunity  of  free  interpretation."^ 
Fray  Luis  not  only  did  this  in  debate  but,  in  a  lecture  on  the 
subject  four  years  before,  he  had  maintained  the  accuracy  of  the 
Hebrew  text,  contending  that  St.  Jerome  the  translator  was  not 
inspired,  nor  were  the  words  dictated  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
moreover  that  the  Tridentine  decree  in  no  way  affirmed  such 
verbal  inspiration.' 

On  another  point  he  was  also  vulnerable.  Ten  or  eleven  years 
previously,  at  the  request  of  Dona  Isabel  de  Osorio,  a  nun  in  the 
convent  of  Santo  Spirito,  he  had  made  a  Castilian  version  of  the 
Song  of  Solomon,  with  an  exposition.  This  he  had  reclaimed 
from  her  but,  during  an  absence.  Fray  Diego  de  Leon,  who  was 
in  charge  of  his  cell,  found  it  and  made  a  copy,  which  was  largely 
transcribed  and  circulated.  At  a  time  when  vernacular  versions 
were  so  rigidly  proscribed  this  was,  at  the  least,  a  hazardous  pro- 
ceeding and  Bartolom^  de  Medina  heightened  the  indiscretion 
by  charging  that,  in  his  exposition,  he  represented  the  work  as  an 
amatory  dialogue  between  the  daughter  of  Pharaoh  and  Solomon. 

In  December  1571,  de  Castro  and  Medina  presented  formal 
denunciations  of  Fray  Luis,  Grajal  and  Martinez,  to  the  Salamanca 
commissioner  of  the  Valladolid  tribunal,  charging  them  with 
denying  the  authority  of  the  Vulgate  and  preferring  the  interpre- 
tations of  the  rabbis  to  those  of  the  fathers,  while  the  circulation 
of  Canticles  in  the  vernacular  was  not  forgotten.     Other  accusers. 


'  C.  Trident.  Sess.  iv,  De  Edit,  et  Usu  SS.  Libb. 

'  Coleccion,  X,  115,  129.  »  Ibidem,  X,  102,  sqq. 


Chap.  VII]  LUIS  DE  LEON  153 

including  students,  joined  in  the  attack,  making  thirteen  in  all, 
with  a  formidable  body  of  denunciations.  Grajal  was  soon  after- 
wards arrested  and  Fray  Luis,  warned  of  the  impending  danger, 
presented  himself,  March  6,  1572,  to  Diego  Gonzdlez,  the  former 
inquisitor  of  Carranza,  then  on  a  visitation  at  Salamanca,  with 
a  copy  of  his  lecture  on  the  Vulgate  and  the  propositions  drawn 
from  it,  and  also  his  work  on  Canticles.  He  asked  to  have  them 
examined  and  professed  entire  submission  to  the  Church,  with 
readiness  to  withdraw  or  revoke  anything  that  might  be  found  in 
the  slightest  degree  objectionable.' 

In  any  other  land,  this  would  have  sufficed.  The  inculpated 
works  would  have  been  expurgated  or  forbidden,  if  necessary. 
Luis  would  have  retracted  any  expressions  regarded  as  erroneous, 
and  the  matter  would  have  ended  without  damage  to  the  faith. 
Under  the  Inquisition,  however,  the  utterance  of  objectionable 
propositions  was  a  crime  to  be  punished,  and  the  submission  of 
the  criminal  only  saved  him  from  the  penalties  of  pertinacious 
heresy.  On  March  26th  the  warrant  for  the  arrest  of  Fray  Luis 
was  issued  and,  on  the  27th  he  was  receipted  for  by  the  alcaide  of 
the  secret  prison  of  Valladolid.  He  was  treated  with  unusual 
consideration,  in  view  of  his  infirmities  and  delicate  health  for, 
on  his  petition,  he  was  allowed  a  scourge,  a  pointless  knife  to 
cut  his  food,  a  candle  and  snuffers  and  some  books.^  The  trial 
proceeded  at  first  with  unusual  speed.  By  May  15th  the  fiscal 
presented  the  formal  accusation,  in  which  Fray  Luis  was  charged 
with  asserting  that  the  Vulgate  contained  many  falsities  and  that 
a  better  version  could  be  made;  with  decrying  the  Septuagint  and 
preferring  Vatable  and  rabbis  and  Jews  to  the  saints  as  expositors 
of  Scripture;  with  stating  that  the  Council  of  Trent  had  not  made 
the  Vulgate  a  matter  of  faith  and  that,  in  the  Old  Testament,  there 
was  no  promise  of  eternal  life;  with  approving  a  doctrine  that 
inferred  justification  by  faith,  and  that  mere  mortal  sin  destroyed 
faith;  with  circulating  an  exposition  of  Canticles  explaining  them 
as  a  love-poem  from  Solomon  to  his  wife — all  of  which  was  legiti- 
mately based  on  the  miscellaneous  evidence  of  the  adverse  wit- 
nesses.' This,  as  required.  Fray  Luis  answered  on  the  spot,  article 
by  article,  attributing  the  charges  to  the  malice  of  his  enemies, 
denying  some  and  explaining  others  clearly  and  frankly. 

It  was  a  special  favor  that  he  was  at  once  provided  with  counsel 


'  Coleccion,  X,  96-110.  '  Ibidem,  X,  179.  ^  Ibidem,  X,  206-8. 


164  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

and  allowed  to  arrange  his  defence — a  favor  which  brought  upon 
the  tribunal  a  rebuke  from  the  Suprema,  January  13,  1573,  as 
contrary  to  the  estilo,  which  must  be  followed,  no  matter  what 
might  be  the  supplications  of  the  accused.  Fray  Luis  identified 
many  of  the  witnesses — out  of  nineteen  he  recognized  eight — and 
he  drew  up  six  series  of  interrogatories,  mostly  designed  to  prove 
his  allegations  of  mortal  enmity.  Of  these  the  inquisitors  threw 
out  three  as  "impertinent"  and  the  answers  to  the  others  were,  to 
a  considerable  extent,  unsatisfactory,  as  was  almost  inevitable 
under  a  system  which  made  the  accused  grope  blindly  in  seeking 
evidence.  As  time  wore  on  in  this  necessarily  dilatory  business. 
Fray  Luis  grew  impatient  at  the  stagnation  which  seemed  to  pre- 
clude all  progress,  not  being  aware  that  in  reality  it  had  been 
expedited  irregularly.* 

It  would  be  wearisome  to  follow  in  detail  the  proceedings  which 
dragged  their  slow  length  along.  Additional  witnesses  came  for- 
ward, whose  depositions  had  to  go  through  the  usual  formalities; 
Fray  Luis  presented  numberless  papers  as  points  occurred  to  him; 
he  defended  himself  brilliantly  and,  through  the  course  of  the 
trial  there  were  few  of  the  customary  prolonged  intervals,  for  his 
nervous  impatience  kept  him  constantly  plying  the  tribunal  with 
arguments  and  appeals  which  it  received  with  its  habitual  impas- 
siveness.  At  length,  after  two  years,  early  in  March,  1574,  it 
decided  that  there  was  no  ground  for  suspicion  against  him  m 
the  thirty  articles  drawn  from  the  testimony  of  the  witnesses,  while 
he  could  not  be  prosecuted  criminally  on  the  seventeen  proposi- 
tions extracted  from  his  lecture  on  the  Vulgate,  seeing  that  he 
had  spontaneously  presented  them  and  submitted  himself  to  the 
Church.  The  fiscal,  however,  appealed  from  this  to  the  Suprema 
and  his  appeal  must  have  been  successful,  for  the  trial  took  a 
fresh  start.^ 

After  some  intermediate  proceedings.  Fray  Luis,  on  April  1st 
was  told  to  select  patrones  thedlogos  to  assist  in  his  defence.  He  at 
once  named  Dr.  Sebastian  P^rez,  professor  in  the  royal  college 
which  Philip  II  had  founded  at  Pdrraces,  in  connection  with  San 
Lorenzo  del  Escorial,  and  two  days  later  he  added  other  names. 


'  Coleccion,  X,  249;  XI,  255-84. 

^  There  is  no  record  of  this  in  the  process,  but  Fray  Luis  refers  to  it  repeatedly 
both  to  the  tribunal  and  to  the  Suprema,  and  there  is  no  disclaimer. — Coleccion, 
XI,  48,  190,  196. 


Chap.  VII]  LUIS  DE  LEON  155 

In  place  of  accepting  them  the  tribunal  endeavored  to  compel  him 
to  take  men  of  whom  he  knew  nothing  and  who,  in  reality,  were 
the  calificadores  who  had  already  condemned  his  propositions. 
The  struggle  continued  until,  on  August  3d,  the  Suprema  wrote 
that  he  could  have  Perez,  but  his  limpieza  must  first  be  proved 
and  Philip's  consent  to  his  absence  be  obtained.  We  have  seen 
how  prolonged,  costly  and  anxious  were  investigations  into  lim- 
pieza and,  as  Fray  Luis  remarked,  this  was  to  grant  and  to  refuse 
in  the  same  breath.  At  last,  after  endless  discussions,  in  October 
he  despairingly  accepted  Dr.  Mancio,  a  Dominican  and  a  leading 
professor  of  theology  at  Salamanca.  Mancio  came  in  October, 
again  towards  the  end  of  December,  and  finally  on  March  30,  1575, 
while  Fray  Luis  meanwhile  was  eating  his  heart  in  despair.  At 
length,  on  April  7th  Mancio  approved  of  Fray  Luis's  defence, 
declaring  that  he  had  satisfied  all  the  articles,  both  the  series  of 
seventeen  and  that  of  thirty,  which  had  been  proved  against  him 
or  which  he  had  admitted  having  uttered.^ 

If  Fray  Luis  imagined  that  this  twelve  months'  work  to  which 
such  importance  had  been  attributed,  had  improved  his  prospects, 
he  was  speedily  undeceived.  We  hear  nothing  more  of  Dr.  Mancio 
or  of  his  approval.  The  propositions,  with  the  defence,  were 
submitted  again  to  three  calificadores  (men  who  had  been  tirged 
upon  him  as  patrones)  and  it  illustrates  the  uncertainties  of  the- 
ology and  the  hair-splitting  subtilties  in  which  the  doctors  delighted, 
that  not  only  were  the  original  seventeen  articles  declared  to  be 
heretical  for  the  most  part,  but  five  new  ones,  quite  as  bad,  were 
discovered  in  the  defence  which  had  elicited  Dr.  Mancio's  appro- 
val, and  these  five  thenceforth  formed  a  third  category  of  errors 
figuring  in  the  proceedings.^  It  is  not  easy  for  us  to  comprehend 
the  religious  conceptions  which  placed  men's  lives  and  liberties 
and  reputation  at  the  hazard  of  dialectics  in  which  the  most  ortho- 
dox theologians  were  at  variance. 

When  Fray  Luis  was  informed  that  five  new  heretical  proposi- 
tions had  sprouted  from  the  hydra-heads  of  the  old  ones,  he  was 
dismayed.  Sick  and  exhausted,  the  prospects  of  ultimate  release 
from  his  interminable  trial  seemed  to  grow  more  and  more  remote. 
Arguments  and  discussions  continued  and  were  protracted.  New 
calificadores  were  called  in,  who  debated  and  opined  and  pre- 
sented written  conclusions  on  all  three  series  of  propositions.     It 


•  Coleccion,  X,  562-7j  XI,  7-18,  21-128.  *  Ibidem,  XI,  154-86. 


156  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

would  be  useless  to  follow  in  detail  these  scholastic  exercises,  of 
which  the  chief  interest  is  to  show  how,  in  these  infinitesimal 
points,  one  set  of  theologians  could  differ  from  another  and  how 
completely  the  enmity  of  the  two  chief  witnesses,  Leon  de  Castro 
and  Bartolome  de  Medina,  was  ignored.  Thus  wore  away  the 
rest  of  the  year  1575  and  the  first  half  of  1576.  There  was  no 
reason  why  the  case  might  not  be  continued  indefinitely  on  the 
same  lines,  but  the  inquisitors  seem  to  have  felt  at  last  that  an  end 
must  be  reached,  and  a  consulta  de  fe  was  finally  held,  in  which 
Dr.  Frechilla,  one  of  the  calificadores  who  had  condemned  the 
propositions,  represented  the  episcopal  Ordinary.^ 

The  case  illustrates  one  incident  of  these  protracted  trials. 
During  its  course  it  had  been  heard  by  seven  inquisitors,  of  whom 
Guijano  de  Mercado  was  the  only  one  who  served  from  the  com- 
mencement to  the  end,  and  his  colleague  in  the  consulta,  Andres 
de  Alava,  had  appeared  in  it  only  in  November,  1575,  and  had 
not  been  present  in  any  audiences  after  December.  There  was, 
moreover,  an  unusual  feature  in  the  presence  of  a  member  of  the 
Suprema,  Francisco  de  Menchaca,  indicating  perhaps  that  the  case 
was  regarded  as  one  of  more  than  ordinary  importance.  There 
were  five  consultors,  Luis  Tello  Maldonado,  Pedro  de  Castro,  Fran- 
cisco Albornoz,  Juan  de  Ibarra  and  Hernando  Niiio,  but  the  two 
latter  fell  sick,  when  the  examination  of  the  voluminous  testimony 
was  half  completed,  and  took  no  further  part  in  the  proceedings. 

On  the  final  decision,  September  18,  1576,  Menchaca,  Alava, 
Tello  and  Albornoz  voted  for  torture  on  the  intention,  including 
the  propositions  which  the  theologians  had  declared  that  Fray 
Luis  had  satisfied,  after  which  another  consulta  should  be  held. 
They  humanely  added  that  it  should  be  moderate  in  view  of  the 
debility  of  the  accused.  Those  better  acquainted  with  the  case, 
Guijano  and  Frechilla,  were  more  lenient.  They  voted  for  a 
reprimand,  after  which,  in  a  general  assembly  of  professors  and 
students.  Fray  Luis  should  read  a  declaration,  drawn  up  by  the 
calificadores,  pronouncing  the  propositions  to  be  ambiguous,  sus- 
picious and  likely  to  cause  scandal.  Moreover  his  Augustinian 
superior  was  to  be  told,  extra-judicially,  to  order  him  privately  to 
employ  his  studies  in  other  directions  and  to  abstain  from  teaching 
in  the  schools.  The  vernacular  version  of  Canticles  was  to  be 
suppressed,  if  the  inquisitor-general  and  Suprema  saw  fit.^    Com- 


'  Coleccion,  XI,  187-253.  '  Ibidem,  XI,  351-3. 


Chap.  VII]  LUIS  DE  LEON  I57 

paratively  mild  as  this  sentence  might  seem,  it  gratified  to  the  full 
the  vindictiveness  of  his  enemies— it  humiliated  him  utterly  and 
destroyed  his  career. 

As  there  was  discordia  the  case  necessarily  reverted  to  the 
Suprema,  which  seems  to  have  recognized  that  both  votes  assumed 
the  nullity  of  the  laborious  trifling,  by  which  the  calificadores  had 
found  dangerous  heresies  in  his  acknowledged  propositions.  Dis- 
cussion must  have  been  prolonged  however,  for  the  final  sentence 
was  not  rendered  until  December  7th.  This  fully  acquitted  Fray 
Luis  of  all  the  charges,  but  ordered  a  reprimand  in  the  audience- 
chamber  and  a  warning  to  treat  such  matters  in  future  with  great 
circumspection,  so  that  no  scandal  or  errors  should  arise.  The 
Suprema  could  scarce  say  less,  if  the  whole  dismal  farce,  of  nearly 
five  years,  was  not  to  be  admitted  as  wholly  unjustifiable,  and  it 
enclosed  the  sentence  in  a  letter  instructing  the  tribunal  to  order 
Fray  Luis  to  preserve  profound  silence  and  to  avoid  dissension 
with  those  whom  he  suspected  of  testifying  against  him.  It  was 
probably  on  December  15th  that  the  sentence  was  read  and  the 
reprimand  administered.  Fray  Luis  took  the  necessary  oaths,  he 
made  the  promises  required,  and  was  discharged  as  innocent  after 
an  incarceration,  incomunicado,  which  had  lasted  for  four  years, 
eight  months  and  nineteen  days.  His  requests  were  granted  for 
a  certificate  de  no  obstancia  and  for  an  order  on  the  paymaster 
of  the  schools  to  pay  him  his  professorial  salary  from  the  date  of 
his  arrest  to  the  expiration  of  his  quadrennial  term.' 

During  this  prolonged  imprisonment,  Fray  Luis  seems  to  have 
been  treated  with  unusual  consideration.  He  was  allowed  to  send 
for  all  the  books  needed  for  his  defence  and  for  study — even  for 
recreation,  for  we  find  him,  July  6, 1575,  asking  for  the  prose  works 
of  Bembo,  for  a  Pindar  in  Greek  and  Latin  and  for  a  copy  of  Soph- 
ocles.^ He  relieved  the  distractions  of  his  defence  and  the  anxie- 
ties of  his  position  by  the  composition  of  his^De  los  Nonibres  de 
Christo,  which  has  remained  a  classic.  Yet  these  were  but  slender 
alleviations  of  the  hardships  and  despairing  tedium  of  his  prison 
cell.  On  March  12,  1575,  he  is  begging  for  the  sacraments ;  though 
he  is  no  heretic,  he  says,  he  has  been  deprived  of  them  for  three 

'  Coleccion,  XI,  353-8. — Fray  Luis  attributed  this  unexpected  mercy  to  the 
influence  of  Inquisitor-general  Quiroga,  to  whom,  in  1580,  he  dedicated  his 
Exposition  of  the  XXVI  Psalm,  with  warm  expressions  of  gratitude. — Garcia, 
Segundo  Proceso,  p.  17. 

2  Coleccion,  XI,  147. 


]58  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

years.  This  petition  was  forwarded  to  the  Suprema,  which  rephed 
by  drily  telling  the  tribunal  to  complete  the  cases  of  Fray  Luis, 
Grajal  and  Martinez  as  soon  as  opportunity  would  permit/  At 
an  audience  of  August  20th,  of  the  same  year,  when  remanded 
to  his  cell,  he  paused  to  represent  that,  as  the  inquisitors  well 
knew,  he  was  very  sick  with  fever;  there  was  no  one  in  his  cell  to 
take  care  of  him,  save  a  fellow-prisoner,  a  young  boy  who  was 
simple;  one  day  he  fainted  through  hunger,  as  there  was  no  one 
to  give  him  food,  and  he  asked  whether  a  fraile  of  his  Order  could 
be  admitted  to  assist  him  and  to  aid  him  to  die,  unless  they  wished 
him  to  die  alone  in  his  cell.  This  was  not  refused  but,  as  the  con- 
dition was  imposed  that  the  companion  should  as  usual  share  his 
imprisonment  to  the  end,  the  request  was  in  vain.  Then,  on 
September  12th,  in  his  reply  to  the  five  propositions  suddenly 
sprung  upon  him,  he  feelingly  referred  to  the  years  of  prison  and 
the  sufferings  caused  by  the  absence  of  comforts  in  his  weakness 
and  sickness,  as  a  torture  long  and  cruel  enough  to  purge  all  sus- 
picions.^ Even  more  pitiful  was  a  petition  to  the  Suprema  in 
November  of  the  same  year — "I  supplicate  your  most  illustrious 
body,  by  Jesus  Christ,  on  my  giving  ample  security,  to  order  me 
to  be  placed  in  one  of  the  convents  of  this  city,  even  in  that  of 
San  Pablo  (Dominican),  in  any  way  that  it  may  please  you,  until 
sentence  is  rendered,  so  that  if,  during  this  time,  God  should  call 
me,  which  I  greatly  fear,  in  view  of  my  much  trouble  and  feeble 
health,  I  may  die  as  a  Christian  among  religious  persons,  aided  by 
their  prayers  and  receiving  the  sacraments,  and  not  as  an  infidel, 
alone  in  prison  with  a  Moor  at  my  bed-side.  And  since  the  rancor 
of  my  enemies  and  my  own  sins  have  deprived  me  of  all  that  is 
desirable  in  life,  may  the  Christian  piety  of  your  most  illustrious 
body  give  me  this  consolation  in  death,  for  I  ask  nothing  more.'" 
It  is  perhaps  needless  to  say  that  this  touching  appeal  did  not  even 
receive  an  answer. 

After  the  term  of'his  professorship  had  expired,  about  March  1, 
1573,  his  special  enemy,  Bartolom6  de  Medina,  was  elected  in  his 
place  and  was  promoted,  in  August  1576,  to  the  leading  chair  in 
theology,  while  Fray  Garcia  del  Castillo  succeeded  to  that  of 
Durandus.  On  Fray  Luis's  return,  he  was  warmly  and  honorably 
received  in  an  assembly  of  the  Senate,  convoked  for  the  purpose, 
where  the  Commissioner  of  the  Inquisition  declared  that  the  Holy 


'  Coleccion,  XI,  50,  52.  '  Ibidem,  XI,  188,  193-4.         '  Ibidem,  XI,  196-8. 


Chap.  VII]  LUIS  DE  LEON  159 

Office  had  ordered  his  restoration  to  honor  and  to  his  professorship. 
Luis  however  refused  to  disturb  Castillo  and,  in  January  1577,  an 
extraordinary  chair  on  the  Scriptures  was  created  for  him.  The 
next^  year,  on  the  chair  of  moral  philosophy  falling  vacant,  he 
obtained  it  and  subsequently  he  became  regular  professor  of 
Scripture— one  of  the  highest  positions  in  the  University.  His 
colleague  Grajal  had  been  less  fortunate,  having  perished  in  prison 
before  the  termination  of  his  trial  .^ 

Fray  Luis's  mental  vigor  was  unimpaired,  although  his  delicate 
frame  never  wholly  recovered  from  the  effects  of  his  long  imprison- 
ment. Such  an  experience  of  the  dangers  attendant  on  the  dis- 
cussions of  the  schools  might  seem  sufficient  to  dampen  his  dispu- 
tatious ardor,  but  in  a  theology,  which  sought  to  reduce  to  hard  and 
fast  lines  all  the  secrets  of  the  unknown  spiritual  world,  there  was 
risk  of  heresy  in  every  speculation.  In  an  acto  of  the  University, 
held  January  20,  1582,  the  debate  widened  into  a  discussion  upon 
predestination  and  free-will,  in  which  Fray  Luis  and  Fray  Domingo 
de  Guzman  were  bitterly  opposed  to  each  other.  It  was  continued 
in  another  theological  Act  the  next  week;  the  students  became 
excited  and  called  upon  Father  Baiiez  to  repress  these  novelties, 
which  he  did  in  a  lecture  declaring  that  the  views  of  Fray  Luis 
savored  of  Pelagianism.  The  latter  was  angered  and  the  next  day, 
in  an  assembly  of  all  the  faculties,  the  question  under  debate  was : 
If  God  confers  equal  and  sufficing  grace  on  two  men,  nothing  else 
interfering,  can  one  be  converted  and  the  other  reject  the  aid? 
The  discussion  between  Fray  Luis  and  Banez  was  hot,  and  the 


'  Reusch,  113-14. — Arango  y  Escandon,  p.  91. — Padre  Alonso  Getino  (Re- 
vista  de  Archivos,  Agosto-Sept.,  1903)  promises  to  give  us  an  account  of  the 
trial  of  Martfnez  who  was  obliged  to  abjure  de  levi  (Mentedez  y  Pelayo,  II,  693). 

Leon  de  Castro  varied  his  persecution  of  Luis  de  Leon,  Grajal  and  Martinez, 
by  attacking  the  great  Biblia  Regia,  which  Arias  Montano,  the  most  learned 
Spaniard  of  the  age,  edited  at  the  instance  and  with  the  support  of  Philip  II. 
After  its  appearance  with  the  approbation  of  the  Holy  See,  de  Castro,  in  1575, 
in  his  zeal  for  the  Vulgate,  filled  Spain,  Flanders  and  Italy  with  denunciations 
of  it  and  its  editor.  Montano,  who  was  in  Flanders,  hastened  to  Spain  by  way 
of  Italy  to  defend  himself,  but,  finding  much  agitation  on  the  subject  in  Rome, 
tarried  there  and  wrote  to  Quiroga  to  protect  him — an  appeal  which  he  repeated 
in  1579.  He  was  not  prosecuted,  but  the  Inquisition  fell  foul  of  his  biblical 
commentaries  and  placed  on  the  Index  a  long  list  of  expurgations,  besides  con- 
demning some  of  his  propositions — fortunately  for  him  long  after  his  death. — 
Coleccion  de  Documentos,  XLI,  316,  321,  328,  387,— Index  of  Zapata,  1632, 
pp.  86-89. 


J  go  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

excitement  increased.  Then  on  January  27th  there  was  another 
assembly  which  wrangled  over  the  intricate  questions  involved  in 
prevenient  aid  and  human  cooperation/ 

This  was  the  commencement  of  the  long  debate  De  AuxiKis, 
between  Jesuits  and  Dominicans,  which  lasted  for  a  century,  until 
both  sides  were  silenced  by  the  Holy  See,  without  either  being  able 
to  claim  the  victory.  Fray  Luis  had  excited  many  enmities— 
though  not  as  many  as  he  was  in  the  habit  of  claiming — and  the 
occasion  was  favorable  for  striking  at  him  and  at  those  whom  he 
supported.  Fray  Juan  de  Santa  Cruz  drew  up  an  account  of  the 
discussions,  with  a  censure  of  the  erroneous  and  heretical  proposi- 
tions defended;  it  was  not  a  personal  denunciation  of  any  one,  but 
he  declared  that  the  agitation  and  disquiet  of  the  schools  demanded 
a  settlement  by  the  Inquisition.  This  he  presented,  February  5th, 
at  Valladolid,  to  the  inquisitor,  Juan  de  Arrese  and,  from  the 
marginal  notes,  it  appears  that,  besides  Fray  Luis,  two  Jesuits  and 
a  Benedictine  were  marked  for  prosecution.  In  March,  Inquisitor 
Arrese  came  to  Salamanca  on  a  mission  to  suppress  astrology  and 
took  the  opportunity  to  gather  testimony  on  the  scholastic  quar- 
rel. Various  witnesses,  some  of  them  Augustinians,  came  forward 
spontaneously  with  evidence,  and  the  Mercenarian,  Francisco 
Zumel  presented  a  series  of  propositions,  purporting  to  be  drawn 
from  a  lecture  by  Fray  Luis  on  predestination,  of  which  the  worst 
was  that  Christ  on  the  cross  was  destitute  of  God  and  was  pro- 
voked to  sin.  Zumel  was  a  bitter  enemy  of  Luis,  who  had  defeated 
him,  four  years  before,  in  competition  for  the  chair  of  moral  phil- 
osophy ;  both  had  their  partizans  and  their  quarrels  were  the  cause 
of  much  trouble.^ 

Fray  Luis's  experience  of  the  Inquisition  naturally  led  him  to 
seek  exculpation.  Three  times  he  appeared  voluntarily  before 
Arrese  and  made  verbal  and  written  statements,  in  which  he  ren- 
dered an  account  of  his  share  in  the  debates.  He  admitted  that 
he  had  defended  a  position  opposite  to  what  he  had  previously 
taught,  which  was  not  without  a  certain  temerity,  as  differing  from 
the  ordinary  language  of  the  schools,  and  not  proper  for  public 
debate,  as  it  was  delicate,  difficult  of  comprehension  and  liable  to 
lead  the  hearers  into  error.  He  protested  that  he  had  not  intended 
to  offend  Catholic  doctrine  and,  if  he  had  said  anything  incon- 


'  Garcfa,  Segundo  Proceso,  pp.  20-23,  29-30. 
'  Ibidem,  pp.  20-1,  26-7, 44. 


Chap.  VII]  LUIS  DE  LEON  161 

siderately,  he  submitted  it  to  the  censure  and  correction  of  the 
holy  tribunal.  He  also  laid  much  stress  on  the  notorious  hatred 
of  the  Dominicans  towards  him,  and  the  manner  in  which  they 
lost  no  opportunity  of  decrying  his  doctrine,  his  person  and  his 
morals.^ 

Inquisitor  Arrese  returned  to  Valladolid  with  the  evidence, 
after  which  there  was  pause  before  the  case  of  Fray  Luis  was  taken 
up.  There  would  seem  to  have  been  some  hesitation  concerning 
it,  for  the  Suprema  took  the  unusual  step  of  summoning  him  before 
it,  from  which  he  excused  himself  on  the  plea  of  illness  and  for- 
warded a  physician's  certificate  in  justification.  The  next  docu- 
ment in  the  case  is  a  letter  of  August  3d,  from  the  Suprema  to  the 
tribunal,  calling  for  the  papers  in  the  cases  of  the  Salamanca 
theologians,  with  its  opinion  concerning  them.  In  its  reply  the 
tribunal  said  that  Fray  Luis  had  confessed  to  everything  testified 
against  him,  submitting  himself  to  correction,  and  conceding  that 
what  he  had  said  was  not  devoid  of  temerity;  he  had  evidently 
spoken  with  passion  and  after  the  debate  had  begged  pardon  of 
Domingo  de  Guzman  for  telling  him  that  what  he  advocated  was 
Lutheran  heresy.  In  view  of  all  this  the  tribunal  proposed  to  call 
him  before  it  and  examine  him  when,  if  nothing  further  resulted, 
he  should  be  gravely  reprimanded  and,  as  the  school  of  Salamanca 
was  gravely  excited  and,  as  some  Augustinians  were  boasting  that 
his  utterances  had  been  accepted  by  the  tribunal  as  true,  he  should 
be  required  publicly  to  read  in  his  chair  a  declaration  drawn  up 
for  him  censuring  the  propositions,  and  also  to  declare  that  he  had 
spoken  wrongly  when  he  had  characterized  the  opposite  as  heresy.^ 

This  would  have  been  a  profound  humiliation  for  the  proud  and 
domineering  theologian,  but  again  Quiroga  seems  to  have  inter- 
posed to  save  him.  There  is  a  blank  in  the  records  for  eighteen 
months,  explicable  by  the  affair  being  in  the  hands  of  the  Suprema. 
What  occurred  during  the  interval  is  unknown,  but  the  outcome 
appears  in  the  final  act  of  the  trial,  February  3,  1584,  at  Toledo. 
There  Fray  Luis  stood  before  Inquisitor-general  Quiroga  who 
reprimanded  and  admonished  him  charitably  not  in  future  to 
defend,  publicly  or  privately,  the  propositions  which  he  had 
admitted  were  not  devoid  of  temerity,  adding  a  warning  that 
otherwise  he  would  be  prosecuted  with  all  the  rigor  of  the  law,  to 
all  of  which  Fray  Luis  promised  obedience.'     That  he  had  in  no 


'  Garcia,  pp.  28-35.  '  Ibidem,  pp.  52-4.  '  Ibidem,  p.  53. 

VOL.  IV  11 


162  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

way  lost  the  respect  of  his  fellows  is  seen  in  his  election  to  the 
Provincialate  of  the  Augustinian  Order,  in  1591,  shortly  before 
his  death. 

In  addition  to  their  exhibiting  the  attitude  of  the  Inquisition 
towards  the  most  distinguished  intellects  of  the  period,  these  two 
trials  of  Fray  Luis  illustrate  its  arbitrary  methods,  operating  as 
it  did  in  secret.  His  fault,  if  fault  there  was,  was  the  same  in  both 
cases — the  enunciation  of  opinions  on  which  the  most  learned 
doctors  differed.  In  both  cases  he  denounced  himself,  freely 
confessed  what  he  had  spoken  or  written,  and  submitted  himself 
unreservedly  to  the  judgement  of  the  church.  In  the  first  case  he 
was  arrested;  he  endured  nearly  five  years  of  incarceration  and 
only  escaped  torture  or  the  ruin  of  his  career  through  the  kindly 
interposition  of  Quiroga.  In  the  second,  there  was  no  arrest,  the 
case  was  decided  on  the  sumaria,  or  suspended,  and  although 
Quiroga  probably  again  intervened,  it  was  only  to  save  the  accused 
from  a  humiliation  which  would  have  gratified  malevolence. 
Judged  by  its  own  standard,  the  Inquisition  abused  its  powers— 
either,  in  one  case,  by  unpardonable  severity  or  in  the  other  by 
excessive  moderation,  but  it  was  responsible  to  no  one  and  had 
no  public  opinion  to  dread. 

Just  as  the  case  of  Fray  Luis  was  ending,  prosecution  was  com- 
menced against  another  Salamanca  professor,  of  equal  or  even 
greater  distinction.  As  a  man  of  pure  letters,  no  one  at  the  time 
was  the  peer  of  Francisco  Sanchez,  known  as  el  Brocense,  from 
his  birth-place,  las  Brozas.  Vainglorious,  quarrelsome,  caustic 
and  reckless  of  speech,  he  made  numerous  enemies,  but  probably 
he  would  have  escaped  the  Inquisition  had  he  confined  himself 
to  his  chair  of  grammar  and  rhetoric.  He  delighted  however  in 
paradoxes,  and  he  held  himself  so  immeasurably  superior  to  the 
theologians,  and  was  so  confident  in  the  accuracy  of  his  own 
varied  learning,  that  he  could  not  restrain  himself  from  ridiculing 
their  pretensions,  from  exposing  the  errors  of  pious  legends  and 
denouncing  some  of  the  grosser  popular  superstitions,  thus  ren- 
dering himself  liable  to  inquisitorial  animadversion,  whenever 
malice  or  zeal  might  call  the  attention  of  the  tribunal  to  his  eccen- 
tricities. He  flattered  himself  that  he  did  not  meddle  with  articles 
of  faith,  but  he  failed  to  realize  how  elastic  were  the  boundaries 
of  faith,  and  that,  in  attacking  vulgar  errors,  he  might  be  regarded 
as  undermining  the  foundations  of  the  Church.    Scandal  was  a 


Chap.  VII]  FEAN0I8C0  SANGHEZ  163 

convenient  word  which  bridged  over  the  line  between  the  profane 
and  the  sacred/ 

His  habitual  intemperance  of  speech  was  stimulated  by  a  custom 
in  the  Salamanca  lecture-rooms  of  students  handing  up  questions 
for  the  lecturer  to  answer,  and  it  would  appear  that  malicious 
pleasure  was  felt  in  thus  provoking  him  to  exhibit  his  well-known 
idiosyncrasies.  It  was  an  occasion  of  this  kind  that  prompted 
the  first  denunciation,  January  7,  1584,  by  Juan  Fernandez,  a 
priest  attending  the  lectures.  Others  followed,  and  the  character 
of  his  utterances  appears  in  the  propositions  submitted  to  the 
calificadores : — That  Christ  was  not  circumcised  by  St.  Simeon 
but  by  his  mother  the  Virgin. — That  there  ought  to  be  no  images 
and,  but  for  apparent  imitation  of  the  heretics,  they  would  have 
been  abolished. — That  those  were  fools  who,  at  the  procession 
of  Corpus  Christi,  knelt  in  the  streets  to  adore  the  images,  for  only 
Christ  and  his  cross  were  to  be  adored. — Only  saints  in  heaven  were 
to  be  adored  and  not  images,  which  were  but  wood  and  plaster. — 
Christ  was  not  born  in  a  stable,  but  in  a  house  where  the  Virgin 
was  staying. — That  the  eleven  thousand  virgins  were  only  eleven. — 
Doubts  whether  the  Three  Kings  were  kings,  as  Scripture  speaks 
only  of  Magi. — That  the  Magian  kings  did  not  come  at  Christ's 
birth,  but  two  years  after,  and  found  him  playing  with  a  ball. — 
That  theologians  know  nothing. — That  many  Dominicans  thought 
the  faith  was  based  on  St.  Thomas  Aquinas;  this  was  not  so  and 

he  did  not  care  a for  St.  Thomas. — When  asked  why  St.  Lucia 

was  painted  without  eyes,  he  said  that  she  had  not  torn  them  out, 
but  she  was  reckoned  the  patron  saint  of  eyes  from  her  name — 
Lucia  a  lucere. 

That  these  free-spoken  propositions  should  be  duly  characterized 
by  the  calificadores  as  heretical,  rash,  erroneous,  insulting  and 
so  forth  was  a  matter  of  course  and,  on  May  18th,  the  consulta  de 
fe  voted  for  imprisonment  in  the  secret  prison  with  sequestration, 
subject  to  confirmation  by  the  Suprema.  The  latter  delayed 
action  until  August  29th  and  then  manifested  unusual  considera- 
tion for  the  eccentricities  of  Sdnchez,  which  were  doubtless  well 


'  The  existing  records  of  the  trials  of  Sdnchez  are  printed  in  Vol.  II  of  the 
"  Coleccion  de  Documentos  in^ditos." 

The  only  one  of  his  works  which  I  have  had  an  opportunity  of  examining  is 
his  "Minerva"  (Salmanticse,  1587),  which  sufficiently  Ulustrates  his  capacity  of 
enlivening  the  details  of  etymology  and  syntax  with  his  caustic  assertion  of 
superior  knowledge. 


164  PBOFOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

known.  He  was  merely  to  be  summoned  before  the  tribunal,  to 
be  closely  examined  and  to  be  severely  reprimanded,  with  a  warn- 
ing to  give  no  further  occasion  for  scandal,  as  otherwise  he  would 
be  treated  with  all  rigor/ 

His  first  audience  was  held  on  September  24th.  There  is  a 
refreshing  and  characteristic  frankness  in  his  reply  to  the  customary 
question  whether  he  knew  the  cause  of  his  summons.  He  supposed 
it  was  because,  about  Christmas-time,  in  his  lecture-room,  he  was 
asked  why  St.  Lucia  was  painted  with  her  eyes  on  a  dish  and  why 
she  was  patron  saint  of  eyes,  when  he  replied  that  she  was  not  such 
a  fool  as  to  tear  out  her  eyes  to  give  them  to  others;  the  vulgar 
believed  many  things  that  had  no  authority  save  that  of  painters, 
and  it  was  on  account  of  her  name  that  she  was  patron  saint  of 
eyes.  Then,  he  added,  some  days  later  he  was  asked  why  he 
talked  against  what  the  Church  holds;  this  angered  him  and  he 
told  them  they  were  great  fools  who  did  not  know  what  the  Church 
is;  they  must  think  that  sacristans  and  painters  are  the  Church; 
he  would  be  speaking  against  the  Church  if  he  spoke  against  the 
Fathers  and  Councils.  If  they  saw  eleven  thousand  virgins  painted 
in  a  picture,  they  would  think  that  there  were  eleven  thousand, 
but  in  an  ancient  calendar  there  was  only  undecim  M.  virgines — 
there  were  ten  martyrs  and  Ursula  made  the  eleventh.  Then, 
some  three  years  ago,  the  Circumcision  was  represented  in  the 
cathedral  of  Salamanca,  where  appeared  the  Virgin,  Simeon  and  the 
child  Jesus.  He  said  to  many  of  those  present  that  it  was  a  pity 
such  impertinences  were  permitted  in  Salamanca;  that  the  Virgin 
did  not  go  to  the  temple  until  the  forty  days  were  expired,  and  no 
priest  was  required  for  the  circumcision,  for  it  is  rather  believed 
that  the  Virgin  performed  it  in  her  own  house.  He  mentioned 
various  other  criticisms  which  he  had  made  on  pictures,  such  as 
the  Last  Supper,  where  Christ  and  the  apostles  should  be  repre- 
sented on  triclinia,  and  the  Sacrifice  of  Abraham  where  Isaac 
should  be  a  man  of  25.  For  this  all  he  was  called  in  Salamanca 
a  rash  and  audacious  man,  and  he  supposed  this  was  the  cause  of 
his  summons;  if  there  was  more,  let  him  know  it  and  he  would 
obey  the  Church;  if  in  what  he  had  said  he  had  caused  scandal, 
he  was  ready  to  retract  and  to  submit  to  the  Church.^ 

This  fearless  frankness  was  preserved  in  the  examination  that 
followed  on  the  charges  not  explained  in  his  avowal.     When  asked 


'  Coleccion,  II,  1-37.  '  Ibidem,  II,  40-45. 


Chap.  VII]  FRANCISCO  SANCHEZ  165 

whether  he  knew  these  things  to  be  heretical  and  if  his  intention 
was  to  oppose  the  Church,  he  replied  that  in  the  form  of  the  charges 
he  held  them  to  be  heretical,  but  he  had  uttered  them  only  in  the 
way  he  stated,  with  the  intention  of  a  good  Christian  and  for  the 
instruction  of  others,  but,  if  he  had  erred,  be  begged  mercy  with 
penance,  and  was  ready  to  make  whatever  amends  were  required. 
His  confessions  were  duly  submitted  to  calificadores  who  reported, 
reasonably  enough,  that  he  denied  some,  explained  others  and 
left  others  as  they  were,  but  that  as  a  whole  he  deserved  to  be  repri- 
manded and  punished,  because  he  exceeded  his  functions  without 
discretion  and,  if  not  restrained,  he  would  come  to  utter  manifold 
errors  and  heresies.  Under  ordinary  routine  his  punishment 
would  have  been  exemplary,  but  the  tribunal  was  controlled  by 
the  instructions  of  the  Suprema  and,  on  September  28th,  he  was 
duly  reprimanded  and  warned  to  abstain  in  future  from  such 
utterances,  for  they  would  be  visited  with  rigorous  punishment. 
He  promised  to  do  this  and  was  dismissed.^ 

With  any  one  else  this  narrow  escape,  which  shows  the  strong 
disinclination  to  deal  harshly  with  him,  would  have  ensured  lasting 
caution,  and  even  on  Sd,nchez  it  seems  to  have  imposed  restraint 
for  some  years.  The  impression,  however,  wore  away  and  the 
irrepressible  desire  to  manifest  his  contempt  for  theology  and 
theologians,  and  to  display  the  superior  accuracy  of  his  wide 
learning,  gradually  overcame  prudence.  In  1588,  he  printed  a 
little  volume  entitled  De  erroribus  nonnuUis  Porphyrii  et  aliorum 
which,  when  subsequently  examined  by  calificadores,  was  said 
to  prove  that  the  author  was  insolent,  audacious  and  bitter,  as 
were  all  grammarians  and  Erasmists ;  that,  if  its  conclusions  were 
true,  we  might  burn  all  the  theology  and  philosophy  taught  by 
the  schoolmen,  from  the  Master  of  Sentences  to  Caietano,  and  by 
all  the  universities,  from  Salamanca  to  Bologna.  Another  of  his 
works  bore  the  expressive  title  of  Paradoxes  de  Theulugia,  which 
went  to  two  editions  and  was  censured  as  requiring  expurgation. 
Theology  seems  to  have  had  for  him  the  fatal  fascination  of  the 
candle  for  the  moth  and,  with  his  temperament,  he  could  not 
touch  it  without  involving  himself  in  trouble.  He  gradually 
resumed  his  free  speech  and  repeated  his  old  assertions  which  he 
had  promised  to  suppress,  and  to  these  he  added  new  ones,  such  as 
approving  the  remark  of  a  canon  of  Salamanca  that  he  who  spoke 


Coleccion,  II,  40-58. 


166  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

ill  of  Erasmus  was  a  f  raile  or  an  ass,  adding  that,  if  there  were  no 
frailes  in  the  world,  none  of  the  works  of  Erasmus  would  have 
been  forbidden.  From  1593  to  1595,  Dr.  Rosales,  the  commis- 
sioner at  Salamanca,  repeatedly  forwarded  to  the  Valladolid  tri- 
bunal reports  and  evidence  as  to  his  relapse  in  these  evil  ways,  and 
urged  that  he  should  be  summoned  and  corrected  and  told  not  to 
meddle  with  theology  but  to  confine  himself  to  his  grammar,  for 
he  knew  nothing  else.^ 

The  tribunal  had  these  various  charges  submitted  to  califica- 
dores,  who  duly  characterized  them  in  fitting  terms,  but  it  took 
no  action  until  May  18,  1596,  when  it  commissioned  Rosales  to 
put  in  shape  the  informations  against  Sdnchez.  Rosales  was 
replaced  by  Francisco  Gasca  de  Salazar,  who  was  instructed,  Sep- 
tember 17th,  to  finish  the  matter  without  delay.  He  returned  the 
papers  as  completed,  September  29th,  adding  that  Sdnchez  was 
so  frank  that  he  said  these  things  publicly,  as  a  man  unconscious 
of  error  and,  if  examined,  would  tell  the  truth  and  give  his  reasons; 
he  did  not  seem  to  err  with  pertinacity  but  like  the  grammarians, 
who  usually  deal  in  paradoxes,  for  which  reason  Gasca  said  that 
he  had  taken  no  notice  of  them.^ 

Probably  some  restraint  exercised  by  the  Suprema  explains 
why,  after  these  preparations,  four  years  were  allowed  to  pass 
without  action.  If  so,  this  restraint  was  suddenly  removed,  for 
there  is  no  evidence  that  any  fresh  imprudences  on  the  part  of 
Sanchez  stimulated  the  tribunal  when,  September  25, 1600,  it  took 
a  vote  that,  in  view  of  the  previous  warning  and  continued  repe- 
tition of  the  same  propositions  and  additional  ones,  and  especially 
of  the  De  Erroribus  Porphyrii  and  other  books  suspect  in  doctrine, 
he  should  be  summoned  to  the  tribunal  and  a  house  be  assigned 
to  him  as  a  prison,  while  all  his  books  and  papers  should  be  seized. 
The  Suprema  confirmed  this;  on  October  20th  the  summons  was 
issued  and,  on  November  20th,  the  books  and  papers  were  for- 
warded. On  November  10th  SAnchez  appeared  before  the  tribunal 
and,  with  kindly  consideration,  the  house  of  his  son,  Dr.  Lorenzo 
Sanchez,  a  physician  residing  in  Valladolid,  was  assigned  as  his 
prison.  Three  audiences  were  held,  on  November  13th,  16th,  and 
22d,  in  which  he  said  that,  if  he  had  uttered  or  done  anything 
contrary  to  the  faith,  he  was  ready  to  confess  it  and  reduce  himself 
to  the  unity  of  the  Church.    As  the  charges  were  not  as  yet  made 


»  Coleccion,  II,  57-88.  2  Ibidem,  II,  89-109. 


Chap.  VII]  FBANOISCO  SANCSEZ  167 

known  to  him,  he  tried  to  explain  various  matters  which  were  not 
contained  in  them,  such  as  denying  free-will,  as  holding  the  opinion 
that  Magdalen  was  not  the  sister  of  Lazarus,  and  that  Judas  did 
not  hang  himself/ 

No  more  audiences  were  held.  The  next  document  is  a  petition, 
dated  November  30th,  in  which  Sdnchez  set  forth  that  he  was 
mortally  sick  and  given  over  by  the  physicians;  that  he  had  through 
life  been  a  good  Christian,  believing  all  that  the  Holy  Roman 
Church  believes,  and  now,  at  the  hour  of  death,  he  protested  that 
he  died  in  and  for  that  belief.  If,  having  labored  for  sixty  years 
in  teaching  at  Salamanca  and  elsewhere,  he  had  said  or  was  accused 
of  saying  anything  against  the  holy  Catholic  faith,  which  he  denied, 
if  yet  by  error  of  the  tongue  it  was  so,  he  repented  and  begged  of 
the  Inquisition  pardon  and  penance  in  the  name  of  God.  When 
taking  pen  in  hand  he  had  always  recommended  himself  to  God 
and,  if  in  his  MSS.  there  should  be  found  anything  ill-sounding, 
he  desired  it  stricken  out  and,  if  there  were  useful  things,  he  asked 
the  Inquisition  to  permit  their  printing,  as  he  left  no  other  property 
to  his  children,  and  also  that  his  enemies  and  rivals  might  be  con- 
founded. Finally,  as  he  was  in  prison,  by  order  of  the  Inquisition, 
he  supplicated  that  he  might  have  honorable  burial,  suitable  to 
his  position,  and  that  the  University  of  Salamanca  be  ordered  to 
render  him  the  customary  honors.^ 

Thus  closed,  in  sorrow  and  humiliation,  the  career  of  one  of  the 
most  illustrious  men  of  letters  that  Spain  has  produced.  Under 
the  existing  system  the  Inquisition  could  do  no  otherwise  than  it 
had  done,  and  its  treatment  of  him  had  been  of  unexampled 
forbearance.  That  forbearance,  however,  seems  to  have  ceased 
with  his  death.  The  records  are  imperfect,  and  we  have  no 
knowledge  of  the  course  of  his  trial  which,  as  usual,  was  prosecuted 
to  the  end,  but  the  outcome  apparently  was  unfavorable.  On 
December  11th  the  calificadores  who  examined  his  papers  made 
an  unexpectedly  moderate  report.  There  was  a  certain  amount 
of  minute  and  captious  verbal  criticism,  but  the  summing  up  was 
that  he  seemed  somewhat  free  in  his  expositions  of  Scripture, 
attaching  himself  too  much  to  human  learning  and  departing  too 
readily  from  received  opinions,  but  he  was  easily  excusable  as 
these  were  private  studies  and  mostly  unfinished,  so  that  his  final 
opinions  could  not  be  assumed.^ 


'  Coleccion,  II,  109-26.  ^  Ibidem,  II,  127-8.  '  Ibidem,  II  130-5. 


168  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

Notwithstanding  this,  his  dying  requests  were  not  granted.  The 
interment  was  private  and  without  funeral  honors.  As  regards 
the  Universitjr  of  Salamanca,  Dr.  Lorenzo  Sdnchez  reported,  on 
December  22d,  that  his  father  had  many  enemies  there,  that  there 
was  much  excitement  and  scandal,  and  it  was  proposed  not  to 
render  him  the  customary  honors,  to  the  great  injury  of  his  chil- 
dren's honor,  wherefore  he  petitioned  for  orders  to  pay  the  honors 
and  also  the  salary  for  the  time  of  his  detention.  To  this  suppli- 
cation no  attention  was  paid,  and  the  same  indifference  was  shown 
when,  long  afterwards,  on  June  25,  1624,  another  son,  Juan  San- 
chez, a  canon  of  Salamanca,  represented  that  mahcious  persons 
asserted  that  his  father  had  died  in  the  secret  prison,  wherefore 
he  petitioned  for  a  certificate  that  his  father  had  not  been  impri- 
soned in  either  the  secret  or  public  prison,  and  that  no  sentence 
had  been  rendered  against  him.  The  influence  of  all  this  on  the 
fortunes  of  his  descendants  can  readily  be  estimated.  As  for  the 
MSS.  which  had  occupied  the  dying  man's  thoughts,  the  final 
judgement  passed  upon  them  left  little  to  be  delivered  to  the 
children.* 

Another  contemporaneous  case  is  worthy  of  mention  if  only 
because  the  Geronimite  Joseph  de  Sigiienza  has  customarily  been 
included  among  the  victims  of  the  Inquisition,  in  place  of  which 
he  sought  its  jurisdiction  in  order  to  protect  himself  against  the 
machinations  of  his  brethren.  At  an  early  age  he  had  entered 
the  Order,  where  his  talents  and  varied  learning  gained  him  rapid 
advancement.  When  the  Escorial  was  completed,  Philip  II  sent 
for  him  to  preach  the  first  sermon  in  the  church  of  San  Lorenzo; 
since  then  he  had  preached  oftener  than  any  one  else  and  many  of 
the  gentlemen  and  ladies  of  the  court  had  selected  him  as  their  con- 
fessor. Philip  placed  him  in  charge  of  the  royal  archives  and  of 
the  sagrarios  and  reliquaries  of  the  two  libraries,  which  brought 
him  into  frequent  communication  with  the  king,  and  he  had  utilized 
this  to  cause  appointments  and  dismissals,  and  to  institute  reforms 
in  the  college  of  Pdrraces.  This  caused  jealousy  and  enmity,  and 
Diego  de  Yepes,  the  prior  of  his  convent  of  San  Lorenzo,  endeav- 
ored to  procure  his  removal.  Then  he  incurred  the  hostility  of 
the  prior  of  the  college,  Crist6bal  de  Zafra,  who  was  a  florid 
preacher.    In  a  sermon  before  the  king  on  the  previous  Nativity 


Coleccion,  II,  136-65. 


Chap.  VII]  JOSEPH  DE  SIOUENZA  169 

of  the  Virgin  (September  8th)  he  had  said  that  the  Minotaur  was 
Christ  and  the  Labyrinth  was  the  Gospel  and  Ariadne  was  Our 
Lady  and  the  child  she  bore  to  Theseus  was  faith,  and  if  any  one 
desired  to  enter  the  Labyrinth  he  must  pray  to  the  Virgin  for  her 
child.  Such  sermons  were  the  fashion,  and  Diego  de  Yepes 
eclipsed  this,  on  January  1st,  when  he  told  his  audience  that  when 
Delilah  had  exhausted  Samson  she  removed  him  from  her  and 
delivered  him  to  the  Philistines,  so  when  the  Virgin  had  exhausted 
God  she  removed  him  and  placed  him  in  the  manger,  with  other 
equally  filthy  topics.  Fray  Joseph  sought  to  repress  this  style 
of  preaching,  insisting  that  it  should  be  confined  to  expositions  of 
the  Evangel  and  moral  instruction,  which  gained  him  enemies 
among  those  whose  eccentricities  and  bad  taste  he  reproved. 
Another  source  of  enmity  was  that  he  was  entrusted  with  the 
selection  of  students  to  attend  the  lectures  on  Hebrew  of  Arias 
Montano,  when  he  came  to  San  Lorenzo,  which  angered  those 
who  were  omitted.  A  formidable  cabal  was  formed  for  his  ruin ; 
careful  watch  was  kept  on  his  utterances  in  unguarded  moments 
and  in  the  pulpit,  and  it  was  not  difficult  to  collect  propositions 
which,  when  exaggerated  or  distorted,  might  furnish  material  for 
prose'cution. 

It  was  safer  to  trust  to  a  prejudiced  court  within  the  Order 
than  to  the  Inquisition.  A  visitation  of  the  convent  and  col- 
lege was  ordered,  with  instructions  to  withdraw  the  licence  of 
any  preacher  or  confessor  found  to  be  insufl&cient.  The  visitors 
came  on  April  13,  1592  and  reported  on  the  17th.  The  frailes 
were  examined  separately  and  secretly  and,  of  twenty-two,  all 
but  one  offered  objections  to  opinions  uttered  by  Fray  Joseph. 
From  their  testimony  was  extracted  a  series  of  nineteen  proposi- 
tions, most  of  them  utterly  trivial.  He  was  accused  of  decrying 
scholastic  theology,  of  holding  that  preaching  should  be  based  on 
the  bare  Scriptures,  of  exaggerated  praise  of  Arias  Montano  at  the 
expense  of  other  expounders  of  Holy  Writ,  of  advising  a  fraile  to 
study  Scripture  in  place  of  books  of  devotion  and  much  else  of 
the  same  nature.  The  frailes  had  learned  the  processes  of  the 
Inquisition;  they  submitted  these  propositions  for  qualification  to 
Gutierrez  Mantilla,  the  chief  professor  of  theology  in  the  college, 
who  rendered  three  opinions,  varying  in  tone,  but  the  final  one 
declared  that  some  of  the  propositions  inclined  to  Lutheranism 
and  Wickliffitism  and  others  to  Judaism.  Moreover,  on  May  18th 
he  wrote  to  the  king,  announcing  the  discovery  of  a  dangerous 


170  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

heresy  in  the  college  of  San  Lorenzo  which,  if  not  checked  at  the 
outset,  might  bring  upon  Spain  the  dangers  developed  in  other 
lands.  It  had  spread  among  the  students,  some  of  whom,  by  the 
vigilance  of  the  prior,  were  already  in  the  Inquisition  of  Toledo, 
and  he  begged  Philip  to  urge  on  the  prior  unrelaxing  efforts  to 
avert  the  evil. 

All  this  had  been  done  in  secret,  but  enough  reached  the  ears  of 
Fray  Joseph  to  convince  him  of  the  ruin  impending  at  the  hands 
of  his  brethren.  Such  matters  belonged  exclusively  to  the  juris- 
diction of  the  Inquisition  and  they  could  not  prevent  his  appealing 
to  that  tribunal,  in  which  he  lost  no  time.  On  April  23d  he  pre- 
sented himself  at  Toledo,  with  a  letter  from  his  prior,  Diego  de 
Yepes,  stating  that  he  was  learned,  able  and  a  prior  of  the  Order, 
but  that  some  of  his  expressions  in  preaching  and  conversation 
had  created  scandal,  in  consequence  of  which  he  had  been  tried 
by  visitors;  this  trial  Yepes  was  ready  to  submit  to  the  tribunal, 
and  he  asked  that  Fray  Joseph  be  treated  with  its  customary 
benignity.  With  this  Fray  Joseph  handed  in  a  written  statement, 
containing  what  he  had  been  able  to  gather  as  to  the  accusations, 
and  submitting  himself  to  the  judgement  of  the  Inquisition,  both 
in  correcting  what  was  wrong  and  in  accepting  whatever  punish- 
ment might  be  imposed. 

The  tribunal  sent  for  the  papers  of  the  trial  and  assigned  to  him 
the  convent  of  la  Sisla  as  a  prison,  which  he  was  not  to  leave  with- 
out permission  under  the  customary  penalties.  This  confinement, 
however,  was  scarce  more  than  nominal  for,  on  May  14th,  he  repre- 
sented that  the  king  and  court  were  at  San  Lorenzo,  and  his  absence 
would  be  a  great  dishonor  to  him,  wherefore  he  asked  to  have, 
by  return  of  his  messenger,  permission  to  go  there,  which  was 
immediately  granted.  Subsequently  he  was  allowed  the  unusual 
favor  of  consulting  with  his  counsel  at  the  latter's  house  and,  on 
October  21st,  he  asked  licence  to  return  to  San  Lorenzo  for  a 
month,  because  he  was  suffering  from  fever  and  his  physician 
stated  that  his  life  was  at  risk  at  la  Sisla — a  request  which  was 
doubtless  granted.  The  contrast  is  marked  between  his  treat- 
ment and  that  of  Luis  de  Leon. 

Meanwhile  the  trial  was  in  progress  with  all  customary  formaUties. 
The  propositions  were  submitted  to  calificadores  and,  on  July  30th, 
the  fiscal  presented  the  accusation,  denouncing  him  as  an  apostate 
heretic  and  excommunicated  perjurer,  demanding  his  relaxation 
and  asking  that  he  be  tortured  as  often  as  necessary.     He  duly 


Chap.  VIIJ  THEOLOGICAL  TRIVIALITIES  171 

went  through  the  examinations  on  the  accusation  and  publication 
of  evidence,  and  presented  eight  witnesses,  who  testified  to  his 
distinguished  reputation  for  learning,  piety  and  orthodoxy,  also 
that  Fray  Cristobal  de  Zafra  was  noted  for  bringing  fables  and 
poetry  into  his  sermons,  and  that  Fray  Justo  de  Soto,  who  had 
accused  him  of  saying  that  Jews  and  Turks  could  be  saved,  was 
an  ignoramus,  knowing  little  of  grammar  and  nothing  of  theology. 
It  was  not  until  October  22d  that  was  held  the  consulta  de  fe, 
which  voted  unanimously  for  acquittal;  the  Suprema  confirmed 
the  sentence,  on  January  25, 1593,  when  Fray  Joseph  was  probably 
absent,  for  it  was  nearly  a  month  before  he  appeared,  on  February 
19th  to  hear  it  read.  At  his  request  a  copy  of  it  was  given  to  him 
and  thus  ended  a  case  in  which  the  Inquisition  was  the  protector 
of  innocence  against  fraternal  malignity.' 

The  extent  to  which  Spanish  intellect  wasted  itself  in  inter- 
minable controversies  over  the  infinitely  little,  and  the  dangers  to 
which  all  men  were  exposed  who  exercised  the  slightest  originality, 
are  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Padre  Alonso  Romero,  S.  J.,  lector, 
of  theology  in  the  Jesuit  college  of  Valladolid.  For  a  proposition 
concerning  the  intricate  question  whether  a  man  violates  the  law  of 
fasting  by  eating  nothing  on  a  fast-day,  his  fellow-Jesuit,  Fernando 
de  la  Bastida,  with  a  number  of  students,  denounced  him  to  the 
Inquisition,  August  29,  1614.  The  main  proposition,  and  a  num- 
ber of  others,  on  which  it  was  based,  or  which  were  deduced  from 
it,  were  pronounced  by  the  calificadores,  or  at  least  by  some  of 
them,  to  be  false,  scandalous,  rash  and  approximating  to  error. 
No  less  than  seventeen  witnesses  were  examined  against  him  and 
when,  on  January  9,  1615,  he  presented  himself,  he  admitted 
uttering  the  proposition,  but  said  that  he  had  consulted  many 
learned  men  and  the  principal  universities  and  he  offered  in 
defence  the  signatures  of  many  Jesuits  and  of  professors  of  Sala- 
manca, Alcald  and  Valladolid,  to  the  effect  that  it  was  not  subject 
to  theological  censure.  The  case  proceeded  to  a  vote  in  discordia, 
October  15th,  when  the  Suprema  ordered  his  confinement  in  a 
Jesuit  house,  that  he  should  cease  lecturing,  and  that  the  papers 
in  his  cell  should  be  examined.  On  October  29th,  while  he  was 
detained  in  the  audience-chamber,  his  keys  were  taken  and  his 


'  Proceso  contra  Fray  Joseph  de  Sigiienza  (MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle, 
Yc,  20,  T.  IV). 


172  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

papers  were  seized,  although  during  this  audience  he  stated  that, 
when  he  found  that  many  learned  men  condemned  his  proposition, 
he  had  retracted  it  publicly  and  had  defended  the  opposite,  which 
he  offered  to  do  again.  To  the  ordinary  mind  this  would  appear 
to  render  further  proceedings  superfluous,  but  the  assumed  injury 
inflicted  on  the  faith  demanded  reparation,  and  the  case  went  on. 
Thirty-three  propositions,  dependent  on  the  first  one,  were  sub- 
mitted to  califlcadores  and  condemned  as  before,  while  nineteen 
others,  extracted  from  his  papers,  were  explained  by  him  and 
dropped.  Drearily  and  slowly  the  proceedings  dragged  along. 
On  March  3,  1616,  the  accusation  was  presented,  but  it  was  not 
until  June  6,  1619,  that  the  publication  of  evidence  was  reached. 
Yet  the  case  seems  still  to  have  been  in  the  preliminary  stage  for 
on  July  10th  the  Suprema  ordered  that  the  propositions,  which 
had  now  grown  to  fifty-seven  in  number,  should  be  submitted 
to  califlcadores  and  on  their  report  the  tribunal  should  decide 
whether  to  transfer  him  to  the  secret  prison.  It  waited  more  than 
six  months  before  it  reached  a  decision,  February  5,  1620,  to  make 
no  change  but,  when  the  Suprema  learned  this,  it  ordered  him  to 
the  prison  of  familiars,  which  was  done  on  August  12th.  Then, 
on  the  18th,  he  selected  patrones  to  advise  him  and,  on  September 
25th,  he  presented  the  interrogatories  for  the  witnesses  iii  defence. 
On  May  12,  1621,  he  was  informed  that  all  that  he  had  required 
had  been  done  for  him.  On  July  5th  the  consulta  de  fe  voted 
that  he  should  be  warned  and  required  to  retract  the  proposition 
respecting  fasting  and  those  derived  from  it — which  he  had  already 
done  spontaneously  six  years  before;  as  for  the  others,  he  was 
acquitted.  The  Suprema  took  nearly  a  year  to  consider  this  and 
did  not  confirm  it  until  June  2,  1622,  when  the  trial  ended  with 
the  reading  of  the  sentence  on  June  30th.^  All  this  reads  like  a 
travesty  and  might  well  be  the  subject  of  ridicule  were  it  not  for 
the  serious  import  on  a  nation's  destiny  of  a  system  under  which 
eight  years  of  a  man's  life  could  be  consumed  on  a  matter  which 
the  outcome  showed  to  be  so  frivolous,  to  say  nothing  of  the  indefi- 
nite number  of  califlcadores  and  officials  whose  energies  were 
wasted  on  this  solemn  trifling. 

Preachers  were  as  liable  as  professors  to  prosecution  for  their 
utterances,  and  Spanish  pulpit  eloquence,  as  we  have  seen  it  illus- 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552,  fol.  1. 


Chap.  VII]  THE  PULPIT  I73 

trated  in  the  case  of  Fray  Joseph  de  Sigiienza,  afforded  ample 
field  for  censure.  The  auditor  who  took  exception  to  anything 
heard  in  a  sermon  had  only  to  denounce  the  speaker  and,  if  the 
proposition  was  exceptionable,  prosecution  followed.  Thus,  in 
1580,  Fray  Juan  de  Toledo,  a  Geronimite  of  the  convent  of  Madrid, 
was  denounced  to  the  Toledo  tribunal  for  having,  in  a  sermon 
before  Philip  II,  asserted  that  the  royal  power  was  so  absolute 
that  the  king  could  take  his  vassals'  property  and  their  sons  and 
daughters  to  use  at  his  pleasure.  Possibly  this  exuberance  of 
loyalty  might  have  escaped  animadversion,  had  not  the  preacher 
called  attention  to  the  enormous  revenues  of  the  bishops,  squan- 
dered on  their  kindred,  and  urged  that  the  king  and  pope  should 
unite  to  reduce  them  to  apostoHc  poverty.  On  trial  he  admitted 
his  remarks  in  a  somewhat  less  offensive  form;  he  attempted  to 
disable  the  witnesses  and  presented  evidence  of  good  character 
without  much  success.  The  consulta  de  fe  voted  in  discordia,  and 
the  Suprema  sentenced  him  to  abjure  de  levi,  to  recant,  in  the 
pulpit  on  a  feast-day,  the  propositions,  in  a  formula  drawn  up  for 
him,  to  be  recluded  in  a  convent  for  two  years,  to  be  suspended 
from  preaching  for  five  years,  and  to  perform  certain  spiritual 
penances.^ 

The  severity  of  this  sentence  shows  how  little  ceremony  there 
was  in  restraining  the  eccentricities  of  the  Spanish  pulpit,  even 
when  it  would  be  difficult  to  discern  where  suspicion  of  heresy  came 
in.  The  formula  of  retraction  prescribed  rendered  the  humilia- 
tion of  the  ceremony  most  bitter.  There  were  forms  suited  for 
the  different  characters  of  propositions,  but  all  bore  the  essential 
feature  that  the  culprit  in  the  pulpit  admitted  having  uttered  the 
condemned  expression;  that  the  inquisitors  had  ordered  him  to 
retract  it ;  that  he  recognized  that  it  ought  to  be  retracted  and,  as 
an  obedient  son  of  the  Church  and  in  fulfilment  of  the  command, 
he  declared,  of  his  own  free  will,  that  he  had  uttered  a  proposition 
heretical  and  contrary  to  express  passages  of  Holy  Writ  and,  as 
such,  he  retracted  and  unsaid  it  and  confessed  that  he  did  not 
understand  it  when  he  said  it  nor,  for  lack  of  knowledge,  did  he 
understand  the  evil  contained  in  it,  nor  did  he  believe  it  in  its 
heretical  sense,  nor  understand  that  it  was  heresy  and,  as  he  had 
spoken  evil  and  given  occasion  to  be  justly  suspected  that  he 
said  it  in  an  heretical  sense,  he  was  grieved  and  begged  pardon  of 


'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. 


174  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

God  and  the  holy  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  begged  pardon  and 
mercy  of  the  Holy  Office.  A  notary  with  a  copy  followed  his  words 
and,  if  the  performance  was  correct,  made  an  official  attestation 
of  the  fact.' 

Instances  of  this  sharp  censorship  of  pulpit  eloquence  were  by 
no  means  rare.  Thus  in  the  single  tribunal  of  Toledo,  after  Madrid 
had  been  separated  from  it,  Fray  Juan  de  Navarrete,  Franciscan 
Guardian  of  Talavera,  was  sentenced,  December  19,  1656,  for 
an  heretical  proposition  in  a  sermon,  to  make  a  retraction.  On 
April  21,  1657,  Fray  Diego  Osorio,  regent  of  studies  in  the  Augus- 
tinian  convent  of  Toledo,  was  required  to  retract,  was  suspended 
for  two  years  from  preaching  and  was  banished  for  the  same  period 
from  Madrid  and  Mascaraque.  On  April  23,  1659,  the  Merce- 
narian.  Maestro  Lucas  de  Lozoya,  Definidor  General  of  his  Order 
and  synodal  judge  of  the  province,  was  condemned  to  retract, 
was  suspended  from  preaching  for  two  years  and  was  exiled  from 
Madrid  and  Toledo.  Similar  sentences  were  pronounced  July 
14,  1660,  on  the  Trinitarian  Jacinto  Jose  Suchet,  and  August  31st 
on  the  Franciscan  Juan  de  Teran.  The  Trinitarian,  Juan  de 
Rojas  Becerro,  December  24,  1660,  was  allowed  to  retract  in  the 
audience-chamber,  but  was  suspended  and  banished  for  one  year. 
Juan  Rodriguez  Coronel,  S.  J.,  on  June  28,  1664,  was  suspended 
and  banished  for  two  years,  but  was  not  required  to  retract.  These 
instances  will  suffice  to  indicate  the  frequency  of  these  prosecutions 
and  the  manner  in  which  such  cases  were  treated.  They  offer  a 
curious  contrast  to  the  mercy  shown,  January  31, 1665,  to  Sebas- 
tian Bravo  de  Buiza,  assistant  cura  of  Fresno  la  Fuente,  who 
was  only  reprimanded  and  required  to  explain  in  the  pulpit  the 
most  offensive  proposition  that  the  Virgin  was  a  sinner  and  died 
in  sin.^ 

This  last  case  suggests  that  favoritism  sometimes  intervened  to 
shield  culprits  and  this  would  seem  to  be  confirmed  by  the  leniency 
shown,  in  1696,  to  Fray  Francisco  Esquerrer.  He  was  the  leading 
Observantine  preacher  and  theologian  in  Valencia  and  teacher  of 
theology  in  the  convent  of  San  Francisco  in  Jativa.  It  was  an 
episode  in  the  quarrel  between  Dominicans  and  Franciscans  over 
the  Immaculate  Conception,  when,  November  13, 1695,  the  Domin- 
ican Fray  Juan  Gascon  denounced  him  to  the  Valencia  tribunal 


1  Modo  de  Proceder,  fol.  67  (Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  122). 
'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.,  Leg.  1. 


Chap.  VII]  THE  PULPIT  175 

for  having  defended  at  Jdtiva,  October  9,  1693,  the  proposition 
that  Christ,  in  the  three  days  of  his  death,  was  sacramented  ahve 
in  the  heart  of  the  Virgin;  that  he  who  should  die  in  defence  of  the 
Immaculate  Conception  would  die  a  martyr,  for  it  was  a  point  of 
faith  settled  by  Scripture,  by  the  Council  of  Trent,  by  the  ApostoHc 
Council  of  Jerusalem  and  by  the  cult  of  the  Church.  Gascon  had 
denounced  this  at  the  time,  but  the  tribunal  had  taken  no  notice 
of  it,  and  he  now  repeated  the  charge,  adding  that  Esquerrer, 
preaching  in  1693  at  Olleria,  had  held  it  to  be  a  point  of  faith  that 
the  adoration  of  latria  was  due  to  St.  Francis;  in  the  same  year  at 
Jdtiva  he  preached  that  Christ  owed  more  to  St.  Antony  of  Padua 
than  St.  Antony  owed  to  Christ.  Also,  when  preaching  about  an 
image  known  as  the  Virgin  of  Salvation,  he  said  that  she  was  rather 
the  Mother  of  Salvation  than  the  Mother  of  Christ.  Then,  on 
August  28, 1695,  preaching  to  the  Augustinians  of  Jdtiva,  he  proved 
logically  that  the  wisdom  of  St.  Augustin  was  greater  than  the 
wisdom  of  the  Logos  and,  on  November  6, 1695,  to  the  Franciscans 
of  J^tiva,  he  declared  that  the  Immaculate  Conception  had  been 
made  a  point  of  faith  by  Alexander  VII  and  Innocent  XI.  Then 
the  tribunal  at  last  was  spurred  to  action;  it  gathered  evidence 
and  procured  from  the  calificadores  a  definition  that  some  of  the 
propositions  were  blasphemous,  others  heretical  and  others  ill- 
sounding.  Early  in  1696  Esquerrer  was  thrown  into  the  secret 
prison;  he  endeavored  to  explain  away  the  propositions;  the  trial 
proceeded  with  unwonted  celerity  and,  on  September  9th,  the  case 
was  suspended  with  merely  the  usual  reprimand  and  the  suppres- 
sion of  the  propositions  of  October  9,  1693.'  Apparently  the 
Inquisition  was  content  to  have  the  people  fed  upon  such  doctrines. 
It  was  probably  less  to  favoritism  than  to  indolence  that  we 
may  attribute  the  outcome  of  the  case  of  the  Minim,  Fray  N. 
Serra,  lector  in  the  Barcelona  convent  of  S.  Francesco  de  Paula. 
On  St.  Barbara's  day,  December  4,  1721,  he  preached  a  sermon 
in  which,  among  various  other  ineptitudes,  he  said  that  St.  Barbara 
was  a  virgin  and  yet  pregnant,  and  that  Christ  was  the  fourth 
person  of  the  Trinity.  An  artillery  regiment  in  quarters  had  been 
taken  to  the  church  and,  in  the  evening,  some  of  the  officers,  visit- 
ing Dona  Bemarda  Vueltaflores,  amused  themselves  by  repeating 
his  grotesque  utterances.  A  week  later  she  chanced  to  mention 
the  matter  to  Fray  Antonio  de  la  Concepcion  and  he,  for  the  dis- 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  45,  fol.  13-33. 


176  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  VIII 

charge  of  his  conscience,  carried  the  tale  to  the  tribunal.  Dona 
Bernarda  was  sent  for,  told  what  she  remembered  and  furnished 
the  names  of  the  witnesses.  They  were  summoned  and  gave  their 
evidence.  The  fiscal  fussed  over  it,  said  that  he  had  only  two 
concurrent  witnesses,  and  wanted  others  of  the  audience  looked  up 
and  examined,  which  was  not  done.  The  registers  were  searched, 
but  no  former  complaints  against  Fray  Serra  were  found.  Then 
the  fiscal  asked  that  all  the  other  tribunals  of  Spain  be  written 
to,  which  was  postponed.  On  April  22,  1722  he  had  the  proposi- 
tions submitted  to  calificadores,  five  of  whom  unanimously  pro- 
nounced that  the  one  relating  to  Christ  was  formally  heretical  and 
the  others  scandalous  and  irreverent,  rendering  the  culprit  vehe- 
mently suspect  and  of  little  sense.  Then  ensued  a  pause  until 
1726,  when  in  July  replies  were  received  from  all  the  tribunals 
that  they  had  nothing  against  Fray  Serra.  Then  followed  another 
pause,  until  June  27,  1728,  when  the  inquisitors  resolved  that  the 
case  should  be  suspended  after  consulting  the  Suprema,  which 
assented  with  the  mild  rebuke  that,  as  the  sumaria  had  been  formed 
in  1721,  it  should  have  been  acted  upon  at  once,  in  place  of  waiting 
until  1728.' 

Cognizance  of  the  more  or  less  trivial  utterances  of  individuals 
continued  to  the  last  and  formed  an  increasing  portion  of  inquisi- 
torial business  as  Judaism  gradually  disappeared.  How  the  people 
were  still  taught  to  keep  a  watch  over  their  fellows  is  exhibited  in 
the  case  of  Manuel  Ribes,  of  Valencia,  in  1798.  He  was  a  boy 
only  nine  years  of  age,  attending  a  primary  school,  who  was 
denounced  by  a  fellow-pupil  for  an  heretical  expression.  That 
the  case  was  seriously  considered  is  inferable  from  the  fact  that  it 
was  suspended,  not  dismissed,  and  remained  of  record  against  the 
child  in  case  of  future  offences.  How  keen,  moreover,  was  the 
inquisitorial  eye  to  discern  peril  to  the  faith,  is  visible  in  the 
prosecution  at  Murcia,  in  1801,  of  Don  Ramon  Rubin  de  Cells  y 
Noriega,  a  dignitary  of  the  cathedral  of  Cartagena  and  rector  of 
the  conciliar  seminary,  for  a  proposition  concealed  in  his  printed 
plan  for  instruction  in  Latin.^ 

Under  such  impulses  it  is  not  a  matter  for  surprise  that,  in  this 
later  period  "propositions"  furnished  half  the  business  of  the 


'  MSS.  of  Am.  Philosophical  Society. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 


Chap.  VII]  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS  177 

tribunals.  In  the  register  compiled  in  Valencia  of  all  the  cases 
tried  in  Spain,  after  1780  until  the  suppression  of  the  Inquisition 
in  1820,  the  aggregate  is  6569  cases,  out  of  which  3026,  or  not  far 
from  one-half,  are  designated  as  for  propositions.  Of  these  latter 
748  are  noted  as  suspended  or  laid  aside  in  Valencia,  leaving  2278 
carried  on  through  trial.  Of  the  3543  cases  for  other  offences, 
1469,  as  we  have  seen,  were  for  solicitation,  leaving  only  2074 
as  the  total  number  for  the  miscellaneous  business  of  the  tribunals. 
Those  accused  for  propositions  represent  every  sphere  of  life, 
but  a  larger  .portion  than  of  old  belong  to  the  educated  classes — 
clerics,  professional  men,  officers  of  the  army,  municipal  officials, 
professors  in  colleges  and  the  like.' 

That  this  class  of  business  should  increase  was  natural  in  view 
of  the  infiltration  of  the  irreligious  philosophy  and  liberal  ideas  of 
the  later  eighteenth  century,  which  escaped  the  censorship  and 
watchfulness  at  the  ports.  The  Napoleonic  war  poured  a  flood  of 
this  upon  the  land,  traversed  in  almost  every  part  by  armies, 
whether  hostile  like  the  French  or  heretic  allies  like  the  English. 
After  the  Restoration,  the  duty  of  the  Inquisition  was  largely  the 
extirpation  of  these  seeds  of  evil  in  a  political  as  well  as  a  spiritual 
sense,  and  propositions  antipoliticas,  as  we  shall  see,  were  as  freely 
subject  to  its  jurisdiction  as  the  irreligiosas.  The  punishments 
inflicted  were  not  usually  severe,  but  the  trial  itself  was  a  sufficient 
penalty,  for  the  accused  was  thrown  into  the  secret  prison  during 
the  dilatory  progress  of  his  case,  his  property  was  embargoed  and 
his  career  was  ruined,  while  in  most  cases  he  was  subsequently 
kept  under  strict  surveillance,  for  which  the  inquisitorial  organi- 
zation furnished  special  facilities. 

As  a  typical  case  it  will  suffice  to  allude  to  that  of  two  merchants 
of  Cadiz,  Julian  Borrego  and  Miguel  Villaviciosa,  sentenced  in 
1818  by  the  Seville  tribunal,  for  "propositions  and  blasphemies," 
to  abjure  de  vehementi  and  to  ten  years'  exile  from  Cadiz,  Seville 
and  Madrid,  including  service  in  a  presidio.  In  consideration,  it 
is  said,  of  the  extraordinarily  long  imprisonment  which  they  had 
endured,  the  service  of  the  former  was  only  to  be  four  years  in 
Ceuta  and  of  the  latter  six  years  in  Melilla.  As  was  so  frequently 
the  case  at  this  time,  the  Suprema  interposed  in  favor  of  leniency 
and  reduced  the  term  to  presidio  for  both  to  two  years.  They 
were  married  men;  the  trial  and  sentence  virtually  meant  ruin. 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 

VOL.  IV  12 


178  PROPOSITIONS  [Book  Vin 

and  probably  influence  was  exerted  in  their  behalf  for,  after  six 
months,  the  Suprema  allowed  them  to  return  to  Spain  to  support 
their  families/ 

What  was  the  precise  nature  of  the  propositions  the  record  does 
not  inform  us,  but,  had  the  offence  been  political,  it  is  improbable 
that  this  mercy  would  have  been  shown.  It  if  were  religious,  it 
may  have  been  the  deliberate  expression  of  erroneous  belief,  or 
a  hasty  ejaculation  called  forth  by  an  ebullition  of  wrath  for,  as 
of  old  the  Inquisition  took  cognizance  of  ever3i;hing  and,  in  its 
awe-inspiring  fashion,  undertook  to  discipline  the  manners  as  well 
as  the  faith  of  the  people.  In  1819,  the  sentence  of  Bartolom^ 
Lopez  of  Cordova,  for  propositions,  warns  him  on  the  conse- 
quences of  his  unbridled  passion  for  gambling  and  lust,  which  had 
caused  his  offence,  and,  in  another  case,  the  culprit's  inconsid- 
erate utterances  are  ascribed  to  his  quarrels  with  his  wife,  with 
whom  he  is  urged  to  reconcile  himself.^ 

Thus  to  the  last  the  Inquisition,  in  small  things  as  in  great,  sought 
to  control  the  thoughts  and  the  speech  of  aU  men  and  to  make 
every  Spaniard  feel  that  he  was  at  the  mercy  of  an  invisible  power 
which,  at  any  moment,  might  call  him  to  account  and  might  blast 
him  for  life. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  890;  Lib.  435^ 
2  Ibidem,  Lib.  890. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

SORCERY  AND  OCCULT  ARTS. 

Man's  effort  to  supplement  the  limitations  of  his  powers  by 
the  assistance  of  spiritual  agencies,  and  to  obtain  fore-knowledge 
of  the  future,  dates  from  the  earliest  ages  and  is  characteristic  of 
all  races.  When  this  is  attempted  through  the  formulas  of  an 
established  religion  it  is  regarded  as  an  act  of  piety ;  when  through 
the  invocation  of  fallen  gods,  or  of  the  ministers  of  the  Evil  Prin- 
ciple, or  through  a  perverted  use  of  sacred  rites,  it  is  the  subject 
of  the  severest  animadversion  of  the  law-giver.  When  it  assumes 
to  use  mysterious  secrets  of  nature,  it  has  at  times  been  regarded 
as  harmless,  and  at  others  it  has  been  classed  with  sorcery,  and 
the  effort  to  suppress  it  has  been  based,  not  on  its  being  a  deceit, 
but  a  crime. 

When  the  Roman  domination  in  Spain  was  overthrown  by  the 
Wisigoths,  the  Barbarians  brought  with  them  their  ancestral 
superstitions,  to  be  superadded  to  the  ancient  Ligurian  beliefs 
and  the  more  recent  Christianized  paganism.  The  more  cturrent 
objectionable  practices  are  indicated  by  the  repressive  laws  of 
successive  Wisigothic  monarchs,  and  it  illustrates  the  imperishable 
nature  of  superstitions  that  under  their  generalizations  can  be 
classed  most  of  the  devices  that  have  endured  the  incessant  war- 
fare of  the  Church  and  the  legislator  for  a  thousand  years.  The 
Wisigothic  ordinances  were  carried,  with  little  change,  into  the 
Fuero  Juzgo,  or  Romance  version  of  the  code,  but  their  modera- 
tion was  displeasing  to  Ramiro  I,  who,  in  943,  prescribed  burning 
for  magicians  and  sorcerers  and  is  said  to  have  inflicted  the  penalty 
in  numerous  instances.^  It  is  not  probable  that  this  severity  was 
permanent  for,  as  a  rule,  medieval  legislation  was  singularly 
lenient  to  these  offences,  although,  about  the  middle  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  Jacobo  de  las  Leyes,  in  a  work  addressed  to 


'  Mariana,  Hist,  de  Espafia,  Lib.  vi,  u.  75. — JosS  Amador  de  log  Rios  (Revista 
de  Espafia,  XVII,  388). 

(179) 


180  SORCERY  AND  OCCULT  ARTS  [Book  VIII 

Alfonso  X,  classes  among  the  worst   offenders  those  who  slay- 
men  by  enchantment/ 

Alfonso  himself,  in  the  Partidas,  treated  magic  and  divination 
as  arts  not  involving  heresy,  to  be  rewarded  or  punished  as  they 
were  used  for  good  'or  for  evil.^  In  no  land  were  they  more  widely 
developed  or  more  firmly  implanted  in  popular  behef,  for  Spain 
not  only  preserved  the  older  errors  of  Wisigothic  times  but  had 
superadded  those  brought  by  the  Moors  and  had  acquired  others 
from  the  large  Jewish  population.  The  fatalism  of  Islam  was  a 
fruitful  source  of  devices  for  winning  foreknowledge.  The  astrol- 
oger and  the  diviner,  so  far  from  being  objects  of  persecution,  were 
held  in  high  honor  among  the  Moors,  and  their  arts  were  publicly 
taught  as  essential  to  the  general  welfare.  In  the  great  school 
of  Cordova  there  were  two  masters  who  taught  astrology,  three  of 
necromancy,  pyromancy  and  geomancy,  and  one  of  the  ars  notoria. 
Seven  thousand  seven  hundred  Arabic  writers  are  enumerated 
on  the  interpretation  of  dreams,  and  as  many  on  goetic  magic, 
while  the  use  of  amulets  as  preservatives  from  evil  was  universal.' 
Spain  was  the  classic  land  of  magic  whither,  during  the  middle 
ages,  resorted  for  instruction  from  all  Europe  those  who  sought 
knowledge  of  its  mysteries,  and  the  works  on  the  occult  arts,  which 
were  circulated  everywhere,  bore  for  the  most  part,  whether 
truly  or  falsely,  the  names  of  Arabic  authors. 

Long  after  these  pursuits  had  fallen  elsewhere  under  the  ban  of 
the  Church,  the  medieval  spirit  of  toleration  continued  in  Spain. 
Until  the  fourteenth  century  was  drawing  to  an  end,  astrology, 
we  are  told,  was  in  general  vogue  among  the  upper  classes,  while 
the  lower  placed  full  confidence  in  the  wandering  mountebanks 
who  overspread  the  land — mostly  Moorish  or  Jewish  women — 
who  plied  their  trade  under  the  multifarious  names  of  saludadores, 
ensalmadores,  cantadores,  entendederas,  adivinas  and  ajodadores, 
earning  a  hvelihood  by  their  various  arts  of  telling  fortunes,  pre- 
serving harvests  and  cattle,  curing  disease,  protecting  from  the 
evil  eye,  and  exciting  love  or  hatred.*  So  little  blame  attached 
to  these  pursuits  that  Miguel  de  Urrea,  Bishop  of  Tarazona  from 
1309  to  1316,  was  popularly  known  as  el  Nigromdntico,  and  his 


'  Flores  de  las  Leyes  (Memorial  hist,  espanol,  II,  243). 
'  Partidas,  P.  vii.  Tit.  ix,  ley  17;  Tit.  xxiii,  leyes  1,  2,  3. 
'  Amador  de  los  Rios,  op.  cit.,  XVII,  382,  384-5. 
*  Ibidem,  XVIII,  14. 


Chap.  VIII]  MEDIEVAL  TOLERATION  181 

portrait  in  the  episcopal  palace  of  Tarazona  had  an  inscription 
describing  him  as  a  most  skilful  necromancer,  who  even  deluded 
the  devil  with  his  own  arts/ 

The  Church,  however,  did  not  share  in  this  tolerant  spirit  and 
was  preparing  to  treat  these  practices  with  severity.  There  is 
comparative  mildness,  in  1317,  in  the  definition  of  its  policy  by 
Astesanus,  the  leading  canonist  of  his  time  who,  after  reciting  the 
ferocious  imperial  legislation,  adds  that  the  canons  impose  for 
these  arts  a  penance  of  forty  days ;  if  the  offender  refuses  to  perform 
this  he  should,  if  a  layman,  be  excommunicated  and,  if  a  cleric, 
be  confined  in  a  monastery.  If  he  persists  in  his  evil  ways,  he 
should,  if  a  slave  be  scourged  and,  if  a  freeman,  be  imprisoned. 
Bishops  should  expel  from  their  dioceses  all  such  persons  and,  in 
some  places,  this  is  laudably  accompanied  with  curtailing  their 
garments  and  their  hair.  Yet  the  uncertainty  still  prevailing  is 
indicated  by  the  differences  among  the  doctors  as  to  whether 
priests  incurred  irregularity  who  misused  in  magic  rites  the  Eucha- 
rist, the  chrism  and  holy  water,  or  who  baptized  figurines  to  work 
evil  on  the  parties  represented,  and  in  this  doubt  Astesanus 
counsels  obtaining  a  dispensation  as  the  safest  plan.^ 

All  doubts  as  to  such  questions  were  promptly  settled.  Pope 
John  XXII  divided  his  restless  activity  between  persecuting 
the  Spiritual  Franciscans,  warring  with  the  Visconti,  combating 
Ludwig  of  Bavaria  and  creating  a  wholesome  horror  of  sorcery  in 
all  its  forms.  Imagining  that  conspirators  were  seeking  his  life 
through  magic  arts,  he  ordered  special  inquisitors  appointed  for 
their  extermination  and  urged  the  regular  appointees  to  active 
persecution.  In  various  bulls,  and  particularly  one  known  as 
Super  illius  specula,  issued  about  1326,  he  expressed  his  grief 
at  the  rapid  increase  of  the  invocation  and  adoration  of  demons 
throughout  Christendom,  and  ordered  all  who  availed  themselves 
of  such  services  to  be  publicly  anathematized  as  heretics  and  to 
be  duly  punished,  while  all  books  on  the  subject  were  to  be  burnt. 
The  faithful  were  warned  not  to  enter  into  compacts  with  hell,  or 
to  confine  demons  in  mirrors  and  rings  so  as  to  foretell  the  future, 
and  all  who  disobeyed  were  threatened  with  the  penalties  of  heresy.^ 


'  Plorez,  Espana  Sagrada,  XLIX,  188,  604. 

'  Astesani  de  Ast  Summa  de  Casibus  Conscientia;,  P.  i,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  14. 
'  Raynald.  Annal,  ann.  1317,  n.  52-4;  arm.  1318,  n.  57;  ann.  1320,  n.  51;  ann. 
1327,  n.  43.— BuUar.  Roman.  I,  204.— RipoU,  Bullar.  Ord.  Pradic.  II,  192. 


182  SOBCEBT  AND  OCCULT  ARTS  [Book  VIII 

Thus  the  Church  asserted  authoritatively  the  truth  of  the  powers 
claimed  by  sorcerers — the  first  of  a  long  series  of  similar  utterances 
which  did  more,  perhaps,  than  aught  else  to  stimulate  belief  and 
foster  the  development  of  the  evil.  The  prosperity  of  the  sorcerer 
was  based  on  popular  credulity,  and  the  deterrent  influence  of  pros- 
pective punishment  weighed  little  against  the  assurance  that  he 
could  in  reality  perform  the  service  for  which  he  was  paid. 

There  was  no  Inquisition  in  Castile,  and  the  repression  of  these 
unhallowed  arts  rested  with  the  secular  power,  which  was  irre- 
sponsive to  the  papal  commands.  The  Partidas,  with  their  quasi 
approval  of  magic,  were  formally  confirmed,  by  the  Cortes  of  1348, 
as  the  law  of  the  land,  and  remained  the  basis  of  its  jurisprudence. 
Yet  the  new  impulse  from  Rome  commenced  soon  afterwards 
to  make  itself  felt.  About  1370  a  law  of  Enrique  III  declared 
guilty  of  heresy  and  subject  to  its  penalties  all  who  consulted 
diviners.^  In  this  the  injection  of  heresy  is  significant  of  the 
source  of  the  new  policy,  reflected  further  in  a  law  of  Juan  I, 
in  1387,  which  asserts  that  all  diviners  and  sorcerers  and  astrol- 
ogers, and  those  who  believe  in  them,  are  heretics  to  be  punished 
as  provided  in  the  Partidas,  laymen  by  the  royal  officials  and 
clerics  by  their  prelates.^  That  these  laws  accomplished  little  is 
indicated  by  the  increasing  severity  of  the  pragm^tica  of  April 
9,  1414,  which  ordered  all  royal  and  local  judges,  under  pain  of 
loss  of  office  and  one-third  confiscation,  to  put  to  death  all  sorcerers, 
while  those  who  harbored  them  were  to  be  banished  and  the  prag- 
matica  itself  was  to  be  read  monthly  in  the  market-places  so  that 
no  one  could  pretend  ignorance.'  Even  the  Mud6jares  assimi- 
lated themselves  in  this  to  their  Christian  conquerors,  threatening 
the  practice  of  sorcery  with  death,  and  warning  all  to  avoid 
divination  and  augury  and  astrology.  This  accomplished  little, 
however,  and,  after  their  enforced  conversion,  the  Moriscos  con- 
tinued to  enjoy  the  reputation  of  masters  of  the  black  arts.* 

In  the  kingdoms  of  Aragon  the  secular  power  seems  to  have  been 
negligent,  and  the  duty  reverted  to  the  episcopate,  which  was  for 
the  most  part  indifferent.  It  was  not  wholly  so,  however,  for, 
in  1372,  Pedro  Clasquerin,  Archbishop  of  Tarragona,  ordered  an 


'  Ordenanzas  Reales,  viii,  iv,  2.  '  Ibidem,  viii,  i,  9. 

'  Novis.  Recop.  Lib.  xii,  Tit.  iv,  ley  2. 

*  Tratados  de  Legislacion  Muhamedana,  pp.  143,  251  (Mem.  hist,  espanol, 
Tom.  V).— Bleda,  Coronica,  p.  1025. 


Chap.  VIII]  INQUISITORIAL  JURISDICTION  183 

investigation  of  his  province  by  testes  synodales,  and  among  the 
matters  to  be  inquired  into  was  whether  there  were  sorcerers. 
Even  Inquisitor  Eymerich  appears  to  consider  it  as  in  no  way 
the  business  of  the  Holy  Office,  when  he  seeks  to  impress  upon  all 
bishops  the  duty  of  searching  for  such  enemies  of  Christ,  and  of 
punishing  them  with  all  severity.' 

In  Castile,  while  all  the  arts  of  sorcery  were  reckoned  heretical, 
jurisdiction  over  them  remained  secular,  even  after  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Inquisition  although,  among  Isabella's  good 
qualities,  is  enumerated  her  exceeding  abhorrence  of  diviners  and 
sorcerers  and  all  practitioners  of  similar  arts.^  There  was  evi- 
dently no  thought  of  diverting  the  Inquisition  from  its  labors 
among  the  New  Christians,  when  a  royal  decree  of  1500  ordered 
all  corregidors  and  justicias  to  investigate  as  to  the  existence  in 
their  districts  of  diviners  and  such  persons,  who  were  to  be  arrested 
and  punished  if  laymen,  while  if  clerics  they  were  to  be  handed 
over  to  their  prelates  for  due  castigation.^ 

The  question  of  jurisdiction,  in  fact,  was  a  difficult  one,  which 
required  prolonged  debate  to  settle.  It  is  true  that,  in  1511,  a 
case  in  Saragossa  shows  the  Inquisition  exercising  it,  but  a  discus- 
sion to  which  this  gave  rise  indicates  that  as  yet  it  was  a  novelty. 
Some  necromancers  were  condemned  by  the  tribunal  and  the 
inquisitors  asked  whether  confiscation  followed.  Inquisitor-gen- 
eral Enguera  decided  in  the  affirmative,  but  referred  to  Ferdinand 
for  confirmation.  The  king  instructed  the  archbishop  to  assemble 
the  inquisitors  and  some  impartial  lawyers  to  discuss  the  question 
and  report  to  him ;  their  conclusion  was  in  favor  of  the  crown  and 
not  till  then  did  he  order  the  receiver  to  sequestrate  and  take  posses- 
sion of  the  property,  which  was  considerable.  The  fact  that  it 
had  not  been  sequestrated  indicates  that  there  had  been  no  pre- 
cedent to  guide  the  tribunal.^  Soon  after  this,  in  Catalonia,  there 
came  a  demand  for  the  more  effective  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisi- 

'  ViUanueva,  Viage  Literario,  XX,  190. — Eymerici  Director,  p.  202  (Ed.  Venet. 
1607). 

^  Pulgar,  Cronica,  P.  ii,  cap.  iv. 

'  Nueva  Recop.,  Lib.  viii,  Tit.  iii,  ley  7. 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  3,  fol.  156,  158,  170,  186;  Lib.  927,  fol.  446. 

The  parties  in  this  case  were  doubtless  Garcia  de  Gorualan  and  Martin  de 
S6ria  relaxed  in  person,  and  Miguel  Sdnchez  de  Romeral  in  effigy,  as  herejes 
sortilegos,  Jime  16,  1511,  at  Saragossa. — Libro  Verde  (Revista  de  Espafia,  CVI, 
576,  581,  582).  Prior  to  this  several  women  had  been  burnt  as  witches,  as  we 
shall  see  hereafter. 


184  SOBCEBY  AND  OCCULT  ARTS  [Book  VIH 

tion,  in  order  to  repress  sorcery.  When  the  Concordia  of  1512 
was  arranged,  one  of  the  petitions  of  the  Cortes  was  that  it  should 
put  into  execution  the  bull  Super  illius  specula  of  John  XXII, 
and  that  the  king  should  procure  from  the  pope  the  confirmation 
of  the  bull.  There  was  no  objection  to  this,  and  Leo  X  accordingly- 
revived  the  bull  and  ordered  its  enforcement  in  Aragon.*  It 
must  have  been  immediately  after  this  that  the  Edict  of  Faith, 
in  the  Aragonese  kingdoms,  required  the  denunciation  of  sorcery, 
for,  in  the  Sicilian  instructions  of  1515,  issued  to  allay  popular 
discontent,  it  was  provided  that  this  clause  should  only  be  operative 
when  the  sorcery  was  heretical.^  Convictions,  however,  were  few, 
at  least  in  Aragon,  for  after  those  of  1511  there  were  no  relaxations 
for  sorcery  until  February  28,  1528,  when  Fray  Miguel  Calvo  was 
burnt ;  the  next  case  was  that  of  Mossen  Juan  Omella,  March  13, 
1537,  and  no  further  relaxations  occur  in  the  list  which  extends 
to  1574.^ 

Castile  followed  the  example  of  Aragon,  and  Archbishop  Man- 
rique  (1523-1538)  added  to  the  Edict  of  Faith  six  clauses,  giving 
in  full  detail  the  practices  of  magic,  sorcery  and  divination.*  Yet, 
as  late  as  1539,  Ciruelo  seems  to  regard  the  crime  as  subject 
wholly  to  secular  jurisdiction,  for  he  warns  sovereigns  that,  as 
they  hold  the  place  of  God  on  earth,  they  should  have  more  zeal 
for  the  honor  of  God  than  for  their  own,  and  should  chastise  these 
offenders  accordingly,  being  certain  that  they  would  be  held  to 
strict  account  for  their  negligence.^ 

The  question,  in  fact,  was  a  somewhat  intricate  one,  admittiag 
of  nice  discussion.  In  1257,  not  long  after  the  founding  of  the 
Old  Inquisition,  Alexander  IV  was  asked  whether  it  ought  to 
take  cognizance  of  divination  and  sorcery,  when  he  replied  that  it 
must  not  be  diverted  from  its  proper  duties  and  must  leave  such 
offenders  to  their  regular  judges,  unless  there  was  manifest  heresy 


'  PragmAticas  y  altres  Drets  de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  viii,  cap.  i,  §  34; 
cap.  2. 

2  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  918,  fol.  382. 

"  Libro  Verde  de  Aragon  (Revista  de  Espana,  CVI,  pp.  675,  582). 

"*  Llorente,  Hist.  crft.  cap.  xv,  Art.  1,  n.  21. 

^  Reprovacion  de  las  Supersticiones,  P.  i,  cap.  i,  n.  14. 

This  book  is  the  Spanish  classic  on  the  subject.  Maestro  Pedro  Ciruelo  served 
as  inquisitor  in  Saragossa  for  thirty  years  and  was  professor  at  Alcald,.  His 
work  appeared  in  Salamanca,  in  1539,  where  it  was  reprinted  in  1540  and  1556 
and  again  in  Barcelona  in  1628,  with  notes  by  the  learned  Doctor  Pedro  Antonio 
Jofreu,  at  the  instance  of  Miguel  Santos,  Bishop  of  Solsona. 


Chap.  VIII]  FACT  WITH  THE  DEMON  185 

involved,  a  decision  which  was  repeated  more  than  once  and  was 
finally  embodied  in  the  canon  law  by  Boniface  VIIL'  There 
was  no  definition,  however,  as  to  what  constituted  heresy  in  these 
matters,  until  the  sweeping  declaration  of  John  XXTI  that  all  were 
heretical,  but  in  this  there  was  a  clear  inference  that  his  bulls  were 
directed  solely  to  mahgnant  magic  working  through  the  invocation 
and  adoration  of  demons.  This,  however,  comprised  but  a  small 
portion  of  the  vast  array  of  superstitious  observances,  on  which 
theological  subtilty  exhausted  its  dialectics.  Many  of  these  were 
perfectly  harmless,  such  as  the  simple  charms  of  the  wise-women 
for  the  cure  of  disease.  Others  were  pseudo-scientific,  like  the 
Cabala,  the  Ars  Notoria  and  the  Ars  Paulina,  by  which  universal 
knowledge  was  attained  through  certain  formulas.  Others  again 
taught  spells,  innocent  in  themselves,  to  protect  harvests  from 
insect  plagues  and  cattle  from  murrain.  There  were  infinite 
gradations,  leading  up  to  the  invocation  and  adoration  of  demons, 
besides  the  multiplied  resources  of  the  diviner  in  palmistry, 
hydromancy,  crystallomancy  and  the  rest — oneiroscopy,  or  dream- 
expounding,  being  a  special  stumbling-block,  in  view  of  its  scrip- 
tural warrant.  To  define  where  heresy  began  and  ended  in  these, 
to  decide  between  presumable  knowledge  of  the  secrets  of  nature 
and  resort  to  evil  spirits,  was  no  easy  matter,  and  by  common 
consent  the  decision  turned  upon  whether  there  was  a  pact,  express 
or  implied,  with  the  demon.  This  only  created  the  necessity  of  a 
new  definition  as  to  what  constituted  pact  and,  in  1398,  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris  sought  to  settle  this  by  declaring  that  there  was 
an  implied  pact  in  all  superstitious  observances,  of  which  the 
result  could  not  reasonably  be  expected  from  God  or  from  nature.^ 
This  marked  a  distinct  advance  in  the  conception  of  heretical 
sorcery,  but  it  still  left  open  the  question  as  to  what  might  or  might 
not  be  reasonable  expectation,  and  it  was  merely  an  opinion, 
albeit  of  the  most  authoritative  theological  body  in  Europe. 

Discussion  continued  as  lively  as  ever.  In  1492,  Bernardo 
Basin,  a  learned  canon  of  Saragossa,  considered  it  necessary  to 
prove  by  logic  that  all  pact  with  the  demon,  implicit  or  explicit, 
if  not  heresy  was  yet  to  be  treated  as  heresy.^  In  1494,  the 
Bepertorium  Inquisitorum  in  quoting  the  canon  law,  that  sorcery 

'  Raynald.  Annal.,  ann.  1258,  n.  23.— Potthast,  Regesta,  n.  17,745,  18,396.— 
Lib.  V  in  Sexto,  Tit.  ii,  c.  8  §  4. 

'  D'Argentr^,  Collect,  judio.  de  novis  Erroribus,  I,  ii,  154. 
"  Bemardi  Basin  Tract,  de  Artibus  magicis,  Concl.  i-x. 


186  SOBOJEBY  AND  OCCULT  ARTS  [Book  VIU 

must  savor  of  heresy  to  give  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition,  still 
admits  that  there  is  no  little  difficulty  in  defining  what  is  meant 
by  savoring  of  heresy,  while  even  at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury Pena  tells  us  that  no  question  excited  more  frequent  debate.' 
It  is  true  that,  in  1451,  Nicholas  V  had  conferred  on  Hugues  le 
Noir,  Inquisitor  of  France,  cognizance  of  divination,  even  when 
not  heretical,  but  this  had  been  a  special  provision,  long  since 
forgotten.^ 

The  tendency,  however,  was  irresistible  to  extend  the  definition 
of  heretical  sorcery,  and  to  bring  everything  under  the  Inquisition. 
In  1552  Bishop  Simancas  argues  that  the  demon  introduces 
himself  into  all  superstitious  practices  and  charms,  even  without 
the  intention  of  the  man;  he  admits  that  many  jurists  argue  that 
it  is  uncertain  whether  divinations  and  sorceries  savor  of  mani- 
fest heresy,  and  therefore  inquisitors  have  not  cognizance  of  them, 
but  the  contrary  is  accepted  by  law,  reason  and  custom,  for  it  is 
a  well-known  rule  that,  when  there  is  a  doubt  whether  a  judge 
has  jurisdiction,  the  jurisdiction  is  his,  and  this  matter  is  not 
exceptional;  inquisitors  can  proceed  against  all  guilty  of  these 
offences  as  suspect  of  heresy  and  this  is  received  in  practice.'  Yet 
in  practice  these  conclusions  were  reached  tentatively.  In  1537 
Doctor  Giron  de  Loaysa,  reporting  the  results  of  a  visitation  of 
the  Toledo  tribunal,  says  that  he  has  examined  many  processes 
for  sorcery  and  desires  instructions,  for  there  are  a  number  which 
are  more  foul  and  filthy  than  heretical;  and  even  as  late  as  1568 
the  Suprema,  in  acting  on  the  Barcelona  visitation  of  de  Soto 
Salazar,  reproves  Inquisitor  Mexia  for  inflicting  a  fine  of  ten  ducats 
and  spiritual  penances  on  Perebona  Nat,  for  having  used  charms 
and  uttered  certain  words  over  a  sick  woman;  such  cases,  it  says, 
do  not  pertain  to  the  Inquisition,  and  in  future  he  must  leave  all 
such  matters  to  the  Ordinary,  to  whom  they  belong.* 

The  tribunals  evidently  were  less  doubtful  than  the  Suprema 
as  to  their  powers.     Among  the  practitioners  who  speculated  on 


'  Repertor.  Inquisit.  s.  v.  Sapere  hceresim  post  v.  Hasresiarcha — Pegnse  Com- 
ment. LXVil  in  Eymerici  Director.  P.  ii. 

'  RipoU,  Bullar.  Ord.  Pradic,  III,  301.— Cf.  Alph.  de  Castro  de  justa  Hsreticor. 
Punitione,  Lib.  i,  cap.  13. 

'  Simancae  de  Cath.  Institt.,  Tit.  xxx,  n.  20,  21 ;  Tit.  LXiii,  n.  12.— Cf.  Alphons. 
de  Castro,  loc.  cit.,  cap.  14,  15. 

■"  Bibl.  pviblica  de  Toledo,  Sala  5,  Estante  11,  Tab.  3. — Archivo  de  Simancas, 
Inq.,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  20. 


Chap.  VIII]  INFEREBTIAL  HERESY  187 

popular  credulity  there  were  some  called  zahories,  who  claimed 
a  special  gift  of  being  able  to  see  beneath  the  surface  when  it  was 
not  covered  with  blue  cloth,  and  who  were  employed  to  discover 
springs  of  water,  veins  of  metal,  buried  treasure  and  corpses,  as 
well  as  aposthumes  and  other  internal  diseases.  There  was  no  pre- 
tence of  magic  in  this  but,  in  1567,  Juan  de  Mateba,  a  boy  of  14, 
who  claimed  among  other  gifts  to  be  a  zahori,  was  sentenced  by 
the  Saragossa  tribunal  to  fifty  lashes  in  the  prison,  to  six  years' 
reclusion  in  a  convent  under  instruction,  and  subsequently  to  a 
year's  exile,  together  with  prohibition,  under  pain  of  two  hundred 
lashes  through  the  streets,  to  cure  by  conjurations,  or  to  claim 
that  he  has  grace  to  effect  cures,  to  divine  the  future,  or  to  see 
corpses  and  other  things  under  the  earth.^ 

Whatever  doubts  existed  rapidly  disappeared.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  see  where  the  heresy  lay  which  earned,  from  the  Sara- 
gossa tribunal,  in  1585,  a  public  scourging  for  Gracia  Melero, 
because  she  kept  the  finger  of  a  man  who  had  been  hanged,  together 
with  a  piece  of  the  halter,  thinking  that  they  would  bring  her 
good  luck.^  In  fact,  by  this  time  the  omnipresent  demon  was 
held  accountable  for  everything.  A  case  exciting  considerable 
attention  in  1588  was  that  of  Elvira  de  Cespedes,  tried  by  the  tri- 
bunal of  Toledo,  who,  as  a  slave-girl  at  the  age  of  16,  was  married 
to  Cristoval  Lombardo  of  Jaen  and  bore  to  him  a  son,  still  living 
at  Seville.  Subsequently  at  San  Lucar  she  fell  in  love  with  her 
mistress  and  seduced  her,  as  well  as  many  other  women.  Run- 
ning away,  she  assumed  male  attire  and,  during  the  rebellion  of 
Granada  served  as  a  soldier  in  the  company  of  Don  Luis  Ponce. 
In  Madrid  she  worked  in  a  hospital,  obtained  a  certificate  as  a 
surgeon  and  practised  the  profession.  At  Yepes  she  offered 
marriage  to  a  girl,  but  the  absence  of  beard  and  her  effeminate 
appearance  caused  her  sex  to  be  questioned;  she  was  medically 
examined,  pronounced  to  be  a  man  and  the  Vicar  of  Madrid 
granted  a  licence  under  which  the  marriage  was  solemnized. 
Doubts,  however,  still  continued ;  she  was  denounced  to  the  magis- 
trates of  Ocana,  who  arrested  her  and  handed  her  over  to  the  Inqui- 
sition. In  the  course  of  her  trial  she  was  duly  examined  by  physi- 
cians, who  declared  her  to  be  a  woman  and  that  her  career  could 
only  be  explained  by  the  arts  of  the  demon.     This  explanation 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  726. 
»  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  PV,  3,  n.  20. 


188  SOB CER  Y  AND  OCCULT  ARTS  [Book  VIH 

satisfied  all  doubts;  she  was  sentenced  to  appear  in  an  auto,  to 
abjure  de  levi,  to  receive  two  hundred  lashes  and  to  serve  in  a 
hospital  ten  years  without  pay.  In  this  the  tribunal  was  mer- 
ciful, for  hermaphrodites  customarily  had  a  harsher  measure  of 
justice/ 

It  is  thus  easy  to  understand  how  the  definition  of  pact  by  the 
University  of  Paris  came  to  be  so  extended  as  to  cover  every 
possible  act  that  might  be  classed  as  superstitious — all  the  old 
women's  cures  and  all  the  traditional  usages  and  beliefs  that  had 
accumulated  through  credulous  generations  trained  to  place  con- 
fidence in  unintelligible  phrases  and  meaningless  actions — for  any 
result  greater  than  could  naturally  be  produced,  if  not  attributable 
to  God  was  perforce  ascribed  to  pact  with  the  demon.  Torre- 
blanca  thus  assures  us  that,  in  the  cure  of  disease,  pact  is  to  be 
inferred  when  nothing,  either  natural  or  supernatural,  is  employed, 
but  only  words,  secretly  or  openly  uttered,  a  touch,  a  breathing, 
or  a  simple  cloth  which  has  no  virtue  in  itself.  So  it  is  with  prayers 
and  verbal  formulas  approved  by  the  Church,  but  used  for  pur- 
poses other  than  those  for  which  they  were  framed,  or  even 
exorcisms  or  conjurations  against  disease  and  tempests  and  cater- 
pillars and  drought,  employed  without  the  rites  prescribed  by  the 
Church,  or  by  those  who  have  not  the  Order  of  Exorcists.  There 
is  pact  in  the  use  of  idle  prayers,  as  to  stop  bleeding  with  In  san- 
guine Adm  orta  est  mors,  or  Sanguis  mane  in  te  ut  sanguis  Christi 
mansit  in  se;  or  of  false  ones,  as  for  head-ache  Virgo  Maria  Jor- 
danum  transivit  et  tunc  S.  Stephanus  ei  ohviavit;  or  of  absurd  ones 
as  the  old  Danatadaries,  or  the  more  modern  Abrach  Haymon  etc., 
or  that  inscribed  on  bread  Irivni  Teherioni  etc.;  or  that  against 
the  bite  of  mad  dogs,  Hax,  Pax,  Max.  Suspect  of  pact  are  pious 
and  holy  prayers,  in  which  some  extraneous  or  unknown  sign  is 
introduced,  written  and  hung  on  the  neck,  or  anything  by  the 
wearing  of  which  protection  is  expected  from  sudden  death  or 
imprisonment  or  the  gallows;  also  the  use  of  natural  objects  which, 
by  their  nature  are  not  fitted  for  the  expected  results,  or  which 
are  inefficient  of  themselves  and  are  supposed  to  derive  virtue 
from  words  employed,  or  are  applied  with  prayers  and  observances 


'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. — Catdlogo  de  las  causas  segui- 
das  ante  el  tribunal  de  Toledo,  pp.  84,  326  (Madrid,  1903). 

Mendo  tells  us  (Epitome  Opinionum  Moralium,  Append,  de  Matrimonio,  n.  4) 
of  similar  cases  in  which  the  unfortunates  were  burnt. 


Chap.  VIII]  CONFIRMATION  OF  BELIEF  189 

not  prescribed  by  the  Church  and,  finally,  all  cures  of  disease 
which  physicians  cannot  explain.'  Moreover,  theologians  decided 
that  in  sorcery  there  was  no  parvitas  materice,  or  triviality,  which 
redeemed  it  from  being  a  mortal  sin.^ 

Thus  all  wise-women  and  charlatans  became  subject  to  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition,  and  no  richer  field  for  the  folk- 
lorist  can  be  found  than  in  their  numerous  trials,  where  all  the 
details  of  their  petty  devices  and  spells  and  charms  are  reported 
at  length.  There  was  the  corresponding  duty  imposed  on  it  to 
exterminate  all  popular  superstitions  throughout  the  land,  and 
possibly  it  might  have  had  a  measure  of  success  in  this  if  it  could 
have  treated  these  practitioners  as  impostors.  Unfortunately  its 
jurisdiction  over  them  was  based  on  the  reality  of  their  exercising 
demonic  powers,  and  their  persecution  only  tended  to  confirm 
popular  beUef  in  the  efficacy  of  their  ministrations,  while  the 
public  reading  of  their  sentences  con  meritos  spread  abroad  the 
knowledge  of  their  powers  and  formulas. 

If  aught  was  lacking  to  strengthen  belief  in  sorcery  and  divina- 
tion it  was  furnished,  in  1585,  by  Sixtus  V,  in  his  solemn  bull 
Cmli  et  Terrce.  In  this  he  denounced  astrology  and  all  other  species 
of  divination,  all  magic  incantations,  the  invocation  and  consul- 
tation of  demons,  the  abuse  of  the  sacraments,  the  pretended 
imprisonment  of  demons  in  rings,  mirrors  and  vials,  the  obtaining 
of  responses  from  demoniacs  or  lymphatic  or  fanatic  women; 
he  commanded  all  prelates  and  bishops  and  inquisitors  diligently 
to  prosecute  and  punish  all  who  were  guilty  of  these  illicit  divi- 
nations, sorceries,  superstitions,  magic,  incantations  and  other 
detestable  wickedness,  even  though  hitherto  they  had  no  faculty 
to  do  so,  and  the  rules  of  the  Tridentine  Index,  prohibiting  all 
works  on  divination  and  magic  were  to  be  strictly  enforced.^  The 
Spanish  Inquisition,  as  we  have  seen,  had  long  before  exercised 
all  the  faculties  conferred  by  the  bull,  and  it  is  difficult  to  under- 
stand why,  in  1595,  it  obtained  for  the  first  time,  in  the  commission 
issued  to  Inquisitor-general  Manrique  de  Lara,  a  clause  covering 
all  who  practised  these  diabolical  arts,  and  all  who  believed  and 


'  Torreblanca,  Epitome  Delictorum  sive  de  Magia,  Lib.  ii,  cap.  ix. 
The  first  edition  of  this  work  appeared  in  Seville,  in  1618.     My  copy  is  of 
Lyons,  1678. 
'  Th.  Sanchez  in  Prsecepta  Decalogi  Lib.  ii,  cap.  xl,  n.  13. 
'  Pegnae  Append,  in  Eymerici  Director.,  p.  142. 


190  SORGEBT  AND  OCCULT  ARTS  [Book  VIII 

employed  them — a  clause  retained  in  all  subsequent  commissions.' 
The  Inquisition,  in  fact,  had  not  welcomed  the  bull,  possibly  in 
fear  of  claims  based  on  it  of  cumulative  episcopal  jurisdiction. 
It  did  not  allow  it  to  be  published  in  Spain  imtil  1612  when,  for 
some  reason,  a  Romance  version  was  printed  and  sent  to  all  the 
tribunals  with  orders  for  its  publication  and  enforcement,  leading 
subsequent  writers  to  attribute  to  it  the  cognizance  of  these  mat- 
ters by  the  Inquisition.^ 

Not  only  had  the  Inquisition,  as  we  have  seen,  exercised  juris- 
diction over  sorcery,  but  as  usual  it  claimed  this  to  be  exclusive 
and  warned  off  all  trespassers.  As  a  matter  of  form  it  conceded 
that  non-heretical  sorcery  was  mixti  fori — was  subject  to  either 
the  secular  or  spiritual  court  which  first  commenced  action' — but 
non-heretical  sorcery  had  become  non-existent,  and  the  Inquisi- 
tion was  as  resolute  in  maintaining  its  exclusive  claims  in  this  as 
in  all  else.  It  mattered  little  that,  in  1598,  the  Cortes  petitioned 
for  the  total  abolition  of  all  kinds  of  sorcery,  divination,  auguries 
and  enchantments,  and  that  Philip  II  responded  by  ordering  the 
revival  and  enforcement  of  the  ferocious  law  of  1414  inflicting 
severe  penalties  on  secular  judges  who  did  not  put  sorcerers  to 
death.*  If  this  produced  any  effect,  which  is  doubtful,  it  was  but 
temporary.  Already,  in  1594,  we  find  the  Toledo  tribunal  com- 
pelling the  corregidor  to  surrender  Isabel  de  Soto,  after  he  had 
pronounced  sentence.  Her  offences  had  been  the  giving  of  love- 
powders,  which  she  asserted  were  holy  and  need  not  be  confessed; 
curing  a  child  with  a  parchment  inscribed  with  crosses,  and  using 
certain  divinations  to  bring  a  man  from  the  Indies — aU  harmless 
enough  frauds,  for  which  she  was  sentenced  to   abjure  de  led, 


'  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  IV,  fol.  118,  124,  137;  Lib.  V,  passim.— 
Archivo  de  Simancas,  Gracia  y  Justicia,  Leg.  629. 

The  clause  reads — "  necnon  de  hseresi  seu  apostasia  de  fide  suspectos,  sortilegia 
manifestam  hjeresim  sapientia,  divinationes  et  incantationes  aliaque  diabolica 
maleficia  et  prestigia  committentes,  aut  magicas  et  necromanticas  artes  exer- 
centes,  illorumque  credentes,  sequaces,  defensores,  fautores  et  receptatores. . . . 
per  te  vel  alium  seu  alios  prout  juris  fuerit  inquirendi,  procedendi  et  exequi 
seu  inquiri,  proeedi  et  exequi  faciendi." 

'  Torreblanca,  Lib.  iii,  cap.  ix,  Append.;  Defensa,  cap.  ii,  p.  536. — Archivo 
hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  299,  fol.  80. 

The  buU,  however,  was  not  received  in  Valencia  until  1616. — Ibidem,  Leg.  6, 
n.  2,  fol.  56. 

'  Torreblanca,  cap.  ix,  n.  25-26. 

*  Nueva  Recop.,  Lib.  viii,  Tit.  iii,  ley  8.— Novfs.  Recop.,  Lib.  xii.  Tit.  v,  ley  2. 


Chap.  VIII]  BXGLUSIVE  JURISDICTION  191 

to  hear  mass  in  the  audience-chamber  and  to  undergo  six  years 
of  exile.  This  severity,  however,  was  mercy  itself  in  comparison 
with  the  corregidor's  sentence,  which  had  been  scourging  and  per- 
petual exile.' 

This  assertion  of  exclusive  cognizance  continued.  In  1648, 
Ana  Andres  was  undergoing  prosecution  in  both  the  secular  and 
episcopal  courts,  when  the  Valladolid  tribunal  claimed  her,  took 
her  and  tried  and  sentenced  her.^  In  1659,  Pedro  Martinez  Ruvio, 
Archbishop  of  Palermo,  issued  an  edict  in  which  he  proposed 
to  enforce  a  brief  of  Gregory  XV,  in  1623,  directed  against  sorcerers. 
The  Suprema  promptly  presented  to  Philip  IV  a  consulta,  repre- 
senting that  simple  superstitions  were  justiciable  by  bishops  but, 
where  there  was  even  light  suspicion  of  heresy,  the  Inquisition  had 
exclusive  cognizance.  It  could  inhibit  him  with  censures  it  said, 
but  a  royal  order  prohibiting  him  from  proceeding  with  so  pre- 
judicial an  innovation  was  preferable  as  less  demonstrative,  and 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Philip  signed  whatever  letters  the 
Suprema  laid  before  him.^ 

When  dealing  with  the  common  run  of  officials,  the  Inquisition 
enforced  its  claims  with  its  customary  peremptory  aggressiveness. 
In  1701,  the  Valencia  tribunal  learned  that  the  paheres,  or  local 
officials  of  Tortosa,  were  trying  for  sorcery  Jusepa  Zorita,  Francisca 
Caset  and  a  girl.  On  November  30th  they  were  ordered  to  cease 
proceedings  under  pain  of  excommunication  and  five  hundred 
ducats  for  each  official  concerned,  while  Pedro  Martin  Aycart, 
archdeacon  of  the  cathedral,  was  commissioned,  in  case  of  dis- 
obedience, to  post  them  on  the  church  doors  as  excommunicated, 
and  to  take  possession  of  the  accused  in  the  royal  prison  and  hold 
them  until  further  orders.  There  was  some  delay  and,  on  January 
4,  1702,  the  authorities  of  Tortosa  were  served  with  a  demand, 
under  the  same  penalties,  to  surrender  the  prisoners  and  the 
papers  to  Aycart,  with  notification  that  prosecution  would  follow 
refusal.  This  was  effectual;  the  prisoners  were  surrendered  and 
were  duly  tried  by  the  tribunal.^ 

Perhaps  the  most  emphatic  assertion  of  the  authority  of  the 
Inquisition  is  to  be  seen  in  its  treatment  of  astrology.     All  divi- 

'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  HaUe,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552,  fol.  37. 

»  Ibidem,  Lib.  52,  fol.  48. 

*  Arohivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  1,  n.  3,  fol.  14-15. 


192  SORCEBY  AND  OCCULT  ARTS  [Book  VIII 

nation  which  pretended  to  reveal  the  future  had  long  been  regarded 
as  heretical,  on  account  of  its  denial  of  human  free-will  and  its 
assertion  of  fate.  This  applied  especially  to  astrology,  with  its 
array  of  horoscopes  and  its  assumption  that  the  destinies  of  men 
were  ruled  by  the  stars.  It  was  on  this  ground  that  Pietro  d'Abano, 
the  greatest  physician  of  his  time,  was  prosecuted  and  only  escaped 
condemnation  by  opportunely  dying,  in  1316,  in  Padua,  and  Cecco 
d'Ascoli,  the  foremost  astrologer  of  the  age,  was  burnt  alive  in 
Florence,  in  1327.  In  spite  of  these  examples,  the  profession  of 
astrology  continued  to  flourish  unchecked,  and  astrologers  were 
indispensable  officials  in  the  courts  of  princes  and  prelates.  Theo- 
logians and  canonists  persevered  in  its  condemnation.  Ciruelo, 
while  admitting  that  the  study  of  the  influence  of  the  stars  on  the 
weather  and  on  persons  is  lawful,  like  the  practice  of  medicine, 
holds  that  foretelling  from  them  what  they  cannot  foreshadow  can 
only  be  done  by  the  aid  of  the  demon,  and  all  who  practise  this 
should  be  punished  as  half-necromancers.^  Simancas  classes 
astrology  with  all  other  methods  of  divination,  which  he  attrib- 
utes to  the  operation  of  the  demon,  and  those  who  make  every- 
thing depend  upon  the  stars  are  perfected  heretics.^  These  con- 
demnations however  were  purely  academical;  the  old  prohibitions 
had  become  obsolete;  belief  in  the  science  was  almost  universal; 
it  was  not  only  openly  practised  but  openly  taught,  and  there  is 
significance  in  the  fact  that,  in  the  Index  of  1559,  while  there  are 
general  prohibitions  of  all  books  on  necromancy  and  divination 
by  lots,  there  is  none  of  those  on  astrology,  which  must  have  been 
numerous,  and  only  two  obscure  works  on  nativities  are  forbidden.' 
Indeed,  one  of  the  petitions  of  the  Cortes  of  1570  represents  that 
in  consequence  of  physicians  not  studying  astrology  many  failed 
in  their  cures,  wherefore  the  king  was  asked  to  order  that  in  the 
universities  no  one  should  be  graduated  as  a  physician  who  was 
not  a  bachiller  in  astrology,  to  which  the  royal  reply  was  that  the 
Council  would  consult  the  universities  and  determine  what  was 
fitting.^ 

It  therefore  manifests  no  little  determination  of  purpose  that, 


'  Reprovacion  de  las  Supersticiones,  P.  ii,  Cap.  iii. 

2  De  Cath.  Institt.  Tit.  xxi,  n.  9;  Tit.  Lxni,  n.  7. 

'  Reusch,  Die  Indices,  pp.  217,  225,  227,  236,  239.— The  two  prohibited  books 
are  Arcandam  de  nativitatihus  seu  fatalis  dies  and  Johannes  Schonerus  de  nativi- 
tatibus. 

*  Cortes  de  Cordova  del  ano  de  setenta,  Peticion  71  (Alcald,  1575). 


Chap.  VIII]  ASTROLOGY  193 

before  Sixtus  V,  in  his  bull  of  1585,  had  ordered  the  suppression 
of  astrology  by  the  Inquisition,  the  Suprema,  in  1582,  attacked  it 
in  its  stronghold,  the  University  of  Salamanca,  sending  thither 
in  March  the  Valladolid  inquisitor,  Juan  de  Arrese,  with  an  edict 
condemning  all  the  practices  of  the  so-called  science.  In  a  letter 
of  the  10th,  Arrese  says  that  he  had  been  there  for  eight  days, 
without  having  had  an  opportunity  of  pubhshing  the  edict,  but  he 
expects  to  do  so  the  next  day.  Then,  on  the  20th,  he  reports  that 
he  is  obtaining  the  first  results  and  is  overwhelmed  with  them; 
there  are  many  who  teach  judicial  astrology,  both  genethliacal,  in 
casting  nativities,  and  in  answering  all  questions  put  to  them, 
and  they  excuse  themselves  by  saying  that  they  only  teach  what 
is  in  the  books  that  are  permitted.  Those  inculpated  under  the 
edict  are  so  numerous  that  it  would  be  an  infinite  affair  to  punish 
them,  and  to  overlook  them  would  be  worse,  for  they  expect  to 
be  allowed  to  continue.  Meanwhile  he  has  taken  testimony  as  to 
some  and  has  suspended  others  till  he  receives  orders,  to  which  the 
reply  was  to  go  on  taking  testimony  and  report  the  results.  Then, 
on  March  31st  he  writes  that  he  is  still  gathering  evidence  against 
the  teachers  of  astrology,  among  whom  are  some  who  treat  of 
invocation  of  demons  and  necromancy,  especially  Diego  P^rez 
de  Messa,  who  had  been  banished  for  other  offences  by  the  maesire 
escuela  and  is  in  hiding,  but  Arrese  had  ordered  his  arrest.  Then, 
on  April  24th,  Arrese  forwards  a  declaration  drawn  up  by  Maestre 
Munoz,  professor  of  astrology,  for  such  action  as  the  Suprema 
may  please  to  take.  At  the  same  time  he  says  that  all  those  occu- 
pied in  making  astrological  predictions  excuse  themselves  on  the 
ground  that,  under  the  statutes  of  the  university,  this  is  ordered 
to  be  taught ;  he  suggests  that  the  Suprema  shall  prohibit  teaching 
from  such  books,  and  also  judicial  astrology,  except  as  regards 
weather,  but  there  are  also  indications  of  magic,  about  which  he 
promises  further  information.^  The  documents  before  me  fail 
to  state  what  action  the  Suprema  took  with  the  professors  and 
teachers,  but  that  this  was  the  condition  in  the  foremost  Spanish 
seat  of  learning  indicates  the  magnitude  of  the  task  of  eradicating 
beliefs  so  widely  spread  and  so  firmly  established.  That  it  forth- 
with suppressed  the  public  teaching  of  astrology  is  indicated  by 
the  Prohibitory  Index,  which  appeared  the  following  year,  1583. 
This  proscribed  all  books  and  writings  that  treat  of  the  science  of 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  1157,  fol.  17-20. 

VOL.  IV  13 


194  SOBCEBT  AND  OCCULT  ARTS  [Book  VIII 

predicting  the  future  by  the  stars,  and  it  forbade  all  persons  from 
forming  forecasts  as  to  matters  dependent  on  free-will  or  fortune. 
Yet  it  conceded  the  influence  of  the  stars  by  permitting  the  astrol- 
ogy which  pertained  to  the  weather  and  the  general  events  of  the 
world,  agriculture,  navigation  and  medicine,  and  also  that  which 
indicated  at  birth  the  inclinations  and  bodily  qualities  of  the 
infant/ 

This  half-hearted  condemnation  was  not  calculated  to  overthrow 
the  belief  of  ages,  and  astrology  maintained  its  hold  on  popular 
credulity.  It  is  said  that,  on  the  birth  of  Philip  IV,  in  1605, 
Philip  III  consulted  the  celebrated  Argoh,  master  of  astrology  in 
Padua,  as  to  his  son's  horoscope,  and  was  told  that  the  stars  threat- 
ened the  child  with  so  many  disasters  that  he  would  certainly 
die  in  misery  if  he  had  not  for  his  inheritance  the  wide  dominions 
of  Spain — a  prophecy  which  seems  to  have  been  suggested  by 
the  event.^  However  this  may  be,  the  Inquisition  maintained 
its  position  and  was  active  in  prosecuting  the  practitioners  of  the 
science  as  a  means  of  divination.  An  experienced  writer,  about 
1640,  states  that,  since  1612,  astrologers  had  been  rigorously 
punished.  Judicial  astrology  was  permitted  only  in  so  far  as  it 
related  to  commerce,  agriculture  and  medicine.  The  casting  of 
horoscopes  to  predict  the  future,  especially  with  regard  to  the 
death  of  individuals — a  frequent  practice,  productive  of  much 
evil — was  punishable  by  appearance  in  a  pulaUc  auto,  abjuration 
de  levi,  exile  and  fine  proportioned  to  the  means  of  the  delinquent, 
while  even  further  severity  was  due  to  its  employment  for  the 
detection  of  thieves  and  finding  things  lost.^  A  clause  was  intro- 
duced, in  the  Edicts  of  Faith,  requiring  the  denunciation  of  all 
engaged  in  such  practices,  with  a  careful  accumulation  of  details 
that  reveals  how  wide  was  the  sphere  of  influence  ascribed  to  the 
stars.^ 

The  severity  visited  upon  astrologers  shows  the  determination 
of  the  Inquisition,  and  its  estimate  of  the  difficulty  of  the  task. 
Ecclesiastics,  as  we  have  seen,  except  when  relaxed,  were  spared 
appearance  in  public  autos  in  order  to  avert  scandal,  but  astrology 
was  made  an  exception  and  the  penalties  were  extreme.  Thus, 
in  the  Toledo  auto  of  October  7,  1663,  there  appeared  Don  Pedro 

'  Index  of  Quiroga,  Rule  IX  (Madriti,  1583,  fol.  4). 

'  Zanctornato,  Relatione  della  Corte  di  Spagna,  pp.  6,  7  (CosmopoH,  1678). 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xiv,  §  1. 

*  Ibidem,  D,  118,  p.  148, 


Chap.  VIII]  PROOEDUBE  195 

Zacome  Pramosellas,  arch-priest  of  Brimano  (Cremona)  sentenced 
to  abjure  de  levi  and  perpetual  banishment  from  Spain,  after  three 
years  of  galley-service,  besides  prohibition  to  practice  astrology 
or  to  read  books  on  the  subject.  So,  in  the  Toledo  auto  of  October 
30,  1667,  the  Licentiate  Pedro  Lopez  Camarena  Montesinos,  a 
beneficed  priest  of  San  Lorenzo  of  Valencia,  for  judicial  astrology 
and  searching  for  treasures,  was  condemned  to  abjure  de  levi,  to 
four  years  in  an  African  presidio,  followed  by  six  years'  exile  from 
Madrid  and  Toledo,  suspension  from  Orders  and  deprivation  of 
all  ecclesiastical  revenues.^  This  severity,  doubtless,  did  much 
to  aid  advancing  intelligence  in  outgrowing  the  ancient  behefs 
but,  as  late  as  1796,  we  find  Fray  Miguel  Alberola,  a  lay-brother 
of  San  Pedro  de  Alcdntara,  prosecuted  in  Valencia  for  using  the 
"wheel  of  Beda" — evidently  the  Petosiris,  a  device  by  which  the 
motions  of  the  moon  were  used  in  place  of  the  multitudinous  and 
complex  details  of  the  stars  and  planets.^ 

Procedure  in  cases  of  sorcery  had  little  to  distinguish  it  from 
that  in  ordinary  heresy,  except  that,  as  a  rule,  torture  was  net 
employed.  One  authority,  indeed,  tells  that,  although  in  Italy 
torture  was  used  in  cases  of  heretical  sorcery,  it  was  never  used  in 
Spain,  but  another  assumes  that  in  certain  cases  it  was  at  the 
discretion  of  the  tribunal.'  That  this  discretion  was  used  is  seen 
in  the  Mexican  case  of  Isabel  de  Montoya,  a  wretched  old  woman, 
in  1652,  who  freely  confessed  to  niunerous  devices  for  procuring 
money — charms  and  philtres  and  conjurations.  In  addition  to 
this  was  the  evidence  of  her  dupes,  as  to  her  stories  of  her  relations 
with  the  demon,  which  required  elucidation.  She  was  tortured 
without  extracting  further  confessions  and  then  was  sentenced  to 
a  hundred  lashes,  three  years'  service  in  a  hospital  and  perpetual 
exile  from  Puebla.* 

As  pact  with  the  demon  was  the  basis  of  inquisitorial  jurisdiction 
over  sorcery,  it  was  important  to  obtain  from  the  accused  admission 
of  its  existence.  To  this  end,  in  1655,  the  Suprema  issued  special 
instructions  as  to  examination  in  all  cases  dependent  on  pact — 
instructions  which  reveal  impUcit  belief  in  the  reahty  of  the  powers 


'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 

'  Ibidem,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100.— Ct.  Beda;  Opera,  Ed.  Migne,  I,  063-66. 
'  Praxis  procedendi,  cap.  xviii,  n.  3  (Archivo  hist  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia).— 
Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  S,  294,  fol.  116. 
*  Proceso  contra  Isabel  de  Montoya  (MS.  penes  me). 


196  SOBCEBY  AND  OCCULT  ARTS  [Book  VHI 

claimed  for  sorcery.  The  accused  was  to  be  asked  if  the  prayers, 
remedies  and  other  things  employed  produced  the  expected  results, 
wholly  or  partially,  and  as  they  had  not  the  natural  virtues  to 
effect  this,  what  was  the  cause  of  the  result.  When,  in  the  prayers 
or  conjurations,  certain  demons  were  invoked,  was  it  to  make 
them  appear  and  speak  and  in  what  mode  or  form.  Whether 
the  invocation  was  in  virtue  of  a  pact,  express  or  tacit,  with  the 
demon  and,  if  so,  in  what  way  had  it  been  made.  Whether  the 
demon  sometimes  appeared  in  consequence  of  the  prayers  or  con- 
jurations and,  if  so,  in  what  figure  or  guise,  and  what  he  said  or 
did.  With  what  faith  or  belief  they  did  these  things  and  framed 
the  remedies,  and  whether  it  was  with  the  intention  and  hope  that 
the  desired  effect  should  be  produced,  and  with  the  belief  that  they 
would  attain  it,  and  whether  they  held  this  for  certain — with  other 
similar  interrogatories,  suited  for  particular  cases.^ 

Based  on  these  instructions  a  curious  series  of  formulas  was 
drawn  up,  adapted  to  all  the  different  classes  of  offenders.  As 
a  sample  of  these  we  may  take  the  one  used  in  the  examination 
of  Zahories,  who  assumed  to  have  a  natural  gift  to  see  under  the 
surface  of  the  earth,  involving  no  heresy,  so  that  they  were  subject 
to  the  Inquisition  only  through  an  arbitrary  assumption  that  their 
work  must  necessarily  require  the  aid  of  the  demon,  in  which  there 
was  no  parvitas  materice,  and  that  it  was  a  mortal  sin  to  employ 
them.  The  Zahori  is  to  be  asked  whether  it  is  true  that  he  can 
see  clearly  and  distinctly  what  is  hidden  under  the  earth  and  to 
what  distance  his  vision  penetrates ;  whether  this  power  is  confined 
to  buried  treasure,  or  extends  to  other  things ;  at  what  age  and  on 
what  occasion  he  first  recognized  the  possession  of  this  power; 
whether  it  is  continuous,  or  stronger  at  times  than  at  others; 
whether  he  has  exerted  this  power  and  has  found  it  effective; 
whether  he  has  thus  obtained  treasures  and,  if  so,  of  what  kind 
or  amount;  who  assisted  him  and  whether  the  treasures  were 
divided  and  what  then  happened ;  whether  to  reach  the  treasure, 
either  in  preparation  or  at  the  time  of  raising  it,  anything  else  was 
done,  such  as  masses,  prayers,  conjurations,  fumigations,  invoca- 
tions of  saints  or  of  other  unknown  names,  or  use  was  made  of  holy 
water,  blessed  palms,  lights,  genuflections,  reading  from  a  book  . 
or  paper  or  other  similar  means ;  whether  some  treasures  are  more 
difficult  to  obtain  than  others  and,  if  so,  from  what  cause,  such  as 


Praxis  procedendi,  cap.  viii,  n.  5  (Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia). 


Chap.  VIII]  PUNISHMENT  197 

enchantment;  whether  Zahories  have  any  sign  by  which  this  power 
is  recognized,  and  whether  they  recognize  each  other;  in  what 
principally  does  this  power  consist;  whether  money  has  been  paid 
to  him  for  pointing  out  a  place  where  treasure  was  hidden  and, 
if  so,  where  he  received  it  and  what  was  the  spot  designated.^  We 
can  readily  see  how  apt  would  be  such  an  interrogatory,  followed 
up  by  a  trained  examiner,  to  lead  to  admissions  justifying  implied 
pact,  especially  as  there  was  a  craze  for  finding  buried  treasure, 
and  a  wide-spread  belief  that  stores  of  it  were  hidden  underground, 
awaiting  the  coming  of  Antichrist,  and  guarded  by  demons,  who 
must  be  placated  or  subdued  before  the  gold  could  be  secured. 

In  all  this  it  is  evident  that  the  inquisitor,  if  conscientious,  must 
himself  have  been  firmly  convinced  of  the  truth  that  all  the  arts 
of  sorcery,  simple  as  many  of  them  were,  were  based  on  demonic 
aid.  Yet  the  occasional  use  of  the  term  embustero  shows  that  it 
was  sometimes  recognized  that  there  was  imposture  as  well  as 
pact.  Thus,  in  the  Cordova  auto  of  December  21,  1627,  three 
women  appeared.  Ana  de  Jodar,  sentenced  to  two  hundred  lashes 
in  Cordova  and  one  hundred  in  Villanueva  del  Arzobispo,  with 
six  years  of  exile ;  Maria  de  San  Leon,  to  a  hundred  lashes  and  four 
years  of  exile  and  Francisca  Mendez  to  vergiienza  and  exile.  Now 
all  these  were  declared  to  be  sorceresses,  invokers  of  demons  with 
whom  they  had  pacts,  and  their  feats,  as  detailed  in  the  sentences, 
showed  them  to  be  adepts  and  yet  they  were  all  stigmatized  in 
addition  as  embusteras.^  So,  in  the  Saragossa  auto  of  June  6, 
1723,  Sebastian  Gomez  is  described  as  supersticioso  y  embustero, 
though  his  sentence  of  two  hundred  lashes  and  perpetual  service 
in  a  hospital  with  shackles  on  his  feet  shows  that  his  offence  was 
not  regarded  as  mere  imposture.^ 

Severe  as  may  seem  some  of  the  sentences  alluded  to,  there  is 
no  question  that,  in  most  cases,  the  delinquents  were  fortunate  in 
having  the  Inquisition  as  a  judge  rather  than  the  secular  courts, 
which  everywhere  showed  themselves  merciless  where  sorcery  was 
concerned.  We  have  seen  the  demand,  in  1598,  for  the  revival 
of  the  savage  law  of  1414,  and  this  rigor  had  the  support  not  only 
of  popular  opinion  but  of  the  learned.  Ciruelo  taught  that  all 
vain  superstitions  and  sorcery  were  inventions  of  the  devil,  where- 


'  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218b,  p.  382. 

'  Matute  y  Luquin,  pp.  84-105.  ^  Royal  Library  of  Berlin,  Qt.  9548. 


198.  SORCERY  AND  OCCULT  ARTS  [Book  VIII 

fore  those  who  learned  and  practised  them  were  disciples  of  the 
devil  and  enemies  of  God.  There  was  no  distinction  between 
classes  of  offenders ;  all  were  to  be  persecuted  with  unsparing  rigor. 
Thieves,  he  argued  were  properly  hanged  or  beheaded,  because 
every  thief  is  presumed  to  be  a  homicide,  and  much  more  should 
it  thus  be  with  every  sorcerer,  as  his  efforts  were  directed  rather 
against  persons  than  property.'  Torreblanca  tells  us  that  Huss 
and  Wickliffe  and  Luther  and  almost  all  heretics  contend  against 
the  punishment  of  sorcerers,  but  this  is  heretical,  detestable  and 
scandalous,  and  all  orthodox  authorities  teach  that  they  should 
be  unsparingly  put  to  death  and  be  persecuted  by  both  the  spir- 
itual and  temporal  swords.^  It  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  this  con- 
sensus of  opinion  when  considering  the  practice  of  the  Inquisition. 
In  the  tribunals  there  was  nothing  to  control  the  discretion  of  the 
judges  save  the  Suprema,  and  that  discretion  showed  itself  in  a 
leniency  difficult  to  understand,  more  often  than  in  undue  harsh- 
ness, and  even  their  harshness  was  less  to  be  dreaded  than  the 
mercy  of  the  secular  law.  The  systematic  writers  lay  down  the 
rule  that,  if  the  culprit  confesses  to  pact  with  the  demon,  he  is 
presumably  an  apostate;  if  he  begs  mercy  he  is  to  be  admitted 
to  reconciliation  in  an  auto,  with  confiscation  and  a  hundred 
lashes  or  vergiienza;  if  he  is  not  an  apostate,  the  reconciliation  is 
modified  to  abjuration  de  levi  and  the  scourging  to  vergiienza.' 
These  rules,  however,  were  not  observed ;  reconciliation  was  exceed- 
ingly rare,  abjuration  de  vehementi  was  unusual,  abjuration  de 
levi  almost  universal,  and  the  tribunals  exercised  wide  discretion 
in  the  infliction  of  the  most  diverse  penalties. 

A  few  cases  will  illustrate  how  completely  the  temper  of  the  tri- 
bunal influenced  the  sentences.  In  1604,  Valencia  seems  to  have 
had  exceptionally  lenient  inquisitors.  Alonso  Verlango,  desirmg 
to  compromise  a  suit,  hired  a  woman  to  perform  the  conjuration  of 
the  ampolletas  or  vials,  placing  in  them  wine,  sulphur  and  other 
things,  and  throwing  them  into  the  fire,  with  the  adjuration  that 
as  they  burnt  so  might  the  hearts  of  men  come  to  an  agreement. 
There  was  also  the  conjuration  of  the  oranges,  cutting  nine  of 
them  and  placing  in  them  oil,  soap,  salt  and  other  things,  with 
the  formula  that,  as  oil  gives  flavor,  so  might  it  be  with  the  men; 


'  Reprovacion  de  las  Supersticiones,  P.  i,  cap.  ii;  P.  ii,  cap.  i;  P.  iii,  cap.  v. 
'  Epitome  Delictorum,  Lib.  iii,  cap.  i,  n.  1-6 

^  Miguel  Calvo  (Archive  de  Alcald,  Hacienda,  Leg.  544^,  Lib.  4). — Elucidationes 
Sancti  Officii,  §§  40,  43  (Ibidem). 


Chap.  VIII]  PUNISHMENT  199 

also  driving  a  nail  into  each  and  saying  that  the  nails  were  driven 
into  their  hearts.  In  both  of  these  conjurations  were  invoked 
Bersabu,  Satanas  and  other  demons,  the  great  and  the  crippled, 
along  with  St.  Peter,  St.  Paul  and  other  saints.  There  was  also  a 
long  conjuration  with  a  virgin  child  by  which  one  could  learn  what- 
ever was  desired.  Verlango  himself,  moreover,  used  conjurations 
to  discover  treasures  and  possessed  the  Dream-book  of  Solomon, 
"Vaquerio"  and  Cardan  de  Proprietatibus  Rerum.  For  all  this 
he  escaped  with  a  reprimand  and  hearing  mass  in  the  audience 
chamber,  abjuration  de  levi  and  two  years  of  exile.  Another  case 
was  that  of  Fray  Miguel  Rexaque,  a  priest  of  the  Order  of  Montesa, 
who  denounced  himself  for  going  with  an  Italian  fraile,  a  virgin 
girl  and  some  others,  to  discover  treasure.  They  dug  a  hole; 
the  Italian  with  an  olive  wand  made  a  circle,  in  which  was  lighted 
a  blessed  candle ;  incense  was  burnt  and  the  angels  were  summoned 
to  drive  away  the  demons  guarding  the  treasure  for  the  coming  of 
Antichrist,  and  there  was  also  a  response  from  a  demon  obtained 
by  the  girl  looking  into  a  mirror.  When  the  papers  were  sub- 
mitted to  the  Suprema  it  ordered  Rexaque  to  be  reprimanded  and 
the  case  to  be  suspended,  while  the  girls  who  officiated  had  only 
a  year's  exile  and  some  spiritual  penances.  More  serious  was  the 
case  of  Frangois  Difor,  a  French  priest,  and  Francisco  Juseria,  a 
student,  for  it  involved  sacrilege.  They  sought  the  advice  of  an 
adept,  who  told  them  to  baptize  three  coins  with  certain  names 
and  the  coins  when  paid  out  would  return  to  their  purses.  Difor 
solemnly  baptized  three  pesos;  Juseria  spent  them  for  fritters  and 
pastry,  but  they  did  not  come  back.  Under  instructions  of  a 
confessor,  they  denounced  themselves;  they  were  duly  tried  and 
sentenced  to  abjure  de  levi,  to  be  severely  reprimanded  and  to 
perform  some  slight  spiritual  penances.' 

Valladolid  furnishes  similar  examples  of  leniency.  In  1629, 
Isabel  Garcia,  a  married  woman,  under  trial  confessed  that  to 
regain  a  lover  she  had  invoked  the  demon,  who  appeared  in  human 
shape,  when  she  entered  into  explicit  pact  with  him  and  performed 
various  other  sorceries,  yet  she  was  sentenced  only  to  abjure  de 
levi  and  to  four  years'  exile  from  Valladolid  and  Astudilla.  The 
next  year  Gabriel  de  Arroya,  under  pressure  from  a  confessor, 
denounced  himself  and  stated  that,  carried  away  by  the  passion 
of  gambling,  he  had,  during  the  last  seven  years,  gone  five  times 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional.,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  2,  n.  7,  fol.  4,  7;  n.  10,  fol.  10-13. 


200  SORCERY  AND  OCCULT  ARTS  [Book  VIII 

into  the  open  fields,  and  invoked  the  demon  to  give  him  money 
for  stakes,  promising  in  return  to  devote  his  first  child  to  the 
demon  and  offering  to  sign  with  his  blood  a  pact  to  that  effect. 
It  is  true  that  the  demon  never  appeared,  nor  did  he  get  money 
that  seemed  to  come  from  such  a  source.  In  the  consulta  de  fe, 
some  of  the  members  pronounced  him  to  be  vehemently  suspect, 
others  lightly,  but  it  was  finally  voted  to  suspend  the  case  without 
sentence  and  to  reprimand  him  in  the  audience-chamber.* 

There  is  contrast  between  these  and  some  cases,  in  1641,  gathered 
in  by  a  Valladolid  inquisitor  during  a  visitation  in  Astorga.  Eight 
old  men  and  women  curanderos,  whose  offences  consisted  in  super- 
stitious cures  of  the  most  harmless  character,  were  arrested  and 
brought  to  Valladolid,  where  they  were  confined  for  months  in 
the  secret  prison,  to  be  finally  sentenced  to  more  or  less  prolonged 
exile,  their  simple  ministrations  being  characterized  as  implicit 
pact  with  the  demon.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Licentiate  Pelayo  de 
Ravanal,  cura  of  Anicio,  who  charged  twenty-three  reales  for 
blessing  and  ineffectually  sprinkling  with  holy  water  a  herd  of 
sick  cattle,  and  who  failed  in  a  superstitious  cure  of  a  husband  and 
wife,  was  not  arrested  but  was  privately  smnmoned  and  repri- 
manded in  the  apartments  of  the  senior  inquisitor.  There  were 
also  two  cases  of  loheros — practitioners  whose  speciality  consisted 
in  preserving  sheep  from  wolves.  One  was  Macias  Perez,  a  shep- 
herd of  Medina  del  Campo,  accused  by  ten  witnesses  of  having 
the  wolves  at  his  command,  and  using  them  to  injure  whom  he 
pleased ;  five  testified  that  he  had  threatened  them  with  the  wolves 
and  that  consequently  many  of  their  sheep  had  been  destroyed. 
The  other,  Juan  Gutierrez  of  Baradilla,  speculated  on  his  neighbors, 
who  gave  him  grain,  kids,  sheep  etc.,  to  preserve  their  flocks.  The 
calificadores  held  this  to  be  implicit  pact  but,  although  both  were 
arrested,  both  escaped  with  reprimands.^  The  same  moderation 
was  exhibited  by  the  tribunal  of  Toledo,  in  a  curious  case,  in  1659. 
Juan  Severino  de  San  Pablo,  of  Wilna  in  Lithuania,  was  living  as 
a  hermit  in  the  Sierra  Morena.  He  had  a  skull  which  he  had 
laboriously  inlaid  with  silver  images;  this  he  exhibited  and  gave 
certificates  as  cures  for  tertian  fevers.  After  his  trial  had  been 
carried  to  the  accusation,  it  was  suspended ;  he  was  severely  repri- 
manded and  threatened  with  a  hundred  lashes  for  relapse;  the 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552,  fol.  11,  13. 
'  Ibidem,  fol.  26,  28,  29. 


Chap.  VIII]  PUNISHMENT  201 

skull  was  buried  in  consecrated  ground,  but  not  until  the  silver 
had  been  carefully  removed  and  given  to  the  receiver  in  part 
settlement  for  the  culprit's  maintenance  in  prison.^ 

There  are  two  colonial  cases  which  illustrate  the  capricious 
character  of  these  judgements.  In  1760,  at  Lima,  a  Guinea  negro 
slave  named  Manuel  Galiano,  aged  70,  was  tried  as  a  curandero. 
Several  cases  were  in  evidence  in  which  he  had  cured  swellings 
that  had  baffled  the  faculty,  by  making  a  small  incision,  inserting 
a  hollow  cane  and  sucking  out  blood,  which  would  be  accompanied 
with  maggots,  scorpions,  lizards,  snakes  and  the  like,  after  which 
he  would  apply  certain  crushed  herbs.  It  was  decided  that  this 
inferred  pact  with  the  demon;  he  was  arrested  and  freely  admitted 
the  cures,  explaining  that  he  hid  the  animals  in  the  cane  and 
blew  them  forth  as  though  they  had  been  drawn  from  the  swelling; 
he  had  pronounced  the  patients  to  be  bewitched  and  received  four 
or  five  pesos  for  the  cure ;  he  had  also  pretended  to  give  a  charm 
to  another  slave.  The  case  was  simple  enough  but  the  trial  was 
prolonged  for  three  years,  during  which  he  lay  in  prison,  to  be 
finally  sentenced  to  appear  in  an  auto,  with  the  insignia  of  sorcery 
and  a  halter,  to  vergiienza  and  to  five  years  (counted  from  the 
time  of  his  arrest)  of  service  in  a  hospital.^ 

In  wholesome  contrast  to  this  was  a  similar  case  in  Mexico,  in 
1794.  Juana  Martinez  was  an  Indian  aged  40,  married  to  a 
mulatto.  She  made  her  livelihood  as  a  curandera,  using  a  decoc- 
tion of  the  root  of  a  plant  known  as  palo  de  Texer  or  Peyote,  which 
she  gathered  with  invocation  of  the  Trinity  and  three  signs  of  the 
cross — ceremonies  which  she  repeated  when  administering  the 
remedy — and  she  said  that  her  patients  ejected,  from  mouth  and 
nose,  insects,  flies  etc.,  which  was  a  sign  that  they  had  been  be- 
witched. She  also  had  an  image  of  the  Virgin,  which  she  kept  in 
a  little  reliquary  and  declared  that  it  performed  miracles.  In 
short,  she  was  an  accomplished  embustera,  and  she  richly  earned 
the  designation  in  the  accusation  of  a  simulator  of  miracles. 
Mariano  de  la  Piedra  Palacio,  cura  and  ecclesiastical  judge  of 
their  village,  Temasunchale,  arrested  the  pair  and  sequestrated 
their  little  property.  By  active  threats  of  scourging  he  elicited 
a  confession  that  she  had  invoked  the  devil  who  appeared  and 
taught  her  the  art,  and  that  she  operated  by  his  power.     It  was 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  2. 
'  MSS.  of  Bibl.  nacional  de  Lima. 


202  SOBCEBT  AND  OCCULT  ABTS  [Book  VIII 

a  clear  case  of  sorcery  and  he  handed  them  over  to  the  Inquisition. 
The  long  journey  to  Mexico  was  performed  handcuffed  and  they 
were  consigned  to  the  secret  prison,  July  22.  A  little  skilful 
pressure  brought  Juana  to  admit  that  both  the  miracles  of  the 
Virgin  and  the  insects  voided  by  her  patients  were  impostures. 
The  fiscal  chanced  to  be  somewhat  of  a  rationalist  and,  on  August 
4th  he  presented  a  report  of  a  character  not  usual  in  the  Inquisition. 

He  pointed  out  that  the  consummate  ignorance  of  Cura  Mariano 
had  already  caused  these  poor  creatures  sufficient  suffering  in 
tearing  them  from  their  home,  defaming  them,  arresting  them 
obstreperously  and  sending  them  to  the  prison  of  the  tribunal 
without  reason  or  justice.  It  was  he  who  was  to  blame,  for  their 
ignorance  was  attributable  to  him,  whose  duty  it  was  to  instruct 
them.  Assuming  then  that  there  was  no  legal  basis  for  prosecution 
and  that  their  lies  were  sufficiently  punished  by  what  they  had 
endured,  the  fiscal  suggested  their  discharge,  with  orders  to  abstam 
in  future  from  cures  and  miracles,  under  pain  of  rigorous  punish- 
ment, while  the  cura  was  to  be  warned  to  avoid  future  meddfing 
with  what  pertained  to  the  Inquisition.  He  should  also  be  told 
to  restore  to  them  the  mare  and  colt  which  he  had  unlawfully 
embargoed,  to  send  at  his  own  cost  proper  persons  to  conduct  the 
prisoners  comfortably  home,  and  moreover  that  he  and  his  vicars 
must  see  to  the  proper  instruction  of  his  flock.  The  tribunal  was 
not  prepared  to  rise  to  this  height  of  justice,  but  it  discharged  the 
prisoners  and  notified  Mariano  to  return  to  them  the  mare  and 
colt  and  whatever  else  he  had  seized,  without  charging  for  their 
keep,  and  further  to  present  himself  to  the  tribunal  on  his  first 
visit  to  the  capital.' 

Yet,  notwithstanding  the  sanity  of  the  conclusions  reached  in 
this  case,  there  was  no  surrender  of  belief  in  the  reality  of  sorcery 
and  of  demonic  influence.  Far  more  effective  for  the  suppression 
of  sorcerers  was  the  position  assumed,  in  1774,  by  the  Inquisition 
of  Portugal  under  the  guidance  of  Pombal.  In  its  reformed  regu- 
lations it  takes  the  ground  that  malignant  spirits  cannot,  through 
pacts  with  sorcerers  and  magicians,  change  the  immutable  laws 
of  Nature  established  by  God  for  the  preservation  of  the  world; 
that  the  theological  argument  of  cases  in  which  God  permits  such 
spirits  to  torment  men  has  no  application  to  legislature  or  law. 
Those  who  believe  that  there  are  arts  which  teach  how,  by  invo- 


'  MSS.  of  David  Fergusson  Esq. 


Chap.  VIII]  PERSISTENT  BELIEF  203 

cations  of  demons,  or  imprecations,  or  signs,  to  work  the  wonders 
ascribed  to  sorcerers,  fall  into  the  absurdity  of  ascribing  to  the 
demon  attributes  belonging  solely  to  God.  Thus  the  two  pacts, 
implicit  and  explicit,  are  equally  incredible  and  there  is  no  proof 
of  them  in  the  trials  which  for  two  centuries  have  been  conducted 
by  the  Inquisition,  save  the  unsupported  confessions  of  the  accused. 
From  this  it  is  deduced  that  all  sorceries,  divinations  and  witch- 
craft are  manifest  impostures,  and  the  practical  instructions,  based 
on  these  premises,  are  that  offenders  are  not  to  be  convicted  of 
heresy  but  of  imposture,  deceit  and  superstition,  all  of  which  is 
to  be  pointed  out  in  the  sentence,  without  giving  the  details  as 
formerly.  The  penalties  imposed  are  severe — scourging,  the 
galleys  and  presidio,  while  if  any  one  defends  himself  by  asserting 
that  these  practices  are  legitimate,  that  a  pact  can  be  made  with 
the  demon,  and  that  his  operations  are  effective,  he  is  to  be  con- 
fined, without  more  ado,  in  the  Hospital  Real  de  Todo  os  Santos — 
the  insane  hospital.' 

The  Spanish  Inquisition  was  too  orthodox  to  accept  so  rational- 
istic a  view  of  sorcery,  and  continued  to  prosecute  it  as  a  reality. 
In  1787,  Madrid  was  excited  by  an  auto  in  which  an  impostor 
named  Coxo  was  sentenced  to  two  hundred  lashes  and  ten  years 
of  presidio.  He  had  thrived  by  selling  philtres  to  provoke  love, 
formed  indecently  of  the  bones  and  skin  of  a  man  and  a  woman, 
for  which  he  had  numerous  customers,  including  ladies  of  quality. 
The  affair  abounded  in  lascivious  details,  which,  when  inscribed 
on  the  insignia  hung  in  the  church  caused  no  Uttle  scandal.^  In 
1800,  Diego  Garrigo,  a  boy  of  13,  was  prosecuted  by  the  Seville 
tribunal  for  superstitious  cures  when,  probably  on  account  of  his 
tender  years,  he  escaped  with  a  warning.^  In  1807  the  trial  in 
Valencia  of  Rosa  Conejos  shows  how  the  insatiable  credulity  of  the 
vulgar  was  fed  by  the  inexhaustible  ingenuity  of  the  impostor. 
She  had  been  giving  instructions  as  to  charms  by  which  super- 
natural powers  could  be  gained,  for  the  character  of  which  a  single 
example  will  suffice.  After  11  o'clock  at  night,  place  on  the  fire 
a  vessel  full  of  oil ;  when  it  boils,  throw  in  a  living  cat  and  put  on 
the  lid;  at  the  stroke  of  midnight  remove  it  and  inside  the  skull 
of  the  cat  will  be  found  a  httle  bone,  which  will  render  the  person 

'■  Regimento  do  Santo  OiEcio  da  Inquisijao  pelo  Cardeal  da  Cunha,  pp.  118-20, 

123-7.    Cll'^^,m^.\ 
'  Llorente,  Anales,  II,  270. 
'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 


204  SOBGEBT  AND  OCCULT  ARTS  [Book  VIIl 

carrying  it  invisible  and  enable  him  to  do  whatever  he  pleases; 
the  bone  will  ask  "What  do  you  want?"  but  if  carried  across 
running  water  it  will  lose  its  virtue/ 

Under  the  Restoration,  cases  become  less  numerous  than  of  old, 
but  there  is  no  change  in  the  attitude  of  the  Inquisition.  In  1818, 
for  instance,  the  Suprema  on  February  12th,  ordered  the  arrest 
and  imprisonment,  by  the  Seville  tribunal,  of  Ana  Barbero,  for 
superstition,  blasphemy  and  pact  with  the  demon  and,  for  these 
offences,  she  was  sentenced,  October  15th,  to  abjuration  de  levi, 
spiritual  exercises,  six  years  of  exile  and  two  hundred  lashes — 
the  latter  being  humanely  commuted  by  the  Suprema  to  eight 
years'  reclusion  in  a  reformatory  for  loose  women.  The  same 
tribunal  ordered,  June  17th,  Francisca  Romero  to  be  thrown  in 
the  secret  prison,  with  embargo  of  property,  as  a  superstitious 
curandera  and  a  year  later,  June  18,  1819,  we  find  her  sentenced 
to  the  ordinary  penalties  of  exile  and  two  hundred  lashes,  the  latter 
of  which  were  mercifully  omitted  by  the  Suprema.^  BeUef  in  the 
virtues  of  the  consecrated  wafer  was  as  lively  as  ever  and  prose- 
cutions were  frequent  for  retaining  it,  as  that  of  Dona  Antonia  de 
la  Torre,  in  1815,  by  the  Granada  tribunal,  for  taking  repeated 
communions  in  a  day,  retaining  the  forms  and  converting  them  to 
an  evil  use.^  Treasure-seeking  was  not  forgotten.  In  1816  the 
Santiago  tribunal  discovered  a  book  of  conjurations  for  the  pur- 
pose, which  was  promptly  prohibited  by  edict,  all  copies  were  to 
be  seized,  investigation  was  ordered  into  popular  beliefs  and  Fray 
Juan  Cuntin  y  Duran  was  prosecuted  for  using  the  conjurations. 
This  probably  led  to  the  discovery,  in  1817,  at  Tudela  of  a  similar 
MS.  work  which  the  Suprema  ordered  to  be  suppressed.^ 

It  is  easy  to  understand  that  the  prosecution  of  sorcery  consti- 
tuted a  not  inconsiderable  portion  of  the  duties  of  the  Inquisition, 
at  least  during  the  later  stages  of  its  career.  Cases  were  compara- 
tively few  as  long  as  only  serious  matters  were  held  to  fall  within 
its  jurisdiction  but,  with  the  extended  definition  of  pact,  they 
increased  considerably  and,  as  the  business  of  prosecuting  Moriscos 
and  Judaizers  declined,  its  energies  were  more  largely  directed  to 
the  wise-women  and  the  sharpers  who  found  a  precarious  liveli- 

'  Proceso  contra  Rosa  Conejos  (MS.  penes  me). 
'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  890. 
'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.,  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 
*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  890;  Lib.  559. 


Chap.  VIII]  PERSISTENT  BELIEF  205 

hood  in  the  vulgar  superstitions  pervading  the  community.  Thus, 
in  the  Toledo  record,  from  1575  to  1610,  out  of  a  total  of  1172 
cases,  there  are  only  eighteen  of  sorcery,  or  a  trifle  over  one  and 
a  half  per  cent.,  while,  in  the  same  tribunal  from  1648  to  1794 
there  are  a  hundred  out  of  a  total  of  1205,  or  about  eight  and  one- 
third  per  cent.^  Occasionally  they  furnish  the  chief  part  of  the 
business  of  a  tribunal.  In  the  Valencia  auto  of  July  1,  1725, 
fifteen  of  the  eighteen  penitents  were  sorcerers  and,  in  that  of 
C6rdova,  December  5,  1745,  there  were  five  out  of  eight.^  A 
record  of  the  business  of  all  the  tribunals,  from  1780  to  the  suppres- 
sion in  1820,  furnishes  a  total  of  four  hundred  and  sixty-nine 
cases  of  which  a  hundred  and  sixteen  may  be  classed  as  maleficent 
and  three  hundred  and  fifty-three  as  merely  superstitious.' 

Belief  in  the  powers  of  sorcery  had  been  too  strongly  inculcated 
to  disappear  with  the  cessation  of  persecution.  A  modern  writer 
assures  us  that  all  the  old  superstitions  flourish  as  vigorously  as 
ever — conjurations  and  formulas  to  cure  or  to  kill,  to  foretell  the 
future,  to  create  love  or  hatred,  to  render  men  impotent  and  women 
barren,  to  destroy  the  flocks  and  herds  and  harvests,  to  bring 
tempests  and  hail-storms.  The  wise- woman  is  as  potent  as  of 
yore  in  her  control  of  the  forces  of  nature  and  the  passions  of  man, 
and  the  profession  is  as  well  filled  and  as  well  paid  as  in  the  six- 
teenth century.*  We  can  readily  believe  this  when  Padre  Gappa, 
S.  J.,  in  his  defence  of  the  Inquisition,  gravely  assures  us  that 
communications  and  compacts  with  the  demon  are  incontestable 
and  are  as  frequent  as  formerly.^ 

We  have  still  to  consider  a  further  development  of  the  belief 
in  the  malignant  power  of  the  demon  working  through  human 
instruments,  in  which  the  Inquisition  of  Spain  rendered  a  service 
of  no  little  magnitude. 


'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. — Archive  hist,  nacional, 
Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 

2  Royal  Library  of  Berlin,  Qt.  9548.— Matute  y  Luquin,  pp.  278-92. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 

•  Amador  de  los  Rios  (Revista  de  Espana,  XVIII,  338-40).  See  also  Men&dez 
y  Pelayo,  Heterodoxos  Espanoles,  I,  237. 

'  P.  Ricardo  Cappa,  La  Inquisicion  espafiola,  p.  242  (Madrid,  1888). 

Father  Cappa  only  enunciates  the  belief  stiU  taught  by  the  Church.  See  S. 
Alph.  Liguori,  Theol.  Moralis,  Lib.  iii,  Dub.  v,  and  Marc,  Institutiones  Morales 
Alphonsiams,  I,  396-7  (Romse,  1893). 


CHAPTER   IX. 

WITCHCRAFT. 

The  culmination  of  sorcery  was  witchcraft  and  yet  it  was  not 
the  same.  In  it  there  is  no  longer  talk  of  pact  with  the  demon, 
express  or  tacit,  to  obtain  certain  results,  with  the  expectation 
of  washing  out  the  sin  in  the  confessional  and  thus  cheating  the 
devil.  The  witch  has  abandoned  Christianity,  has  renounced 
her  baptism,  has  worshipped  Satan  as  her  God,  has  surrendered 
herself  to  him,  body  and  soul,  and  exists  only  to  be  his  instrument 
in  working  the  evil  to  her  fellow-creatures,  which  he  cannot  accom- 
plish without  a  human  agent.  That  such  a  being  should  excite 
universal  detestation  was  inevitable,  and  that  no  effort  should 
be  spared  for  her  extermination  was  the  plainest  duty  of  legislator 
and  judge.  There  are  no  pages  of  European  history  more  filled 
with  horror  than  those  which  record  the  witch-madness  of  three 
centuries,  from  the  fifteenth  to  the  eighteenth.  No  land  was 
more  exposed  to  the  contagion  of  this  insanity  than  Spain  where, 
for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  it  was  constantly  threatening  to 
break  forth.  That  it  was  repressed  and  rendered  comparatively 
harmless  was  due  to  the  wisdom  and  firmness  of  the  Inquisition. 

This  witch-madness  was  essentially  a  disease  of  the  imagination, 
created  and  stimulated  by  the  persecution  of  witchcraft.  Where- 
ever  the  inquisitor  or  civil  magistrate  went  to  destroy  it  by  fire, 
a  harvest  of  witches  sprang  up  around  his  footsteps.  If  some 
old  crone  repaid  ill-treatment  with  a  curse,  and  the  cow  of  the 
offender  chanced  to  die  or  his  child  to  fall  sick,  she  was  marked 
as  a  witch;  the  judge  had  no  difficulty  in  compelUng  such  confes- 
sion as  he  desired  and  in  obtaining  a  goodly  list  of  accomphces; 
everyone  who  had  met  with  ill-luck  hurried  forward  with  his  sus- 
picions and  accusations.  Every  prosecution  widened  the  circle, 
until  nearly  the  whole  population  might  become  involved,  to  be 
followed  by  executions  numbered,  not  by  the  score  but  by  the 
hundred,  in  blind  obedience  to  the  scriptural  injunction  "Thou 
shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live."    All  destructive  elemental  dis- 

(  206) 


Chap.  IX]  THE  SABBAT  207 

turbances— droughts*or  flood,  tempests  or  hail-storms,  famine  or 
pestilence— were  ascribed  to  witchcraft,  and  victims  were  sought, 
as  though  to  offer  propitiatory  holocausts  to  the  infernal  gods  or 
expiatory  sacrifices  to  the  Creator. 

Belief  in  witchcraft  was  of  comparatively  recent  origin,  dating 
from  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century.  Mahgnant  sor- 
cery had  been  known  before,  but  the  distinctive  feature  of  the 
Sabbat  first  makes  its  appearance  at  this  period— the  midnight 
gathering  to  which  the  devotees  of  Satan  were  carried  through  the 
air,  where  they  renounced  Christ  and  worshipped  their  master, 
in  the  shape  usually  of  a  goat,  but  sometimes  in  that  of  a  hand- 
some or  hideous  man;  where  they  feasted  and  danced  and  indulged 
in  promiscuous  intercourse,  accommodating  demons  serving  as 
incubi  or  succubi,  and  were  conveyed  back  home,  where  other 
demons,  assuming  their  shape,  had  protected  their  absence  from 
observation.' 

The  development  of  this  myth  would  seem  ascribable  to  the 
increasing  rigor  of  persecution  towards  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  when,  as  we  have  seen,  the  University  of  Paris  formu- 
lated the  theory  that  pact  with  Satan  was  inherent  in  all  magic, 
leading  judges,  in  their  eager  exploration  of  cases  brought  before 
them,  to  connect  this  assumed  pact  with  an  old  belief  of  night- 
riders  through  the  air,  who  swept  along  in  gathering  hosts.  With 
the  methods  in  use,  the  judge  or  the  inquisitor  would  have  little 
difficulty  in  finding  what  he  sought.  When  once  such  a  belief 
was  disseminated  by  trials  and  executions,  the  accused  would 
seek  to  escape  endless  torture  by  framing  confessions  in  accordance 
with  leading  questions  and  thus  a  tolerably  coherent,  though  some- 
times discordant,  formula  was  developed,  to  which  witches  in  every 
land  were  expected  to  conform.  That  this  was  a  new  develop- 
ment is  shown  by  the  demonologists  of  the  fifteenth  century — 
Nider  and  Jaquerius,  Sprenger  and  Bernardo  da  Como — treating 
witches  as  a  new  sect,  unknown  before  that  age,  and  to  this  Inno- 
cent VIII  impliedly  gave  the  sanction  of  the  Holy  See  in  his  well- 
known  bull,  Summis  desider antes,  in  1484.     This  rapidly  growing 


'  The  earliest  appearance  of  the  Sabbat  in  inquisitorial  records  would  seem  to 
be  in  some  trials,  between  1330  and  1340  in  Carcassonne  and  Toulouse,  where  it 
connects  itself  curiously  with  remnants  of  the  Dualism  of  the  Cathari. — Hansen, 
Zauberwahn,  Inquisition  und  Hexenprozess  im  Mittelalter,  p.  315  (Miinchen, 
1900). 


208  WITCHCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

belief  in  the  power  of  witchcraft  and  the  duty  of  its  extermination 
were  stimulated  by  nearly  every  pope  for  almost  a  hundred  years — 
by  Eugenius  IV  in  1437  and  1445,  by  CaUxtus  III  in  1457,  by 
Pius  II  in  1459,  and,  after  the  special  utterance  of  Innocent  VIII, 
by  Alexander  VI  in  1494,  by  Julius  II,  by  Leo  X  in  1521,  by 
Adrian  VI,  in  1523  and  by  Clement  VII  in  1524.' 

While,  for  the  most  part,  the  so-called  confessions  of  witches 
under  trial  were  the  result  of  the  torture  so  unsparingly  employed, 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  at  least  a  portion  were  truthful 
accounts  of  illusions  really  entertained.  Even  as  the  trances  and 
visions  of  the  mystics,  such  as  Santa  Teresa  and  the  Venerable 
Maria  de  Agreda,  are  attributable  to  auto-hypnotism  and  auto- 
suggestion so,  when  the  details  of  the  Sabbat  were  thoroughly 
established  and  became  as  much  a  part  of  popular  belief  as  the 
glories  seen  in  mystic  ecstasy,  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  certain 
temperaments,  seeking  escape  from  the  sordid  miseries  of  laborious 
poverty,  might  acquire  the  power  of  inducing  trances  in  which 
the  transport  to  the  meeting-place,  the  devil-worship  and  the 
sensual  delights  that  followed,  were  impressed  upon  the  imagi- 
nation as  realities.  The  demonographers  give  us  ample  accounts 
of  experiments  in  which  the  suspected  witch  was  thrown  into 
a  trance  by  the  inunction  of  her  ointment  and,  on  awaking, 
gave  a  detailed  account  of  her  attendance  on  the  Sabbat  and  of 
what  she  did  and  saw  there.  This  should  be  borne  in  mind  when 
following  the  long  debate  between  those  who  upheld  the  reality 
of  the  Sabbat  and  those  who  argued  that  it  was  generally  or  always 
a  delusion. 

To  appreciate  the  attitude  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition  in  this 
debate  the  origin  of  the  myth  must  be  understood.  The  flying 
by  night  of  female  sorcerers  to  places  of  assemblage  was  an  ancient 
belief,  entertained  by  Hindus,  Jews  and  the  classical  nations.  This 
was  handed  down  through  the  middle  ages,  but  was  regarded  by 
the  Church  as  a  relic  of  paganism  to  be  suppressed.  There  was 
an  utterance,  not  later  than  the  ninth  century,  which  denounced 
as  an  error,  induced  by  the  devil,  the  popular  belief  that  wicked 
women  ride  through  the  air  at  night  under  the  leadership  of  Diana 
and  Herodias,  wherefore  priests  everywhere  were  commanded  to 


'  Raynald.  Annal.,  ann.  1437,  n.  27;  ann.  1457,  n.  90;  ann.  1459,  n.  30.— RipoU, 
BuUar.  Ord.  Praedic.  Ill,  193.— BuUar.  Roman.  I,  429.— Septimi  Decretal,  Lib. 
V,  Tit.  xii,  cap.  1,  3,  6. — Bart.  Spinaei  de  Strigibus,  p.  14  (Romaj,  1576). 


Chap.  IX]  THE  SABBAT  209 

disabuse  the  faithful  and  to  teach  that  those  who  professed  to  take 
part  in  these  nocturnal  excursions  were  deluded  by  dreams  inspired 
by  the  demon,  so  that  he  who  believed  in  their  reality  entertained 
the  faith  of  the  devil  and  not  that  of  God.  This  utterance  was 
ascribed  to  an  otherwise  unknown  Council  of  Anquira;  it  passed 
through  all  the  collections  of  canons — Regino,  Burchard  and  Ivo — 
found  a  place  finally  in  the  authoritative  Decretum  of  Gratian, 
where  it  became  known  to  canonists  as  the  canon  Episcopi.^ 

When,  therefore,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  there  was  formulated 
the  perfected  theory  of  the  witches'  Sabbat,  it  had  to  struggle  for 
existence.  No  theologian  stood  higher  than  St.  Antonino,  Arch- 
bishop of  Florence,  yet  in  his  instructions  to  confessors,  he  requires 
them  to  ascertain  from  penitents  whether  they  believe  that  women 
can  be  transformed  into  cats,  can  fly  by  night  and  suck  the  blood 
of  children,  all  of  which  he  says  is  impossible,  and  to  believe  it  is 
folly.  Nor  was  he  alone  in  this,  for  similar  instructions  are  given 
by  Angelo  da  Chivasso  and  Bartolommeo  de  Chaimis  in  their 
authoritative  manuals.^  The  new  school  could  only  meet  the  defi- 
nitions of  the  can.  Episcopi  by  asserting  that  witchcraft  was  the 
product  of  a  new  sect,  more  pernicious  than  all  former  inventions 
of  the  demon.  This  brought  on  a  warm  discussion  between  law- 
yers like  Ponzinibio  on  the  one  side  and  papal  theologians  on  the 
other,  such  as  Silvester  Prierias,  Master  of  the  Sacred  Palace  and 
his  successor  Bartolommeo  Spina,  and  the  authority  of  the  Holy 
See  triumphed  over  scepticism. 

Spain,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  lay  somewhat  out  of  the  currents 
of  European  thought,  and  the  new  doctrine  as  to  the  Sabbat  found 
only  gradual  acceptance  there.  Alfonso  Tostado,  Bishop  of  Avila, 
the  most  learned  Spanish  theologian  of  the  time,  in  1436,  treats 
the  Sabbat  as  a  delusion  caused  by  the  inunction  of  drugs,  but 
subsequently  he  argues  away  the  can.  Episcopi  and  says  that  the 
truth  is  proved  by  innumerable  cases  and  by  the  judicial  penalties 
inflicted.'  Even  so  bigoted  and  credulous  a  writer  as  Alonso 
de  Espina  treats  it  as  a  delusion  wrought  by  the  demon  to  whom 


'  Frag.  Capitular,  cap.  13  (Baluze,  II,  365). — Reginon.  de  Eccles.  Discip.  ii, 
364. — Burchard.  Decret.  xi,  i;  xix,  5. — I  von.  Deoret.,  xi,  30. — Gratian.  Decret. 
II,  XXVI,  V,  12. 

'  S.  Antonini  Confessionale. — Angeli  de  Clavasio  Summa  Angelica,  s.  v.  Inter- 
rogationes. — Bart,  de  Chaimis  Interrogatorium,  fol.  22  (Venetiis,  1480). 

'  Hansen,  Quellen  und  Untersuchungen,  zur  Geschichte  des  Hexenwahns  und 
der  Hexenverfolgung  im  Mittelalter,  pp.  105-9  (Bonn,  1901). 
VOL.   IV  14 


210  WITCHCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

the  witch  has  given  herself  and  so  does  Cardinal  Torquemada,  in 
his  Commentary  on  the  Decretum.^  Martin  de  Aries,  Canon  of 
Pampeluna,  speaks  of  the  Broxce  who  flourished  principally  in 
the  Basque  provinces,  north  of  the  Pyrenees;  the  belief  in  them 
he  treats  as  a  false  opinion  and  quotes  the  can.  Episcopi  as  authori- 
tatively proving  it  to  be  a  delusion.  At  the  same  time  he  admits 
that  sorcerers  can  ligature  married  folk,  can  injure  men  and 
devastate  their  fields  and  harvests,  which  are  works  of  the  demon 
operating  through  them.^  Bernardo  Basin,  of  Saragossa,  who  had 
studied  in  Paris,  took  a  middle  ground;  the  Council  of  Anquira 
is  not  authoritative,  in  some  cases  there  may  be  illusions  sent  by 
the  demon,  in  others  the  Sabbat  is  a  reality.^  In  1494,  the  Reper- 
torium  Inquisitorum  recognizes  the  existence  of  witches,  who  were 
popularly  known  as  Xorguinas;  it  quotes  the  essential  portion 
of  the  can.  Episcopi  in  answer  to  the  question  whether  they  are 
justiciable  by  the  Inquisition,  adding  that  such  a  belief  is  an  illusion 
wrought  by  the  demon  but,  although  it-is  folly,  it  is  infidelity  worse 
than  paganism,  and  can  be  prosecuted  as  heresy.*  The  Inquisi- 
tion itself  could  have  no  doubt  as  to  its  powers;  if  the  Sabbat  was 
true,  the  witch  was  an  apostate;  if  a  delusion,  she  was  a  heretic 
and  in  either  case  subject  to  its  jurisdiction. 

This  reference  to  Xorguinas  shows  that  witches  were  already 
well  known  in  Spain,  and  we  can  assume  from  subsequent  develop- 
ments that  their  principal  seat  was  in  the  mountainous  districts 
along  the  Pyrenees,  penetrating  perhaps  from  France  and  favored 
by  the  ignorance  of  the  population,  its  sparseness  and  poverty.* 
The  earliest  case,  however,  that  I  have  met  of  prosecution  by  the 
Inquisition  was  in  1498,  when  Gracia  la  Valle  was  burnt  in  Sara- 
gossa.    This  was  followed  in  1499  by  the  burning  of  Maria,  wife 


'  Fortalicium  Fidei,  Lib.  v,  Consid.  x. — Hansen,  op.  cit.,  pp.  113-17. 

^  Martini  de  Aries,  Tractatus  de  Superstitionibus,  pp.  362-5,  413-15  (Franco- 
furti  ad  Moenam,  1581). 

Hansen  (op.  cU.,  p.  308)  says  that  Martin  of  Aries  is  known  only  through  this 
tract,  of  which  the  first  edition  is  of  1517.  Martin  cites  no  authority  later  than 
John  Nider,  who  died  in  1438,  and  makes  no  allusion  to  the  Inquisition,  which 
he  could  scarce  have  failed  to  do  had  it  been  in  existence  when  he  wrote.  His 
work  may  probably  be  assigned  to  the  third  quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century. 

'  Bernardi  Basin,  Tract,  de  Magicis  Artibus,  Prop.  ix. 

*  Repert.  Inquisitor,  s.  v.  Xorguince. 

'  Alonso  de  Spina,  however  (Joe.  ai.),  knows  of  no  gatherings  at  the  Sabbat 
nearer  than  Dauphiny  and  Gascony,  and  these  he  learned  from  paintings  of  them 
in  the  Inquisition  at  Toulouse,  which  had  burnt  many  of  those  concerned. 


I. 


Chap.  IX]  DOUBT  AND  INQUIRY  211 

of  Garcia  Biesa  and,  in  January  1500,  by  that  of  three  women, 

Nanavina,  Estefabrita  and  Marieta,  wife  of  Aznar  Perez.     There 

was  an  interval  then  until  1512,  when  there  were  two  victims, 

Martina  Gen  and  Maria  de  Arbues.     There  was  no  other  in  Sara- 

gossa  until  1522,  when  Sancha  de  Arbues  suffered,  and  the  last 

one  in  the  record  is  Catahna  de  Joan  Dfez,  in  1535.'     Persecution        /      /•-   ' 

would  seem  to  be  more  active  in  Biscay,  for  Llorente  quotes  from  ftu-/^    y' 

a  contemporary  MS.  a  statement  that  in  1507  there  were  burnt  ji^ ';,'•■  ,  <>■ 

there  more  than  thirty  witches,  leading  Martin  de  Aries  y  Andosilla  '^  '">.'"      '  ■" 

to  write  a  learned  treatise  on  the  subject,  printed  in  Paris  in  1517.^  ^.i  ^'"5 

It  would  seem  that,  in  1517,  there  was  a  persecution  on  foot  in  ;6'-  '  ' 

Catalonia,  for  the  Barcelona  inquisitors  were  ordered  to  visit  the 

mountainous  districts,  especially  in  the  diocese  of  Urgel,  to  publish 

edicts  against  the  witches  and  to  prosecute  them  with  all  rigor.^ 

Doubtless  there  were  other  developments  of  which  no  trace  has 

reached  us,  and  there  was  every  prospect  that  Spain  would  be  the 

seat  of  an  epidemic  of  witchcraft  which,  if  fostered  by  persecution, 

would  rival  the  devastation  commencing  throughout  the  rest  of 

Europe. 

The  time  had  scarce  come  for  a  change  of  policy,  but  there  is 
a  manifestation  of  a  spirit  of  doubt  and  inquiry,  very  different 
from  the   unreasoning   ferocity   prevalent    elsewhere.     Arnaldo  ' 

Albertino  tells  that,  in  1521,  at  Saragossa,  by  command  of  Cardinal 
Adrian,  he  was  called  in  consultation  by  the  Suprema,  over  two 
cases,  when  he  pronounced  the  Sabbat  to  be  a  delusion.^  Possibly 
one  of  these  cases  may  have  been  the  woman  who,  we  have  seen, 
was  burnt  at  Saragossa  in  1522,  but  the  effect  of  such  a  discussion 
is  visible,  in  this  same  year  1522,  in  an  Edict  of  Grace  addressed 
to  the  witches  of  Jaca  and  Ribagorza,  granting  them  six  months 
in  which  to  come  forward  and  confess  their  offences.^  Consider- 
ing that,  about  this  time,  Leo  X  and  Adrian  VI  were  vigorously 
promoting  the  massacre  by  wholesale  of  witches  in  the  Lombardo- 
Venitian  valleys,  and  resenting  any  interference  with  the  operation 
of  the  inquisitors,  such  action  on  the  part  of  the  Suprema  is  of 
marked  significance. 


'  Libro  Verde  deAragon  (RevistadeEspana,  CVI,  573-6,  581-3).  „    ,,^'.  ,)^'       ',*'■-■ 

2  Llorente,  Afiales,  I,  340;  Hist,  crit.,  cap.  xxxvii,  art.  ii,  n.  41. -(^   ^  "-^'  ''J^,^,,^^'-' '''   '"'j,^^    i. 
'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  72,  P.  i,  foL  120;  P.  11,  fol.  50.         "  /'l--^   lll^"* 

'  Am.  Albertini  de  agnoscendis  Assertionibus,  Q.  xxiv,  n.  13  (Romse,  1572, 
fol.  114). 
'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  73,  fol.  215, 


212  WITCHCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

It  evidently  felt  the  matter  to  be  one  requiring  the  most  careful 
consideration  and,  on  the  outbreak  of  a  witch-craze  in  Navarre, 
stimulated  by  the  secular  authorities,  it  assembled,  in  1526,  a 
"congregation"  in  Granada,  laid  the  papers  before  it  and  asked  its 
examination  of  the  whole  subject,  which  was  condensed  into  six 
questions,  going  to  the  root  of  the  matter:  1.  Whether  witches 
really  commit  the  crimes  confessed,  or  whether  they  are  deluded. 
2.  Whether,  if  these  crimes  are  really  committed,  the  culprits  are 
to  be  reconciled  and  imprisoned,  or  to  be  delivered  to  the  secular 
arm.  3.  Whether,  if  they  deceive  and  do  not  commit  these  things, 
they  are  to  be  similarly  punished,  or  otherwise.  4.  Whether  the 
cognizance  of  these  crimes  pertains  to  the  Inquisition  and  if  so, 
whether  this  is  fitting.  5.  Whether  the  accused  are  to  be  judged 
on  their  confessions  without  further  evidence  and  to  be  condemned 
to  the  ordinary  punishment.  6.  What  will  be  a  wholesome 
remedy  to  extirpate  the  pest  of  these  witches.^  The  mere  submis- 
sion to  rational  discussion  of  such  a  series  of  questions  shows  a 
desire  to  reach  a  just  method  of  treatment,  wholly  at  variance  with 
practice  elsewhere,  when  legislators  and  judges  were  solely  occu- 
pied with  devising  schemes  to  fight  the  devil  with  his  own  weapons 
and  to  convict,  per  fas  et  nefas,  the  unfortunates  who  chanced  to 
incur  suspicion.^ 

The  ten  members  of  the  congregation  were  all  men  of  consider- 
ation and  included  the  Licentiate  Vald^s,  in  whom  we  may  recog- 
nize the  future  inquisitor-general.  On  the  first  question,  as  to 
reality  or  delusion,  the  vote  stood  six  to  four  in  favor  of  reality, 
Vald^s  being  one  of  the  minority  and  explaining  that  he  regarded 
the  proofs  of  the  accusations  as  insufficient,  and  desired  inquisitors 
to  be  instructed  to  make  greater  efforts  at  verification.  The 
second  question  was  of  the  highest  importance.  For  ordinary- 
heresy,  confession  and  repentance  ensured  exemption  from  the 
stake  but,  in  the  eagerness  to  punish  witchcraft,  when  a  witch 
confessed  it  was  customary  to  abandon  her,  either  formally  or 
informally,  to  be  punished  by  the  secular  authorities' for  the  crimes 
assumed  to  be  proved  against  her — usually  sucking  the  blood  of 


1  MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch  Seld.  130. 

'  For  the  inhuman  methods  employed  to  secure  confession  and  conviction,  on 
the  flimsiest  evidence,  see  the  very  instructive  essay  "  The  Fate  of  Dietrich  Flade" 
by  Professor  George  Burr  (New  York,  1891),  reprinted  from  the  Transactions  of 
the  American  Historical  Association, 


Chap.  IX]  DOUBT  AND  INQUIRY  213 

children  or  encompassing  the  death  of  adults.  Obedience  to  the 
Scriptural  injunction  of  not  suffering  a  witch  to  live  was  general.' 
On  this  point  there  was  wide  variety  of  opinion,  but  the  majority 
decided  that,  when  culprits  were  admitted  to  reconciliation,  they 
were  not  to  be  remitted  to  the  secular  judges,  to  be  punished  for 
homicides,  for  such  homicides  might  be  illusory,  and  there  was  no 
proof  beyond  their  confessions;  after  they  had  completed  the 
penance  assigned  to  them,  if  the  secular  judges  chose  to  try  them 
for  homicide,  the  Inquisition  could  not  interfere.  This  decision 
was  adopted  in  practice  and,  some  years  later,  was  cited  in  justi- 
fication of  protecting  convicted  witches  from  the  secular  courts. 

On  the  third  question,  votes  were  too  much  divided  for  any 
definite  result.  On  the  fourth  there  was  substantial  affirmative 
agreement.  On  the  fifth,  five  voted  that  confession  sufficed,  but 
Vald^s  hmited  its  sufficiency  to  the  minor  inflictions  of  exile, 
vergiienza  and  scourging.  With  regard  to  the  final  question,  as 
to  remedial  measures,  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  only  three  sug- 
gested greater  activity  and  severity  of  the  Inquisition;  nearly  all 
favored  sending  preachers  to  instruct  and  enhghten  the  ignorant 
population;  two  proposed  reforming  the  regular  clergy,  and  one 
the  secular  beneficed  clergy;  several  thought  well  of  building 
churches  or  monasteries  on  the  spots  where  the  Sabbats  were 
held;  one  recommended  an  edict  promising  release  from  confisca- 
tion for  those  who  would  come  forward  within  a  specified  time,  and 
two  voted  that  the  Inquisition  should  give  material  aid  to  the 
poorer  suspects,  in  order  to  relieve  them  from  temptation.  Valdes 
further  presented  detailed  instructions  for  inquisitors,  the  most 
important  of  which  were  that  the  statements  of  witches  implicating 
other  parties  were  not  to  be  accepted  as  satisfactory  evidence,  and 
that,  when  accused  to  the  Inquisition,  it  should  be  ascertained 


'  Mallei  Malificar.  P.  i,  Q.  xiv;  P.  ii,  Q.  i,  C.  3,  16. — Prieriat.  de  Strigimagarum 
Lib.  Ill,  cap.  3. 

The  rule  that  the  heretic  or  apostate  who  confessed  and  recanted  was  to  be 
admitted  to  reconciliation  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  anxiety  of  the  secular  magis- 
trates to  maintain  their  jurisdiction  over  witchcraft,  and  the  relations  between 
them  and  the  Inquisition  were  the  subject  of  much  debate.  Am.  Albertino  argues 
that  the  Inquisition  can  make  no  distinction  between  witches  who  have  and  who 
have  not  committed  murder;  they  must  all  be  reconciled,  but  can  again  be  accused 
of  homicide  before  a  competent  judge;  yet  the  inquisitor,  to  escape  irregularity, 
must  not  transmit  to  the  secular  court  the  confessions  and  evidence,  nor  must  he, 
in  the  sentences,  mention  these  crimes,  as  that  would  be  setting  the  judge  on  the 
track.— De  agnosc.  Assertionibus,  Q.  xxiv,  n.  28,  66,  67,  68,  70,  72,  75. 


214  WITCHCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

whether  they  had  already  been  tortured  by  the  secular  judges.^ 
Halting  as  these  deliberations  may  seem,  they  manifest  gleams 
of  wholesome  scepticism  and  an  honest  desire  to  reach  the  truth, 
when  elsewhere  throughout  Christendom  such  questions  were 
regarded  as  beyond  discussion.  Yet  for  awhile  the  Suprema 
was  not  prepared  to  allow  these  opinions  to  influence  action.  In 
1527  there  was  an  outbreak  of  witchcraft  in  Navarre,  the  treatment 
of  which  by  Inquisitor  Avellaneda  he  reports  in  a  letter  written,  in 
response  to  an  inquiry  from  Inigo  de  Velasco,  Constable  of  Castile. 
Witchcraft,  he  declared,  was  the  worst  evil  of  the  time;  he  had 
written  to  the  king  and  twice  to  the  Suprema  urging  a  remedy, 
but  neither  at  court  nor  on  the  spot  was  there  any  one  who  under- 
stood its  cure.  For  six  months  he  had  been  laboring  in  the  moun- 
tains, where,  by  the  help  of  God,  he  had  discovered  many  witches. 
In  a  raid  on  the  valley  of  Salazar  he  had  captured  a  number  and 
brought  them  to  Pampeluna  where,  with  the  regent  and  members 
of  the  Royal  Council  and  other  doctors  and  lawyers,  the  whole 
subject  was  discussed;  it  was  agreed  that  witches  could  be  carried 
through  the  air  to  the  Sabbat,  and  that  they  committed  the  crimes 
ascribed  to  them — principally,  it  would  seem,  on  the  strength  of 
an  experiment  which  he  had  tried  with  one  of  his  prisoners.  On 
a  Friday  at  midnight  he  allowed  her  to  anoint  herself  with  the 
magic  unguent  which  they  used;  she  opened  a  window  over- 
hanging a  precipice,  where  a  cat  would  be  dashed  to  pieces,  and 
invoked  the  demon  who  came  and  deposited  her  safely  on  the 
ground — to  be  recaptured  on  Monday  with  seven  others,  three 
leagues  away.  These  were  all  executed,  after  which  he  prosecuted 
his  researches  and  discovered  three  places  of  assemblage — one 
in  the  valley  of  Salazar,  with  two  hundred  and  fifty  members,  of 
whom  he  had  captured  sixty,  another  with  eighty  members  in 
another  valley  and  a  third  near  Roncesvalles  with  over  two 
hundred.  Fifty  had  been  executed  and  he  hoped,  with  the  favor 
of  God  to  despatch  twenty  more.  He  had  discovered  that  which, 
if  proper  assistance  were  given  to  him,  would  redound  to  the  great 
service  of  God  and  benefit  to  the  Republic  for,  without  God's 
mercy,  the  evil  would  grow  and  the  life  of  no  one  would  be  safe. 
To  gratify  the  curiosity  of  the  constable,  Avellaneda  proceeded  to 
give  a  detailed  account  of  the  wonders  and  wickedness  of  the 
Sabbat  and  the  evils  wrought  by  witches.     In  spite  of  all  his 

'  MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch  Seld.  130. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,Lib. 
78,  fol.  216. 


Chap.  IX]  ACTIVE  PERSECUTION  215 

efforts  the  demon  urged  them  on  to  still  greater  crimes  by  showing 
them  phantoms  of  those  who  had  been  executed,  pretending  that 
he  had  resuscitated  them  and  would  resuscitate  all  who  might  be 
put  to  death.  This  evil,  he  concludes,  is  general  throughout  the 
World.  If  the  constable  wishes  to  ascertain  whether  there  are 
witches  in  his  district,  he  has  only  to  observe  whether  the  grain 
is  withered  while  in  bloom,  or  the  acorns  fail  in  the  mountains,  or 
there  are  children  smothered,  for  wherever  these  things  occur, 
there  are  witches.^  Altogether,  Avellaneda  affords  a  typical  illus- 
tration of  the  manner  in  which  witchcraft  was  created  and  spread 
by  the  witch-finders. 

There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Avellaneda  was  reproved  for 
the  exuberance  of  his  zeal,  for  his  policy  was  continued  in  1528, 
when  the  witch  epidemic  was  extending  to  Biscay,  and  the  civil 
authorities  were  arresting  and  trying  offenders.  More  eager  to 
assert  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition  than  to  adopt  the  conclu- 
sions of  the  congregation,  on  February  22,  1528,  Inquisitor-general 
Manrique  ordered  Sancho  de  Carranza  de  Miranda,  Inquisitor  of 
Calahorra,  to  go  thither  with  full  powers  to  investigate,  try  and 
sentence,  even  to  relaxation,  the  witches  who  are  reported  to  have 
abandoned  the  faith,  offered  themselves  to  the  devil  and  wrought 
much  evil  in  killing  infants  and  ruining  the  harvests.  He  is  to 
demand  from  the  civil  authorities  all  who  have  been  arrested  and 
the  papers  concerning  their  cases,  for  this  is  a  matter  pertaining  to 
the  Inquisition.  A  thorough  inquest  is  to  be  made  in  all  infected 
places,  and  edicts  are  to  be  published  summoning  within  a  given 
time  and  under  such  penalties  as  he  sees  fit,  all  culprits  to  come 
forward  and  all  cognizant  of  such  offences  to  denounce  them.^ 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  II,  88.— MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch  Seld.  130. 

This  document  may  safely  be  assumed  as  the  source  from  which  Prudencio  de 
Sandoval,  himself  Bishop  of  Pampeluna  and  historiographer  of  Charles  V,  drew 
his  account  of  the  persecution  of  1527  (Hist,  del  Emp.  Carlos  V,  Lib.  xvi,  §  15) 
copied  by  Llorente  (Hist,  crft.,  cap.  xv,  art.  1,  n.  6-9). 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  76,  fol.  51,  53. 

There  seems  to  have  been  a  somewhat  earlier  persecution  of  the  witches  of 
Biscay  by  Fray  Juan  de  Zumarraga,  a  native  of  Durango.  At  the  suggestion  of 
Charles  V,  who  greatly  admired  him,  he  was  sent  there  for  that  purpose  as  com- 
missioner of  the  Inquisition,  being  specially  qualified  by  his  knowledge  of  the 
language.  After  discharging  this  duty  with  much  ability,  Charles,  in  1528,  sent 
him  to  Mexico  as  its  first  bishop.  He  took  with  him  Fray  Andres  de  Ohnos, 
who  had  been  his  assistant  in  Biscay.  In  1548,  at  the  age  of  80  he  died  in  the 
odor  of  sanctity  and  his  death  was  miraculously  known  the  same  day  over  all 
Mexico.— Mendieta,  Hist,  ecles.  Indiana,  pp.  629,  636,  644  (Mexico,  1870) 


216  WITCHCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

There  is  in  this  no  injunction  of  prudence  and  caution,  no  require- 
ment that  the  cases  are  to  be  submitted  for  confirmation  to  the 
Calahorra  tribunal;  Carranza  is  provided  with  a  fiscal  and  a 
notary,  so  that  he  can  execute  speedy  justice  and  the  Edict  of 
Grace  is  replaced  by  an  Edict  of  Faith. 

It  is  not  until  1530  that  we  find  evidence  that  the  discussion  of 
1526  was  producing  a  change  in  the  view  taken  of  witchcraft  and 
of  the  methods  of  its  repression.  A  carta  acordada,  addressed  to 
all  the  tribunals,  enjoined  special  caution  in  all  witchcraft  cases, 
as  it  was  a  very  delicate  matter  to  handle,  and  this  was  followed 
by  another  manifesting  a  healthy  scepticism  and  desire  to  repress 
popular  superstition,  for  it  stated  that  the  ensalmadores,  who 
cured  diseases  by  charms,  asserted  that  all  sickness  was  caused  by 
witches,  wherefore  they  were  to  be  asked  what  they  meant  and 
why  they  said  so.^ 

The  practical  position  assumed  by  this  time  may  be  gathered 
from  a  letter  of  December  11,  1530,  from  the  Suprema  to  the 
Royal  Council  of  Navarre,  when  a  fresh  outbreak  of  the  witch- 
craze  had,  as  usual,  brought  dissension  between  the  tribunal  and 
the  secular  courts,  for  the  latter  refused  to  acknowledge  the  exclu- 
sive jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition,  and  complained  of  its  delays 
and  the  leniency  of  its  sentences,  in  comparison  with  the  speedy 
and  unsparing  action  demanded  by  popular  clamor.  The  Suprema 
now,  in  reply  to  the  complaints  of  the  Royal  Council  against  the 
Calahorra  tribunal,  replied  that  this  matter  of  the  witches  was  not 
new;  on  a  previous  occasion  there  had  been  the  same  altercation; 
some  of  the  cases  which  had  caused  the  most  complaint  had  been 
brought  to  the  court  and  had,  by  order  of  the  emperor,  been 
examined  by  learned  men  when,  after  much  debate,  it  was  ordered 
that  the  prisoners  should  be  delivered  to  the  inquisitors  who,  after 
examining  them,  should  try  those  pertaining  to  their  jurisdiction 
and  surrender  the  others.  There  was  much  doubt  felt  as  to  the 
verification  of  the  crimes  alleged,  and  the  Suprema  deplored  the 
executions  by  the  secular  courts,  for  the  cases  were  not  so  clear 
as  had  been  supposed.  In  view  of  all  this,  inquisitors  were  enjoined 
to  use  caution  and  moderation,  for  there  is  so  much  ambiguity 
in  these  cases  that  it  seems  impossible  for  human  reason  to  reach 
the  truth.  When  the  same  questions  had  arisen  elsewhere,  the 
Suprema  had  ordered  the  inquisitors  to  act  with  the  greatest  cir- 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  939,  fol.  108. 


Chap.  IX]  ZEAL  RESTRAINED  217 

cumspection,  for  these  matters  were  most  delicate  and  perilous, 
and  some  inexperienced  judges  had  been  deceived  in  treating  them. 
The  Suprema  therefore  deprecated  a  competencia;  it  entreated 
the  Royal  Council  to  hand  all  cases  over  to  the  tribunal,  which 
would  return  those  not  subject  to  its  jurisdiction,  and  the  inquis- 
itors would  be  ordered  to  remove  the  censures  and  fines — which 
shows  that  the  quarrel  had  been  pushed  to  extremes.'  There 
was  equal  determination  in  resisting  the  claims  of  the  episcopal 
courts  to  jurisdiction.  In  1531  the  Saragossa  tribunal  complains 
of  the  intrusion  of  the  Bishop  of  San  Angelo,  who  had  refused  to 
surrender  a  prisoner  and  had  invited  the  tribunal  to  join  him  in 
prosecuting  witches  in  places  under  his  jurisdiction.  To  him  the 
Suprema  accordingly  wrote,  asserting  the  exclusive  cognizance 
of  the  Inquisition  and  requiring  him  to  deliver  to  the  tribunal  any 
prisoners  whom  he  had  arrested.^ 

The  cautious  and  sceptical  attitude  assumed  by  the  Suprema 
was  all  the  more  creditable  because  the  leading  authorities  of 
the  period  were  firm  in  their  conviction  of  the  reality  of  witchcraft. 
Arnaldo  Albertino,  himself  an  inquisitor  who,  in  1521,  had  deemed 
the  Sabbat  an  illusion,  writing  about  1535,  says  that  since  then, 
on  mature  consideration,  he  had  reached  the  opposite  opinion; 
he  now  accepts  all  the  horrors  and  crimes  ascribed  to  witches 
and  argues  away  the  can.  Episcopi.  Alfonso  de  Castro,  another 
writer  of  the  highest  distinction  at  this  time,  gives  full  credence 
to  the  most  extravagant  stories  of  the  Sabbat,  and  he  disposes 
of  the  can.  Episcopi  by  asserting  that  it  referred  to  an  entirely 
different  sect.^ 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  the  Suprema  pursued  its  course  in 
restraining  the  cruel  zeal  of  the  tribunals.  The  craze  was  spreading 
in  Catalonia,  where  it  required  the  Barcelona  tribunal  to  submit 
to  it  for  confirmation  all  sentences  in  these  cases.  In  1537,  it 
returned,  July  11th,  a  number  of  sentences,  with  its  decisions  as  to 
each,  and  instructions  as  to  the  future.  The  tribunal  was  chafing 
under  the  unaccustomed  restriction,  and  the  fiscal  was  scandalized 
at  the  solicitude  displayed  for  the  friendless  wretches  who,  every- 
where but  in  Spain,  were  deprived  of  the  most  ordinary  safeguards 
against  injustice,  but  the  imperturbable  Suprema  maintained  its 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  76,  fol.  369. 
'  Ibidem,  fol.  388. 

'  Am.  Albertini  de  agnosc.  Assertionibus,  Q.  xxiv. — Alph.  de  Castro  de  justa 
hsereticor.  Punitione,  Lib.  i,  cap.  xvi. 


218  WITCHCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

temperate  wisdom.  The  utmost  care,  it  said,  was  to  be  exercised 
to  verify  all  testimony  and  to  avoid  conviction  when  this  was 
insufficient.  Arrests  had  been  made  on  the  mere  reputation  of 
being  witches,  for  which  the  inquisitors  were  reproved  and  told 
that  they  must  arrest  no  one  on  such  grounds,  nor  on  the  testimony 
of  accomplices,  nor  must  those  who  denied  their  guilt  be  condemned 
as  negativos.  When  any  one  confessed  to  being  present  at  the 
killing  of  children  or  damage  to  harvests,  verification  must  be 
sought  as  to  the  death  of  the  children  at  that  time,  and  of  what 
disease,  and  whether  the  crops  had  been  injured.  When  such 
verification  was  made,  arrests  could  follow  and,  if  the  character 
of  the  case  and  of  the  accused  required  it,  torture  could  be 
employed.^  It  will  be  noted  how  much  more  scrupulous  was  the 
care  enjoined  in  these  cases  than  in  those  of  Moriscos  and  Judaizers, 
and  the  limitation  on  the  use  of  torture  is  especially  observable, 
as  that  was  the  universal  resort  in  witchcraft  throughout  Europe. 
It  was  difficult  to  enforce  these  rules  in  Barcelona.  The  result 
of  the  visitation  of  Francisco  Vaca  was  a  long  series  of  rebukes, 
in  1550,  largely  concerning  the  procedure  in  witch  cases  and  event- 
ually leading  to  the  dismissal  of  Inquisitor  Sarmiento,  although 
his  offences  were  simply  what  was  regarded,  everywhere  but  in 
Spain,  as  the  plain  duty  of  those  engaged  in  a  direct  contest  with 
Satan,  represented  by  his  instrument  the  witch.  Sarmiento  is 
told  that  he  made  arrests  without  sufficient  proofs  and  accepted 
the  evidence  taken  by  secular  officials  without  verifying  it,  as 
required  by  the  practice  of  the  Inquisition,  and,  whereas  the 
Suprema  ordered  certain  precautions  taken  before  concluding  cases, 
he  concluded  them  without  doing  so,  and  subjected  parties  to  rec- 
onciliation and  scourging  that  were  not  included  in  the  sentence. 
Although  the  Suprema  had  ordered  all  sentences  of  relaxation  to 
be  submitted  to  it,  he  had  relaxed  seven  persons  as  witches,  in 
disregard  of  this,  and  when  repeatedly  commanded  to  present 
himself,  he  had  never  done  so.  Then  the  fiscal  was  taken  to  task 
because  he  had  been  present  at  the  examination  of  witches,  con- 
ducting the  interrogation  himself,  putting  leading  questions,  telling 
them  what  to  confess  and  assuring  them  that  this  was  not  hke  a 
secular  court,  where  those  who  confessed  were  executed.  In  the 
case  of  Juana,  daughter  of  Benedita  de  Burgosera,  he  told  her  that 
she  was  a  witch,  that  her  mother  had  made  her  a  witch  and  had 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  78,  fol.  144. 


Uhap.  IX]  ZEAL  RESTBAINED  219 

taken  her  to  the  Bach  de  Viterna,  and  he  detailed  to  her  the  mur- 
ders committed  by  her  mother.  In  witch  cases  he  caused  arrests 
without  presenting  clamosas  or  submitting  evidence,  but  when  he 
learned  that  a  visitor  was  coming  he  fabricated  and  inserted  them 
in  the  papers.  In  this  the  notary  del  secreto  was  his  accomplice 
besides  taking  part  in  the  examinations,  bullying  the  accused  and 
making  them  confess  what  was  wanted  by  threats  and  suggestions. 
The  alcaide  of  the  prison  had  allowed  one  of  the  prisoners,  who 
endeavored  to  save  himself  by  accusing  others,  to  enter  the  cells 
and  persuade  the  prisoners  to  confess  and  not  to  revoke ;  the  alcaide 
had  also  urged  the  women  to  confess,  telling  them  that  they  were 
guilty  and  promising  them  release  if  they  would  confess  and, 
when  taking  back  to  his  cell  a  man  who  had  revoked  his  confes- 
sion, he  so  threatened  the  poor  wretch  that  he  returned  and  with- 
drew his  revocation.^  Elsewhere  than  in  Spain  such  methods  of 
securing  confession  were  the  veriest  commonplaces  in  witch  trials. 
Meanwhile  the  chronic  witchcraft  troubles  in  Navarre  had  called 
forth,  in  1538,  a  series  of  enlightened  instructions  to  Inquisitor 
Valdeolitas,  who  was  sent  with  a  special  commission.  He  was 
told  to  pay  no  attention  to  the  popular  demand  that  all  witches 
should  be  burnt,  but  to  exercise  the  utmost  discretion,  for  it  was 
a  most  delicate  matter,  in  which  deception  was  easy.  He  was  not 
to  confiscate  but  could  impose  fines  to  pay  salaries.  He  was  to 
explain  to  the  more  intelligent  of  the  people  that  the  destruction 
of  harvests  was  due  to  the  weather  or  to  a  visitation  of  God,  for 
it  happened  where  there  were  no  witches,  while  the  accusations 
of  homicide  required  the  most  careful  verification.  The  Malleus 
Maleficarum — ^that  Bible  of  the  witch-finder — was  not  to  be  be- 
lieved in  everything,  for  the  writer  was  liable  to  be  deceived  like 
every  one  else.  The  demands  of  the  corregidores  for  the  surrender 
of  penitents,  to  be  subsequently  punished  for  their  crimes,  were 
not  to  be  granted,  under  the  decision  of  the  congregation  of  1526. 
Then,  a  year  later,  October  27,  1539,  the  Calahorra  tribunal  was 
notified  that  the  Royal  Council  of  Navarre  had  agreed  to  surrender 
thirty-four  prisoners ;  one  of  the  inquisitors  was  to  go  to  Pampeluna 
to  examine  the  cases;  those  pertaining  to  the  Inquisition  were  to 
be  tried  in  strict  conformity  with  the  instructions  and  the  rest  were 
to  be  left  with  the  civil  authorities.'' 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  191-5. 
'  Ibidem,  Lib.  78,  fol.  215-17,  226,  258. 


220  WITGRCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

In  the  instructions  to  Valdeolitas  there  is  a  phrase  of  peculiar 
interest,  prescribing  special  caution  with  regard  to  the  dreams  of 
the  witches  when  they  sally  forth  to  the  Sabbat,  as  these  are  very 
deceitful.  This,  so  far  as  I  have  observed,  is  the  earliest  official 
admission  of  the  view  taken  in  the  can.  Episcopi  that  the  midnight 
flights  were  illusions.  We  have  seen  how  this  was  denied  by 
Albertino  and  de  Castro.  Ciruelo  admits  that  there  are  two  ways 
in  which  the  Xorguina  attends  the  Sabbat,  one  by  personally 
flying,  and  the  other  by  anointing  herself  and  falling  into  a  stupor, 
when  she  is  spiritually  conveyed,  but  both  are  the  work  of  the 
demon  and  he  admits  of  no  distinction  in  the  punishment.'  Bishop 
Simancas,  also  an  inquisitor,  has  no  doubt  as  to  the  bodily  trans- 
portation of  the  witch  to  the  Sabbat;  he  admits  that  most  jurists 
hold  to  the  theory  of  illusion,  as  expressed  in  the  can.  Episcopi, 
but  theologians,  he  says,  are  unanimous  in  maintaining  the  reality; 
he  argues  that  the  can.  Episcopi  does  not  refer  to  witches,  and 
that  stupor  with  illusions  is  much  more  difficult  to  comprehend 
than  the  truth  of  the  Sabbat.^ 

With  such  a  consensus  of  opinion  as  to  the  truth  of  the  Sabbat,  or 
Aquelarre  as  it  came  to  be  called  (from  a  Biscayan  word  signifying 
"field  of  the  goat")  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  Suprema  advanced 
slowly  in  designating  it  as  an  illusion,  although  practically  its 
instructions  assumed  that  no  reliance  was  to  be  placed  on  the 
multitudinous  testimony  of  its  existence,  of  the  foul  horrors  enacted 
there  and  of  the  presence  there  of  other  votaries  of  Satan.  A 
curious  case,  occurring  at  a  somewhat  later  period,  may  be  alluded 
to  here  as  showing  the  conclusion  reached  on  the  subject,  and  as 
throwing  light  on  the  auto-suggestion  and  hypnotic  state  which 
lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  Sabbat,  although  its  connection  is  merely 
with  the  carnal  indulgence  that  formed  a  prominent  feature  of  the 
nocturnal  assemblies.  In  1584  Anastasia  Soriana,  aged  28,  wife 
of  a  peasant,  denounced  herself  to  the  Murcia  tribunal  for  having 
long  maintained  carnal  relations  with  a  demon.     The  tribunal 

'  Reprovacion  de  las  Supersticiones,  P.  i,  cap.  ii,  n.  6;  P.  ii,  cap.  i,  n.  5-7. 

'  De  Cath.  Institt.,  Tit.  xxxvii,  n.  6-12. 

On  the  other  hand  Azpilcueta  adheres  to  the  theory  of  illusion  and  asserts  it 
to  be  a  mortal  sin  to  believe  that  witches  are  transported  to  the  Sabbat. — Manuale 
Confessariorum,  cap.  xi,  n.  38. 

Cardinal  Toletus  asserts  the  bodily  transport  ot  witches  and  all  the  horrors 
of  the  Sabbat,  but  adds  that  sometimes  it  is  imaginary.  Demons  have  power 
to  introduce  witches  into  houses  through  closed  doors,  where  they  slay  infants. — 
Summae  Casuum  Conscientiae,  Lib.  iv,  cap.  xv. 


Chap.  IX]  ZEAL  RESTRAINED  221 

wisely  regarded  the  matter  as  an  illusion  and  dismissed  the  case 
without  action.  Twelve  years  later,  in  1596,  she  presented  herself 
to  the  tribunal  of  Toledo,  with  the  same  self-accusation  and  again, 
after  due  deliberation,  she  was  discharged,  although  in  any  other 
land  it  would  have  gone  hard  with  her.' 

Meanwhile  the  Suprema  continued  the  good  work  of  protecting 
so-called  witches  from  the  cruelty  of  the  secular  courts  and  of 
restraining  the  intemperate  zeal  of  its  own  tribunals.  The  craze, 
in  1551,  had  extended  to  Galicia,  where  at  the  time  there  was  no 
Inquisition.  Many  arrests  had  been  made  and  trials  were  in 
progress  by  the  magistrates,  when  a  c^dula  of  August  27th,  evi- 
dently drawn  up  by  the  Suprema  for  the  signature  of  Prince 
Philip,  addressed  to  all  officials,  informed  them  that  the  matter  of 
witchcraft  was  a  very  delicate  one  in  which  many  judges  had  been 
deceived,  wherefore,  by  the  advice  of  the  inquisitor-general,  he 
ordered  that  all  the  testimony  should  be  sent  to  the  Suprema  for 
its  action,  pending  which  the  accused  were  to  be  kept  under  guard 
without  proceeding  further  with  their  cases  or  with  others  of  the 
same  nature.^  Then,  in  September,  1555,  the  Suprema  forwarded 
to  the  Logrono  tribunal  two  memorials  from  some  towns  in  Guipiiz- 
coa,  with  an  expression  of  its  sorrow  that  so  many  persons  should 


'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. — This  case  is  not  unexampled. 
In  1686,  Sor  Teresa  G|,briel  de  Vargas,  a  Bernardine  Recollect,  charged  herself 
with  the  same  crime  before  the  Madrid  tribunal,  but,  as  she  added  the  denial  of 
the  power  of  God,  she  was  reconciled  for  the  heresy. — Archivo  de  Simancas, 
Inq.,  Lib.  1024,  fol.  31. 

Even  more  significant  is  the  case  of  Sor  Rosa  de  San  Joseph  Barrios,  a  Clare 
of  the  convent  of  San  Diego,  Garachico,  Canaries,  a  woman  of  25  who,  in  July 
1773,  in  sacramental  confession  to  Fray  NiooUs  Peraza,  related  how,  through 
desire  to  gratify  her  lust,  she  had  given  herself  to  Satan,  in  a  writing  which  dis- 
appeared from  her  hand,  and  at  his  command  had  renounced  God  and  the  Virgin 
and  had  treated  the  consecrated  host  and  a  crucifix  with  the  foulest  indignities. 
In  reward  for  this  during  four  years  he  had  served  her  as  an  incubus,  coming  at 
her  call  about  twice  a  month.  Fray  Peraza  applied  to  the  tribunal  for  a  com- 
mission to  absolve  her  which  was  granted  and,  on  August  15t,h,  he  reported  having 
done  so,  with  fuller  details  as  to  her  apostasy.  The  tribunal  then  decided  that 
he  had  exceeded  his  powers;  it  evidently  did  not  regard  the  case  as  hallucination 
for  it  required  her  to  be  formally  reconciled  and  prescribed  a  course  of  Hfe-long 
spiritual  penance,  which  she  gratefully  accepted.  An  incident  not  readily  ex- 
plicable is  that  the  bishop  deprived  Fray  Peraza  of  the  faculty  of  hearing  con- 
fessions.— Birch,  Catalogue  of  MSS.  of  the  Inquisition  in  the  Canary  Islands,  I, 
p.  21;  II,  pp.  922-30. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  927,  fol.  462. 


222  WITCBCBAFT  [Book  VIH 

have  been  so  suddenly  arrested,  for,  from  the  testimony  at  hand 
and  former  experience,  it  thought  that  there  was  little  basis  for 
such  action,  and  that  wrong  might  be  inflicted  on  many  innocent 
persons.  The  evidence  must  be  rigidly  examined  and,  if  it  proved 
false,  the  prisoners  must  be  discharged  and  the  witnesses  punished; 
if  there  was  ground  for  prosecution,  the  trials  might  proceed,  but 
the  sentences  must  be  submitted  for  confirmation  and  no  more 
arrests  be  made  without  forwarding  the  testimony  and  awaiting 
orders.  Six  months  later,  in  March,  1556,  the  Suprema  concluded 
that  the  cases  had  not  been  substantiated ;  more  careful  preHminary 
investigations  were  essential  for,  in  so  doubtful  a  matter,  greater 
caution  was  needed  than  in  other  cases.' 

The  secular  authorities  were  restive  under  the  deprivation  of 
their  jurisdiction  over  the  crimes  imputed  to  the  witches;  they 
continued  to  assert  their  claims,  and  the  question  came  up  for 
formal  decision  in  1575.  The  high  court  of  Navarre  had  caused 
the  arrest  of  a  number  of  women  and  was  trying  them,  when  the 
Logrono  tribunal,  in  the  customary  dictatorial  fashion  with  threats 
of  penalties,  issued  a  summons  to  deliver  all  the  prisoners  and 
papers.  This  was  duly  read,  November  24th,  to  the  alcaldes, 
while  sitting  in  court,  to  which  they  replied  that  the  parties  had 
been  arrested  under  information  that  they  had  killed  children  and 
infants,  that  the  women  had  had  carnal  intercourse  with  goats, 
and  had  killed  cattle  and  injured  harvests  and  vineyards  with 
poisons  and  powders,  and  had  carried  off  many  children  at  night 
from  their  beds,  while  stupefying  the  adults  with  powders,  of  all 
of  which  as  alcaldes  they  were  the  lawful  judges.  Therefore  they 
appealed  to  the  inquisitor-general  against  the  penalties  threatened 
and  promised  that,  if  the  prisoners  had  committed  heresy,  they 
would  be  remitted  to  the  inquisitors  after  undergoing  punishment 
according  to  law.  Finally  they  complained  of  the  disrespect 
shown  them  and  asked  for  a  competencia. 

The  alcaldes  further  sent  a  memorial  to  the  king,  setting  forth 
their  claims  to  jurisdiction  for  crimes  other  than  heresy,  protesting 
against  the  assumption  of  the  inquisitors  to  be  sole  judges  of  what 
pertained  to  them,  to  inhibit  proceedings  in  the  interim,  and  to 
interfere  with  the  death-penalty  which  the  alcaldes  might  decree. 
The  royal  court  also  petitioned  the  king  in  the  same  sense,  adding 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  79,  fol.  226;  Tnq.  de  Logroflo,  Procesos  de  fe, 
Leg.  1,  n.  8;  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol,  221. 


Chap.  IX]  MODERATION  223 

that  the  prisoners  spoke  a  dialect  unintelligible  to  the  inquisitors 
and  that,  if  the  cases  were  transferred,  the  king  would  lose  the 
confiscations,  which  promised  to  be  large.  All  this  proved  vain. 
A  letter  of  the  Suprema  to  the  tribunal,  in  1576,  informs  it  that 
the  alcaldes  had  been  ordered  to  surrender  all  the  prisoners  and 
the  papers  in  the  cases.*  While  this  matter  was  in  progress,  a 
similar  controversy  arose  about  numerous  witches  in  Santander, 
for  a  letter  of  January  10,  1576,  instructs  the  Logrofio  tribunal 
that  it  can  proceed  against  them  for  anything  savoring  of  heresy, 
requiring  the  secular  judges  meanwhile  to  suspend  proceedings; 
the  facts  are  to  be  carefully  verified  and  everything  is  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  Suprema.^ 

The  use  made  by  the  tribunals  of  the  jurisdiction  thus  secured 
for  them,  under  the  cautions  so  sedulously  inculcated,  may  be 
gathered  from  a  case  in  the  Toledo  tribunal,  in  1591,  which  further 
shows  that  witchcraft  was  not  wholly  confined  to  the  mountainous 
districts  of  the  east  and  north.  The  vicar  of  Alcald  had  arrested 
three  women  of  Cazar,  Catalina  Matheo,  Joana  Izquierda,  and 
Olalla  Sobrina.  During  the  previous  four  years  there  had  been 
four  or  five  deaths  of  children;  among  the  villagers,  the  three 
women  had  the  reputation  of  witches,  and  sixteen  witnesses  testi- 
fied to  that  effect.  The  vicar  tortured  them  and  obtained  from 
Catalina  a  confession  that,  some  four  or  five  years  before,  Olalla 
asked  her  whether  she  would  like  to  become  a  witch  and  have 
carnal  intercourse  with  the  demon.  Then  Joana  one  night  invited 
her  to  her  house  where  she  found  Olalla;  the  demon  came  in  the 
shape  of  a  goat,  they  danced  together  and  after  some  details  un- 
necessary to  repeat,  Olalla  anointed  the  joints  of  her  fingers  and 
toes,  they  stripped  themselves  and  flew  through  the  air  to  a  house 
which  they  entered  by  a  window;  placing  somniferous  herbs 
under  the  pillows  of  the  parents,  they  choked  to  death  a  female 
infant,  burning  its  back  and  breaking  its  arms.  The  noise  aroused 
the  parents  and  they  flew  with  the  goat  back  to  Olalla's  house.  All 
this  she  ratified  after  due  interval  and  repeated  when  confronted 
with  Olalla,  who  had  been  tortured  without  confessing  and  who 
denied  Catalina's  story.  As  for  Joana,  she  had  likewise  overcome 
the  torture,  but  she  had  told  the  wife  of  the  gaoler  that  one  night 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Leg.  linico,  fol.  86,  87;  Inq.,  Lib.  83, 
fol.  7. 
'  Ibidem,  Lib,  83,  fol,  1. 


224  WITCHCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

some  fifteen  witches,  male  and  female,  had  forcibly  anointed  her 
and  carried  her  to  a  field  where  they  danced,  CataUna  being  one 
of  the  leaders  and  Olalla  a  follower.  This  she  repeated  to  the 
vicar,  adding  stories  of  being  present  when  the  children  were 
killed,  but  taking  no  part  in  it,  after  which  she  duly  ratified  the 
whole.  At  this  stage  the  vicar  transferred  his  prisoners  to  the 
tribunal.  Catalina,  at  her  first  audience,  begged  mercy  for  the 
false  witness  which,  through  torture,  she  had  borne  against  herself 
and  the  others.  Sixteen  witnesses  testified  to  the  deaths  of  the 
children,  and  she  was  sentenced  to  torture,  when,  before  being 
stripped,  her  resolution  gave  way  and  she  repeated. and  ratified 
the  confession  made  to  the  vicar.  Joana  asserted  that  her  con- 
fession to  the  vicar  had  been  made  through  fear  of  torture  and  she 
overcame  torture  without  confessing,  as  Hkewise  did  Olalla.  The 
outcome  was  that  Catalina  was  sentenced  to  appear  in  an  auto 
with  the  insignia  of  a  witch,  to  abjure  de  levi,  to  be  scourged  with 
two  hundred  lashes,  and  to  be  recluded  at  the  discretion  of  the 
tribunal.  The  other  two  were  merely  to  appear  in  the  auto  and 
to  abjure  de  levi,  without  further  penance.  This  was  not  strictly 
logical,  but  anywhere  else  than  in  Spain,  all  three  would  have 
been  tortured  until  they  satisfied  their  judges,  and  would  then  have 
been  burnt  after  denouncing  numerous  accomplices  and  starting 
a  witchcraft  panic.  As  it  was,  the  Toledo  tribunal  had  no  more 
witchcraft  cases  up  to  the  end  of  the  record  in  1610.' 

The  tribunal  of  Barcelona  was  more  rational  in  1597.  In  a 
report  to  the  Suprema  of  a  visitation  made  by  Inquisitor  Diego 
Fernandez  de  Heredia,  there  occur  the  entries  of  Ana  Ferrera, 
widow  and  Gilaberta,  widow,  both  of  Villafranca,  accused  by 
many  witnesses  of  being  reputed  as  witches  and  of  killing  many 
animals  and  infants,  in  revenge  for  little  annoyances.  Also, 
Francisco  Cicar,  of  Bellney,  near  Villafranca,  numerously  accused 
as  a  wizard  using  incantations,  telling  where  lost  animals  could 
be  found,  enchanting  them  so  that  wolves  could  not  harm  them, 
and  killing  the  cattle  of  those  who  offended  him.  Here  was  the 
nucleus  of  a  whole  aquelarre  for  Villafranca,  but  all  these  cases  are 
marked  on  the  margin  of  the  report  as  suspended,  and  nothing 
came  of  them.^     The  Logrono  tribunal  also  showed  its  good  sense, 


MSS.  of  Library  of  University  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I.— Bibl.  nacional,  MSS., 
D,  111,  fol.  127— See  Appendix. 
^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Visitaa  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  5. 


Chap.  IX]  THE  LOGBOSO  AUTO  OF  1610  225 

in  1602,  when  a  young  woman  of  25,  named  Francisca  Buytran, 
of  Alegria,  accused  herself  in  much  detail,  before  Don  Juan 
Ramirez,  of  witchcraft,  including  attendance  at  the  aquelarre. 
She  was  brought  before  the  tribunal,  which  dropped  the  whole 
matter  as  being  destitute  of  truth;  again  the  magistrates  sent  it 
back,  asking  that  it  be  revived  and  prosecuted  and,  when  this 
was  refused,  they  scourged  her  in  Alegria  as  an  impostor  who 
defamed  her  neighbors.' 

Yet  it  was  reserved  for  this  same  tribunal  to  give  occasion  to 
an  agitation  resulting  in  a  clearer  understanding  than  had  hitherto 
been  reached  of  the  nature  of  the  witch-craze,  and  rendering  it 
impossible  for  the  future  that  Spain  should  be  disgraced  by  the 
judicial  murders,  or  rather  massacres,  which  elsewhere  blacken 
the  annals  of  the  seventeenth  century.  One  of  the  customary 
panics  arose  in  Navarre.  The  secular  authorities  were  prompt 
and  zealous;  they  made  many  arrests,  they  extorted  confessions 
and  hastily  executed  their  victims,  apparently  to  forestall  the 
Inquisition.  The  tribunal  reported  to  the  Suprema,  which  ordered 
one  of  the  inquisitors  to  make  a  visitation  of  the  infected  district. 
Juan  Valle  de  Alvarado  accordingly  spent  several  months  in 
Cigarramundi  and  its  vicinity,  where  he  gathered  evidence  incul- 
pating more  than  two  hundred  and  eighty  persons  of  having 
apostatized  to  the  demon,  besides  multitudes  of  children,  who  were 
becoming  witches,  but  who  were  yet  too  young  for  prosecution. 
The  leaders  and  those  who  had  wrought  the  most  evil,  to  the 
number  of  forty,  were  seized  and  brought  before  the  tribunal. 
By  June  8,  1610,  it  was  ready  to  hold  the  consulta  de  fe,  consisting 
of  the  three  inquisitors,  Alonso  Becerra,  Juan  Valle  de  Alvarado 
and  Alonso  de  Salazar  Frias,  with  the  episcopal  Ordinary  and 
four  consultors.  In  his  vote,  Salazar  analyzed  the  testimony  and 
showed  its  flimsy  and  inconclusive  character;  he  seems  to  have 
had  no  scruples  as  to  the  reality  of  witchcraft,  but  he  desired 
more  competent  proof,  while  his  colleagues  apparently  had  no 
misgivings.^ 

This  was  not  the  only  retrograde  step.  For  seventy-five  years 
the  Suprema  had  consistently  repressed  the  ardor  of  persecution 
and  had  favored,  without  absolutely  asserting,  the  theory  of  illu- 
sion, but  its  membership  was  constantly  changing  and  it  now 


^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.  de  Logrofio,  Leg.  1,  Procesos  de  fe,  n.  8. 
'  Ibidem,  Leg.  1,  Procesos  de  fe,  n.  8;  Lib.  19,  fol.  85. 

VOL.  IV  15 


226  WITOHCBAFT  [Book  VIII 

seems  to  have  had  a  majority  of  blind  believers.     On  August  3d 
it  presented  to  PhiHp  III  a  consulta  relating,  with  profound  grief, 
the  conditions  in  the  mountains  of  Navarre  and  the  steps  already- 
taken.     Since  then  further  reports  showed  that  the  demon  was 
busier  than  ever  in  misleading  these  poor  ignorant  folk,  and  the 
evil  had  increased  so  that  there  now  were  more  than  twenty 
aquelarres  to  which  they  gather,  and  the  evil  was  still  spreading; 
the  people  were  greatly  afflicted  with  the  damages  endured,  and 
parents  who  saw  their  children  misled  were  so  desperate  that 
they  wanted  to  put  them  to  death.     An  Edict  of  Grace  was  pub- 
lished, but  the  demon  so  blinded  them  that  few  took  advantage  of 
it,  and  these  speedily  relapsed.     The  progress  of  the  infection  was 
such  that  the  powerful  hand  of  the  king  was  absolutely  required 
for  its  rigorous  repression,  and  the  popular  ignorance  was  so 
dense  that  orders  should  be  issued  to  the  Archbishop  of  Burgos 
and  the  Bishops  of  Calahorra,  Pampeluna  and  Tarazona,  whose 
dioceses  were  concerned,  and  to  the  Provincials  of  the  Religious 
Orders,  to  send  pious  and  learned  men  to  instruct  the  people, 
while  the  vigilance  would  not  be  lacking  of  the  inquisitors,  who 
would  shrink  from  no  labor.'     The  Suprema  evidently  regarded 
the  emergency  as  most  serious,  calling  for  united  effort  to  withstand 
the  victorious  onslaught  of  the  demon.     It  had  wholly  forgotten 
the  wholesome  caution  which  it  had  inculcated  so  sedulously  since 
1530  and  there  was  imminent  danger  that  Spain  would  be  swept 
into  the  European  current  of  witch-extermination. 

Whether  the  pleasure-loving  king  organized  the  projected  preach- 
ing crusade  we  do  not  know,  but  he  was  sufficiently  impressed  to 
promise  that  he  would  honor  with  his  presence  the  coming  auto 
de  fe,  which  was  fixed  for  November  7th.  Something  distracted 
his  attention  and,  at  the  last  moment,  it  was  announced  that  im- 
portant affairs  would  prevent  his  attendence.  The  disappointed 
inquisitors,  on  November  1st,  wrote  to  the  Suprema  expressing 
their  regret  and  reporting  that  there  would  be  thirty-one  persons 
in  the  auto,  besides  a  large  number  of  prisoners  whose  trials  were 
under  way. 

Thus  far  twenty-two  aquelarres  had  been  discovered,  and 
the  accused  were  so  numerous  that  the  special  favor  of  heaven 
would  be  necessary  to  overcome  the  evil.  Accompanying  this 
was  a  letter  to  the  king,  enclosing  two  of  the  sentences  con  meritos, 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  19,  fol.  85. 


Chap.  IX]  THE  LOGBOSO  AUTO  OF  1610  227 

to  enlighten  him  as  to  the  ravages  of  the  devil  among  his  subjects. 
This  sect  of  witches,  they  said,  was  of  old  date  in  the  Pyrenees, 
and  had  of  late  spread  over  the  whole  region;  the  inquisitors  were 
devoting  their  Hves  to  its  suppression ;  they  were  fighting  the  devil 
at  close  quarters,  and  they  hoped  to  excite  the  royal  zeal  to  lend 
the  Inquisition  efficient  support.  These  letters  bore  the  signature 
of  Salazar  as  well  as  those  of  his  colleagues.' 

Great  preparations  had  been  made  to  render  the  auto  impres- 
sive. Crowds  assembled  from  a  distance,  and  it  was  reckoned 
that  in  the  processions  there  were  a  thousand  familiars  and  officials. 
Two  days  were  required  for  the  solemnities  and  on  the  second 
day,  to  finish  the  work  between  dawn  and  sunset,  many  of  the 
sentences  had  tq  be  curtailed  for,  as  usual,  they  were  con  meritos, 
with  full  details  of  the  abominations  of  the  aquelarres  and  the 
crimes  of  the  culprits.  All  the  grotesque  obscenities,  which  the 
foul  imaginations  of  the  accused  could  invent  to  satisfy  their  prose- 
cutors, were  given  at  length,  and  doubtless  impressed  the  gaping 
multitudes  with  the  horror  and  detestation  desired.  One  novelty 
in  the  sensual  delights  of  the  aquelarre  was  that  the  feast  was 
usually  composed  of  decaying  corpses,  which  the  witches  dug  up 
and  conveyed  there — especially  those  of  their  kindred,  so  that 
the  father  sometimes  ate  the  son  and  the  son  the  father — and  it 
was  stated  that  male  flesh  had  a  higher  flavor  than  female.  There 
were  also  the  usual  stories  of  the  destruction  of  harvests  by  means 
of  powders,  of  sucking  the  blood  of  infants,  of  bringing  sickness 
and  death  by  poisons  so  subtile  that  a  single  touch,  in  a  pretended 
caress,  would  work  its  end.  When  the  demon  reproached  them 
with  slackness  in  evil-doing,  two  sisters,  Maria  Presona  and  Maria 
Joanto,  agreed  to  kill  the  son  and  the  daughter  of  the  other,  aged 
8  and  9,  and  they  did  so  with  the  powders.  It  was  natural  that 
a  population,  placing  full  credence  in  the  existence  of  malignity 
armed  with  these  powers,  should  be  merciless  in  the  resolve  for 
its  extermination.  Yet  the  auto,  in  its  absolute  outcome,  could 
scarce  be  classed  with  the  murderous  exhibitions  to  which  the 
Spaniard  had  grown  accustomed.  In  all  there  were  fifty-three 
culprits,  of  whom  but  twenty-nine  were  witches  of  either  sex.  Of 
these  there  were  eleven  relaxed— five,  who  had  died  in  prison,  in 
effigy  with  their  bones,  and  five  negatives  who  had  not  been  induced 
to  confess.     There  was  but  one  relaxation  of  a  hum  confitente, 


Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  564,  fol.  341 ,  343. 


228  WITCHCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

Maria  Zozaya,  whose  terrible  confession  overshot  the  mark,  as  it 
showed  her  to  be  a  dogmatizer.  Even  under  this  excitement  the 
Inquisition  maintained  its  rule  not  to  execute  those  who  confessed 
and  repented;  under  any  other  jurisdiction  the  eighteen  who  were 
reconciled  would  have  been  burnt,  and  of  these  apparently  only 
five  were  scourged/ 

Merciful  as  was  this,  the  effect  of  the  auto  was  to  cause  a  revul- 
sion of  feeling  among  the  more  intelligent.  When  the  local  magis- 
trates were  proceeding  as  usual  to  arrest  suspects,  the  alcaldes  of 
the  Royal  Court  of  Navarre,  early  in  1611,  interposed  by  arresting 
them  in  turn  for  exceeding  their  powers  and  prosecuted  them  to 
punishment.  This  incensed  the  Logroiio  tribunal  which,  on  May 
17th,  addressed  an  energetic  protest  to  the  viceroy;  the  action  of 
the  local  authorities  had  been  of  the  utmost  service,  not  only  in 
sending  culprits  to  the  Inquisition,  but  in  leading  to  many  sponta- 
neous self -accusations;  this  had  now  all  ceased,  and  those  who  had 
confessed  were  beginning  to  retract;  the  tribunal  had  relied  upon 
the  court  for  aid  in  exterminating  this  accursed  race  and  now  it 
was  protecting  them.  Possibly  the  tribunal  may  also  have  in- 
voked the  authority  of  the  Suprema  but,  if  so,  it  can  have  found 
no  sympathy,  for  there  also  had  there  been  a  change  of  heart  and 
a  return  to  the  old  policy.  On  March  26th  it  had  ordered  the 
publication  of  an  Edict  of  Grace,  which  Salazar  was  deputed  to 
carry  with  him  on  a  visitation  to  the  infected  districts  and,  after 
some  delay,  he  started  with  it.  May  22d,  on  a  mission  destined  to 
open  his  eyes  and  put  a  permanent  end  to  the  danger  of  witchcraft 
epidemics  in  Spain.^ 

'  A  narrative,  not  an  official  report,  of  this  auto  was  printed  in  Logrono  in  1611, 
a  copy  of  which  is  in  the  Bibl.  nacional,  D,  118,  p.  271.  It  was  reprinted  in 
Cddiz  in  1812  and  again  in  Madrid,  in  1820,  with  notes  by  Moratin  el  hijo  under 
the  pseudonym  of  the  Bachiller  Gines  de  Posadilla  (Menfindez  y  Pelayo,  III,  281). 
There  is  another  abstract  of  the  auto,  compiled  from  various  relations  by  Pedro 
of  Valencia,  in  the  MSS.  of  the  Bodleian  Library,  Arch  Seld.  A,  Subt.  10. 

Pierre  de  Lancre  of  Bordeaux,  in  his  contemporary  book  on  witchcraft,  assumes 
that  the  outbreak  in  Navarre  was  caused  by  the  flight  of  witches  from  the  Pays 
de  Labour,  which  he  and  his  colleague  had  purified  with  merciless  severity. 
He  comments  on  the  difference  shown,  in  the  auto  of  Logrono,  between  inquisi- 
torial practice  in  Spain,  where  the  offence  was  treated  as  spiritual  and  those  who 
confessed  and  professed  repentance  were  admitted  to  reconciliation,  and  that 
of  France  where  it  was  a  crime  and  those  who  confessed  were  burnt  by  the  secular 
authorities. — Pierre  de  Lancre,  Tableau  de  I'lnconstance  des  mauvais  Angels 
et  Demons,  pp.  391,  561-2  (Paris,  1613). 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.  de  Logrofio,  Leg.  1,  Procesos  de  fe,  u.  8. 


Chap.  IX]  PEDRO  DE  VALENCIA  229 

To  this  a  contribution  of  some  weight,  though  by  no  means  so 
influential  as  has  been  reckoned,  was  made  by  Pedro  de  Valencia, 
a  disciple  of  Arias  Montano,  and  one  of  the  most  learned  men  of 
his  time.  At  the  request  of  Inquisitor-general  Sandoval  y  Rojas, 
he  composed  an  elaborate  "discourse"  on  witchcraft,  addressed 
to  Sandoval  under  date  of  April  20th.  In  this,  after  premising 
the  great  grief  and  compassion  with  which  he  had  read  the  relations 
of  the  auto  of  the  previous  November,  he  proceeds  to  discuss 
three  hypotheses.  The  first  is  rationalistic;  there  is  no  demon, 
the  aquelarres  are  assemblages  for  sensual  indulgence,  to  which 
the  members  go  on  foot,  and  the  presiding  demon  is  a  man  dis- 
guised. The  second  is  illusion,  produced  by  a  pact  with  the  demon, 
who  gives  to  the  witch  an  ointment  throwing  her  into  a  stupor 
during  which  she  imagines  all  that  is  related  of  the  aquelarres, 
whence  it  follows  that  the  evidence  of  the  witch  as  to  those  whom 
she  has  seen  there  is  not  to  be  accepted.  The  destruction  of  cattle 
and  harvests  is  the  work  of  the  demon,  or  may  be  accomplished 
by  poisons.  The  third  supposition,  behoved  by  the  vulgar,  in 
conformity  with  the  evidence  and  confessions,  is  the  most  prodig- 
ious and  horrible  of  all,  and  against  this  he  brings  his  strongest 
arguments  in  full  detail.  Pedro  does  not  express  any  positive 
conclusion  of  his  own,  but  his  reasoning  all  tends  to  support  the 
second  hypothesis — of  stupor  and  illusion  produced  by  the  demonic 
ointment,  and  from  this  he  deduces  the  result  that  witches  are  by 
no  means  innocent.  They  delight  in  the  crimes  which  they  believe 
themselves  to  commit,  and  desire  to  persevere  in  their  apostasy 
from  God  and'  their  servitude  to  the  devil.  Men  sometimes 
become  heretics  through  ignorance  and  mistaken  zeal,  but  these 
seek  the  devil  in  all  his  hideousness  for  the  purpose  of  partaking 
in  foul  and  unhallowed  pleasures.  They  merit  any  punishment 
that  can  be  inflicted  on  them,  for  such  rotten  limbs  should  be 
lopped  off,  and  the  cancer  be  extirpated  with  fire  and  blood.  Their 
conspiracies  to  kill  and  the  crimes  which  they  commit  and  the 
injuries  inflicted  on  their  neighbors,  before  and  after  these  dreams 
deserve  all  this  and  greater  rigor. 

This  virtual  equalization  of  criminality  in  illusive  and  actual 
witchcraft  was  not  hkely  to  be  of  benefit  to  so-called  witches, 
but  there  was  wisdom  in  the  caution  which  Pedro  urged  on  judges, 
to  assure  themselves  of  the  reality  of  alleged  crimes  and  not, 
through  preconceived  views,  to  so  direct  their  interrogatories  as 
to  lead  ignorant,  foolish,  crazy  or  demoniac  persons,  like  the 


230  WITCHGBAFT  [Book  VIII 

witnesses  and  the  accused  in  these  cases,  to  testify  or  to  confess 
to  extravagances,  because  they  see  that  it  is  expected  and  hope  to 
gain  the  favor  of  those  holding  the  power  of  hfe  or  death.  Similar 
stories  were  told  of  the  early  Christians  and,  in  view  of  all  this, 
and  the  utter  legal  insufficiency  of  the  witnesses,  the  whole  tissue 
of  evidence  and  confessions  vanishes  into  smoke.  Amid  all  these 
deceits,  the  prudence  of  the  judge  should  seek  the  true  and  the 
probable,  rather  than  monstrous  fictions  for,  if  he  desires  to  find 
the  latter,  he  will  be  fully  satisfied  by  the  miserable  lying  women 
before  him — disciples,  by  their  own  confession,  of  the  father  of 
lies.' 

The  inconsistencies  in  this  discourse  suggest  that  probably 
Pedro  had  stronger  convictions  than  he  deemed  it  wise  to  express. 
It  is  possible  that  Inquisitor  Salazar  may  have  read  the  paper 
and  have  been  somewhat  influenced  by  it,  when  he  started  in 
May  on  the  visitation  which  proved  to  be  the  turning-point  in 
the  history  of  Spanish  witchcraft,  but  we  have  seen  that,  in  the 
consulta  de  fe  of  the  previous  June  10th,  his  attention  had  already 
been  aroused  by  the  contradictions  and  unsatisfactory  character 
of  the  evidence  on  which  the  tribunal  was  accustomed  to  act  and, 
when  once  his  mind  was  directed  to  investigating  the  problems 
thus  suggested,  the  close  acquaintance  with  facts  afforded  by  the 
visitation  enabled  him  to  reach  conclusions  vastly  more  definite 
than  any  which  his  predecessors  ventured  to  form. 

He  started,  as  we  have  seen,  on  May  22,  1611,  with  the  Edict 
of  Grace;  his  work  was  thoroughly  conscientious  and  he  did  not 
return  until  January  10,  1612,  after  which  he  employed  himseK, 
until  March  24th,  in  drawing  up  his  report  to  the  Suprema,  which 
was  accompanied  with  the  original  papers,  amounting  to  more 
than  five  thousand  folios.  It  will  be  remembered  that  an  Edict 
of  Grace  was  published  in  1610  with  little  or  no  result.  In  con- 
trast with  this,  showing  the  effect  of  a  different  spirit  in  its  adminis- 
tration, Salazar  received  eighteen  hundred  and  two  apphcants, 
of  whom  thirteen  hundred  and  eighty-four  were  children  of  from 
twelve  to  fourteen  years  of  age  and,  besides  these,  there  were 
eighty-one  who  revoked  confessions  previously  made.  All  appli- 
cants for  reconciliation  made  full  confessions  of  misdeeds,  after 
kindly  warning  of  the  obligation  to  tell  the  truth  and  the  danger 

'  This  discourse  was  not  printed  but  was  circulated  in  MS.  Nicholas  Antonio 
had  two  copies  (Bib.  nova,  II,  244).  There  is  one  in  the  Simancas  archives, 
Lib.  939,  fol.  608,  and  another  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  Arch  Seld.  A,  Subt.  10. 


Chap.  IX]  ALONSO  BE  SALAZAB  FBIAS  231 

of  committing  perjury,  and  were  promised  secrecy  to  relieve  them 
of  fear.  The  enormous  mass  of  evidence  thus  collected  Salazar 
carefully  analyzed  and  presented  under  four  heads— I,  the  manner 
in  which  witches  go  to  the  aquelarre,  remain  and  return;  II,  the 
things  they  do  and  endure;  III,  the  external  proofs  of  these  things; 
IV,  the  evidence  resulting  for  the  punishment  of  the  guilty.  The 
first  two  of  these  present  a  curious  medley  of  marvels,  such  as 
holding  aquelarres  in  the  sea  without  being  wet,  and  the  testimony 
of  three  women  that,  after  intercourse  with  the  demon,  in  a  few 
hours  they  gave  birth  to  large  toads;  but  we  need  not  dwell  on 
these  feats  of  imaginative  invention.  The  importance  of  the  report 
lies  in  the  last  two  sections. 

Many  instances  are  given  to  prove  the  illusory  character  of 
cases  in  which  the  penitent  truthfully  believed  what  she  confessed. 
Maria  de  Echaverria,  aged  80,  one  of  the  relapsed,  made  copious 
confessions,  with  abundant  tears  and  heart-felt  grief,  seeking  to 
save  her  soul  through  the  Inquisition.  Without  her  consent,  she 
said,  she  was  every  night — even  the  preceding  one — carried  to 
the  aquelarre,  awaking  during  the  transit  and  returning  awake. 
No  one  saw  her  in  going  and  coming,  even  her  daughter,  a  witch 
of  the  same  aquelarre,  sleeping  in  the  same  bed.  All  the  frailes 
present  at  her  confession  had  a  long  discussion  with  her  and  the 
conviction  was  unanimous  that  what  this  good  woman  said  of  her 
witchcraft  was  a  dream.  Catalina  de  Sastrearena  declared  that, 
while  she  was  waiting  to  be  reconciled,  she  was  suddenly  carried 
to  the  aquelarre,  but  her  companions  said  that  they  were  talking 
to  her  during  the  time  when  she  claimed  to  be  absent.  The  mother 
of  Maria  de  Tamborin  testified  to  the  girl  telling  her  of  going  to 
the  aquelarre,  so  she  maintained  close  watch  on  her  and  kept  a 
hand  on  her  but  was  unaware  of  her  absence.  Physical  exami- 
nation, in  several  instances,  showed  that  girls  were  virgins  who 
had  confessed  to  intercourse  with  demons.  Many  boys  testified 
that,  when  Salazar  went  to  San  Esteban,  there  was  a  great  aque- 
larre held,  but  his  two  secretaries  happened  that  night  to  be  on 
the  spot  indicated  and  they  saw  nothing.  Thirty-six  persons  were 
examined  as  to  the  localities  of  nine  aquelarres,  but  some  said 
they  did  not  know  and  others  contradicted  what  they  had  con- 
fessed, so  that  none  of  the  nine  could  be  identified.  As  for  the 
broths  and  unguents  and  powders  so  often  described  as  used  for 
flying  to  the  aquelarres  and  working  evil,  nothing  whatever  could 
be  learned.     Twenty  ollas  had  been  brought  forward  during  the 


232  WITCHCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

visitation,  but  investigation  showed  them  all  to  be  frauds,  for 
physicians  and  apothecaries  used  the  materials  on  animals  without 
producing  the  slightest  injury.  From  all  this  Salazar  concludes 
that  the  matters  confessed  were  delusions  of  the  demon,  and  the 
accusations  against  accomplices  were  likewise  induced  by  the 
demon.  No  testimony  could  be  had  from  those  not  accomplices 
and  he  holds  it  a  great  marvel  that,  in  a  thing  reputed  to  be  of  so 
wide  an  extent,  there  should  be  no  external  evidence  accessible.' 

Equally  destructive  to  credibility,  he  says,  were  the  threats  and 
violence  employed  to  extort  confessions.  One  stated  that  he  was 
burned  with  blazing  coals  and  it  inspires  horror  even  to  imagine 
how  they  were  thus  forced  to  pervert  the  truth.  Sometimes  the 
father  or  husband  or  brother  would  combine  with  the  magistrate 
or  the  commissioner  of  the  Inquisition.  Thus  all  were  forced  to 
confess  and  to  bear  witness  against  their  neighbors,  so  that  it 
seems  marvellous  that  any  one  escaped.  The  groundlessness  of 
the  whole  was  further  exemplified  by  the  fact  that  many  who 
applied  importunately  to  be  admitted  as  witches  to  reconciliation 
were  unable  to  confess  anything  requiring  it.  The  belief  was 
general  that  no  one  was  safe  who  did  not  come  forward  and  take 
the  benefit  of  the  edict,  so  that  some  invented  confessions,  while 
others  admitted  that  they  had  nothing  to  confess,  but  all  wanted 
certificates,  for  one  of  the  violences  committed  had  been  to  deny 
the  sacraments  to  all  reputed  to  be  witches  or  testified  against,  and 
when  they  applied  to  Salazar  their  greatest  anxiety  was  to  obtain 
certificates  entitling  them  to  the  sacraments. 

As  for  the  eighty-one  who  revoked  their  confessions,  Salazar 
is  sure  that  they  did  so  to  relieve  their  consciences.  At  first  he 
refused  to  receive  their  revocations  in  compliance  with  the  views 
of  his  colleagues,  but  he  had  subsequently  orders  from  the  Suprema 
to  admit  them.  There  would  have  been  many  more  had  it  been 
generally  understood ^that  they  could  do  so  with  safety;  it  was 
individual  action  on  the  part  of  each,  for  every  care  was  taken 
not  to  let  it  be  known  who  revoked,  and  some  of  them  said  that 
they  must  revoke  if  they  had  to  burn  for  it,  as  they  had  wrong- 

'  The  most  prolific  source  of  evidence  against  individuals  was  that  obtained  by 
requiring  those  who  confessed  to  enumerate  the  persons  whom  they  had  seen  in 
the  aquelarres.  This  explains  the  enormous  numbers  of  the  accused  during 
epidemics  of  the  witchcraft  craze.  The  value  of  such  evidence  was  a  disputed 
question,  as  it  was  argued  that  the  demon  frequently  caused  deception  by 
making  spectres  appear  in  the  guise  of  absent  persons. 


Chap.  IX]  AL0N80  DE  SALAZAB  FRIAS  233 

fully  accused  others.  One  especially  distressing  case  was  that 
of  Marquita  de  Jaurri,  an  old  woman  who  had  been  reconciled 
at  Logroiio.  She  returned  home  with  her  conscience  heavily 
burthened  about  those  whom  she  had  unjustly  inculpated  and, 
at  her  daughter's  instance,  she  applied  to  her  confessor.  He 
ordered  her  to  revoke  her  confession  before  Phelipe  Diaz,  the 
commissioner  of  Maeztu,  but  he  rejected  her  with  insult,  telling 
her  that  she  would  have  to  be  burnt  for  maliciously  revoking 
what  she  had  truthfully  confessed,  whereupon  in  a  few  days 
she  drowned  herself.  It  will  be  remembered  (Vol.  II,  p.  582) 
that  revocation  of  confession  was  held  to  prove  impenitence, 
punishable  by  relaxation. 

Salazar  adds  that  the  value  of  the  evidence  was  still  further 
diminished  by  the  command  of  the  demon  to  accuse  the  innocent 
and  exonerate  the  guilty,  and  by  the  fact  that  bribes  were  given 
in  order  to  have  enemies  prosecuted.  In  Vera,  each  of  several 
boys  accused  about  two  hundred  accomplices  and,  in  Fuenterrabia 
a  beggar  boy  of  12  accused  a  hundred  and  forty-seven.  Besides 
those  who  revoked  there  were  many  who  asked  to  have  stricken 
out  the  names  of  those  whom  they  had  falsely  accused  so  that,  in 
all,  there  were  sixteen  hundred  and  seventy-two  persons  kno.wn 
as  having  had  false  witness  borne  against  them,  so  that,  when 
there  were  this  many  acknowledged  perjuries,  there  could  be  little 
faith  placed  in  the  other  accusations.  The  cause  of  the  wide- 
extended  and  profound  popular  behef  in  the  reality  of  witchcraft 
he  ascribes  solely  to  the  auto  de  fe  of  Logroiio,  the  Edict  of  Faith 
and  the  sending  of  an  inquisitor  through  the  district,  which  had 
caused  such  apprehension  that  there  was  no  fainting-fit,  no  death 
and  no  accident  that  was  not  attributed  to  witchcraft.  Fray 
Domingo  de  Velasco  of  San  Sebastian,  after  preaching  the  Edict, 
told  Salazar  that  for  four  months  there  had  not  been  a  natural 
tempest  or  hailstorm,  but  all  had  been  the  work  of  witches,  yet 
when  questioned  he  had  no  evidence  save  the  gossip  of  the  streets. 
Sailors  exaggerated  these  reports  and  they  were  fomented  by  the 
knaves  known  as  santigueadores,  who  professed  to  know  the 
witches  and  sold  charms  and  spells  to  counteract  them. 

In  summing  up  the  results  of  his  experience  Salazar  declares 
that  "Considering  the  above  with  all  the  Christian  attention  in 
my  power,  I  have  not  found  even  indications  from  which  to  infer 
that  a  single  act  of  witchcraft  has  really  occurred,  whether  as  to 
going  to  aquelarres,  "being  present  at  them,  inflicting  injuries. 


234  WITOHOBAFT  [Book  VIII 

or  other  of  the  asserted  facts.  This  enlightenment  has  greatly 
strengthened  my  former  suspicions  that  the  evidence  of  accom- 
plices, without  external  proof  from  other  parties,  is  insufficient  to 
justify  even  arrest.  Moreover,  my  experience  leads  to  the  con- 
viction that,  of  those  availing  themselves  of  the  Edict  of  Grace, 
three-quarters  and  more  have  accused  themselves  and  their 
accomplices  falsely.  I  further  believe  that  they  would  freely 
come  to  the  Inquisition  to  revoke  their  confessions,  if  they  thought 
that  they  would  be  received  kindly  without  punishment,  for  I 
fear  that  my  efforts  to  induce  this  have  not  been  properly  made 
known,  and  I  further  fear  that,  in  my  absence,  the  commissioners 
whom,  by  your  command,  I  have  ordered  to  do  the  same,  do  not 
act  with  due  fidelity,  but,  with  increasing  zeal  are  discovering 
every  hour  more  witches  and  aquelarres,  in  the  same  way  as 
before. 

"  I  also  feel  certain  that,  under  present  conditions,  there  is  no 
need  of  fresh  edicts  or  the  prolongation  of  those  existing,  but  rather 
that,  in  the  diseased  state  of  the  public  mind,  every  agitation  of 
the  matter  is  harmful  and  increases  the  evil.  I  deduce  the  impor- 
tance of  silence  and  reserve  from  the  experience  that  there  were 
neither  witches  nor  bewitched  until  they  were  talked  and  written 
about.  This  impressed  me  recently  at  Olague,  near  Pampeluna, 
where  those  who  confessed  stated  that  the  matter  started  there 
after  Fray  Domingo  de  Sardo  came  there  to  preach  about  these 
things.  So,  when  I  went  to  Valderro,  near  Roncesvalles,  to  recon- 
cile some  who  had  confessed,  when  about  to  return  the  alcaldes 
begged  me  to  go  to  the  Valle  de  Ahescoa,  two  leagues  distant,  not 
that  any  witchcraft  had  been  discovered  there,  but  only  that  it 
might  be  honored  equally  with  the  other.  I  only  sent  there  the 
Edict  of  Grace  and,  eight  days  after  its  pubhcation,  I  learned  that 
already  there  were  boys  confessing.  After  receiving  the  report  of 
a  commissioner  whom  I  deputed,  I  sent  from  Azpeitia  to  the 
Prior  of  San  Sebastian  of  Urdax  to  absolve  them  with  Secretary 
Peralta.  This  quieted  them  but,  since  my  return  to  Logrorio 
the  tribunal  has  been  asked  to  remedy  the  affliction  of  new  evils 
and  witchcrafts,  all  originating  from  the  above." 

Salazar's  colleagues  did  not  agree  with  him  and  attempted  to 
answer  his  reasoning,  but  the  Suprema  was  convinced.  It  followed 
his  advice  in  imposing  silence  on  the  past,  while  the  Court  of 
Navarre  continued  to  prosecute  and  punish  the  local  officials  whose 
superserviceable  zeal  had  occasioned  so  much  misery.    A  second 


Chap.  IX]  HUMANE  INSTBUCTIONS  235 

visitation  was  made  in  1613  and  we  find  Salazar  urging  a  third 
one  to  cover  the  remaining  portion  of  the  infected  region,  and 
pointing  out  the  peace  which  reigned  in  the  district  that  he  had 
visited.  His  next  step  was  to  draw  up  a  series  of  suggestions 
covering  the  policy  of  the  Inquisition  with  regard  to  witchcraft, 
covering  both  amends  for  the  past  and  future  action.  It  would 
scarce  seem  that  he  would  venture  to  do  this  without  orders,  but 
the  paper  purports  to  be  volunteered  in  view  of  the  urgent  necessity 
of  the  matter.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  suggestions  were  the  basis 
of  an  elaborate  instruction,  issued  by  the  Suprema  August  31, 
1614,  which  remained  the  permanent  policy  of  the  Inquisition. 
It  adopted  nearly  every  suggestion  of  Salazar's,  often  in  his  very 
words,  and  is  an  enduring  monument  to  his  calm  good  sense, 
which  saved  his  country  from  the  devastation  of  the  witch-mad- 
ness then  ravaging  the  rest  of  Europe. 

These  instructions  consist  of  thirty-two  articles  and  commence 
by  stating  that  the  Suprema,  after  careful  consideration  of  all 
the  documents,  fully  recognized  the  grave  wrong  committed  in 
obscuring  the  truth  in  a  matter  so  difficult  of  proof,  and  it  sent  the 
following  articles,  both  for  the  verification  of  future  cases  and  in 
reparation  of  the  past. 

This  is  followed  by  a  series  of  regulations  pointing  out  in  detail 
the  external  evidence  which  must  be  sought  in  every  case,  both 
as  to  attendance  on  the  aquelarres  and  the  murder  of  children,  the 
kiUing  of  cattle,  and  the  damage  of  harvests,  and  no  one  was  to 
be  arrested  without  strict  observance  of  these  precautions.  There 
is  careful  abstention  from  denial  of  the  powers  attributed  to  witches, 
but  the  whole  tenor  is  that  of  scepticism,  and  preachers  were 
ordered  to  make  the  people  understand  that  the  destruction  of 
harvests  is  sent  for  our  sins,  or  is  caused  by  the  weather,  and  that 
it  is  a  grievous  error  to  imagine  that  such  things  and  sickness, 
which  are  customary  throughout  the  world,  are  caused  by  witches. 
The  powers  of  commissioners  were  strictly  limited  to  taking  depo- 
sitions and  ascertaining  whether  these  could  be  verified  by  external 
evidence.  When  witnesses  or  accused  came  to  make  revoca- 
tions, whether  before  or  after  sentence,  they  were  to  be  kindly 
received  and  permitted  to  discharge  their  consciences,  free  from 
the  fear  so  commonly  entertained,  that  they  would  be  punished 
for  revoking  [as  we  have  seen  was  the  case  in  other  crimes],  and 
this  was  to  be  communicated  to  the  commissioners,  who  were  to 
forward  all  revocations  received.    Those  who  spontaneously  de- 


236  WITCHCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

nounced  themselves  were  to  be  asked  whether,  in  the  day-time, 
they  had  persevered  in  the  renunciation  of  God  and  adoration  of 
the  demon;  if  they  admitted  having  done  so,  they  were  to  be  recon- 
ciled but,  in  view  of  the  doubt  and  deceit  surrounding  the  matter, 
this  reconciliation  was  not  to  entail  confiscation  or  liability  to 
the  penalties  of  relapse,  the  latter  being  discretional  with  the  tribu- 
nal after  consulting  the  Suprema,  and  further  the  Suprema  was  to 
be  consulted  before  action  taken  against  those  confessing  to  relapse. 
Those  who  denied  perseverance  in  apostasy  were  to  be  absolved 
ad  cautelam  and  reconciled  by  commissioners,  in  the  same  way 
as  foreign  heretics  applying  for  conversion.     In  view  of  the  doubts 
and  difficulties  concerning  witchcraft,  no  action  was  to  be  taken 
save  by  unanimous  vote  of  all  the  inquisitors,  followed  by  con- 
sultation with  the  Suprema.     All  pending  cases  were  to  be  sus- 
pended, without  disqualification  for  office.     On  all  evidence,  the 
violence  or  torture  used  in  procuring  it  was  to  be  noted,  so  that  its 
credibility  could  be  estimated;  when  a  vote  was  taken,  unless  it 
was  for  suspension,  the  case  was  to  be  submitted  to  the  Suprema. 
All  cases  were  to  be  dropped  of  those  dying  during  their  pendency, 
without  disability  of  their  descendants.     As  regarded  the  auto  de 
fe  of  1610,  the  sanbenitos  of  those  relaxed  or  reconciled  were  never 
to  be  hung  in  the  churches,  their  property  was  not  to  be  confiscated; 
an  itemized  statement  of  it  and  of  the  fines  levied,  with  an  account 
of  the  expenses,  was  to  be  submitted  to  the  Suprema,  and  this 
was  to  be  noted  in  the  records  of  their  cases,  so  that  they  should 
not  be  liable  in  case  of  relapse,  nor  should  their  descendants  be 
disabled  for  office,  nor  should  those  be  disqualified  who  had  since 
then  been  penanced  with  abjuration. 

Having  thus  provided  reparation  for  the  past  and  caution  for 
the  future,  the  Suprema  sought  to  protect  reputed  witches  from 
the  inordinate  zeal  of  the  local  authorities  and  to  vindicate  its 
exclusive  jurisdiction.  The  commissioners  were  to  be  summoned, 
one  by  one,  and  made  to  understand  the  grief  and  just  resentment 
of  the  Holy  OflSce  at  the  violence  of  the  alcaldes  and  others  towards 
those  reported  to  be  witches.  They  were  to  publish  this  and  let 
it  be  known  that,  as  the  High  Court  of  Navarre  had  undertaken 
to  punish  these  intermeddlers,  it  would  be  permitted  to  do  so,  but 
that  in  future  the  Inquisition  would  adopt  rigorous  measures  to 
chastise  all  who  intruded  on  its  jurisdiction,  as  perturbers  and 
impeders  of  the  Holy  Office.  Confessors  were  instructed  to  require 
all  who  were  guilty  of  defaming  others  to  denounce  themselves 


Chap.  IX]  DELUSION  RECOGNIZED  237 

to  the  tribunal,  for  the  discharge  of  their  conscience  and  the  resto- 
ration to  honor  of  the  injured,  and  priests  were  notified  not  to  refuse 
the  sacraments  to  those  reputed  as  witches,  while  commissioners 
were  warned  to  confine  themselves  to  their  instructions  and  to 
act  with  all  moderation.' 

In  this  admirable  paper  we  cannot  help  applauding  especially 
the  moral  courage  evinced  in  making  reparation  for  the  Logroiio 
auto,  which  must  have  had  the  sanction  of  the  Suprema.  The 
whole  witch  epidemic  of  Navarre  and  the  Provinces  of  Biscay- 
was  evidently  regarded  as  a  delusion  but,  in  view  of  the  attitude 
of  the  Church  for  the  last  two  centuries,  this  could  not  be  openly 
proclaimed  and  the  wisest  course  was  adopted  to  repress,  as  far 
as  possible,  popular  fanaticism,  and  to  protect  its  victims  for  the 
future.  The  superstition  was  too  inveterate  to  be  easily  eradicated, 
but  the  effort  to  protect  its  victims  was  not  abandoned.  There 
is  the  formula  of  an  edict,  dated  162-  (the  year  left  blank  to  be 
filled  in)  issued  by  Salazar,  now  senior  inquisitor,  and  his  col- 
leagues, reciting  that  the  prosecutions  for  many  years  had  given 
them  ample  experience  of  the  grave  evils  and  obscuration  of  the 
truth,  resulting  from  the  threats  and  violence  offered  to  those  who 
confessed  or  were  suspected  of  witchcraft,  as  many  persons,  under 
pretext  of  kinship  to  the  suspect,  or  to  the  persons  said  to  be 
injured,  endeavor  to  force  them  to  confess  publicly  as  to  them- 
selves and  others,  wherefore  all  persons  were  ordered  to  abstain 
from  threats  or  inducements,  so  that  every  one  might  have  free 
access  to  the  tribunal  and  its  commissioners,  under  penalty  of 
rigorous  punishment  according  to  the  circumstances  of  the  offence.^ 
It  is  inferable  from  this,  that  the  people,  distrusting  the  leniency 
of  the  Inquisition,  discouraged  application  to  it,  and  sought  rather 
to  obtain  satisfaction  extra-judicially. 

The  virtual  supervision  assumed  by  the  Suprema  over  all  cases 
of  witchcraft  was  exercised  with  a  moderation  which  must  have 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.  de  Logrono,  Leg.  1,  Procesos  de  fe,  n.  8. 

In  the  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen  (MS.  218b,  p.  3791  there  is  a  printed 
four-page  set  of  instructions  to  commissioners  on  receiving  confession  and  testi- 
mony as  to  witchcraft.  It  is  in  conformity  with  the  above,  but  goes  into  much 
detail  as  to  the  interrogatories  to  be  put,  after  carefully  writing  down  the  con- 
fession or  deposition — a  kind  of  cross-examination  evideiitly  suggestive  of  com- 
plete increduhty.  It  is  without  date,  but  the  typography  seems  to  be  that  of 
the  seventeenth  century. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  30,  fol.  1. 


238  WITCHCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

been  greatly  discouraging  to  believers.  Under  this  impulsion, 
the  tribunals  became  exceedingly  lenient,  frequently  exercising 
the  power  left  to  them  of  suspending  cases.  One  that  is  exceed- 
ingly significant  occurred  at  Valladolid,  in  1622.  At  the  instance 
of  her  confessor,  Casilda  de  Pabanes,  a  girl  of  19,  from  Villamiel, 
near  Burgos,  presented  herself  and  confessed  that,  at  Christmas 
1615  (when  she  was  12  or  13  years  old)  she  was  sick  in  bed  with 
a  fever,  and  her  parents  had  gone  to  mass,  leaving  the  house  locked 
up.  Suddenly  a  neighbor,  a  widow  named  Marina  Vela,  appeared 
at  her  bed-side  and,  with  threats  of  killing  her,  forced  her  to  rise 
and  dress  and  accompany  her  to  a  hermitage  in  the  vicinage, 
where  they  found  a  tall,  naked  man,  dark  and  with  horns  like  a 
bull,  who  welcomed  them  and  made  them  strip  to  their  shifts, 
with  an  exchange  of  indecent  kisses.  Then  they  dressed  and 
returned ;  although  the  house  doors  were  locked  they  entered,  and 
she  was  again  in  bed  before  her  parents  came  back.  Then  followed 
long  details  of  other  similar  adventures,  in  which  the  presiding 
demon  usually  wore  the  form  of  a  goat.  He  made  her  renounce 
God  and  wrote  with  her  blood  her  name  on  a  paper;  she  was  pro- 
vided with  an  incubus  demon  whom  she  could  summon  by  break- 
ing a  stick ;  with  Marina  she  entered  houses  at  night,  killing  children 
with  powders  or  by  sucking  their  fingers.  There  is  no  allusion 
to  the  aquelarre,  but  all  other  features  of  witchcraft  are  minutely 
detailed.  By  Marina's  advice,  she  pretended  to  be  possessed,  and 
was  taken  to  San  Toribio  de  Liebara  to  be  exorcised  by  Fray 
Gonzalo  de  San  Millan,  to  whom  she  confessed.  The  inquisitors 
examined  and  cross-examined  her  closely,  without  her  varying 
in  her  story;  they  sought,  without  success,  for  evidence  of  illusion 
or  fantasy,  but,  on  investigation  it  was  found  that  she  was  really 
sick  of  a  fever  at  Christmas,  1615,  and  that  subsequently  she 
seemed  to  tremble  and  be  as  one  possessed.  Confirmatory  state- 
ments were  procured  from  the  f railes,  and  evidently  in  accordance 
with  the  instructions,  all  means  were  exhausted  of  testing  her 
confession.  In  any  other  land  this  victim  of  hysteric  auto-sug- 
gestion would  have  been,  if  not  burnt,  at  least  made  an  exhibition 
that  would  have  spread  the  craze,  but  the  tribunal,  after  carrying 
the  case  through  the  preliminary  stages,  voted  to  suspend  it  without 
rendering  sentence  and  to  reconcile  and  absolve  her  in  the  audience 
chamber  without  confiscation.^    The  same  policy  was  followed  in 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552,  fol   1. 


Chap.  IX]  PERSISTENT  DELUSION  239 

the  few  other  cases  brought  before  the  tribunal.  Maria  de  Melgar 
of  Osorno,  who  died  during  trial,  was  given  Christian  burial  in 
1637;  in  1640,  it  suspended  the  case  of  Maria  Sanz  of  Trigueros, 
against  whom  there  was  testimony  of  witchcraft  and,  in  1641,  it 
discharged  with  a  reprimand  Maria  Alfonsa  de  la  Torre,  accused 
of  killing  cattle,  although  a  witness  swore  to  seeing  her  at  midnight 
riding  on  a  stick  over  a  rye-field,  with  a  noise  as  though  accom- 
panied by  a  multitude  of  demons.^ 

When  we  compare  these  cases  with  the  penalties  inflicted  at 
the  period  on  vulgar  sorceresses  and  poor  old  curanderas,  for 
implied  pact,  it  is  evident  that  the  Inquisition  had  reached  the 
conclusion  that  witchcraft  was  virtually  a  delusion,  or  that 
incriminating  testimony  was  perjured.  This  could  not  be  openly 
published;  the  belief  was  of  too  long  standing  and  too  firmly 
asserted  by  the  Church  to  be  pronounced  false;  witchcraft  was 
still  a  crime  to  be  punished  when  proved  but,  under  the  regulations, 
proof  was  becoming  impossible  and  confessions  were  regarded 
as  illusions. 

It  was  difficult  for  the  conservatives  to  abandon  their  cherished 
beliefs,  and  the  can.  Episcopi  remained  a  bone  of  contention. 
Torreblanca  has  no  inklings  of  doubt;  to  him  the  aquelarre  and 
all  its  obscene  horrors  are  a  reality;  the  witch  is  to  be  burnt,  not 
for  illusions  but  for  acts,  as  the  Church  has  decreed  in  so  many 
constitutions.^  His  book  was  duly  licensed  by  the  Council  of 
Castile  in  1613,  but  some  censor  presented  a  learned  criticism  of 
it,  calling  especial  attention  to  this  point,  citing  the  can.  Episcopi 
and  the  experience  of  the  Inquisition,  and  arguing  that  the  feats 
attributed  to  witches  transcended  the  powers  of  the  demon.  This 
was  so  effective  that  the  licence  was  withdrawn.  Then  Torre- 
blanca produced  a  verbose  and  discursive  "Defensa,"  in  which 
he  argued  that  the  can.  Episcopi  was  apocryphal;  he  showed 
that  the  Church  had  always  punished  such  malefactors  with  death, 
so  that  either  his  critic  or  the  Church  must  err,  and  the  Church 
cannot,  for  it  is  illuminated  by  God.^  This  was  successful,  his 
Hcence  was  restored  in  1615  and  his  work  saw  the  light  in  1618. 
Jofreu  in  his  notes  on  Ciruelo's  "  Reprovacion,"  defends  the 
can.  Episcopi,  but  finds  in  it  three  kinds  of  witches — those  who 


*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552,  fol.  26,  28. 

'  Epitome  Delictorum,  Lib.  ii,  cap.  xxviii,  xxxix,  xl;  Lib.  iii,  cap.  xiii. 

'  Ibidem,  Defensa,  p.  517;  cap.  ii,  n.  4,  7. 


240  WITOHCBAFT  [Book  VIII 

renounce  God  and  seek  the  aid  of  the  devil,  those  who  are  super- 
stitious and  know  that  their  illusions  are  the  work  of  the  evil 
spirit,  and  those  who  are  deceived  by  them — and  the  witches  of 
today  are  the  same,  whence  he  argues  in  favor  of  caution  and 
a  policy  of  clemency.^  Alberghini,  about  1640,  admits  that  the 
aquelarre  is  a  phantasm,  but  he  holds  that  none  the  less  are  witches 
apostates  from  God  and  devil-worshippers,  and  he  seems  to  think 
it  still  an  open  question  whether  those  who  kill  by  sorcery  are  to 
be  relaxed,  even  if  they  truly  repent  and  are  converted.^  About 
the  same  time,  all  that  an  old  inquisitor  will  grant  is  that,  even  if 
there  is  illusion  in  the  aquelarre,  the  witch  ratifies  all  that  is  done 
there,  when  awake,  dwelling  on  it  with  pleasure  and  anointing 
herself  for  the  purpose,  but  he  concedes  that  the  deceits  of  the 
devil  render  necessary  stronger  evidence  than  in  other  crimes 
and  that,  as  he  represents  in  the  aquelarre  phantoms  of  innocent 
persons,  the  testimony  of  accomplices  must  be  fortified  with  other 
proofs.^  Nearly  the  same  ground  was  taken,  in  1650,  by  Padre 
Diego  Tello,  S.  J.,  as  calificador  in  the  case  of  an  unlucky  mono- 
maniac on  trial  by  the  Granada  tribunal,  whom  he  sought  to  prove 
responsible  by  showing  that  the  witches  who  fly  with  Diana  and 
Herodias,  as  in  the  can.  Episcopi,  had  free-will,  rendering  them 
culpable  for  their  commerce  with  the  demon.^  Even  as  late  as 
towards  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  a  systematic  writer 
holds  it  as  certain  that  witches  renounce  the  faith,  adore  the 
demon  and  enter  into  a  pact  with  him  and,  if  this  can  be  proved 
by  confession  or  witnesses,  they  are  to  be  punished  as  heretics 
with  the  regular  penalties.^ 

Yet  the  Inquisition  imperturbably  pursued  its  way.  It  did  not 
deny  the  existence  of  witchcraft,  or  modify  the  penalties  of  the 
crime  but,  as  we  have  seen,  it  practically  rendered  proof  impossi- 
ble, thus  discouraging  formal  accusations,  while  its  prohibition  of 
preliminary  proceedings  by  its  commissioners  and  by  the  local 
officials,  secular  and  ecclesiastical,  was  effectual  in  preventing 
the  outbreak  of  witchcraft  epidemics.  So  far  as  the  records  before 
me  show,  cases  became  very  few  after  the  Logrono  experience  of 
1610.     Scattering  ones  occur  occasionally,  such  as  those  alluded 


'■  Reprovacion  de  las  Superstioiones,  pp.  251-63  (Ed.  1628). 
'  Manuale  Qualificatorum,  cap.  xviii,  Sect  3,  §  9. 
=  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xiii,  §§  1,  2. 

*  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  17. 

*  Elucidationes  S.  Officii,  §  42  (Archivo  de  Alcald,  Hacienda,  Leg.  644',  Lib.  4). 


Chap.  IX]  VIRTUAL  DISAPPEARANCE  241 

to  above  but,  in  the  Valladolid  record  from  which  they  are  derived, 
embracing  in  all  six  hundred  and  sixty-seven  cases  between  1622 
and  1662,  there  are  but  five  of  witchcraft,  of  which  the  latest  is  in 
1641.^  In  Toledo,  from  1648  to  1794,  there  is  not  a  single  one, 
nor  is  there  one  among  the  nine  hundred  and  sixty-two  cases  in 
the  sixty-four  autos  celebrated  by  allthe  tribunals  of  Spain  between 
1721  and  1727.^  It  was  not  that  popular  belief  was  eradicated,  for 
this  is  ineradicable  and  still  exists  among  all  nations,  but  its  deadly 
effects  were  prevented.  Some  fragmentary  papers  show  that, 
from  1728  to  1735,  there  was  a  tolerably  active  investigation,  in 
Valencia  and  Castellon  de  la  Plana,  into  cases  of  mingled  sorcery 
and  witchcraft.  There  was  evidence  as  to  the  use  of  ointments 
by  which  persons  could  transport  themselves  through  the  air  and 
pass  through  walls,  and  as  to  people  being  bewitched  and  rendered 
sick,  showing  that  the  superstition  had  as  firm  a  hold  as  ever  on 
the  lower  classes.'  In  1765,  at  Callosa  de  Ensarria  (Alicante) 
when  some  young  children  disappeared,  it  was  attributed  to  Angela 
Piera  who  had  the  reputation  of  a  witch,  able  to  fly  to  Tortosa  and 
back,  and  who  was  supposed  to  have  killed  them  for  her  incan- 
tations.'' These  scattering  cases  become  rarer  with  time.  In  a 
r^^ord  of  all  the  operations  of  the  Spanish  tribunals,  from  1780 
to  1820,  there  are  but  four.  In  1781,  Isabel  Cascar  of  Malpica 
was  accused  as  a  witch  to  the  tribunal  of  Saragossa.  In  1791, 
at  Barcelona,  Maria  Vidal  y  Decardo  of  Tamarit,  a  widow  aged  45, 
accused  herself  of  express  pact  with  the  demon,  of  carnal  inter- 
course with  him,  of  presence  four  times  a  week  at  the  aquelarres, 
where  she  adored  him  as  a  God,  and  of  having  trampled  on  a 
consecrated  host  and  flung  it  on  a  dung-hill — a  case  which  forcibly 
recalls  that  of  Casilda  de  Pabanes,  in  1622,  as  an  illustration  of 
the  hypnotic  illusions  which  aided  so  greatly  in  the  dissemination 
of  the  belief.  The  latest  cases  are  two,  occurring  in  1815,  of  which 
details  are  lacking  except  that  they  were  not  brought  to  trial.^ 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. — Royal  Library  of  Berlin, 
Qt.  9548. 
''  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  390. 

*  Ibidem,  Leg.  365,  n.  45,  fol.  34. 

*  Ibidem,  Leg.  100. 

It  is  asserted  by  some  writers  that  a  woman  was  burnt  as  a  witch  at  Seville 
in  1780,  but  this  is  an  erroneous  reference  to  Maria  de  Dolores,  relaxed  there  in 
1780  for  Molinism  (.supra,  p.  89). 

VOL.   IV  16 


242  WITCHCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

Thus  the  belief,  so  persistently  affirmed  by  the  Church,  con- 
tinued to  exist  among  theologians.  Even  one  so  learned  as  Fray 
Maestro  Alvarado,  in  1813,  when  defending  the  Inquisition  against 
the  C6rtes  of  C^diz,  told  the  deputies  that  Cervantes  was  better 
authority  in  favor  of  the  belief  than  they  were  against  it,  and  he 
instanced  a  recent  case  in  Llerena,  where  two  women  in  a  church, 
and  in  sight  of  all  the  people,  were  carried  through  the  air  by 
demons.'  Still,  so  long  as  the  belief  was  academical  and  did  not 
lead  to  the  stake,  it  was  comparatively  harmless,  and  the  Inquisi- 
tion deserves  full  credit  for  depriving  it  of  its  power  for  evil. 

In  this,  there  is  a  remarkable  coincidence  between  the  Holy 
Offices  of  Spain  and  of  Rome,  although  the  latter  was  somewhat 
tardy  in  the  good  work.  After  the  organization  of  the  Congre- 
gation, in  1542,  by  Paul  III.,  there  was  a  considerable  interval 
before  it  asserted  exclusive  jurisdiction  over  witchcraft.  It  is 
true  that,  in  1582,  in  the  papal  city  of  Avignon,  it  relaxed  to  the 
secular  arm  eighteen  witches  in  a  single  sentence,^  but  the  next 
year,  1583,  when  the  people  of  the  Val  Mesolcina  found  themselves 
ruined  by  the  numerous  witches  among  them,  they  applied  for 
relief  not  to  the  Inquisition  but  to  their  archbishop,  San  Carlo 
Borromeo.  After  a  preliminary  investigation  he  came  with  a 
group  of  learned  theologians  and  so  worked  on  the  consciences  of 
the  culprits  that  he  won  nearly  all  to  repentance — more  than  a 
hundred  and  fifty  are  said  to  have  confessed  and  abjured  at  one 
time.  There  were,  however,  twelve  pertinacious  ones,  including 
the  Provost  of  Roveredo;  he  was  degraded  from  Orders  and  all 
were  duly  burnt — they  of  course  being  negativos  who  refused  to 
admit  their  guilt.'  The  Inquisition,  in  fact,  was  willing  to  share 
its  jurisdiction  with  the  bishops,  but  not  with  the  secular  courts, 
with  which,  in  1588  and  1589  we  find  it  in  controversy.  It  con- 
tended that,  as  witchcraft  infers  apostasy,  its  cognizance  is  eccle- 
siastical, residing  either  in  the  bishop  or  the  Inquisition,  and  further 
that,  when  a  civil  court  has  commenced  a  prosecution,  the  inquisi- 
tor has  the  right  to  inspect  the  proceedings  and  decide  as  to  whether 
or  not  the  case  belongs  to  him.  Various  decisions  and  instructions 
from  this  time  until  1603  indicate  the  line  of  action.  The  juris- 
diction is  only  spiritual,  for  the  heresy  and  apostasy,  and  takes  no 


'  Cartas  del  Fil6sofo  rancio,  II,  493. 

'  The  sentence  is  printed  by  Frere  Michaelis,  at  the  end  of  his  Pneumatologie 
(Paris,  1587). 
'  Ragguaglio  su  la  Sentenza  di  Morte  in  Salesburgo,  p.  173  (Venezia,  1751). 


Chap.  IX]  THE  ROMAN  INQUISITION  243 

count  of  alleged  murders  or  other  crimes;  the  penalty  is  therefore 
merely  penance,  usually  scourging,  and  inquisitors  are  told  not 
to  exile  witches  to  places  where  they  were  not  known,  but  to  settle 
them  where  they  could  be  kept  under  watch.  That  this  leniency 
did  not  satisfy  the  people  was  shown  at  Gubbio,  in  1633,  where  a 
woman  undergoing  the  scourge  was  set  upon  by  the  populace  and 
stoned  to  death.  Nor  was  the  Inquisition  itself  always  consistent 
for,  in  1641,  the  tribunal  of  Milan  relaxed  Anna  Marfa  Pamolea 
to  the  secular  arm  for  witchcraft  and  homicide.' 

When  murders  were  charged,  the  rule  was  that,  if  a  secular 
court  had  commenced  prosecution,  the  culprit  was  returned  to  it 
for  due  punishment,  after  the  spiritual  offence  had  been  penanced 
but,  if  the  Inquisition  had  been  the  first  to  act,  it  was  not  to 
abandon  its  penitent  to  the  secular  arm,  except  in  case  of  relapse. 
The  practical  working  of  this  is  seen  in  a  case  at  Padua,  in  1629, 
where  three  witches,  imprisoned  in  the  public  gaol,  were  handed 
over  to  the  tribunal,  which  made  them  abjure  formally,  and  then 
returned  them,  when  the  magistrates  burnt  them.  That  there 
was  considerable  scepticism  as  to  the  truth  of  the  Sabbat  may  be 
assumed  from  the  rule  that  the  evidence  of  witches  about  persons 
seen  in  these  assemblies  was  not  to  be  received  to  the  prejudice 
of  such  persons,  as  it  is  all  held  to  be  an  illusion.^ 

This  scepticism  increased  and  there  was  a  desire  to  train  the 
people  to  disbelief,  as  appears  from  a  highly  creditable  act  in  1631. 
The  Inquisitor  of  Novara  reported  that  his  vicar  in  "  Vallis  Vigelli" 
had  commenced  proceedings  for  witchcraft  against  a  woman,  when 
she  hanged  herself  in  prison,  and  he  asked  instructions  whether 
to  continue  the  prosecution  against  the  corpse  or  whether  she  had 
been  strangled  by  the  demon  or  other  witches;  also  whether  he 


'  Collect.  Decret.  S.  Congr.  S'i  Inquisit.,  p  333  (MS.  -penes  me). — Decret.  S. 
Congr.  S.  Inquisit.  pp.  385-88  (Bibl.  del  R.  Archivio  di  Stato  in  Roma,  Fondo 
Camerale,  Congr.  del  S.  Officio,  Vol.  3). 

The  inquisitor  of  Milan  took  no  part  in  the  trials  of  those  accused  of  causing 
and  spreading  the  terrible  pestilence  of  1630,  by  the  use  of  unguents  and  powders 
furnished  by  the  demon.  His  only  act  was  to  return  a  negative  answer  to  the 
question  whether  it  was  licit  to  employ  diabolic  arts  to  save  the  city.  The 
reckless  prosecutions  and  savage  punishments  were  wholly  the  work  of  the  civil 
magistracy. — Processo  originale  degli  Untori  (Milaho,  1839). 

The  pestilence  did  not  extend  to  Spain,  but  the  panic  did,  leading  to  the  most 
extravagant  precautions  against  all  foreigners. — MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch 
Seld.  A,  Subt.  11. 

'  Decret.  S.  Congr.  S.  Inquis.,  uhi  sup. 


244  WITCHCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

should  proceed  against  a  girl  and  her  accomplices  who  had  con- 
fessed extra- judicially  to  have  been  at  the  Sabbat.  In  reply  the 
Congregation  ordered  him  to  send  the  proceedings  in  the  case  of 
the  suicide  and  also  the  deposition  of  the  girl;  meanwhile  he  was 
to  remove  the  vicar  and  replace  him  with  a  proper  person  and 
take  pains  himself,  by  means  of  the  parish  priests,  to  instruct 
the  people  as  to  the  fallacies  of  witchcraft.  The  same  spirit  was 
manifested,  in  1641,  when  an  affirmative  answer  was  given  to 
the  Inquisitor  of  Mantua,  who  asked  whether  he  should  prosecute 
those  who  beat  and  insulted  witches  on  the  pretext  of  their  being 
witches.^  The  Congregation,  however,  did  not  place  on  the  Index 
the  Compendium  Maleficarum  of  Fray  Francesco  Marfa  Guaccio 
(2*^  Edition,  Milan,  1626)  which  taught  all  the  beliefs  concerning 
witches  and  was  adorned  with  wood  cuts  representing  them  as 
riding  on  demons  through  the  air  and  worshipping  Satan  in  the 
Sabbat. 

What  renders  the  leniency  of  the  Congregation  especially  remark- 
able is  that  it  was  in  contravention  of  a  decree  of  Gregory  XV,  in 
1623,  sharpening  the  penalties  of  those  entering  into  compacts 
with  the  demon ;  if  they  caused  death  by  sorcery  they  were  to  be 
relaxed  to  the  secular  arm,  even  for  a  first  offence,  while,  for  causing 
impotence,  or  infirmity,  or  injury  to  harvests  or  cattle,  they  were 
to  be  imprisoned  for  life.^  Without,  of  course,  venturing  formally 
to  mitigate  the  harshness  of  these  penalties,  the  Congregation 
could  at  least  elude  them  practically,  by  interposing  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  conviction,  and  this  it  did,  in  1657,  in  a  series  of 
instructions  to  inquisitors.  Full  belief  in  the  reality  of  witchcraft 
was  assumed,  but  there  was  a  hideous  enumeration  of  the  abuses 


'  Decret.  S.  Congr.  S.  Inquis.,  ubi  sup. 

'  Gregor.  PP.  XV,  Const.  Omnipotentis  Dei,  20  Mart.  1623  (Bullar.  Roman., 
Ill,  498). 

Urban  VIII  was  equally  savage  in  1631,  in  ordering  relaxation  for  any  one  who 
should  consult  diviners  or  astrologers  about  the  state  of  the  Christian  Republic, 
or  the  life  of  the  pope  or  of  any  of  his  kindred  to  the  third  degree  (Bullar.  IV,  184). 

It  was  probably  under  this  that  the  Inquisition,  in  1634,  relaxed  Giacinto 
Centini  and  two  of  his  accomplices  and  condemned  four  others  to  the  galleys. 
He  was  nephew  of  the  Cardinal  of  Ascoli,  and  procured  from  a  diviner  a  forecast 
that  Urban  would  die  in  a  few  years  and  would  be  succeeded  by  his  uncle.  To 
hasten  accomplishment,  figurines  of  wax  were  made  representing  Urban  and  were 
melted.  Centini,  as  a  noble,  was  beheaded  and  his  two  most  guilty  accomplices 
were  hanged,  before  being  burnt. — Royal  Library  of  Munich,  Cod.  Ital.  29,  fol, 
104-18. 


Chap.  IX]  THE  ROMAN  INQUISITION  245 

through  which  so  many  innocent  women  were  condemned.  The 
mode  of  procedure  prescribed  was  based  largely  on  the  Spanish 
instructions  of  1614,  and  special  stress  was  laid  upon  moderation 
in  the  use  of  torture,  which  was  never  to  be  employed  until  all 
the  papers  in  the  case  had  been  submitted  to  the  Congregation 
and  its  assent  had  been  obtained,  while  common  fame  was  not  to 
be  considered  an  indication  justifying  arrest.  The  injunction 
of  1593,  which  prohibited  accepting  testimony  as  to  those  seen  in 
the  Sabbat,  was  renewed  for  the  reason  that  these  assemblages  were 
mostly  an  illusion  and  justice  did  not  demand  prosecution  of 
those  recognized  through  illusion.^ 

While  thus  there  was  no  concession  in  principle,  in  practice  the 
persecution  of  witchcraft  became  much  less  deadly.  A  manual, 
dating  about  1700,  states  that  in  these  cases  the  Inquisition  is 
accustomed  to  move  slowly  and  with  the  greatest  circumspection, 
for  the  indications  are  generally  indirect  and  the  corpus  delicti 
most  difhcult  to  prove.  If  the  evidence  is  strong,  torture  is  em- 
ployed both  for  the  fact  and  the  intention ;  if  apostasy  is  confessed, 
formal  abjuration  is  required;  if  it  or  evil  belief  is  denied,  the 
abjuration  is  de  vehementi;  the  accomplices  are  prosecuted,  but 
not  those  named  as  seen  in  the  Sabbat,  on  account  of  the  illusions 
of  the  demon.  Relaxation  is  the  penalty  for  heretical  sorcery 
causing  death,  but  the  difficulty  of  proving  this  is  very  great.^ 

Thus  gradually  the  worst  features  of  witch  persecution  dis- 
appeared in  Italy,  while  yet  belief  in  the  reality  of  witchcraft  was 
untouched.  As  late  as  1743,  Benedict  XIV  manifests  complete 
acceptance  of  it,  when  discussing  the  nice  question  whether  a  witch, 
terrified  by  threats  and  blows,  commits  a  fresh  sin. by  transferring 
to  an  ox  the  deadly  spell  which  she  has  cast  upon  the  son  of  the 
man  who  beat  her.  He  concludes  that  she  is  guilty  of  a  fresh  sin, 
while  the  father  is  excusable,  for  he  presumably  does  not  know 
that  she  has  to  have  recourse  to  the  demon  to  effect  the  transfer, 
and  his  only  object  is  to  save  his  son.  Moreover  Benedict,  in  his 
great  work  on  canonization,  not  only  admits  the  common  opinion 

•  Instnictio  pro  formandis  processibus  in  causis  Strygum,  cum  Carenae  Annota- 
tionibus  (Carenas  Tract,  de  Off.  SS.  Inquisit.,  Lugduni,  1669,  pp.  487  sqq). 
Carena's  comments  show  how  differently  these  cases  were  treated  in  Italy  from 
the  practice  beyond  the  Alps. 

See  also  Masini's  rule  forbidding  action  on  the  denunciation  of  those  seen  in 
the  Sabbat. — Sacro  Arsenale,  Decima  Parte,  n.  141. 

^  Ristretto  circa  li  Delitti  piil  frequenti  nel  S.  Offizio,  pp.  57-9  (MS.  penes  me). 


246  WITCHCRAFT  [Book  VIII 

as  to  incubi  and  succubi,  but  he  does  not  deny  that  in  some  way- 
such  unions  may  result  in  offspring.^  In  fact,  the  supreme 
authority  of  the  modern  CathoHc  Church,  St.  Alphonso  Liguori, 
repeats  without  disapproval  the  common  opinion  of  the  doctors, 
that  witches  are  transported  through  the  air  and  that  the  theory 
of  illusion  is  very  pernicious  to  the  Church,  as  it  relieves  them 
from  the  punishment  prescribed  for  them.^ 

Thus  the  two  lands  in  Christendom,  in  which  the  Inquisition 
was  thoroughly  organized,  escaped  the  worst  horrors  of  the  witch- 
craze.  The  service  rendered,  especially  by  the  Spanish  Holy 
Office,  in  arresting  the  development  of  the  epidemics  so  constantly 
reappearing,  can  only  be  estimated  by  considering  the  ravages  in 
other  lands  where  Protestants,  who  had  not  the  excuse  of  obedience 
to  papal  authority,  were  as  ruthless  as  Catholics  in  the  deadly 
work.  Did  space  permit,  it  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the 
development  and  decline  of  the  madness  throughout  Europe,  but 
it  must  suffice  to  allude  to  Nicholas  Remy,  a  witch-judge  in  Lor- 
raine, who  boasts  that  his  work  on  the  subject  is  based  on  about 
nine  hundred  cases  executed  within  fifteen  years,'  and  to  the  esti- 
mate that  the  total  number  in  Germany,  during  the  seventeenth 
century,  was  a  hundred  thousand.''  In  these,  burning  alive  was 
often  considered  an  insufficient  penalty,  and  the  victims  were 
torn  with  hot  pincers  or  roasted  over  slow  fires.  France  was  less 
a  prey  to  the  delusion  than  Germany,  but,  in  1609,  Henry  IV 
sent  a  commission  to  cleanse  the  Pays  de  Labour  of  witches,  which, 
in  the  hurried  work  of  four  months,  burnt  nearly  a  hundred, 
including  several  priests,  and  was  obliged  to  leave  its  task  uncom- 
pleted, for  the  land  was  full  of  them;  two  thousand  children 
were  transported  to  the  aquellares  almost  every  night  and  the 
assemblages  consisted  of  a  hundred  thousand,  though  some  of 
these  were  phantoms.^     For  Great  Britain  the  total  estimate 


'  Casus  ConscientiEB  Benedicti  XIV,  Dec.  1743,  Cas.  iii  (Ferrariae,  1764,  p.  155). 
— De  Servorum  Dei  Beatificatione,  Lib.  iv,  P.  i,  cap.  3,  n.  3. 

'  S.  Alphonsi  Liguori  Theol.  Moralis,  Lib.  in,  n.  26. 

'  Nic.  Remigii  DemonolatreiEE  Libri  Tres.  Colon.  Agrip.  1596. 

'  G.  Plitt  Henke  in  Realencyclopadie,  VI,  97, 

'  Pierre  de  Lancre,  Tableau  de  I'inconstance  des  mauvais  Anges,  pp.  114,  119 
(Paris,  1613). 

De  Lancre  was  a  learned  conseiller  of  the  Parlement  of  Bordeaux  and  his  col- 
league on  the  commission  was  the  President  d'  Espaignet.     It  is  instructive  to 


Chap.  IX]  PEBSISTENT  BELIEF  247 

of  victims  is  thirty  thousand,  of  whom  about  a  fourth  may  be 
credited  to  Scotland.^  When,  in  1775,  Sir  AA'illiam  Blackstone 
could  deliberately  write  "To  deny  the  possibility,  nay,  actual 
existence,  of  witchcraft  and  sorcery  is  at  once  flatly  to  contradict 
the  revealed  word  of  God ....  and  the  thing  itself  is  a  truth  to 
which  every  nation  in  the  world  hath  in  its  turn  borne  testimony,"^ 
we  cannot  judge  the  Inquisition  harshly  for  maintaining  to  the 
last  its  existence  in  theory,  while  refusing  to  reduce  that  theory  to 
practice. 

observe  that  while  he  was  drawing  up  his  terrific  relation  of  the  manner  in  which 
they  had  intensified  the  witchcraft  craze,  until  the  churches  at  night  would  be 
filled  with  children  brought  there  by  their  mothers  to  prevent  their  being  carried 
off  to  the  aquellares  (p.  193),  Inquisitor  Salazar,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Pyrenees,  was  extinguishing  it  by  simple  rational  treatment. 

'  Rogers,  Scotland,  Social  and  Domestic,  p.  302.  (London,  1869). 

'  Commentaries,  IV,  60  (Oxford,  1775). 

Note. — Since  this  chapter  was  in  type,  the  indefatigable  Don  Manuel  Serrano 
y  Sanz  has  printed  in  the  Revista  de  Archivos  (Nov.-Dic.  de  1906)  the  second 
discourse  by  Pedro  de  Valencia  on  the  Auto  de  fe  of  Logroflo.  In  this  he  states 
that  in  the  previous  one  he  had  only  had  opportunity  for  a  cursory  glance  at 
the  proceedings  of  the  auto,  and  had  taken  into  consideration  exceptional  cases 
which  God  may  have  permitted  of  old.  Now  that  he  had  thoroughly  examined 
the  confessions  of  the  culprits  he  proceeds  to  give  in  much  detail  the  monstrosi- 
ties which  they  relate  and  concludes  with  a  brief  expression  of  the  convictions 
resulting  therefrom.  This  is  that  the  aquelarre  has  nothing  supernatural  about 
it,  such  as  flying  through  the  air  and  the  presidency  of  the  demon  in  the  shape 
of  a  goat.  It  is  merely  a  nocturnal  assemblage  on  foot  of  men  and  women  to 
gratify  disorderly  appetites,  inflamed  perhaps  by  the  instigation  of  the  devil, 
and  that  their  confessions  are  fictions  invented  to  cover  their  wickedness.  From 
this  he  concludes  that  they  should  be  held  not  as  confessing  but  as  denying — 
which,  under  the  inquisitorial  code,  would  expose  them  to  the  fiery  death  of 
the  negativo  impenitente.  He  is  careful,  moreover,  not  to  discredit  the  poisonings 
and  the  inunctions  to  cause  sleep  and  dreams.  Unfortunately  the  paper  is 
not  dated;  it  may  have  been  seen  by  Salazar  Frias,  but  if  so  it  exercised  no 
influence  on  him,  as  appears  from  the  different  conclusion  reached  in  his  report. 

Sefior  Serrano  y  Sanz  states  that  in  1900  he  printed  the  first  discourse  of 
Pedro  de  Valencia  in  the  Revista  de  Extremadura. 


CHAPTER   X. 

POLITICAL   ACTIVITY. 

Joseph  de  Maistre,  in  his  profound  ignorance  of  the  Inqui- 
sition, started  the  theory  that  it  was  a  mere  political  agency.' 
Apologists,  like  Hefele,  Gams,  Hergenrother  and  others,  have 
eagerly  elaborated  this  idea  in  order  to  relieve  the  Church  from 
responsibility  for  its  misdeeds,  wholly  overlooking  the  deeper  dis- 
grace involved  in  the  assumption  that  for  three  centuries  the 
Holy  See  assented  to  such  misuse  of  delegated  papal  authority, 
and  stimulated  it  with  appropriations  from  ecclesiastical  revenues.^ 
They  base  their  arguments  on  the  difference  between  the  Old  and 
the  New  Inquisition — the  former  consisting  of  inquisitors  selected 
by  Dominican  or  Franciscan  Provincials,  and  the  latter  organized 
with  its  inquisitor-general  and  supreme  council,  appointed  by  or 
with  consent  of  the  sovereign,  so  that  its  whole  coi^s  was  virtually 
composed  of  state  officials^ — forgetting  that  their  authority  con- 
sisted of  apostolical  faculties,  delegated  by  the  popes  and  exer- 
cised without  restraint  through  their  recognition  by  the  State. 
Ranke  falls  into  the  same  error  and  so  do  Maurenbrecher  and 
some  other  Protestant  historians,  apparently  in  an  overstrained 


'  Lettres  S,  un  Gentilhomme  Russe,  Let.  i. — "L'Inquisition  est  un  instrument 
purement  royal;  it  est  tout  entier  en  la  main  du  roi,  et  jamais  il  ne  pent  nuire  que 
par  la  faute  des  ministres  du  prince." 

^  "Sie  ist  kein  kirchliches,  sondem  ein  Staats  institut,  theilweise  mit  kirch- 
hchen  Formen."  (Gams,  Die  Kirchengeschichte  von  Spanien,  Buch  xiii,  Kap.  1, 
§  3.)  "Das  neue  Herrscherpaar.  . .  .gestaltete  die  Inquisition  zu  einem  wichti- 
gen  Staatsinstitut."  (Hergenrother,  Handbuch  der  Kirchengeschichte,  II,  765. 
Freiburg,  1885). 

'  Hefele,  Der  Cardinal  Ximenes,  xviir,  p.  265  (Tiibingen,  1851). 

The  most  recent  apologist,  who  assures  us  that  the  Church  never  used  other 
than  moral  force,  displays  his  accuracy  by  telling  us  that,  in  1521,  Leo  X  excom- 
municated Torquemada  on  account  of  his  cruelty,  against  the  protests  of  Charles 
V,  and  also  that  in  England  Henry  VIII  executed  70,000  victims  and  Queen 
Elizabeth  43,000. — G.  Romain,  L'Inquisition,  son  r61e  rehgieux,  politique  et 
social,  pp.  10,  11,  2e  Edition,  Paris,  1900. 
(  248) 


Chap.  X]  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ABSOLUTISM  249 

effort  at  impartiality  and  witliout  investigation  of  the  facts.^  In 
the  Catholic  reaction  since  the  time  of  Hefele,  the  most  advanced 
writers  of  that  faith  no  longer  seek  to  apologize  for  the  Inquisition, 
and  to  put  forward  royal  predominance  to  relieve  it  from  respon- 
sibility. They  rightly  represent  it  as  an  ecclesiastical  tribunal 
which  discharged  the  duty  of  preserving  the  religious  purity  for 
which  it  was  created.^ 

The  synchronism  of  the  development  of  the  Inquisition  and  of 
absolutism  in  Spain  renders  seductive  the  theory  that  the  one  was 
the  product  of  the  other,  but  this  is  wholly  fallacious.  Nowhere 
in  the  transformation  of  the  State  does  the  Inquisition  appear  as 
a  factor.  Isabella,  as  we  have  seen,  laid  the  foundations  of  mon- 
archism  when  she  subdued  the  anarchy  pervading  Castile  by 
the  vigorous  assertion  and  extension  of  the  royal  jurisdiction. 
Ferdinand  eliminated  some  of  the  most  troublesome  elements 
of  feudal  power  when  he  incorporated  in  the  crown  the  masterships 
of  the  great  Military  Orders.  The  restiveness  of  the  nobles  under 
the  unaccustomed  restraint  manifested  itself  when,  in  1506,  they 
flocked  to  Philip  and  Juana,  had  the  Inquisition  been  a  political 
force,  Ferdinand  would  have  used  it,  for  Inquisitor-general  Deza 
was  devoted  to  him,  in  place  of  which  he  suspended  it.  After 
the  death  of  Philip  I,  during  the  retirement  of  Juana  and  the 
absence  of  Ferdinand,  the  nobles  attempted  to  reassert  themselves 
but,  when  he  returned,  the  severe  punishment  of  the  Marquis  of 
Priego,  the  great  Duke  of  Medina  Sidonia,  Don  Pedro  Giron  and 
others,  was  a  severe  blow  to  feudalism,  redoubled,  after  Ferdi- 
nand's death,  when  Ximenes  as  governor  raised  a  standing  army 
and  crushed  the  rebellion  of  the  Girons  and  their  allies,  punishing 
them  with  the  destruction  of  the  town  of  Villadefrades.  What 
remained  of  feudalism  disappeared  under  the  steady  policy  of 
Charles  V  and  Philip  II,  in  keeping  the  great  nobles  aloof  from 
the  higher  offices  of  state,  and  employing  them  in  military  service 
abroad  or  in  vice-royalties,  until  they  became  mere  courtiers, 
wasting  their  substance  in  adding  to  the  splendor  of  the  throne. 
In  all  this  there  is  no  trace  of  the  Inquisition,  nor  is  there  in  the 


'  Ranke,  Die  Osmanen  und  die  Spanische  Monarchie,  pp.  195-8  (Leipzig, 
1877). — Maurenbrecher,  Geschichte  der  Katholischen  Reformation,  I,  45  (Nord- 
lingen,  1880). 

^  Rodrigo,  Historia  verdadera,  I,  264;  II,  87;  III,  363.— Ortf  y  Lara,  La  Inqui- 
sicion,  p.  2  (Madrid,  1877). — Cappa,  S.  J.,  La  Inquisicion  espanola,  p.  28  (Madrid, 
1888).— Pastor,  Geschichte  der  Papste,  II,  684. 


250  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Rook  VIII 

rise  and  suppression  of  the  Comunidades,  which  destroyed  the 
privileges  of  the  communes,  and  left  the  crown  supreme.  The 
comuneros  had  no  grievance  against  the  Inquisition,  nor  had  it 
any  share  in  their  defeat  and  punishment,  although  Charles  V 
applied  to  Leo  X  for  special  briefs  empowering  it  to  act  and  one 
was  granted,  commissioning  Cardinal  Adrian  to  try  and  punish 
ecclesiastics  concerned  in  the  movement.'  Even  when  Acuna, 
Bishop  of  Zamora,  was  prosecuted,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Inqui- 
sition was  not  charged  with  the  work,  as  Ranke  mistakenly  asserts. 
The  revolt  arose  from  the  coercive  measures  applied  by  Charles 
to  the  Cortes  of  1518  and  1520,  by  which  he  reduced  to  impotence 
the  only  representative  and  deliberative  body  of  the  nation.  Thus 
the  last  obstacle  to  autocracy  was  swept  away,  and  thenceforth 
royalty  was  supreme.  The  process  was  a  normal  development, 
such  as  accompanied  the  downfall  of  feudalism  throughout  Europe 
and,  from  first  to  last,  it  accomplished  itself  without  aid  or  oppo- 
sition on  the  part  of  the  Inquisition. 

Much  has  been  made  of  the  saying  attributed  to  Philip  II,  that 
he  kept  his  dominions  in  peace  with  four  old  ecclesiastics,  and 
the  Suprema  was  fond  of  referring  to  this,  when  putting  forth 
claims  for  its  services,  but  it  meant  nothing  except  that  the  Inqui- 
sition maintained  religious  unity,  which,  in  that  age  and  in  view 
of  the  troubles  in  France,  the  Netherlands  and  Germany,  was  not 
unnaturally  regarded  as  the  sole  guarantee  of  internal  quiet — in 
fact,  the  Suprema,  when  quoting  the  remark,  in  1704,  says  ex- 
pressly that  Philip  uttered  it  in  reference  to  the  turbulence  of  the 
Huguenots.^  That  Philip  himself  did  not  regard  the  Inquisition 
as  a  political  instrument  sufficiently  appears  in  his  private  and 
confidential  instructions  of  May  7,  1595,  to  Geronimo  Manrique 
de  Lara,  when  appointing  him  inquisitor-general;  his  anxiety 
is  solely  for  the  faith  and  there  is  not  the  slightest  intimation  that 
political  service  would  be  expected.^ 


'  Llorente,  Afiales,  II,  209,  229. — Dormer,  AiSales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  I,  cap.  27 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  43,  fol.  297. — Criticos  Documentos  que 
sirven  como  de  segunda  Parte  al  Proceso  de  Fr.  Froilan  Diaz,  pp.  7-8  (Madrid, 
1788). 

'  Arcliivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  939,  fol.  270. 

At  the  same  time  there  is  no  doubt  that  contemporary  statesmen,  disposed 
to  regard  with  cynical  increduHty  the  fervor  of  Philip's  fanaticism,  were  apt  to 
look  upon  the  Inquisition  as  an  artful  instrumentality  to  keep  the  people  in  sub- 
jection.    See  the  remarks  of  Giovanni  Sorauzo  in  Vol.  I,  p.  442. 


Chap  X]  IRREO  ULAB  FUNCTIONS  251 

Yet  the  average  statesman  has  few  scruples  in  employing  any 
agency  at  hand  to  effect  his  purposes,  and  to  this  the  Spanish 
monarchs  were  no  exception.  When  it  suited  them  to  use  the 
Inquisition  they  did  so  but,  in  view  of  their  control  over  it,  their 
employment  of  it  was  singularly  infrequent,  prior  to  the  advent 
of  the  Bourbon  dynasty.  In  the  Old  Inquisition,  with  which 
writers  like  Hefele  endeavor  to  establish  a  contrast  in  this 
matter,  Philip  the  Fair  used  it  to  destroy  the  Templars,  the 
Regent  Bedford  to  burn  Joan  of  Arc,  and  Alexander  VI  to  rid 
himself  of  Savonarola — three  cases  to  which  no  parallels  exist  in 
the  annals  of  the  Spanish  Holy  Office.  The  nearest  approach  to 
them  is  to  be  found  in  the  trials  of  Carranza,  Antonio  Perez  and 
Villanueva.  In  the  first  and  last  of  these,  as  we  have  seen, 
inquisitors-general  instituted  action  for  their  own  purposes  and  the 
monarchs  were  brought  in  to  their  support.  The  case  of  Antonio 
P6rez  will  be  discussed  presently  and  need  not  be  further  referred 
to  here. 

Still,  a  tribunal,  whose  undefined  powers  and  secrecy  of  action 
fitted  it  so  perfectly  for  use  as  a  political  agent,  could  scarce  exist 
for  centuries  without  occasionally  being  called  upon,  and  the  only 
legitimate  source  of  surprise  is  that  it  was  so  rarely  employed 
and  that  the  objects  for  its  intervention  were  usually  so  trivial. 
Ferdinand  occasionally  found  it  a  convenience  in  settling  questions 
outside  of  its  regular  functions,  as  when  Marco  Pellegrin  appealed 
to  him  in  a  dispute  with  the  authorities  of  his  city  and  Ferdinand 
wrote,  August  31,  1501,  to  the  inquisitor  of  the  place,  charging 
him  to  examine  the  question  and  do  justice,  for  which  he  gave  him 
full  royal  power.  So  when,  in  1500,  complaints  reached  him  from 
Valencia  of  injustice  in  the  assessments  for  a  servicio,  he  ordered 
the  papers  to  be  submitted  to  the  inquisitor  who  was  to  report  to 
him,  and,  in  1501,  he  called  for  a  report  from  the  inquisitor  of 
L^rida  as  to  the  necessity  of  certain  repairs  to  the  castle.'  When, 
in  1498,  he  was  endeavoring  to  carry  out  in  Aragon  the  reform  of 
the  Conventual  Franciscans,  which  Ximenes  had  undertaken  in 
Castile,  and  they  had  obtained  papal  briefs  restraining  him,  he 
applied  to  the  pope  to  revoke  the  letters  and  meanwhile  obtained 
others  from  the  nuncio,  which  he  transmitted  to  the  tribunal  of 
Saragossa  with  instructions  to  act  promptly.  The  inquisitors 
carried  on  the  reform  much  to  his  satisfaction  and,  when  the  frailes 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  1. 


252  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Book  VIII 

got  the  public  authorities  to  protect  them,  he  instructed  the  inquisi- 
tors to  represent  that  they  were  acting  under  apostolic  authority, 
that  there  was  no  violation  of  the  liberties  of  the  kingdom,  that 
they  were  salaried  by  the  king,  not  only  for  the  Inquisition  but 
for  whatever  duties  he  might  assign  to  them;  they  were  therefore 
public  officers  and,  if  the  Saragossa  authorities  should  endeavor 
to  create  scandal,  they  would  be  duly  punished.  This  distinction 
between  inquisitorial  and  non-inquisitorial  functions,  however 
did  not  prevent  him,  when  occasion  required,  from  enforcing 
outside  operations  with  inquisitorial  authority.  In  1502,  when 
prosecuting,  in  the  same  way,  the  Franciscan  reform  in  Sardinia 
and  the  Bishop  of  Ocafia,  in  virtue  of  a  surreptitious  papal  letter, 
released  from  the  castle  of  Fasar  the  Franciscan  vicar,  Ferdinand 
wrote  with  much  indignation  to  him  and  to  the  governor  of  Cabo 
de  Lugador;  it  was  great  audacity  to  intervene,  in  a  matter  con- 
cerning the  Inquisition,  without  consulting  him  or  the  inquisitor- 
general;  the  prisoner  must  be  recaptured  forthwith  and  be  held 
until  the  inquisitor  and  reformador  apostolico  comes.' 

This  indicates  the  dangerous  tendency  to  extend  inquisitorial 
activity  beyond  its  original  limits,  and  it  is  remarkable  that  a 
monarch  entertaining  these  conceptions  and  engaged  in  the  struggle 
with  feudalism  should  not  have  frequently  sought  the  assistance 
of  the  Holy  Office.  The  only  definite  case  that  I  have  met  with 
of  its  political  use  occurred  in  1507,  when  Csesar  Borgia  escaped 
from  the  castle  of  Medina  del  Campo  to  Navarre,  and  was  made 
commander  of  his  army  by  Jean  d'Albret,  whose  sister  Charlotte 
he  had  married.  Ferdinand  vainly  endeavored  to  obtain  his 
surrender  and  then  caused  a  prosecution  to  be  brought  against 
him  in  the  Inquisition  for  heretical  blasphemy  and  suspicion  of 
atheism  and  materialism.  As  Caesar  came  to  his  death,  March  12, 
1507,  while  besieging  the  castle  of  Viana,  which  held  out  for  Luis 
de  Beaumont,  and  the  prosecution  was  abandoned,  we  can  only 
conjecture  what  the  outcome  might  have  been.^  Navarre  was  also 
the  scene  of  a  trivial  political  use  of  the  Inquisition  in  1516,  when, 
as  we  have  seen  (Vol.  I,  p.  227)  it  was  instructed  to  ascertain  the 
names  of  those  friendly  to  Jean  d'Albret. 

There  was  evidently  a  purpose  to  use  the  Inquisition  against 
the  revolt  of  the  Germania  of  Valencia,  when  a  brief  of  October  11, 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  1;  Lib.  2,  fol.  4. 
^  Llorente,  Hist,  crit.,  cap.  xxvii,  art.  iii. 


Chap.  X]  ANTONIO  PEBEZ  253 

1520,  was  obtained  from  Leo  X,  granting  to  Cardinal  Adrian 
faculties  to  proceed  against  all  persons  conspiring  against  public 
peace.  No  use  seems  to  have  been  made  of  this,  but  the  Valencia 
tribunal  had  an  opportunity  of  making  itself  felt  towards  the  end 
of  the  disturbances.  After  Vicente  Peris,  the  leader  of  the  Ager- 
manados  was  killed  in  a  tumult,  March  3,  1522,  a  mysterious 
individual,  known  as  el  Encubierio,  and  variously  described  as 
a  hermit  from  Castile  and  as  a  Jew  from  Gibraltar,  presented  him- 
self as  the  avenger  of  Peris  and  became  the  spiritual  chief  of  those 
who  kept  up  the  revolt  in  Jdtiva  and  Alcira.  He  assumed  to  be 
a  prophet  and  the  envoy  of  God,  which  brought  him  under  the 
ordinary  jurisdiction  of  the  Holy  Office,  and  it  made  record  of 
the  heresies  uttered  by  him  in  a  sermon  preached  at  Jativa, 
March  23d.  He  organized  a  conspiracy  in  Valencia,  but  one  of 
the  accomplices,  named  Juan  Martin,  was  betrayed  and  was  seized, 
by  the  Inquisition.  El  Encubierto  was  assassinated.  May  18th, 
at  Burjasot,  and  his  head  was  cut  off;  the  corpse  was  brought  to 
Valencia,  where  the  inquisitors  had  it  dragged  through  the  streets 
on  the  way  to  the  tribunal.  He  was  condemned  as  a  heretic,  the 
headless  body  was  relaxed  and  burnt  and  the  head  was  set  over 
one  of  the  gateways.^  The  action  of  the  Inquisition  had  no 
influence  on  the  course  of  affairs,  but  it  manifests  the  readiness  of 
the  tribunal  to  assert  itself  as  a  political  force. 

The  fable  that  the  Inquisition  was  invoked  to  accomplish 
the  death  of  Don  Carlos,  in  1568,  has  been  sufficiently  disproved 
to  call  for  no  attention  here.  There  is  probably,  however,  more 
truth  in  the  statement  that,  about  the  same  time,  Philip  II,  in 
promotion  of  his  designs  on  the  remnants  of  Navarre,  caused 
Inquisitor-general  Espinosa  to  collect  testimony  as  to  the  notorious 
heresy  of  Jeanne  d'Albret  and  her  children,  and  formed  with  the 
Guises  a  plot  to  abduct  and  deliver  her  to  the  tribunal  of  Saragossa, 
but  the  secret  was  not  kept  and  the  attempt  was  abandoned.^ 
Perhaps,  also,  we  may  class  with  political  service  the  utilization 
by  Philip  of  the  Inquisition  to  supply  him  with  galley-slaves. 

The  most  prominent  instance  of  the  employment  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion in  a  matter  of  State  was  in  the  case  of  Antonio  Perez.  Its 
dramatic  character  attracted  the  attention  of  all  Europe;  the 
mystery  underlying  it  has  never  been  completely  dispelled,  and 


Danvila  y  Collado,  La  Germanfa  de  Valencia,  pp.  178,  492. 
Llorente,  Hist,  crit.,  cap.  xxvii,  art.  iv,  n.  5-10. 


254  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Book  VIII 

its  resultant  effect  upon  the  institutions  of  Aragon  invests  it  with 
an  importance  justifying  examination  in  some  detail. 

Antonio  Perez  was  the  brilliant  and  able  favorite  of  Philip  II, 
who  in  1571  succeeded  his  patron,  Ruy  Gomez,  Prince  of  Eboli, 
in  acquiring  his  master's  fullest  confidence  and  becoming  the 
most  powerful  subject  in  Spain.  In  1573,  the  Venitian  envoy 
Badoero  describes  him  as  a  most  accomplished  man,  whose 
courtesy  and  attractive  manners  soothed  the  sensibilities  of  those 
provoked  by  the  delays  and  penuriousness  of  the  king,  while  his 
dexterity  and  ability  promised  soon  to  make  him  the  principal 
minister.  At  the  same  time,  he  was  a  man  of  pleasure  and  the 
magnificence  of  his  daily  life  was  the  admiration  of  his  country- 
men.^ He  found  his  fate  in  the  widow  of  his  patron,  the  Princess 
of  Eboli.  Sprung  from  the  noble  house  of  Mendoza,  she  was 
proud,  vindictive  and  passionate,  unflinching  in  the  gratification 
of  her  desires  and  reckless  as  to  the  means.  Whether  PhiHp  II 
had  been  her  lover,  and  if  so  whether  he  was  favored  or  rejected, 
is  a  disputed  question,  which  we  need  not  discuss ;  it  suffices  that 
Perez,  who  had  a  devoted  wife  in  Juana  Coello,  became  enamoured 
of  her  mature  charms  and  a  slave  to  her  imperious  will. 

Don  John  of  Austria  had  been  sent  to  the  Netherlands  on  the 
desperate  task  of  pacifying  them,  and  had  been  left  without 
resources.  Much  to  the  king's  displeasure,  he  sent,  in  July,  1577, 
his  secretary,  Juan  de  Escobedo,  to  Madrid  to  urge  the  necessity 
of  supplying  funds.  Escobedo  was  thoroughly  honest,  but  rug- 
ged and  uncourtly,  and  the  vigor  of  his  representations  increased 
the  royal  ill-humor.  Perez  had  for  some  time  been  secretly  fan- 
ning the  king's  suspicions  of  his  half-brother's  designs,  even  to  the 
point,  it  is  said,  of  mistranslating  cypher  despatches.  He  repre- 
sented Escobedo  as  an  emissary  sent  to  perfect  Don  Juan's  plans, 
including  a  descent  upon  Santander  and  raising  Castile  in  revolt. 
Convinced  that  Escobedo  must  be  put  out  of  the  way,  Philip 
ordered  P^rez  to  procure  his  death.  If  Perez  felt  any  scruple  as 
to  this,  it  was  removed  by  the  fact  that  Escobedo,  who  was  a 
retainer  of  the  house  of  Mendoza,  discovered  the  relations  between 
the  princess  and  the  favorite;  he  remonstrated  with  freedom  and 
threatened  to  inform  the  king.  His  doom  was  sealed  and,  after 
two  ineffectual  attempts  at  poison,  bravos  were  hired  who  assassi- 


'  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  V,  p.  279. — Miscelanea  de  Zapata  (Mem.  hist, 
espafiol,  XI,  244), 


Chap   X]  ANTONIO  PEREZ  265 

nated  him  in  the  street  on  the  night  of  March  31,  1578,  and  were 
rewarded  with  commissions  in  the  army  of  Italy. 

Suspicion  fell  on  Perez,  whose  fellow-secretary  and  bitter  enemy, 
Mateo  Vazquez,  reported  the  rumors  to  the  king.  The  princess 
in  her  wrath  threatened  that  Vd,zquez  should  share  the  fate  of 
Escobedo ;  the  court  was  divided  into  factions  which  Philip  vainly 
sought  to  pacify.  He  was  bound  in  honor  to  protect  his  instru- 
ment, and  repeatedly  assured  him  that  he  was  in  no  danger,  but, 
whether  he  was  beginning  to  realize  that  he  had  been  unpardonably 
deceived,  or  was  prompted  by  jealousy  of  the  relations  between 
P^rez  and  the  princess,  he  at  length  was  willing  to  sacrifice  his 
secretary  as  an  escape  from  a  situation  that  was  becoming  impos- 
sible. Some  one  to  replace  him  was  required ;  Cardinal  Granvelle, 
then  living  in  retirement  in  Rome,  was  sent  for;  he  arrived  at  the 
Escorial,  July  29,  1579,  and,  on  the  preceding  night  Perez  and  the 
princess  were  arrested  in  Madrid.  She  was  carried  to  the  castle 
of  Pinto  and  was  kept  in  strict  confinement  until  February  1581, 
when  she  was  allowed  to  return  to  her  palace  at  Pastrana,  when  her 
extravagant  freaks  caused  her  affairs  to  be  placed  in  charge  of  a 
commission,  leading  to  her  virtual  imprisonment  until  her  death, 
February  2,  1592. 

Perez,  meanwhile,  had  undergone  various  vicissitudes  of  im- 
prisonment, more  or  less  harsh.  In  May,  1582,  Philip  ordered  an 
investigation  into  the  different  branches  of  administration,  directed 
principally  against  Perez.  This  resulted  in  showing  that  he  had 
habitually  sold  the  royal  favor  and,  in  January,  1585,  he  was 
condemned  to  two  years'  imprisonment  in  the  castle  of  Turruegano, 
to  ten  years'  exile  from  the  court,  and  to  refund  12,224,739  mara- 
vedis,  of  which  7,371,098  went  to  the  fisc  and  the  balance  to  the 
heirs  of  Ruy  Gomez,  in  restitution  of  presents  given  to  him  by 
the  princess.  The  family  of  the  murdered  Escobedo  had  been 
vainly  clamoring  for  justice.  Philip  had  shrunk  from  being  com- 
promised in  the  affair,  but  now  that  Perez  was  thoroughly  dis- 
graced, if  the  documents  proving  his  own  complicity  could  be 
secured,  Perez  could  safely  be  sacrificed  to  justice.  His  wife, 
Juana  Coello,  was  imprisoned  and  threatened  with  starvation 
unless  she  would  surrender  his  papers;  she  resisted  heroically 
until  a  note  from  P^rez,  which  he  says  was  written  with  his  blood, 
permitted  her  to  do  so,  but  he  had,  with  his  usual  foresight, 
abstracted  from  them  in  advance  and  placed  in  safety  what  he 
deemed  necessary  for  his  justification. 


256  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Book  VIII 

In  the  summer  of  1585,  Philip  permitted  the  Escobedo  kindred 
to  commence  the  prosecution.  Antonio  Enrfquez,  the  page  of 
Perez,  who  had  arranged  the  assassination,  gave  full  testimony, 
but  the  conteste,  or  corroboration  by  another  witness  was  lackifig. 
The  affair  dragged  on,  until,  September  28,  1589,  Pedro  Escobedo, 
son  of  the  victim,  abandoned  it  for  the  sum  of  twenty  thousand 
ducats  and  pardoned  his  father's  murderers.  Phihp's  rancor,  how- 
ever, had  deepened  with  time,  and  the  prosecution  was  continued. 
Perez  was  tortured,  February  22,  1590,  when,  at  the  eighth  turn 
of  the  cordeles,  his  resolution  gave  way ;  he  confessed  the  crime  at 
the  royal  command  and  stated  the  reasons  which  had  moved  the 
king  to  order  the  murder.  Soon  after  this  he  took  to  his  bed  and 
was  reported  to  be  dangerously  sick ;  his  wife,  early  in  April,  was 
admitted  to  attend  him  and,  on  the  20th,  by  a  side-door,  of  which 
he  had  procured  a  false  key  and  from  which  the  bolts  had  been 
removed,  he  escaped  at  night.  Friends  with  horses  were  in 
waiting  and  he  took  the  road  to  Aragon.  He  was  of  Aragonese 
desceht,  so  that  he  could  claim  the  fueros  and  the  court  of  the 
Justicia,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  sat  in  judgement  between  the 
sovereign  and  his  subjects. 

Aragon,  at  the  moment,  was  especially  excited  in  defence  of  its 
privileges,  among  which  was  the  claim  that  none  but  an  Aragonese 
could  serve  as  viceroy.  Philip  was  contesting  this  and  had  sent 
the  Count  of  Almenara  to  conduct  a  suit  on  the  question  before  the 
court  of  the  Justicia.  Almenara  earned  general  ill-will  by  assum- 
ing superiority  over  all  the  local  officials;  the  Count  of  Sdstago, 
then  viceroy,  resisted  his  pretensions  and  was  removed  and 
replaced  by  Andres  Ximeno,  Bishop  of  Teruel,  a  timid  and  irreso- 
lute man ;  so  great  became  Almenara's  unpopularity  that  a  nearly 
successful  attempt  was  made  to  burn  at  night  the  house  which  he 
occupied;  there  was  a  spirit  of  turbulence  abroad,  pecuUarly 
favorable  to  P^rez,  who  came  to  claim  the  protection  of  the  fueros 
as  a  faithful  servant,  whom  his  king  was  endeavoring  to  destroy, 
in  reward  of  his  fidelity. 

Philip's  wrath  was  boundless.  His  first  impulse  was  to  wreak 
vengeance  on  the  helpless  wife  and  children,  who  were  thrown  into 
prison,  where  they  lay  for  nine  years  until  after  their  persecutor 
had  gone  to  his  last  account.  Orders  were  at  once  despatched  to 
seize  the  fugitive,  dead  or  alive,  before  he  should  cross  the  Ebro, 
and  so  swift  were  the  pursuers  that  they  reached  Calatayud,  where 
he  made  his  first  halt,  only  ten  hours  after  him.    He  threw  him- 


Chap.  X]  ANTONIO  PEBEZ  257 

self  into  the  Dominican  convent  for  asylum,  while  his  faithful 
friend,  Gil  de  Mesa,  who  had  accompanied  him,  hurried  forward 
to  Saragossa  and  claimed  for  him  the  manifesiacion  which  secured 
for  him  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Justicia.  Alonso  Celdran,  lieu- 
tenant of  the  governor,  rushed  to  Calatayud  and,  after  some  diffi- 
culty, forcibly  removed  P^rez  from  the  convent,  but  the  veguero 
of  the  Justicia  came  with  letters  of  manifestacion  and  obliged  him 
to  surrender  his  prey.  Nobles  and  gentlemen  flocked  to  Calatayud, 
and  P^rez  was  conducted  to  Saragossa  in  a  veritable  triumphal 
procession,  where  he  was  received  by  the  populace  as  though  he 
were  a  king  and  was  safely  lodged  in  the  cdrcel  de  los  manifestados. 
Then  commenced  the  curious  spectacle  of  a  duel  to  the  death 
between  the  disgraced  fugitive  and  the  whole  power  of  the  greatest 
monarch  of  Christendom,  giving  us  an  enlarged  respect  for  the 
fueros  of  Aragon  to  see  that  the  monarch  was  helpless  until  he 
invoked  the  overriding  powers  of  the  Inquisition,  under  the  pretext 
that  his  thirst  for  vengeance  was  a  matter  of  faith. 

Had  the  political  utility  of  the  Inquisition  been  the  customary 
expedient  that  has  been  asserted,  recourse  would  have  been  had  to 
it  at  once.  As  soon  as  the  flight  of  Perez  became  known,  a  special 
junta  had  been  formed  in  Madrid  to  manage  the  affair,  and  there 
Juan  de  Gurrea,  Governor  of  Aragon,  familiar  with  the  institu- 
tions of  his  native  land,  advised  that  the  Inquisition  be  at  once 
invoked,  but  there  was  repugnance  to  do  this  and  it  was  resolved 
to  rely  on  the  regular  process  of  law.  Philip  presented  a  formal 
accusation  to  the  court  of  the  Justicia  alleging  that  Perez  had  had 
Escobedo  killed,  falsely  using  the  king's  name;  that  he  had  betrayed 
the  king  by  divulging  state  secrets  and  altering  despatches,  and  that 
he  had  fled.  The  documents  were  sent  to  Almenara,  who  pushed 
the  prosecution,  while  P^rez  endeavored  to  convince  the  king  that 
it  would  be  better  to  allow  the  matter  to  drop  and  permit  him  to 
live  in  obscurity  rather  than  to  bring  the  compromising  documents 
to  light,  as  there  was  no  secrecy  in  Aragonese  procedure.  He 
wrote  in  this  sense  to  Fray  Diego  de  Chaves,  the  royal  confessor, 
and  he  sent,  by  the  Prior  of  Gotor,  copies  of  the  papers  to  Philip, 
who  gave  the  prior  two  or  three  audiences,  read  the  papers  and 
then,  on  July  1st,  published  a  sentence  condemning  Perez  to  be 
hanged  and  beheaded,  with  confiscation.  At  the  same  time 
instructions  were  sent  to  Almenara  to  push  the  prosecution  and  to 
find  some  means  to  seize  P^rez  and  convey  him  to  Castile. 

Perez  had  already  drawn  up  a  memorial  replying  to  the  charges, 

VOL.   IV  17 


258  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Book  VIII 

in  which  he  observed  considerable  reticence.  Now  he  threw  off 
all  reserve  and  prepared  aaother,  fortified  with  documents  expos- 
ing Philip's  share  in  the  tragedy,  and  representing  himself  as 
undergoing  ten  years  of  persecution  in  reward  for  faithful  service. 
Philip  asked  Batista  de  Lanuza,  a  lieutenant  of  the  Justicia,  to 
send  him  a  copy  of  the  memorial  with  his  opinion  as  to  the  result. 
Lanuza  in  reply  said  he  expected  an  acquittal,  whereupon  Philip 
withdrew  the  prosecution  on  the  grounds  that  it  would  reveal 
matters  not  proper  for  publication,  declaring  at  the  same  time 
that  Perez  had  committed  crimes  as  great  as  any  subject  could  and 
he  reserved  the  right  to  prosecute  him  elsewhere.  The  Justicia, 
however,  continued  the  case  which  resulted  in  acquittal.  Then 
an  accusation  was  brought  that  Perez  had  poisoned  his  astrologer, 
Pedro  de  la  Hera,  and  his  servant  Rodrigo  de  Morgado,  but  these 
charges  were  easily  refuted  and  again  he  was  acquitted.  Then 
an  attempt  was  made  under  an  Aragonese  law  permitting  inqui- 
sitio  or  inquest,  in  accusations  of  officials  by  the  king,  and  he  was 
prosecuted  for  misfeasance  in  office,  but  he  proved  that  he  had 
served  Philip  as  King  of  Castile,  not  of  Aragon,  and  that  he  had 
already  been  tried  and  punished  for  the  alleged  offences,  so  this 
also  failed.  The  principal  object  of  these  successive  actions  was 
to  prevent  his  discharge  from  prison,  but  they  had  the  effect  of 
heightening  the  popular  enthusiasm  for  Perez,  whose  cause  became 
identified  with  the  preservation  of  the  fueros. 

As  a  last  resort,  when  all  legal  processes  were  exhausted,  recourse 
was  had  to  the  Inquisition.  For  this  some  charge  involving  the 
faith  was  necessary  and  the  first  suggestion  was  an  assumed 
attempted  flight  to  the  heretics  of  Beam.  A  safer  base  of  opera- 
tions, however,  was  devised  by  Almenara,  who  won  over  by 
bribery  an  old  servant,  Diego  Bustamente  and  a  teacher  named 
Juan  de  Basante  in  whom  Perez  had  the  fullest  confidence.  In 
explosions  of  despairing  wrath,  they  said,  he  had  uttered  expres- 
sions indicating  disbelief  in  God  and  blasphemous  rebellion  against 
His  will.  We  have  seen  how  much  of  inquisitorial  activity  was 
directed  against  more  or  less  trivial  ejaculations  of  the  kind,  and  it 
was  strictly  in  rule  to  act  upon  such  denunciations.  It  mattered 
little  on  what  grounds  the  Holy  Office  might  obtain  possession  of 
him ;  once  in  its  hands,  he  would  be  conveyed,  openly  or  secretly, 
to  Castile,  where  his  fate  was  certain  and,  before  the  dreaded 
words  "  a  matter  of  faith"  all  barriers  were  vain. 

Inquisitor  Medrano  put  the  testimony  in  proper  shape  and  for- 


Chap.  X]  ANTONIO  PEBEZ  259 

warded  it  to  the  Suprema.  Philip  ordered  that  Fray  Diego  de 
Chaves  should  be  the  sole  calificador  and  he,  within  twenty-four 
hours,  pronounced  the  expressions  to  be  heretical.  On  the 
strength  of  this.  Inquisitor-general  Quiroga  and  the  Suprema, 
on  May  21,  1591,  issued  orders  for  the  arrest  of  P^rez  and  his 
confinement  in  the  ^secret  prison  for  trial. 

This  was  hurried  to  Saragossa,  where  it  was  received  on  the 
23d,  and  on  the  24th,  the  three  inquisitors,  Medrano,  Mendoza 
and  Morejon,  issued  a  warrant  of  arrest,  which  was  presented  at 
the  prison  of  Manifestacion  and  was  refused  obedience.  The  tri- 
bunal then  sent,  between  9  and  10  a.m.,  to  the  lieutenants  of  the 
Justicia  a  mandate,  under  the  customary  penalties,  requiring  the 
surrender  in  spite  of  the  pretended  right  of  manifestacion,  which 
was  abolished  in  matters  of  faith.  This  could  not  be  evaded  and 
the  officials  of  the  Justicia  were  sent  to  the  prison  with  orders  to 
deliver  P^rez  to  the  alguazil  of  the  tribunal.  He  was  put  in  a 
coach  and  driven  to  the  Aljaferia,  a  short  distance  beyond  the 
gates,  where  the  Inquisition  had  its  seat. 

Two  servants  of  Perez  carried  the  news  to  Diego  de  Heredia  and 
Gil  de  Mesa,  who  assembled  their  friends  and  sallied  into  the  streets, 
with  the  cry,  Contrafuero!  Viva  la  libertad  y  ayuda  a  la  libertad! — 
the  cry  which,  under  the  law,  could  only  be  raised  by  order  of 
the  Justicia  and  which,  as  we  have  seen,  summoned  every  citizen 
to  come  in  arms  and  defend  the  liberty  of  the  land.  The  tocsin 
of  the  cathedral  was  tolled  and  the  city  rose.  Under  the  leadership 
of  nobles  and  gentlemen,  a  part  of  the  mob  rushed  to  the  dwelling 
of  the  hated  Almenara.  The  Justicia,  Juan  de  Lanuza,  with  his 
two  sons  and  his  officials,  endeavored  to  protect  him,  but  the  door 
was  battered  in;  he  refused  to  fly,  but  allowed  himself  to  be  con- 
ducted to  prison,  on  the  promise  of  the  mob  to  spare  his  life,  but 
he  was  attacked  on  the  way  and,  when  the  prison  was  reached,  it 
was  with  injuries  of  which  he  died  within  a  fortnight. 

The  other  section  of  the  populace  hastened  to  the  Aljaferia 
and  demanded  the  restoration  of  Perez  and  of  his  friend  Francisco 
Majorini,  who  had  been  included  in  the  prosecution  and  surrender. 
Don  Pedro  de  Sese  is  said  to  have  brought  four  hundred  loads  of 
wood  with  which  to  burn  the  castle  in  case  of  refusal,  and  the 
situation  was  menacing  in  the  extreme.  The  Viceroy  Bishop  of 
Teruel  came  and  urged  the  inquisitors  to  compliance.  The  Arch- 
bishop Bobadilla  wrote  three  notes,  in  increasing  desperation — 
his  palace  and  that  of  the  Justicia  would  be  burnt  that  night  if 


260  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Book  VIII 

P6rez  were  not  given  up.  For  five  hours  the  inquisitors  resisted 
this  pressure,  but  finally  they  yielded,  though  even  then  they 
safeguarded  their  authority  with  an  order  that  Perez's  place  of 
confinement  should  be  changed  from  the  secret  prison  to  that  of 
the  manifestados.  At  5  p.m.  the  prisoners  were  delivered  to  the 
Counts  of  Aranda  and  Morata,  with  a  protest  that  the  trial  would 
be  continued.  Perez  was  conveyed  back  in  a  coach  to  his  former 
prison;  the  people  could  not  see  him  and  were  not  satisfied  until 
the  viceroy  made  him  stand  up  and  show  himself,  when  they 
shouted  that  he  must  appear  at  a  window  thrice  daily  to  prove 
that  no  wrong  was  done  him  in  violation  of  their  liberties  and 
fueros. 

There  was  a  tradition  that  Queen  Isabella  had  once  expressed 
a  wish  that  Aragon  would  revolt,  so  that  an  end  could  be  put  to 
the  fueros  which  limited  the  royal  power.  Such  an  opportunity 
had  now  come  and  Philip  was  not  a  sovereign  to  neglect  it. 
Cabrera  relates  that,  when  he  lay  sick  at  Ateca  and  the  Count  of 
Chinchon  brought  him  the  news,  he  rose  at  once  from  bed,  had 
himself  dressed  and  commenced  sending  despatches  in  all  direc- 
tions, ordering  the  levy  of  troops.  He  also  wrote  to  the  towns  of 
Aragon  and  to  the  nobles,  protesting  that  he  meant  no  violation 
of  their  privileges,  and  the  answers  encouraged  him  greatly,  for 
they  condemned  the  troubles  at  Saragossa  and  proffered  their 
services.  The  Inquisition,  moreover  had  opened  to  it  an  en- 
larged field  of  operations,  for  which  it  had  abundant  justification. 
Already,  on  June  4th,  the  Council  of  Aragon  presented  a  consulta, 
calling  attention  to  the  impeding  of  its  action,  in  the  threatening 
of  the  inquisitors  and  the  killing  of  a  servant  of  one  of  them; 
they  should  therefore  commence  to  take  testimony  and  arrest  the 
culprits,  one  by  one,  who  should  be  relaxed;  in  such  a  matter  of 
faith  the  nobles  could  not  plead  privilege  and  there  could  be  no 
manifestaciones  and  firmas. 

Work  to  this  end  was  commenced  at  once  in  Madrid.  Anton  de 
Almunia,  who  had  testified  against  P^rez,  had  fled  thither  with  a 
tale  of  the  threats  uttered  against  him  to  force  him  to  revoke  his 
evidence.  This  was  a  crime  against  the  Inquisition  and  Pedro 
Pacheco,  Inquisitor  of  Aragon,  was  deputed  to  take  his  deposi- 
tion ;  the  investigation  widened ;  all  the  refugees  from  Aragon  and 
enemies  of  P^rez  were  heard  and  it  was  shown  that  the  instigators 
of  the  troubles  aimed  at  transferring  Aragon  to  France  or  to  found 
a  republic,  and  in  this  were  implicated  the  Diputados  of  the  king- 


Chap.  X]  ANTONIO  PEREZ  261 

dom,  the  jurados  of  Saragossa  and  the  gentlemen  who  favored 
Perez,  including  the  Duke  of  Villahermosa,  who  was  the  head  of 
Aragonese  nobility  and  the  Count  of  Aranda,  the  richest  and  most 
powerful  noble.  Even  Inquisitor  Morejon,  who  had  not  been  as 
zealous  as  his  colleagues,  was  laid  under  suspicion.  As  a  prepara- 
tion for  the  impending  struggle,  the  Saragossa  tribunal,  under 
orders  from  Madrid,  published,  on  June  29th,  in  all  the  churches, 
an  edict  embodying  the  savage  bull  Si  de  Protegendis  of  Pius  V, 
concerning  impeders  of  the  Inquisition,  in  virtue  of  which  all  per- 
sons were  called  upon  to  aid  it,  not  only  in  the  matter  of  P(5rez 
but  of  all  others.  This  created  intense  excitement;  an  armed  mob 
assembled  in  the  plaza  of  the  cathedral  and  discussed  whether  they 
were  included  in  the  papal  censures  and  if  so  what  remedies  should 
be  tried  to  preserve  their  liberties,  while  multitudes  sought  their 
confessors  and  asked  to  be  absolved  from  the  ipso  facto  excom- 
munication incurred.  The  Diputados  complained  to  the  king  and 
to  Quiroga  of  this  stirring  up  of  trouble,  when  every  effort  was 
required  to  maintain  quiet,  but  they  only  received  from  the  king 
a  reply  thanking  them  for  their  zeal  for  peace. 

P6rez  and  his  friends  meanwhile  were  busy  in  provoking  excite- 
ment by  addresses  and  pasquinades  in  prose  and  verse,  stigmatiz- 
ing their  opponents  and  urging  vigilance  in  defence  of  the  fueros. 
He  also  petitioned  the  Zalmedina  to  investigate  the  methods  by 
which  Almenara  and  Medrano  had  gathered  evidence  against  him, 
and  the  testimony  thus  obtained  as  to  bribes,  promises  and  threats 
had  large  influence  on  public  opinion.  When  the  results,  however, 
were  sent  to  Philip  by  the  Diputados,  he  merely  replied  that  he 
had  not  read  them,  for  the  whole  was  invalid  because  witnesses 
before  the  Inquisition  could  only  be  impugned  in  it;  P^rez  must 
be  returned  to  the  tribunal  before  anything  else  could  have  atten- 
tion. The  papers  however  were  carefully  preserved,  for  the  mere 
investigation  was  a  grave  offence  against  the  Inquisition,  which 
was  subsequently  charged  against  its  authors.  The  Inquisition 
judged  all  men  and  was  to  be  judged  by  none  and,  in  the  sacredness 
which  shielded  it,  any  attempt  to  examine  its  methods  was  a  crime. 

As  the  summer  drew  to  a  close,  the  cooler-headed  citizens 
became  anxious  for  an  accommodation.  Conferences  were  held 
with  jurists  and  it  was  recognized  that  the  position  was  untenable, 
that  P^rez  must  be  surrendered  and  an  understanding  was  reached 
with  the  inquisitors  as  to  certain  unimportant  conditions  which 
avoided  the  appearance  of  complete  abandonment.     The  aspect 


262  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Book  VIII 

of  the  populace,  however,  was  threatening,  and  the  nobles  brought 
their  retainers  to  the  city  to  enforce  order.  Philip  had  no  objection 
to  the  delays  which  enabled  him  to  collect  his  forces  at  Agreda, 
on  the  Castilian  border,  and  September  24th  was  named  for  the 
delivery  of  Perez  as  a  solemn  public  act.  He  was  fully  alive  to 
the  danger  and  resolved  on  escape ;  a  file  was  furnished  to  him  with 
which  during  three  nights  he  worked  at  his  window  bars.  A  few 
hours  more  would  have  set  him  free  when  he  was  betrayed  by 
his  false  friend  Juan  Basante,  who  still  retained  his  confidence 
and  was  to  share  his  flight.  He  was  transferred  to  a  stronger 
cell,  where  he  was  kept  incomunicado,  with  a  guard  of  thirty  arque- 
busiers,  watching  him  day  and  night. 

On  September  22d  died  the  Justicia,  Juan  de  Lanuza,  an  old 
and  experienced  man,  succeeded  by  his  son  of  the  same  name, 
who  was  but  27  years  of  age,  universally  beloved  on  account  of 
his  many  good  qualities,  but  untried  and  lacking  in  influence. 
Great  preparations  were  made  for  the  surrender  on  the  24th.  The 
gates  were  closed,  troops  were  posted,  the  streets  from  the  prison 
to  the  Aljaferfa  were  patrolled  by  cavalry,  and  death  was  threat- 
ened for  the  slightest  disturbance.  Complicated  formalities  were 
observed  when  the  mandate  for  the  delivery  of  Perez  and  Majorini 
was  presented  to  the  court  of  the  Justicia  by  Lanceman  de  Sola, 
secretary  of  the  tribunal.  Under  guard  of  arquebusiers  a  proces- 
sion was  formed  of  officials  and  dignitaries,  who  on  reaching  the 
market-place  bestowed  themselves  in  the  overlooking  windows. 
The  prison  was  entered,  Perez  and  Majorini  were  produced, 
shackles  were  placed  on  them  and  they  were  formally  surren- 
dered to  Lanceman  de  Sola.  The  coaches  to  convey  them  were 
brought  up  and  they  were  descending  the  stairs  when  the  roar  of 
a  multitude  outside  brought  a  pause. 

The  friends  of  Perez  had  not  been  idle.  The  gentlemen  who 
still  adhered  to  him  had  brought  their  retainers  to  the  city ;  prop- 
agandism  had  been  active  and  a  majority  of  the  arquebusiers 
declared  themselves  ready  to  die  in  defence  of  the  fueros.  The 
streets  were  filled  with  clamorous  crowds;  already  during  the 
march  of  the  procession,  stones  had  been  thrown  and  now,  under 
the  leadership  of  Diego  de  Heredia  and  Gil  de  Mesa,  the  market- 
place was  attacked  on  several  sides.  Some  of  the  guards  were 
slain,  others  fled  and  others  joined  the  assailants.  The  plaza  was 
strewn  with  some  thirty  dead  and  numerous  wounded ;  the  gover- 
nor's horse  was  shot  and  he  escaped  to  a  house  which  was  promptly 


Chap.  X]  ANTONIO  PEREZ  263 

set  on  fire ;  the  notables  at  the  windows  broke  out  a  way  to  escape 
by  the  rear  and  hurried  off  amid  the  insults  of  the  people.  Inside 
the  prison  the  officials  saved  themselves  by  flight  over  the  roof, 
except  a  lieutenant  of  the  Justicia  who  made  Perez  show  himself 
at  a  window  to  calm  the  mob,  which  sent  up  shouts  of  joy  and 
commenced  to  break  in  the  doors,  when  he  was  delivered  to  them 
through  a  postern.  He  was  carried  in  triumph  to  the  house  of 
Diego  de  Heredia  and  then  Majorini  was  remembered.  He  was 
sent  for ;  the  prison  was  found  abandoned  and  he  was  set  free. 

P^rez  mounted  a  horse  and,  accompanied  by  Gil  de  Mesa  and 
Francisco  de  Ayerbe,  with  a  couple  of  servitors,  fled  to  the  moun- 
tains, reaching  Alagon  that  night  and  Tauste  the  next  day,  where 
he  rested  five  days  in  the  house  of  Francisco  de  Ayerbe.  The 
agents  of  the  Inquisition  tracked  him  and  came  near  seizing  him; 
when,  finding  escape  to  France  blocked,  he  returned  secretly  to 
Saragossa,  by  the  advice  of  Martin  de  Lanuza,  in  whose  house 
he  was  secreted,  while  directing  the  course  of  affairs.  The  city 
had  been  in  a  state  of  chaos,  the  magistrates  not  daring  to  show 
themselves,  but  through  his  counsels  comparative  tranquility  was 
restored  under  Diego  de  Heredia.  He  set  to  work  to  organize 
Aragon,  Catalonia  and  Valencia  in  opposition  to  Castile,  with  a 
view  of  forming  a  republic  under  the  protection  of  France,  but  his 
efforts  met  with  no  practical  response. 

Aragon  itself  was  lukewarm.  The  assembling  of  an  army  at 
Agreda  under  Alonso  Vargas,  a  distinguished  captain,  with  the 
pretext  of  an  expedition  to  France,  gave  warning  that  revolt  would 
be  crushed  with  a  heavy  hand  and  both  sides  sought  the  support 
of  the  kingdom  at  large.  In  Saragossa  the  fuero  prohibiting  the 
introduction  of  foreign  troops  was  invoked,  and  the  new  Justicia, 
Juan  de  Lanuza,  was  summoned  by  the  Diputados  to  call  the  king- 
dom to  arms  to  resist  the  contrafuero.  He  did  so  with  a  procla- 
mation, October  31st,  ordering  the  towns  and  nobles  to  send  their 
quotas  to  Saragossa  on  November  5th,  but  the  course  of  affairs 
at  Saragossa  had  been  watched  with  disfavor.  Jaca  responded 
with  protestations  and  not  with  men;  Daroca  sent  thirty  muske- 
teers; Bielsa,  Puertolas  and  Gistain  furnished  two  hundred  men 
who  turned  back  after  reaching  Barbastro.  There  were  dis- 
turbances at  Teruel  which  only  resulted  in  the  punishment  sub- 
sequently inflicted  on  the  leaders.  The  other  towns  united  in  a 
letter  to  the  Justicia,  declaring  Philip  to  be  the  defender  of  the 
f  ueros  and  those  who  resisted  him  to  be  the  violators,  and  the  same 


264  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Book  VIII 

ground  was  taken  by  the  nobles  and  gentry  outside  of  Saragossa. 
Villahermosa  and  Aranda  had  remained  in  the  city  by  Philip's 
orders,  and  were  forced  to  serve  on  the  council  of  war  which  was 
formed,  but  they  were  regarded  with  suspicion  and  were  insulted 
and  menaced. 

This  practical  abandonment  produced  profound  discourage- 
ment and  the  gates  were  locked  to  prevent  desertions,  but  all  who 
could,  left  the  city.  The  leaders,  however  were  too  deeply  com- 
promised to  withdraw  and,  in  their  irritation,  they  provoked 
quarrels  and  discord.  To  give  an  air  of  legality  to  resistance  the 
leadership  of  the  Justicia  was  essential,  and  they  summoned  Juan 
de  Lanuza  to  take  the  field  with  the  municipal  forces.  He  and 
the  Diputado  Juan  de  Luna  established -relations  with  Villaher- 
mosa and  Aranda  and  all  four  agreed  to  escape  on  the  occasion  of 
a  review  to  be  held  on  November  7th,  but  when  Lanuza  ordered 
a  gate  to  be  opened  and  the  review  to  be  held  outside  the  walls, 
there  was  a  cry  of  treason.  Villahermosa  and  Aranda  succeeded 
in  escaping  and  took  refuge  in  Epila,  a  fortified  town  belonging  to 
Aranda,  but  Lanuza  and  Luna  were  pulled  from  their  horses  and 
were  with  difficulty  rescued  alive. 

Bruised  as  he  was,  however,  Lanuza  was  forced,  the  next  day, 
to  take  the  field  at  the  head  of  four  hundred  men,  the  rest  of  the 
forces  following  the  next  day,  and  with  a  so-called  army  of  two 
thousand  he  advanced  to  Utebo,  to  contest  the  advance  of  Vargas, 
who  had  crossed  the  border  November  7th  with  a  well-equipped 
force  of  twelve  thousand  foot  and  two  thousand  horse,  supported 
by  sufficient  artillery.  A  messenger  from  Vargas  offering  terms 
gave  him  an  opportunity  of  escape  and,  accompanied  by  Luna, 
he  sought  the  refuge  of  Epila.  When  the  news  of  this  spread 
through  the  camp  the  little  army  disbanded  and  Vargas,  on  Novem- 
ber 12th,  presented  himself  before  the  Aljaferia,  to  the  great  joy 
of  the  inquisitors.  The  viceroy  and  officials  came  forth  to  welcome 
him,  and  he  made  a  triumphal  entry  into  the  city.  The  plaza  of 
the  cathedral  was  made  a  place  d'armes,  heavy  guards  were  posted, 
cannon  commanded  the  streets  and  the  soldiers  were  billeted  on 
the  citizens.  The  working  classes  had  abandoned  the  town  and 
there  were  more  than  fifteen  hundred  vacant  houses. 

P^rez  had  been  watching  the  wreck  of  his  schemes  of  vengeance, 
and,  not  caring  to  share  in  the  ruin  that  he  had  wrought,_he  sought 
to  save  himself.  Martin  de  Lanuza  escorted  him  to  a  gate  and 
had  it  opened  for  him  and,  on  the  10th,  two  days  before  the  arrival 


Chap.  X]  ANTONIO  PEREZ  265 

of  Vargas,  he  took  the  road  to  Salient,  on  the  French  frontier. 
The  next  day  Don  Martin  offered  to  the  Diputados  to  die  for  the 
city  if  they  proposed  to  defend  it,  but,  as  they  did  not,  he  suggested 
that  the  gates  be  opened  and  that  all  who  desired  be  allowed  to 
depart.  This  was  done  and,  in  the  exodus  that  followed,  he  betook 
himself  to  the  mountains  in  order  to  save  P^rez. 

Resistance  had  ceased,  but  there  was  still  some  apprehension 
as  to  what  was  known  as  the  Junta  of  Epila,  where  Lanuza  had 
invited  a  conference  to  consult  as  to  the  best  means  of  preserv- 
ing the  fueros.  Such  fears  were  superfluous.  Villahermosa  and 
Aranda,  at  the  earnest  request  of  Vargas,  returned  to  Saragossa; 
Luna  went  into  hiding  and  Lanuza  retired  to  his  lands  at  Badallur, 
subsequently  coming  to  Saragossa  and  resuming  his  functions 
as  Justicia.  Vargas  conducted  himself  with  great  adroitness, 
receiving  most  graciously  deputations  from  the  towns,  inviting 
absentees  to  return  and  assuring  every  one  that  the  fueros  would 
be  respected.  Then,  on  November  28th  came  the  Marquis  of 
Lombay,  as  special  royal  commissioner,  with  letters  assuring  the 
preservation  of  the  fueros  and  clemency  for  culprits.  He  was 
received  with  great  distinction  and  was  hailed  as  an  Angel  de  Paz; 
all  was  thought  to  be  settled  peacefully  and  the  refugees  returned. 
Vargas  and  Lombay  urged  Philip  to  issue  a  general  pardon  with 
specified  exceptions,  to  limit  the  Inquisition  to  matters  absolutely 
its  own,  to  assemble  the  Cortes  under  his  own  presidency  and  they 
even  suggested  Aranda  as  the  new  viceroy. 

Suddenly  this  dream  of  pacification  was  dispelled.  Without 
communicating  his  resolve  to  any  one,  Philip  sent,  by  a  secret 
messenger,  an  order  written  in  his  own  hand  and  not  countersigned, 
to  arrest  the  Justicia  at  once  "  and  let  me  know  of  his  death  as  soon 
as  of  his  arrest."  He  was  to  be  beheaded,  his  estates  confiscated 
and  his  castles  and  houses  razed  to  the  ground.  Villahermosa 
and  Aranda  were  likewise  to  be  arrested  and  to  be  sent  to  Castile. 

Vargas  felt  acutely  his  position  in  being  thus  forced  to  belie  his 
promises  of  clemency,  but  he  was  a  soldier,  trained  to  obey  orders. 
Lombay  was  indignant  at  the  use  made  of  him  and  asked  to  be 
relieved,  a  request  promptly  granted  for  the  court  had  no  further 
need  of  him.  Vargas  lost  no  time  in  executing  the  royal  com- 
mands. The  next  morning,  December  19th,  at  11  o'clock,  Lanuza 
was  arrested  as  he  and  his  lieutenant  were  on  their  way  to  mass, 
prior  to  opening  their  court.  Villahermosa  and  Aranda  were 
enticed  to  Vargas's  quarters  on  a  pretext;  he  detained  them  in 


266  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Book  VIII 

friendly  conversation  until  word  was  brought  of  Lanuza's  arrest, 
when  he  dismissed  them  and  they  were  arrested  as  they  left  him. 
In  three  hours  they  were  placed  in  coaches,  each  with  two  captains 
charged  not  to  lose  sight  of  them.  Four  companies  of  horse  and 
a  thousand  infantry  guarded  them  to  the  border,  after  which  two 
companies  of  foot  conducted  them,  Villahermosa  to  the  castle  of 
Burgos  and  Aranda  to  the  Mota  of  Medina  del  Campo.  Both 
died  in  prison. 

The  early  light  of  the  next  dawn  showed  a  black  scaffold  erected 
in  the  market-place;  the  troops  were  under  arms  and  cannon 
guarded  the  approaches.  The  citizens  shut  themselves  up  in  their 
houses  and  there  were  none  present  but  the  soldiery  who,  we  are 
told,  although  Castilians,  shed  tears  over  the  fate  of  Lanuza, 
whose  brief  three  months  of  office  had  brought  him  to  such  end. 
The  executioner  struck  off  his  head  while  he  was  reciting  a  hymn 
to  the  Virgin  and  he  was  honorably  buried,  in  the  tomb  of  his 
ancestors  in  the  church  of  San  Felipe,  the  bier  being  borne  on  the 
shoulders  of  high  officers  of  the  Castilian  army. 

This  imexpected  blow  aroused  indescribable  terror  throughout 
Aragon,  and  the  impression  caused  by  the  revelation  of  the  hidden 
purposes  of  the  king  was  intensified  by  his  granting  to  the  Governor 
a  commission  authorizing  him  to  punish  the  notoriously  guilty 
without  regard  to  the  fueros.  Under  this  there  followed  arrests 
and  executions  of  those  compromised  in  the  troubles,  especially 
of  those  concerned  in  the  death  of  Almenara,  including  many  men 
of  rank,  who  were  generally  regarded  as  innocent,  or  at  most  as 
lightly  culpable.  No  one  felt  himself  safe,  and  the  sense  of  insecu- 
rity was  heightened  by  the  razing  of  the  houses  of  the  victims — the 
palace  of  the  Lanuzas,  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  in  Saragossa, 
and  those  of  Diego  de  Heredia,  Martin  de  Lanuza,  Pedro  de  Bolea, 
Manuel  Don  Lope  and  others — the  ruins  made  in  the  principal 
streets  symboUzing  to  the  people  the  destruction  of  their  liberties. 
Nor  was  the  Inquisition  remiss  in  vindicating  its  insulted  dignity. 
The  inquisitors  had  been  changed  and  the  tribunal  now  consisted 
of  Pedro  Zamora,  Velarde  de  la  Concha  and  Juan  Moriz  de  Sala- 
zar,  who  fully  realized  the  work  expected  of  them.  They  filled 
the  prisons  of  the  Aljaferia  with  men  of  all  classes,  who  had  taken 
part  in  obstructing  the  action  of  the  Holy  Office,  though  they  sub- 
sequently, under  orders  from  Philip,  delivered  to  Vargas  certain 
of  their  prisoners  who  were  marked  for  execution  for  offences 
outside  of  inquisitorial  jurisdiction. 


Chap.  X]  ANTONIO  PEREZ  267 

Satisfied  with  the  impression  thus  made,  Philip  now  took 
measures  to  calm  the  agitation.  He  withdrew  the  special  com- 
mission of  the  Governor  of  Aragon  and  promised  to  the  accused 
a  regular  trial  by  an  impartial  Aragonese  judge.  Then,  on  Jan- 
uary 17,  1592,  there  was  solemnly  proclaimed  in  Saragossa  a 
general  pardon,  in  which  the  king  dwelt  on  his  love  for  Aragon 
and  on  his  clemency,  but  also  on  his  duty  to  enforce  justice  and 
uphold  the  Inquisition.  There  were  certain  classes  excepted  from 
the  benefit  of  the  amnesty,  which,  when  subsequently  apphed  to 
individuals,  amounted  to  196,  whom  every  one  was  ordered  by 
proclamation  to  capture  wherever  found.  The  promised  impartial 
judge  was  appointed  in  the  person  of  Doctor  Miguel  Lanz,  whose 
ignorance  and  cruelty  were  the  cause  of  bitter  complaints. 

It  was  part  of  Philip's  tranquihzing  pohcy  that  the  Inquisition 
should  issue  simultaneously  an  edict  of  pardon,  with  exceptions 
like  his  own.  The  two  classes  of  culprits  were  largely  distinct, 
and  the  tension  of  the  public  mind  could  not  be  relieved  until  the 
extent  of  both  should  be  known.  With  this  view,  when  drawing 
up  his  own  proclamation,  he  ordered  the  Suprema  to  do  the  same, 
but  he  encountered  resistance.  The  Inquisition  was  playing  for 
its  own  hand.  It  had  not  only  to  avenge  insults  endured  but  it 
was  resolved  to  make  the  most  of  the  opportunity  to  break  down 
the  obstinate  resistance  in  Aragon  to  its  arbitrary  proceedings. 
The  Suprema  was  therefore  indisposed  to  accede  to  Philip's 
wishes  and,  in  a  consulta  of  January  2d,  it  asked  for  delay.  To 
this  Philip  replied,  in  his  own  handwriting,  that  the  postponement 
would  prevent  the  desired  restoration  of  confidence  and,  where 
there  were  so  many  involved,  it  sufficed  to  punish  those  most 
guilty.  He  was  about  to  publish  his  own  pardon  and  he  charged 
the  Suprema  to  do  the  same  on  its  part  with  all  despatch. 

Considerations  such  as  these  had  no  weight  with  the  Suprema, 
which  calmly  disregarded  the  king's  wishes.  The  silence  of  the 
Inquisition  kept  alive  popular  anxiety  and,  on  March  3d,  Philip 
renewed  his  urgency.  The  pardon  should  be  such  as  to  give  satis- 
faction to  the  people,  relieving  from  infamy  those  comprehended 
in  it  who  should  come  and  confess  spontaneously.  Proceedings 
could  be  taken  against  those  arrested  and  fugitives,  who  could 
be  summoned  by  edicts,  and  the  pardon  could  be  general,  excepting 
the  prisoners  and  those  cited  and  to  be  cited  in  contumacy,  without 
giving  names,  but  all  this  he  left  to  the  Suprema  to  do  what  it 
deemed  best  for  the  authority  of  the  Holy  Office. 


268  POLITICAL  AQTIVITT  [Book  VIII 

Philip  evidently  shrank  from  too  positive  insistence,  and  the 
Suprema  on  various  pretexts  continued  to  postpone  the  pardon. 
In  answer  to  renewed  urgency,  it  presented  a  consulta,  April  29th, 
reporting  its  operations,  according  to  which  the  tribunal  of  Sara- 
gossa  had  recently  voted  the  arrest  of  a  hundred  and  seventy- 
six  persons;  it  had  already  seventy-four  in  its  prisons,  and  it  con- 
templated the  prosecution  of  three  hundred — which  explains  the 
reluctance  to  issue  a  general  pardon.  This  was  so  contrary  to  the 
policy  of  the  king  that  he  replied  by  suggesting  the  liberation  on 
bail  of  those  whose  offences  admitted  of  it,  and  suspending  arrest 
in  cases  that  might  reasonably  be  condoned.  He  made  no  allu- 
sion, this  time,  to  a  general  pardon  and  the  Inquisition  carried 
its  point.  Without  issuing  a  pardon,  on  October  20th  it  celebrated 
an  auto  de  fe  with  more  than  eighty  culprits,  of  whom  all  were 
impeders  of  its  free  action,  except  a  few  Moriscos  and  a  bigamist. 
Six  were  relaxed,  ostensibly  as  guilty  of  homicide  in  the  disturb- 
ances of  September  24,  1591,  and  the  rest  were  penanced,  mostly 
by  exile  from  Aragon,  although  some  were  sent  to  the  galleys, 
among  whom  was  Miguel  Don  Lope.  The  procession  at  the  auto 
was  closed  with  the  effigy  of  Perez,  condemned  to  the  flames  in 
a  sentence  which,  we  are  told,  recited  a  million  of  arrogant  and 
ill-sounding  propositions  against  God  and  the  king,  his  affection 
for  Vandoma  (Henry  IV),  treasons  committed  in  his  office  of 
Secretary,  strong  indications  of  sodomy,  his  flight  to  France,  his 
listening  to  preachers  and  taking  communion  with  Huguenots, 
sufficient  to  prove  him  a  Huguenot,  with  presumption  that  aU 
his  actions  had  been  directed  to  that  end  and  to  destroy  the  Inqui- 
sition, as  he  was  a  descendant  of  Jews  and  great-grandson  of  Aubon 
Perez,  a  Jew  who  relapsed  after  conversion,  was  burnt  and  his 
sanbenito  was  hanging  in  the  church  of  Calatayud.  The  sentence 
was  relaxation,  with  disabilities  of  descendants. 

On  the  day  of  the  auto  Philip  was  at  Rioja,  on  his  way  to  Tara- 
zona,  where  the  Cortes  which  had  been  called  had  been  sitting  and 
had  nearly  finished  its  labors.  As  the  Inquisition  had  still  with- 
held its  general  pardon,  he  again  insisted  that  it  be  put  into  shape 
and  sent  to  him,  in  order  that  everything  might  be  concluded 
before  he  reached  Tarazona.  Still  unsatiated  and  procrasti- 
nating, the  Suprema  replied  with  the  names  of  eleven  persons, 
whom  it  characterized  as  principal  leaders  of  the  tumults  and 
asked  him  to  give  such  instructions  as  he  pleased.  He  responded 
that  he  would  delay  answering  till  he  reached  Tarazona  and  could 
survey  the  aspect  of  matters  there.    Some  days  later  he  wrote 


Chap.  X]  ANTONIO  PEREZ  269 

asking  that  the  propriety  of  issuing  the  pardon  should  be  dis- 
cussed, as  also  the  form  which  it  should  have.  Thereupon  the 
Suprema  sent  him  a  form,  with  a  letter  to  the  inquisitors  which  he 
could  forward,  at  the  same  time  stating  that  there  were  objections. 
The  royal  pardon  was  unconditional  and  took  effect  of  itself,  but 
the  Inquisition  was  not  so  easily  satisfied  and  required  that  all 
who  availed  themselves  of  its  mercy  should  make  personal  appli- 
cation and  submission.  The  papal  decree  Si  de  protegendis 
inflicted  an  ipso  facto  anathema  on  all  who  obstructed  in  any  way 
the  action  of  the  Holy  Office,  and  this  censure  had  to  be  removed, 
wherefore  the  proposed  formula  required  that  all  applicants  for 
pardon  should  seek  relief  from  the  censures,  those  present  within 
two  months,  and  the  absent  within  four,  but  the  Suprema  added 
that  publication  should  be  preceded  by  edicts  against  seven  speci- 
fied persons  and  others  notoriously  guilty  who  could  not  be  named 
without  violating  the  secrecy  of  the  Inquisition.  Even  this  the 
Suprema  felt  to  be  too  great  a  concession,  and  the  next  day  it 
forwarded  another  consulta,  saying  that  it  had  received  from  the 
Saragossa  tribunal  the  names  of  some  parties  notoriously  and 
deeply  inculpated ;  there  was  evidence  of  their  guilt  in  the  tribunal 
and  it  had  commenced  action  against  them  with  edicts.  This 
was  submitted  to  the  king  so  that  he  could  order  the  inquisitors 
to  commence  before  publishing  the  pardon,  in  order  that  the 
parties  might  be  excepted.  Philip  disregarded  this  last  effort  of 
the  Inquisition  to  maintain  its  hold  on  those  who  had  offended 
it.  Without  further  correspondence  he  sent  the  pardon  to  Sara- 
gossa with  orders  for  its  publication,  which  was  done  with  great 
solemnity,  November  23d,  when  more  than  five  hundred  penitents 
presented  themselves. 

Meanwhile  the  Cortes  had  been  employed  in  modifying  the 
institutions  of  Aragon  to  meet  the  wishes  of  the  king.  While 
resolved  thus  to  take  full  advantage  of  the  opportunity,  he  was 
shrewd  enough  to  see  that  such  a  settlement  to  be  enduring  must 
be  in  conformity  with  the  fueros.  While  his  army  still  overawed 
the  land  he  therefore  convoked  the  C6rtes,  which  met  at  Tarazona, 
June  15,  1592.  According  to  rule,  he  should  have  presided  over 
it,  but  he  desired  not  to  enter  Aragon  until  the  trials  and  exe- 
cutions under  Dr.  Miguel  Lanz  should  be  completed,  and,  though 
he  left  Madrid  May  30th,  he  took  the  circuitous  route  by  way  of 
Valladolid,  and  his  leisurely  journey  was  interrupted  by  attacks 
of  gout.  After  some  difficulty,  the  Cortes  accepted  the  presidency 
of  Archbishop  Bobadilla,  and  modified  the  immemorial  rule  requir- 


270  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Book  VIH 

ing  unanimity  in  each  of  the  four  hrazos  or  chambers.  The  way 
being  thus  cleared,  and  still  further  smoothed  by  a  lavish  distri- 
bution of  "graces,"  it  was  merely  a  work  of  time  to  obtain  the 
adoption  of  a  carefully  devised  series  of  fueros  which,  without 
changing  the  form  of  Aragonese  institutions,  removed  the  limita- 
tions on  the  royal  power  which  had  so  long  been  the  peculiar  boast 
of  the  kingdom.  The  changes  were  too  numerous  for  recapitu- 
lation here  in  full;  some  of  them  were  beneficial  in  facilitating  the 
punishment  of  crime,  but  the  most  important  from  the  monarch's 
stand-point  were  those  which  established  his  right  to  appoint 
viceroys  who  were  not  Aragonese ;  which  placed  in  his  hands  the 
nomination  and  dismissal  of  the  Justicia  and  the  nomination  of 
his  lieutenants,  with  preponderance  in  the  machinery  for  hearing 
complaints  against  the  latter;  which  took  from  the  Diputados  the 
power  of  convoking  the  cities  and  citizens,  which  limited  the  amount 
that  they  could  spend,  and  which  transferred  from  them  to  the 
crown  control  over  the  rural  police ;  which  prohibited  raising  the 
cry  of  "libertad"  under  penalties  extending  even  to  death;  which 
provided  punishment  for  offences  against  royal  officials;  which 
established  extradition  for  crime  between  Castile  and  Aragon; 
which  required  the  royal  licence  for  the  printing  of  books,  and 
which  deprived  the  lands  of  the  nobles,  secular  and  ecclesiastical, 
of  the  right  of  asylum  for  criminals.  Thus  the  Justicia  and  his 
court,  which  had  been  the  pride  of  the  land,  became  in  fact,  if  not 
in  name  a  royal  court;  the  Diputados,  who  had  been  the  executive 
of  the  popular  will,  were  deprived  of  all  dangerous  exercise  of 
authority,  the  barriers  against  the  encroachments  of  arbitrary 
power  were  removed,  and  all  this  had  been  accomplished  through 
the  representatives  of  the  people,  apparently  of  their  own  volition. 
When,  early  in  December,  Philip  at  Tarazona  held  the  solio  in 
which  he  confirmed  the  acts  of  the  Cortes,  he  followed  it  with  a 
general  pardon,  liberating  all  those  prosecuted  by  Dr.  Lanz,  except 
the  jurists  and  lieutenants  of  the  Justicia,  who  had  counselled 
resistance  and  who  were  punished  with  exile.  Cosme  Pariente, 
an  unlucky  poet,  was  sent  to  the  galleys  as  the  author  of  the  pas- 
quinades which  had  stimulated  revolt,  and  there  was  another 
significant  exception.  Philip's  inextinguishable  hatred  of  his 
favorite  still  kept  in  prison  Juana  Coello  and  her  seven  children, 
the  youngest  of  whom  was  born  in  captivity.  Thus  they  lan- 
guished for  nine  years  until  their  gaoler  had  passed  away.  Philip 
III  signalized  the  first  year  of  his  reign  with  pardoning  those 
excepted  in  his  father's  edicts  and,  in  April  1599,  Juana  was  set 


Chap.  X]  ANTONIO  PEREZ  271 

free.  She  hesitated  to  leave  her  children,  the  eldest  of  whom  was  in 
her  twentieth  year,  but  she  finally  did  so  to  labor  for  their  release, 
which  she  accomplished  in  the  following  August.  The  friends  of 
Perez  sought  to  have  him  included  in  the  royal  mercy,  but  were  told 
that  his  offence  was  a  matter  of  the  Inquisition  with  which  the 
king  could  not  interfere. 

Before  relieving  Aragon  of  his  army,  Philip  caused  the  Aljaferla 
to  be  fortified  and  lodged  there  a  garrison  of  two  hundred  men  to 
keep  the  turbulent  city  in  check.  To  this  the  inquisitors  objected 
strongly,  and  asked  to  be  transferred  to  some  other  habitation, 
but  he  refused,  as  their  protection  served  as  an  excuse  for  the 
garrison.  They  never  grew  reconciled  to  their  unwelcome  guests 
and,,  in  1617  and  again  in  1618,  we  find  them  complaining  that 
the  soldiers  exercised  control  over  the  castle  and  that  their  auda- 
cious pretensions  diminished  greatly  the  popular  respect  due  to 
the  Holy  Office.'  Their  remonstrances  were  unheeded  until,  in 
1626,  Philip  IV,  as  a  special  favor  transferred  the  garrison  to  Jaca. 

P^rez  and  his  friends  had  succeeded  in  reaching  Beam,  where 
they  were  welcomed  by  the  governess,  Catherine,  sister  of  Henry 
IV.  Imagining  that  a  small  force  would  raise  the  Aragonese  in 
defence  of  their  liberties,  they  persuaded  Henry  to  try  the  experi- 
ment, to  be  followed,  in  case  of  success,  by  an  army  of  fifteen  or 
twenty  thousand  men,  to  wrench  from  Spain  Aragon,  Catalonia 
and  Valencia,  and  form  a  republic  under  French  protection.  In 
February,  1592,  therefore,  some  fifteen  hundred  or  two  thousand 
Bearnese,  under  the  leadership  of  Martin  Lanuza,  Gil  de  Mesa, 
Manuel  Don  Lope,  and  Diego  de  Heredia  attempted  an  invasion, 
but  the  Aragonese  rose  against  them.  Embarrassed  by  the  deep 
snows  in  the  mountains,  they  attempted  to  retreat  but  were 
vigorously  attacked  and  most  of  them  were  taken  prisoners, 
including  Dionisio  Perez,  Francisco  de  Ayerbe  and  Diego  de 
Heredia.  Vargas  liberated  the  Bearnese,  but  the  refugees  were 
sent  to  Saragossa,  where  they  expiated  their  treason  on  the 
scaffold. 

In  spite  of  this  misadventure,  Perez  was  warmly  welcomed  and 
was  pensioned  by  Henry  IV,  as  a  personage  of  importance,  a  states- 
man versed  in  all  the  arts  of  Spanish  diplomacy.  The  peace  of 
Vervins,  however,  in  1598  reduced  him  to  insignificance.  Age 
and  infirmities  overtook  him  and  his  adventurous  existence  ter- 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  19,  fol.  48. 


272  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Book  VIII 

minated  in  misery,  November  3,  1611,  when  he  manifested  every 
sign  of  fervent  CathoUcism.  After  his  death,  Juana  Coello-  and 
his  children  undertook  the  vindication  of  his  memory  and  solicited 
to  be  heard  in  his  defence.  It  was  not,  however,  until  January  22, 
1613  that  the  Suprema  presented  to  Philip  III  a  consulta  recom- 
mending that  the  widow  and  children  should  be  heard  by  the 
Saragossa  tribunal.  Sentences  rendered  in  absentia,  as  we  have 
seen,  were  never  regarded  as  conclusive,  but  the  tribunal  was 
unforgiving.  It  interposed  delays  and  then,  on  March  16,  1615, 
it  rendered  an  adverse  judgement.  This  the  Suprema  refused  to 
confirm  and,  after  an  obstinate  resistance,  the  tribunal,  on  June 
19th  was  forced  to  utter  a  sentence  absolving  the  memory  and 
fame  of  Antonio  P^rez,  declaring  the  limpieza  of  his  blood  and 
pronouncing  that  his  descendants  were  under  no  disabilities. 
Nothing,  however,  was  said  about  removing  the  confiscation  of 
his  property,  probably  because  this  had  been  decreed  both  by 
the  secular  sentence  of  July  17,  1590  and  by  the  inquisitorial  one 
of  October  20,  1592.' 


'  Few  episodes  in  Spanish  history  have  been  more  exhaustively  investigated 
than  the  career  of  Antonio  P6rez  and  its  consequences.  Ample  materials  for 
its  elucidation  exist  in  the  Spanish  archives,  in  the  Llorente  collections  preserved 
in  the  Bibliothfeque  nationale  of  France,  at  The  Hague  and  in  the  British  Museum, 
and  these  have  been  industriously  utilized  by  modem  writers.  The  contemporary 
sources  are — 

Las  Obras  y  Relaciones  de  Antonio  P^rez,  Paris,  1654. 

Proceso  criminel  que  se  fulmin6  contra  Antonio  P6rez,  Madrid,  1788. 

Argensola,  Informacion  de  los  sucesos  del  Reino  de  Aragon  en  los  anos  de  1590 
y  1591.     Madrid,  1808. 

Coleccion  de  Documentos  iniSditos,  Vols.  XII,  XV,  LVI. 

Giambattista  Confalonieri,  in  Spicilegio  Vaticano,  Vol.  I,  P.  ii,  pp.  226  sqq. 

Tommaso  Contarini,  in  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  V,  p.  401. 

Cabrera,  Historia  de  Felipe  II,  T.  II,  pp.  448,  540;  T.  Ill,  pp.  529  sqq  (Ed. 
1876-77). 

Lanuza,  Historias  eclesiasticas  y  seculares  de  Aragon,  T.  II,  Lib.  ii,  iii.  (Zara- 
goza,  1622). 

The  principal  modern  authorities  are — 

Llorente,  Historia  crltica,  cap.  xxxv,  xxxvi. 

Mignet,  Antonio  P^rez  et  Philippe  II,  Paris,  1854. 

Pidal,  Historia  de  las  Alteraciones  de  Aragon  en  el  Reinado  de  Fehpe  II, 
3  vols,  Madrid,  1862-3. 

Muro,  Vida  de  la  Princesa  de  Eboli,  Madrid,  1877. 

Philippson  (Ein  Ministerium  unter  PhiUpp  II,  Berlin,  1895)  and  Major  Hume 
(Espanoles  6  Ingleses,  Madrid,  1903)  give  interesting  details  as  to  the  earlier 
events. 


Chap.  X]  OCCASIONAL  GASES  273 

Thus  in  this,  the  most  prominent  instance  of  inquisitorial  politi- 
cal intervention,  the  Holy  Office  was  invoked  only  as  a  last  resort, 
when  all  other  methods  had  failed,  and,  when  it  was  called  in,  so 
far  from  being  the  obsequious  instrument  of  the  royal  will,  it  reso- 
lutely sought  to  advance  its  own  interests  with  little  regard  for 
the  policy  of  the  monarch. 

Yet  the  impression  made  at  the  time  is  reflected  in  the  report 
of  the  Venetian  envoy,  Agostino  Nano,  in  1598,  when  he  says  that 
the  king  can  be  termed  the  head  of  the  Inquisition,  for  he  appoints 
the  inquisitors  and  officials.  He  uses  it  to  hold  in  check  his  sub- 
jects and  to  punish  them  with  the  secrecy  and  severity  of  its  pro- 
cedure, when  he  cannot  do  so  with  the  ordinary  secular  authority 
of  the  Royal  Council.  The  Inquisition  and  the  Royal  Council 
mutually  help  each  other  in  matters  of  state  for  the  king's  service.^ 
This  was  a  not  unnatural  conclusion  to  draw  from  a  case  of  this 
nature,  but  the  royal  power,  by  this  time,  was  too  securely  in- 
trenched to  require  such  aid.  It  was  only  the  peculiar  features  of 
the  Aragonese  fueros  that  called  for  the  invention  of  a  charge  of 
heresy  in  a  political  matter.  The  Inquisition,  as  a  rule,  considered 
it  no  part  of  its  duties  to  uphold  the  royal  power  for,  in  1604,  we 
find  it  sentencing  Bartolome  Perez  to  a  severe  reprimand,  a  fine 
of  ten  thousand  maravedis  and  a  year's  exile  for  saying  that  obe- 
dience to  the  king  came  before  that  due  to  the  pope  and  to  the 
Church.^  Thus  the  mere  denial  of  the  superiority  of  the  spiritual 
power  over  the  temporal  was  a  crime. 

Sporadic  cases  occurred  in  which  special  considerations  called 
for  the  aid  of  the  Inquisition,  but  they  were  not  numerous  and 
were  apt  to  be  directed  against  ecclesiastics,  whose  privilege 
exempted  them  from  the  secular  courts.  Such  was  that  of  the 
Jesuit,  Juan  de  Mariana,  distinguished  in  many  ways,  but  es- 
pecially by  his  classical  History  of  Spain.  He  had  served  the 
Inquisition  well  as  a  censor  of  books,  but  in  his  Tractatus  septem, 
published  anonymously  at  Cologne,  in  1609,  in  an  essay  on  the 
debased  Spanish  coinage,  the  freedom  with  which  he  reprobated 
its  evils  and  spoke  of  the  malfeasance  of  officials  gave  great  offence 
to  the  royal  favorite  Lerma  and  his  creatures.     Had  Mariana  been 


'  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  V,  p.  485. 

The  assertion  of  the  co-operation  of  the  Inquisition  and  the  Royal  Council, 
which  were  habitually  antagonistic,  shows  how  little  the  envoy  knew  of  the  inner 
working  of  Spanish  administration. 

'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. 

VOL.  IV  18 


274  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Book  VIII 

a  layman  there  would  have  been  no  trouble  in  punishing  him 
severely,  but  to  reach  the  Jesuit  Philip  invoked  the  papal  nuncio 
Caraffa  and  the  Toledo  tribunal  took  a  hand.  The  whole  pro- 
ceeding was  irregular  and  the  pope  was  asked  to  render  sentence, 
but,  after  a  year's  imprisonment,  Mariana  was  liberated,  without 
an  imputation  on  his  character,  and  he  died,  in  1624,  full  of  years 
and  honor,  at  the  age  of  87." 

It  is  true  that,  when  the  Barcelona  tribunal  was  battling  to 
maintain  its  pretensions  against  the  C6rtes  of  Catalonia,  it  repre- 
sented, in  1632,  in  a  memorial  of  Philip  IV,  among  its  other  claims 
to  consideration,  the  secret  services  often  rendered  in  obtaining 
information  and  in  the  arrest  of  powerful  persons,  which  could 
not  otherwise  be  so  well  accomplished.  Its  thorough  organization, 
no  doubt,  occasionally  enabled  it  to  be  of  use  in  this  manner,  and 
there  was  no  scruple  in  calling  upon  it  for  such  work,  as  in  1666, 
when  Don  Pedro  de  Sossa,  the  farmer  of  the  tax  of  millones,  in 
Seville,  absconded  with  a  large  sum  of  money  and  was  understood 
to  be  making  his  way  to  France,  the  Suprema  wrote  to  Barcelona 
and  doubtless  to  other  tribunals  at  the  ports  and  frontier  districts, 
with  a  description  of  his  person  and  an  order  to  arrest  him  and 
embargo  his  property.^ 

The  prosecutions  of  the  two  fallen  favorites,  Rodrigo  Calderon, 
in  1621  and  Olivares,  in  1645,  were  not  state  affairs  but  intrigues, 
to  prevent  their  return  to  favor  and  were  rendered  unnecessary, 
in  the  one  case  by  the  decapitation  of  Calderon  and  in  the  other  by 
the  death  of  Olivares.^  The  secrecy  of  the  Inquisition  and  its 
methods  of  procedure  rendered  it  a  peculiarly  favorable  instru- 
mentality for  such  manoeuvres,  as  was  seen  in  the  Villanueva  case, 
as  well  as  for  the  gratification  of  private  malice,  and  it  was 
doubtless  frequently  so  abused,  but  this  has  no  bearing  on  its 
use  as  a  political  agency. 


'  Vida  y  Escritos  del  P.  Juan  de  Mariana,  pp.  Ixix-lxxviii  (Historia  de  Espafla, 
Valencia,  1783,  T.  I). — Alegambe,  Scriptt.  See.  Jesu,  p.  258. — De  Backer,  V, 
518. 

The  "  Tratado  y  Discurso  sobre  la  Moneda  de  Vellon"  of  course  was  suppressed 
and  became  scarce.     My  copy  is  in  MS.,  transcribed  in  1799. 

Mariana  did  not  conceal  from  himself  the  danger  to  be  incurred.  In  his  address 
to  the  Reader  he  says — "  Bien  veo  que  algunos  me  tendrian  por  atrevido,  otros 
por  inconsiderado,  pues  no  advierto  el  riesgo  que  corro." 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq,  de  Barcelona,  C6rtes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  9. — Libro  XIII 
de  Cartas,  fol.  195  (MSS.  of  Am.  Philos.  Society). 

■''  Llorente,  Hist,  critica,  cap.  xxxviii,  n.  17,  19. 


Chap.  X]  THE  WAR  OF  SUCCESSION-  275 

With  the  advent  of  the  Bourbon  dynasty  there  was  a  change. 
In  the  governmental  theory  of  Louis  XIV  the  Church  was  part  of 
the  State  and  subject  to  the  dictation  of  the  monarch.  In  the 
desperate  struggle  of  the  War  of  Succession,  the  advisers  of  the 
young  PhiUp  V  had  no  hesitation  in  employing  all  the  resources 
within  reach  and  the  Inquisition  was  expected  to  play  its  part. 
At  an  early  period  of  the  conflict,  the  Suprema  sent  orders  to  the 
tribunals  to  enjoin  earnestly,  on  all  their  officials,  fidehty  to  the 
king,  who  thus  had  the  benefit  of  a  well-distributed  army  of  mis- 
sionaries in  every  quarter  of  the  land.^  It  was  easy,  as  we  have 
seen,  for  inquisitorial  logic  to  stretch  the  elastic  definition  of  heresy 
in  any  desired  direction,  and  lack  of  loyalty  to  Philip  was  made  to 
come  within  its  boundaries.  In  an  edict  of  October  9,  1706,  the 
Suprema  pointed  out  that  Clement  XI  had  threatened  punishment 
for  all  priests  who  faltered  in  their  devotion  to  the  king,  yet  not- 
withstanding this  there  were  some  who  in  the  confessional  urged 
penitents  to  disobedience  and  relieved  them  from  the  obligation  of 
their  oath  of  allegiance.  This  was  a  manifest  abuse  of  the  sacra- 
ment and,  as  it  was  the  duty  of  the  Inquisition  to  maintain  the 
purity  of  the  faith  and  prevent  the  evil  resulting  from  a  doctrine  so 
pernicious,  all  penitents  so  solicited  were  ordered,  within  nine 
days,  to  denounce  their  confessors,  under  pain  of  excommunica- 
tion and  other  discretional  penalties.^ 

The  Inquisition,  during  the  war,  was  especially  serviceable  in 
dealing  with  ecclesiastics,  who  were  beyond  the  reach  of  secular 
and  military  courts,  and  this  in  cases  where  there  was  no  pretence 
of  heresy.  The  events  of  1706 — the  capture  and  loss  of  Madrid 
by  the  Allies  and  the  revolutions  in  Valencia  and  Catalonia- 
occasioned  a  number  of  trials  for  high  treason.  The  Suprema 
was  still  in  Burgos  when  Philip  V  informed  Inquisitor-general 
Vidal  Marin  that  he  had  ordered  the  arrest  of  Juan  Fernando 
Frias,  a  cleric,  who  was  to  be  delivered  to  the  Inquisition  at  Bur- 
gos, to  be  tried  for  high  treason,  with  all  speed.  The  Suprema 
replied,  August  13th,  that  it  had  placed  Frias  in  safe  custody, 
incomunicado;  the  inquisitor-general  had  commissioned  the  Prior 
of  Santa  Maria  de  Palacio  of  Logrono  to  serve  on  the  tribunal, 
and  there  should  be  the  least  possible  delay  in  the  verification  and 
punishment  of  the  offence.     It  assured  the  king  that  he  could 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  10,  n.  2,  fol.  153. 
'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  H,  177,  fol.  251. 


276  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Book  VIII 

rely  on  the  promptest  fulfilment  of  his  wishes  and  of  the  vindicta 
publica,  for  the  Apostolic  jurisdiction  of  the  Suprema  extended  to 
the  infliction  of  the  death-penalty/  In  its  loyal  zeal  it  took  no 
thought  of  irregularity.  Indeed,  the  Suprema  seems  to  have 
issued  commissions  to  tribunals  to  act  in  such  cases.  In  1707, 
Isidro  de  Balmaseda,  Inquisitor  of  Valencia,  signs  himself  as 
"Inquisidor  y  Juez  Apostdlico  contra  los  eclesiasticos  difidentes," 
in  the  case  of  Fray  Peregrin  Gueralt,  lay-brother  of  the  Servite 
convent  of  Quarto,  whom  the  testimony  showed  to  be  an  adherent 
of  the  Archduke  Charles,  industriously  carrying  intelligence  to 
the  Allies  and,  on  his  return,  spreading  false  reports,  to  the  dis- 
turbance of  men's  minds.  In  this  trial  the  formality  of  a  clamosa 
by  the  fiscal  was  omitted ;  the  inquisitors  had  the  testimony  taken 
and  on  receiving  it  ordered  the  arrest  of  Gueralt  without  submitting 
it  to  calificadores.^ 

From  this  time  forward  the  Inquisition  was  at  the  service  of  the 
State  whenever  it  was  required  to  suppress  opinions  that  were 
regarded  as  dangerous  though,  when  its  interests  clashed  with 
those  of  the  crown,  the  cases  of  Macanaz  and  Belando  show  that 
it  could  still  assert  its  aggressive  independence.  As  the  century 
wore  on,  however,  it  became  more  and  more  subservient.  A 
writer  about  1750,  while  regretting  that  it  did  not  repress  the 
Probabilism  of  the  fashionable  Moral  Theology,  gives  it  hearty 
praise  for  its  political  utility;  it  is  not  only,  he  says,  engaged  in 
preserving  the  purity  of  the  faith,  but,  in  an  ingenious  way,  it 
maintains  the  peace  of  the  State  and  the  subordination  due  to 
the  king  and  the  magistracy.  In  his  wars  Philip  V  made  use 
occasionally  of  its  tribunals  in  difficult  conjunctures  with  happy 
results  and  therefore  he  honored  and  distinguished  it  throughout 
his  reign.^ 

Thus,  as  its  original  functions  declined,  a  new  career  was  opened. 
We  have  seen  how  its  censorship  was  utilized  to  prevent  the  in- 
cursion of  modern  liberalism,  and  its  procedure  was  similarly 
employed  against  individuals.  With  the  outbreak  of  the  French 
Revolution,  its  vigilance  was  directed  especially  against  the  prop- 
agation of  the  dangerous  doctrines  of  popular  Hberty,  and  any 
expression  of  sympathy  with  events  beyond  the  Pyrenees  was 
sufficient   to   justify   prosecution.     As   early   as    1790,   Jacques 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  56,  fol.  605. 
'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  383. 
'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Mm,  130. 


Chap.  X]  UNDER  THE  RESTORATION  277 

Jorda,  a  Frenchman,  was  tried  by  the  Barcelona  tribunal  for 
propositions  antagonistic  to  the  spiritual  and  temporal  authorities, 
and  prosecutions  for  such  offences  continued  to  be  frequent.  In 
1794,  during  the  war  with  the  French  Republic,  even  so  important 
a  personage  as  Don  Antonio  Ricardo,  general-in-chief  of  the  army 
in  Roussillon,  was  on  trial  by  the  tribunal  of  Madrid  for  utter- 
ances in  sympathy  with  occurrences  in  France  and,  at  the  same 
time,  his  secretary,  Don  Josef  del  Borque,  was  undergoing  a  simi- 
lar experience  in  the  Logrono  tribunal.^  War  carried  on  in  such 
fashion  could  not  fail  to  be  disastrous. 

This  prostitution  of  an  ecclesiastical  tribunal  to  temporal  pur- 
poses was  one  of  the  reasons  given  by  the  Cortes  of  Cadiz  for  its 
abolition.  Even  its  chief  defender.  Fray  Maestro  Alvarado,  could 
not  deny  the  accusation,  but,  he  turned  the  tables  by  ascribing 
the  fault  to  the  Jansenists,  to  whom  the  orthodox  attributed  all 
the  evils  of  the  time.  It  was  they,  he  argued  who  mingled  religion 
and  politics,  and  set  the  State  above  the  Church.^  He  did  not  live 
to  see  the  refutation  of  his  dialectics,  when  Ultramontanism 
triumphed  in  the  Restoration,  and  the  political  functions  of  the 
Inquisition  became  still  more  prominent.  In  1814,  a  copy  of 
the  treaty  of  July  30th  with  Louis  XVIII  was  sent  to  the  tribunals 
in  order  that  they  might  enforce  the  clauses  appertaining  to  them, 
and  when,  in  1815,  the  news  of  Napoleon's  return  from  Elba  was 
received.  King  Fernando,  by  an  order  of  April  8th,  included  the 
tribunals  of  the  Inquisition  in  the  instructions  given  to  the  military 
and  ecclesiastical  authorities  to  keep  watch  on  the  frontier  against 
surprises,  and  to  guard  in  the  interior  against  the  artifices  and 
seductions  of  the  disaffected.'  In  fact,  we  may  say,  the  chief 
work  expected  of  the  Inquisition  was  that  of  the  haute  police,  for 
which  its  organization  rendered  it  especially  fitted.  April  8,  1817 
we  find  it  notified  that  the  refugees,  General  Renovales  and  Colonel 
Peon,  accomplices  in  the  attempted  rising  of  Juan  Diaz  Porlier  in 
Galicia,  were  hovering  on  the  Portuguese  border.  The  tribunal 
of  Santiago  (Galicia)  was  therefore  to  put  itself  in  communication 
with  that  of  Coimbra,  it  was  to  devise  means  for  their  capture  and, 
through  its  commissioners  and  familiars,  find  out  what  was  on 
foot,  for  the  security  of  the  throne  and  of  the  altar  required  of  the 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 
'  Cartas  del  Filosofo  rancio,  II,  496. 
'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  559. 


278  POLITICAL  AGTiriTY  [Book  VIII 

Holy  OfRce  extreme  vigilance  under  existing  circumstances.  The 
inquisitor-general  forwarded  this  to  Galicia  with  orders  to  execute 
it  "at  once,  at  once,  at  once"  and,  not  content  with  this,  instruc- 
tions were  sent  to  the  tribunals  of  Murcia,  Cordova,  Saragossa  and 
Barcelona,  all  of  which  responded  with  promises  of  the  utmost 
activity  and  of  watchfulness  over  reactionaries/  So,  in  1818  the 
Logrono  tribunal  reported  that  its  commissioner  at  Hemani 
(Guipiizcoa)  reported  that  he  had  heard  a  person  utter  the  prop- 
osition "La  nacion  es  soberana."  To  this  the  Suprema  replied 
that  this  was  a  matter  of  high  importance  and  might  lead  to  great 
results.  Llano  must  make  a  formal  denunciation  with  all  details; 
also  he  must  declare  why  he  suspected  Don  Joseph  Joaquin  de 
Mariategui,  and  how  he  knows  of  his  journey  to  France  and  Eng- 
land and  his  relations  with  the  refugees  there — all  of  which  must 
be  done  with  the  utmost  caution  and  speed  and  the  results  be 
reported.- 

It  is  scarce  worth  while  to  multiply  trivial  details  like  these  to 
indicate  how  efficient  a  political  agency  the  Inquisition  had  become 
under  the  Restoration.  Its  activity  in  this  direction  continued 
until  the  end  and  when,  in  the  Revolution  of  1820  at  Seville,  on 
March  10th,  the  doors  of  the  secret  prison  were  thrown  open,  the 
three  prisoners  liberated  were  political.^ 

Besides  these  direct  political  services,  the  Inquisition  was  some- 
times called  upon  by  the  State  to  aid  in  enforcing  secular  laws, 
when  the  civil  organization  found  itself  unequal  to  the  duty.  The 
most  conspicuous  instance  of  this  is  found  in  the  somewhat 
incongruous  matter  of  preventing  the  export  of  horses. 

From  a  very  early  period  this  was  regarded  with  great  jealousy. 
From  the  twelfth  century  onward,  the  Cortes  of  Leon  and  Castile, 
in  their  petitions,  constantly  asked  that  the  prohibition  should 
be  enforced  and,  at  those  of  Burgos  in  1338,  Alfonso  XI  decreed 
death  and  confiscation  for  it,  even  if  the  offenders  were  hidalgos, 
a  ferocious  provision  which  was  renewed  by  Ferdinand  and  Isa- 
bella in  1499.^  Aragon,  which  lay  between  Castile  and  France, 
suffered  from  this  embargo.  The  Cortes  of  Monzon,  in  1528, 
petitioned  Charles  V  for  the  pardon  of  certain  citizens  who  had 


'  MS.  penes  me.  '  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  559. 

'  Relacion  historica  de  la  Juderia  de  SeviUa,  p.  49  (Sevilla,  1849). 

'  Cortes  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  I,  450. — Nueva  Recop.,  Lib.  vi,  Tit.  xviii,  ley  12. 


Chap.  X]  EXPORTATION  OF  SOUSES  279 

drawn  horses  from  Castile  and  were  condemned  to  death  and 
other  penalties,  to  which  Charles  replied  that  he  would  not  pardon 
those  who  had  carried  horses  to  France;  as  for  those  who  had 
merely  taken  them  to  Aragon,  if  they  could  be  pointed  out,  he 
would  grant  them  pardon.  Another  complaint  of  the  Cortes 
indicates  the  rigid  methods  adopted  to  prevent  evasions.  If  an 
Aragonese  went  to  Castile  on  business,  he  was  allowed  to  remain 
ninety  days;  if  he  exceeded  the  limit,  on  his  return  his  horse  was 
seized  at  the  frontier,  even  though  at  the  same  place  by  which 
he  had  entered.*  Severe  as  were  these  measures,  they  were 
ineffective.  Contraband  trade  of  all  kinds  flourished  in  the  wild 
mountain  districts  along  the  French  frontier,  and  the  prohibition 
respecting  a  beast  of  burden,  which  transported  itself,  was  notori- 
ously difficult  of  enforcement. 

In  1552,  we  find  the  Suprema  ordering  the  Saragossa  tribunal 
to  prosecute  and  punish  one  of  its  commissioners  in  the  mountains 
of  Jaca,  accused  of  passing  horses  to  France,  but  this  was  evidently 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  offender  was  entitled  to  the  fuero  of  the 
Inquisition.^  There  was  as  yet  no  ingenious  attribution  of  sus- 
picion of  heresy  to  this  contraband  trade  and,  when  in  1564,  the 
Cortes  of  Monzon  prohibited  the  exportation  of  horses  and  mares 
from  Aragon,  the  only  reason  alleged  was  their  scarcity  in  the 
kingdom.^  The  third  Lateran  Council,  however,  in  1179,  had 
denounced  excommunication  and  severe  penalties  on  all  who 
furnished  the  infidel  with  warlike  material,  and  this  had  been 
carried  into  the  Corpus  Juris;  Nicholas  IV  had  specifically  included 
horses  and  had  sharpened  the  penalties;  Boniface  VIII,  in  1299, 
had  placed  the  offence  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Holy  Office, 
and  had  ordered  all  inquisitors  to  make  vigilant  inquest  in  their 
districts,  and  the  prohibition  was  repeated  in  the  annual  bulls  In 
ccena  Domini.*  The  south  of  France,  and  especially  the  con- 
tiguous territory  of  Beam,  had  become  interpenetrated  with 
heresy  and  a  colorable  pretext  was  afforded  of  invoking  the  aid 
of  the  Inquisition  to  suppress  the  contraband  traffic. 

This  was  first  confided,  in  1573,  to  the  tribunal  of  Saragossa, 


'  Donner,  Anales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  ii,  cap.  xli. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  79,  fol.  75. 

'  Fueros  y  Observancias  del  Reyno  de  Aragon,  fol.  215.  Cf.  fol.  194  (Zara- 
goza,  1624). 

*  Lib.  V  in  Sexto,  Tit.  vi,  cap.  6. — Digard,  Registres  de  Boniface  VIII,  n. 
3354.— Bullar.  Roman.  I,  507,  718;  II,  496. 


280  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Book  VIII 

by  a  commission  empowering  it  to  act  in  the  premises.  It  accord- 
ingly inserted  in  the  Edict  of  Faith  a  clause  requiring  the  denun- 
ciation of  all  who  sold  arms  or  horses  to  infidels,  heretics,  or 
Lutherans,  or  who  passed,  or  assisted  to  pass,  them  to  Lutheran 
lands.  This  brought  in  numerous  denunciations  but,  as  there 
were  no  means  of  knowing  what  became  of  the  horses  after  they 
passed  the  border,  the  tribunal  was  powerless  to  prosecute  and 
so  reported  to  the  Suprema.  It  replied,  August  25,  1573,  that 
further  provision  was  necessary;  assuming  that  B4arn  was  inhab- 
ited by  heretics  under  heretic  rulers,  the  tribunal  could  proceed 
against  and  punish,  as  fautors  of  heretics,  those  who  bought  or 
sold  or  passed  horses  to  Beam,  even  when  it  did  not  appear  that 
they  had  been  sold  to  heretics,  and  it  was  urged  to  be  active  in  the 
matter.  The  edict  was  therefore  modified  to  include,  as  fautors 
of  heretics,  all  concerned  in  passing  horses  to  Beam;  it  was  sent, 
with  a  secretary,  to  all  the  principal  fairs  where  horses  were  sold, 
to  be  published  in  the  chm'ch,  with  notice  that  the  commissioner 
would  receive  any  one  who  desired  to  unburden  his  conscience. 
Exportation  was  forbidden,  unless  the  owner  was  known  and 
would  give  security  that  the  horses  were  not  to  be  taken  to  Beam, 
or  else  would  present  himself  with  his  horses  before  the  inquisi- 
tors within  a  designated  time,  so  that  note  could  be  taken  of  the 
animals  and  an  account  be  required  as  to  their  destination. 
Another  device,  which  proved  effective,  was  to  register  all  the 
horses  at  the  fairs,  with  descriptions  and  the  names  of  the  owners, 
who  were  required  to  keep  an  account  of  all  sales  and  purchasers. 
This  however,  applied  only  to  natives;  as  for  Frenchmen  and 
Bearnais,  any  horses  that  they  had  were  seized  without  ceremony; 
if  the  owner  was  a  Frenchman,  the  horses  would  be  kept,  awaiting 
instructions  from  the  Suprema;  if  a  Bearnais,  he  was  seized  with 
his  horses  and  prosecuted,  as  being  included  in  the  Edict.  Span- 
iards found  with  horses  going  towards  France  or  Beam,  were 
treated  like  Frenchmen — the  horses  were  sold  to  pay  expenses  and, 
if  any  balance  was  left,  it  was  handed  to  the  receiver.  Pains, 
moreover  were  taken  to  find  who  made  a  trade  of  passing  horses 
to  France;  they  were  arrested  on  some  pretext  and  thrown  into 
prison;  if  evidence  were  found  against  them,  they  were  prose- 
cuted ;  if  not,  after  detention  they  were  released  under  bail,  because, 
as  the  inquisitors  said,  there  was  no  penalty  expressed  in  the 
Edict  or  in  the  laws  of  the  kingdom.  In  view  of  the  risk  that  the 
parties  might  apply  for  a  firma  or  manifestacion,  the  Suprema 


Chap.  X]  EXPORTATION  OF  HORSES  281 

was  asked  for  further  instructions,  when  it  replied,  July  1,  1574, 
that  the  prosecutions  were  to  be  conducted  as  in  cases  of  heresy, 
the  accused  be  required  to  give  their  genealogies  and  then,  if 
recourse  was  had  to  manifestacion,  it  was  to  be  met  with  an  asser- 
tion that  the  case  was  a  matter  of  faith.  Yet  the  fraudulent 
character  of  this  assumption  is  revealed  in  the  admission  that  the 
secular  magistrates  could  prosecute  for  the  offence.' 

Thus  the  zeal  and  activity  of  the  Inquisition,  working  through 
its  disregard  of  all  laws,  and  its  methods  of  procedure,  virtually 
placed  under  its  control  the  whole  trade  of  the  kingdom  in  horse- 
flesh. Encouraged  by  this,  the  Saragossa  tribunal  sought  a  still 
further  extension  of  jurisdiction  and,  in  1576,  it  reported  to  the 
Suprema  great  activity  in  the  exportation  to  France,  Beam  and 
Gascony  of  arquebuses,  powder,  sheet  iron  for  cuirasses  and  other 
warlike  material,  and  it  suggested  an  edict  concerning  that  trade 
similar  to  that  respecting  horses.  To  this  the  Suprema  assented, 
with  the  caution  that  it  must  be  understood  that  these  arms  and 
munitions  were  intended  for  heretics.^  The  difficulty  inherent 
in  this  probably  prevented  action,  for  I  have  met  with  no  case 
of  its  enforcement. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  Saragossa  tribunal  pointed  out  that 
there  was  no  penalty  defined  by  law  for  the  offence.  This  omission 
was  rectified  in  the  Cortes  of  Tarazona,  in  1592,  which  deprived 
of  what  was  known  as  the  via  privilegiata  a  long  list  of  crimes, 
including  that  of  passing  horses  and  munitions  of  war  to  Beam 
and  France,  with  the  addition  that  it  could  be  punished  with  the 
death-penalty.^ 

A  decision  of  the  Suprema,  rendered  to  the  Barcelona  tribunal 
in  1582,  was  to  the  effect  that,  if  horses  were  taken  to  France,  it 
must  be  ascertained  whether  they  were  for  heretics  in  order  to 
justify  prosecution  by  the  Inquisition,  but,  if  to  Beam,  that  alone 
sufficed.*  In  time  this  nice  distinction  was  abandoned,  although 
the  fiction  was  maintained  that  it  was  a  matter  of  faith.  About 
1640,  an  inquisitor  informs  us  that  it  was  customary  to  punish 
those  who  exported  horses  or  warlike  material  to  France,  even 
though  there  were  no  evidence  that  they  were  for  heretics,  for  the 

'  ArcHvo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  2,  n.  16,  fol.  272.— Archive  de 
Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  82,  foL  130;  Lib.  939,  fol.  115. 
'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  83,  fol.  26. 
'  Argensola,  op.  cit.,  p.  199.  ,      -  ,   o 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  8. 


282  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  [Book  VIII 

act  was  very  prejudicial.  The  accused  was  generally  confined 
in  the  secret  prison,  the  trial  was  conducted  as  one  of  faith,  and 
was  voted  upon  in  a  regular  consulta  de  f  e,  including  the  episcopal 
Ordinary.  Unless  the  case  was  light,  the  culprit  appeared  in  a 
public  auto.  If  he  belonged  to  the  lower  classes,  he  was  sometimes 
scourged ;  if  of  higher  estate,  he  suffered  exile  and  a  fine,  together 
with  forfeiture  of  the  horse  or,  if  it  had  been  passed  successfully, 
he  paid  double  its  value.  In  the  case  of  a  Benedictine  abbot,  who 
had  passed  one  or  two  horses  to  France,  the  Suprema  fined  him  in 
six  hundred  ducats  and  suspended  him  from  his  functions  for  a 
year.  Sometimes  the  sentence  included  disability  for  pubhc 
office  for  both  the  culprit  and  his  descendants.' 

Oddly  enough,  in  the  case  of  Antonio  Perez  this  matter  emerges 
for  a  moment  in  a  manner  significant  of  the  uses  to  which  it  could 
be  put.  In  the  Spring  of  1591,  when  it  was  desirable  to  suppress 
Diego  de  Heredia,  Inquisitor-general  Quiroga  wrote,  March  20th 
to  the  Saragossa  tribunal,  that  he  was  suspected  of  passing  horses 
to  France.  By  April  4th,  the  tribunal  was  taking  testimony  to 
show  that,  a  year  or  two  before,  he  had  sold  two  horses  to  a  French- 
man for  three  hundred  and  sixty  hbras  and  that  they  were  to  be 
taken  to  France.  There  had  been  no  secrecy  in  the  transaction 
and  further  evidence  was  obtained  that  Heredia  brought  horses 
from  Castile  to  Saragossa,  whence  they  were  taken  to  the  mountains 
and  were  seen  no  more.^  The  events  of  May  24th,  however, 
rendered  further  researches  in  this  direction  superfluous. 

When  this  peculiar  inquisitorial  function  was  abandoned,  does 
not  clearly  appear.  In  1667  the  Barcelona  tribimal  prosecuted 
Eudaldo  Penstevan  Bonguero  for  exporting  horses  to  France. 
Already  it  would  seem  that  the  cognizance  of  the  offence  had 
become  obsolete  for,  in  1664  the  Suprema  had  called  in  question 
the  competence  of  the  tribunal  to  deal  with  it,  when  it  replied, 
July  23d,  that  it  held  a  papal  brief  conferring  the  faculty.  The 
Suprema  asked  for  an  authentic  copy  of  this  or  of  the  instructions 
empowering  it  to  act,  but  neither  was  forthcoming  and,  on  Novem- 
ber 11,  1667,  the  Suprema  again  asked  for  them  in  order  to  decide 
the  case  of  Bonguero.^  We  should  probably  not  err  in  considering 
this  to  mark  the  last  attempt  to  enforce  a  jurisdiction  so  foreign 
to  the  real  objects  of  the  Holy  Office. 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xxv,  xxvi. 

'  Bibl.  nationals  de  Prance,  fends  espagnol,  T.  85,  fol.  7. 

"  Libro  XIII  de  Cartas  (MSS.  of  Am.  Philos.  Society). 


Chap.  X]  COINAGE  283 

A  still  more  eccentric  invocation  of  the  terror  felt  for  the  Inqui- 
sition, when  the  secular  machinery  failed  to  accomplish  its  purpose, 
occurred  when  the  debasement  of  the  coinage  threw  Spanish 
finance  into  inextricable  confusion.  The  miserable  vellon  tokens 
were  forced  into  circulation  at  rates  enormously  beyond  their 
intrinsic  value,  and  statesmen  exhausted  their  ingenuity  in  devising 
clumsy  expedients  to  arrest  their  inevitable  depreciation — punish- 
ments of  all  kinds  to  keep  down  the  premium  on  silver,  and  laws 
of  maximum  to  regulate  prices,  from  shirts  to  house-rent.  The 
rude  coinage,  mostly  battered  and  worn,  was  easily  counterfeited, 
and  there  was  large  profit  in  manufacturing  it  abroad  and  flooding 
Spain  with  it  at  its  fictitious  valuation.  Sanguinaiy  laws  were 
enacted  to  counteract  this  temptation,  and  the  offence  was  punish- 
able, like  heresy,  with  burning,  confiscation  and  the  disabilities 
of  descendants.  To  render  this  more  effective,  it  was  declared 
to  be  a  case  for  the  Inquisition  and,  like  the  exportation  of  horses, 
there  was  an  attempt  to  disguise  it  as  a  matter  of  faith.  A  carta 
acordada  of  February  6,  1627,  informed  the  tribunals  that  it  fell 
within  their  jurisdiction  if  any  heretic  or  f  autor  of  heretics  imported 
vellon  money  for  the  purpose  of  exporting  gold  or  silver  or  other 
munitions  of  war,  thus  weakening  the  forces  of  the  king,  and  all 
such  offences  belonged  exclusively  to  the  Inquisition.  But  when 
this  was  done  by  Cathohcs,  for  the  sake  of  gain,  the  jurisdiction 
belonged  exclusively  to  the  king  and  as  such  he  granted  it  cumu- 
latively to  the  Inquisition,  with  the  caution  that,  in  competencias, 
censures  were  not  to  be  employed.  A  papal  brief  confirming 
this  was  expected  and  meanwhile  such  prosecutions  were  to  be 
conducted  as  matters  of  faith.  It  is  not  likely  that  Urban  VIII 
condescended  to  authorize  such  misuse  of  the  power  delegated  to 
the  Inquisition  for,  in  little  more  than  a  year,  Philip  IV  revoked 
this  action  and  confined  the  cognizance  of  the  offence  to  the  secular 
courts.^ 

If,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Inquisition  was  not  a  poHtical  machine 
of  the  importance  that  has  been  imagined,  this  was  not  through 
any  lack  of  willingness  on  its  part  to  be  so  employed.  When  its 
services  were  wanted,  they  were  at  the  command  of  the  State  and 
if  this  rarely  occurred  under  the  Hapsburg  princes,  it  was  because 
they  were  not  needed. 

'  MSS.  of  the  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218b,  p.  259.— Novfs.  Recop., 
Lib.  IX,  Tit.  xii,  ley  11. 


CHAPTER    XL 

JANSENISM. 

Jansenism  is  a  convenient  tenn  wherewith  to  stigmatize  as 
heresy  whatever  is  displeasing  to  Ultramontanism,  whether  m 
Church  or  State,  and  it  served  as  a  pretext  for  the  continued 
existence  of  the  Inquisition,  after  the  older  aberrations  were  exter- 
minated. As  a  concrete  heresy,  however,  it  defies  accurate  theo- 
logical definition.  It  took  its  rise  in  the  interminable  disputes 
over  the  insoluble  questions  of  predestination,  grace  and  free 
will,  as  settled  by  St.  Augustin  and  the  Second  Council  of  Orange, 
and  accepted  by  the  Church,  till  the  use  made  of  predestination 
by  Calvin  forced  a  modification  by  the  Coimcil  of  Trent,  and  the 
daring  Jesuit,  Luis  de  Molina,  revived  the  problem.  Then  the 
discussion  became  a  trial  of  strength  between  the  rising  Company 
of  Jesus  and  its  elder  rivals,  the  Augustinians  and  Dominicans, 
when  Clement  VIII  vainly  imposed  silence  on  the  disputants. 
Cornells  Jansen,  Bishop  of  Ypres,  sought  to  vindicate  St.  Augustin 
in  his  work  entitled  "Augustinus,"  around  which  the  controversy 
raged,  until  the  Jesuits  won  a  victory,  in  1653,  by  procuring  the 
condemnation  of  the  famous  Five  Propositions,  drawn  from  the 
work — a  condemnation  to  which  the  followers  of  Jansen  assented, 
while  denying  that  he  had  taught  them.' 

Another  contest,  of  which  we  shall  see  the  results,  was  waged 
over  the  writings  of  Cardinal  Henry  Noris,  in  which  the  Jesuits 
suffered  defeat.  He  was  also  an  Augustinian  and  professor  of 
ecclesiastical  history  at  Pisa,  who  busied  himself  in  vindicating 
the  doctrines  of  St.  Augustin.  Two  of  his  works,  the  Historia 
Pelagiana  and  the  Dissertatio  de  Quinta  Synodo  (Ecumenica,  were 
accused,  before  publication,  of  Baianism  and  Jansenism;  the  MSS. 


'  Urbani  PP.  VIII  Bull.  In  eminenti,  6  Mart.  1641.— Innocent  PP.  X.  BuU. 
Cum  occasione,  31  Mali,  1653  (Bullar.  V,  369,  486). 

A  precursor  of  Jansen  was  Michel  de  Bay  or  Baius,  a  theologian  of  Louvain, 
whose  seventy-nine  propositions  were  condemned  by  Pius  V  and  Gregory  XIII 
and  were  publicly  abjured  by  him  before  the  University,  May  24,  1580.  His 
name  does  not  occur  in  the  Spanish  Indexes  before  that  of  1632,  (p.  761)  where 
he  is  spoken  of  as  a  man  of  high  reputation  who  abandoned  his  errors. 
(284) 


Chap.  XI]  NATURE  OF  THE  HERESY  285 

were  ordered  to  Rome  and  were  carefully  examined  by  revisers, 
who  pronounced  them  orthodox  and  licence  to  print  was  granted. 
When  published,  interpolations  in  the  press  were  charged  and 
disproved.  Noris  was  called  to  Rome  as  chief  of  the  Vatican 
Library  by  Innocent  XI  and,  as  this  was  regarded  as  a  step  to  the 
cardinalate,  fresh  accusations  of  Jansenism  were  brought  against 
him.  His  promotion  was  deferred;  eight  theologians  were  set 
to  work  upon  his  books;  their  favorable  report  was  confirmed 
by  the  Congregation  of  the  Inquisition,  and  Innocent  appointed 
him  one  of  its  consultors.  Attacks  on  him  continued,  which  he 
answered  in  five  dissertations,  printed  in  1685,  when  Innocent 
gave  him  a  cardinal's  hat  and  made  him  member  of  several  im- 
portant congregations,  including  that  of  the  Inquisition,  in  which 
he  served  with  distinction,  until  his  death  in  1704.* 

France,  however,  was  the  principal  seat  of  Jansenism,  where 
the  impalpable  doctrinal  points  involved,  after  the  decision  of 
1653,  were  obscured  by  more  living  issues.  The  Jansenists 
represented  the  more  austere  and  puritanical  portion  of  the  clergy, 
as  opposed  to  the  supporters  of  the  relaxed  morality  of  Probabil- 
ism,  of  which  the  Jesuits  were  the  foremost  advocates — an  aspect 
of  the  controversy  which  has  been  immortalized  by  Pascal. 
Besides,  as  Rome  had  decided  against  Jansen,  those  who  had 
defended  him  were  naturally  led  to  minimize  the  .authority  of 
the  Holy  See,  to  disregard  its  condemnatory  utterances  as  sub- 
reptitious,  to  assert  the  supremacy  of  general  councils,  and  to 
exalt  the  independence  and  privileges  of  the  Galilean  Church, 
which,  since  the  time  of  St.  Louis,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  had 
steadily  resisted  the  encroachments  of  the  papacy.  There  was  a 
reinfusion  of  theology  in  the  quarrel,  when  the  Jesuits  procured 
the  condemnation,  in  the  Bull  Unigenitus,  of  Quesnel's  views  on 
sufficing  contrition  and  inchoate  charity,  but  this  was  only  another 
incident  in  the  struggle  between  rigorism  and  laxism. 

While  Jansenism  thus  was  denounced  as  a  heresy,  it  really 
was  concerned  much  less  with  faith  than  with  discipline  and 
morals,  and  every  one  hostile  to  ProbabiHsm,  Jesuitism  and 
Ultramontanism  was  stigmatized  as  a  Jansenist.  Louis  XIV 
and  Madame  de  Maintenon,  who  had  persecuted  the  original 
JanseiGsts,  were  of  the  sect,  because  of  their  enforcement  of  the 


*  Letter  of  Benedict  XIV  to  Inquisitor-general  Prado  y  Cuesta  (Semandrio 
erudito,  XXX,  53). 


286  JANSENISM  [Book  Vm 

royal  prerogative;  Bossuet  was  suspected  of  Jansenism  for  his 
defence  of  the  Declaration  of  the  Galilean  clergy,  in  1682,  against 
the  Ultramontane  doctrines  of  the  papal  power;  Cardinal  Aguirre 
was  a  Jansenist,  because  he  opposed  the  laxity  of  Probabilism, 
and  so  was  even  the  Jesuit  General,  Tirso  Gonzdlez,  because  he 
wrote  a  book  to  prove  that  the  Jesuits  were  not  all  laxists.  When, 
under  the  protection  of  Leopold,  Grand-duke  of  Tuscany,  Bishop 
Scipione  de'Ricci,  in  his  Council  of  Pistoja,  in  1786,  sought, 
without  papal  authority,  to  effect  an  internal  reformation  of  his 
Church,  he  was  a  Jansenist  and,  after  his  protector  had  been 
transferred  to  the  imperial  throne,  Pius  VI,  in  1794,  had  the 
satisfaction  of  condemning,  in  the  bull  Auctorem  fidd,  no  less  than 
eighty-five  errors  of  the  Council,  mostly  Jansenistic.  In  France 
the  clergy  were,  for  the  most  part,  attached  to  Gallicanism  and 
were  largely  rigorist,  so  practically  Jansenism  flourished  and  made 
itself  felt  in  such  measures  as  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits.  The 
ex-Jesuit  Bolgeni  took  his  revenge  by  writing  a  book  to  prove 
that  the  Jacobinism  of  the  Revolution  was  merely  Jansenism  in 
action.  In  fact,  the  Civil  Constitution  of  the  Clergy  of  1790  was 
clearly  Jansenistic  because,  without  meddling  with  dogma,  it 
embodied  the  democratic  development  of  Gallicanism. 

Spain  paid  little  attention  to  the  theological  controversy  over 
Jansen,  though  his  works  and  those  of  his  followers  were  duly 
condemned  by  the  Inquisition.*  It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  this 
indifference  that  when  the  great  bibliographer,  Nicolds  Antonio, 
in  defending  Prudentius  against  the  attack  of  Hincmar  of  Reims, 
pronounced  as  good  Catholic  doctrine  the  assertion  of  Prudentius 
that  the  blood  of  Christ  was  shed  only  for  believers  and  not  for 
imbelievers,  this,  which  is  virtually  the  same  as  the  fifth  of  the 
condemned  propositions  of  Jansen,  escaped  attention.  The  book 
was  printed  in  Rome  at  the  expense  of  Cardinal  Aguirre;  the 
Spanish  Inquisition  took  no  note  of  it  in  the  Indexes  of  1707  and 
1747  and  the  passage  is  retained  in  the  edition  of  1788,  produced 
under  the  auspices  of  Carlos  III.^  Yet  Spain  could  not  keep 
wholly  out  of  the  quarrel,  for  its  Flemish  provinces  were  a  hot-bed 
of  Jansenism  which  could  not  be  eradicated  from  the  University 
of  Louvain.  In  1649  Doctor  Rescht,  as  the  representative  of 
the   University  and   of    its   great   protector   Engelbert  Dubois, 


'  Indice  de  1707,  I,  19,  28,  231-2,  478. 

'  Nic.  Anton.  Biblioth.  Vet.  Lib.  vi,  cap.  xi,  n.  268. 


Chap.  XI]  STRUGGLE  IN  FLANDERS  287 

Archbishop  of  Malines,  came  to  Madrid,  where  he  printed  and 
circulated  a  memorial  against  the  bull  of  Urban  VIII  and  the 
Archduke  Leopold  so  insulting  to  both  that  the  Inquisition  sup- 
pressed it,  by  a  decree  of  September  13,  1650.'  This  did  not  cool 
the  ardor  of  the  Flemish  followers  of  Jansen  and,  in  1656,  Alex- 
ander VII  felt  obliged  to  address  Don  John  of  Austria,  then 
Governor  of  the  Low  Countries,  with  an  urgent  exhortation  to 
suppress  the  propagation  of  the  condemned  errors.^ 

The  struggle  continued  and,  soon  after  1690,  Carlos  II  was 
induced  to  issue  an  order  that  all  Jansenists  and  Rigorists  and 
other  innovators  should  be  dismissed  and  excluded  from  all  offices 
and  preferment,  secular  and  ecclesiastical.  Under  this  decree 
some  of  the  prominent  Jansenists  were  deprived  and  exiled,  among 
them  five  doctors  of  Louvain — Gummare  Huygens,  E.  van  Geet, 
G.  Baerts,  R.  Backz  and  Willem  van  den  Enden.  The  persecuted 
sect  appealed  to  Rome  and  procured  from  Innocent  XII  a  brief 
of  February  6,  1694,  addressed  to  the  bishops,  forbidding  that 
any  one  should  be  defamed  for  Jansenism  on  vague  charges,  or  be 
excluded  from  any  spiritual  function  or  office  unless  convicted, 
in  the  regular  order  of  justice,  of  having  merited  a  punishment 
so  severe.  This  trammelled  episcopal  action,  for  it  was  represented 
that  the  bishops  could  not  be  expected  to  undergo  the  expense 
and  the  labor  of  regular  trials  requiring  absolute  proof  and  sub- 
ject to  legal  cavils,  but  it  did  not  affect  the  secular  arm  and  the 
Elector  of  Bavaria,  then  Governor  of  Flanders,  reiterated  in 
October  and  November  1695,  to  the  Councils  of  the  Provinces 
and  the  University,  the  repeated  royal  orders  to  exclude  from  all 

'  Memorial  espagnol  presents  &  sa  Majesty  Catholique  centre  les  pretendus 
Jansenistes  du  Pays-Bas,  p.  45  (  s.  1.  1699). 

This  is  a  memorial  drawn  up  by  Juan  de  Palazol,  S.  J.,  in  the  name  and  by 
order  of  Tirso  Gonzdlez,  the  Jesuit  General.  To  it  I  am  indebted  for  the  details 
that  foUow. 

In  January  1691  a  congregation  of  the  Flemish  bishops  addressed  to  the 
Roman  Inquisition  an  urgent  appeal  for  help  in  their  struggle  with  the  Jansenists, 
whose  missionary  and  controversial  efforts  were  incessant  and  successful.  It 
illustrates  the  elusory  character  of  the  theological  subtilties  involved  that  the 
bishops  sent,  as  a  specially  successful  exposure  of  Jansenist  devices,  a  little  book 
\mder  the  name  of  Comelis  van  Cranebergh,  but  Rome  thought  differently  of 
it  and  condemned  it  by  decree  of  March  19,  1692.  Its  real  author  was  the  Jesuit 
Jacques  de  la  Fontaine,  who  was  one  of  the  most  zealous  champions  against 
Jansenism. — Collectio  Synodorum  Archiep.  Mechliniensis,  I,  575. — Reusch,  Der 
Index,  II,  645.— De  Backer,  IV,  230. 

^  Le  Tellier,  Recueil  des  BuUes  et  Constitutions  etc.  p.  125  (Mons,  1697). 


288  JANSENISM  [Book  VIII 

ecclesiastical  dignities  and  secular  employment  those  suspected 
of  Jansenism  and  Rigorism.  Then,  on  March  1,  1696,  Carlos 
modified  his  decrees  in  a  manner  to  embolden  the  schismatics, 
who  seem  to  have  had  abundant  popular  and  official  support. 
We  hear  of  a  writing  in  defence  of  the  Catholic  party  being  publicly 
burnt  by  the  executioner  in  Brussels,  in  front  of  the  palace  and, 
on  January  29,  1698,  the  people  of  Brussels  went  tumultuously 
to  the  Archbishop  of  Malines,  Ferdinand  de  Berlo  de  Brus, 
demanding  that  he  should  withdraw  his  opposition  to  N.  van 
Eesbeke,  who  had  been  appointed  by  the  chapter  of  the  church  of 
Sainte  Gudule  as  their  parish  priest.  This  condition  of  affairs 
led  the  Jesuit  General  Gonzalez  to  address  a  memorial  to  Carlos 
warning  him  that  this  spirit  unless  suppressed  would  lead  to  the 
ruin  of  religion  and  the  destruction  of  his  dominions,  and  suppli- 
cating, in  terms  much  less  respectful  than  Spanish  custom  required, 
that  he  should  represent  to  the  pope  the  dangerous  consequences 
of  the  papal  brief,  that  he  should  punish  those  who  procured  it  as 
well  as  the  authors  of  a  memorial  presented  to  Carlos  in  1696  and 
that  he  should  order  the  Flemish  bishops  to  disregard  the  pretexts 
put  forward  as  to  vague  accusations.  The  Jesuits  overshot  the 
mark  in  this  insolent  interference,  and  the  memorial  was  sup- 
pressed by  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  in  a  decree  of  September  28, 
1698,  as  insulting  to  the  authorities,  secular  and  ecclesiastical, 
of  Flanders.' 

Spain,  though  with  less  success  than  France,  had  long  been 
struggling  to  emancipate  itself  from  papal  control,  and  it  is 
a  curious  paradox  that  its  most  resolute  assertion  of  political 
Jansenism  arose  from  an  attempt  to  discredit  doctrinal  Jansenism. 
Jesuit  influence  had  gradually  dominated  the  Inquisition  and,  as 
we  have  seen.  Cardinal  Noris  was  the  special  object  of  Jesuit 
hatred.  When,  in  1721,  the  Augustinian  Manso  published  at 
Valladolid  his  "S.  Augustinus  de  Virtutibus  Infidelium,"  the  work 
was  condemned  and  suppressed  in  1723,  whUe  virulent  attacks 
on  him  by  Jesuits,  in  both  Latin  and  the  vernacular,  were  allowed 
free  circulation.^     The  culmination  came  when  the  Jesuit  Padre 


'  These  details  are  not  without  interest  as  indicating  the  causes  which  led  to 
the  estabUshment  of  the  still  existing  schismatic  see  of  Utrecht. 

'  Suplemento  6,  el  Indice,  1739,  p.  36. — Manuel  F.  Migu^lez,  Jansenismo  y 
Regalismo  en  Espafia,  pp.  98  sqq.  (Valladolid,  1895).  Fray  Migu^Iez  is  an 
Augustinian,  seeking  to  vindicate  St.  Augustin  and  his  Order  from  Jesuit  attacks. 
His  work  is  based  on  inedited  documentary  material. 


Chap.  XI]  QUARREL  OVER  CARDINAL  NORIS  289 

Rdbago,  confessor  of  Fernando  VI,  controlled  the  weak  and  irreso- 
lute inquisitor-general  PIrez  de  Prado  y  Cuesta,  bringing  about 
an  anomalous  condition  in  which  the  Inquisition  defied  the  Holy 
See,  the  so-called  Jansenists  became  the  warmest  defenders  of 
papal  authority,  and  the  Jesuits  asserted  the  supremacy  of  the 
regalias. 

When  Prado  y  Cuesta  assumed  his  office,  in  September,  1747,  it 
was  announced  that  the  Suprema  had  a  new  Index  Expurgatorius 
in  an  advanced  state  of  preparation  by  the  Jesuits  Casani  and 
Carrasco.  The  printing  was  nearly  finished,  when  the  1744 
edition  of  the  BibliotMque  Janseniste  of  the  Jesuit  Dominique 
de  Colonia  reached  Madrid.  This  was  substantially  a  polemical 
work,  a  catalogue  of  writers  and  books  opposed  to  Jesuitism, 
and  the  Jesuits  conceived  the  brilliant  idea  of  printing  it  as  an 
appendix  to  the  Index,  and  thus  suppressing  at  one  blow  all 
antagonistic  literature.  Some  trifling  omissions  were  made  but, 
when  the  Index  appeared,  it  contained  Noris's  Historia  Pelagiana 
and  Dissertatio.  There  were  many  other  equally  orthodox  books, 
but  these  became  the  storm-centre  as  they  had  been  repeatedly 
and  formally  approved  by  the  Holy  See,  after  special  examination. 
Appeal  was  made  to  Benedict  XIV,  who  addressed,  July  31,  1748, 
to  Prado  y  Cuesta  a  brief  in  which  he  recited  the  investigations 
into  Noris's  books  and  pointed  out  that  all  questions  concerning 
them  had  been  finally  settled  by  the  solemn  judgement  of  Rome, 
so  that  it  was  not  lawful  for  the  Spanish  Inquisition  to  reopen  the 
question,  and  much  less  to  condemn  the  books.  He  could  not 
patiently  endure  the  injury  thus  without  reason  inflicted  on  Noris 
and  he  admonished  Prado  y  Cuesta  to  find  means  to  avert  discord 
between  Spain  and  Rome.* 

The  inquisitor-general  adopted  the  favorite  inquisitorial  device 
of  evasion.  He  replied  that  he  had  found  the  Index  nearly  printed 
when  he  assumed  office;  he  had  endeavored  to  have  it  issued  with- 
out his  name,  but  this  was  impossible;  he  had  not  known  that 
Noris's  name  was  in  it  until  the  Augustinians  complained,  and  he 
dwelt  on  the  difficulty  of  making  a  change,  especially  in  view  of 
the  grave  reasons  for  which  the  books  had  been  included.  This 
correspondence  was  strictly  secret,  but  the  brief  had  been  shown 
in  Rome  to  the  Augustinian  procurador-general,  who  sent  a  copy 
to  Madrid,  where  it  was  busily  transcribed  and  circulated  through- 


'  Migu^lez,  op.  cit.,  pp.  90-5. — Semandrio  enidito,  XXX,  53. 
VOL.  IV  19 


290  JANSENISM  [Book  VIII 

out  the  land,  creating  a  tremendous  sensation.  Prado  y  Cuesta, 
addressed,  September  16,  1748,  a  bitter  complaint  to  Benedict, 
dwelling  on  the  indiscretion  of  allowing  such  matters  to  be  gossiped 
on  the  streets,  and  of  affording  such  comfort  to  the  heretics.  The 
Jesuit  party  openly  proclaimed  the  independence  of  the  Spanish 
Inquisition  in  such  matters,  and  asserted  that  its  honor  was  at 
stake.  Padre  R^bago  undertook  to  manage  the  king  and  induced 
him  to  inform  the  pope  that  he  would  not  permit  any  invasion  of 
the  privileges  of  the  Inquisition. 

The  affair  dragged  on.    Portocarrero,  the  ambassador  to  Rome, 
hurried  to  Spain  and  came  to  a  compromise  with  Prado  y  Cuesta, 
but  Rdbago,  who  would  agree  to  nothing  but  the  submission  of 
the  Holy  See,  persuaded  Fernando  to  hold  firm  and  the  affair 
became  a  struggle  between  the  regahas  and  the  papal  supremacy, 
in  which  Noris  was  merely  an  incident.     Fernando  wrote,  July  1, 
1749,  to  Benedict,  stating  plainly  that  he  would  not  permit  his 
rights  and  those  of  the  Inquisition  to  be  impaired.     It  was  of 
no  importance  whether  the  faithful  in  Spain  could  or  could  not 
read  the  works  of  Noris,  but  it  was  of  supreme  importance  to  him 
to  remove  the  discord  excited  among  his  subjects.     Benedict 
replied  moderately  and  the  king  relented  in  so  far  as  to  offer  a 
compromise,  which  would  have  closed  the  matter  had  it  not  be- 
come doubly  embroiled  by  a  papal  decree  of  September  24th 
condemning  Colonia's  BibliotMque  Janseniste,  thus  putting  on  the 
Roman  Index  a  considerable  section  of  the  Spanish.     In  a  letter 
to  the  Spanish  agent  in  Rome,  Rdbago  threatened  in  retaliation 
that  the  king  would  not  only  prohibit  the  works  of  Noris  but  the 
Roman  Index  itself.     Still  more  audacious  were  the  instructions 
which  he  sent  to  Portocarrero.     Of  these  there  were  two  sets, 
one  long  and  argumentative,  the  other  briefer,  to  be  used  only  in 
case  of  necessity.     It  insolently  asserted  that  the  papal  eagerness 
in  defence  of  Noris  was  a  new  argument  against  infallibility; 
that  Popes  Liberius  and  Honorius,  for  suspicions  no  graver,  had 
been  anathematized  by  a  synod,  and  it  would  be  humiUating  to 
his  Hohness  if  the  same  should  happen  to  him.     Portocarrero 
was  a  trained  diplomatist  but,  in  an  audience  of  November  26, 
1749,  he  handed  to  Benedict  a  copy  of  this  portentous  document, 
translated  into  choice  Itahan,and  the  next  day  he  wrote  cheerfully 
to  Rdbago  that  he  thought  it  would  end  the  affair;  the  pope  was 
displeased  but,  knowing  his  character,  this  need  cause  no  alarm. 
Benedict  seems  to  have  passed  over  in  dignified  silence  this 


Chap.  XI]  QUARREL  OVER  CARDINAL  NORIS  291 

indecent  threat  that  he  might  be  anathematized  for  heresy,  but 
the  breach  was  wider  than  ever.  In  the  Spring  of  1750  the  affair 
was  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  Portocarrero  and  was  confided  to 
Manuel  Ventura  Figueroa,  an  auditor  of  the  Rota,  who  slcilfully 
induced  Benedict  to  drop  the  matter,  while  with  equal  skill  and 
unUmited  bribery  he  negotiated  the  Concordat  of  1753,  which 
virtually  gave  to  the  crown  the  patronage  of  the  Spanish  Church. 
Then,  in  1755,  came  the  dismissal  of  Rdbago,  for  his  share  in 
exciting  the  resistance  of  the  Jesuits  of  Paraguay  to  the  treaty  of 
1750  transferring  that  colony  to  Portugal.  He  was  succeeded  as 
confessor  by  Manuel  Quintano  Bonifaz  who,  in  that  same  year, 
had  become  inquisitor-general  on  the  death  of  Prado  y  Cuesta. 
Benedict  had  never  ceased  to  claim  the  fulfilment  of  an  offer  once 
made  by  Fernando  to  remove  Noris's  name  from  the  Index  and, 
in  1757  he  urged  the  king  to  afford  him  that  satisfaction,  before 
his  death,  in  return  for  the  many  favors  bestowed. 

Jesuit  influence  was  no  longer  supreme,  and  Fernando  ordered 
an  investigation.  The  documents  were  collected  and  were  sub- 
mitted to  Bonifaz  who,  in  December,  presented  a  consulta,  dwel- 
ling upon  the  care  habitually  bestowed  by  the  Inquisition  before 
condemning  the  most  insignificant  book  while,  in  this  case,  Casani 
and  Carrasco  had  included  in  the  Index  the  works  of  Noris,  without 
any  preliminary  examination  and  without  the  knowledge  of  the 
inquisitor-general,  which  was  a  foul  abuse  of  the  confidence  re- 
posed in  them.  Noris's  book  had  been  printed  in  Spain  in  1698, 
dedicated  to  Inquisitor-general  Rocaberti,  and  had  undisputed 
circulation  until  these  two  padres  discovered  in  it  traces  of  Jansen- 
ism. Bonifaz  therefore  concluded  that  the  pope  had  just  cause 
of  complaint  and  that  the  royal  promise  should  -be  fulfilled. 
Accordingly,  on  January  28,  1758,  an  edict  was  issued,  reciting 
the  prohibition  and  ending  with  "But,  having  since  considered 
the  matter  with  the  mature  and  serious  reflection  befitting  its 
importance,  we  order  the  removal  of  the  said  work  from  the  Index, 
and  declare  that  both  it  and  its  most  eminent  author  remain  in  the 
same  repute  and  honor  as  before."  For  this  the  good  old  pope 
expressed  his  gratification  in  warm  terms  to  Fernando.^ 

'  Migu^lez,  op.  cit. — In  connection  with  Padre  Rdbago  it  may  be  mentioned 
that,  in  1747,  when  already  royal  confessor,  he  was  denounced  to  the  Santiago 
tribunal  for  solicitation,  but  escaped  trial  under  the  rule  requiring  two  denun- 
ciations.   Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  233,  n.  108,  fol.  60. 

The  Indice  Ultimo  of  1790  (p.  192)  records  the  removal  of  Noris's  books  and 
prohibits  all  writings  on  both  sides  of  the  affair. 


292  JANSENISM  [Book  VIII 

This  may  be  assumed  as  the  last  struggle  over  what  were  con- 
ceived to  be  the  doctrinal  errors  of  Jansenism,  and  subsequent 
persecution  was  directed  against  it  as  the  opponent  of  Ultramon- 
tanism  and  Jesuitism,  and  as  the  supporter  of  the  royal  preroga- 
tive.    There  had  been,  under  Philip  II,  a  strong  tendency  in  the 
Spanish   Church  to  the   Gallicanism  which  became  known  as 
Jansenism.     In  1598   Agostino  Zani,  the  Venetian  envoy,  says 
that  the  Spanish  clergy  depend  on  the  king  first  and  then  on  the 
pope ;  there  was  talk  of  separation  from  the  Holy  See  and  forming 
under  Toledo  a  national  Church  in  imitation  of  the  Gallican.' 
The  Concordat  of  1753,  which  concentrated  patronage  in  the  crown, 
could  only  strengthen  this  dependence  of  the  clergy,  while  the  sec- 
ond haK  of  the  eighteenth  century  witnessed  an  ommous  tendency 
throughout  Europe  to  throw  off  subjection  to  Rome.     The  cele- 
brated work  of  "  Febronius,"^  in  1763,  boldly  attacked  the  papal 
autocracy,  and  encouraged  the  assertion  of  the  regalias;  the  claims 
of  the  Holy  See,  in  both  spiritual  and  temporal  matters,  were 
called  in  question  with  a  freedom  unknown  since  the  great  councils 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  while  the  reforms  of  Joseph  II  and  of  his 
brother  Leopold  of  Tuscany  and  the  "Punctation"  of  the  Congress 
of  Ems  were  disquieting  manifestations  of  the  spirit  of  revolt. 
It  was  convenient  to  stigmatize  this  spirit  as  heresy  under  the 
name  of  Jansenism,  which  thenceforth  became  the  object  of  the 
bitterest  papal  animadversion. 

Fray  Migu^lez  informs  us  that  Bonifaz,  for  his  share  in  the 
vindication  of  Noris,  was  reproached  with  Jansenism,  and  that 
thenceforth  the  Inquisition  became  a  mere  instrument  in  the  hands 
of  a  court  bitterly  hostile  to  Rome;  that  instead  of  being  a  terrible 
repressor  of  heresy,  it  was  the  defender  of  the  regalias  and  perse- 
cutor of  Ultramontanism — in  other  words,  that  it  was  Jansenist — 
and  that  it  was  used  in  an  attempt  to  lay  the  foundations  in  Spam 
of  a  schismatic  Church  Hke  that  of  Utrecht.'  This  was  not  the 
case,  but  as  Jansenism  was  now  merely  a  doctrinal  misnomer 
for  a  principle,  partly  political  and  partly  disciplinary,  the  Inqui- 
sition had  a  narrow  and  difficult  path  to  tread.  Carlos  III  was 
fully  convinced  of  the  extent  of  the  regalias;  he  was  involved  in 


'  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  V,  p.  484. 

'  Jo.  Nic.  von  Hontheim,  De  Statu  Ecclesiae  et  legitima  Potestate  Romani 
Pontificis.     Bullioni,  1763. 
'  Migu61ez,  op.  ciu,  pp.  274,  364,  366,  3S0. 


Chap.  XI]  ITS  DEVELOPMENT  293 

constant  struggles  with  the  Roman  court,  and  had  little  hesitation 
in  dictating  to  the  Inquisition.  It  did  not  dare  to  interfere  with 
the  royal  prerogatives  but,  in  so  far  as  it  could,  it  favored  Ultra- 
montanism  by  persecuting  those  against  whom  it  could  formulate 
charges  under  the  guise  of  Jansenism. 

The  ministers  of  Carlos  III,  who  survived  into  the  earlier  years 
of  Carlos  IV,  were  animated  with  this  spirit  of  revolt  and  there 
was  an  active  propaganda.  The  book  of  Febronius  was  secretly 
printed  in  Madrid  and  was  largely  circulated  for,  although  con- 
demned, the  Inquisition  was  compelled  prudently  to  close  its 
eyes.'  The  acts  of  the  Synod  of  Pistoja  were  translated  into 
Spanish  and  persistent  efforts  were  made  to  obtain  licence  for 
their  publication,  until  Pius  VI  intervened  with  a  letter  to  the 
king  and  frustrated  the  attempt.^  When  the  bull  Auctorem  fidei, 
condemning,  in  1794,  the  errors  of  the  synod,  reached  Spain  the 
Council  of  Castile  reported  against  its  admission.'  The  Univer- 
sity of  Salamanca  was  regarded  as  a  Jansenist  hot-bed.  Jove- 
llanos  tells  us  that  all  who  were  trained  there  were  Port-Royalists 
of  the  Pistoja  sect;  the  works  of  Opstraet,  Zuola  and  Tamburini 
were  in  everybody's  hands;  more  than  three  thousand  copies 
were  in  circulation  before  the  edict  of  prohibition  appeared,  and 
then  only  a  single  volume  was  surrendered.''  We  hear  of  the 
Marquis  of  Roda,  one  of  the  most  influential  ministers  of  Carlos 
III,  uttering  warm  praises  of  Port-Royal  and  of  the  great  men 
connected  with  it.^  Naturally  episcopal  vacancies  were  filled 
with  bishops  of  the  same  persuasion  and  one  of  them,  Joseph 
Climent  of  Barcelona,  had  trouble  with  the  Inquisition  for  lauding 
the  schismatic  Church  of  Utrecht.  In  1792,  Agustin  Abad  y  la 
Sierra,  Bishop  of  Barbastro,  was  denounced  to  the  Saragossa 

1  Rafael  de  Vflez,  Apologia  del  Altar  y  del  Trono,  I,  442  (Madrid,  1825) .-Cle- 
ment, Journal  de  Correspondances  et  de  Voyages  pour  la  Paix  de  I'Eglise,  II,  31 
(Paris,  1802). 

Clement,  then  canon  and  treasurer  of  Auxerre,  and  subsequently  Bishop  of 
Versailles,  was  a  self-appointed  negotiator  in  1768  to  prevent  the  schism,  which 
he  thought  was  impending,  and  to  unite  all  the  courts  in  opposition  to  IJltra- 
montanism.  His  candid  self-complacency  and  beUef  in  his  own  importance 
give  a  certain  life  to  his  otherwise  formless  account  of  his  mission,  while  his  dread 
lest  the  Inquisition  should  obtain  knowledge  of  what  he  was  doing  shows  how 
thoroughly  it  was  on  the  Ultramontane  side. 

'  Cartas  del  Filosofo  rancio,  II,  32. 

»  Muriel,  Historia  de  Carlos  IV  (Mem.  hist,  espafiol,  XXXIV,  119). 

•  Men&dez  y  Pelayo,  III,  245.  "  C16meut,  II,  102. 


294  JANSENISM  [Book  VIII 

tribunal  as  a  Jansenist  who  favored  the  French  Revolution,  but 
soon  afterwards  his  brother  Manuel  was  appointed  inquisitor- 
general  and  the  prosecution  was  suspended,  but,  when  the  latter, 
in  1794,  was  ordered  by  Carlos  IV  to  resign,  he  was  immediately 
denounced  in  his  turn.' 

The  Inquisition,  in  fact,  could  not  but  be  opposed  to  Jansenism, 
for  one  of  the  objects  of  the  Jansenistic  movement  was  the  restora- 
tion of  episcopal  rights  and  privileges,  so  seriously  curtailed  by 
the  Holy  Office,  and  the  remodelling  of  its  organization  was 
regarded  as  essential  to  the  overthrow  of  Ultramontanism.^  The 
Jesuits  were  therefore  inevitably  the  allies  of  the  Inquisition; 
they  had  conceived  a  strong  hostility  to  Carlos  III  who,  since  his 
accession  in  1759,  had  diminished  their  influence  by  dismissing 
from  office  those  who  were  devoted  to  them.  Their  disaffection 
culminated  in  the  tumults  and  disturbances  of  April  1766,  which 
spread  through  the  kingdom  from  Guipiizcoa  to  Andalusia,  and 
humiliated  Carlos  to  the  last  degree.  These  were  evidently  the 
result  of  concerted  action,  intelligently  directed  and  supported  by 
ample  funds,  working  on  popular  discontent  caused  by  scarcity 
and  high  prices.  Prolonged  investigation  convinced  the  king 
that  the  Company  of  Jesus  was  responsible  for  the  troubles,  thus 
explaining  the  rigor  with  which  the  expulsion  was  executed  in 
1767,  and  the  implacable  determination  of  Carlos  in  demanding 
of  Clement  XIII  and  Clement  XIV  the  suppression  of  the  Order.' 

The  elimination  of  the  Jesuits  was  a  triumph  for  so-caUed  Jan- 
senism. It  left  the  educational  system  of  Spain  in  confusion,  and 
advantage  was  taken  of  this  to  reconstruct  it  on  lines  which  should 
train  the  rising  generation  in  Gallican  ideas  as  to  the  relations  of 
Church  and  State,  and  should  replace  medievalism  by  modem 


'  Llorente,  Hist,  crit.,  cap.  xxix,  art.  iii,  n.  1,  2;  cap.  xliii,  art.  iii,  n.  1. 

2  Clement,  op.  cit,  II,  44,  83-5,  296-7. 

'  Ferrer  del  Rio,  Historia  de  Carlos  III,  Lib.  ii,  cap.  ii,  iv. 

The  trial  of  Dr.  Benito  Navarro,  a  Jesuit  Tertiary,  was  printed  at  the  time  and 
indicates  the  participation  of  the  Jesuits  in  the  troiibles,  with  the  object  of  forcing 
the  restoration  to  power  of  the  Marquis  of  la  Ensenada.  Incidentally  the  evidence 
shows  the  enormous  influence  wielded  by  the  Jesuits  through  having  their  creatures 
in  governmental  positions,  where  they  could  mislead  and  betray  their  superiors. 
To  statesmen  like  Aranda,  Campomanes,  Roda  and  Floridablanca,  the  continued 
existence  of  the  Jesuits  in  Spain  was  a  manifest  impossibility. 

The  documents  connected  with  the  expulsion  are  printed  by  Miraflores  in  his 
"  Documentos  &  los  qu6  se  hace  referenda  en  los  apuntes  historico-criticos  sobre 
la  Revolucion  de  Espafia,"  II,  38-71  (Londres,  1834). 


Chap.  XI]  REACTION  295 

science/  Yet  the  Inquisition  continued  the  struggle,  and  its 
jealous  watchfulness  is  indicated  when,  in  1773,  some  chance 
expressions  of  a  student  led  to  the  denunciation,  to  the  Barcelona 
tribunal,  of  the  teaching  of  the  great  Catalan  University  of  Cervera, 
as  infected  with  Baianism  and  Jansenism,  in  conformity  to  the 
TUologie  de  Lyon,  a  book  condemned  in  Rome  for  its  GalUcan 
principles— a  denunciation  which  was  duly  followed  by  the  prose- 
cution of  one  of  the  professors,  a  Dominican  named  Pier.^ 

A  reaction  in  the  policy  of  the  court  came  with  the  rise  to  power 
of  the  infamous  royal  favorite  Godoy.  By  a  decree  of  October  19, 
1797,  Carlos  IV  permitted  the  repatriation  of  the  survivors  among 
the  Jesuits  expelled  in  1767.  The  occupation  of  the  papal  states 
by  Napoleon  had  deprived  them  of  their  Bolognese  refuge,  and 
they  found  themselves  ill  at  ease  in  the  Ligurian  Republic  to 
which  they  had  gone.  They  were  therefore  compassionately 
allowed  to  return,  under  precautions  that  should  scatter  them  where 
they  should  not  trouble  the  pubhc  peace,  but  they  speedily  made 
their  influence  felt,  and  were  busy  in  denouncing  to  the  Inquisition 
as  Jansenists  all  who  did  not  share  their  blind  devotion  to  the 
Holy  See.'  Still  more  threatening  was  the  reception,  in  1800, 
of  the  bull  Auctorem  fidei,  brought  about  by  the  influence  of 
Godoy,  and  enforced  by  a  royal  decree  of  December  10th,  charging 
the  bishops  to  punish  all  opinions  contrary  to  the  definitions  of 
the  bull,  while  the  Inquisition  was  ordered  to  suppress  all  writings 
in  support  of  the  condemned  propositions,  and  the  king  promised 
to  employ  all  the  power  given  to  him  by  God  to  enforce  these 
commands.  The  triumph  of  Ultramontanism  was  complete,  and 
Godoy  richly  earned  the  grotesquely  incongruous  title  bestowed 
on  him,  by  Pius  VI,  of  Pillar  of  the  Faith.' 

'  Novls.  Recop.,  Lib.  viii,  Tit.  i-ix. — Carta  de  Josef  Climent,  Obispo  de  Bar- 
celona, 26  de  Junio,  1767. 

'  MSS  of  Am.  Philos.  Society. 

'  Art  de  Verifier  les  Dates  depuis  I'annde  1770,  III,  358.  A  subsequent  decree 
of  March  11,  1798,  permitted  the  ex-Jesuits  to  live  with  their  kindred  or  in 
convents,  provided  that  this  was  not  in  any  royal  residence  (Original  penes  me). 

*  Muriel,  Hist,  de  Carlos  IV,  loc.  cit. — Cartas  del  Fil6sofo  rancio,  II,  34. — Vflez, 
Apologia,  I,  44-6. 

Yet  the  Acta  et  Decreta  Synodi  Dicecesance  Pisforiensis  anni  1786,  against  which 
the  bull  Auctorem  fdei  was  directed,  were  not  prohibited  until  March  18,  1801. — 
Suplemento  al  Indice  Expurgatorio,  p.  1  (Madrid,  1805). 

On  May  18, 1801,  the  Commissioners  of  the  Canaiy  tribunal  at  Orotava  report 
to  it  that  the  edict  has  been  duly  read  and  affixed  to  the  doors  of  the  parish 
churches. — Birch,  Catalogue  of  the  MSS.  of  the  Inq.  in  the  Canary  Islands,  II, 
1008. 


296  JANSENISM  [Book  VIII 

The  charge  was  one  easy  to  bring,  and  the  inteUigent  classes  in 
Spain  were  kept  in  a  state  of  unrest  and  apprehension.  An  illus- 
trative case  was  that  of  two  brothers,  Geronimo  and  Antonio  de 
la  Cuesta,  one  penitentiary  and  the  other  archdeacon  in  the  church 
of  Avila.  They  incurred  the  enmity  of  their  bishop,  Rafael  de 
Muzquiz,  confessor  of  Queen  Maria  Luisa  de  Parma:  he  organized 
a  formidable  conspiracy  against  them  and  they  were  denounced 
as  Jansenists,  in  1801,  to  the  tribunal  of  Valladolid.  Muzquiz 
was  promoted  to  the  archiepiscopal  see  of  Compostela,  but  there 
was  no  slackening  in  the  energy  of  the  prosecution.  Antonio 
escaped  to  Paris  but  Geronimo  was  thrown  into  the  secret  prison, 
where  he  lay  for  five  years.  In  spite  of  the  mass  of  testimony 
accumulated  against  him,  he  was  acquitted  by  the  tribunal,  but 
the  Suprema  refused  to  accept  the  decision  and  removed  the  inqui- 
sitors. The  brothers  had  powerful  friends  at  court,  who  prevailed 
on  Carlos  to  intervene,  when  he  had  all  the  papers  submitted  to 
him  and  decided  the  case  himself^ — an  assumption  of  royal  juris- 
diction for  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  precedent.  By 
royal  decrees  of  May  7,  1806,  he  ordered  that  the  Valladohd  inqui- 
sitors should  be  in  no  way  prejudiced  by  their  removal  but  should 
be  capable  of  promotion.  Geronimo  was  restored  to  his  dignity 
in  the  church  of  Avila,  with  ceremonies  gaUing  to  his  adversaries; 
he  was  to  receive  all  the  arrears  of  his  prebend;  his  trial  and 
imprisonment  were  not  to  inflict  any  disabifity  on  him  or  his 
kindred,  and  his  name  was  to  be  erased  from  the  record  so  that 
no  trace  of  it  should  remain.  The  papers  in  the  case  against 
the  fugitive  brother  Antonio  were  to  be  sealed  up  and  delivered 
to  the  Secretaria  de  Gracia  y  Justicia.  Heavy  fines  moreover 
were  levied  on  all  concerned  in  the  prosecution,  to  defray  the 
expenses  of  the  trial,  and  any  excess  was  to  be  paid  to  Geron- 
imo. They  amounted  in  all  to  11,455  ducats,  assessed  upon 
twenty-one  persons,  all  clerics  except  one  or  two  officials  and,  in 
addition  to  these,  there  were  nine  regulars — Carmehtes,  Benedic- 
tines, Franciscans  and  Dominicans — who  were  banished  for  thirty 
leagues  around  Madrid  and  royal  residences.  Two  of  them  were 
calificadores  and  one  a  notary  of  a  commissioner,  who  were 
incapacitated  for  their  functions.^ 

Archbishop  Muzquiz  did  not  wholly  escape.  Ger6nimo's  de- 
fence placed  him  in  the  position  of  a  calunmiator  and,  in  his 


'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  17,  n.  3,  fol.  16. 


Chap.  XI]  DISAPPEARANCE  297 

efforts  at  extrication,  he  accused  the  inquisitors  of  ValladoUd  and 
the  Inquisitor-general  Arce  y  Reynoso  of  partiality.  This  exposed 
him  to  prosecution  under  the  bull  Si  de  protegendis;  his  episcopal 
dignity  protected  him  from  arrest,  but  he  was  fined  in  eight  thous- 
and ducats  and  the  Bishop  of  Valladolid  who,  when  canon  of 
Avila,  had  joined  in  the  conspiracy,  was  fined  in  four  thousand. 
They  would  not  have  escaped  so  easily  but  for  the  influence  with 
Godoy  of  a  lady  who  was  popularly  reputed  to  have  received  a 
million  of  reales  for  her  services.' 

As  we  have  seen,  in  Jansenism  the  doctrinal  points  involved 
were  of  interest  only  to  the  sublimated  theologian  and  they  were 
virtually  lost  to  view  at  an  early  period.  Being  thus  incapable 
of  precise  theological  definition,  it  was  a  favorite  weapon  for  the 
gratification  of  enmity,  as  it  could  be  charged  against  all  opponents 
of  whatever  character.  Even  as  the  French  Jacobins  were  stig- 
matized as  Jansenists,  so  those  Spaniards  who  submitted  to  the 
"intrusive"  government  of  Joseph  Bonapart  were  classed  as  Jan- 
senists, and  so  were  their  most  active  antagonists,  the  liberal 
members  of  the  Cortes  of  Cadiz  .^  The  fact  is  that  the  French 
Revolution,  which  orthodox  writers  represent  as  the  triumph  of 
Jansenism,  was,  in  reality,  its  death-blow,  for  in  that  cataclysm 
disappeared  the  powerful  and  well-organized  hierarchy  which 
alone  could  struggle  within  the  Church  against  the  advance  of 
Ultramontanism  and  its  attendant  Probabilism. 

We  hear  little  of  Jansenism  under  the  Restoration,  though  it  is 
sometimes  included  subordinately  in  the  charges  of  anti-political 
opinions.  The  bitterness  still  felt  towards  it,  however,  is  well 
expressed  by  Velez,  Archbishop  of  Santiago,  as  late  as  1825,  when 
he  ignorantly  declares  that  Jansen  caused  the  rebellion  of  the 
Low  Countries  against  Spain  in  the  Assembly  of  1633,  while  his 
disciples,  uniting  in  Bourg-Fontaine  and  Portugal,  conspired 
against  the  lives  of  all  princes.  Jansen  supported  the  doctrines 
of  the  Calvinists  and  Lutherans  against  the  faith  and  his  fol- 
lowers promulgated  the  greatest  errors  against  the  Church  and 
its  discipline.' 

•  Llorente,  Hist,  crit.,  cap.  xxv,  n.  33,  34;  cap.  xxix,  art.  iii,  n.  5;  cap.  xliii, 
art.  iii,  n.  5. 

'  Se  vi6  &  todos  los  jansenistas,  impios  y  hombres  desmoralizados  ponerse  del 
lado  de  los  invasores. — Vic.  de  la  Fuente,  Hist,  eclesiastica,  III,  463. — Cf.  Cartas 
del  Fil6sofo  rancio,  passim. 

'  V61ez,  Apologia  del  Altar  y  del  Trono,  I,  391-2. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

FREE-MASONRY. 

Few  subjects  have  been  so  fertile  as  Free-Masonry  in  the  growth 
of  legend  and  myth.  If  we  may  believe  some  of  its  over-enthu- 
siastic members,  the  Archangel  Michael  was  the  Grand  Master 
of  the  earliest  Masonic  lodge;  the  builders  of  the  Tower  of  Babel 
were  wicked  Masons  and  those  who  held  aloof  from  the  impious 
work  were  Free-Masons.  Others  trace  its  origin  to  Lamech  and 
others  again  tell  us  that  the  first  Grand  Lodge  in  England  was 
founded  by  St.  Alban  in  287.  Its  adversaries  are  equally  extrava- 
gant; if  we  may  trust  them  it  is  the  precursor  of  Antichrist  and  a 
survival  of  Manicheism;  it  is  supreme  in  European  cabinets  and 
directs  the  policy  of  the  civilized  world  in  opposition  to  the  Church. 
Every  pope  in  the  nineteenth  century  fulminated  his  anathema 
against  it.  The  Abbe  Davin  assures  us  that  Jansenism  is  the 
masterpiece  of  the  powers  of  evil  and  that  it  has  become,-  in  the 
form  of  Masonry,  the  most  formidable  of  secret  societies,  organized 
for  the  destruction  of  the  Christian  Monarchy.'  There  are  zealous 
Spanish  Masons  who  assure  us  that  the  Comimidades  of  Castile 
and  the  Germania  of  Valencia  were  the  work  of  Masons;  that 
Agustin  and  Pedro  Cazalla  and  the  other  victims  of  the  auto  of 
May  21,  1559  were  Masons,  and  that  the  unfortunate  Don  Carlos 
was  a  victim  to  Masonry.^ 

Descending  to  the  sobriety  of  fact.  Masonry  emerges  into  the 
light  of  history  in  1717,  when  Dr.  Desaguliers,  Anthony  Sayer, 
George  Payne  and  a  few  others  formed,  in  London,  an  organiza- 
tion based  on  toleration,  benevolence  and  good-fellowship.    Its 


•  G.  de  Castro,  II  Monde  Segreto,  IV,  59  (Milano,  1864). — Precis  historique 
de  I'Ordre  de  la  Franc-Maponnerie,  par  J.  C.  B.  .  .  .  (Paris,  1829). — Luigi 
Parascandalo,  La  Franunassoneria  figlia  e  erede  del  Manicheismo,  4  vols,  Svo 
(Napoli,  1865). — Ch.  Van  Dusen,  S.  J.,  Rome  et  la  Franc-Maponnerie  (1896).— 
L'Abb6  V.  Davin,  Les  Jansdnistes  politiques  et  la  Franc-Ma^onnerie,  p.  5  (Paris, 
s.  d.). 

'  Mariano  Tirado  y  Rojas,  La  Masoneria  en  Espana,  I,  241-3,  252,  255-6 
(Madrid,  1893). 
(298) 


Chap.  XII]  PROHIBITED  BY  HOME  299 

growth  was  slow  and  its  first  appearance  in  Spain  was  in  1726, 
when  the  London  lodge  granted  a  charter  for  one  in  Gibraltar. 
Lord  Wharton  is  said  to  have  founded  one  in  Madrid,  in  1727, 
and  soon  afterwards  another  was  organized  in  Cddiz.  These 
were  primarily  for  the  benefit  of  English  residents,  although  doubt- 
less natives  were  eligible  to  membership.  As  yet  it  was  not 
under  the  ban  of  the  Church,  but  its  introduction  in  Tuscany  led 
the  Grand-duke  Gian  Gastone  to  prohibit  it.  His  speedy  death 
(July  9,  1737),  caused  his  edict  to  be  neglected;  the  clergy  repre- 
sented the  matter  to  Clement  XII,  who  sent  to  Florence  an  inquisi- 
tor; he  made  a  number  of  arrests,  but  the  parties  were  set  at  liberty 
by  the  new  Grand-duke,  Francis  of  Lorraine,  who  declared  him- 
seK  the  patron  of  the  Order  and  participated  in  the  organization 
of  several  lodges.^  Clement  sustained  his  inquisitor  and  issued, 
April  28,  1738,  his  bull  In  eminenti,  calling  attention  to  the  oath- 
bound  secrecy  of  the  lodges,  which  was  just  cause  for  suspicion, 
as  their  object  would  not  be  concealed  if  it  were  not  evil,  leading 
to  their  prohibition  in  many  states.  Wherefore,  in  view  of  the 
grave  consequences  threatened  to  public  tranquility  and  the 
salvation  of  souls,  he  forbade  the  faithful  to  favor  them  or  to  join 
them  under  pain  of  ipso  facto  excommunication,  removable  only 
by  the  Holy  See.  Prelates,  superiors,  Ordinaries  and  inquisitors 
were  ordered  to  inquire  against  and  prosecute  all  transgressors 
and  to  punish  them  condignly  as  vehemently  suspect  of  heresy, 
for  all  of  which  he  granted  full  powers.^  Thus  the  only  accusation 
brought  against  Masonry  was  its  secrecy,  but  this  sufficed  for  the 
creation  of  a  new  heresy,  furnishing  to  the  Inquisition  a  fresh 
subject  for  its  activity. 

The  nature  of  the  condign  punishment  thus  threatened  was  left 
to  the  discretion  of  the  local  tribunals,  but  a  standard  was  furnished 
by  an  edict  of  the  Cardinal  Secretary  of  State,  January  14,  1739, 
pronouncing  irremissible  pain  of  death,  not  only  on  all  members 
but  on  all  who  should  tempt  others  to  join  the  Order,  or  should 
rent  a  house  to  it  or  favor  it  in  any  other  way.  The  only  victim 
of  this  savage  decree  is  said  to  have  been  a  Frenchman  who 
wrote  a  book  on  Masonry;  it  is  true  that,  in  this  same  year,  1739, 
the  Inquisition  in  Florence  tortured  a  Mason  named  Crudeli, 
and  kept  him  in  prison  for  a  considerable  time,  but  the  death- 

•  [Thory]  Acta  Latomomm,  I,  35  (Paris,  1815). 
»  BuUar.  Roman.,  XV,  184. 


300  FBEE-MASONBT  [Book  VIII 

penalty  was  a  matter  for  the  secular  authorities  and  in  Florence 
these  were  not  under  control.  Indeed,  when  the  Inqiiisition  offered 
pardon  for  self-denunciation,  and  a  hundred  crowns  for  infor- 
mation, and  made  several  arrests,  the  Grand-duke  interposed  and 
liberated  the  prisoners.'  Even  when  the  arch-impostor  Cagliostro, 
in  1789,  ventured  to  found  a  lodge  in  Rome  and  was  tried  by 
the  Inquisition,  the  sentence,  rendered  April  7, 1791,  recited  that, 
although  he  had  incurred  the  death-penalty,  it  was  mercifully 
commuted  to  imprisonment  for  life.^  He  was  accordingly  impris- 
oned in  the  castle  of  San  Leone  where  he  is  supposed  to  have  died 
in  1795. 

The  Parlement  of  Paris  refused  to  register  the  bull  of  1738  and 
when,  in  1750,  the  jubilee  attracted  crowds  of  pilgrims  to  Rome, 
so  many  had  to  seek  rehef  from  the  excommunication  incurred 
under  it  that  Benedict  XIV  was  led  to  revive  it,  May  18,  1751, 
in  his  constitution  Providas,  pointing  out  moreover  the  injury  to 
the  purity  of  the  faith  arising  from  the  association  of  men  of 
different  beliefs,  and  invoking  the  aid  of  aU  Catholic  princes  to 
enforce  the  decrees  of  the  Holy  See.^  When  thus,  without  provo- 
cation, Rome  declared  war  to  the  knife  against  the  new  organi- 
zation, it  naturally  became  hostile  to  Rome,  and  when  its  member- 
ship was  forbidden  to  the  faithful,  it  was  necessarily  confined  to 
those  who  were  either  indifferent  or  antagonistic  to  the  Roman 
faith. 

While  the  papal  commands  were  ignored  in  France,  they  had 
been  eagerly  welcomed  in  Spain.  The  bull  In  eminenti  received 
the  royal  exequatur  and  the  Inquisitor-general  Orbe  y  Larreategui 
published  it  in  an  edict,  October  11,  1738,  pointing  out  that  the 
Inquisition  had  exclusive  jurisdiction  in  the  matter.  He  promised 
to  prosecute  with  the  utmost  severity  all  disobedience  to  the  bull, 
and  called  for  demmciations,  within  six  days,  of  all  infractions, 
under  pain  of  excommunication  and  of  two  hundred  ducats.  The 
edict  was  to  be  read  in  the  churches  and  to  be  affixed  to  their 


•  Acta  Latomorum,  I,  43-44. 

'  Compendio  della  vita  di  Giuseppe  Balsamo,  denominate  il  Conte  Cagliostro, 
che  si  6  estratto  dal  Processo  contra  di  lui  formato  in  Roma  I'amio  1790  (Roma, 
1791). 

The  importance  attached  to  the  case  is  indicated  by  the  formal  removal  of 
the  seal  of  secrecy  and  the  semi-official  pubhcation  of  the  volume.  The  edict 
imposing  the  death-penalty  is  quoted  on  p.  80. 

'  Bullar.  Bened.  PP.  XIV,  III,  167  (Romse,  1761). 


Chap.  XII]  PERSECUTION  301 

portals,  thus  giving  an  effective  advertisement  to  the  new  institu- 
tion by  conveying  a  knowledge  of  its  existence  to  a  population  thus 
far  happily  ignorant/ 

The  Inquisition,  however,  was  not  allowed  long  to  enjoy  the 
exclusive  jurisdiction  claimed,  for  Philip  V,  in  1740,  issued  an 
edict  under  which,  we  are  told,  a  number  of  Masons  were  sent  to 
the  galleys,  while  the  Inquisition  vindicated  its  rights  by  breaking 
up  a  lodge  in  Madrid  and  punishing  its  members.^  There  was 
thus  established  a  cumulative  jurisdiction  which  continued,  for 
State  autocracy  and  Church  autocracy  were  alike  jealous  of  a 
secret  organization  of  unlcnown  strength  which,  in  troublous 
times,  might  become  dangerous.  Fernando  VI  manifested  this 
by  a  pragmdtica  of  July  2,  1751,  in  which  he  forbade  the  for- 
mation of  lodges  under  pain  of  the  royal  indignation  and  punish- 
ment at  the  royal  discretion;  aU  judges  were  required  to  report 
delinquents,  and  all  commanders  of  armies  and  fleets  to  dismiss 
with  dishonor  any  culprits  discovered  in  the  service.  That,  in 
spite  of  these  repressive  measures,  Free-Masonry  was  spreading, 
may  be  assumed  from  the  publication,  about  this  time,  of  two 
editions  of  a  little  book  against  it,  in  which  this  decree  is  embodied.' 
Padre  Feyjoo  assisted  in  advertising  the  Order  by  devoting  to  it 
a  letter  in  which,  with  gentle  satire,  he  treated  it  as  a  hobgoblin, 
imposing  on  public  credulity  with  false  pretences,  although  there 
might  be  evil  spirits  among  the  harmless  ones.* 

The  Inquisition  meanwhile  was  not  idle,  though  it  did  not 
imitate  the  severity  of  the  papal  government  or  of  the  royal  edicts. 
In  1744  the  Madrid  tribunal  sentenced,  to  abjuration  de  levi  and 
banishment  from  Spain,  Don  Francisco  Aurion  de  Roscobel, 
canon  of  Quintanar,  for  Free-Masonry;  in  1756  the  same  tribunal 
prescribed  reconciliation  for  Domingo  de  Otas  and,  in  1757,  a 
Frenchman  named  Tournon  escaped  with  a  year's  detention  and 
banishment  from  Spain,  although,  by  endeavoring  to  induce  his 


'  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  V,  fol.  280. 

'  Acta  Latomorum,  I,  47. 

'  Fray  Joseph  Torrubia,  Centinela  contra  Francs  Massones,  Segunda  Edicion, 
Madrid,  1754.  From  the  dates  of  the  approbations  it  would  appear  that  the  first 
edition  was  issued  in  1751  or  1752. 

*  Feyjoo,  Cartas,  T.  IV,  Cart.  xvi.  This  letter  must  have  been  written  between 
1751  and  1754,  as  it  alludes  to  the  Centinela,  while  the  second  edition  of  the  latter 
alludes  to  the  letter.  Feyjoo  refers  to  another  recent  book  on  the  subject  by 
Fray  Juan  de  la  Madre  de  Dios,  which  I  have  not  seen. 


302  FBEE-MASONRY  [Book  VIII 

employees  to  join  the  Order,  he  was  reckoned  as  a  dogmatizer.' 
Another  case  about  the  same  time  reveals  a  strange  indifference, 
possibly  attributable  to  hesitation  in  attacking  a  dependent  of 
a  powerful  minister.  A  priest  named  Joachin  Pareja  presented 
himself,  April  19,  1746,  to  the  Toledo  tribxmal  and  related  that 
when,  in  1742,  he  accompanied  the  Infante  Phelipe  to  Italy,  he 
lay  for  some  months  in  Antibes,  where  he  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Antonio  de  Rosellon,  gentleman  of  the  chamber  to  the  Marquis 
of  la  Ensenada,  who  talked  freely  to  him  about  Free-Masonry,  of 
which  he  was  a  member.  He  had  but  recently  learned  that  Free- 
Masons  were  an  infernal  sect,  condenaned  by  a  papal  bull,  and  he 
had  made  haste  to  denounce  Rosellon.  No  action  was  taken  for 
eighteen  months  when,  on  October  13,  1747,  the  tribunal  asked 
the  Madrid  inquisitors  to  examine  Rosellon,  after  consulting  the 
Suprema.  The  Suprema  promptly  scolded  it  for  its  remissness 
and  ordered  it  to  make  inquiry  of  other  tribunals;  the  customary 
interrogations  were  sent  around  with  negative  results  and,  on 
January  8,  1748,  the  fiscal  reported  accordingly;  there  was  but 
one  witness  and  therefore  he  recommended  suspension,  which 
was  duly  voted.  Some  twenty  months  passed  away  when  sud- 
denly, September  7,  1751,  the  Suprema  recurred  to  the  matter  and 
wrote  to  Toledo  demanding  a  report.  Toledo  waited  for  more 
than  a  month  and  then,  on  October  16th,  replied  that  it  referred 
the  whole  affair  to  the  Madrid  tribunal  as  Pareja  and  Rosellon 
were  both  in  that  city.^     This  probably  ended  the  case. 

Free-Masonry  was  growing  and  extending  itself  th'-oughout 
influential  circles.  In  1760  the  Gran  Logia  espanola  was  organized 
and  independence  of  London  was  established;  in  1780  this  was 
changed  to  a  Grand  Orient,  symbolical  Masonry  being  subordi- 
nated to  the  Scottish  Rite.  In  this  we  are  told  that  such  men  as 
Aranda,  Campomanes,  Rodriguez,  Nava  del  Rio,  Salazar  y  Valle, 
Jovellanos,  the  Duke  of  Alva,  the  Marquis  of  Valdelirias,  the 
Count  of  Montijo  and  others  were  active;  that  the  ministers  of 


•  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  879,  fol.  301  B;  Lib.  1024,  fol  10.— Llorente, 
Hist,  crit.,  cap.  xli,  art  ii,  n.  10-16. 

^  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  108,  n.  1. 

The  Portuguese  Inquisition  was  as  prompt  as  the  Spanish.  See  "  The  Suffer- 
ings of  Jolin  Coustos  for  Free-masonry,''  London,  1746,  and  it  continued  after 
the  reforms  of  Pombal,  as  appears  from  "A  Narrative  of  tlie  Persecution  of 
Hippolyto  Joseph  da  Costa  Pereira  Furtado  de  Mendoza. . .  .for  the  pretended 
crime  of  Free-masonry,"  2  vols.,  London,  1811. 


Chap.  XII]  POLITICAL  ACTIVITY  303 

Carlos  III  were  mostly  Masons  and  that  to  them  was  attributable 
the  energetic  action  against  Jesuitism  and  Ultramontanism.'  To 
what  extent  this  is  true,  it  would  be  impossible  to  speak  positively, 
but  unquestionably  Masonry  afforded  a  refuge  for  the  modern 
spirit  in  which  to  develop  itself  against  the  oppressive  Obscu- 
rantism of  the  Inquisition. 

A  disturbing  element  was  furnished  by  Cagliostro  who,  in  his 
two  visits  to  Spain,  founded  the  lodge  Espana,  in  competition  with 
the  Grand  Orient.  This  attracted  the  more  adventurous  spirits 
and  grew  to  be  revolutionary  in  character.  It  was  the  centre  of 
the  fooUsh  republican  conspiracy  of  1796,  known  as  the  conspiracy 
of  San  Bias,  from  the  day  selected  for  the  outbreak.  Arms  were 
collected  in  the  lodge,  but  the  plot  was  betrayed  to  the  police; 
three  of  the  leaders  were  condemned  to  death  but,  at  the  inter-  • 
cession  of  the  French  ambassador,  the  sentence  was  commuted 
to  imprisonment  for  life.  The  chiefs  were  deported  to  Laguayra 
where  they  captured  the  sympathies  of  their  guards  and  were 
enabled  to  escape.  In  1797  they  organized  a  fresh  conspiracy  in 
Caraccas,  but  it  was  discovered  and  six  of  those  implicated  were 
executed.^ 

In  the  troubled  times  that  followed,  the  revolutionary  section 
of  Masonry  naturally  developed,  at  the  expense  of  the  conserva- 
tive. There  is  probably  truth  in  the  assertion  that  the  French 
occupation  was  assisted  by  the  organization  of  the  independent 
lodges  under  Miguel  de  Azanza,  one  of  the  ministers  of  Carlos  IV, 
who  was  grand  master.  The  ensuing  war  was  favorable  to  the 
growth  of  the  Order.  The  French  armies  sought  to  establish  lodges 
in  order  to  popularize  the  "intrusive"  government,  while  the 
English  forces  on  their  side  did  the  same,  and  the  Spanish  troops 
were  honeycombed  with  the  trincheras,  or  intrenchments,  as  these 
military  lodges  were  called. 

With  the  downfall  of  Napoleon  and  liberation  of  the  papacy, 
Pius  VII  made  haste  to  repeat  the  denunciation  of  Masonry.  He 
issued,  August  15,  1814,  a  decree  against  its  infernal  conventicles, 
subversive  of  thrones  and  religion.  He  lamented  that,  in  the  dis- 
turbances of  recent  years,  the  salutary  edicts  of  his  predecessors 
had  been  forgotten  and  that  Masonry  had  spread  everywhere. 
To  their  spiritual  penalties  he  added  temporal  punishments — 
sharp  corporal  affliction,  with  heavy  fines  and  confiscation,  and 


'  Tirado  y  Rojas,  I,  269-73,  354.  '  Ibidem,  I,  274-8,  289-99,  355. 


304  FBEE-MASONBY  ,  [Book  VIII 

he  offered  rewards  for  informers.  This  decree  was  approved  by- 
Fernando  VII  and  was  embodied  in  an  edict  of  the  Inquisition, 
January  2,  1815,  offering  a  Term  of  Grace  of  fifteen  days,  during 
which  penitents  would  be  received  and  after  which  the  full  rigor 
of  the  laws,  secular  and  canonical,  would  be  enforced.  Appar- 
ently the  result  was  inconsiderable  for,  on  February  10th,  the  term 
was  extended  imtil  Pentecost  (May  14th)  and  inviolable  secrecy 
was  promised.^  Fernando  had  not  waited  for  this  but  had  already 
prohibited  Masonry  under  the  penalties  attaching  to  crimes  of 
the  first  order  against  the  State  and,  in  pursuance  of  this,  on  Sep- 
tember 14,  1814,  twenty-five  arrests  had  been  made  for  suspicion 
of  membership.^ 

Thus,  as  before,  there  was  cumulative  jurisdiction  over  Masonry. 
.  The  time  had  passed  for  competencias  between  the  Inquisition 
and  the  royal  courts;  it  was  too  closely  identified  with  the  State 
to  indulge  ui  quarrels,  but  still  there  was  jealous  susceptibility  and 
self-assertion.  As  early  as  1815  this  showed  itself  in  the  prose- 
cution of  Diego  Dilicado,  parish  priest  of  San  Jorje  in  Coruiia, 
because  he  had  reported  the  existence  there  of  a  lodge  to  the  pubHc 
authorities  and  not  to  the  Inquisition.^  Several  cases,  in  1817, 
show  that  when  a  culprit  was  tried  and  sentenced  by  the  royal 
courts,  the  Inquisition  insisted  on  superadding  a  prosecution  and 
punishment  of  its  own.  Thus  when  Jean  Rost,  a  Frenchman, 
was  sent  to  the  presidio  of  Ceuta  by  the  chancellery  of  Granada, 
the  Seville  tribunal  also  tried  him  and  ordered  his  confinement 
in  the  prison  of  the  presidio,  at  the  same  time  demanding  from  the 
chancellery  the  Masonic  title  and  insignia  of  the  prisoner  and 
whatever  else  appertained  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition.^ 
The  Madrid  tribunal,  May  8,  1817,  sentenced  Albert  Leclerc,  a 
Frenchman,  for  Free-Masonry;  he  had  already  been  tried  and  con- 
victed by  the  royal  court  and  a  courteous  note  was  addressed,  as 
in  other  similar  cases,  to  the  Alcalde  de  Casa  y  Corte,  to  have  him 
brought  to  the  secret  prison,  for  the  performance  of  spiritual  exer- 
cises under  a  confessor  commissioned  to  instruct  him  in  the  errors 
of  Masonry,  and  to  absolve  him  from  the  censures  incurred,  after 
which  he  would  be  returned  to  the  alcalde  for  the  execution  of  his 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  luq.,  Leg.  1473;  Lib.  559. 

^  Acta  Latomonim,  I,  265. 

'  Archvio  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  890. 

'  Ibidem,  Lib.  435^;  Lib.  890. 


Chap.  XII]  UNDEB  THE  RESTORATION  305 

sentence  of  banishment.  So,  in  July  1817,  the  Santiago  tribunal 
collected  evidence  against  Manuel  Llorente,  sergeant  of  Grena- 
diers, and  the  Suprema  directed  that,  as  soon  as  the  secular  trial 
was  finished,  he  was  to  be  imprisoned  again  and  tried  by  the 
tribunal.' 

For  this  punctiliousness  there  was  the  excuse  that  the  papal 
decrees  rendered  Masonry  an  ecclesiastical  crime  involving  excom- 
munication, of  which  the  temporal  courts  could  take  no  cognizance. 
This  duplication  of  punishment  may  possibly  explain  the  extreme 
variation  in  the  severity  of  the  penalties  inflicted.  In  1818  the 
Madrid  tribunal  sentenced  Antonio  Catald,  captain  in  the  volunteer 
regiment  of  Barbastro,  to  a  very  moderate  punishment,  alleging 
as  a  reason  his  prolonged  imprisonment  and  ill-health.  The 
Suprema  sent  back  the  sentence  for  revision,  when  the  abjuration 
was  changed  from  de  levi  to  de  vehementi.  Then  the  Suprema 
took  the  matter  into  its  own  hands  and  condemned  him  to  be 
reduced  to  the  ranks  for  four  years'  service  in  the  regiment  of 
Ceuta,  which  was  nearly  equivalent  to  four  years  of  presidio.  On 
the  other  hand,  in  1819,  the  sentence  was  confirmed  of  Martin  de 
Bernardo,  which  was  merely  to  abjuration  de  levi,  absolution  ad 
cautelam,  a  month's  reclusion  and  spiritual  penances.  Greater 
severity  might  surely  have  been  shown  in  the  case  of  the  priest, 
Vicente  Perdiguera,  commissioner  of  the  Toledo  tribunal,  when, 
in  1817,  the  Madrid  tribunal  suggested  that,  in  view  of  his  notorious 
Free-Masonry  and  irregular  conduct,  he  should  be  deprived  of  his 
office  and  insignia  and  of  the  fuero  of  the  Inquisition.  To  this 
the  Suprema  assented  and  with  this  he  escaped.^ 

It  casts  doubt  upon  the  reported  extent  of  Free-Masonry  that, 
in  spite  of  the  vigilance  of  the  Inquisition,  the  number  of  cases 
was  so  small.  From  1780  to  1815  they  amount  in  all  only  to 
nineteen.  Then,  in  1816,  there  is  a  sudden  increase  to  twenty- 
five;  in  1817  there  are  fourteen,  in  1818  nine  and  in  1819  seven.^ 


^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  890.  '  Ibidem. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 

In  this  list  is  not  included  the  curious  case  of  the  Bishop  of  Havana,  Juan  Jos^ 
Diaz  de  la  Espada  y  Landa,  accused  of  Free-Masonry  in  Cuba  by  the  zealous 
inquisitor  Elosua  in  1815.  The  matter  was  transferred  to  Spain  and  was  sus- 
pended November  11,  1819  (J.  T.  Medina,  La  Inquisicion  de  Cartagena  de  las 
Indias,  p.  416).  It  does  not  seem  to  have  interfered  with  the  position  of  the 
good  bishop,  who  retained  his  see  until  his  death,  Sept.  12,  1832  (Gams,  Series 
Episcopp.,  p.  152). 

VOL.  IV  20 


306  FBEE-MASONBY  [Book  VIH 

Possibly  there  may  have  been  others  tried  by  the  civil  or  military 
courts,  which  escaped  inquisitorial  action,  but,  in  view  of  its  jealous 
care  of  its  jurisdiction,  these  cannot  have  been  numerous. 

Yet  all  authorities  of  the  period  agree  that,  under  the  Restora- 
tion, Masonry  flourished  and  spread,  especially  in  the  army; 
that  it  was  the  efficient  source  of  the  many  plots  which  disturbed 
Fernando's  equanimity,  and  that  the  revolution  of  1820  was  its 
work,  backed  by  the  widespread  popular  discontent  aroused  by  the 
oppression  and  inefficiency  of  his  rule.  When,  in  January,  1820, 
the  movement  was  started  by  the  troops  destined  for  America, 
in  their  cantonments  near  Cddiz,  there  was  a  lodge  in  every 
regiment.  Riego,  who  led  the  revolt,  was  a  Mason,  and  so  was 
the  Count  of  la  Bisbal  who  ensured  its  success  when,  at  Ocana, 
whither  he  had  been  sent  to  command  the  troops  gathered  for  its 
suppression,  he  caused  them  to  proclaim  the  Constitution.  At 
Santiago,  the  first  act  of  the  revolutionaries  was  to  sack  the  Inqui- 
sition and  to  liberate  the  Count  of  Montijo,  grand  master  of  the 
Masonic  organizations,  who  lay  in  the  secret  prison.^ 

We  shall  have  occasion  hereafter  to  see  the  ruinous  part  played 
by  Free-Masonry,  and  its  offshoot  the  Comuneros,  durmg  the  brief 
constitutional  epoch  from  1820  to  1823.  With  the  restoration  of 
absolutism  the  Comuneros  disappeared  and  Masons  became  the 
object  of  persecution  far  severer  than  that  of  the  Inquisition. 
They  were  subjected  to  the  military  commissions  set  up  everywhere 
throughout  Spain,  and  those  who  would  not  come  forward  and 
denounce  themselves  were  declared,  by  an  order  of  October  9, 
1824,  to  be  punishable  with  death  and  confiscation.^ 


'  Tirado  y  Rojas,  II,  46,  72-3,  81-88. — Miraflores,  Apuntes  historico-criticos, 
p.  28.— Modesto  Lafuente,  Hist,  de  Espana,  XXIX,  213-15,  333-4. 

The  "Memoirs  of  Don  Juan  van  Halen''  (London,  1830)  which  had  an  exten- 
sive circulation  in  many  languages,  are  of  no  historical  value  He  was  a  real 
personage  however,  whose  dextrous  treachery  in  deserting  the  French,  in  1814, 
is  described  by  Toreno  (Historfa  del  Llevamiento  etc.,  Ill,  323).  In  1822  he 
was  on  the  staff  of  Gen.  Mina  in  Catalonia  (Memorias  del  Gen.  Espoz  y  Mina, 
III,  7)  and,  ia  1838,  was  in  high  command  in  Valencia  (Manifestacion  del  Gen. 
C6rdova,  p.  13). 

In  1818  his  name  occurs  as  on  trial  in  Toledo  (not  in  Madrid,  as  he  represents) 
and  the  charge  was  impeding  the  Inquisition,  not  Masonry  and  conspiracy — 
Catalogo  de  las  causas  etc.,  p.  131  (Madrid,  1903). 

^  [Martinez  de  la  Rosa]  Examen  critico  de  las  Revoluciones  de  Espana,  1, 417-18 
(Paris,  1837). 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

PHILOSOPHISM. 

In  the  earlier  period,  Spanish  orthodoxy  seems  to  have  been 
little  troubled  with  free-thinking,  nor,  when  this  was  encountered, 
does  it  seem  to  have  been  visited  with  the  same  vindictiveness  as 
Protestantism.  From  a  temporal  point  of  view,  it  was  less  danger- 
ous, and  the  denial  of  God  was  an  offence  less  than  the  denial 
of  papal  supremacy.  In  an  auto  at  Toledo,  November  8,  1654, 
there  appeared  Don  Francisco  de  Vega  Vinero,  characterized  as 
"herege  apostata,  ateista,"  who  escaped  with  reconciliation,  con- 
fiscation, ten  years  of  prison  and  three  years  of  exile  from  Toledo, 
Madrid  and  Renedo.*  The  intellectual  movement  of  the  eighteenth 
century  in  France,  however,  could  not  but  awake  an  echo  in 
Spain,  despite  the  severity  of  censorship,  and  the  quarantine  at 
the  ports.  There  was  a  steady  infiltration  of  liberalism,  political 
and  spiritual;  Spaniards  of  culture  who  travelled,  or  who  were 
sent  abroad  on  missions,  returned  with  enlarged  horizons  of 
thought,  and  could  not  but  compare  the  backwardness  of  their 
native  land  with  the  activity,  for  good  or  for  evil,  of  the  other 
European  nations.  The  more  the  writings  of  the  fashionable 
philosophers  of  France  were  denounced,  the  greater  became  the 
curiosity  to  examine  them.  A  reactionary  writer  tells  us  that 
the  works  of  Filangieri,  Rousseau,  Mably,  Condillac,  Pereira, 
Febronius  (Hontheim)  and  Scipione  de'Ricci  had  full  circulation 
in  the  universities  and  colleges.  Some  professors  taught  many  of 
their  principles,  the  students  were  infected  and  this  moral  pestilence 
extended  rapidly  without  attracting  due  attention.^  The  Abbe 
Clement  found,  in  1768,  that  one  of  the  obstacles  to  the  success  of 
his  Jansenizing  mission  was  the  secret  tolerance  and  indifferentism; 
it  was  difficult  to  believe  how  great  were  the  evidences  of  incred- 
ulity, united  with  all  the  externals  of  devotion,  even  under  the 
oppression  of  habitual  dread  of  the  severity  of  the  Inquisition.' 


'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 
'  V6Iez,  Apologia  del  Altar  y  del  Trono,  I,  41. 
'  Clement,  Journal,  II,  89. 

(307) 


308  PHILOSOPHISM  [Book  VIII 

Thus,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  decadent 
activity  of  the  Holy  Office  found  a  new  heresy  to  combat,  which 
it  styled  Philosophism  or  Naturalism. 

The  leading  ministers  of  Carlos  III,  such  as  Aranda,  Cam- 
pomanes,  Roda  and  Floridablanca,  were  shrewdly  suspected  of 
sympathy  with  these  dangerous  speculations,  but  the  time  had 
passed  when  the  Marquis  of  Villanueva  could  be  arrested  and 
prosecuted  without  the  assent  of  the  king.  It  was  safer  to  make 
examples  of  men  not  thus  protected  but  yet  sufficiently  conspic- 
uous to  serve  as  warnings.  Such  a  case  was  that  of  Dr.  Luis  Castel- 
lanos,  health-officer  of  the  port  of  Cadiz — a  free-thinker  calling 
himself  a  philosopher,  an  agnostic  who  professed  to  know  nothing 
of  God  and  who  probably  was  indiscreet  in  airing  his  opinions. 
On  his  trial  by  the  Seville  tribunal  he  at  first  denied,  but  subse- 
quently he  confessed  and  begged  for  mercy.  On  Jime  30,  1776, 
an  auto  with  open  doors  was  held  in  the  chapel  of  the  castle  of 
Triana,  at  which  were  present,  doubtless  by  invitation  that  could 
not  be  declined,  the  Duke  of  Medina  Cell,  the  Count  of  Torrejon 
and  innumerable  other  distinguished  personages,  at  which  Castel- 
lanos  was  sentenced  to  abjuration  and  confiscation,  to  wear  a 
sanbenito  de  dos  aspas  and  to  serve  for  ten  years  in  the  hospital 
of  the  presidio  of  Oran — a  severity  which  emphasizes  the  dread 
inspired  by  this  negation  of  opinion.* 

Contemporary  with  this  was  a  case  of  more  far-reaching  influ- 
ence. Pablo  Olavide,  a  young  lawyer  of  Lima  and  judge  in  the 
Audiencia,  distinguished  himself  in  the  terrible  earthquake  of 
1746  and  was  made  custodian  of  the  treasures  dug  from  the  ruias. 
After  satisfying  those  who  could  prove  their  claims,  he  employed 
the  remainder  in  building  a  church  and  a  theatre.  There  were 
disappointed  claimants  who  carried  their  complaints  to  Madrid. 
Olavide  was  summoned  thither,  disbarred,  condemned  to  pay 
various  sums  and  imprisoned.  His  health  failing,  he  was  allowed 
to  go  to  Leganes,  where  he  contracted  marriage  with  Isabel  de 
los  Rios,  whose  two  successive  husbands  had  left  her  large  for- 
tunes. He  was  remarkably  inteUigent,  brilliant  in  society,  and, 
with  the  aid  of  his  wife's  money,  he  speedily  acquired  prominent 
social  position.  He  travelled  and  in  France  he  formed  relations 
with  Voltaire   and  Rousseau,  with  whom  he   maintained  corre- 


'  Archive  municipal  de  Sevilla,  Seccion  especial,  Siglo  XVIH,  Letra  A,  Tomo 
4,  n.  55. 


Chap.  XIII]  PABLO  OLAVIDE  309 

spondence.  Aranda,  who  secretly  sympatliized  with  him  in  this, 
was  then  at  the  height  of  his  power  and  became  his  warm  friend, 
seeking  to  use  his  abilities  in  the  projects  on  foot  to  elevate  Spain 
from  its  condition  of  poverty  and  misery. 

Practical  statesmen  had  long  recognized  as  a  serious  evil  the 
haldios,  or  extensive  and  numerous  tracts  of  uncultivated  land, 
useless  for  all  purposes  except  as  pasturage  for  the  migratory 
flocks  of  the  Mesta,  that  powerful  combination  of  sheep-owners 
who  had  secured  legislation  restricting  all  cultivation  that  inter- 
fered with  their  privileges.  As  early  as  1749  the  Marquis  of  la 
Ensenada  had  entertained  projects  of  introducing  colonies  of 
foreigners  to  occupy  these  idle  lands;  in  1766  the  idea  was  revived 
and  Nuevas  Pohlaciones,  as  they  were  called,  were  established  in 
various  places.  A  contract  was  made  to  bring  six  thousand  Ger- 
man and  Swiss  Catholics  and  establish  them  on  the  southern 
slope  of  the  Sierra  Morena,  along  the  main  road  from  Madrid 
to  Cddiz — a  wild  and  rugged  country,  the  haunt  of  highway 
robbers.  Campomanes  drew  up  the  plan,  under  which  establish- 
ments of  the  religious  Orders  were  absolutely  prohibited;  the  set- 
tlers were  to  have  pastors  of  their  own  race;  all  spiritual  affairs 
were  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  parish  priests,  subject  to  episcopal 
jurisdiction,  and  the  dreaded  Mesta  was  not  allowed  to  intrude. 
Olavide  was  appointed  superintendent  of  the  colony,  and  was  also 
made  assistente,  or  governor  of  Seville. 

He  threw  himself  into  the  project  with  enthusiasm,  labored  with 
intelligent  activity,  overcame  the  initial  difficulties  and  for  some 
years  success  seemed  assured.  Gradually  however  trouble  arose 
with  the  Capuchin  friars  who  had  accompanied  the  colonists  as 
their  priests.  Friar  Romuald  of  Freiburg,  the  prefect  of  the  group, 
was  a  disturbing  element,  involved  in  quarrels  with  the  episcopal 
officials;  friction  sprang  up  between  him  and  Olavide,  which 
developed  into  hatred,  and  the  Inquisition  furnished  ready  means 
for  gratifying  malevolence.  In  September,  1775,  Romuald  pre- 
sented a  formal  denunciation  of  the  Superintendent  as  an  atheist 
and  materialist,  who  was  in  correspondence  with  Voltaire  and 
Rousseau,  who  read  prohibited  books,  denied  the  miracles,  and 
held  that  non-Catholics  could  be  saved.  Ample  details  were 
furnished  of  his  irreligious  walk  and  conversation,  some  of  which 
indicate  the  points  on  which  quarrels  had  arisen — not  resorting 
to  prayer  an^  good  works  to  avert  calamities,  forbidding  the 
ringing  of  bells  in  tempests,  wanting  corpses  buried  in  cemeteries 


310  PHILOSOPHISM  [Book  VIII 

rather  than  in  churches,  and  defending  the  Copernican  system 
condemned  by  the  Church.  Olavide's  protector,  Aranda,  had 
fallen  from  power  in  1773  and  the  opportunity  was  not  to  be  lost 
by  the  Inquisition  of  striking  at  a  man,  conspicuous  enough  to 
serve  as  a  terrifying  example,  and  yet  who,  as  a  "kinless  loon," 
had  no  influential  family  behind  him.  Besides,  the  whole  scheme 
of  the  Poblaciones  had  aroused  the  hostility  of  two  influential 
classes — the  friars  whose  establishments  were  excluded  and  the 
Mesta  whose  flocks  were  not  allowed  to  ravage  the  fields. 

It  shows  the  decadence  of  the  Inquisition  that  the  royal  permis- 
sion to  prosecute  was  sought  and  obtained.     Olavide  was  sum- 
moned to  court,  towards  the  end  of  1775,  on  a  pretext;  after  some 
delay  he  realized  the  situation  and  sought  the  protection  of  Manuel 
de  Roda,  then  minister  of  Gracia  y  Justicia,  who  was  too  vulnerable 
himself  to  compromise  his  own  safety,  and  who  merely  wrote  to 
Inquisitor-general  Beltran  a  note  speaking  favorably  of  Olavide. 
The  Madrid  tribunal  moved  with  deliberation,  for  it  was  not 
until  November  14,  1776,  that  Olavide  was  arrested.    For  two 
years  he  disappeared  from  human  sight.     Seventy-two  witnesses 
were  examined,  and  the  fiscal  accumulated  a  formidable  array  of 
a  hundred  and  sixty-six  heretical  propositions.     He  admitted 
imprudent  talk,  while  denying  all  lapse  from  the  faith,  but  he  con- 
fessed enough  for  the  inquisitors  to  assume  that  he  secretly  cherished 
the  opinions  of  the  fashionable  philosophy,  and  his  condemnation 
was  inevitable.     We  are  told  that  a  public  auto  was  desired,  in 
order  to  emphasize  the  warning,  but  it  was  felt  that  the  occasion 
scarce  justified  such  a  solemnity,  and  the  Roman  Inquisition 
was  consulted  which  suggested  that  the  purpose  would  be  answered 
by  a  private  auto  with  a  large  number  of  spectators.     It  was  held, 
November  24,   1778,  in  the  audience-chamber,  after  inviting- 
invitations  equivalent  to  commands — Campomanes  and  numer- 
ous prominent  nobles,  statesmen  and  others  who  had  been  con- 
nected with  Olavide,  or  were  suspected  of  philosophism,  so  that 
when  he  was  brought  in  he  found  himself  surrounded  by  his 
friends  assembled  to  witness  his  humiliation.     For  three  hours 
he  listened  to  the  long-drawn  recital  of  all  the  heretical  propositions 
proved  against  him  by  the  witnesses,  to  which  he  responded  by 
ejaculating  "I  never  have  lost  the  faith  although  the  fiscal  says 
so."     Then  followed  the  sentence,  pronouncing  him  a  convicted 
heretic,  a  rotten  member  of  the  Church,  and  condemning  him  to 
reconciliation,  confiscation,  and  banishment  for  ever  for  forty 


Chap  XIII].  PABLO  OLAVIDE  311 

leagues  from  Madrid  and  all  royal  residences,  the  kingdoms  of 
Lima,  Andalusia  and  the  colonies  of  the  Sierra  Morena,  to  reclusion 
for  eight  years  in  a  convent  and  to  the  customary  disabilities  for 
himself  and  his  descendants  to  the  fifth  generation.  This  tre- 
mendous severity  so  overcame  him  that  he  fell  senseless  to  the 
floor.  A  distant  convent  at  Gerona  was  selected  for  his  confine- 
ment; in  1780,  on  the  plea  of  ill-health,  he  was  allowed  to  visit 
a  watering-place,  from  which  he  escaped  to  France,  not  without, 
it  is  said,  the  secret  connivance  of  the  court,  although,  when  his 
extradition  was  demanded,  he  sought  safety  in  Geneva.  With 
the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution  he  returned  to  France,  where  he 
narrowly  escaped  the  guillotine;  adversity  brought  a  change  of 
heart  and,  in  1798,  he  published  anonymously  at  Valencia  his 
"  El  Evangelio  en  Triunfo,  6  Historia  de  un  Filosofo  disenganado," 
which  had  an  enormous  circulation  and  so  impressed  Inquisitor- 
general  Lorenzana  that  he  was  allowed  to  return  to  Spain.  He 
was  offered  restoration  to  his  positions,  but  he  was  disillusioned 
with  the  world;  he  retired  to  Baeza,  devoting  himself  to  good 
works  and  dying  in  1804.^ 

The  Inquisition  had  not  miscalculated  the  salutary  influence 
of  the  example.  Don  Felipe  Samaniego,  Archdeacon  of  Pam- 
peluna.  Knight  of  Santiago  and  member  of  the  Royal  Council, 
was  one  of  those  constrained  to  be  present,  and  was  so  frightened 
that  the  next  day  he  denounced  himself  to  the  tribunal  as  a  reader 
of  prohibited  books,  of  which  he  presented  a  long  list.  This,  he 
said,  had  led  him  to  religious  doubt  but,  on  serious  reflection,  he 


'  In  this  celebrated  case  I  have  relied  chiefly  on  Ferrer  del  Rio,  Hist,  del 
Reinado  de  Carlos  III,  Lib.  iv,  cap.  i,  and  on  Men^ndez  y  Pelayo,  Heterodoxos, 
III,  205  sqq.  See  also  Llorente,  Hist,  cnt.,  cap.  xxvi,  art.  iii,  n.  13,  35,  and 
Puigblanch,  La  Inquisicion  sin  Mascara,  p.  295. 

Frequent  reference  was  made  to  Olavide  in  the  debates  of  the  Cortes  of  Cddiz 
on  the  suppression  of  the  Inquisition.  Sefior  Mexia  stated  that  he  had  visited 
him  at  Baeza;  that  the  Triunfo  was  merely  a  translation  of  the  Abb6  Lamour- 
ettes  Delices  de  la  Religion  (Paris,  1788)  somewhat  enlarged,  with  the  addition 
of  a  pohtico-economical  portion,  derived  from  the  Ami  des  Hommes  of  the  Mar- 
quis of  Mirabeau, — Discusion  del  Proyecto  sobre  la  Inquisicion,  pp.  254-5. 
(Cddiz,  1813). 

In  1831  De  Custine  says  that  there  was  little  remaining  of  the  prosperous 
colony  founded  by  Olavide  (L'Espagne  sous  Ferdinand  VII,  II,  93-107),  but 
La  Carolina,  the  principal  town,  had,  in  1877,  6474  inhabitants.  The  district 
has  historical  interest  as  the  scene  of  the  victory  of  Las  Navas  de  Tolosa,  in 
1212,  and  of  the  surrender  of  Bailen  in  1808. 


312  PSILOSOPBISM  [Book  VIII 

had  resolved  to  adhere  firmly  to  the  Catholic  faith  and  he  asked 
to  be  absolved  ad  cautelam.  He  was  turned  to  account  by  being 
required  to  submit  a  sworn  statement  as  to  where  and  how  he  had 
procured  the  books,  how  long  he  had  held  these  views,  who  had 
taught  him,  with  whom  had  he  discussed  these  matters,  and  who 
had  refuted  or  accepted  his  opinions.  This  brought  out  a  detailed 
confession  compromising  almost  all  the  learned  and  enlightened 
men  of  the  court — Aranda,  Floridablanca,  Campomanes,  O'Reilly, 
Lacy,  the  Duke  of  Almodovar  and  many  others  of  high  position. 
Prosecutions  were  instituted  against  them  all,  but  the  testimony 
of  a  single  witness  was  insufficient  and  the  power  of  those  impli- 
cated was  so  great  that  the  tribunal  was  content  to  let  the  cases 
remain  in  suspense.^ 

Offenders  less  conspicuous  were  less  fortunate,  and  numerous 
cases  attested  the  resolve  of  the  Inquisition  to  crush  out  the  new 
ideas.  It  was  merciful  to  Benito  Bails,  a  professor  of  mathe- 
matics and  author  of  a  series  of  text-books  long  in  use,  for  a  neice 
was  allowed  to  enter  with  him  the  secret  prison  and  take  care  of 
him,  as  he  was  aged  and  crippled  in  all  his  limbs.  Before  the 
publication  of  evidence  he  confessed  to  having  entertained  doubts 
as  to  the  existence  of  God  and  as  to  immortality,  but  that  solitude 
and  reflection  had  removed  them,  and  that  he  was  ready  to  abjure 
and  accept  penance.  As  reclusion  in  a  convent  would  have  de- 
prived him  of  the  care  of  his  neice,  his  house  was  charitably 
assigned  to  him  as  a  prison,  with  various  spiritual  penances.^  A 
more  suggestive  case  was  that  of  Doctor  Gregorio  de  Vicente, 
professor  of  philosophy  in  the  University  of  Valladohd,  for  certain 
theses  in  which  were  discovered  twenty  propositions  savoring  of 
"naturalism,"  and  for  a  sermon  in  which  he  argued  that  true 
rehgion  consisted  in  the  practice  of  virtue  and  not  in  external 
observance.  For  eight  years  he  lay  in  the  secret  prison,  but  it 
chanced  that  he  had  an  unclewho  was  an  inquisitor  of  Santiago, 
whose  influence  induced  the  Valladohd  tribunal  at  length,  in  1801, 
to  pronounce  him  insane,  while  condemning  his  propositions.  On 
his  release,  however,  he  gave  such  evidence  of  sanity  that  the 
tribunal  felt  obliged  to  arrest  him  again  and  repeat  his  trial. 
This  time  a  year  of  incarceration  sufficed;  he  abjured  his  errors 
publicly  and  accepted  certain  penances.^ 


'  Llorente,  Hist,  crit.,  cap.  xxvi,  art.  iii,  n.  42.  '  Ibidem,  n.  10. 

'  Ibidem,  cap.  xxv,  art.  i,  n.  112. — Mendndez  y  Pelayo,  III,  255. 


Chap.  XIII]  CONSERVATISM  AND  PBOGBESS  313 

A  case  which  excited  much  attention  was  that  of  D.  Ramon  de 
Salas,  a  prominent  man  of  letters  and  professor  in  Salamanca, 
imprisoned  in  1796,  on  the  charge  of  entertaining  the  errors  of 
Voltaire,  Rousseau  and  other  exponents  of  the  new  philosophy. 
He  admitted  that  he  had  read  their  works,  but  only  for  the  purpose 
of  confuting  them,  which  he  had  done  publicly  and  in  writing. 
The  accounts  which  have  reached  us  of  his  trial  differ  irrecon- 
cileably,  but  it  appears  that  the  prosecution  was  the  result  of  pri- 
vate enmity  on  the  part  of  men  high  in  office,  and  that  Salas  had 
powerful  protectors  who  induced  Carlos  IV  to  evoke  the  case, 
after  he  had  been  condenmed.  This  invasion  of  inquisitorial 
jurisdiction  led  to  resistance  on  the  part  of  Inquisitor-general 
Lorenzana,  which  caused  Queen  Maria  Luisa  to  exclaim  to  him 
"It  is  you,  hypocrite,  and  the  like  of  you  who  cause  the  revolutions 
of  Europe."  Not  only  was  the  sentence  annulled  and  Salas  was 
liberated,  but  a  royal  order  was  obtained  that  in  future  no  arrest 
should  be  made  without  previously  consulting  the  king.  This 
was  duly  drawn  up,  but  Vallejo,  Archbishop  of  Santiago  and 
President  of  the  Council  of  Castile,  one  of  the  enemies  of  Salas, 
had  sufficient  influence  with  Godoy  to  procure  its  withdrawal.^ 

This  case  illustrates  the  struggle  on  foot  between  the  forces  of 
conservatism  and  progress,  in  which  the  Inquisition,  as  the  pro- 
tagonist of  the  former,  was  not  always  successful.  The  propaga- 
tors of  the  new  ideas  were  difficult  to  silence.     Even  imder  Carlos 

III,  we  are  told  that  in  1785-6  there  appeared  in  Saragossa  essays 
scandalizing  to  the  faithful,  for  they  sought  to  establish  that  celi- 
bacy is  prejudicial  to  the  State,  that  vows  of  religion  should  be 
postponed  to  the  age  of  24,  that  the  Church  had  customs  detri- 
mental to  the  State  and  that  its  abuses  and  superstitions  should 
be  suppressed.  Apparently  the  Inquisition  took  no  steps  to  vin- 
dicate the  faith,  and  when  Fray  Diego  de  Cadiz,  at  the  request  of 
many  ecclesiastics,  preached  against  these  subversive  propositions, 
he  was  obliged  to  fly  and  even  then  he  was  pursued  by  the  wrath 
of  the  innovators.^     Under  the  anomalous  government  of  Carlos 

IV,  constant  changes  in  the  ministry  and  the  fluctuating  whims 
of  his  favorite  Godoy,  who  liked  to  pose  as  the  patron  of  letters 


'  Llorente,  cap.  xxv,  art.  i,  n.  89. — Art.  de  verifier  les  Dates  depuis  I'annte 
1770,  III,  355.— Modesto  Lafuente,  Hist.  Gen.  XXII,  127.— Cf.  Rodrigo,  Hist, 
verdadera,  III,  365. — Discusion  del  Proyecto,  p.  464  (Cadiz,  1813). 

'  V^lez,  Apologia,  I,  40.— Cf.  Men^ndez  y  Pelayo,  III,  227. 


314  PHILOSOPHISM  [Book  VIII 

and  enlightenment,  ill  turns  repressed  the  Inquisition  and  gave  it 
free  rein.  A  prominent  personage  of  the  time  was  the  Count 
Francisco  Cabarrus,  a  French  adventurer  who  founded  the  Bank 
of  San  Carlos  and  alternated,  like  other  statesmen  of  the  period, 
between  guiding  the  destinies  of  the  nation  and  a  dungeon.  After 
his  imprisonment  in  the  castle  of  Batres,  he  relieved  his  mind  in 
-1792  and  1793  of  the  thoughts  which  had  accumulated  there,  in 
three  letters  to  Jovellanos,  developing  in  verbose  rhetoric  the 
ideas  of  Rousseau  and  the  contrat  social.  Education,  he  argued, 
should  be  universal,  but  it  should  be  purely  secular,  and  the  clergy 
should  not  be  allowed  to  meddle  with  it,  religious  training  being 
left  to  parents  and  parish  priests.  In  colleges  the  studies  should 
be  directed  to  fitting  youth  for  actual  life ;  the  existing  universities 
were  sewers  of  humanity,  whose  scholastic  theology  and  teaching 
of  jurisprudence  were  equally  destructive  to  the  human  race.  The 
numbers  of  the  clergy  were  enormously  excessive,  constituting  a 
running  sore  and  a  body  subversive  of  all  the  principles  of  morals 
and  statesmanship.  There  should  be  stimulated  a  holy  and 
virtuous  indignation  against  all  the  absurd  and  apocryphal  devo- 
tions which  pervert  reason,  destroy  virtue  and  cause  heathendom 
to  ridicule  Christianity.'  For  much  less  than  this  many  a  man,  like 
Olavide,  had  suffered  bitterly  but,  in  1795,  Cabarrus  prefaced 
these  letters  with  one  addressed  to  Godoy  himself  as  "mi  amigo" 
and,  secure  in  the  protection  of  the  all-powerful  favorite,  he  was 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  Inquisition,  showing  how  uncertain  were 
its  functions  during  the  disastrous  period  when  absolutism  was 
in  the  hands  of  a  frivolous  courtier. 

The  feelings  of  the  orthodox  towards  these  innovators  are  com- 
prehensively expressed  by  Fray  Francisco  Alvarado,  the  leading 
champion  of  conservatism  against  the  Cortes  of  1810.  "These 
philosophers"  he  says,  "have  come  to  disrupt  our  union,  to  dis- 
turb our  peace,  to  embarrass  our  defence,  to  distract  our  attention, 
to  corrupt  our  fidelity,  to  overturn  our  State,  to  seize  our  fortunes, 
to  degrade  our  reason,  to  abolish  our  religion,  to — what  shall  I 
say? — ^to  make  our  free  cities  a  hell  where  nothing  but  blasphemies 
are  heard  and  where  there  is  little  lacking  to  replace  order  with 
sempiternal  horror."^  Virulent  as  is  this  objurgation,  it  is  but 
the  natural  expression  of  the  passions  excited  by  the  struggle  in 


'  Cartas  escritas  por  el  Conde  de  Cabarriis,  pp.  81,  83,  87-9  (Vitoria,  1808). 
'  Cartas  del  Fil6sofo  rancio,  I,  299. 


Chap.  XIII]  CONSERVATISM  AND  PROOBESS  315 

progress,  which  each  side  felt  to  be  a  combat  to  the  death.  A 
moderated  philosophism,  as  we  shall  see,  triumphed  in  the  Cortes 
of  1810-13  and,  although  there  has  followed  nearly  a  century  of 
vicissitudes,  some  of  them  sanguinary,  it  has,  at  least  established 
its  right  to  existence.  The  Inquisition  was  not  mistaken  in  rec- 
ognizing it,  from  the  first,  as  its  most  dangerous  enemy — the 
embodiment  of  the  modern  spirit,  destined,  for  better  or  worse, 
finally  to  supplant  medievalism. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

BIGAMY. 

From  an  early  period  the  Church  assumed  jurisdiction  over 
marriage,  derived  from  the  function  of  the  priest  for  its  due  cele- 
bration, and  when,  in  the  twelfth  century,  matrimony  was  erected 
into  a  sacrament,  its  control  became  absolute.  Monogamy  was 
a  distinguishing  feature  of  Christianity,  and  marriage  was  declared 
to  be  insoluble.  The  sacrament  could  be  enjoyed  but  once  during 
the  life  of  both  spouses,  and  its  repetition  was  invaUd,  all  of  which 
naturally  came  within  the  province  of  the  episcopal  courts.  The 
infraction  of  the  ecclesiastical  law,  however,  considered  as  an 
offence  against  society,  was  subject  to  secular  penal  statutes  and, 
imder  the  Partidas,  it  was  punishable  with  relegation  to  an  island 
for  five  years  and  confiscation  for  the  benefit  of  children,  to  which 
penalties  Juan  I,  in  the  Cortes  of  Briviesca,  in  1387,  added  brand- 
ing in  the  face.'  In  1532,  the  Cortes  of  Segovia  petitioned  to  have 
it  made  a  capital  offence,  which  Charles  V  refused,  but  added  half 
confiscation  and,  in  1548,  the  Cortes  of  Valladolid  substituted  the 
galleys,  the  term  for  which  Philip  II,  in  1566,  defined  as  ten  years, 
with  public  vergiienza.^ 

Thus  there  was  ample  provision  for  the  trial  and  pimishment  of 
the  offence  by  the  spiritual  and  secular  authorities,  and  there  was 
no  necessity  for  the  assumption  of  jurisdiction  by  the  Inquisition. 
Presumably  it  obtained  a  foothold  through  the  laxity  of  the  mar- 
riage tie  among  Moors  and  Jews,  so  that  bigamy,  like  abstinence 
from  pork  and  wine  and  change  of  linen  on  Saturday,  created 
suspicion  of  heresy.  This  showed  itself  first  in  Aragoii.  As  early 
as  1486,  the  Saragossa  tribunal  burnt  in  effigy  the  fugitive  Dionis 
Ginot,  a  notary,  for  marrying  a  second  wife  during  the  lifetime  of 


'  Partidas,  P.  vii,  Tit.  xvii,  ley  16. — Cortes  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  II,  378. 

In  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  branding  with  the  letter  "  q"  was  still 
in  force  in  Castile. — Rojas  de  Hseret.,  P.  i,  n.  544. 

'  Colmeiro,  Cortes  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  II,  160,  219. — Nueva  Recop.,  Lib.  v, 
Tit.  i,  leyes  6,  7. — Novls.  Recop.,  Lib.  xii,  Tit.  xxviii,  leyes  8,  9. 
(316) 


Chap.  XIV]  JRESISTANGE  IN  CATALONIA  317 

the  first,  and  a  number  of  other  cases  followed  in  which  bigamy 
is  conjoined  with  Judaic  practices.  For  simple  bigamy  the 
penalty  seems  to  have  been  perpetual  prison,  the  punishment 
indicated  for  two  culprits  in  the  auto  of  February  10,  1488.^  It 
also  involved  confiscation,  for  a  letter  of  Ferdinand,  October  22, 
1502,  to  his  receiver  at  Saragossa,  orders  him  to  deliver  to  certain 
parties  ninety-four  head  of  cattle  confiscated  on  the  bigamist 
Dornan  Morrell.^  In  some  way  bigamy  was  construed  as  heresy 
for,  in  the  Barcelona  auto  of  February  3,  1503,  Pere  de  Sentillana 
was  required  to  abjure  for  marrying  two  wives,  and  in  that  of  July 
2,  of  the  same  year,  Pere  Ubach  abjured  for  marrying  in  Rhodes 
and  in  Barcelona.' 

This  was  one  of  the  grievances  of  the  Catalans,  which  they 
thought  to  remove  in  the  Concordia  of  1512,  where  it  was  agreed 
that  bigamists,  male  and  female,  should  be  tried  by  the  Ordinaries 
and  not  by  the  Inquisition,  but  they  unwarily  allowed  the  inser- 
tion of  a  provision  "unless  they  believe  erroneously  as  to  the 
sacrament  of  matrimony  or  are  suspect  in  the  faith.  "^  As  this 
practically  left  it  to  the  discretion  of  the  inquisitors.  Inquisitor- 
general  Mercader,  in  his  Instructions  of  1514,  was  safe  in  telling 
the  tribunals  that  they  were  not  to  try  cases  of  bigamy  unless 
there  was  presumption  of  erroneous  belief  as  to  the  sacrament, 
and  this  was  the  answer  sent,  in  1515,  to  the  Sicilians,  when  they 
made  complaint  of  inquisitorial  abuses.^  Leo  X,  when,  in  1516, 
confirming  the  Concordia  of  1512,  in  the  bull  Pastoralis  officii, 
was  careful  to  make  the  same  reservation,"  but  in  this,  as  in  every- 
thing else  ostensibly  gained  by  the  Concordia,  the  subjects  of  the 
crown  of  Aragon  found  themselves  deceived  and  when  the  Cortes, 
about  1530,  complained  that  the  inquisitors  assumed  jurisdiction 
over  bigamy,  the  curt  answer  was  that  they  observed  the  pro- 
visions of  the  law.' 

A  case  occurring  in  1513  suggests  ample  justification  for  this 
struggle  to  prevent  the  Inquisition  from  acquiring  cognizance  of 
bigamy.     In  1477,  Don  Jorje  de  Bardaxf  betrothed  himself  by 


'  Memoria  de  diversos  Autos  (See  Appendix  to  Vol.  I). 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  2,  fol.  21. 

'  Carbonell  de  Gestis  Hjeret.  (Doc.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  XXVIII,  154). 

*  Pragmaticas  y  altres  Drets  de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  viii,  cap.  1,  §  4. 

«  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  933;  Lib.  918,  fol.  381. 

"  Pragmaticas  etc.  de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  i.  Tit.  viii,  cap.  2. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inq.,  leg.  unico,  fol.  38. 


318  BIGAMY  [Book  VIII 

words  de  frcesenti  to  Leonor  Olzina  but,  learning  that  she  was 
pregnant  or  had  borne  a  child,  he  never  married  her  in  the  face 
of  the  Church  or  consummated  the  marriage.  He  remained  single, 
but  she,  in  1497,  married  Antonio  Ferrer.  In  some  way  the 
Saragossa  tribunal  got  wind  of  the  betrothal  twenty  years  previous 
and  prosecuted  her  in  1513.  In  her  defence  she  alleged  that 
Bardaxi  had  previously  been  married  to  Dona  Juana  de  Luna, 
whereupon  the  tribunal  commenced  proceedings  against  him  for 
the  betrothal  in  1477  and  would  have  thrown  him  into  the  secret 
prison  had  he  not  been  too  infirm.  He  was  a  man  of  consideration 
and  appealed  for  protection  to  Ferdinand,  who  ordered  that  he 
should  not  be  arrested,  that  every  care  be  taken  to  eliminate 
perjured  testimony  and  that,  on  conclusion  of  the  case,  the  papers 
be  sent  to  Inquisitor-general  Mercader.'  The  result  is  unknown, 
but  Bardaxi  was  at  least  exposed  to  the  terrors  of  an  inquisitorial 
trial  on  a  vague  assertion  of  an  indiscretion  committed  thirty-six 
years  before. 

Whether  there  was  any  formal  opposition  in  Castile  it  would  be 
impossible  to  say.  There  was  a  decided  assertion  of  episcopal 
jurisdiction  in  the  Council  of  Seville,  held  in  1512  by  Archbishop 
Deza,  the  former  inquisitor-general,  which  imposed  a  fine  of  two 
thousand  maravedis  on  bigamists,  in  addition  to  the  penalties 
provided  by  law;  long  absence  of  a  missing  spouse  was  not  to  be 
accepted  as  an  excuse,  and  the  death  must  be  notorious  or  be  duly 
proved  before  the  Ordinary,  before  he  could  permit  a  second 
marriage.^  Still,  there  was  no  special  reclamation  on  the  subject 
by  the  Cortes  of  Valladolid  in  1518,  nor  any  provision  in  the 
reform  attempted  through  the  Chancellor  Jean  le  Sauvage.  As 
in  Aragon,  the  question  turned  theoretically  upon  the  presumable 
heresy  of  the  bigamist.  About  1534,  Arnaldo  Albertino  devoted 
an  elaborate  discussion  to  the  matter,^  but  all  this  was  academical 
rather  than  practical.  In  1537,  Dr.  Giron  de  Loaysa,  in  his 
inspection  of  Toledo,  reported  that  he  had  foxmd  everywhere 
many  bigamists;  they  were  so  numerous  that  the  inquisitors 
prosecuted  them  without  distinction  as  to  belief,  and  he  suggested 


'  Archive  de  Sirnancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  3,  fol.  241. 

^  Concil.  Hispalens.,  ann.  1512,  cap.  xxxvii  (Aguirre,  V,  374). 

'  In  the  1534  edition  "of  his  Repetitionem  novam  (Col.  363)  Albertino  says  that 
he  has  treated  the  question  extensively  in  his  "Speculum  Inquisitorum" — sub- 
sequently embodied  in  his  "Tractatus  de  agnoscendis  Assertionibus"  as  Q. 
XXIII  (Romae,  1572). 


Chap.  XIV]  INFERENTIAL  HERESY  319 

that  special  orders  should  be  accordingly  issued  as  the  offence 
was  so  evil  and  so  frequent."  This  would  have  been  superfluous. 
Simancas  admits  that,  if  the  culprit  says  that  he  knew  that  he 
could  not  have  two  wives  and  thus  did  not  err  in  the  faith,  it  would 
seem  that  the  Inquisition  was  estopped  from  proceeding,  but  cus- 
tom has  prevailed,  though  it  would  appear  wiser  to  leave  them  to 
the  episcopal  courts.  In  a  later  work,  however,  he  says  that  the 
Inquisition  prosecutes  them  as  thinking  wrongly  of  the  sacrament 
and  impiously  abusing  it.^  Thus  it  became  settled,  and  otherwise 
the  Inquisition  would  have  been  obliged  to  abandon  its  jurisdic- 
tion, for  about  1640  an  experienced  inquisitor  tells  us  that  the 
accused  never  admitted  heresy,  but  always  professed  consciousness 
of  guilt.  He  was  always  asked  whether  he  regarded  a  bigamous 
marriage  as  lawful  and,  if  he  answered  in  the  affirmative,  he  was 
to  be  punished  as  a  heretic.^ 

To  keep  up  this  fiction,  the  formal  accusation  by  the  fiscal 
asserted  heresy  or  at  least  suspicion,  at  first  in  a  simple  form  but 
subsequently  with  much  amplification,  stigmatizing  the  accused 
as  an  apostate  heretic,  or  at  least  gravely  suspect  in  the  faith,  for 
"thinking  ill  of  the  holy  sacrament  of  matrimony  and  its  institu- 
tion and  adopting  the  error  of  the  heretics  against  the  prohibition 
of  polygamy."*  With  the  same  view  he  was  always  required  to 
abjure  for  suspicion  of  heresy,  in  the  earlier  time  de  vehementi, 
but  later  de  levi?  The  flimsiness  of  the  pretext,  however,  is 
exposed  by  the  fact  that,  in  the  Suprema,  bigamy  cases  were 
always  considered  in  the  afternoon  sessions,  at  which  assisted 
the  two  lay  members  of  the  Council  of  Castile,  and  where  public 
pleas  and  other  secular  matters  were  discussed."  Still,  when  the 
jurisdiction  once  was  acquired,  it  was  asserted  to  be  exclusive  and 
was  defended  with  customary  aggressiveness.  The  civil  magis- 
trates were  unwilling  to  surrender  their  immemorial  cognizance 
of  the  crime,  and  assumed  that  it  was  mixti  fori,  leading  to  fre- 


'  Bibl.  p^iblica  de  Toledo,  Sala  v,  Est.  11,  Tab.  3. 

'  Simanc£c  de  Cath.  Instt.,  Tit.  xl,  n.  3;  Enchirid.,  Tit.  xii,  n.  4-6. 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xvii.— Elucidationes  S.  Officii,  §  33  (Archivo 
de  Alcald,  Hacienda,  Leg.  544'',  Lib.  4). 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  361,  fol.  7.— MSS.  of  Royal 
Library  of  Copenhagen,  218b,  p.  418. 

'  Pena,  Comment,  lxxxi  in  Eymerici  Direct.,  P.  ii.— Bibl.  nacional,  vhi  svp  — 
Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  921,  fol.  231. 

'  Archivo  de  Alcald,  Hacienda,  Leg.  544^;  Lib.  10. 


320  BIGAMY  [Book  VIII 

quent  collisions.     The  tenacity  with  which  these  contests  were 
conducted  is  illustrated  in  a  Sardinia  case,  in  1658,  where  the 
royal  court  arrested  Miquel  Fiori  for  bigamy.     When  the  inquisi- 
tors heard  of  this,  they  demanded  the  accused  and  the  papers  but, 
three  hours  after  the  demand  was  made,  Fiori  was  paraded  through 
the  streets  of  Cagliari,  receiving  two  hundred  lashes,  and  was 
sent  to  the  galleys.     The  indignant  tribunal  refused  conference 
and  competencia,  and  promptly  excommunicated  the  veguer  and 
his  assessor.     Then  the  quarrel  was  transferred  to  Madrid,  where 
the  Suprema  and  the  Council  of  Aragon  alternately  for  two  years 
pelted  the   king  with  consultas,  the  former  assuming  that  the 
crime  was  purely  one  of  faith  and  that  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Inquisition  was  exclusive ;  there  could  be  no  competencia,  because 
the  inquisitor-general  was  the  sole  judge  of  what  constituted  cases 
of  faith.     In  October,  1659,  the  king  ordered  the  excommunication 
of  his  judges  to  be  hfted;  the  Suprema  replied  that  it  had  com- 
manded this  in  the  previous  February,  but  the  inquisitors  had 
given  reasons  for  not  obeying ;  it  had  repeated  the  order  in  August 
and  presumed  that  it  had  been  complied  with,  but  it  had  not  been 
and,  in  November  the  king  reiterated  his  commands.     He  decided, 
however,  as  usual,  in  favor  of  the  Inquisition,  and  the  judges  were 
summoned  to  surrender  the  prisoner  and  the  papers,  but  they 
replied  that  Fiori  had  escaped  from  the  galleys  and  that  the  papers 
had  been  sent  to  Spain.     The  Suprema  regarded  this  as  an  evasion 
and  the  utmost  it  would  do  was  to  suspend  the  excommunications 
for  six  months  at  a  time,  especially  as  the  offending  judges  refused 
to  present  themselves  before  the  tribunal  and  beg  for  absolution.' 
The  time-honored  episcopal  jurisdiction  over  bigamy  was  treated 
with  similar  imperiousness.     In  1650  the  Suprema  ordered  the 
A^alencia  tribunal  to  demand  from  the  Ordinary  the  case  of  Joana 
Arais,  charged  with  bigamy,  because  it  was  a  matter  of  faith, 
pertaining  exclusively  to  the  Inquisition.     So,  in  1658,  when  the 
Bishop  of  Salamanca  arrested  Domingo  Moreno  on  the  same 
charge,  as  soon  as  the  Valladolid  inquisitors  heard  of- it,  they 
claimed  and  obtained  and  tried  him.^    Yet,  notwithstanding  this, 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Mm,  X,  157,  p.  190. 

^  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  9,  n.  3,  fol.  313. — Archivo  de 
Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552,  fol.  42. 

It  was  the  same  in  Portugal,  where  the  bishops  had  to  yield.  The  question 
was  carried  to  Rome  and,  in  1612,  the  Archbishop  of  Lisbon  was  commanded  to 
hand  bigamists  over  to  the  Inquisition. — Collect.  Decret.  S.  Congr.  S.  Inquis., 
p.  361  (MS.  penes  me). 


Chap.  XIV]  PENALTIES  321 

the  episcopal  authority  over  the  sacrament  of  matrimony  was 
acknowledged  and,  in  all  sentences,  there  was  a  clause  referring 
to  the  Ordinary  the  question  as  to  the  validity  of  the  marriages. 

The  Roman  Inquisition  was  less  aggressive  than  the  Spanish 
for,  while  it  claimed  jurisdiction,  it  was  willing  that  bigamy  should 
be  regarded  as  mixti  fori  between  the  secular,  the  spiritual  and 
the  inquisitorial  tribunals.  If  the  civil  magistrate  was  the  first 
to  take  action  he  could  carry  a  case  to  its  conclusion,  and  punish 
the  delinquent  according  to  the  municipal  law,  but  the  episcopal 
Ordinary,  or  the  inquisitor,  ought  to  demand  the  culprit  for  exami- 
nation as  to  his  belief  in  the  sacrament  and  then,  after  making 
him  abjure  and  imposing  appropriate  penance,  return  him  to 
the  secular  court.'  Offenders  were  treated  with  somewhat  greater 
severity  than  in  Spain.  The  abjuration  was  always  de  vehementi 
and  torture  was  freely  employed  for  intention.  The  penalty  was 
the  galleys — five  years  in  ordinary  cases  and  seven  or  more  when 
justified  by  circumstances.^ 

In  Spain,  as  we  have  seen,  the  secular  laws  provided  penalties, 
but  these  were  disregarded  by  the  Inquisition,  when  it  secured 
exclusive  jurisdiction,  and  in  practice  the  tribunals  exercised  a 
wide  discretion.  Ordinarily  men  were  punished  with  one  or  two 
hundred  lashes  and  from  three  to  five  years  of  galleys  at  the  oar, 
though  those  of  gentle  blood  were  exempt  from  scourging  and 
were  sent  to  presidios  or  to  military  service  in  the  galleys.^  The 
Seville  auto  of  May  13,  1565,  may  be  taken  as  an  example,  where 
there  were  fourteen  bigamists.  Ten  of  them  were  scourged  with 
an  aggregate  of  seventeen  hundred  lashes,  and  five,  in  addition, 
were  sent  to  the  galleys,  with  an  aggregate  of  twenty-nine  years. 
A  woman  had  two  hundred  lashes,  with  prohibition  to  leave  Seville 
for  ten  years,  and  two  others  were  paraded  in  vergiienza.  The 
heaviest  punishment  was  that  of  the  Bachiller  Cristobal  de  Ordaz, 
a  physician,  who  was  fined  in  two  hundred  ducats,  provided  that 
this  did  not  exceed  half  his  property,  he  suffered  two  hundred 
lashes  and  was  sent  to  the  galleys  for  six  years  irremissibly,  after 


'Decreta  S.Congr.  S.  Officii,  pp.  461,  466  (Bibl.  del  R.  Archivio  di  Stato  in 
Roma,  Fondo  Camerale,  Congr.  del.  S.  Officio,  Vol.  3). 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  54,  fol.  117. — Ristretto  cerca  li  Delitti  piil 
frequenti,  pp.  113-141  (MS.  penes  me). 

'  Miguel  Calvo  (Archivo  de  Alcald,  Hacienda,  Leg.  544,'  Lib.  4). — Archivo  hist. 
naoional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  299,  fol.  80;  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 
VOL.  IV  21 


322  BIO  AMY  [Book  VIII 

which  he  was  banished  for  hfe,  with  a  threat  of  perpetual  galleys 
in  case  of  infraction.' 

Full  allowance  was  made  for  extenuating  circumstances.  If 
husband  or  wife  had  been  absent  for  years  and  reasonable  effort 
had  been  made  to  ascertain  their  fate,  or  false  news  of  death  had 
been  received,  the  accused  was  acquitted  or  the  penalty  reduced.^ 
This  is  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Anton  de  Cueba,  a  peasant  of 
Cienpozuelos,  before  the  Toledo  tribunal  in  1606.  Both  his 
wives  were  of  his  native  place.  He  left  it  for  awhile  and  on  his 
return  found  his  first  wife  absent.  Then  news  came  of  her  death 
in  the  hospital  of  Anton  Martin  in  Madrid.  He  went  there  and 
verified  it,  returning  with  a  certificate,  on  the  strength  of  which 
and  of  public  notoriety,  four  years  afterwards,  a  licence  for  a 
second  marriage  was  granted.  Then  the  first  wife  returned  and 
he  was  placed  on  trial.  All  this  was  carefully  verified  and  the 
case  was  suspended.'  There  can,  indeed,  be  little  doubt  that 
honestly  misguided  bigamists  fared  better  at  the  hands  of  the 
Inquisition  than  they  would  have  done  in  the  secular  courts, 
while  the  thorough  organization  of  the  tribunals  enabled  it  to 
collect  evidence  throughout  the  land,  whether  for  severity  or  mercy, 
in  a  manner  impossible  to  either  the  civil  or  episcopal  authorities. 
Its  unwearied  perseverance  was  sometimes  severely  taxed  in  the 
case  of  soldiers,  removed  from  post  to  post,  and  is  fairly  illus- 
trated in  that  of  Joseph  Antonio  Ferro,  a  private  in  the  regiment 
of  Castile,  accused,  in  1763,  to  the  Barcelona  tribunal.  His  corps 
shifted  its  quarters  and  he  was  transferred  to  the  regiment  del 
Rey;  his  movements  were  followed  up  for  years,  the  tribunals  of 
Barcelona,  Seville  and  Valladolid  were  successively  employed  on 
the  case  and,  in  1769,  that  of  Madrid  was  charged  with  its  conduct.* 

Discretion  could  be  used  to  sharpen  as  well  as  to  mitigate 
penalties,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  case  of  the  most  accomplished 
bigamist  in  the  records,  Antonio ,  who  appeared  in  the  Valla- 
dolid auto  of  October  4,  1579.  He  confessed  promptly  and  freely 
that  within  ten  years  he  had  married  fifteen  wives.  It  was  the 
profession  by  which  he  earned  a  livelihood,  for  he  wandered 
through  the  land  marrying  and  running  away  with  whatever  he 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  787. 

'  Elucidationes  S.  Officii,  §  33  (Archive  de  Alcald,  Hacienda,  Leg.  544',  Lib.  4) — 
Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xvii,  §  1. 
'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  HaUe,  Ye,  20,  T.  1. 
*  Proceso  contra  Jos.  Ant.  Ferro  (MSS.  of  Am.  Phil.  Society). 


Chap.  XIV]  JURISDICTION  DISPUTED  323 

could  secure.  He  must  have  been  a  most  plausible  scamp,  for 
his  favorite  device  was  to  personate  some  one  who  had  disappeared, 
after  gathering  information  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  maintain 
the  deception.  This  plan  he  repeated  eleven  times,  in  some  cases 
estabUshing  claims  to  considerable  property.  His  sentence  was 
to  appear  in  the  auto  with  a  mitre  bearing  the  insignia  of  all  the 
fifteen  marriages  (usually  the  figure  of  a  woman  for  each),  two 
hundred  lashes  and  the  galleys  for  life.  In  view  of  the  latter 
clause  it  seemed  slightly  superfluous  to  remit  to  the  Ordinary, 
as  usual,  the  question  as  to  which  of  the  women  he  should  live 
with.^ 

As  the  eighteenth  century  advanced,  the  inquisitorial  claim 
to  exclusive  jurisdiction  was  called  in  question.  In  the  New 
Granadan  case  of  Alberto  Maldonado,  of  Santaf6  de  Bogotd,  the 
alcalde  resisted  the  interference  of  the  Inquisition  with  his  prose- 
cution of  the  culprit;  the  matter  was  brought  before  the  royal 
Audiencia,  which  decided  in  favor  of  the  tribunal,  on  grounds 
of  expediency.  Appeal  was  made  to  the  home  government, 
resulting  in  a  decree,  February  18,  1754,  to  the  effect  that  bigamy 
was  mixti  fori  and  that  cognizance  belonged  to  the  jurisdiction 
taking  first  action.  Against  this  the  Suprema  presented  a  con- 
sulta,  March  18th,  but  to  no  purpose.  The  decree  was  enclosed 
to  all  viceroys  in  a  royal  c^dula,  commanding  that,  in  no  case, 
should  a  competencia  be  admitted,  for  no  custom  could  prevail 
against  the  regalias,  without  the  royal  consent.  If  the  Inquisition 
desired  to  take  action  for  the  suspicion  of  heresy  involved,  it  could 
do  so  after  the  culprit  had  served  out  the  punishment  imposed 
by  the  royal  courts.^ 

The  Inquisition  was  irrepressible  and,  in  spite  of  these  positive 
commands,  a  competencia  arose  in  New  Granada,  which  induced 
Carlos  III  to  reconsider  the  questions.  Consultas  were  called  for 
and  were  presented,  by  the  Suprema  in  April,  1765,  and  by  the 
Council  of  Indies  in  April,  1766,  resulting  in  a  decree  of  July  21, 
1766,  by  which  Carlos  restored  the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  the 
Inquisition.  This  was  sent  to  the  viceroys,  September  8th  and 
we  find  it  ordered  to  be  duly  obeyed  in  Mexico  by  the  Marquis  de 


•  BibliothSque  nationale,  fonds  espagnol,  No.  354,  fol.  242. 
'  Memorias  de  los  Vireyes  del  Peni,  III,  38. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq., 
Lib.  28,  fol.  115. 


324  BIGAMY  [Book  VIII 

Croix,  February  26,  1767.'  Carlos  soon  saw  reason  to  change 
his  views.  The  Auditor  de  la  Guerra  had  tried  and  sentenced 
an  invalid  soldier,  when  the  Inquisition  interposed  and  demanded 
the  papers.  This  aroused  him  to  a  sense  of  the  incongruity  of  the 
position,  and  he  ordered  the  Royal  Council  to  consider  the  matter. 
It  presented  a  unanimous  report,  January  10,  1770,  in  conformity 
with  which  he  decreed,  February  5th,  that  the  case  belonged  exclu- 
sively to  the  Auditoria  de  la  Guerra.  He  utilized  the  occasion, 
moreover,  by  adding  that  he  had  ordered  the  inquisitor-general 
to  instruct  inquisitors  that,  in  cases  of  this  kind,  they  must  observe 
the  laws  of  the  kingdom  and  not  embarrass  the  royal  judges  in 
matters  appertaining  to  them,  but  must  limit  the  use  of  their 
faculties  strictly  to  heresy  and  apostasy  and  not  dishonor  the 
royal  vassals  by  arrests  without  manifest  preliminary  proof.  All 
the  royal  tribunals  were  ordered  to  try  and  punish  bigamists, 
according  to  the  laws  and  to  be  zealous  in  preventing  any  contra- 
vention of  the  decree.^ 

This  was  a  bitter  rebuke,  sullenly  resented  by  the  Inquisition. 
There  were  many  pending  cases  in  the  tribunals  an4..they  forth- 
with suspended  proceedings.  This  led  to  a  royal  letter  of  September 
30,  1771,  in  which  authority  was  granted  to  proceed  with  all  cases 
not  on  trial  in  the  royal  courts,  and  all  that  might  be  denounced 
to  the  Inquisition,  but  subject  to  the  condition  that,  when  the 
culprit  was  not  reo  de  Je,  through  belief  that  bigamy  is  lawful, 
sentence  should  not  be  rendered  or  punishment  be  inflicted  but 
that  the  case  should  then  be  handed  over  to  the  courts  having 
jurisdiction.' 

Although  this  conceded  only  the  power  of  trying  without  con- 
victing, it  was  an  entering  wedge,  which  the  Suprema  lost  no  time 
in  turning  to  advantage,  by  stimulating  denimciations  and  making 
the  people  believe  that  it  still  held  jurisdiction.  In  the  Edict  of 
Faith  for  1772,  therefore,  bigamy  was  included,  with  the  cautious 
formula  "  so  that  the  Holy  Office  may  prevent  the  offences  against 
God  committed  in  this  crime."''  The  royal  decree  was  sent  around 
to  the  tribunals,  with  instructions  that,  when  denunciations  were 
received,  care  was  to  be  taken  to  see  that  the  accused  was  not  on 
trial  elsewhere.     In  that  case  he  was  to  be  regularly  tried  and 


'  MS.  penes  me.  '  Novfs.  Recop.,  Lib.  xii,  Tit.  xxviii,  ley  10. 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Mm,  93. 

*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  15,  n.  11   fol.  7;  n.  10,  fol.  92 


Chap.    XIV]  JURISDICTION  DIVIDED  325 

convicted  and  made  to  appear  in  an  auto  'particular,  with  the  insig- 
nia of  bigamy  and  double-knotted  halter  indicating  scourging; 
he  was  to  be  made  to  abjure  and  be  remanded  to  prison  for  two 
or  three  weeks  of  penance  and  then  be  handed  over  to  the  secular 
court,  so  that  his  subsequent  punishment  might  have  the  appear- 
ance of  being  merely  the  execution  of  a  sentence  by  the  tribunal.^ 

While  these  devices  doubtless  had  the  effect  designed,  the 
offensive  decree  of  1770  remained  in  force  and  was  a  standing 
humiliation  which  the  Suprema  strove  earnestly  to  remove.  In 
1777  it  presented  a  memorial  representing  that  the  decree  was 
printed  and  sold  and  published  in  the  journals,  causing  infinite 
prejudice  to  religion  and  giving  immense  impulse  to  profligacy 
and  infidelity.  It  debarred  the  Inquisition  from  acting  in  any 
cases  save  those  of  heresy  and  apostasy,  and  even  in  these  it  could 
make  no  arrests  unless  guilt  was  conclusively  proved.  Since  that 
year,  it  says,  how  many  have  abandoned  themselves  to  solicita- 
tion, sorcery  and  other  crimes,  believing  themselves  secure  from 
the  Inquisition!  How  many  have  allowed  themselves  to  utter 
propositions  impious  or  heretical,  believing  that,  even  when 
denounced,  they  could  not  be  arrested  until  their  offences  were 
fully  proved — a  thing  which  could  rarely  or  never  happen!  It 
is  in  vain  that  the  Inquisition  publishes  its  yearly  Edict  of  Faith; 
the  impression  produced  by  the  cedula  is  uneffaced  and  it  ought 
to  be  called  in  and  suppressed.^ 

This  appeal  led  to  a  royal  declaration  of  September  6,  1777,  to 
the  effect  that  the  cedula  of  1770  did  not  impede  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  Inquisition  in  cases  of  which  cognizance  was  reserved  to  it. 
As  to  bigamy,  the  offence  was  partitioned  between  three  juris- 
dictions; the  deceit  of  the  woman  and  the  injury  of  offspring  were 
subjected  to  the  secular  courts;  the  validity  or  invalidity  of  the 
marriage,  to  the  episcopal  courts;  and  heresy  as  to  the  sacrament, 
when  it  existed,  to  the  Inquisition.  The  three  jurisdictions  should 
cooperate,  by  each  imposing  the  penalties  belonging  to  it  and 
delivering  the  culprit  from  one  to  another  in  order  that  his  offences 
might  be  verified.'  This  subdivision  of  a  crime  into  three  was  too 
clumsily  scientific  to  be  reduced  to  practice.     In  appearance  it 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  15,  n.  11,  fol.  1-6;  Inq.  de  Toledo, 
Leg.  1. 

=  Ibidem,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  15,  n.  11,  fol.  5. — Archivo  de  Alcald,  Estado, 
Leg.  2843. 

'  Alcubilla,  C6digos  antiguos,  II,  1908. 


326  BIGAMY  [Book  VIII 

only  defined  the  existing  method,  but  in  a  shape  which  enabled 
the  Inquisition  to  encroach  on  the  secular  jurisdiction.  As  early 
as  1781,  we  find  that  the  bigamist,  after  trial,  was  handed  over  to 
the  royal  court  with  a  certificate  designating  him  not  merely  as 
a  convict  but  expressing  the  punishment  of  exile  and  presidio, 
thus  showing  that  the  tribunal  presumed  to  sentence  him  to  tem- 
poral as  well  as  to  spiritual  penance.  In  1791  a  case  indicates 
that  it  even  went  further,  for  the  Toledo  tribunal  held  an  auto 
particular  for  Gabriel  Delgado,  in  which  his  sentence  was  read, 
prescribing  not  only  abjuration  de  levi  and  spiritual  penance,  but 
exile  for  eight  years  from  Toledo,  Madrid  and  royal  residences. 
The  only  difference  between  this  and  the  practice  of  a  century 
earlier,  was  a  clause  that  his  person  was  to  be  delivered  to  the 
secular  justice.^ 

Under  the  Restoration  the  Inquisition  assumed  full  jurisdiction 
over  bigamy;  the  tribunal  sentenced  the  culprit  as  of  old,  usually 
to  scourging  and  presidio  or  exile,  and  the  Suprema,  in  confirming 
the  sentence,  ordered  the  scourging  omitted  on  some  pretext. 
Nothing  was  said  about  handing  the  culprit  over  to  the  secular 
courts.  They  might,  if  they  saw  fit,  exercise  cumulative  juris- 
diction, and  entertain  cases  that  came  to  them,  but,  after  they 
rendered  judgement,  the  Inquisition  tried  the  culprits  over  again 
and  modified  the  sentence  at  its  pleasure,  either  to  increase  or 
diminish  the  penalties.  Thus,  in  1818,  the  Granada  criminal 
court  sentenced  Eusebio  Reulin  to  six  years  of  presidio  of  which 
one  was  to  be  in  Africa.  Then  the  tribimal  took  hold  of  him, 
adding  spiritual  penances  and  perpetual  exile  from  certain  places, 
and  increasing  the  presidio  to  ten  years,  but,  when  this  went  for 
confirmation  to  the  Suprema,  it  cut  down  the  exile  to  eight  years 
and  the  presidio  to  two.  The  sentence  of  the  criminal  court  was 
treated  with  the  utmost  contempt.  An  exception  to  this  seems 
to  have  been  made  when  the  army  was  concerned.  In  1817, 
Eladio  de  Aragon  was  tried  by  the  Madrid  tribunal  and  convicted 
of  having  three  wives;  his  sentence  comprised  only  abjuration 
and  spiritual  penances,  after  the  performance  of  which  he  was  to 
be  handed  over  to  the  captain-general  with  a  copy  of  his  sentence 
and  a  recommendauon  to  mercy,  in  view  of  his  long  imprison- 
ment, his  confession  and  the  hopes  entertained  of  his  amend- 


'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  16,  n.  5,  fol.  50;  Inq.  de  Toledo, 
Leg.  1,  fol.  286. 


Chap.  XIV]  NUMBER  OF  CASES  327 

ment.'    Evidently,  in  dealing  with  the  army,  the  Inquisition  felt 
constrained  to  obey  the  laws. 

Bigamy  formed  a  portion  by  no  means  inconsiderable  of  the 
current  business  of  the  Inquisition.  In  the  Toledo  record,  from 
1575  to  1610,  the  number  of  cases  is  fifty-four,  ranking  next  to 
those  of  Moriscos.  In  the  same  tribunal,  from  1648  to  1794, 
there  were  sixty-two  cases,  being  next  in  number  to  solicitation. 
In  the  sixty-four  autos  held  in  Spain  from  1721  to  1727,  there 
were  thirty-four  cases,  the  only  crimes  exceeding  this  being 
Judaism  and  sorcery.  In  the  later  period,  owing  doubtless  to  the 
interference  of  the  secular  jurisdiction  and  the  decadence  of  the 
Inquisition,  the  number  falls  off,  the  total  in  all  tribunals  from 
1780  to  1820  being  one  hundred  and  five.^ 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  890. 

'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. — Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Tnq. 
de  Toledo,  Leg.  1 ;  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. — Royal  Library  of  Berlin,  Qt.  9548. 


CHAPTER    XV. 

BLASPHEMY. 

Blasphemy  is  a  somewhat  elastic  term  but,  for  our  purpose,  it 
may,  in  a  general  way,  be  defined  as  imprecation  derogatory  or 
insulting  to  the  Divinity.  Punished  with  lapidation  under  the 
Levitical  law,  it  was,  during  the  Middle  Ages,  the  subject  of 
infinite  legislation,  both  on  the  part  of  secular  and  ecclesiastical 
lawgivers,  and  savage  punishments,  such  as  boring  the  tongue 
with  a  hot  wire,  were  frequently  imposed.  Enrique  IV,  in  1462, 
prescribed  cutting  out  the  tongue,  together  with  scourging  or 
banishment  and,  in  1476,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  confirmed  this.' 
Jurisdiction  over  blasphemy  was  cumulative,  belonging  both  to 
the  secular  and  spiritual  courts,  and  was  also  within  the  cognizance 
of  the  Old  Inquisition,  provided  it  was  heretical,  but  the  distinction 
between  non-heretical  and  heretical  was  not  easy.  Eymerich 
tells  us  that  imprecations  reviling  God  or  the  Virgin,  or  expressing 
ingratitude  to  him,  are  simple  blasphemy  with  which  the  Inquisi- 
tion has  no  concern ;  to  give  it  cognizance  there  must  be  a  denial 
of  some  article  of  faith,  and  the  repetition  of  this  definition  by  the 
Repertorium  in  1494  shows  that  this  continued  to  be  accepted  as 
the  rule  in  practice.^ 

The  Spanish  Inquisition,  at  its  inception,  thus  found  itself 
possessed  of  jurisdiction  and,  in  Aragon  at  least,  where  the  insti- 
tution had  the  tradition  of  centuries,  there  was  no  hesitation  in 
exercising  it,  immediately  after  the  reorganization.  In  the  Sara- 
gossa  auto  of  December  17,  1486,  there  appeared  a  Christian 
punished  for  blasphemy,  his  tongue  being  pierced  with  a  stick, 
and  a  Jew  with  a  bridle  in  his  mouth,  a  mitre  and  a  straw 
espuerta.  In  this  field,  as  in  so  many  others,  inquisitorial  zeal 
outran  discretion ;  there  was  little  attention  paid  to  the  distinction 
between  heretical  and  non-heretical  and,  in  the  Instructions  of 
1500,  inquisitors  were  told  that  they  made  arrests  for  trifling 


'  Nueva  Recop.,  Lib.  viii,  Tit.  iv. 

^  Eymerici  Director,  P.  II,  Q.  xli. — Repertor.  Inquisit.  s.v.  Blasphemus. 
(328) 


Chap.  XV]  MUST  BE  EEBETIOAL  329 

matters,  not  directly  heretical,  as  for  words  uttered  in  anger  that 
were  blasphemy  and  not  heresy;  in  future,  no  one  was  to  be  arrested 
for  such  things  and,  if  there  was  doubt,  the  inquisitor-general  was 
to  be  consulted.'  This  warning  was  all  the  more  needed,  as  the 
secular  courts  were  not  ready  to  abandon  their  jurisdiction,  for 
a  pragmd,tica  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  in  1502,  provides  lashes, 
prison  and  other  penalties  for  blasphemies  so  evidently  heretical 
as  descreo  de  Dios  (I  disbeUeve  in  God).'  The  bishops  likewise 
continued  to  assert  control,  for  the  Council  of  Seville,  in  1512, 
under  ex-Inquisitor-general  Deza,  imposed  a  fine  of  three  gold 
florins  and  imprisonment  at  discretion  on  clerics,  while  for  laymen, 
in  addition  to  the  legal  penalties,  the  ecclesiastical  judge  was 
directed  to  prosecute  for  swearing,  blasphemy,  or  insults  to  God, 
the  Virgin  and  the  saints.* 

The  caution  enjoined  in  the  Instructions  of  1500  was  lost  on 
the  inquisitors  and  their  abuse  of  power,  in  this  respect,  suggested 
one  of  the  complaints  of  the  Cortes  of  Monzon,  in  1510.  In  the 
Concordia  of  1512  it  was  provided  that  they  should  not  have  cog- 
nizance of  blasphemy,  unless  it  manifestly  savored  of  heresy,  such 
as  denying  the  existence  of  God  or  his  omnipotence.  Inquisitor- 
general  Mercader  embodied  this  in  his  Instructions  of  1514,  and 
Leo  X  confirmed  it,  in  1516,  in  his  bull  Pastoralis  officii.*  The 
Aragonese  Suprema  accepted  this  and,  in  the  Edict  of  Faith  of 
1515,  it  was  specially  stated  that  denunciation  of  blasphemy  was 
not  required,  except  when  it  was  contrary  to  articles  of  faith.^ 
As  we  have  seen  in  bigamy,  however,  no  attention  was  paid  to 
this  and,  among  the  grievances  of  the  C6rtes  about  1530,  there  is 
complaint  that  the  Inquisition  threw  into  prison  orthodox  persons  for 
blasphemy  and  for  words  merely  uttered  in  the  heat  of  passion, 
to  which  the  imperturbable  inquisitor-general  replied  that  the 
inquisitors  acted  only  in  accordance  with  the  law  and,  if  parties 
had  been  aggrieved,  let  their  names  be  given,  when  due  provision 
would  be  made." 

These  troubles  were  by  no  means  confined  to  Aragon.  In 
Castile  a  royal  pragmatica  of  1515  recites  a  suppUcation  to  the 

'  Arguello,  fol.  14.  '  Llorente,  Afiales,  I,  278. 

'  C.  Hispalens.  ann.  1512,  cap.  xxxviii  (Aguirre,  V,  374). 

*  Pragmkticas  y  altres  Drets  de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  viii,  cap.  1,  2.— Archive 
de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  933. 
^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  918,  fol.  382. 
'  Ibidem,  Patronato  Real,  Inq.,  Leg.  linico,  fol.  37. 


330  BLASPHEMY  [Book  VIII 

king  asking  that  inquisitors  should  not  have  cognizance  of  blas- 
phemy, wherefore  it  was  ordered  that  they  should  only  hear  cases 
which  they  could  and  ought  to  hear,  and  a  special  charge  was 
given  to  the  inquisitor-general  not  to  permit  them  to  do  otherwise, 
and  to  provide  that  abuses,  if  such  there  were,  should  cease.'  This 
ambiguous  utterance  naturally  produced  no  effect  and,  in  1534, 
the  Cortes  of  Madrid  represented  forcibly  the  hardship  that  a 
blasphemy,  uttered  in  the  excitement  of  gambling  or  in  the  passion 
of  a  quarrel,  should  expose  a  man,  noble  and  of  pure  blood,  to 
arrest  by  the  Inquisition,  when,  as  the  cause  was  not  known,  the 
whole  lineage  suffered  infamy.  They  asked,  therefore,  that  the 
offence  should  be  remanded  exclusively  to  the  secular  courts, 
which  should  punish  it  rigorously.  To  this  Charles  evasively 
replied  that  the  judges  would  execute  the  laws  and  the  inquisitors 
would  not  exceed  their  powers,  and  he  contented  himself  with 
reissuing  the  pragmd,tica  of  1515.^ 

It  is  easy  to  appreciate  the  feelings  underlying  these  remon- 
strances, for  there  was  no  function  of  the  Inquisition  which 
brought  it  more  fully  in  contact  with  the  mass  of  the  Old  Christian 
population,  thoroughly  orthodox  at  heart,  strict  in  observance, 
proud  of  purity  of  blood,  and  dreading  nothing  so  much  as  the 
nota  incurred  by  the  slightest  suspicion  of  heresy.  The  Spaniard 
was  choleric,  and  not  especially  nice  in  his  choice  of  words  when 
moved  by  wrath;  gambling  was  an  almost  universal  passion  and, 
in  all  lands  and  ages,  nothing  has  been  more  provocative  of 
ejaculations  and  expletives  than  the  vicissitudes  of  cards  and  dice. 
What,  to  women  in  the  humbler  walks  of  Hfe,  were  the  prosecu- 
tions for  sorcery,  those  for  blasphemy  were  to  men  of  all  ranks. 
Trivial  as  this  portion  of  inquisitorial  activity  may  seem  to  us,  we 
may  feel  sui-e  that  in  no  other  way  was  the  influence  of  the  Holy 
Office  more  keenly  felt  or  more  dreaded  by  that  great  body  of 
the  nation  which  zealously  welcomed  its  persecution  of  the  Jewish 
and  Moorish  New  Christians. 

It  is  true  that,  in  theory,  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition  was 
confined  to  heretical  blasphemy  and,  if  the  older  definitions  were 
observed,  only  a  moderate  self-restraint  was  required  for  the  most 
inveterate  gambler  or  hot-headed  ruffler  to  keep  on  the  safe  side. 


'  Andres  de  Burgos,  Reportorio  de  todas  las  Prematicas,  fol.  xxxix  (Medina 
del  Campo,  1551). 
^  C6rtes  de  los  Reinos  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  IV,  589. 


Chap.  XV]  DEFINITION  DIFFICULT  331 

but  definitions  were  malleable  and  could  be  moulded  to  suit  the 
temper  or  the  aggressiveness  of  a  tribunal  anxious  for  business 
and  for  fines.  The  doctors  found  it  no, easier  to  agree  upon  the 
deUmitation  of  heretical  blasphemy  than  upon  the  thousand  other 
questions  suggested  by  Moral  Theology.  It  was  easy  to  say  in 
general  terms  that  heretical  blasphemy  consisted  in  affirming  or 
denying  of  God  that  which  the  faith  requires  to  be  denied  or 
affirmed,  or  in  attributing  to  the  creature  that  which  pertains 
solely  to  the  Creator,  but  when  it  came  to  applying  these  abstract 
principles  in  the  concrete,  there  was  apt  to  be  discordance,  and  it 
is  easy  to  imagine  how  ample  a  field  for  casuistry  was  afforded  by 
the  variety,  vigor  and  picturesqueness  of  the  blasphemy  of  the 
southern  races. 

As  a  rule,  the  Suprema  was  inchned  to  check  the  readiness  of 
the  tribunals  to  discover  heresy  in  expletives  which  were,  it  is 
true,  blasphemous,  irreverent  and  indecent,  but  not  indicative  of 
lack  of  faith.  There  was  a  class  of  these,  which  seem  to  have  been 
in  the  mouth  of  every  one,  ineradicable  by  the  most  severe  legis- 
lation, such  as  "Mai  grado  aya  Dios"  (May  it  spite  God),  "Pese 
a  Dios"  (May  God  regret)  "Reniego  d,  Dios"  (I  renounce  God), 
"Descreo  de  Dios"  (I  disbelieve  in  God)  etc.,  for  which  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella,  in  their  laws  of  1492  and  1502,  provided  penalties 
ranging  from  a  month's  imprisonment  for  a  first  offence,  to  piercing 
the  tongue  for  a  third  and,  in  1525,  Charles  V  added  "  Por  vida  de 
Dios"  (By  God's  life)  to  the  list.  In  1566,  Philip  II  in  his  desire 
for  naval  recruits,  added  ten  years  of  galleys  to  the  penalties  for 
blasphemy  and  six  years  of  galleys  to  the  tongue-piercing  for  the 
third  offence,  as  provided  by  his  predecessors.'  When  these 
offences  were  so  fully  covered  by  secular  law,  the  Suprema  deemed 
it  unnecessary  that  the  tribunals  should  be  diverted  from  their 
legitimate  functions  to  take  cognizance  of  them.  In  1537,  Dr. 
Giron  de  Loaysa,  in  his  visitation  of  Toledo,  writes  for  instructions 
concerning  these  expletives.  He  regards  them  as  heretical,  but 
he  understands  that  the  Suprema  does  not  wish  the  tribunals  to 
take  action  on  them,  as  they  are  so  common  and  there  are  already 
judges  enough  for  them.^  It  was  probably  in  response  to  this 
that,  in  the  same  year  1537,  the  Suprema  decided  that  utterances 
such  as  these  were  not  within  its  jurisdiction,  because  they  were 


'  Nueva  Recop.,  Lib.  viii,  Tit.  iv. 

2  Bibl.  pdblica  de  Toledo,  Sala  v,  Est.  xi,  Tab.  3. 


332  BLASPHEMY  [Book  VIII 

conditional,  being  merely  explosions  of  wrath  or  disappointment, 
a  decision  which  it  repeated  in  1547 ;  it  had  already,  in  1535,  con- 
strued the  Instructions  pf  1500  as  implying  that  sudden  ejacula- 
tions of  anger  were  to  be  handed  over  to  the  episcopal  courts  and, 
in  1560,  it  included  "por  vida  de  Dios"  among  non-heretical 
blasphemies.  In  1567,  however,  among  the  charges  against 
Estevan  Pueyo,  in  Valencia,  is  included  his  exclaiming  "pese  A 
Dios"  and  the  tendency  of  inquisitors  to  widen  the  definition  is 
seen  in  the  rebuke  by  the  Suprema  of  Inquisitor  Moral  because,  in 
San  Sebastian,  he  had  punished  for  sayings  such  as  "  God  cannot 
do  me  more  harm"  and  "in  this  world  you  will  not  see  me  suffer," 
unless,  indeed,  it  sagely  observes,  the  last  expression  is  used  with 
disbelief  in  the  final  Judgement/ 

This  latter  remark  illustrates  the  ingenious  casuistry  with  which 
heresy  could  be  discovered  whenever  desirable,  of  which  we  have 
already  seen  an  example  in  the  case  of  Antonio  Perez,  for  one  of 
the  charges  against  him  was  his  swearing  that,  if  God  the  Father 
interfered  with  his  defence,  he  would  cut  off  his  nose,  in  which 
Fray  Diego  de  Chaves  found  savor  of  the  heresy  of  the  Vaudois 
who  attributed  human  members  to  God.  It  is  possible  that  the 
successful  employment  against  Perez  of  the  jurisdiction  over 
blasphemy  may  have  led  to  a  more  liberal  definition  of  heresy 
for,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  we  find  a  consensus  of  opinion  that 
such  expletives  as  "reniego  de  Dios"  or  "de  la  fee"  or  "de  la 
crisma"  or  "  de  Nuestra  Senora"  or  "  descreo  de  Dios"  were  hereti- 
cal. Whether  this  applied  to  renouncing  St.  Peter,  St.  Paul  and 
other  saints  was  a  more  doubtful  question  on  which  the  doctors 
differed.  There  were  even  strict  constructionists  who  held  that  to 
call  God  all-wise  or  all-beautiful,  as  a  lover  might  address  his 
mistress,  was  blasphemy.  In  Sicily,  the  exclamation  "Sanctus 
Diabolus"  was  usually  admitted  to  be  heretical,  but  it  was  not 
prosecuted  because  it  was  so  universally  used  that  it  was  more 
convenient  to  class  it  as  simple  blasphemy.^  It  will  readily  be  seen 
how  elusive  were  the  questions  arising  from  the  variegated  inge- 
nuity of  blasphemers,  and  what  scope  there  was  for  the  indulgence 
of  temperamental  idiosyncracies  among  inquisitors. 

In  the  region  so  full  of  doubt,  where  there  were  three  claimants 


•  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  939,  fol.  106;  Lib.  81,  fol.  27. — Arohivo  hist, 
nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  31. 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  299,  fol.  80. — Alberghini,  Man. 
Qualificat.,  cap.  xvi. 


Chap.  XV]  CUMULATIVE  JURISDICTION  333 

of  jurisdiction — the  secular,  the  spiritual  and  the  inquisitorial — 
much  clashing  might  naturally  be  expected,  but  I  have  not  met 
with  any  competencias  with  the  royal  courts  arising  from  this 
source.^  In  his  anxiety  to  suppress  blasphemy,  Philip  IV  in  1639 
assembled  a  junta  to  consider  whether  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inqui- 
sition could  not  be  enlarged,  so  that  it  could  punish  the  utterance 
of  a  single  "  por  vida,"  when  the  outcome  of  its  deliberations  was  a 
comprehensive  decree  punishing  all  swearing,  save  in  judicial 
procedures,  with  a  graduated  scale  of  penalties,  and  those  addicted 
to  the  habit  were  incapacitated  for  holding  office  under  the  State. 
Of  course  this  was  ineffective  and,  in  1655  and  1656  he  ordered  the 
rigid  infliction  of  the  punishment  in  order  to  disarm  the  divine 
indignation  manifested  in  the  public  misfortunes.^ 

Neither  did  the  episcopal  courts  surrender  their  jurisdiction,  and 
it  proves  the  ineradicable  character  of  the  offence  that  it  continued 
to  flourish  in  spite  of  persecution  by  all  three.  A  case  illustrative 
of  their  cumulative  action,  and  of  the  susceptibility  of  Spanish 
piety,  was  that  of  Diego  Cabeza,  of  Manzanal  de  la  Puente  who, 
about  1620,  in  quarrelling  with  a  man,  said  that  he  did  not  know 
what  God  was  about  when  he  made  him.  The  local  magistrate, 
Francisco  Prieto,  exacted  of  him  a  fine  of  forty  ducats,  by  threaten- 
ing to  denounce  him  to  the  Inquisition,  but  the  episcopal  court 
heard  of  the  matter,  arrested,  tried  and  punished  him.  Then, 
some  ten  years  later,  in  1630,  he  was  denounced  to  the  Valladolid 
tribunal;  the  calificadores  duly  pondered  over  his  utterance  and 
pronounced  it  to  be  an  heretical  blasphemy,  but,  when  the  inquisi- 
tors learned  that  it  was  ten  years  old,  and  that  he  had  already  been 
punished  by  the  episcopal  Ordinary,  they  wisely  suspended  the 


*  This  was  not  the  case  in  Italy  where,  in  1555,  the  Inquisition  assumed  juris- 
diction over  blasphemy.  There  were  occasional  conflicts  with  the  secular  author- 
ities, especially  in  the  Venetian  territories,  as  when,  in  1595,  the  podesti  of  Brescia 
refused  to  allow  a  blasphemer  to  be  imprisoned  by  the  inquisitor.  The  Roman 
Congregation  protested,  but  the  podestS,  prevailed  and  punished  the  offender, 
probably  with  greater  severity  than  the  Inquisition  would  have  done.  There 
was  the  same  difficulty  of  distinction  between  heretical  and  non-heretical  blas- 
phemy. In  1606  the  Congregation  decided  that  puttana  de  Dio  was  not  heretical 
although  outside  of  Rome  it  was  held  to  be  so. — Decret.  S.  Cong.  S.  Officii,  p. 
29  (MSS.  of  Bibl.  del  Reale  Archivio  di  Stato  in  Roma,  Fondo  Camerale, 
Congr.  del.  S.  Officii,  Vol.  3). 

'  Cartas  de  Jesuitas  (Mem.  hist,  espanol,  XV,  191).— Nueva  Recop.,  Lib.  i, 
Tit.  i,  ley  10. — Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  viii,  Tit.  ii,  Auto  1. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552,  fol.  13. 


SM  BLASPHEMY  [Book  VIII 

Presumably  it  was  the  worst  cases  of  blasphemy  that  came  before 
the  Inquisition  and,  as  a  rule,  its  moderation  offers  a  favorable 
contrast  to  the  savage  ferocity  of  secular  legislation.  It  is  true 
that,  as  suspicion  of  heresy  was  inferred,  the  accused  was  thrown 
in  the  secret  prison  which,  in  itself,  was  a  severe  infliction,  but 
torture  was  not  employed.  The  penalties  prescribed  were  abjura- 
tion de  levi,  appearance  in  an  auto,  gagging,  scourging  and  galleys, 
according  to  the  gravity  of  the  offence,  while  frailes  were  recluded 
in  convents  of  their  own  Orders.'  These,  however,  were  reserved 
for  aggravated  cases  of  habitual  blasphemy  by  offenders  of  low 
degree;  nobles  and  gentlemen  had  their  sentences  read  in  the 
audience-chamber,  were  excused  from  abjuration,  and  were 
recluded  in  a  monastery  for  some  months.  Outbreaks  of  passion, 
in  quarrels  or  gambling  and  even  drunkenness,  were  held  to 
entitle  the  accused  to  acquittal,  or  to  merely  nominal  penalties. 
A  writer  of  about  1640,  indeed,  assumes  as  a  rule  that  the  culprit 
was  only  reprimanded  in  the  audience-chamber,  without  abjura- 
tion, except  in  very  scandalous  cases,  deserving  of  scourging  and 
the  galleys,  but  even  in  these  such  punishments  were  no  longer 
inflicted.  There  was  no  sequestration  of  property,  and  repetition 
of  the  offence  was  not  regarded  as  relapse.^  A  later  writer,  how- 
ever, holds  that  such  heretical  blasphemies  as  "reniego  de  Dios," 
"descreo  de  Dios"  and  the  like  are  punishable  with  vergiienza 
or  a  hundred  lashes.' 

It  may  be  assumed,  in  fact,  that  there  was  a  wide  discretion 
in  these  matters.  We  have  seen  the  severity  with  which  the  wild 
outbursts  of  rage  of  Antonio  P4rez  were  treated,  yet,  in  1624,  a 
young  soldier  who,  when  put  in  the  stocks,  exclaimed  "I  renounce 
God  and  the  saints;  devils  why  don't  you  come  and  carry  me  off?" 
when  duly  tried  with-  all  formality  by  the  Valladolid  tribunal, 
was  discharged  with  a  reprimand  and  without  a  sentence.  So, 
in  1630,  two  girls  in  the  Dominican  convent  of  Valladolid,  on  being 
confined  in  a  room  by  the  prioress,  in  a  burst  of  rage  repeatedly 
renounced  God  and  the  saints.  Naturally  on  trial  they  expressed 
extreme  repentance  and  were  discharged  with  a  reprimand.^  This 
wise  moderation  did  not  exclude  severity,  when  the  case  seemed 


'  Archive  de  AlcaM,  Hacienda,  Leg.  544,^  Lib.  4. 

'  Ibidem. — Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  299,  fol.  80. — Bibl. 
nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  1. 
'  Elucidationes  S.  Officii,  §  37  (Archive  de  Alcald,  vbi  sup). 
*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552,  fol.  3,  13, 


Chap.  XV]  NUMBER  OF  CASES  335 

to  demand  it.  In  1669,  Antonio  del  Hero,  for  heretical  blasphemy 
"en  grado  superlative"  was  sentenced  in  Toledo  to  appear  in  the 
auto  of  April  7th,  to  abjure  de  levi,  to  hear  mass  as  a  penitent, 
to  receive  a  hundred  lashes  and  to  serve  three  years  in  the  galleys.* 

Considering  the  prevalence  of  the  vice  and  the  energetic  efforts 
for  its  suppression,  the  number  of  cases  in  the  Inquisition  is  less 
than  might  be  expected.  In  the  Toledo  record,  from  1575  to 
1610,  there  are  only  forty-six.  In  that  of  the  same  tribunal  from 
1648  to  1794,  the  number  is  but  thirty-seven.  In  all  the  tribunals, 
from  1780  to  1820  the  total  is  one  hundred  and  forty-seven.  It 
is  evident  that,  in  this  matter,  the  activity  of  the  Inquisition 
diminished  greatly  as  time  wore  on,  whether  from  an  increase  in 
popular  reverence  or  from  a  growing  disinclination  to  denounce 
the  offence. 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS. 

In  the  undefined  and  widely  extending  jurisdiction  of  the 
Inquisition  there  were  a  number  of  matters,  more  or  less  connected 
with  the  faith,  of  which  it  assumed  cognizance.  Their  cursory- 
consideration  is  indispensable  and  they  can  more  conveniently 
be  grouped  together. 

Marriage  in  Orders. 

The  celibacy  enjoined  on  the  Catholic  clergy  includes  the  secu- 
lars, from  the  subdiaconate  upwards,  and  the  regulars  who  are 
bound  by  the  three  vows  of  chastity,  poverty  and  obedience. 
Even  degradation  from  orders  does  not  remove  the  disability,  as 
the  indelible  character  impressed  in  ordination  remains.'  Strict 
as  has  been  the  enforcement  of  the  canons,  since  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, the  weakness  of  the  flesh  has,  at  all  times,  led  to  occasional 
infractions  of  the  rule,  punishable  with  degradation,  reclusion  in 
a  monastery  and  other  penalties.  Whether  the,  offence  was  jus- 
ticiable by  the  Inquisition  was,  in  the  earlier  period,  the  subject 
of  debate,  some  authors  holding  that,  if  the  marriage  was  public, 
it  implied  heretical  error,  bringing  it  under  inquisitorial  juris- 
diction, but  that,  if  it  was  secret,  this  showed  that  there  was  no 
intellectual  misbelief,  making  the  offender  guilty  only  of  violating 
the  law  and  subjecting  him,  if  secular,  to  the  spiritual  courts,  and 
if  regular,  to  the  prelates  of  his  Order .^ 

The  Reformation,  which  sanctioned  clerical  marriage,  introduced 
a  new  and  controlling  factor  that  in  time  altered  the  situation. 


'  Reportorium  Inquisit.  s.v.  Degradatio,  §  an  clericus. 

'  Simancae  de  Cath.  Instt.,  Tit.  xl,  n.  8-13;  Ejusd.  Enchirid.,  Tit.  xii,  n.  1-3.— 
Amaldi  Albertin.  Ilepetitionem  novam,  Q.  xiii,  n.  47  (Ed.  1534,  coL  331). 

It  is  perhaps  worth  noting  that  the  Repertorium  of  1494  has  no  allusion  to  the 
subject  imder  the  titles  Castitas,  Clericus,  and  Matrimonium.    At  that  time 
it  was  evidently  considered  to  be  outside  of  the  sphere  of  the  Inquisition. 
(336) 


Chap.  XVI]  MARRIAGE  IN  ORDERS  337 

Yet,  for  a  considerable  period  there  was  a  powerful  movement, 
especially  among  German  Catholics,  to  relax  the  prohibition  in 
the  hope  of  effecting  a  reunion.  The  question  was  regarded  as 
open  for  discussion,  as  a  matter  merely  of  discipline;  Arnaldo 
Albertino  argues  that  the  pope  can  dispense  for  marriage  in  orders, 
and  instances  the  dispensation  granted  by  Alexander  VI  to  his 
son  Cffisar  Borgia,  then  a  cardinal-deacon,  to  marry  the  heiress 
of  Valentinois.^  The  reactionary  influences  which  controlled  the 
Council  of  Trent  changed'  all  this  when,  in  1563,  it  made  clerical 
celibacy  a  matter  of  faith,  rendering  priestly  marriage  unques- 
tionably thenceforth  heretical.^ 

The  Inquisition,  however,  did  not  wait  for  this  to  assume  juris- 
diction, though  it  seems  not  to  have  acted  until  after  the  outbreak 
of  the  Reformation  had  rendered  clerical  celibacy  a  subject  of 
discussion.  The  earliest  case  that  I  have  met  is  that  of  Miguel 
G6mez,  a  priest  of  Saragossa,  sentenced,  for  marrying  in  orders, 
by  the  Toledo  tribunal  in  1529,  when  the  peculiar  punishment 
would  seem  to  show  that  it  was  a  novelty  for  which  no  precedent 
existed.  He  was  exhibited  for  three  days  on  a  ladder  at  the 
portal  of  the  cathedral,  in  his  shirt  and  drawers,  with  his  hands 
tied,  his  feet  chained  and  a  mitre  on  his  head,  after  which  he  was 
deprived  for  life  of  sacerdotal  functions  and  banished  forever  from 
the  province.  Toledo  had  no  other  case  until  1562,  wheii  it  had 
to  deal  with  the  somewhat  complicated  offence  of  Fray  Juan 
Ramirez,  who  entered  a  religious  order  while  married,  but  twice 
left  it  and  returned  again,  during  which  performances  he  married 
two  wives.'  That  jurisdiction  depended  wholly  on  the  sacrament 
is  seen  in  the  case  of  Juan  Carrillo,  alias  Fray  Juan  Ortiz,  a  Fran- 
ciscan denounced,  in  1596,  to  the  Toledo  tribunal  by  his  prelate. 
Fray  Juan  de  Ovando,  for  apostasy  and  living  with  a  woman 
reputed  to  be  his  wife.  Investigation  showed  that  she  was  merely 
his  concubine,  so  the  case  was  suspended,  and  he  was  remanded 
to  Ovando  to  be  dealt  with  under  the  rules  of  the  Order.* 


'  Amaldi  Albertini  de  agnoscendis  Assertionibus,  Q.  xxiii,  n.  41. 

In  Germany,  many  Catholic  priests  took  wives.  By  the  Interim  of  Charies  V, 
in  1548,  they  were  allowed  to  remain  undisturbed  until  the  Council  of  Trent 
should  decide  the  question. — Interim,  cap.  xxvi,  §  17. 

'  C.  Trident.  Sess.  xxiv,  De  Sacr.  Matrimonii,  can.  ix.  Yet  the  council  recog- 
nized the  papal  power  of  dispensation. 

'  Catdlogo  de  las  causas  seguidas  ante  el  tribunal  de  Toledo,  pp.  306,  307. 

*  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. 
VOL.  IV  22 


338  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

After  the  offence  had  clearly  been  made  heresy  by  the  Council 
of  Trent,  the  terrifying  formula  of  accusation  by  the  fiscal  describes 
the  offender  as  unworthy  of  mercy,  to  be  deprived  of  all  ecclesias- 
tical privilege,  to  be  degraded  from  his  orders  and  to  be  relaxed 
to  the  secular  arm,  to  which  was  added  the  otrosi  demanding  the 
free  use  of  torture/  In  practice,  however,  there  was  the  widest 
discretion.  It  is  true  that  writers  speak  of  appearance  in  public 
auto  or  degradation  and  reclusion  in  a  monastery  for  a  few  years, 
or  a  similar  term  of  galley  service,  but  there  seems  to  have  been 
no  rule.^  Indeed,  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  how  an  offence  so 
uniform  in  its  nature  should  have  been  visited  with  penalties  so 
diverse.  In  1597,  Francisco  Agustin,  an  Augustinian  of  Barce- 
lona, married  in  Toledo,  sought  to  defend  himself  on  the  plea  that 
he  had  entered  the  Order  under  compulsion  in  order  to  escape  his 
debts:  his  sentence  was  appearance  in  an  auto,  abjuration  de  levi 
and  imprisonment  for  life  in  the  convent  where  he  had  made 
profession.'  In  1629,  Fray  Lorenzo  de  Avalle,  a  Benedictine 
priest,  accused  himself  to  the  Valladolid  tribunal  of  having  mar- 
ried and  Uved  for  eight  years  as  a  musician  in  Aragon.  Notwith- 
standing his  self-denunciation,  he  was  sentenced  to  verbal  degra- 
dation and  to  four  years'  detention  in  a  monastery,  where  he  was 
to  undergo  a  circular  discipline,  while  the  woman  was  notified 
that  she  was  free  to  marry  again.*  In  strong  contrast  with  this 
was  the  case  of  Juan  Alonso  Palacios,  a  married  Jesuit,  before  the 
Toledo  tribunal  in  1659,  who,  though  not  an  espontaneado,  escaped 
with  a  reprimand  and  four  years  of  reclusion.  Then,  in  1664, 
Fray  Juan  de  Ayala,  a  Mercenarian  priest,  was,  by  the  same  tri- 
bunal, suspended  perpetually  from  his  functions  and  recluded  for 
three  years  in  a  convent  with  one  year's  Friday  fasting  and  some 
spiritual  penance.  Again,  in  1675,  the  same  tribunal  condemned 
Ger6nimo  de  Morales,  a  married  subdeacon,  to  five  years  in  the 
galleys,  three  more  of  exile  and  disqualification  for  orders.^  Five 
years  of  galleys,  with  three  more  of  exile  and  deprivation  of  func- 
tions and  benefices,  was  the  portion  of  Don  Cristoval  de  Zabiati, 


•  MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218b,  p.  420. 

^  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  299,  fol.  80. — Elucidationes  S. 
Officii,  §  34  (Archivo  de  Alcald,  Hacienda,  Leg.  544,'  Lib.  4). 
=  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  HaUe,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552,  fol.  11. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 


Chap.  XVI]  PERSONATION  OF  PRIESTHOOD  339 

alias  Don  Juan  Baptista  de  Verganza,  priest  of  Talavera  de  la 
Reina,  who  appeared  in  the  great  Madrid  auto  of  1680/  In  1700 
the  Toledo  tribunal  had  to  deal  with  a  case  characterized  as  "con 
circonstancias  gravfeimas,"  so  that  we  may  regard  the  sentence 
as  representing  the  extremity  of  punishment  for  the  offence.  The 
culprit  was  not  required  to  appear  in  an  auto,  but  his  sentence 
was  read  in  the  audience-chamber,  in  the  presence  of  twenty-four 
ecclesiastics.  It  prescribed  abjuration  de  levi,  perpetual  depri- 
vation of  functions,  perpetual  confinement  in  a  convent  cell,  to 
be  left  only  for  choir  and  refectory,  in  which  he  was  to  have  the 
last  place,  to  fasting  for  four  years,  on  bread  and  water  on  Fridays 
and  vigils,  and  to  a  circular  disciphne  when  taken  to  the  con- 
vent. The  details  of  his  career  are  not  given,  but  there  is  a  sug- 
gestion of  material  for  a  picaresque  novel,  as  the  culprit  was  a 
Dominican,  Fray  Tomas  Juster,  who  had  been  a  calificador  of 
the  Inquisition  and  a  preacher  of  the  king,  and  who  enjoyed  the 
multifarious  aliases  of  Don  Juan  de  San  Feliii  Cisneros,  Don 
Vicente  de  Ochaita  and  Don  Juan  de  Ibarrola.^  It  is  somewhat 
remarkable  that  degradation  appears  so  rarely  to  be  resorted  to. 
The  offence  seems  to  have  been  by  no  means  frequent.  In  the 
Toledo  reports  from  1575  to  1610,  there  are  only  the  two  cases 
referred  to  above,  and,  in  the  record  of  the  same  tribunal  from 
1648  to  1794  the  number  is  only  ten.  From  1780  to  1820  the 
combined  records  of  all  the  tribunals  show  only  six  cases.^ 


Peesonation  of  Priesthood. 

The  veneration  with  which  the  sacraments  are  regarded,  and 
the  supreme  importance  ascribed  to  them  as  a  means  of  salvation, 
render  it  indispensable  that  they  should  be  guarded  with  the 
utmost  solicitude.  Not  only  is  their  validity  essential  to  those 
who  seek  them,  but  any  fraud  in  their  dispensation  is  sacrilege, 
which,  in  the  case  of  the  mass,  may  plunge  all  worshippers  present 
into  the  sin  of  idolatry.  With  the  exception  of  baptism,  they  can 
be  administered  only  by  those  in  full  priest's  orders,  and  the 
pretence  to  do  so  by  men  unqualified  is  a  wrong,  not  only  to  the 


'  Olmo,  Relacion  del  Auto,  p.  204. 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 

°  Ibidem,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 


340  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

faithful  who  are  deceived,  but  to  the  Creator  who  has  established 
them  for  the  solace  and  salvation  of  His  creatures.' 

The  fees  attaching  to  the  confection  and  bestowal  of  the  sacra- 
ments are  a  valuable  privilege  of  the  priesthood,  and  the  tempta- 
tion was  great  for  graceless  laymen  or  clerics  in  the  lower  orders  to 
simulate  the  possession  of  the  requisite  faculties,  and  to  betray 
the  unsuspecting  into  accepting  from  their  hands  the  worthless 
simulacra.  In  the  venality  of  the  fourteenth  century  this  would 
seem  not  to  have  been  regarded  as  an  especially  grave  offence 
for,  in  the  tax-roll  of  Benedict  XII,  the  official  fee  for  absolution 
for  pretending  to  be  a  priest,  hearing  confessions  and  granting 
absolution,  is  only  six  grossi  or  about  three-quarters  of  a  florin.^ 
After  the  outbreak  of  the  Reformation  it  was  regarded  as  a  more 
serious  matter.  Paul  IV,  in  briefs  of  May  20,  1557,  and  February 
17,  1559,  defined  the  offence  as  subject  to  the  Inquisition,  and  to 
be  punished  by  relaxation,  even  when  there  was  not  relapse.^ 
Sixtus  V  felt  compelled  to  reissue  the  brief  of  Paul,  and  Clement 
VIII,  in  1601,  confirmed  the  acts  of  his  predecessors,  authorizing 
prosecution  by  either  the  Inquisition  or  the  episcopal  Ordinary. 
This  was  applicable  only  to  culprits  who  had  reached  the  age  of 
25,  but  Urban  VIII,  in  1627,  reduced  the  limit  to  20." 

This  repetition  of  legislation  shows  the  stubbornness  of  the  evil 
and  the  papal  determination  to  suppress  it.  Even  complicity 
was  sternly  punished  for,  in  1619,  a  layman  assisting  a  celebrant, 
whom  he  knew  to  be  unqualified,  was  tortured  for  intention,  made 
to  abjure  de  vehementi,  to  serve  five  years  in  the  galleys,  and  was 
perpetually  suspended  from  assisting  at  mass.°  Cardinal  Scaglia, 
however,  states  that  when  the  offence  was  committed  through 
thoughtlessness,  relaxation  was  commuted  to  ten  years  of  galleys," 
but  there  was  no  hesitation  in  inflicting  the  full  penalty  in  appro- 
priate cases.     As  late  as  July  18,  1711,  Domenico  Spallacino, 


'  "  Consentaneum  visum  est  de  sanctissimis  ecclesise  sacramentis  agere,  per 
quaj  omnis  vera  justitia  vel  incipit,  vel  coepta  augetur,  vel  amissa  reparatur." — 
C.  Trident.  Sess.  vii,  De  Sacramentis,  Procem. 

^  P.  Denifle,  Die  alteste  Tax-rolle  der  Apost.  Ponitentiarie  (Archiv  f.  Litt.  u. 
K.-Geschichte,  TV,  224-5). 

'  Locati  Opus  judiciale  Inquisitor.,  pp.  475,  476  (Romae,  1570). — Farinacii  de 
Hseresi,  Q.  cxciii,  §  1,  n.  39. 

'  BuUar.  Roman.  Ill,  142;  IV,  144. 

'  Collect.  Deer.  S.  Congr.  S.  Officii,  p.  50  (MS.  penes  me). 

°  Ristretto  circa  li  Delitti  piil  frequenti  nel  S.  Offizio,  p.  104-5  (MS.  penes  me). 


Chap.  XVI]  PERSONATION  OF  PRIESTHOOD  341 

a  hardened  offender,  who  had  lived  for  five  years  by  celebrating 
mass  in  Rome,  Loreto  and  other  places,  was  relaxed  and  con- 
demned to  be  hanged  and  burned;  he  was  duly  hanged  in  the 
Piazza  di  Campo  de'Fiori,  the  body  was  fastened  to  an  iron 
stake  on  a  pile  of  wood  and  was  reduced  to  ashes,  which  were 
gathered  up  and  buried/ 

In  Spain  the  matter  was  treated  less  seriously.  The  Inquisition 
at  first  did  not  regard  itself  as  having  jurisdiction  unless  there  were 
misbelief  as  to  the  sacraments.  A  carta  acordada  of  January  31, 
1533,  instructs  the  tribunals  that,  in  these  cases,  the  culprit  is  to 
be  asked  whether  he  thought  himself  possessed  of  the  power,  or 
whether  he  had  anywhere  heard  it  so  asserted  as  an  opinion,  and 
what  was  his  intention;  if  he  acknowledges  no  erroneous  belief,  the 
matter  does  not  concern  the  Inquisition  and,  he  is  to  be  handed 
over  to  the  magistrate.  The  briefs  of  Paul  IV  were  not  admitted 
in  Spain,  and  the  matter  slumbered  until  1574  when,  on  January 
13th,  the  Suprema  addressed  to  the  tribunals  a  circular  inquiry, 
asking  whether  there  had  been  any  prosecutions  for  this  offence; 
if  so,  on  what  grounds  was  the  jurisdiction  based,  what  form  of 
procedure  was  followed,  and  what  penalty  was  inflicted;  also 
opinions  were  asked  as  to  how  such  cases  should  be  treated.' 
Evidently  no  attention  had  as  yet  been  paid  to  the  question ;  the 
repUes  showed  that  there  was  no  general  policy,  and  a  brief  of 
August  17th,  of  the  same  year,  was  obtained  from  Gregory  XIII 
reciting  that  in  Spain  there  were  conflicting  opinions  whether  the 
Inquisition  had  or  had  not  jurisdiction,  wherefore  he  granted  to 
it  exclusive  cognizance,  and  forbade  the  episcopal  courts  from 
entertaining  such  cases.'  This  the  Suprema  sent,  November  26th, 
to  all  the  tribunals  with  orders  to  prosecute  in  such  cases,  and  to 
introduce  a  corresponding  clause  in  the  Edict  of  Faith.^ 

It  is  evident  that  the  Spanish  Inquisition  did  not  share  the 
horror  felt  in  Rome  for  such  offences,  and  this  is  manifested  in  the 
comparative  moderation  of  the  penalties  inflicted.  About  1650,  a 
Spaniard  in  Rome,  writing  to  a  friend  at  home,  and  comparing 
the  severity  of  the  Italian  Inquisition  with  the  mildness  of  the 

'  Royal  Library  of  Munich,  Cod.  Ital.  185. — Bibl.  del  R.  Archivio  di  Stato  in 
Roma,  Miscellanea  MS.,  p.  729. 

2  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  939,  fol.  107. — Ant.  de  Sousa.  Opusc.  circa 
Constit.  Pauli  V,  p.  57. — Rod.  a  Cunha  pro  PP.  Pauli  V  Statute,  p.  65. 

'  BuUar.  Roman.  II,  415. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  939,  fol.  108;  Lib.  942,  fol.  39. 


342  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

Spanish,  instances  the  Roman  torture  of  bigamists  and  soliciting 
confessors,  the  longer  terms  of  galleys  for  the  former,  and  the 
implacable  relaxation  of  those  who  celebrate  mass  without  ordi- 
nation/ There  was  no  such  ferocity  in  Spain.  No  time  had  been 
lost  in  assuming  the  jurisdiction  and  already,  in  1575,  there  was 
a  culprit  in  a  Toledo  auto — Fray  Alonso  Garcfa,  a  Franciscan — 
who  had  celebrated  mass  and  heard  confessions,  and  whose  sen- 
tence was  merely  abjuration  de  levi  and  four  years'  galley  service. 
The  most  complete  discretion  was  exercised  and  the  penalties 
varied  in  the  same  tribunal  according  to  the  circumstances  of  the 
case  and  the  temper  of  the  inquisitors.  Thus  in  Toledo,  in  1578, 
Pero  Joan  Queito,  a  student,  who  carried  forged  certificates  and 
had  confessed  many  persons,  absolving  them  and  imposing 
penance,  appeared  in  an  auto,  with  halter  and  candle,  abjured 
de  levi,  and  had  two  hundred  lashes  and  three  years  of  galleys.  In 
the  same  year  a  Frenchman  named  Pierre  Saletas,  accused  of 
having  for  twenty  years  heard  confessions  and  celebrated  mass 
on  forged  certificates,  was  tortured  without  confessing  and  was 
banished  the  kingdom  for  four  years  and  forbidden  to  administer 
sacraments  without  genuine  certificates.  In  1600,  Balthasar 
Rodriguez,  a  deacon,  appeared  in  an  auto,  abjured  de  levi,  was 
suspended  for  ten  years  from  the  exercise  of  his  orders,  with  per- 
petual disability  for  promotion,  and  had  six  years  of  galleys.  In 
the  same  year  the  Mercenarian,  Fray  Gregorio  de  Palacios,  was 
spared  appearance  in  an  auto,  but  abjured  de  levi,  had  fifty  lashes 
and  was  recluded  for  three  years  in  a  monastery  of  his  Order.^ 
In  1622,  at  Valladolid,  the  Franciscan  deacon.  Fray  Juan  Tapia, 
for  celebrating  mass,  was  merely  ordered  to  keep  his  convent  as 
a  prison  and  to  present  himself  when  summoned.  Somewhat 
greater  severity  was  shown  to  Fray  Antonio  Frechado,  a  Trini- 
tarian subdeacon,  who  for  publicly  hearing  confessions  was  re- 
quired to  abjure  de  levi,  was  suspended  from  his  functions  for 
two  years,  during  which  he  was  recluded  in  his  convent,  was 
disabled  for  promotion  and  had  some  spiritual  penance.' 

It  would  be  useless  to  multiply  examples  of  this  diversified 
moderation.  I  have  met  with  but  one  case  in  which  the  papal 
prescription  of  relaxation  was  obeyed  and  this  occurred  in  Mexico, 
in  1606,  when  Fernando  Rodriguez  de  Castro,  a  mulatto,  was 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  114. 

2  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  HaUe,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552,  fol.  1,  11. 


Chap.  XVI]  PERSONATION  OF  PBIESTHOOD  343 

relaxed  for  administering  sacraments  without  ordination,  but  this 
was  no  precedent  for,  in  the  great  auto  of  1648,  Gaspar  de  los 
Reyes  was  sentenced  to  two  hundred  lashes  and  the  galleys  for 
life  and  Martin  de  Villavicencio  Salazar  to  the  same  scourging 
and  five  years  of  galleys/ 

The  systematic  writers  assure  us  that  the  papal  decrees  were 
not  received  in  Spain,  and  that  the  punishment  varied  with  the 
nature  of  the  case,  consisting  usually  of  scourging,  unless  the  offen- 
der was  a  fraile,  the  galleys,  exile,  reclusion,  degradation,  suspen- 
sion of  functions,  etc.,  varied  at  the  discretion  of  the  tribunal  and 
that,  in  cases  of  minor  culpability,  it  could  be  commuted  for 
money.  Relaxation  was  kept  in  view  only  for  some  error  in 
faith  persistently  held — a  purely  academical  supposition,  although 
the  culprit  was  exhaustively  examined  as  to  his  belief  in  the 
necessity  of  priestly  orders  to  the  validity  of  sacraments.^  That 
ecclesiastics  between  themselves  in  reality  attached  but  little 
importance  to  the  offence  may  be  inferred  from  the  case  of  the 
Mercenarian  Fray  Pedro  de  la  Presentacion,  who  celebrated  mass 
when  only  in  subdeacon's  orders.  The  Toledo  tribimal  condemned 
him,  June  16,  1662,  to  three  years  of  galleys.  The  superior  of  his 
Order  at  once  interceded  for  him  and,  in  September,  the  Suprema 
commuted  the  penalty  to  three  years'  reclusion  in  a  convent,  with 
three  years'  subsequent  exile  from  Daimiel,  Toledo  and  Madrid. 
When  only  ten  months  of  the  term  had  expired  the  Provincial  of 
Castile  applied  for  the  remission  of  the  remainder,  but  in  vain  and, 
when  two  years  had  passed  the  effort  was  renewed.'  Evidently 
the  good  frailes  recked  little  of  the  idolatry  into  which  he  had 
plunged  all  who  were  present  at  his  ministration. 

As  the  eighteenth  century  advanced  a  still  more  lenient  view 
seems  to  have  obtained.  In  1749  the  case  of  Fray  Juan  de  Santa 
Rosa,  a  Franciscan  deacon,  was  an  aggravated  one,  for  he  had 
administered  the  sacraments  of  baptism,  the  Eucharist,  penitence 
and  matrimony,  but  the  Toledo  tribunal  only  declared  him '  'irregu- 
lar" for  promotion,  suspended  him  from  the  diaconate  for  two 
years  and  imposed  fifteen  days  of  spiritual  penance.    No  special 

'  Obregon,  Mexico  Viejo,  II,  353,  383.— Museo  Mexicano,  T.  I,  pp.  338^0 
(Mexico,  1843). 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xix. — Miguel  Calvo  (Archivo  de  Alcald 
Hacienda,  Leg.  544,^  Lib.  4).— Elucidationes  S.  Officii,  §  38  (Ibidem).— MSS.  of 
Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218t>,  p.  385. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  1183,  fol.  13. 


344  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VHI 

expectation  of  amendment  earned  this  benignity,  for  his  Provincial 
was  instructed  to  send  him  to  a  convent,  from  which  he  was  not 
to  go  out  alone,  so  as  not  to  expose  him  to  relapse.' 

Under  the  Restoration  there  was  leniency  difficult  to  understand. 
The  sentence  of  the  Dominican  Fray  Tomas  Garcia  by  the  Cuenca 
tribunal,  November  14,  1816,  for  celebrating  mass  without  priests' 
orders,  was  that  the  commissioner  of  Villaescusa  was  to  reprimand 
him  in  presence  of  the  superior  of  his  convent,  pointing  out  the 
severe  penalties  provided  by  the  papal  decrees  and  prescribing 
spiritual  penances  for  a  year,  besides  informing  the  prelate  that 
he  could  not  ascend  to  full  orders.  This  was  confirmed  by  the 
Suprema,  with  the  addition  that  he  be  transferred  to  a  house  of 
stricter  observance.  December  11th  of  the  same  year,  Angel 
Sampayo,  a  married  layman  of  Campo  Ramiro  (Lugo)  was  con- 
victed of  celebrating  mass.  The  Suprema  alludes  to  his  atentato 
horrible,  but  merely  orders  him  to  be  reprimanded  and  sent  back 
to  his  home,  where  the  parish  priest  and  his  father  are  to  keep 
watch  over  him.^ 

In  connection  with  this  subject  it  may  be  mentioned  that  the 
Inquisition  also  took  cognizance  of  a  class  of  cases,  alluded  to 
above  under  Solicitation,  in  which  lajonen  managed  to  hear  con- 
fessions of  women,  not  with  a  view  to  administer  the  sacrament  of 
penitence,  but  through  jealousy,  or  for  the  opportunity  of  asking 
indecent  questions,  or  in  the  hope  of  listening  to  prurient  details. 
These  cases  were  by  no  means  infrequent.  In  1785,  there  were 
three  before  the  tribunal  of  Valencia;  in  1793,  one  in  Murcia;  in 
1796,  Joseph  Herranz  was  prosecuted  in  Madrid  for  doing  this  in 
order  to  hear  his  wife's  confession.  The  same  year  there  was  a 
case  in  Seville;  in  1797,  one  in  Barcelona  and,  in  1807,  Miguel 
Domfnguez,  sacristan  of  San  Miguel  de  Niebla,  pretended  to  be  a 
Capuchin  with  the  object  to  listening  to  the  confession  of  a  woman.^ 
With  what  severity  such  cases  were  treated,  I  have  not  been  able 
to  ascertain. 


'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  890. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Liq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 


Chap.  XVI]  PERSONATION  OF  OFFICIALS  345 


Personation  op  Officials. 

In  the  universal  dread  inspired  by  the  Holy  Office,  the  tempta- 
tion was  great  to  personate  its  agents,  and  to  extort  money  as  the 
price  of  forbearance,  for  no  one  ventured  to  question  the  author- 
ity or  acts  of  any  stranger  who  presented  himself  as  an  official. 

The  opportunities  thus  afforded  were  speedily  recognized  and 
utilized.  As  early  as  1487,  at  Saragossa,  a  special  auto  was  held, 
April  1st,  at  which  appeared  a  cleric  who  had  pretended  to  be 
an  inquisitor  and  as  such  had  made  an  arrest.  The  penalty 
inflicted  is  not  recorded,  but  evidently  the  opportunity  was 
taken  to  make  an  impressive  warning.* 

The  systematic  writers  assume  that  in  these  cases  there  should 
be  careful  consideration  of  the  injury  inflicted,  for  the  pretender 
may  deserve  exemplary  punishment.  The  usual  offence  is  assert- 
ing that  there  are  accusations  and  that  he  will  save  the  accused 
from  prosecution;  for  this  he  must  refund  the  money  received, 
appear  in  an  auto  and  suffer  two  hundred  lashes  and  five  years  of 
galley  service.  If  the  imposture  is  assumed  only  to  escape  from 
some  trouble  and  causing  no  damage,  there  is  some  penalty  of 
fine  or  exile;  if  there  has  been  only  an  assertion  of  official  position, 
the  penalty  is  very  light  and  secret.^  Other  authorities  tell  us 
that,  if  the  culprit  is  of  a  low  class,  he  has  two  hundred  lashes  and 
four  years  of  galleys,  more  or  less  according  to  the  gravity  of  the 
offence;  if  he  is  a  noble  or  rich,  he  is  fined  one  or  two  thousand 
ducats  and  serves  for  two  or  three  years,  without  pay,  as  a  gentle- 
man in  the  galleys,  or  against  the  Moors  or  heretics.^  Evidently 
in  an  offence  which  varied  so  much  in  motive  and  result,  much  was 
necessarily  left  to  the  discretion  of  the  tribunal  and  a  few  cases 
will  serve  to  indicate  the  different  methods  of  operating  and  the 
deterrent  penalties  inflicted. 

In  the  Seville  auto  of  September  24,  1559,  there  were  three 
cases  of  personation.  Alonso  de  Hontiveros,  for  pretending  to 
be  a  familiar  and  endeavoring  to  make  arrests  for  the  purpose  of 
extortion,  appeared  with  halter  and  gag  and  was  sent  to  Xeres  his 


'  MS.  Memoria  de  diversos  Autos  (see  Appendix  to  Vol.  I). 
'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xvi. 

'  Elucidationes  S.  Officii,  §  47  (Archive  de  AlcaU,  Hacienda,  Leg.  544',  Lib.  4). 
—MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218b,  p.  332. 


346  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VHl 

place  of  residence  to  receive  a  hundred  lashes;  Juan  de  Aragon, 
of  Malaga,  for  the  same  offence,  was  spared  the  gag,  but  wore  a 
mitre  and  had  a  scourging  at  Mdlaga  and  another  where  his  offence 
was  committed,  besides  two  years  of  exile,  while  his  accomphce, 
Francisco  Prieto,  received  the  same  sentence,  with  the  substitution 
of  vergiienza  for  scourging.^  On  the  other  hand,  at  Toledo,  in 
1581,  Francisco  de  la  Bastida  was  visited  with  the  utmost  rigor. 
He  represented  himself  as  an  alguazil,  carrying  a  vara  de  justicia 
and  using  the  name  of  the  inquisitor-general.  He  would  summon 
the  alcades  and  other  officials  to  render  assistance,  which  was 
freely  given  without  question;  he  would  make  arrests,  carry  his 
prisoners  to  some  distance,  take  their  money,  leave  them  in  charge 
of  some  local  familiar  and  disappear.  In  this  way  he  moved  from 
Fuente  de  Enzina  to  Almaden  and  Madrid,  and  thence  to  Sara- 
gossa  where  he  was  arrested.  He  confessed  freely  at  once  and 
was  condemned  to  relaxation,  by  virtue  of  a  special  brief  obtained 
from  Gregory  XIII,  but  the  Suprema,  with  doubtful  mercy,  com- 
muted this  to  six  hundred  lashes — two  hundred  each  in  Toledo, 
Almaden  and  Fuente  de  Enzina — and  the  galleys  irremissibly  for 
life.^  Zapata  relates  what  is  evidently  the  exploit  which  brought 
to  a  close  the  promising  career  of  this  enterprising  knave.  At 
Almagro,  he  says,  the  agent  of  the  Fuggers  of  Augsburg  was  Juan 
Xelder,  a  man  highly  esteemed  and  reputed  to  be  of  great  wealth. 
Suddenly  a  stranger  appeared,  with  the  vara  of  an  alguazil  of 
the  Inquisition,  who  sought  out  two  familiars  and  commanded 
them  to  assist  him  in  making  an  arrest.  Proceeding  to  Xelder's 
house  he  made  the  arrest,  locked  him  up  in  a  room  and  consoled 
the  frightened  family  by  assuring  them  of  the  customary  mercy 
of  the  Inquisition.  He  then  summoned  a  notary  and  placed  all 
the  property  of  the  prisoner  under  sequestration,  except  two 
thousand  ducats  which  he  said  he  had  orders  to  take  for  the 
expenses  of  the  trial.  The  whole  town  was  thrown  into  commotion, 
but  no  one  dared  to  ask  for  papers,  or  authority,  or  identification. 
Xelder  was  placed  in  a  carriage,  with  strict  orders  that  no  one 
should  exchange  a  word  with  him ;  the  familiars  were  required  to 
accompany  it  to  the  next  halting  place,  where  they  and  the  carriage 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Hacienda,  Leg.  25,  fol.  3. 

2  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  HaUe,  Yc,  20,  T.  I.— See  above,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  189. 

Simancas  (De  Cath.  Instt.,  Tit.  xlvi,  n.  92,  93)  says  that  the  Inquisition  cannot 
relax  for  personation,  however  grave  the  case  may  be,  which  explains  the  neces- 
sity of  the  special  papal  brief. 


Chap.  XVI]  PERSONATION  OF  OFFICIALS  347 

were  dismissed  with  handsome  gratuities  and  the  stranger  confided 
Xelder  to  the  care  of  a  familiar  of  high  standing,  with  orders  to 
guard  him  carefully,  incomunicado,  while  he  would  proceed  to 
Toledo  and  send  instructions.  Ten  days  passed  when  the  familiar, 
growing  tired  of  the  expense,  made  inquiries  and  ascertaining 
the  facts  released  the  prisoner.  Meanwhile  the  impostor,  fearing 
to  carry  the  gold,  deposited  it  with  a  banker  and  took  a  bill  of 
exchange  on  Saragossa,  so  that  he  was  readily  tracked  and  arrested 
when  he  presented  the  bill  for  payment.  The  secular  court 
claimed  him,  but  the  Inquisition  asserted  its  jurisdiction — for- 
tunately, Zapata  says,  for  the  culprit,  for  the  offence  was  capital 
and  he  escaped  with  scourging  and  the  galleys.' 

Another  method  of  speculation  on  the  fears  and  hopes  of  the 
defenceless  appears  in  the  case  of  Geronimo  Roche,  son  of  the 
secretary  of  the  University  of  Lerida.  He  pretended  to  be  an 
official,  to  have  much  influence  with  the  tribunal,  and  to  hold 
faculties  to  remit  four  sanbenitos  and  to  appoint  four  familiars. 
He  approached  a  Morisca  who,  with  her  three  daughters,  had  been 
reconciled,  and  offered  to  relieve  her  of  her  sanbenito  for  two 
hundred  ducats,  and  those  of  her  three  daughters  if  one  of  them 
would  abandon  herself  to  him.  He  was  forbidden  the  house  but 
he  persisted  in  writing  letters  of  mingled  threats  and  love.  For 
this  he  appeared  in  the  Saragossa  auto  of  June  6,  1585,  where  he 
was  sentenced  to  vergiienza  and  eight  years  in  the  galleys,  being 
spared  the  scourging  in  consideration  of  his  father.^ 

There  appears  to  have  been  a  very  lenient  view  taken,  in  1582, 
by  the  Toledo  tribunal,  of  the  case  of  Pedro  Moreno,  a  sacristan, 
who  pretended  to  be  a  familiar  and  as  such  visited  the  hospital 
and  asked  the  inmates  whether  they  had  confessed,  when  he 
arrested  and  carried  off  those  who  had  not.  It  was  in  evidence 
also  that,  on  seeing  two  men  quarrelling  in  a  church,  he  arrested 
one  in  the  name  of  the  Inquisition.  There  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  a  pecuniary  motive  in  these  eccentricities,  and  he  escaped 
with  a  reprimand  and  banishment  for  a  year.'  Another  motive, 
which  was  regarded  with  a  lenient  eye,  was  assuming  official 
position  in  order  to  enjoy  the  exemptions  and  privileges  of  the 

'  Miscelanea  de  Zapata  (Mem.  hist,  espafiol,  XI,  60). 
There  is  here  evidently  confusion  between  Almagro  and  Almaden. 
^  Danvila  y  CoUado,  Expulsion  de  los  Moriscos,  p.  208. — Bibl.  nacional,  MSS., 
PV,  3,  n.  20. 
8  MHS,  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Ye,  20,  T.  I. 


348  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

Inquisition.  Thus  when  Jayme  Corvellana  of  Barcelona  in  this 
manner  bluffed  off  the  officers  of  justice  who  came  to  his  house  to 
seize  some  salt,  Inquisitor  Padilla  imposed  on  him  a  fine  of  fifty 
ducats  and  some  spiritual  penance,  and  was  rebuked  by  the 
Suprema  for  inflicting  so  heavy  a  penalty  for  so  trifling  a  cause — 
"en  causas  tan  livianas.'" 

Personation  was  by  no  means  uncommon,  but  I  am  convinced 
that  Llorente  is  mistaken  when  he  says  that  there  rarely  was  an 
auto  in  which  some  one  was  not  punished  for  this  offence.  In  the 
Toledo  record  from  1575  to  1610,  the  number  of  cases  is  only 
thirteen  and,  in  the  same  tribunal,  from  1648  to  1794,  they  amount 
only  to  four.^ 

The  principal  interest  in  these  cases  is  the  evidence  which  they 
afford  of  the  terror  inspired  by  the  Inquisition,  the  very  name  of 
which  seemed  to  paralyze,  so  that  no  one,  whether  magistrate  or 
individual,  dared  to  question  the  authority  of  any  impostor  who 
assumed  to  represent  it,  and  this  same  terror  doubtless  is  the 
reason  why  this  apparently  facile  method  of  trading  on  popular 
fear  was  not  more  frequently  exploited.  It  required  more  than 
common  nerve  to  incur  the  risk  of  inquisitorial  vengeance. 

Somewhat  akin  to  this  was  the  levying  of  blackmail  by  threats 
of  denunciation.  No  doubt  there  was  a  good  deal  of  this,  in  which 
the  victims  prudently  suffered  in  silence,  rather  than  to  draw 
upon  themselves  the  attention  of  the  dreaded  tribunal.  It  was  a 
matter  of  which  the  Inquisition  took  cognizance,  but  the  only  case 
which  I  have  happened  to  meet  is  that  of  Pedro  Jacome  Pramo- 
seltes,  who  was  sentenced  by  the  Toledo  tribunal,  in  1666,  to  three 
years  of  galley-service  for  astrology  and  had  his  term  extended  to 
five  for  attempts  at  extortion  in  this  maimer.' 


Demoniacal  Possession. 

That  evil  spirits  can  take  possession  of  a  human  being,  deprive 
him  of  his  free-will  and  subject  him  to  extreme  bodily  and  mental 
suffering,  is  a  belief  handed  down  from  ancient  times  and  still 
largely  held  as  a  matter  of  faith.    That  relief  can  be  had  by  the 

*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  20. 
'  Llorente,  Hist,  crit.,  cap.  xxiv,  art.  1,  n.  11. — MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of 
Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. — Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 
'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  he  cit. 


Chap.  XVI]  BEMONIAGAL  POSSESSION  349 

ministrations  of  an  exorcist,  duly  authorized  by  admission  into 
one  of  the  lower  orders  of  the  priesthood,  is  a  corresponding  belief, 
and  formulas  without  number  have  been  prepared  to  enable  him 
to  exercise  his  power  over  the  demon.  There  is  no  heresy  involved 
in  either  the  possession  or  the  exorcism  and,  under  normal  con- 
ditions, there  was  no  call  for  interference  by  the  Inquisition,  but 
when,  for  any  reason,  such  interference  was  desired,  there  was  little 
trouble  in  finding  pretext  for  its  jurisdiction.  We  have  seen 
(Vol.  II,  p.  135)  the  active  measures  taken,  in  1628,  with  the  nuns 
of  San  Placido,  whose  demoniacally  inspired  revelations  were 
somewhat  revolutionary.  Greater  self-denial  was  exhibited  by 
the  Valladolid  tribunal  in  a  contemporaneous  case,  when  a  Jesuit 
confessor  reported  to  it  that  Dona  Felippa  and  Doiia  Ana  de  Mer- 
cado,  Bernardine  nuns  in  Santo  Espiritu  of  Olmeda,  made  gestures 
and  other  irreverent  acts  in  confession  and  communion,  which 
caused  scandal,  and  he  thought  proceeded  from  demoniacal  posses- 
sion. The  tribunal  felt  doubts  as  to  its  jurisdiction  and  consulted 
the  Suprema,  which  submitted  the  matter  to  a  calificador  of  high 
attainments.  Prolonged  investigations  were  made,  other  nvms 
were  examined,  and  it  was  in  evidence  that  the  two  inculpated 
were  women  of  exceptional  virtue  and  piety  who  had  prayed  to 
God  to  test  them  with  afflictions.  The  case  dragged  on  for  more 
than  ten  years,  resulting  in  the  conviction  that  it  was  undoubtedly 
one  of  possession,  for  which  the  nuns  were  free  from  blame,  and 
finally,  April  16,  1630,  the  Suprema  ordered  its  suspension.' 
Wherever  there  was  the  faintest  suspicion  of  heresy,  the  Inquisi- 
tion could  assert  jurisdiction. 

This  involved  the  question  of  the  responsibility  of  the  demoniac 
for  his'  utterances,  which  was  somewhat  intricate.  In  the  case  of 
one  under  trial  by  the  Granada  tribunal,  in  1650,  the  learned 
Jesuit,  Padre  Diego  Tello,  who  was  called  in  as  a  calificador, 
reported,  with  an  immense  array  of  authorities,  and  after  three 
visits  to  the  accused  in  the  secret  prison,  that  thei-e  could  be  no 
doubt  as  to  the  possession,  for  he  was  able  to  discuss  points  of 
theology  and  other  matters  far  beyond  his  capacity;  he  could  also 
speak  Latin  intelUgibly  and  he  quoted  Scripture  while,  as  he  uttered 
many  heresies,  it  was  evident  that  the  spirit  was  evil.  At  the 
same  time  he  was  rational  on  so  many  points  that  he  could  not  be 
regarded  as  irresponsible  for  his  heresies.    Luther  and  Zwingli, 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  552,  fol.  13. 


350  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

he  added,  were  notoriously  possessed  by  demons,  but  they  were 
none  the  less  held  responsible  for  their  teachings  and  it  was  the 
uniform  practice  of  the  Inquisition  so  to  decide  in  these  cases.' 

In  the  hysterical  epidemics  which  form  so  notable  a  feature  of 
possession,  the  Inquisition  was  apt  to  be  called  in  and  was  ready 
to  act,  although  it  would  be  diflficult  to  determine  on  what  grounds. 
In  1638  there  was  such  an  epidemic  in  one  of  the  Pyrenean  valleys 
and,  on  September  24th,  Jacintade  Robles,  secretary  of  the  Gover- 
nor of  Aragon,  reported  to  the  Saragossa  tribunal  that,  on  a  recent 
visit  to  Jaca,  he  had  found,  in  the  Valle  de  Tena,  that  there  were 
about  sixty  endemoniadas  and  that  the  malady  was  spreading. 
It  was  attributed  to  Pedro  de  Arrecibo  and  his  friend  Miguel 
Guillen,  who  had  been  seized  by  the  secular  authorities;  Guillen 
had  been  executed,  while  Arrecibo's  trial  was  nearly  concluded. 
He  had  confessed  that  a  Frenchman  had  given  him  a  paper  and 
some  conjurations  through  which  to  win  women,  but  it  only 
rendered  them  possessed — a  statement  evidently  fabricated  to 
satisfy  his  torturers.  It  was  the  demons  who  had  accused  these 
two  men,  adding  that  their  death  would  not  stay  the  infection,  for 
there  were  other  accomplices.  The  women  affected  were  of  the 
best  families,  their  ages  ranging  from  7  to  18 — some  were  pregnant 
and  others  were  suckling  their  infants,  for  demons  were  able  to 
produce  these  results  in  the  virtuous.  The  Bishop  of  Jaca  and 
'  some  Jesuits  were  exhausting  their  exorcisms,  and  an  inquisitor 
was  badly  needed.  What  function  was  expected  of  an  inquisitor 
is  not  stated,  but  the  Suprema  was  consulted  and,  after  some  delay 
it  appealed  to  the  king.  It  was  ready  to  send  an  inquisitor  and 
four  frailes,  but  it  had  no  funds  for  the  expenses  of  the  latter, 
which  would  have  to  be  defrayed  from  some  other  source.  The 
king  gave  orders  accordingly,  but  they  were  not  obeyed,  and  the 
last  we  hear  of  the  matter  is  another  consulta  of  March  28,  1640, 
in  which  he  was  urged  to  speedy  action  in  view  of  the  great  impor- 
tance of  the  affair.^ 

The  intervention  of  the  Inquisition  might  well  be  welcomed  if 
it  was  always  as  rational  and  as  effective  as  in  an  epidemic  of  the 
kind  which  troubled  Quer^taro  (Mexico)  in  1691.  Two  young 
girls  who  had  suffered  themselves  to  be  seduced  pretended  to  be 
possessed.     The  Franciscans  and  Padres  Apostdlicos  took  them  in 


•  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  HaUe,  Yc,  20,  T.  XVII. 
'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  34,  fol.  394. 


Chap.  XVI]  DEMONIACAL  POSSESSION  351 

hand,  exorcising  them  at  night  in  the  churches  with  the  most 
impressive  ceremonies,  which  spread  the  contagion,  until  there 
were  fourteen  patients,  and  the  community  was  thoroughly  excited. 
It  would  doubtless  have  extended  much  further,  but  fortunately 
the  Dominicans,  the  Jesuits  and  the  Carmelites,  jealous  of  the 
rival  Orders,  pronounced  the  whole  to  be  an  imposture.  The  two 
factions  denounced  each  other  from  the  pulpits,  the  people  took 
sides,  and  passions  grew  so  hot  that  severe  disturbances  were 
impending.  Both  factions  appealed  to  the  Inquisition,  which 
submitted  the  matter  to  calificadores.  These  decided  that  the 
demoniacal  possession  was  fraudulent,  and  that  the  blasphemies 
and  sacrilegious  acts  of  the  energumens  and  the  violent  sermons  of 
the  frailes  were  justiciable  by  the  Inquisition.  With  great  good 
sense  the  tribunal  issued  a  decree,  January  9,  1692,  ordering  the 
cessation  of  all  exorcism  and  of  all  discussion,  whether  in  the  pulpit 
or  in  private.  The  excitement  forthwith  died  away  and  the 
energumens,  left  to  themselves,  for  the  most  part  recovered  their 
senses.  Prosecutions  were  commenced  against  four  of  them  and 
against  the  Franciscan  Fray  Mateo  de  Bonilla,  which  seem  to 
have  been  suspended  after  a  few  years.  One  of  the  girls,  however, 
who  had  caught  the  infection,  had  her  nervous  system  too  pro- 
foundly impressed  for  recovery;  she  continueid  under  the  inspec- 
tion of  the  Inquisition,  gradually  sinking  into  a  condition  of 
confirmed  hypochondria,  until  we  lose  sight  of  her  in  1704.^ 

Cases  of  imposture  were  not  infrequent.  Whether  this  in  itself 
rendered  the  impostor  hable  to  prosecution  by  the  Inquisition 
may  be  doubted  but,  in  the  deception,  she  was  very  apt  to  commit 
acts  or  to  utter  blasphemies  which  brought  her  under  its  jurisdic- 
tion. Thus,  in  1796,  we  find  the  Valencia  tribunal  prosecuting 
Benita  Gargori,  a  pretended  demoniac,  and  Francisca  Signes, 
an  accomphce,  for  irreligious  actions  and  utterances.^ 

The  exorciser  also  occasionally  laid  himself  open  to  inquisitorial 
animadversion.  Thus,  in  1749,  Fray  Jaime  Sans,  a  lay-brother 
of  the  Order  of  San  Francisco  de  Assis,  used  to  visit  the  sick  and 
pronounce  them  to  be  possessed,  when  he  would  make  the  sign 
of  the  cross  and  sprinkle  them  with  holy  water.     He  was  de- 


'  Procesos  contra  Francisca  Mexia  y  Francisca  de  la  Sema  (MSS.  of  David 
Fergusson  Esq.). 

Fuller  details  of  this  instructive  case  will  be  found  in  my  "  Chapters  from  the 
Religious  History  of  Spain,"  pp.  428-35. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 


352  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

nounced  to  the  Barcelona  tribunal,  which  warned  him  to  desist, 
for  he  had  no  power  to  exorcise,  and  threatened  to  proceed  against 
him,  whereupon  he  promised  to  obey/  Exorcists  also  sometimes 
abused  their  opportunities  by  committing  indecencies  upon  their 
patients.  I  have  not  met  with  such  cases  in  the  Spanish  Inquisi- 
tion, but  in  this  it  would  doubtless  follow  the  example  of  the  Roman 
Congregation,  which,  in  1639,  ordered  the  prosecution  of  a  most 
flagrant  one,  reported  by  the  Inquisitor  of  Bergamo.^ 

Considered  as  a  whole,  the  influence  of  the  Inquisition  must 
have  been  decidedly  beneficial  in  restraining  the  development  of 
this  disease,  for  experienced  inquisitors  recognized  that  the 
methods  usually  adopted  only  aggravated  it.  Cardinal  Scaglia 
(f  1639),  in  treating  of  these  epidemics  among  nuns,  remarks 
that  the  superiors,  not  content  with  exorcisms,  commence  prose- 
cutions, examine  witnesses  and  interrogate  the  pretended  crimi- 
nals suggestively  and  absurdly  and  threaten  them  with  torture, 
thus  extracting  whatever  confessions  they  desire  and  creating  still 
greater  disturbance  in  the  convent  and  the  city.' 


Insults  to  Images. 

Allusion  has  already  been  made  to  the  invasion  of  episcopal 
jurisdiction  by  the  assumption  of  the  Inquisition  that  outrages  or 
insults  offered  to  sacred  images  fell  under  its  cognizance.  For 
this  there  was  more  justification  than  for  some  other  inferential 
heresies,  for  wilful  irreverence  to  the  objects  of  universal  cult  was 
reasonably  regarded  as  causing  suspicion  of  erroneous  beUef,  and 
during  the  period  of  active  persecution  of  crypto-Judaism  and  of 
Protestantism  such  offences  were  readily  ascribable  to  heretical 
fanaticism. 

In  one  instance,  at  least,  the  secular  magistrates  exercised 
jurisdiction.  In  December,  1643,  Madrid  was  much  excited  by 
a  robbery  committed  on  a  miracle-working  image  of  Nuestra 
Seiiora  de  la  Gracia,  when  all  its  jewels,  ornaments  and  vestments 
were  taken,  and  worst  of  all,  the  image  was  left  lying  face  down- 


'  MSS.  of  Am.  Philos.  Society. 

^  Decret.  S.  Congr.  S.  Officii,  p.  388  (Bibl.  del  R.  Archivio  di  Stato  in  Roma, 
Fondo  Camerale,  Congr.  del  S.  Officio,  Vol.  3). 

'  Prattica  per  le  cause  del  Sant'  Officio,  cap.  25  (MS.  perees  me). 


Chap.  XVI]  INSULTS  TO  IMAGES  i353 

wards  on  the  ground.  Great  efforts  were  made  to  detect  the  per- 
petrators of  the  sacrilege,  and  it  was  accounted  miraculous  when 
they  were  identified  while  investigating  another  robbery.  They 
must  have  been  tried  by  the  criminal  judges,  for  no  mention  is 
made  of  the  Inquisition  and  all  three  were  hanged  in  March,  1644, 
in  presence  of  an  immense  crowd.^ 

This  was  exceptional,  and  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition  was 
generally  admitted.  We  are  told,  by  a  writer  of  the  period,  that, 
when  images  of  the  saints  are  outraged  by  word  or  act,  if  the 
accused  belongs  to  a  nation  infected  with  iconoclastic  heresy,  and 
the  evidence  is  sufl&cient  and  he  denies  intention,  he  must  be  tor- 
tured. Overcoming  the  torture,  without  having  sufficiently  purged 
the  evidence,  he  can  be  sentenced  to  an  extraordinary  penalty  and 
to  abjuration,  either  de  levi  or  de  vehemenii:  if  he  confesses  both  fact 
and  intention  and  begs  for  mercy,  he  is  to  be  reconciled,  but  if 
pertinacious  he  must  be  relaxed.^  This  however  applies  to  cases 
of  absolute  heretics,  in  which  the  sacrilege  was  apt  to  be  merely 
an  aggravating  incident,  while  the  great  majority  of  cases  consisted 
of  more  or  less  reckless  Catholics,  whose  punishment  varied  with 
the  circumstances  and  was  rarely  vindictive.  In  the  Toledo  tri- 
bunal, from  1575  to  1610,  there  were  but  four  cases,  which  illus- 
trate the  general  principles  of  treatment  and  the  extreme  suscepti- 
bility felt  with  regard  to  any  irreverence  towards  sacred  objects. 
The  first  of  these  occurs  in  1579,  when  Francisco  del  Espinar, 
a  boy  of  13,  was  tried  for  pulling  up  a  way-side  cross,  playing  with 
it  until  he  broke  it  and  cast  the  fragments  into  a  vineyard,  and 
then  alleging  that  it  was  no  sin  because  the  cross  was  not  a  blessed 
one.  He  confessed  freely  and  pleaded  that  it  was  not  through 
irreverence,  because  he  was  drunk,  but  he  was  punished  with 
sixty  lashes  and  two  years  of  exile.  The  second  was  in  1595, 
when  Fernando  Rodriguez  was  accused  by  three  witnesses  of 
throwing  a  stick  at  a  paper  image  of  the  Virgin  on  an  altar,  tearing 
it  and  uttering  a  filthy  jest,  but  he  proved  an  alibi  and  the  case  was 
suspended.  The  next  was  in  1600,  when  Anton  Ruiznieto  was 
punished  with  abjuration  de  levi  and  three  years'  exile,  for  mal- 
treating a  crucifix  and  using  offensive  words  to  it.  The  fourth, 
in  1606,  illustrates  the  circumspection  requisite  to  avoid  even  the 
appearance  of  irreverence,  and  the  danger  of  denunciation  which 


Pellicer,  Avisos  hist6ricos  (SemanMo  enidito,  XXXIII,  116,  124,  149). 
'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  vii,  §  1. 
VOL.  IV  „  23 


354  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

constantly  impended  over  every  one.  Isabel  de  Espinosa  was 
denounced  by  three  witnesses  because  she  had  placed  on  a  close- 
stool,  which  she  kept  in  her  living-room,  a  painted  board  on  which 
were  representations  of  Christ  and  some  saints.  A  neighbor 
removed  it  and  she  replaced  it,  when  the  neighbor  spoke  to  her 
and  she  changed  its  place.  She  was  brought  from  Ocana  to 
Toledo  and  a  house  was  assigned  to  her  as  a  prison.  In  defence 
she  explained  that  her  mother-in-law  had  left  her  some  old  furni- 
ture, which  her  husband  had  just  brought  to  the  house;  among 
it  was  this  board,  black  and  indistinguishable  with  age  and, 
without  examination,  she  had  put  it  on  the  objectionable  article, 
but  when  this  was  pointed  out  to  her  she  had  removed  it.  As  she 
was  a  simple  woman  and  there  was  no  apparent  malice,  the  case 
was  suspended.* 

In  contrast  with  the  severity  of  the  secular  courts,  as  manifested 
by  the  Madrid  case  of  1644  above  referred  to,  and  the  French 
case  of  the  Chevalier  de  La  Barre,  the  Inquisition  was  singularly 
merciful.  In  1661,  Francisco  de  Abiles,  chief  auditor  of  the 
Priors  of  St.  John,  for  insults  to  an  image  of  Christ,  was  only  exiled 
for  two  years  by  the  Toledo  tribunal,  which  likewise,  in  1689 
merely  exiled  for  one  year  Juan  Martin  Salvador  for  stabbing  a 
cross.^  Perhaps  the  instance  of  greatest  rigor  that  I  have  met  was 
that  visited,  in  1720,  by  the  Madrid  tribunal  on  a  youth  named 
Joseph  de  la  Sarria.  While  confined  in  the  royal  prison  he  became 
enraged  in  gambling  and,  in  his  wrath,  he  threw  in  the  dirt  a 
picture  of  the  Virgin  and  tore  up  another,  for  which  he  was  sen- 
tenced to  two  hundred  lashes,  five  years  in  the  galleys  and  eight 
years  of  exile  from  Madrid  and  his  native  province  of  Galicia.' 

During  the  active  period  of  the  Inquisition,  cases  of  this  offence 
are  singularly  few.  In  all  the  sixty-four  autos  held  in  Spain,  from 
1721  to  1727,  there  is  not  a  single  specific  instance  serious  enough 
to  require  appearance  in  an  auto,  indicating  how  universal  and 
deep-seated  was  the  popular  reverence  for  sacred  symbols.  It 
is  therefore  significant  of  the  spiritual  and  intellectual  unrest 
characterizing  the  close  of  the  century,  that  outrages  on  images 
became  comparatively  frequent.  In  the  decade,  1780-1789  inclu- 
sive, there  were  sixteen  cases;  in  that  of  1790-1799,  thirty-three 
and,  from  1800  to  1810,  nineteen,  some  of  them,  such  as  trampling 


'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  HaUe,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. 
'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 
'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Bb,  122. 


Chap.  XVI]  UNOANONIZED  SAINTS  365 

on  the  cross,  indicative  of  iconoclastic  zeal.     Under  the  Restora- 
tion, there  are  but  three  cases  on  record.^ 

During  this  period  the  spirit  of  revolt  manifested  itself  in  other 
kindred  ways.  In  1797,  1798,  1799,  1800  and  1802  there  were 
trials  for  throwing  down  and  trampling  on  consecrated  wafers. 
In  1797,  in  Valencia,  Bernardo  Amengayl,  Ignacio  Sanchez, 
Miguel  Escribd,  and  Valentin  Duza  were  prosecuted  for  exhibitions 
burlesquing  the  saints  and  sacred  objects.  In  1799,  at  Seville, 
Manuel  Mirasol  was  tried  for  a  sacrilegious  assault  on  a  priest 
carrying  the  sacrament  to  a  sick  man.  In  1807,  Dr.  Vicente  Peiia, 
priest  of  Cifuentes  was  prosecuted  in  Cuenca  for  celebrating  a 
burlesque  mass  and  Don  Eusebio  de  la  Mota  for  assisting  him.^ 
These  were  surface  indications  of  the  hidden  currents  which  were 
bearing  Spain  to  new  destinies,  and  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  they 
almost  ceased  during  the  brief  years  of  the  Inquisition  under  the 
Restoration. 

Akin  to  the  function  of  preserving  images  from  insult,  was  the 
reverent  care  with  which  the  Inquisition  sought  to  protect  the 
cross  from  accidental  pollution.  A  carta  acordada  of  September 
20,  1629,  instructs  the  tribunals  to  suppress  the  custom  of  painting 
or  placing  crosses  in  recesses  of  streets  or  where  two  walls  form 
an  angle,  or  other  unclean  places,  where  they  are  exposed  to  filth, 
while  all  existing  ones  are  to  be  removed  or  erased  under  dis- 
cretional penalties.  Another  carta  of  April  19,  1689,  recites  that 
not  only  has  this  not  been  done,  but  that  the  custom  of  placing 
crosses  in  these  objectionable  places  is  extending,  wherefore  the 
previous  orders  are  reissued,  with  notice  that  six  days  after  publi- 
cation will  be  allowed,  subsequently  to  which  the  penalties  will 
be  enforced.' 

Uncanonizbd  Saints, 

In  the  exuberant  cult  offered  to  saints,  there  must  be  some  cen- 
tral and  absolute  authority  to  determine  claims  to  sainthood  and 
to  preserve  the  faithful  from  the  superstition  of  wasting  devotion 
on  those  who  have  no  power  of  suffrage.  St.  Ulric  of  Augsburg 
is  said  to  be  the  first  saint  whose  sanctity  was  deliberately  passed 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100.  '  Ibidem. 

'  Ibidem,  Leg.  1,  n.  4,  fol.  179.— MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copenhagen,  218b, 
p.  167. 


356  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

upon  by  Rome,  in  993,  and  Alexander  III,  in  1181  definitely 
forbade  the  adoration  of  those  who  had  not  been  canonized  by 
the  Holy  See.^  The  assumption  of  such  authority  was  essential, 
for  the  cult  of  a  local  saint  was  profitable  to  a  shrine  fortunate 
enough  to  possess  his  remains,  and  popular  enthusiasm  was  ready 
at  any  moment  to  ascribe  sainthood  to  any  devotee  who  had 
earned  the  reputation  of  especial  holiness. 

How  difficult  it  was  for  even  the  Inquisition  to  crush  this  eager- 
ness for  new  intercessors  between  God  and  man,  is  seen  in  the 
disturbances  which  troubled  Valencia  for  seven  years,  between 
1612  and  1619.  After  the  death  of  Mosen  Francisco  Simon,  a 
priest  of  holy  life,  there  developed  a  fixed  belief  that  he  was  a 
saint  in  heaven.  Chapels  and  altars  were  dedicated  to  him,  books 
were  printed  filled  with  the  miracles  wrought  by  his  intercession, 
his  images  were  adorned  with  the  nimbus  of  sanctity,  processions 
and  illuminations  were  organized  in  his  honor,  and  the  question 
of  his  right  to  a  place  in  the  calendar  became  a  political  as  well  as 
a  religious  one.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  Holy  See  asserted  its 
unquestioned  right  of  decision  and  ordered  the  Inquisition  to 
suppress  the  superstition.  Popular  excitement  reached  such 
height  that  an  attempt  was  made  to  murder  in  the  pulpit  a  secretary 
of  the  tribunal,  when  he  endeavored  to  read  the  edict;  a  priest 
named  Ozar  was  slain  for  opposing  the  popular  frenzy,  and  Arch- 
bishop Aliaga,  for  six  years  after  his  election  in  1612,  was  unable 
to  perform  the  visitation  of  his  see,  because  he  would  everywhere 
have  met  with  the  unauthorized  cult  which  he  could  not  sanction 
by  partaking.  The  Suprema  did  its  best  by  continual  consultas 
to  Philip  III,  asking  the  aid  of  the  secular  arm  in  suppressing  this 
schismatic  devotion,  and  enable  it  to  publish  its  condemnatory 
edicts.  Its  efforts  were  neutralized  by  the  Coimcil  of  Aragon, 
backed  by  the  all-powerful  favorite  Lerma,  whose  marquisate  of 
Denia  led  him  to  favor  the  Valencians.  It  was  doubtless  his 
disgrace,  in  1618,  which  enabled  the  Suprema  to  attain  its  purpose, 
when  an  energetic  consulta  of  January  10,  1619,  was  returned  with 
a  decree  in  the  royal  autograph  to  the  effect  that,  if  certain  five 
points  that  had  been  agreed  upon  were  not  executed  within  a 
month,  the  tribunal  could  be  ordered  to  publish  the  edicts  without 
further  delay.^ 

'  Cap.  1,  Extra,  Lib.  iii,  Tit.  xlv. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  19,  fol.  70-76,  108-116.— Arohivo  hist,  na- 
donal,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  6,  n.  2,  fol.  158  sqq. 


Chap.  XVI]  XINCANONIZED  SAINTS  357 

In  this  case  the  Inquisition  acted  under  special  papal  commands, 
but  the  growing  abuse  of  the  unauthorized  cult  of  supposititious 
saints  led  Urban  VIII,  in  1634,  to  issue  a  general  decree  empower- 
ing bishops  and  inquisitors  to  repress,  with  penalties  proportioned 
to  the  offence,  all  worship  of  saints  and  martyrs  not  pronounced 
as  such  by  the  Holy  See,  or  relating  their  miracles  in  books,  or 
representing  them  with  the  nimbus.'  Under  this  the  Index  of 
Sotomayor,  in  1640,  and  the  subsequent  ones,  ordered  the  suppres- 
sion of  all  images  or  portraits  adorned  with  the  insignia  of  sanctity, 
unless  the  persons  represented  had  been  duly  beatified  or  canon- 
ized by  Rome.^ 

Yet  they  did  not  condemn  a  work  issued,  in  1636,  by  a  pious 
priest  of  Salamanca  and  Toledo,  Francisco  Miranda  y  Paz,  urging 
the  cult  as  a  saint  of  Adam,  the  father  of  the  human  race,  and 
audaciously  asking  whether  this  could  not  be  done  without  the 
licence  of  the  Roman  pontiff.^  In  fact,  what  the  Inquisition  did 
in  discharge  of  this  duty  is  less  significant  than  what  it  left  undone. 
We  have  seen  (Vol.  I,  p.  134)  that  the  assumed  martyrdom  of 
El  Santo  Nino  de  la  Guardia  was  followed  by  a  popular  cult  of 
the  unknown  victim.  That  cult  proved  exceedingly  lucrative  to 
those  who  exploited  it  and  has  continued  to  the  present  day, 
although  Rome  could  never  be  induced  to  sanction  it,  yet  the 
Inquisition  prudently  forbore  to  interfere  with  it  in  any  way.* 
Similar  abstention  was  observed  in  the  celebrated  case  of  the  for- 
geries known  as  the  Plomos  del  Sacromonte — inscribed  leaden 
plates,  accompanied  by  bones  assumed  to  be  those  of  the  earliest 
Christian  martyrs,  exhumed  in  1595,  on  a  mountain  near  Granada. 
The  forgeries  were  clumsy  enough,  but  they  favored  the  two  points 
dearest  to  the  Spanish  heart — the  Immaculate  Conception  of  the 
Virgin  and  the  Spanish  apostolate  of  St.  James.  They  were  wel- 
comed with  the  intensest  fervor,  a  house  of  secular  canons  was 
erected  on  the  spot,  which  grew  wealthy  through  the  offerings  of 
pilgrims,  and  innumerable  miracles  attested  the  sanctity  of  the 

'  Urbani  PP.  VIII  Const.  Ccelestis  (Bullar.  Roman.  IV,  85,  Append,  p.  33). 

'  Index  of  1640,  Regula  xvi. — Indice  Ultimo,  p.  xxvi. 

'  Discurso  sobre  si  se  le  puede  hacer  fiesta  al  Premier  Padre  del  Genero  Humano 
Adan  y  darle  culto  y  veneracion  publica  como  d  Santo,  sin  licencia  del  Romano 
Pontifice.  Per  D.  Francisco  Miranda  y  Paz.  Madrid,  1636.  The  book  was 
thought  worthy  of  a  refutation,  which  appeared  in  1639  (Nic.  Anton.  Bibl.  nova 
s.  V.  Franciscus  de  Miranda). 

*  Padre  Fidel  Fita,  in  Boletin,  1887.— Martinez  Moreno  Historia  del  Martirio 
del  Santo  Nino  de  la  Guardia  (Madrid,  1866). 


358  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

relics.  Rome  refused  to  admit  the  authenticity  of  the  plomos 
without  examining  them;  after  a  long  struggle  they  were  sent  there 
in  1641,  and  after  another  protracted  contest  they  were  condemned 
as  fabrications,  May  6,  1682,  by  Innocent  XI  in  a  special  brief. 
The  bones  of  the  so-called  martyrs  were  not  specifically  condemned 
as  spurious,  but  they  were  not  accepted  as  genuine,  yet  the  Index 
of  Vidal  Marin,  while  printing  the  condemnation  of  the  plomos 
and  of  the  books  written  in  their  defence,  was  careful  to  assert 
that  the  prohibition  did  not  include  the  relics  or  the  veneration 
paid  to  them ;  the  Sacromonte  is  still  a  place  of  pilgrimage  and,  in 
the  Plaza  del  Triunfo  of  Granada,  there  stands  a  pillar  bearing 
the  names  and  martyrdoms  of  the  saints  as  recorded  in  the  plomos.' 
Yet,  so  long  as  the  claims  of  the  martyrs  were  not  allowed  by  Rome 
and  the  only  evidence  in  their  favor  was  condemned  as  fabricated, 
this  was  superstition,  and  its  suppression  was  the  duty  of  the 
Inquisition. 

While  it  was  empowered  to  do  this  by  the  decree  of  Urban  VIII, 
it  is  not  easy  to  see  whence  Inquisitor-general  Arce  y  Reynoso 
obtained  faculties  to  authorize  the  cult  of  supposititious  saints 
not  accepted  by  the  Holy  See.  The  success  of  the  plomos  led  a 
learned  Jesuit,  Roman  de  la  Higuera,  and  his  imitators,  to  fabricate 
chronicles  of  early  Christian  times,  principally  designed  to  stimu- 
late Mariolatry  and  belief  in  the  Christianization  of  Spain  by  St. 
James.  They  were  long  accepted  as  genuine  and,  in  1650,  Arce 
y  Reynoso  ordered  the  fictitious  saints  and  martyrs  who  figure 
in  them  to  be  included  in  litanies  as  objects  of  veneration  and 
worship.^ 

Still,  the  Inquisition  asserted  to  the  last  its  authority  under  the 
decree  of  Urban  VIII.  So  recently  as  1818,  when  Josef  de  Her- 
rera,  an  apothecary  of  Xeres  de  la  Frontera,  desired  to  establish 
the  cult  of  an  engraving  of  the  Trinity,  copied  from  a  picture  vene- 
rated in  the  cathedral  of  Mexico,  the  tribunal  of  Seville  prohibited 
the  effort.^ 

'  The  best  account  of  these  and  kindred  forgeries  is  by  Jos6  Godoy  Alcantara, 
in  his  Historia  critica  de  los  falsos  Cronicones  (Madrid,  1868).  The  modem 
President  of  the  Canons  of  Sacromonte  has  given  the  other  side  in  his  El  Sacro 
Monte  de  Granada  (Madrid,  1883). 

The  influence  of  the  Inquisition  at  first  was  adverse  to  the  plomos.  See  Archive 
de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  20,  fol.  127, 188, 236,  319.  A  whole  volume  of  the  archives 
(Lib.  44")  is  occupied  with  papers  connected  with  the  affair  from  1604  to  1636. 

'  Barrantes,  Aparato  para  la  Historia  de  Extremadura,  II,  392. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  435^. 


Chap.  XVI]  THE  IMMACULATE  CONCEPTION  359 


The  Immaculate  Conception. 

The  dogma  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  of  the  Virgin  had  a 
struggle  for  recognition  through  six  centuries,  before  it  was  defined 
as  an  article  of  faith  by  Pius  IX  in  1854.'  In  Spain,  where  popular 
devotion  to  the  Virgin  was  especially  ardent,  it  had,  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  become  almost  universally  accepted,  except  by 
the  Dominicans,  whose  reverence  for  their  great  doctor,  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas,  bound  them  to  follow  him  in  its  denial.  In  this  they  had 
long  been  fighting  a  losing  battle  with  their  great  rivals,  the  Fran- 
ciscans, and  of  late  with  their  still  more  bitter  foes,  the  Jesuits. 
Successive  popes — Sixtus  IV,  Paul  IV,  Paul  V  and  Gregory  XV — 
in  vain  sought  to  suppress  the  disputatious  scandals  by  forbidding 
pubUc  discussion  of  the  subject  under  severe  penalties,  and  the 
two  latter  extended  these  penalties  to  those  who  should  pubhcly 
assert  the  Virgin  to  have  been  conceived  in  original  sin — but  still 
the  Holy  See  cautiously  abstained  from  declaring  the  conception 
to  have  been  immaculate.  The  enforcement  of  these  penalties 
was  confided  to  all  bishops  and  inquisitors. 

From  1617  to  1656,  Philip  III  and  Philip  IV  made  the  Immacu- 
late Conception  a  matter  of  state  policy,  by  long  and  earnest 
efforts  with  the  papacy  to  decide  it  affirmatively,  and  negotiations 
for  combined  action  were  carried  on  with  France,  but  the  Galilean 
court  responded  only  with  pious  phrases.^  That  in  this  the  crown 
was  but  voicing  the  wishes  of  the  people  was  manifested  when,  in 
1636,  a  man  who  ventured,  in  Madrid,  to  assert  that  the  Virgin 
was  conceived  in  original  sin,  was  promptly  cut  down  by  some 
passing  soldiers,  was  arrested  by  the  Inquisition,  and  as  soon 
as  his  wounds  were  healed,  was  thrown  into  the  secret  prison  for 
due  prosecution  under  the  papal  decrees.' 

The  Dominicans  and  their  followers  found  it  hard  to  observe 
the  discreet  silence  prescribed  by  the  popes  and,  in  1661,  the 
Spanish  bishops  united  in  earnest  request  to  Alexander  VII, 
representing  that  persons  were  still  found  who  publicly  denied  the 

'  I  have  considered  in  some  detail  the  development  of  this  behef,  in  the  "  His- 
tory of  the  Inquisition  of  the  Middle  Ages,"  III,  596  sqq. 

^  Collect.  Decretor.  S.  Congr.  S.  Officii,  s.v.  Conceptio  (MS.  penes  me). — Collect. 
Decret.  S.  Congr.  S.  Inquisit.  (Bibl.  del  R.  Archivio  di  Stato  in  Roma,  Fondo 
camerale,  Congr.  del  S.  Officio,  Vol.  3). 

'  Cartas  de  Jesuitas  (Mem.  hist,  espanol,  XIII,  450). 


360  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

Immaculate  Conception.*  PhilipiIV  sent  the  Bishop  of  Plasencia 
to  Rome,  as  a  special  envoy,  to  convey  this  memorial,  resulting 
in  the  brief  Sollicitudo,  of  December  8,  1661,  in  which  Alexander 
expressly  abstained  from  defining  it  as  a  dogma,  but  forbade  the 
teaching  "of  the  opposite,  as  well  as  stigmatizing  the  opposite  as 
heresy,  thus  continuing  the  non-committal  policy  of  his  prede- 
cessors, to  prevent  discussions  and  quarrels  without  deciding  the 
question.  To  this  end  he  empowered  all  prelates  and  inquisitors 
to  prosecute  and  punish  transgressors  severely,  no  matter  what 
exemptions  they  might  claim,  and  including  even  Jesuits.  He 
also  placed  on  the  Index  all  books  impugning  the  Immaculate 
Conception  and  likewise  those  which  should  tax  imbelievers  with 
heresy.' 

This  brief  was  received  with  great  rejoicings  by  the  upholders 
of  the  doctrine,  who  regarded  it  as  a  triumph.  In  Valencia  it  was 
made  the  occasion  of  a  splendid  festival,  in  which  pasquinades 
on  the  opponents  were  plentiful.  One,  which  was  greatly  ap- 
plauded, represented  a  Dominican  stretched  on  a  sick-bed  and 
watched  by  a  Jesuit.  A  Franciscan  opening  the  door  enquires 
"How  is  the  good  brother?"  to  which  the  Jesuit  replies  "He  is 
speechless,  but  he  still  lives."  It  was  doubtless  to  the  temper 
thus  evinced  that  we  may  attribute  the  suppression  by  the  Suprema 
of  the  city's  official  report  of  the  celebration,  the  prohibition  of 
one  paper  and  the  correction  of  another.^ 

The  brief  was  promptly  transmitted  to  the  tribunals  by  the 
Suprema,  with  orders  for  its  enforcement  which  show  how  deli- 
cately such  explosive  material  had  to  be  handled.  They  were 
cautioned  that,  when  they  or  their  commissioners  were  present 
at  sermons  preached  by  Dominicans,  they  must  be  careful  that 
any  action  taken  was  such  as  not  to  create  scandal.  They  were 
not  trusted  with  prosecuting  transgressors,  but  were  ordered, 
beforehand,  to  transmit  to  the  Suprema  the  sumarias  with  the 
opinions  of  the  calificadores,  and  to  await  instructions.  Appar- 
ently the  customary  jealousy  arose  between  the  episcopal  and 
inquisitorial  jurisdictions,  for  a  carta  acordada  of  1667  calls  for 
information  as  to  whether  the  Ordinaries  concurred  in  hearing 


'  Le  Tellier,  Recueil  des  BuUes  concemans  les  erreurs  etc.,  p.  296  (Mons  [Rouen] 
1697), 

"  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Co,  99,  fol.230.— Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia, 
Leg,  11,  n.  1,  fol.  111-16. 


Chap.  XVI]  UNNATURAL  CRIME  361 

cases,  or  whether  they  were  treated  as  belonging  exclusively  to 
the  Inquisition/ 

It  was  impossible  to  make  the  angry  disputants  keep  the  peace, 
and  the  Suprema  was  busy  in  condemning  and  suppressing  writings 
on  both  sides.  In  1663  we  find  it  ordering  the  seizure  at  the  ports 
of  two  books  printed  in  Italy.  An  edict  of  January  4,  1664,  sup- 
pressed fifteen  books  and  tracts,  issued  in  1662  and  1663,  as  inde- 
cent and  irreverent  to  the  Holy  See,  the  Religion  of  St.  Dominic 
and  the  Angelic  Doctor  Aquinas.  Another  decree,  of  December  7, 
1671,  suppressed  two  books  indecently  attacking  the  Dominicans 
and  another  of  prayers  and  exercises  for  the  devotion  of  the  Immac- 
ulate Conception  by  the  Franciscan  Provincial  Bonaqua.  Books 
of  devotion  thus  assumed  a  controversial  character,  and  we  can 
safely  assume  this  to  be  the  cause  of  an  order,  in  1679,  to  seize 
at  Alicante  and  transmit  to  the  Suprema  a  box  of  Dominican 
breviaries.^ 

I  have  chanced  to  meet  with  but  few  cases  of  prosecutions  for 
impugning  the  Immaculate  Conception,  but  they  occurred  occa- 
sionally. Thus,  in  1782,  Don  Antonio  Fornes,  a  pilot's  mate  of 
a  naval  vessel,  was  tried  in  Seville  for  obstinately  denying  it  and, 
in  1785,  Don  Isidro  Moreno,  a  physician,  and  his  son  Joaquin, 
were  brought  before  the  Saragossa  tribunal  for  the  same  offence.' 


Unnatural  Crime. 

Inherited  from  classical  antiquity,  unnatural  crime  was  persist- 
ent throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  in  spite  of  the  combined  efforts 
of  Church  and  State.  It  is  true  that,  with  the  leniency  shown  to 
clerical  offenders,  the  Council  of  Lateran,  in  1179,  prescribed 
for  them  only  degradation  or  penitential  confinement  in  a  monas- 
tery, which  was  carried  into  the  canon  law,  but  secular  legislation 
was  more  severe  and  the  usual  penalty  was  burning  alive.*    In 


•  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  10,  n.  2,  fol.  58,  90;  Leg.  11,  n.  2, 
fol.  217. 

'  Ibidem,  Leg.  1,  n.  4,  fol.  114;  Leg.  11,  n.  3,  fol.  62. 
'  Ibidem,  Leg.  100. 

*  C.  Lateran.,  ann.  1179,  cap.  xi  (Cap.  4,  Extra,  Lib.  v.  Tit.  xxxi). — Tr&s  ancien 
Contume  de  Bretagne,  Art.  112,  142. — Statuta  criminalia  Mediolani,  cap.  51 
(Bergomi,  1594). — Home,  Myrror  of  Justice,  cap.  iv,  §  14. 


362  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  Vin 

Spain,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  the  punishment  prescribed  was 
castration  and  lapidation,  but,  in  1497,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
decreed  burning  alive  and  confiscation,  irrespective  of  the  station 
of  the  culprit.  The  crime  was  mixti  fori — ^the  law  treated  it  as 
subject  to  the  secular  courts,  but  it  was  also  ecclesiastical  and,  in 
1451,  Nicholas  V  empowered  the  Inquisition  to  deal  with  it.' 
When  the  institution  was  founded  in  Spain  it  seems  to  have 
assumed  cognizance,  for  we  are  told  that,  in  1506,  the  Seville 
tribunal  made  it  the  subject  of  a  special  inquest;  there  were  many 
arrests  and  many  fugitives,  and  twelve  convicts  were  duly  burnt.^ 
Possibly  this  may  have  called  attention  to  the  incongruity  of 
diverting  the  Inquisition  from  its  legitimate  duties  with  the  New 
Christians,  for  a  decree  of  the  Suprema,  October  18,  1509,  assumes 
that  this  had  already  been  recognized,  and  it  informs  the  tribunals 
that  they  are  not  to  deal  with  the  crime,  as  it  was  not  within  their 
jurisdiction.^  This  apparently  settled  the  matter  as  far  as  the 
Castilian  kingdoms  were  concerned. 

In  Aragon  it  does  not  appear  that  the  early  Inquisition  took 
cognizance  of  the  matter,  as  is  shown  by  the  curious  connection 
of  the  crime  with  the  rising  of  the  Germanfa.  In  1519,  the  city 
of  Valencia  was  suffering  from  a  pestilence  which  had  driven  away 
most  of  the  nobles  and  higher  officials  when,  on  St.  Magdalen's 
day  (June  14th),  Fray  Luis  Castelloli  preached  an  eloquent  ser- 
mon in  which  he  attributed  the  pest  to  the  wrath  of  God  excited 
by  the  prevalence  of  the  offence.  The  populace  were  excited  and 
hunted  up  four  culprits,  who  confessed  and  were  duly  burnt  by 
the  justiciary,  Hieronimo  Farragud,  on  July  29th.  There  was 
a  fifth,  a  baker  who  wore  the  tonsure  and  was  deHvered  to  the 
episcopal  court,  which  sentenced  him  to  vergiienza.  This  dis- 
satisfied the  people  who  tore  him  from  the  spiritual  authorities, 
garroted  and  burnt  him.  The  governor  was  summoned,  and  the 
leaders  of  the  mob  feared  punishment.  There  had  been  a  scare 
concerning  a  rumored  attack  by  the  Moors,  which  had  led  the 


'  Fuero  Real  de  Espafia,  Lib.  iv,  Tit.  ix,  leg.  2. — Nueva  Recop.,  Lib.  viii,  Tit. 
xxxi,  ley  1.— Ripoll,  BuUar.  Ord.  Pradic,  III,  301.— Innocent.  PP.  TV,  Gloss  in 
Cap.  C«od  nuper  his,  Extra,  Lib.  iii,  Tit.  xxxiv. 

^  Llorente,  Anales,  I,  327. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  933. — "  En  lo  que  toca  al  crimen  nefando, 
si  otras  cosas  no  hay  con  ello  que  abiertamente  sepan  heregia,  contra  las  tales 
personas  ya  sabeis  que  por  esto  no  debeis  vosotros  proceder,  ni  es  de  vuestra 
jurisdiccion." 


Chap.  XVI]  UNNATURAL  CRIME  363 

trades  to  form  military  companies;  these  were  further  organized, 
elected  a  chief  and  swore  confraternity,  when,  recognizing  their 
strength,  they  utilized  the  opportunity  of  gratifying  their  hatred 
of  the  nobles  and  the  rebellion  broke  out/ 

In  all  this  the  Inquisition  was  evidently  not  thought  of  as 
having  jurisdiction,  but  possibly  it  may  have  drawn  attention  to 
the  crime  and  led  to  an  application  to  Clement  VII  for  a  special 
brief  placing  it  imder  inquisitorial  jurisdiction.  Bleda,  however, 
tells  us  that,  when  the  Duke  of  Sessa,  ambassador  at  Rome,  made 
request  for  such  a  brief,  he  gave  as  a  reason  that  it  had  been  intro- 
duced into  Spain  by  the  Moors.^  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  brief  of 
Clement,  February  24,  1524,  recites  that  Sessa  had  represented 
the  increasing  prevalence  of  the  crime  and  had  asked  for  an  appro- 
priate remedy,  which  the  pope  proceeded  to  grant.  The  form  in 
which  it  is  drawn  shows  that  the  matter  was  regarded  as  wholly 
foreign  to  the  regular  duties  of  the  Holy  Ofl&ce,  for  it  is  addressed, 
not  to  the  inquisitor-general  as  usual,  but  to  the  individual  inquisi- 
tors of  Aragon,  Catalonia  and  Valencia,  and  it  authorizes  them  to 
sub-delegate  their  powers  to  whom  they  please.  They  are  em- 
powered to  proceed  against  all  persons,  lay  or  clerical,  of  whatever 
rank,  either  by  accusation,  denunciation,  inquisition,  or  of  their 
own  motion,  and  to  compel  the  testimony  of  unwilling  witnesses. 
That  the  offence  was  not  ecclesiastical  or  heretical  was  admitted 
by  the  limitation  that  the  trial  was  to  be  conducted  in  accordance 
with  local  municipal  law,  but  yet,  with  singular  inconsistency, 
the  episcopal  Ordinary  was  to  be  called  in  when  rendering  sen- 
tence.^ The  Barcelona  tribunal  seems  to  have  questioned,  in  1537, 
whether  the  brief  continued  in  force,  for  the  Suprema  wrote  to  it 
July  11th,  that  there  had  not  been  time  to  decide  this  positively, 
but  that  it  might  continue  to  act.*  Whatever  doubts  existed  were 
settled  in  favor  of  the  Inquisition,  and  the  Aragonese  tribunals 
enjoyed  the  jurisdiction  to  the  end.  The  Archbishop  of  Saragossa 
had  complained  of  being  thus  deprived  of  cognizance  of  these 
cases,  and  it  was  restored  to  him  by  a  brief  of  January  16,  1525, 
but,  at  the  request  of  Charles  V,  Pope  Clement,  July  15,  1530, 

'  Escolano,  Hist,  de  Valencia,  II,  1449-70. — Boix,  Hist,  de  la  Ciudad  y  Reino 
de  Valencia,  I,  347. 

'  Bledffi  Defensio  Fidei,  pp.  423-4.     Cf.  Pdramo,  p.  184. 

'  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  IV,  fol.  6. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq., 
Lib.  927,  fol.  408. — Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  2,  n.  16,  fol.  259. 

*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  78,  fol.  145. 


364  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VHI 

evoked  all  pending  cases  to  himself  and  committed  them  to  the 
inquisitors,  with  full  power  to  decide  them,  in  conjunction  with 
the  Ordinary.' 

Castile  was  never  included  within  the  special  grant.  In  answer 
to  some  inquiring  tribunal,  the  Suprema  replied,  November  6, 
1534,  that  the  matter  did  not  pertain  to  the  Inquisition,  nor  was 
it  deemed  advisable  to  procure  a  brief  conferring  such  power. 
This  was  adhered  to.  In  1575,  the  Logrono  tribunal  was  informed 
that  it  could  not  prosecute  such  cases  as  it  had  no  faculty  and, 
about  1580,  the  tribunal  of  Peru  was  told  not  to  meddle  with  it 
in  any  way,  except  in  cases  of  solicitation.^  The  Consulta  Magna 
of  1696  states  that  Philip  II,  towards  the  close  of  his  reign,  applied 
to  Clement  VIII  for  a  brief  conferring  the  power  on  the  Castihan 
Inquisition,  but  the  pope  declined  for  the  reason  that  the  whole 
attention  of  the  inquisitors  should  be  concentrated  on  matters  of 
faith.' 

Majorca,  although  belonging  to  the  crown  of  Aragon,  was  not 
specifically  included  in  the  brief  of  Clement  VII,  and  never 
assumed  the  power.  When,  in  1644,  the  commissioner  in  Iviza 
reported  to  Inquisitor  Francisco  Gregorio  about  Jaime  Galles- 
tria,  a  cleric  denounced  for  this  offence,  Gregorio  replied  that  he 
had  no  jurisdiction;  still  the  tribunal  was  accustomed  to  arrest 
offenders  and  hand  them  over  for  trial  to  the  secular  judges,  so 
he  sent  a  warrant  for  the  arrest  of  GaUestria,  even  though  he  had 
taken  asylum  in  a  church.*  It  is  symptomatic  that  arrest  by  the 
Inquisition,  for  a  crime  over  which  it  had  no  jurisdiction,  was 
considered  a  matter  of  course. 

Sicily  also  belonged  to  Aragon,  but  was  not  included.  In  1569 
Philip  II  ordered  the  death-penalty  to  be  rigidly  enforced,  without 
exceptions,  and  that  the  informer  should  receive  twenty  oxmces 
from  the  estate  of  the  convict,  but  this  was  slackly  obeyed  by 
the  secular  courts  and,  in  the  Concordia  of  1597,  he  reserved 
the  crime  exclusively  to  the  Inquisition,  with  the  understanding 
that  a  papal  brief  should  be  applied  for,  reheving  inquisitors  from 
irregularity  for  relaxing  culprits.  Application  was  accordingly 
made  to  Clement  VIII,  but,  after  Phihp's  death,  the  Viceroy 


'  Archivo  de  Siraancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  927,  fol.  429. — Llorente,  Afiales,  II,  373. 
'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  939,  fol.  107;  Lib.  82,  fol.  163.— MSS.  of  Bibl. 
nacional  de  Lima,  Protocolo  223,  Expediente,  5270. 
=  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Q,  4. 
*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  2,  n.  16,  fol.  259. 


Chap.  XVI]  UNNATURAL  CRIME  365 

Duke  of  Maqueda  and  the  ambassador,  the  Duke  of  Sessa,  at  the 
instance  of  influential  Sicilians,  urged  Clement  to  refuse,  which 
he  not  only  did  but  forbade  the  Inquisition  to  take  cognizance 
of  such  cases.  The  tribunal  complained  that  this  deprived  it  of 
its  jurisdiction  over  its  own  officials,  to  which  the  reply  was  that 
it  was  not  the  pope's  intention  to  exonerate  them  from  it.  The 
tribunal  therefore  continued  to  punish  its  own  guilty  ministers, 
and  the  number  of  cases  cited  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the 
crime  was  by  no  means  uncommon.  The  punishments  inflicted 
were  comparatively  moderate — occasionally  imprisonment  for  life 
or  banishment,  perpetual  or  temporary,  from  the  place  of  offend- 
ing, or  deprivation  of  office  with  heavy  fines.' 

Dr.  Martin  Real,  who  tells  us  this,  writing  in  1638,  further 
informs  us  that,  throughout  Italy,  the  crime  was  everywhere 
treated  with  a  leniency  wholly  inadequate  to  its  atrocity.  The 
Roman  Inquisition,  moreover,  took  no  cognizance  of  it.  When, 
in  1644,  some  Conventual  Franciscans  rendered  themselves  con- 
spicuous by  sounding  the  praises  of  the  practice,  the  Congregation 
contented  itself  with  ordering  their  superiors  to  proceed  against 
them  with  severity.^ 

In  Portugal,  Joao  III  had  no  sooner  got  his  Inquisition  into 
working  order  than  he  was  seized  with  the  desire  to  obtain  for  it 
jurisdiction  over  the  pecado  maao.  This  he  pursued  with  charac- 
teristic obstinacy,  while  the  papacy  manifested  its  customary 
repugnance.  It  was  not  until  after  his  death  that  Pius  IV,  in  a 
brief  of  February  20,  1562,  committed  the  decision  to  the  con- 
science of  Cardinal  Henrique,  confirming  in  advance  what  he  might 
do — but  trials  were  to  be  conducted  according  to  municipal  law. 
Henrique  had  no  scruples,  but,  in  1574,  he  applied  to  Gregory 
XIII  for  confirmation  and  for  using  the  process  for  heresy  in  these 
cases,  when  again  the  pope  committed  to  him  the  decision  and 
ratified  it  in  advance.'  In  1640,  the  Regulations  prescribe  that 
the  offence  is  to  be  tried  like  heresy,  and  the  punishment  is  to  be 
either  relaxation  or  scourging  and  the  galleys.     In  a  case  occurring 


'  Argument  of  Dr.  Martin  Real  (MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch.  Seld.  130). 

2  Collect.  Deer.  S.  Congr.  S.  Officii,  p.  396  (MS.  -penes  me).— Deer.  S.  Congr.  S. 
Inquisit.,  pp.  503,  539  (Bib.  del  R.  Archivio  di  Stato  in  Roma,  Fondo  camerale, 
Congr.  del  S.  Officio,  Vol.  3). 

'  Corpo  Diplomatico  Portugues,  VI,  379;  VII,  211,  235,  439;  VIII,  227,  296; 
IX,  477;  XI,  600,  656. 


366  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

in  the  Lisbon  auto  of  1723,  the  sentence  was  scourging  and  ten 
years  of  galley-service.' 

In  their  general  hostility  to  the  Inquisition,  the  Aragonese 
kingdoms  objected  to  this  extension  of  its  jurisdiction.  There 
were  complaints  by  the  Cortes  and,  in  the  various  Concordias 
and  settlements,  there  were  concessions  secured  which  gave  to  the 
secular  judges  some  participation  in  the  trials.  Into  the  details 
of  these  more  or  less  temporary  arrangements  it  is  scarce  worth 
while  to  enter,  except  to  mention  that,  in  the  struggle  which 
resulted  in  the  Concordia  of  1646,  Aragon  gained  the  point  that 
the  crime  was  recognized  as  mixti  fori,  to  be  tried  by  either  the 
secular  court  or  the  Inquisition,  according  to  priority  in  com- 
mencing action,  and  that  famihars  were  included  in  this.^ 

The  current  practice  may  be  gathered  from  the  answers  of 
Valencia  and  Saragossa,  in  response  to  inquiries  by  the  Suprema, 
in  1573.  In  Valencia  arrest  was  accompanied  by  sequestration, 
but  not  in  Aragon,  where  the  crime  did  not  entail  confiscation. 
In  Aragon,  when  a  new  inquisitor  was  inducted,  the  papal  briefs 
were  presented  to  him  and  he  accepted  them,  and  all  sentences 
commenced  by  qualifying  the  inquisitors  as  juezes  comisarios 
apostolicos  para  conocer  en  el  crimen  de  sodomia,  showing  that  this 
was  a  special  jurisdiction.  The  routine  of  procedure  in  the  two 
tribunals  did  not  vary  much;  the  process  was  somewhat  simpler 
than  in  heresy  trials,  the  accused  was  allowed  ample  means  of 
defence  in  counsel,  advocates  and  procurators,  witnesses'  names 
were  not  suppressed,  except  in  Valencia  when  the  accused  was  of 
high  rank,  in  which  case  the  Suprema  was  consulted.  After 
the  publication  of  evidence,  the  procurator  had  the  right  to  exam- 
ine the  witnesses.  The  Concordia  of  1568  had  provided  that 
convicts  should  not  appear  in  autos,  but  in  Aragon  this  was  left 
to  the  discretion  of  the  tribunal,  which  generally  exhibited  them 
there.' 

These  reports  make  no  allusion  to  the  concurrence  of  secular 
judges,  but  the  practice  may  be  gathered  from  a  letter  of  Philip 
II,  March  17,  1575,  to  the  Captain-general  of  Catalonia,  where  it 


'  Regimiento  do  Santo  Officio  da  Inquisi9ao,  Li  v.  Ill,  Tit.  xxv,  §§1,  12. — 
Royal  Library  of  Berlin,  Qt.  9548. 
^  Fueros  y  Actos  de  Corte,  p.  10  (Zaragoza,  1647). 
'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  2,  n.  16,  fol.  270. 


Chap.  XVI]  UNNATURAL  CRIME  367 

appears  that,  when  a  convict  was  relaxed,  the  royal  court  de- 
manded to  see  the  papers  of  the  case  before  pronouncing  sentence. 
This  the  king  pronouncd  to  be  wholly  wrong  and  ordered  the 
custom  of  Valencia  and  Aragon  to  be  followed— that,  when  a  case 
was  ready  for  decision,  the  inquisitors  notified  the  captain-general, 
who  delegated  judges  to  take  part  in  the  consulta,  after  which 
the  sentence  was  to  be  executed  without  further  examination.' 

Torture  was  freely  employed,  even  on  the  testimony  of  a  single 
accomplice.  This  raised  a  question  in  Aragon,  where  the  use  of 
torture  was  forbidden,  as  the  trials  were  to  be  conducted  in  accord- 
ance with  municipal  law,  but  the  Inquisition  replied  that  the  brief 
of  Clement  VII  had  been  applied  for  at  the  request  of  the  secular 
judges,  who  had  found  themselves  unable  to  convict  for  lack  of 
torture,  and  desired,  for  that  reason,  the  Inquisition  to  have  juris- 
diction— the  truth  of  which  assertion  may  well  be  doubted.  In 
1636  there  was  raised  a  question  as  to  torturing  witnesses  who 
revoked,  but  it  was  decided  in  the  negative.^ 

Punishment  varied  with  time  and  place.  In  Aragon,  sponta- 
neous confession  was  encouraged  by  simply  reprimanding  the 
culprit,  warning  him  and  ordering  him  to  confess  sacramentally, 
and  this  was  confirmed  by  the  Suprema,  in  a  decree  of  August  6, 
1600.  In  Valencia,  however,  self-denunciation  was  visited  with 
scourging  and  galleys  and,  if  testimony  of  accomplices  supervened, 
with  relaxation.'  For  those  accused  and  regularly  convicted,  the 
statutory  and  ordinary  punishment  was  burning.  When,  in  1577, 
the  Captain-general  of  Valencia  had  some  hesitation  as  to  his  duty, 
in  the  case  of  two  culprits  relaxed  to  him  by  the  Inquisition, 
PhiUp  II  ordered  him  to  execute  them  promptly  and,  as  late  as 
1647,  in  an  auto  at  Barcelona,  one  was  garroted  and  burnt.*  Yet, 
on  the  whole,  there  seems  to  have  been  a  disinclination  to  relax 
these  offenders,  who  could  not  escape,  as  heretics  could,  by  con- 
fession and  conversion.  In  1616  we  find  the  Suprema  asking  the 
Valencia  tribunal  why  it  had  not  confiscated  the  estate  of  Dr. 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  927,  fol.  414. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  299,  fol.  80;  Leg.  61. — Elucida- 
tiones  S.  Officii,  §  55  (Archivo  de  AlcaW,  Hacienda,  Leg.  544^  Lib.  4).— Bibl. 
nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xxiv,  §  1. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  299,  fol.  80.— Bibl.  nacional, 
MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xxiv,  §  6. 

*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  2,  n.  16,  fol.  259. — Parets, 
Sucesos  de  Cataluna  (Mem.  hist,  espafiol,  XXIV,  297). 


368  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

Perez,  convicted  of  this  crime  and,  in  1634,  it  enquires  whether 
there  is  any  fuero  prohibiting  the  pena  ordinaria,  when  guilt  has 
been  fully  proved  and  the  offender  is  of  full  age.^  About  1640, 
an  experienced  inquisitor  informs  us  that,  in  Saragossa,  the  penalty 
for  those  over  25  was  relaxation;  for  minors,  scourging  and  the 
galleys,  but  he  adds  that  this  is  not  observed;  he  had  seen  many 
thus  convicted  and  condemned  to  relaxation,  but  the  Suprema 
always  commuted  the  penalty.^ 

Ecclesiastics  seem  to  have  been  regarded  as  entitled  to  especial 
leniency.  In  1684,  the  Suprema  called  to  account  the  Valencia 
tribunal  for  its  benignity,  in  a  case  of  this  kind,  when  it  replied 
in  much  detail.  Two  dpcrees  of  Pius  V  in  1568,  it  said,  had 
prescribed  relaxation,  with-  preliminary  degradation,  in  the  case 
of  priests  and,  in  1574,  the  tribunal  had  so  treated  the  case  of  a 
subdeacon.  Many  authorities,  however,  held  that  clerics  were  not 
to  be  subjected  to  the  rigor  of  the  law  for  this  offence,  and  it  was 
the  common  opinion  that  incorrigibility  was  required  to  justify 
the  ordinary  penalty.  This  had  been  the  practice  in  Valencia, 
especially  since  1615,  when  a  priest  was  convicted  of  a  single  act 
and,  by  order  of  the  Suprema,  was  sentenced  to  an  extraordinary 
penalty.  This  had  since  been  followed  in  various  cases,  so  that 
clerics  were  not  relaxed  unless  incorrigible,  and  this  was  defined 
to  be  when  repeated  punishment  showed  that  the  Church  could 
not  reform  them.  This  argument,  moreover,  precluded  the  use 
of  torture  which,  as  the  tribunal  pointed  out,  could  be  used  only 
when  the  penalty  was  worse  than  torture.^ 

The  case  which  called  forth  this  explanation  affords  a  very 
instructive  example  of  the  advantage  to  justice  of  an  open  trial, 
with  opportunity  of  cross-examination.     The  accused  was  Fray 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  6,  n.  2,  foL  52 ;  Leg.  8,  n.  2,  fol. 
497. 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  V,  377,  cap.  xxiv,  §  2. 

The  Inquisition  was  more  humane  than  the  Castilian  courts.  Jan.  27,  1637, 
two  culprits  were  burnt  in  Madrid.  Oct.  14,  1639,  two  more  were  burnt  and  a 
third  was  brought  out  to  share  the  same  fate,  when  the  episcopal  vicar  claimed 
him,  as  he  had  been  decoyed  from  the  asylum  of  a  church.  Nine  more  were  in 
prison  at  the  time.  Oct.  10, 1640,  a  man  and  a  boy  were  burnt. — Cartas  de  Jesuitas 
(Mem.  hist,  espanol,  XIV,  26;  XV,  343). — Pellicer,  Avisos  histdricos  (Semandrio 
enidito,  XXXI,  87,  228). 

In  Mexico  there  was  a  special  quemadero  for  such  cases,  distinct  from  that  of 
the  Inquisition. — Obregon,  Mexico  viejo,  II,  391. 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  61. 


Chap.  XVI]  UNNATURAL  CRIME  369 

Manuel  Sdnchez  del  Castellar  y  Arbustan,  a  distinguished  mem- 
ber of  the  Order  of  La  Merced.  The  trial  had  lasted  for  nearly 
three  years,  when  the  papers  were  submitted  to  the  Suprema,  in 
August,  1684.  There  were  two  accomphce  witnesses  to  consum- 
mated acts,  others  to  solicitation,  others  to  lascivious  and  filthy 
actions,  and  others  to  general  foul  reputation.  Under  the  ordi- 
nary inquisitorial  process,  condemnation  would  have  been  inevi- 
table, but  repeated  examinations  and  cross-examinations  revealed 
discrepancies  and  contradictions  and  variations,  and  a  knowledge 
of  the  witnesses  enabled  the  accused  to  present  evidence  of  en- 
mities. The  conclusion  reached  by  the  tribunal  was  that  nearly 
the  whole  mass  of  evidence  was  the  result  of  a  conspiracy,  em- 
bracing a  number  of  frailes  of  the  convent,  incited  by  jealousy 
of  the  honors  and  position  obtained  by  Sdnchez.  Still,  there  was 
some  testimony  as  to  indiscretions,  which  was  not  rebutted  and, 
as  there  had  been  a  great  scandal  requiring  a  victim,  with  custo- 
mary inquisitorial  logic,  he  was  sentenced  to  four  years'  exile 
from  Valencia,  Orihuela  and  Madrid,  for  the  first  two  of  which  he 
was  deprived  of  active  and  passive  voice,  of  confessing  and  preach- 
ing and  of  all  honors  in  his  Order.  In  this,  consideration  was 
given  to  three  years  spent  in  prison,  so  that,  if  innocent,  he  had 
suffered  severely  and  was  sent  forth  branded  with  an  ineffaceable 
stigma  while,  if  guilty,  he  had  a  penalty  far  less  than  his  deserts. 
When  the  Suprema  asked  why  the  two  witnesses  to  com- 
phcity  were  not  prosecuted,  the  tribunal  replied  that  they  were 
regarded  as  spontaneously  confessing,  and  it  was  not  customary 
to  prosecute  in  such  cases;  besides,  although  their  enmity  and 
contradictions  invalidated  their  testimony,  these  were  insufficient 
to  justify  prosecution  for  false-witness.^  Altogether  it  was  an 
impleasant  business,  which  the  tribunal  evidently  desired  to 
despatch  with  as  little  damage  as  possible  to  the  Church. 

The  tendency  towards  leniency  increased  with  time,  and  was 
shown  to  laymen  as  well  as  to  ecclesiastics.  In  1717,  the  Barcelona 
tribunal  sentenced  Guillaume  Amiel,  a  Frenchman,  to  four  years 
of  presidio  and  perpetual  banishment  from  Spain.  The  Suprema 
commuted  the  presidio  to  a  hundred  lashes  but,  when  the  sentence 
was  read,  Amiel  protested  that  his  father  was  a  gentleman  and 
that  he  held  a  patent  as  "teniente  del  Rey  Christianisimo," 
thus  claiming  exemption  from  degrading  corporal  punishment. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  61. 
VOL.  IV  24 


370  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

The  proceedings  were  suspended,  and  the  Suprema  was  consulted, 
which  omitted  the  lashes  and,  on  the  same  account,  the  boy 
Ramon  Gils,  who  was  the  accomplice,  was  spared  the  verguenza 
to  which  he  had  been  condemned.' 

The  most  conspicuous  case  of  this  nature  in  the  annals  of  the 
Inquisition  was  that  of  Don  Pedro  Luis  Galceran  de  Borja,  Grand- 
master of  the  Order  of  Montesa.  He  was  not  only  a  grandee  of 
Spain,  but  was  alUed  to  the  royal  house,  he  was  half-brother  to 
Francisco  de  Borja,  Duke  of  Grandia  and  subsequently  General 
of  the  Jesuits,  and  was  of  kin  to  nearly  all  the  noblest  lineages  of 
the  land.  For  his  arrest,  in  1571,  the  assent  of  PhiUp  II  was 
necessary;  he  was  not  confined  in  the  secret  prison,  but  had  com- 
modious apartments  from  which,  during  his  trial,  he  conducted 
the  affairs  of  the  Order.  He  claimed  exemption  on  the  ground 
of  the  privileges  of  the  Order,  and  more  than  two  years  were 
spent  in  debating  the  question,  though  it  was  pointed  out  that, 
while  the  Trinitarians  had  even  greater  privileges,  two  members 
professed  of  that  Order  had  recently  been  relaxed  for  the  same 
crime,  and  Borja  was  not  even  a  cleric,  but  a  married  man  with 
children.  The  claim  was  finally  disallowed  and  the  trial  went 
slowly  on.  The  evidence  reduced  itself  to  two  "singular"  wit- 
nesses, who  testified  to  solicitation  and  attempt,  and  to  one, 
Martin  de  Castro,  who  testified  to  consummation  and  then  revoked. 
Powerful  influence  from  all  quarters  was  brought  to  bear  to  save 
the  accused,  and  in  the  final  consulta  de  fe  there  was  discordia. 
Two  inquisitors  and  the  Ordinary  voted  for  acquittal.  The  other 
inquisitor,  who  was  Juan  de  Rojas,  in  a  written  opinion,  called 
for  four  years  of  exile  and  a  heavy  fine.  The  Suprema,  after 
prolonged  correspondence  with  the  tribunal,  accepted  this,  but 
changed  the  exile  to  six  years  of  reclusion  in  his  convent  of  Mon- 
tesa. Llorente  intimates  that  the  inquisitors  expected  to  gain 
bishoprics,  or  at  least  places  in  the  Suprema,  and  that  a  bargain  was 
made  through  which,  on  Borja's  death,  the  Order  of  Montesa  was 
incorporated  with  the  crown,  as  the  military  Orders  of  Castile 
had  been  under  Ferdinand;  to  this  latter  some  color  was  lent  by 
Philip's  appointment  of  Borja's  natural  son  to  the  grand  com- 
mandership  of  the  Order,  from  which  he  rose  to  the  cardinalate. 
There  is  an  evident  allusion  to  this  case  in  the  remark  of  an  Italian 
traveller  in  1593,  who,  when  speaking  of  the  severity  of  the  Inqui- 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Sala  39,  Leg.  4,  fol.  71. 


Chap.  XVI]  USUBY  371 

sition  in  these  matters,  illustrates  it  by  the  story  of  a  grandee  who, 
for  merely  throwing  his  arm  around  the  neck  of  a  page,  spent 
ten  years  in  prison  and  fifty  thousand  ducats.^ 

Cases  were  sufficiently  frequent  to  give  the  Aragonese  tribunals 
considerable  occupation,  especially  after  it  was  included  in  the 
Edict  of  Faith  in  1574,  as  a  crime  to  be  denounced.^  I  have 
but  a  few  scattering  data,  but  they  are  suggestive.  Thus,  in 
Saragossa,  at  the  auto  of  June  6,  1585,  there  were  four  culprits 
relaxed.'  In  Catalonia,  in  1597,  the  report,  by  Inquisitor  Heredia, 
of  a  visitation  through  the  see  of  Tarragona  and  parts  of  those  of 
Barcelona,  Vich  and  Urgel,  contains  sixty-eight  cases  of  all  kinds 
and  of  these  fifteen  were  for  this  class  of  offences,  though  most  of 
them  were  subsequently  suspended.^  In  Valencia,  there  appeared 
in  the  autos  from  January  1598  to  December  1602,  twenty-seven 
of  these  culprits,  of  whom  seven  were  frailes.^  As  it  was  custo- 
mary to  read  the  sentences  con  meritos,  the  populace  had  an 
edifying  education.  From  1780  to  1820,  the  total  number  of 
cases  coming  before  the  three  tribunals  was  exactly  one  hundred." 


Usury. 

The  ecclesiastical  definition  of  usury  is  not,  as  we  understand 
the  term,  an  exorbitant  charge  for  the  use  of  money,  beyond  the 
legal  rate,  but  any  interest  or  other  advantage,  however  small 
or  indirect,  derived  from  a  loan  of  money  or  other  article.  For- 
bidden by  the  Old  Law,  between  the  Chosen  People,  and  extended 
under  the  New  to  the  brotherhood  of  man,  it  has  been  the  subject 
of  denunciation  continuously  from  the  primitive  Church  to  the 
most  recent  times.  Ingenuity  has  been  exhausted  in  devising 
methods  of  repression  and  punishment,  only  to  show  how  impos- 
sible has  been  the  task  of  warring  against  human  nature  and 
human  necessities. 


'  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  iv,.  fol.  6. — Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq. 
de  Valencia,  Leg.  61 ;  Cartas  del  Consejo,  Leg.  5,  n.  1,  fol.  5.— Llorente,  Hist, 
crit.,  cap.  XXIV,  art.  4,  u.  2. — Giambattista  Confalonieri  (Spicilegio  Vaticano, 
I,  461). 

^  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  82,  fol.  91. 

'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  PV,  3,  n.  20. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  5. 

'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  99.  '  Ibidem,  Leg.  100. 


372  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

From  an  early  period,  usury  was  regarded  as  an  ecclesiastical 
sin  and  crime,  subject  to  spiritual  jurisdiction  in  both  the  Jorum 
internum  and  Jorum  externum.  In  1258  Alexander  IV  rendered 
it  justiciable  by  the  Inquisition  and,  at  the  Comicil  of  Vienne,  in 
1312,  the  assertion  that  the  taking  of  interest  is  not  a  sin  was 
defined  to  be  a  heresy,  which  the  Inquisition  was  in  duty  required 
to  prosecute.^  During  the  later  Middle  Ages,  when  the  greater 
heresies  had  been  largely  suppressed,  the  prosecution  of  usurers 
formed  a  considerable,  and  the  most  profitable,  portion  of  inqui- 
sitorial activity.  It  is  true  that  the  heresy  consisted  in  denying 
that  usury  is  a  sin,  but,  as  the  Repertorium  of  1494  explains,  the 
usurer  or  simonist,  who  does  not  affirm  or  deny  but  is  silent  and 
tacitly  believes  it  not  to  be  a  sin  to  commit  usury  or  simony,  is 
a  pertinacious  heretic  mentally.^ 

In  Spain,  the  usurious  practices  of  Jews  and  Converses  were 
the  principal  source  of  popular  hostility,  but  Jews  were  not  sub- 
ject to  the  Inquisition  and,  in  its  earlier  years,  it  appears  not  to 
have  recognized  its  jurisdiction  in  this  matter  over  the  Converses, 
for  I  have  met  with  no  trace,  at  this  period,  of  action  by  it  against 
usury,  whether  in  Castile  or  in  Aragon.  As  regards  the  latter, 
indeed,  it  was  impeded  by  a  fuero  of  the  Cortes  of  Calatayud,  in 
1461,  prohibiting  the  prosecution  of  usurers,  by  both  the  secular 
and  spiritual  courts,  and  the  procuring  of  faculties  for  the  purpose 
by  the  Inquisition.  To  ensure  the  observance  of  this,  Juan  II 
was  required  to  swear  that  he  would  not  obtain  any  papal  rescript 
or  commission  authorizing  inquisition  into  usury  and  that,  if 
such  rescript  were  had,  it  should  not  be  used  but  be  delivered 
within  a  month  to  the  Diputados.^  It  may  be  assumed  that  the 
Inquisition  sought  relief  from  this  restriction,  for  Julius  II  issued 


'  Raynald.  Annal.,  aim.  1258,  n,  23.— Potthast,  Regesta,  n.  17745,  18396.— 
Cap.  1,  Clement.,  Lib.  v,  Tit.  v. 

^  Repertor.  Inquisit.  s.  v.  Hcsreticus,  §  Pertinax. 

Although  simony  was  the  miiversally  corroding  vice  of  the  Church,  and  although 
it  was  reckoned  as  a  heresy,  it  was  too  profitable  to  the  hierarchy  ever  to  be 
subjected  to  the  Inquisition.  In  a  project  of  instructions  for  the  Spanish  dele- 
gates to  the  Lateran  Council  in  1512,  simoniacal  heresy  is  denounced  as  the 
universal  destruction  of  the  Church,  owing  to  the  openness  with  which  it  is  prac- 
tised in  Rome  and  throughout  Christendom,  and  they  are  told  to  labor  to  have 
it  prosecuted  as  heresy  by  the  Inquisition — DoUinger,  Beitrage  zur  politischen 
kirchlichen  und  Cultur-Geschichte,  III,  204). 

^  Fueros  de  Aragon,  fol.  110.  For  earlier  legislation  of  similar  import  see  fol, 
49  (Zaragoza,  1624), 


Chap.  XVI]  VSUJiT  373 

a  motu  propria,  January  14,  1504,  reciting  the  fuero  of  Calatayud 
and  stating  that  the  usuraria  pravitas  had  so  increased  that  a 
measure  of  wheat  would  be  multiphed  to  twenty-five  within  three 
years,  chiefly  because  the  Inquisition,  in  consequence  of  this 
fuero,  was  precluded  from  the  exercise  of  its  lawful  jurisdiction. 
He  therefore  ordered  Inquisitor-general  Deza  to  prosecute  all 
Christian  usurers  and  compel  them  to  desist,  by  inflicting  the 
penalties  prescribed  by  the  general  council,  while  Ferdinand  was 
summoned  to  aid  the  inquisitors,  and  he  and  his  successors  were 
released  from  any  oaths  to  observe  the  fuero.* 

As  all  commercial  and  financial  transactions  at  the  time  were 
based  on  interest  payment  and,  as  the  agriculturist  habitually 
borrowed  seed-corn  before  sowing,  to  be  repaid  with  increase 
after  harvest,  the  Inquisition  thus  had  an  ample  field  opened  for 
its  operations.  That  it  did  not  neglect  the  opportunity  is  fairly 
inferable  from  the  opposition  excited.  It  was  the  subject  of  one 
of  the  most  energetic  remonstrances  of  the  Cortes  of  Monzon  in 
1510,  and  the  Concordia  of  1512  bore  an  article  in  which  Ferdinand 
promised  to  obtain  from  the  pope  the  revocation  of  the  faculties 
granted  to  the  inquisitors;  that  he  would  allow  no  other  grant  to 
be  obtained,  and  that  meanwhile  he  would  arrange  that  no  prose- 
cutions should  be  brought  except  for  open  assertion  that  usury 
was  no  sin.  For  this,  as  for  the  other  articles,  he  swore  to  procure 
the  papal  confirmation.  Inquisitors  were  likewise  sworn  to  obey 
the  Concordia  and,  when  Ferdinand  was  released  from  his  oath 
by  Leo  X,  in  the  brief  of  April  30,  1513,  a  motu  propria  followed, 
September  2d,  to  the  effect  that,  as  heresy  and  usury  are  the  most 
heinous  of  crimes,  to  be  prosecuted  with  the  sharpest  rigor,  the 
inquisitors  were  released  from  their  oaths  and  directed  to  employ 
the  faculties  granted  by  Julius  II  for  the  suppression  of  usury .^ 
This  serves  to  explain  why,  in  the  compromise  embodied  in  Inqui- 
sitor-general Mercader's  Instructions  of  1514,  there  is  no  allusion 
to  usury — the  inquisitors  were  not  to  be  disturbed  in  the  exercise 
of  their  functions  in  this  respect.'     When,  however,  Leo,  in  1516, 


'  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  i,  fol.  109.  The  general  council  here 
alluded  to  was  that  of  Lyons,  in  1273.  See  cap.  1,  2,  in  Sexto,  Lib.  v,  Tit.  v. 
This  refers  back  to  Concil.  Lateranens.  Ill,  ann.  1179,  cap.  xxv. 

'  Pragmaticas  y  altres  Drets  de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  viii,  cap.  1,  §  20. — 
Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.  de  Barcelona,  Cortes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  32. — Pdramo,  p. 
185. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  933. 


374  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [BookVIII 

confirmed  the  Concordia  of  1512,  he  removed  usury  from  inquisi- 
torial jurisdiction  and  prohibited  its  prosecution  unless  the  culprit 
should  hold  it  not  to  be  a  sin.' 

It  has  already  been  seen  how  completely  the  Inquisition  ignored 
all  these  agreements,  in  spite  of  royal  and  papal  confirmations. 
So,  when  Charles  Vwas  obliged,  in  1518,  at  the  C6rtes  of  Saragossa, 
to  take  the  specific  and  elaborate  oath  imposed  on  Juan  II,  it 
proved  equally  futile.^  Inquisitors  continued  to  exercise  juris- 
diction, but,  in  Aragon  proper,  they  were  impeded  for  a  time  by 
a  brief  of  Clement  VII,  January  16,  1525,  ordering  them  to  con- 
fine themselves  in  future  to  heresy — a  brief  procured  by  Juan  of 
Austria,  Archbishop  of  Saragossa,  who  claimed  jurisdiction  over 
usury  for  his  own  court.^  This  afforded  slender  relief,  for  he 
employed  the  inquisitorial  process  and  the  Cortes  of  Saragossa, 
in  1528,  adopted  a  fuero,  confirmed  by  Charles  V,  reciting  that 
the  laws  provide  for  the  punishment  of  usurers  by  the  secular 
courts,  but  that  the  ecclesiastical  judges  were  prosecuting  them, 
wherefore,  at  the  desire  of  the  four  brazos,  his  majesty  ordered 
the  ancient  laws  of  the  kingdom  to  be  enforced  without  exception.^ 

So  long  as  the  Inquisition  was  not  involved,  Charles  was  indif- 
ferent as  to  how  usurers  were  treated,  but,  when  the  Catalans, 
at  the  Cortes  of  Monzon,  in  the  same  year,  complained  of  the  prose- 
cution of  usury  by  inquisitors  and  petitioned  that  it  be  prevented, 
he  drily  answered  that  the  laws  should  be  observed  and  justice 
should  be  done.^  No  greater  satisfaction  than  this  could  be  had 
when,  a  few  years  later,  the  Cortes  of  the  three  kingdoms  reiterated 
the  complaint  of  the  prosecutions  for  usury  by  the  Inquisition, 
inflicting  an  ineffaceable  stain  upon  parties  and  their  descendants, 
even  though  they  were  discharged  without  penance.  The  reply 
of  the  inquisitor-general  to  this  was  a  simple  denial,  coupled  with 
the  demand  that  the  names  of  injured  parties  should  be  produced." 

In  the  absence  of  documents,  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  why 
the  Inquisition  suddenly  abandoned  a  jurisdiction  for  which  it 
had  contended  so  strenuously,  but  so  it  was.  In  1552,  Simancas 
asserts  that  inquisitors  have  no  cognizance  of  questions  arising 
from  usury,  but  must  leave  them  to  the  Ordinaries,  for  usurers 


'  Pragmaticas  etc.  de  Cathalunya,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  viii,  cap.  2,  §§  20,  35. 

'  Argensola,  Afiales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  i,  cap.  liv. 

'  Llorente,  Afiales,  II,  298.  *  Fueros  de  Aragon,  fol.  110. 

°  Dormer,  Afiales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  ii,  cap.  xli,  p.  384. 

°  Archive  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inq.,  Leg.  linico,  fol.  37,  38. 


Chap.  XVI]  MORALS  376 

are  not  moved  by  erroneous  belief,  but  by  the  desire  for  sordid 
gains.^  In  this  Simancas  evidently  spoke  by  authority,  for  the 
Suprema,  in  a  carta  acordada  of  March  17,  1554,  forbade  the 
tribunals  to  take  cognizance  of  usury,  and  the  subject  disappears 
from  inquisitorial  records.^  The  secular  and  spiritual  courts  were 
left  to  fight  the  losing  battle  with  industrial  and  commercial  pro- 
gress, which  eventually  compelled  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
payment  for  the  usance  of  money  is  customarily  profitable  to 
both  parties. 

Morals 

The  object  of  the  Inquisition  was  the  preservation  of  the  purity 
of  faith  and  not  the  improvement  of  morals.  The  view  taken  of 
its  duties  as  to  the  latter  is  set  forth  in  the  comments  of  the  Suprema 
on  the  report  by  de  Soto  Salazar  of  his  visitation,  in  1566,  of  the 
Barcelona  tribunal.  Clement,  Abbot  of  RipoU,  was  prosecuted 
for  saying  that  so  great  was  the  mercy  of  God  that  he  would  pardon 
a  sinner  who  confessed,  even  though  he  had  not  a  firm  intention 
to  abstain  in  future,  and  also  for  keeping  a  nun  as  a  mistress. 
He  was  fined  in  four  hundred  ducats,  and  was  ordered  to  break 
off  relations  with  the  nun  under  pain  of  a  thousand  ducats.  The 
Suprema  sharply  reprimanded  Inquisitor  Padilla  for  inflicting  so 
heavy  a  penalty  and  for  exceeding  his  jurisdiction  in  prohibiting 
the  unlawful  connection.  So,  when  the  inquisitors  fined  Jaime 
Bocca,  an  unmarried  familiar,  in  twelve  ducats  for  keeping  a 
married  woman  as  mistress,  the  Suprema  told  them  that  it  was 
none  of  their  business.  It  is  true  that  in  two  other  cases  of 
famihars,  fined  in  twenty  ducats  each  for  keeping  mistresses,  the 
comment  is  simply  that  the  rigor  was  excessive.^ 

The  same  principle,  as  we  have  seen,  was  observed  in  the  treat- 
ment of  solicitation.  The  question  of  morals  was  studiously 
excluded,  as  a  matter  entirely  beyond  the  purview  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, and  the  only  point  considered  was  the  technical  one  whether 
cases  came  within  papal  definitions  drawn  up  to  safeguard  the 
sacrament  of  penitence.  The  same  remark  apphes  to  the  vigorous 
prosecution  of  those  who  held  simple  fornication  to  be  no  sin. 


'  Simancae  de  Cath.  Instt.,  Tit.  lxvi,  n.  3. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  939,  fol.  106. 

'  Ibidem,  Visitas  de  Barcelona,  Leg.  15,  fol.  20. 


376  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

There  was  no  attempt  to  repress  the  sin  itself,  for  this  was  beyond 
the  faculties  conferred  on  the  Inquisition,  but  merely  to  ascertain 
and  punish  the  mental  attitude  of  the  accused. 

As  time  passed  on,  however,  and  as  the  heretics  who  were  the 
legitimate  objects  of  the  Holy  Office  grew  scarce,  there  arose  a 
tendency  to  enlarge  its  sphere  of  action  and  to  assume  the  position 
of  Sicustos  morum.  This  has  been  seen  in  the  censorship,  which, 
during  the  later  period,  came  to  be  applied  not  only  to  obscene 
books  but  to  all  manner  of  works  of  art  that  did  not  accord  with 
the  censor's  standard  of  decency. 

From  this  it  was  an  easy  step  to  intervene  in  the  private  lives 
of  individuals,  in  matters  wholly  apart  from  its  legitimate  juris- 
diction, of  which  we  find  occasional  examples  in  the  later  period 
of  decadence.  Thus,  in  1784,  Josef  Mas  was  prosecuted  in  Valen- 
cia for  singing  an  improper  song  at  a  dance,  and  in  1791,  there  is 
a  prosecution  of  Manuel  de  Pino  for  "indecent  and  irreligious 
acts."  In  1792  the  Barcelona  tribunal  takes  the  testimony  of 
Ramon  Seroles  of  Lloc,  with  respect  to  the  scandalous  life  of  the 
parish  priest  of  that  place  and  his  abuse  of  the  holy  oils.  In  1810 
the  Valencia  tribunal  is  investigating  Rosa  Avinent,  keeper  of  a 
tobacco-shop,  for  suspicion  of  maltreating  some  children  in  her 
house.  In  1816  the  Santiago  tribunal  sentences  Don  Miguel 
Quereyzaeta,  a  post-office  official,  to  leave  the  city  where  he  has 
led  a  disorderly  and  scandalous  life,  and  charges  him  to  reconcile 
himself  to  his  wife  and  to  live  with  her.  In  1819,  Don  Antonio 
Clemente  de  Polar  is  prosecuted  by  the  Madrid  tribunal  for  propo- 
sitions and  for  dressing  in  such  wise  as  to  satisfy  the  passions  and 
for  other  excesses.' 

In  these  and  similar  cases,  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  parties 
inculpated  richly  deserved  correction,  but  this  sporadic  defence 
of  virtue  and  punishment  of  vice  was  much  more  likely  to  en- 
courage the  gratification  of  malice  than  to  elevate  the  standard 
of  public  morals,  and  the  employment  of  the  tremendous  machin- 
ery of  the  Inquisition  in  such  matters  marks  the  depth  of  its  fall 
from  its  former  height.  Had  its  object  from  the  beginning  been 
the  purification  of  morals  as  well  as  of  refigion,  possibly  the  awe 
which  it  inspired  in  all  classes  might  have  resulted  in  some  ethical 
improvement  but,  during  the  time  of  its  power,  the  impression 
that  it  produced  was  that  morals  were  of  slender  account  in  com- 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. — MSS.  of  Am.  Phil.  Society. 


Chap.  XVI]  THE  SEAL  OF  CONFESSION  377 

parison  with  faith  and,  in  the  day  of  its  decline,  these  occasional 
attempts  to  extend  its  jurisdiction  could  only  produce  exaspera- 
tion without  amendment. 


The  Seal  of  Confession. 

When,  in  1216,  the  fourth  Council  of  Lateran  rendered  auricular 
confession  imperative,  it  was  essential  that  the  father  confessor 
should  be  bound  to  preserve  absolute  silence  as  to  the  sins  revealed 
to  him.  For  a  time  there  were  some  exceptions  admitted,  as 
heresy  for  instance,  but  eventually  the  obligation  became  univer- 
sal and  the  schoolmen  exhausted  their  ingenuity  in  devising  the 
most  extreme  cases  by  which  to  illustrate  the  inviolability  of  what 
has  become  known  as  the  seal  of  confession.  Human  nature 
being  what  it  is,  and  priestly  nature  being  subject  to  human 
infirmities,  the  violation  of  the  seal  has,  at  all  times,  been  a  source 
of  anxiety  and  the  object  of  rigorous  punishment,  administered 
to  the  secular  clergy  by  the  spipitual  courts,  and  to  the  regulars 
by  their  superiors.  The  Roman  Inquisition,  in  the  first  half- 
century  of  its  existence,  assumed  exclusive  cognizance  of  the 
offence,  and  demanded  that  all  offenders,  whether  secular  or  regu- 
lar, should  be  tried  by  its  tribunals,  but,  in  1609,  it  abandoned 
its  jurisdiction  and  left  them  to  their  bishops  and  prelates.* 

As  the  heresy  involved  in  betraying  the  confidence  of  the 
penitent  was  only  an  inferential  error  as  to  the  sacrament — an 
artificial  pretext  like  that  devised  with  regard  to  solicitation — the 
Spanish  Inquisition  did  not  hold  it  to  be  comprised  in  the  general 
delegation  of  faculties,  but  that  a  special  papal  commission  was 
requisite.  No  attempt  seems  to  have  been  made  to  obtain  this 
until  1639,  when,  on  October  11th,  the  Suprema  addressed  Philip 
IV  a  consulta  setting  forth  that  numerous  demmciations  were 
received  by  the  tribunals  against  confessors  who  revealed  con- 
fessions, and  that  inquisitors  were  asking  urgently  for  permission 
to  prosecute  such  cases  as  violations  of  divine,  natural  and  political 
law,  rendering  culprits  suspect  in  the  faith,  this  being  even  more 
derisory  of  the  sacrament  than  solicitation.  It  was  notorious  that 
the  Ordinaries  did  not  check  it  among  the  secular  clergy,  nor 


'  Collect.  Decret.  8.  Congr.  S.  Officii,  p.  125  (MS.  penes  me). — Decreta  S.  Congr. 
S.  Inquisit.,  pp.  66,  515  (Bibl.  del  R  Archivio  di  Stato  in  Romse,  Fondo  camerale, 
Congr.  del  S.  Officio,  Vol.  3). 


378  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

their  prelates  among  the  regulars,  nor  could,  in  such  hands,  any 
remedy  be  efBcacious,  because  in  pubUc  trials  the  witnesses  would 
be  bought  off  or  frightened  off,  and  there  were  no  secret  prisons 
to  assure  the  necessary  segregation  of  the  accused.  The  king 
was  therefore  asked  to  procure  from  the  pope,  for  the  Inquisition, 
exclusive  jurisdiction  over  the  offence.^  The  Suprema  probably 
did  not  exaggerate  as  to  the  denunciations  received  by  the  tribu- 
nals, for,  in  the  minor  one  of  the  Canaries,  we  find  it,  in  1637, 
receiving  testimony  against  Diego  Artiaga,  priest  of  Hierro,  for 
this  offence,  in  1643,  against  Diego  Salgado,  priest  of  la  Palma  and, 
in  1644  against  Fray  Matias  Pinto  of  Teneriffe.^ 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Philip,  as  usual,  acceded  to  the 
request  of  the  Suprema,  but  Urban  VIII  seems  not  to  have  been 
responsive.  He  had  a  plausible  reason  for  declining,  in  the  fact 
that  the  Roman  Inquisition  had  abandoned  its  jurisdiction  over 
the  matter  and,  at  the  moment,  he  was  at  odds  with  the  Spanish 
over  the  question  of  censorship  and  of  the  Plomos  del  Sacromonte. 
The  offence  was  never  included  in  the  Edict  of  Faith,  but  occa- 
sionally it  is  enumerated  among  the  charges  against  confessors  on 
trial  for  soUcitation,  as  in  the  cases  of  the  Franciscan  Fray  Juan 
Pachon  de  Salas,  in  Mexico  in  1712,  of  the  Carmelite  Ventura  de 
San  Joaquin  in  1794,  and  of  Fray  Antonio  Ortuno  in  1807.'  It 
was  difficult  to  eradicate  belief  in  the  competence  of  the  Inquisition 
and,  as  lately  as  1808,  Jose  Antonio  Alvdrez,  priest  of  Horcajo 
de  los  Montes,  was  denounced  for  this  offence  to  the  Toledo  tribu- 
nal, but  the  trial  was  suspended,  probably  through  doubt  as  to 
jurisdiction.*  When  the  question  was  brought  up  squarely,  in 
the  case  of  Doctor  Don  Francisco  Torneo,  before  the  Valencia 
tribunal,  after  due  discussion  it  decided,  March  28,  1816,  that  it 
had  no  jurisdiction,  and  the  case  was  accordingly  dismissed.^ 

Geneeal  Utility. 

The  efficient  organization  of  the  Inquisition  and  the  dread  which 
it  inspired  caused  it  to  be  invoked  in  numberless  contingencies, 
most  diverse  in  character  and  wholly  foreign  to  the  objects  of  its 

'  Archive  de  Simancas  Inq.,  Lib.  21,  fol.  198. 

'  Birch,  Catalogue  of  MSS.  of  Inq.  of  Canaries,  II,  541,  542,  559,  560. 

'  MSS.  of  David  Fergusson  Esq. — Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  1002. 

*  CatAlogo  de  las  causas  seguidas  ante  el  Tribunal  de  Toledo,  p.  325. 

*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 


Chap.  XVI]  GENERAL  UTILITY  379 

institution.  A  brief  enumeration  of  a  few  of  these  will  serve  to 
complete  our  survey  of  its  activity  and,  trivial  as  they  may  seem, 
to  illustrate  how  powerful  was  the  influence  which  it  exercised 
over  the  social  life  of  Spain. 

The  value  of  its  services,  arising  from  the  indefinite  extent  of 
its  powers,  was  recognized  early.  In  1499,  a  Benedictine  monas- 
tery complained  to  Ferdinand  that  it  had  pledged  a  cross  to  a 
certain  Pedro  de  Santa  Cruz  and  could  not  recover  it,  as  he  had 
placed  himself  under  protection  of  Dominicans,  who  claimed 
exemption  from  legal  processes.  Ferdinand  thereupon  ordered 
the  inquisitors  of  the  city  to  settle  the  matter;  they  neglected  it 
and  he  wrote  again  peremptorily,  instructing  them  to  seize  the 
cross  and  do  justice  between  the  parties.  In  April,  1500,  the  king 
instructs  the  Valencia  tribunal  to  recover  for  Don  Ramon  Lopez, 
of  the  royal  guard,  two  runaway  slaves  and  some  plate  which 
they  had  stolen.^  Evidently  there  was  no  little  variety  of  duties 
expected  of  the  Holy  Oflace. 

In  1518  a  nunnery  of  Clares,  in  Calatayud,  complained  that, 
within  ten  paces  of  their  house,  there  had  been  built  a  Mercenarian 
convent  of  which  the  inmates  were  disorderly;  the  nuns  could  not 
walk  in  their  garden  without  being  seen  and  great  scandals  were 
apprehended.  Charles  V  applied  to  Leo  X  to  have  the  Merce- 
narians  replaced  by  Benedictines  or  Geronimites  and  the  Inquisi- 
tion was  invoked  to  assist.^  Parties  sometimes  obtained  papal 
briefs  to  have  their  suits  transferred  to  the  tribunals.  In  1548 
Dona  Aldonza  Cerdan  did  this  in  a  litigation  with  Don  Hernando 
de  la  Caballeria  and,  in  1561,  Dona  Isabel  de  Francia  in  a  suit 
with  Don  Juan  de  Heredia.  In  both  cases  the  inquisitors  of  Sara- 
gossa  refused  to  act  until  Inquisitor-general  Valdes  ordered  them 
to  do  so.^  All  inquisitors  were  not  thus  self-restrained,  for  when, 
about  this  time,  a  general  command  was  issued  forbidding  them 
to  prosecute  for  perjury  committed  in  other  courts,  it  shows  that 
they  had  been  asked  to  do  so  and  that  some  of  them,  at  least,  were 
ready  to  undertake  such  business.*  In  1647,  when  the  prevalence 
of  duelling  called  for  some  effective  means  of  repression,  among 
the  remedies  proposed  was  that  sending  a  challenge  should  be 
made  a  matter  for  the  Inquisition,  on  the  ground  that  the  infamy 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  1. 

'  Ibidem,  Lib.  9,  fol.  6. 

»  Ibidem,  Sala  40,  Lib.  4,  fol.  164,  266.  '  Ibidem,  Lib.  939,  fol.  106. 


380  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

accruing  to  the  offender  and  his  descendants  would  be  the  most 
effective  discouragement  to  punctihous  gentlemen.^  The  sug- 
gestion apparently  was  not  adopted,  but  it  illustrates  the  readiness 
to  have  recourse  to  the  elastic  jurisdiction  of  the  Holy  Office. 

The  Jesuits  found  the  Inquisition  of  much  service  when,  through 
the  favor  of  OHvares,  they  were  enabled  to  invoke  its  intervention 
in  one  of  their  quarrels  with  the  Dominicans.  In  1634,  Fray 
Francisco  Roales  issued  a  pamphlet  against  the  Society  and 
Dr.  Espino,  an  ex-Carmelite,  published  two  others.  They  were 
answered  by  Padre  Salazar  and  there  the  matter  might  have  ended, 
but  the  Jesuits  appealed  to  Philip  IV  and  to  Olivares,  who  promised 
satisfaction  and  ordered  the  Inquisitor-general  Sotomayor  (him- 
self a  Dominican)  to  take  action,  with  the  significant  hint  that  he 
would  be  watched.  A  royal  decree  of  January  29,  1635,  rebuked 
the  Suprema  for  lack  of  zeal,  and  ordered  it  to  act  with  all  diligence 
and  to  inflict  severe  punishment.  It  responded  promptly  on 
February  1st  with  an  edict  suppressing  the  pamphlet  of  Roales 
under  heavy  penalties,  but  this  did  not  suffice  and,  on  Jime  30th, 
it  prohibited  every  one,  layman  or  ecclesiastic,  from  saying  any- 
thing in  private  or  in  public,  derogatory  to  any  religious  Order 
or  the  members  thereof,  under  exemplary  penalties,  to  be  rigor- 
ously executed — a  decree  which  had  to  be  repeated  in  1643. 

On  June  27,  1635  the  three  obnoxious  pamphlets  were  burned 
with  unprecedented  ceremony.  There  was  a  solemn  procession 
of  the  officials  and  familiars,  with  the  standards  of  the  Inquisition, 
while  a  mule  with  carmine  velvet  trappings  bore  a  chest  painted 
with  flames  in  which  were  the  condemned  writings.  It  traversed 
the  principal  streets  to  the  plaza,  where  a  fire  was  lighted;  a  herald,, 
with  sound  of  trumpet,  proclaimed  that  the  Company  of  Jesus 
was  relieved  of  all  that  had  been  said  against  it  and  that  these 
papers  were  false,  calumnious,  impious  and  scandalous;  they  were 
cast  by  the  executioner  into  the  flames  and  then  the  box  and  the 
procession  wended  their  way  solemnly  back  to  the  Dominican 
College  of  San  Tomas.  The  effect  of  the  demonstration,  however, 
was  somewhat  marred  by  the  populace  believing  that  the  box 
contained  the  bones  of  a  misbelieving  Jew,  and  accompanying 
the  procession  with  shouts  of  "Death  to  the  dogs!"  and  other 
pious  ejaculations. 

Espino  was  arrested  and  incarcerated — not  for  the  last  time  for, 


'  Ant.  Rodriguez  Villa,  La  Corte  y  Monarqula  de  Espaiia,  p.  95. 


Chap.  XVI]  GENERAL  UTILITY  881 

in  1643,  he  boasted  that  he  had  been  imprisoned  fifteen  times  for 
his  attacks  on  the  Jesuits.  Roales  was  more  fortunate;  he  was 
a  chaplain  of  PhiUbert  of  Savoy;  his  pamphlet  had  been  printed 
in  Milan  and  he  was  safe  in  Rome,  but  a  printer  who  had  issued 
an  edition  in  Saragossa  was  arrested  and  presumably  sent  to  the 
galleys,  and  a  Dominican  Fray  Cafiamero,  who  had  circulated 
the  three  pamphlets,  was  ordered  to  be  arrested  but  seems  to  have 
saved  himself  by  flight.  Still  the  irrepressible  conflict  continued 
and  the  Inquisition  was  kept  busy  in  prosecuting  offenders  and 
suppressing  obnoxious  utterances.  It  even  construed  its  duty 
so  rigidly  that  it  condemned  a  memorial  of  the  unfortunate  credi- 
tors who  suffered  by  the  bankruptcy,  in  1645,  of  the  Jesuit  College 
of  San  Hermengildo  in  Seville,  when  some  three  hundred  depositors 
lost  four  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  ducats,  and  were  struggling 
to  rescue  the  remaining  assets  from  the  hands  of  the  Jesuits.' 

The  Granada  tribunal  did  net  pause  to  enquire  as  to  its  juris- 
diction when,  in  May  1646,  owing  to  the  scarcity  of  wheat,  there 
were  bread-riots  and  the  mob  had  control  of  the  city.  It  sum- 
moned all  the  grain-measurers  and  porters,  under  pain  of  excom- 
munication, to  appear  before  it  on  a  matter  of  importance.  By 
examining  them,  considerable  stores  of  hidden  corn  were  revealed; 
the  corregidores  registered  it  and  the  price  was  fixed  at  forty- 
two  reales.^  This  was  volunteer  action  but,  in  1648,  when  a  pesti- 
lence was  raging  in  Valencia,  the  tribunal  was  called  upon  to 
maintain  the  quarantine  at  one  of  the  city  gates.  The  king,  on 
February  1,  1649,  notified  the  Suprema  that  the  pest  had  ceased 
in  Valencia,  but  that  it  was  violent  at  C^diz,  San  Lucar  and  other 
places,  and  urged  continued  vigilance,  to  which  the  Suprema 
replied  that  it  had,  since  April,  done  its  full  duty,  but  that  the 
municipal  officials  were  very  neghgent,  and  it  asked  him  to  order 
them  to  do  their  share.^  Apparently  the  Inquisition  was  relied 
upon  for  quarantine  work.  As  lately  as  July  2,  1818,  the  Suprema 
wrote  to  all  the  tribunals  that  the  plague  had  appeared  at  Tangier 
and  threatened  Spain  with  the  most  terrible  of  calamities.  The 
king  had  ordered  energetic  precautions,  in  which  all  branches  of 

»  Cartas  de  Jesuitas  (Mem.  hist,  espafiol,  XIII,  9,  11, 13-17,  19,  24,27,  67-71, 
73,  78-9,  119,  181,  185,  230;  XIV,  395;  XVII,  218;  XVIII,  52,  59,  81,  105-17). 
—Juan  de  Palafox,  Epist.  in  ad  Innoc.  X,  n.  126  (Obras,  XI,  107).— Theatro  Jesui- 
two,  p.  375. — Morale  pratique  des  Jesuites  (Cologne,  1684). 

^  Cartas  de  Jesuitas  {loc.  cit.,  XIX,  187). 

»  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  38,  fol.  12,  216,  260,  319,  320,  321,  326. 


382  MISCELLANEOUS  BUSINESS  [Book  VIII 

the  Government  must  cooperate,  and  it  was  no  time  for  hesitation 
or  scruples.  The  tribunals  were  therefore  instructed  to  keep 
watch  on  the  officials  of  all  departments  and  see  that  they  did 
their  duty  and,  if  they  could  devise  more  effective  measures,  they 
were  invited  to  make  suggestions/ 

The  unhmited  interference  of  the  Inquisition  with  matters  per- 
taining to  episcopal  supervision  is  seen  in  two  or  three  cases  tried 
by  the  Madrid  tribunal.  May  5,  1656,  it  sentenced  the  priest, 
Francisco  Perez  Lozano,  to  exile  for  a  year  from  various  places 
for  his  share  in  founding  a  confraternity  with  what  were  called 
"statutes  execrables."  February  6,  1688,  Juan  Moreno  de  Pie- 
drola,  a  priest  of  the  Congregation  of  San  Salvador,  who  proposed 
to  establish  a  congregation,  in  the  rules  of  which  the  tribunal 
discovered  censurable  propositions,  was  ordered  to  surrender  all 
the  papers  and  not  to  discuss  it  in  word  or  writing  and  was  exiled 
until  he  should  have  permission  to  return,  with  warning  that 
otherwise  he  would  be  prosecuted  with  the  full  rigor  of  the  law. 
As  he  was  not  required  to  abjure  even  de  levi,  it  shows  that  there 
was  no  suspicion  of  heresy  involved.  Then,  in  1697,  Fray  Juan 
Maldonado,  of  the  Order  of  San  Juan  de  Dios,  had  three  years  of 
exile  for  preaching,  in  the  church  of  his  convent  at  Ciudad  Real, 
a  sermon  characterized  as  burlesque  and  scandalous,  though  there 
is  no  hint  of  its  being  in  any  way  heretical.^ 

This  perpetual  intrusion  into  all  manner  of  affairs,  irrespective 
of  heresy  rather  increased  towards  the  last.  In  1788,  Antonio 
Lopez  was  prosecuted  in  Valencia  for  selling  rosaries  with  bones 
made  of  clay  as  rehcs.  In  1789,  Andres  Joaiiez,  a  coachman, 
for  a  conversation  on  a  superstitious  subject.  In  1791,  the  Car- 
melite Fray  Bonifacio  de  San  Pablo,  for  attempting  to  print  a 
satirical  paper;  Josef  de  la  Rosa,  in  Cordova,  for  carrying  a  con- 
secrated wafer  in  a  rehc-bag;  Vicente  Felerit,  in  Valencia,  for  a 
"vain  observance."  In  1795,  Don  Miguel  CataM,  fiscal  in  Bunol 
and  Josef  Sanchez  Masquifa,  a  scrivener,  were  prosecuted  for 
using,  in  drafting  testaments,  the  words  "diversos  atributos," 
when  alluding  to  the  Trinity.  In  1799,  Juan  Rodriguez,  a  priest 
in  Santiago,  for  assisting  and  performing  ceremonies  in  a  mock- 
marriage.  In  1808,  Josef  Vdrquez  de  la  Torre,  a  scrivener  of 
Valencia,  for  drawing  a  deed  of  separation  between  spouses.    In 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  559. 

*  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 


Chap.  XVI]  GENERAL  UTILITY  383 

1818,  in  Valencia,  Vicente  Maicas,  priest  of  Cedrillos,  for  not 
wanting  his  parishioners  to  die  in  the  Franciscan  habit.'  As  all 
these  cases  presuppose  denunciation,  they  illustrate  the  popular 
estimate  of  the  all-embracing  powers  of  the  Inquisition  and  the 
espionage  under  which  every  Spaniard  lived. 

In  fact,  there  was  scarce  anything  in  which  the  Inquisition  did 
not  feel  itself  authorized  to  intervene.  The  latitude  with  which 
inquisitors  construed  their  own  powers  is  manifest  in  their  assum- 
ing to  issue  licences  to  hunt  in  prohibited  places,  sometimes  for 
their  own  benefit  and  sometimes  for  that  of  others.  This  was  an 
abuse  which  the  Suprema  strove  to  correct  by  forbidding  it  in 
1527,  but  it  was  so  persistent  that  the  prohibition  had  to  be  repeated 
in  1530  and  again  in  1566.^ 

As  the  Inquisition  was  supreme  within  its  jurisdiction  and 
claimed  the  right  to  define  the  extent  of  its  powers,  there  was 
no  one  to  call  it  to  account  for  their  arbitrary  exercise.  If  any 
other  body  in  the  State  felt  that  its  rights  were  invaded,  the  only 
recourse  was  to  the  sovereign  and  we  have  seen  how,  under  the 
Hapsburgs,  the  crown,  with  scarce  an  exception,  decided  in  its 
favor. 

'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 
'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  939,  fol.  64. 


BOOK    IX. 

CONCLUSION. 


CHAPTER  I. 

DECADENCE   AND   EXTINCTION. 

The  Inquisition  may  be  said  to  have  reached  its  apogee  under 
Philip  IV.  We  have  had  ample  opportunity  to  see  how  that 
pious  monarch  yielded  to  its  aggressiveness,  until  it  became  a 
virtually  independent  organization  within  the  State,  obeying  the 
royal  mandates  or  not,  as  best  suited  its  convenience,  and  engaged 
in  almost  perpetual  controversies  with  the  other  branches  of  the 
government,  while  the  king,  with  rare  exceptions,  submitted  to  its 
exigencies.  It  is  true  that,  in  his  financial  distress,  he  compelled 
the  restitution  of  a  small  part  of  the  confiscations  and  that  he 
asserted  the  royal  prerogative  of  making  and  unmaking  inquisitors- 
general  and  of  appointing  members  of  the  Suprema  but,  when  once 
he  had  exercised  the  power,  his  appointees  acted  in  independence. 
It  would  not  be  easy  to  imagine  a  more  complete  assertion  of 
irresponsible  authority  than  the  sudden  arrest  of  Villanueva — 
of  a  leading  minister  in  the  absence  of  the  sovereign,  at  a  time  of 
the  utmost  confusion,  when  nothing  would  have  been  risked  by 
delay,  save  perhaps  that  the  sovereign  might  have  refused  assent. 
Yet  not  only  did  Philip  condone  this  but  he  threw  himself  into  the 
persecution  of  his  favorite  with  such  ardor  that  he  could  scarce 
restrain  himself  from  risking  a  rupture  with  the  Holy  See  in  defence 
of  the  Holy  Office.  Under  the  disastrous  regency  of  Maria  Ana 
of  Austria  and  the  reign  of  Carlos  II,  the  royal  authority  almost 
disappeared  and,  although  this  gave  such  men  as  Nithard  and 
Valladares  opportunity  to  assert  still  further  the  independence  of 
the  Inquisition,  it  also  enabled  Don  John  of  Austria  to  banish 
VOL.  IV  25  (  385  ) 


386  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

Nithard  and  the  other  governmental  departments  to  emulate  its 
disregard  of  the  royal  authority.  There  was  an  omen  of  the  future 
when  they  united,  in  1696,  in  the  Junta  Magna,  to  protest  against 
the  encroachments  of  the  Inquisition  and  to  demand  its  with- 
drawal into  its  proper  limits,  although  by  dextrous  management 
the  attempt  was  bafHed. 


The  Bourbons. 

With  the  advent  of  the  Bourbon  dynasty  a  new  element  entered 
into  the  political  organization  of  Spain.  The  absolutism  of  Louis 
XIV  had  embraced  the  Church  as  well  as  the  State,  and  the 
Galilean  theories  as  to  the  power  of  the  Holy  See  were  encouraged 
in  order  to  assure  the  headship  of  the  crown.  It  was  inevitable 
that  Philip  V  and  his  French  advisers  should  entertain  very  differ- 
ent views  as  to  the  relations  between  the  king  and  the  Inquisition 
from  those  which  had  been  current  for  a  century.  Even  at  the 
height  of  the  War  of  Succession,  we  have  seen  how  Philip,  in  the 
affair  of  Froilan  Diaz,  intervened  as  master  and  regulated  the 
relations  between  the  inquisitor-general  and  the  Suprema,  how 
he  undertook  to  reform  the  Inquisition  and  how,  in  many  ways 
he  curbed  its  audacity.  But  for  a  court  intrigue,  working  through 
Philip's  uxoriousness,  Macanaz  might  have  succeeded  in  his 
project  of  rendering  the  Inquisition  wholly  subordinate  to  the 
crown,  and  though  the  vindictiveness  of  the  Holy  Office  inflicted 
on  him  life-long  punishment  for  the  attempt,  this  did  not  pre- 
vent the  continued  assertion  of  the  royal  supremacy,  as  we  have 
had  occasion  to  see  in  repeated  instances  and  in  many  different 
directions. 

Philip's  assertion  of  the  royal  prerogative,  however,  by  no 
means  implied  any  lack  of  zeal  for  the  faith  and,  as  long  as  the 
Inquisition  confined  itself  to  its  duties  of  exterminating  heresy, 
it  had  his  cordial  support.  Frequent  allusions  have  been  made 
above  to  its  renewed  activity  during  the  period  following  the  close 
of  the  War  of  Succession.  Full  statistics  are  lacking,  but  in  sixty- 
four  autos,  between  1721  and  1728,  there  appeared  nine  hundred 
and  sixty-two  culprits  and  effigies,  of  whom  one  hundred  and 
fifty-one  were  relaxed.^    That  this  met  his  hearty  approbation  is 


'  Royal  Library  of  Berlin,  Qt.  9548. 


Chap.  I]  PHILIP  V  387 

manifested  by  the  letter  which  he  addressed,  January  14,  1724,  to 
his  son  Luis,  when  abdicating  in  his  favor.  In  this  the  exhor- 
tations breathing  a  lofty  morality  are  accompanied  with  earnest 
injunctions  to  maintain  and  protect  the  Inquisition,  as  the  bul- 
wark of  the  faith,  for  to  it  is  attributable  the  preservation  of 
rehgion  in  all  its  purity  in  the  states  of  Spain,  so  that  the  heresies 
which  have  afHicted  the  other  lands  of  Christendom,  causing  in 
them  ravages  so  deplorable  and  horrible,  have  never  gained  a 
foothold  there.^  Small-pox  cut  short  the  reign  of  Luis  to  seven 
months,  after  which  Philip  was  obliged  to  resume  the  weary 
burden,  till  death  released  him,  July  9,  1746,  and  if,  during  this 
later  portion  of  his  government,  the  Inquisition  was  less  busy, 
this  may  safely  be  attributed  to  flagging  energies  and  lack  of 
material  and  not  to  any  restraint  on  the  part  of  the  sovereign. 
The  punishment  which  he  allowed  it  to  inflict  on  Belando,  for 
the  history  of  his  reign  of  which  he  and  his  queen,  after  careful 
scrutiny,  had  accepted  the  dedication,  shows  how  untrammelled 
was  its  exercise  of  its  recognized  functions. 

Yet  Philip  unwittingly  started  the  movement  that  was  ulti- 
mately to  undermine  the  foundations  on  which  the  Inquisition 
rested.  He  brought  with  him  from  France  the  conviction  that  the 
king  should  be  the  patron  of  letters  and  learning,  and  he  had  the 
ambition  to  rule  over  a  people  of  culture. "  He  aroused  the  slumber- 
ing intellect  of  Spain  by  founding  the  Academies  of  Language  and 
of  History  and  of  Medicine,  the  Seminary  of  the  Nobles,  and  the 
National  Library,  and  he  replaced  for  Catalonia  the  University 
of  Lerida  by  that  of  Cervera.  Notwithstanding  the  vigilance  of 
the  censorship,  it  was  impossible  that  the  awakening  intelligence 
of  the  nation,  thus  stimulated,  should  not  eagerly  grasp  at  the 
forbidden  fruit  of  modern  philosophism,  all  the  more  attractive  in 
that  it  had  to  be  enjoyed  in  secret.  Fernando  VI,  from  1746  to 
1759,  followed  his  father's  example,  in  encouraging  the  spread  of 
culture.  Carlos  III  was  even  more  energetic  in  urging  the  enlighten- 
ment of  his  subjects,  and  thus  there  was  gradually  formed  a  public, 
few  in  numbers,  it  is  true,  but  including  the  statesmen  in  power, 
which  had  lost  the  old  Spanish  conception  that  purity  of  faith 
was  the  first  essential,  and  regarded  the  Inquisition  as  an  incum- 
brance, save  in  so  far  as  it  might  be  used  for  political  ends.  The 
Inquisition  still  inspired  fear,  and  the  case  of  Olavide  shows  that 


•  Semandrio  enidito,  XI,  274. 


388  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

these  opinions  had  to  be  cherished  in  secret,  but  the  number  who 
entertained  them  was  indicated  when  the  bonds  of  society  were 
loosened  and  the  national  institutions  crumbled  in  the  earthquake 
of  the  Napoleonic  invasion. 

Possibly  the  diffusion  of  this  modern  rationalistic  spirit,  insen- 
sibly affecting  even  those  opposed  to  it,  may  partly  explain  the 
rapidly  diminishing  activity  of  the  Inquisition.  The  great  tribu- 
nal of  Toledo,  in  the  fifty-five  years,  from  1740  to  1794  inclusive, 
despatched  but  fifty-seven  cases,  or  an  average  of  but  one  a  year.* 
This  cannot  be  attributed  to  a  lack  of  culprits,  for  bigamy,  blas- 
phemy, solicitation,  sorcery  and  similar  offences,  which  furnished 
so  large  a  portion  of  the  penitents  of  old,  were  as  rife  as  ever. 
The  fact  is,  that  the  officials  were  becoming  indifferent  and  care- 
less, except  in  the  matter  of  drawing  their  salaries.  When,  on 
May  22,  1753,  the  priest  Miguel  de  Alonso  Garcia  was  to  be  sen- 
tenced in  the  audience-chamber  with  closed  doors  and  in  the 
presence  of  the  officials,  it  happened  that  there  were  no  witnesses 
of  the  solemnity  because  none  of  the  officials  were  to  be  found  in 
the  secreto.^ 

The  'personnel  of  the  Inquisition  was  visibly  deteriorating  and 
consequently  forfeiting  the  respect  of  the  community.  There 
had  long  been  complaint  of  the  insufficiency  of  the  salaries,  which 
had  remained  stationary  while  the  purchasing  power  of  money  had 
greatly  diminished,  and  there  had  been  no  reduction  in  the  official 
staffs  to  correspond  with  the  dwindling  business.  Thus,  in  spite 
of  the  empleomania  characteristic  of  the  nation,  and  of  the  privi- 
leges and  exemptions  attached  to  official  position,  it  became 
increasingly  difficult  to  fill  the  offices  properly.  As  early  as  1719, 
the  inquisitors  of  Barcelona  complained  to  the  Suprema  of  the 
trouble  they  experienced  getting  people  to  serve,  on  account  of 
lack  of  desire  for  the  offices  and  the  absence  of  advantage  accruing 
from  them.'  In  1737  we  find  that  the  Toledo  tribunal  had  neither 
a  commissioner  nor  a  notary  in  Guadalajara,  the  capital  of  a 
province  which,  in  1787,  numbered  112,750  souls.*  In  1750, 
a  writer  deplores  that  the  stipend  of  eight  hundred  ducats  is  insuffi- 
cient to  support  the  dignity  of  an  inquisitor,  so  that  the  inquisitor- 
general  is  not  always  able  to  make  fitting  nominations.    This 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1.  ^  Ibidem. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Sala  39,  Leg.  4,  fol.  80. 
*  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  Ill,  ii.  49. 


Chap.  I]  CARLOS  III  389 

necessitates  the  appointment  of  calificadores  to  examine  the  doc- 
trines brought  under  review,  resulting  in  the  indefinite  prolonga- 
tion of  cases,  and  also  in  lack  of  vigilance  to  suppress  the  errors 
perpetually  propagated  in  books;  when  the  calificadores  are  not 
paid,  they  are  slow  in  their  work  and,  to  escape  paying  them,  many 
things  which  ought  to  be  referred  to  them  are  passed  over/  That 
the  respect  felt  for  the  Inquisition  should  diminish  under  these 
circumstances  was  inevitable  and  altogether,  at  this  period,  it 
presents  the  aspect  of  an  institution  which  had  survived  the 
causes  of  its  creation  and  was  hastening  to  its  end.  Yet  it  had 
exercised  too  powerful  an  influence  in  moulding  the  Spanish 
character  for  it  to  disappear  when  its  mission  was  accomplished, 
and  we  shall  see  how  violent  were  the  struggles  attendant  upon  its 
dissolution. 

Meanwhile  it  dragged  on  its  existence  under  constantly  increas- 
ing limitations.  Fernando  VI,  it  is  true,  gave  it  obstinate  support 
in  its  quarrel  with  Benedict  XIV  over  the  works  of  Cardinal  Noris, 
but  he  dealt  a  severe  blow  when,  in  1751,  he  deprived  of  the 
fuero  the  officials  of  the  tribunal  of  Lima.  Carlos  III,  who  suc- 
ceeded in  1759,  came  from  Naples  with  the  highest  ideals  of  royal 
supremacy,  coupled  with  less  respect  for  ecclesiastical  claims  than 
was  current  in  Spain ;  he  surrounded  himself  with  advisers  such  as 
Roda,  Campomanes,  Aranda  and  Floridablanca,  who  were  more 
than  suspected  of  leanings  to  modern  philosophism,  and  his  reign 
of  benevolent  despotism  was  marked  with  a  series  of  measures 
designed  to  diminish  or  abolish  the  privileges  of  inquisitorial 
officials,  to  repress  abuses  and  to  tame  arrogance.  The  complete 
control  which  he  assumed  over  its  functions  is  exhibited  in  the 
rules  imposed,  in  1768,  on  its  censorship  and,  in  1770  and  1777, 
on  its  jurisdiction  over  bigamy,  when  he  ordered  it  in  future  to 
limit  its  operations  to  the  suppression  of  heresy  and  not  to  embar- 
rass the  royal  courts.  The  theory  thus  developed  of  the  relations 
between  the  crown  and  the  Holy  Office  is  formulated  in  a  consulta 
of  the  Council  of  Castile,  November  30,  1768:  "The  king  as 
patron,  founder  and  endower  of  the  Inquisition,  possesses  over  it 

the  rights  inherent  in  all  royal  patronage As  father  and 

protector  of  his  vassals,  he  can  and  ought  to  prevent  the  commis- 
sion of  violence  and  extortion  on  their  persons,  property  and  repu- 
tation, indicating  to  ecclesiastical  judges,  even  in  their  exercise  of 


Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  Mm,  130. 


390  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

spiritual  jurisdiction,  the  path  pointed  out  by  the  canons,  so  that 
these  may  be  observed.  The  regalias  of  protection  and  of  this 
indubitable  patronage  have  .established  solidly  the  authority  of 
the  prince,  in  issuing  the  instructions  which  he  has  deigned  to 
give  to  the  Holy  Office  acting  as  an  ecclesiastical  tribunal."^ 
Under  such  conditions,  he  was  quite  content  with  its  existence 
and,  when  Roda  suggested  its  suppression  and  presented  various 
documents  to  show  that  this  had  been  discussed  under  Charles  V, 
Phihp  II  and  Philip  V,  he  merely  replied  "  The  Spaniards  want 
it  and  it  gives  me  no  trouble."^  In  fact,  the  time  had  not  arrived 
for  such  drastic  measures.  The  Abb^  Clement  reports  a  conver- 
sation with  Aranda,  October  29,  1768,  in  which  the  count  warned 
him  that  it  was  necessary  to  speak  of  the  Inquisition  with  great 
reserve,  for  people  imagined  that  all  rehgion  depended  on  it;  it 
was,  in  truth,  an  obstacle  to  all  improvement,  but  time  would  be 
required  to  deal  with  it,  and  he  advised  Clement  to  allude  to  it 
only  to  Roda  and  Campomanes.^ 

With  the  accession,  in  1788,  of  Carlos  IV,  there  opened  for  Spain 
a  new  and  disastrous  epoch.  Timid,  irresolute,  indolent,  he  had 
fallen  completely  under  the  influence  of  his  wife  Marfa  Luisa,  an 
energetic  and  self-willed  woman.  Until  1792  he  kept  in  office 
Floridablanca,  who  was  succeeded  for  a  short  time  by  Aranda, 
and  then  power  was  grasped  by  Manuel  Godoy,  subsequently 
known  as  Prince  of  Peace.  Cadet  of  an  obscure  family  of  Bada- 
joz,  he  had  entered  the  royal  body-guard,  where  he  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  queen,  whose  favored  lover  he  was  universally 
believed  to  be,  as  well  as  the  favorite  of  her  husband.  He  speedily 
rose  to  the  highest  dignities  and  became  omnipotent;  although  a 
court  intrigue  occasioned  his  dismissal  in  1798,  he  was  restored 
in  1800,  remaining  arbiter  of  the  destinies  of  Spain,  until  the 
"Tumult  of  Lackeys,"  at  Aranjuez,  in  1808,  directed  against  him, 
caused  the  abdication  of  Carlos  in  favor  of  his  son  Fernando  VII. 
Light-headed,  selfish,  vain  and  unscrupulous,  he  was  mainly 
responsible  for  the  misfortunes  which  overwhelmed  his  country 
and  from  which  it  may  be  said  not  to  have  as  yet  recovered. 

The  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution  gave  a  new  importance 
to  the  Inquisition.    When  the  seductive  theories  of  the  French 

'  Joaquin  Lorenzo  Villanueva,  in  "  Discusion  del  Proyecto  sobre  el  Tribunal  de 
la  Inquisicion,"  p.  432  (Cddiz,  1813). 

'  V.  de  la  Fuente,  Hist,  ecles.,  Ill,  381.  '  Clement,  Joiimal,  II,  124. 


Chap.  I]  ALTERED  FUNCTIONS  391 

philosophers  were  preached  as  the  foundation  of  practical  politics, 
overturning  thrones  and  threatening  monarchical  institutions 
with  the  doctrines  of  the  social  compact,  the  sovereignty  of  the 
people  and  the  universal  brotherhood  of  man,  the  Holy  Office 
might  claim  that,  as  the  foundations  of  social  order  were  based  on 
rehgion,  its  labors  were  essential  for  the  safety  of  the  State,  while 
the  State  recognized  that  it  was  the  most  available  instrumentality 
for  the  suppression  and  exclusion  of  the  heresies  of  liberty  and 
equality. 

In  this  tumultuous  breaking  down  of  the  standards  of  thought 
and  belief,  in  this  emergence  of  a  new  order  on  the  ruins  of  the 
old,  the  functions  of  the  Inquisition  adapted  themselves  to  the 
exigencies  of  the  times,  in  other  ways  besides  the  increased  sharp- 
ness and  vigilance  of  its  censorship.  I  have  frequently  had 
occasion  above  to  refer  to  an  alphabetical  list  of  all  the  persons 
denounced  to  the  various  tribunals,  from  1780  to  1820,  some 
five  thousand  in  all,  and  this,  taken  as  a  whole,  affords  us  an  insight 
into  the  change  in  the  objects  of  inquisitorial  activity.  Judaism 
and  Islam  and  Protestantism  no  more  claim  its  attention.  The 
Church  is  no  longer  threatened  by  enemies  from  without;  what  it 
has  to  dread  is  revolt  among  its  own  children.  Three-fifths  of 
the  denunciations  are  for  "propositions,"  largely  among  the 
cultured  classes,  including  a  fair  proportion  of  ecclesiastics.  Their 
precise  errors  are  not  stated,  but  doubtless  many  were  Jansenistic 
and  more  were  hostile  to  the  claims  of  the  Church  Militant  and  to 
the  absolutism  of  the  monarchy.  There  is  also  a  large  class  of 
cases,  virtually  unknown  a  century  earlier,  significant  of  a  vital 
change  in  the  intellectual  tendencies  of  the  nation,  calling  for  the 
special  vigilance  of  the  Inquisition.  Popular  indifferentism  is 
revealed  in  the  numerous  prosecutions  for  in'observance  or  con- 
tempt of  church  observances.  Even  more  noteworthy  are  those 
for  outrages  on  images  of  Christ,  the  Virgin  and  the  saints,  and 
even  for  sacrilegious  treatment  of  the  Venerable  Sacrament.  In 
many  other  ways  was  manifested  the  weakening  of  the  profound 
and  unquestioning  veneration  which,  for  three  centuries,  had  been 
the  peculiar  boast  of  the  Spanish  race.  On  the  other  hand  it  is 
not  a  little  remarkable  that  there  are  very  few  cases  of  offences 
against  the  Inquisition,  for,  in  all  these  forty  years,  there  are  but 
nine  that  can  in  any  way  be  included  in  this  class.* 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 


392  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

At  the  same  time,  when  we  recall  the  old-time  punctilious 
enforcement  of  profound  respect,  it  argues  no  little  decline  in 
popular  awe  when,  in  1791,  a  simple  parish  priest.  Dr.  Joseph 
Gines  of  Polop  (Alicante)  dared  to  address  the  Valencia  tribunal 
in  terms  of  violent  indignation  at  the  conduct  of  its  secretary,  Dr. 
Pasqual  Perez,  when  on  a  mission  to  collect  testimony.  He  tells 
the  tribunal  that,  if  it  does  not  dismiss  Perez  it  will  sink  greatly 
in  his  estimation,  and  his  whole  epistle  breathes  a  spirit  of  inde- 
pendence and  equality  wholly  impossible  at  an  earlier  time.'  It 
was  not  without  reason  that,  in  1793,  the  tribunal,  in  appealing 
for  increase  of  salaries,  complained  of  the  decline  in  popular  respect 
for  its  officials,  which  it  attributed  to  their  meagre  pay  and  the 
curtailment  of  their  privileges.^  How  completely  the  tribunals 
had  lost  their  former  energy  is  indicated  by  the  abandonment, 
about  this  time,  as  we  have  seen  (Vol.  II,  p.  98)  of  the  publication 
of  the  Edict  of  Faith,  which  of  old  had  been  so  impressively 
solemnized  and  had  proved  at  once  so  fruitful  a  source  of  denun- 
ciations and  so  powerful  a  means  of  maintaining  popular  awe. 

Coincident  with  this,  and  as  though  the  Inquisition  felt  that  it 
was  on  trial  before  the  people,  there  was  a  marked  tendency 
towards  amelioration  of  procedure,  coupled  with  benignity  in 
treatment  of  culprits.  AUusion  has  been  made  above  to  the  intro- 
duction of  the  audiencia  de  cargos,  through  which  the  accused  was 
afforded  an  opportunity  of  knowing  what  was  alleged  against 
him,  and  frequently  of  clearing  himself  without  the  disgrace  of 
arrest  and  trial.  There  is  a  very  suggestive  instance  of  merciful 
consideration,  in  1791,  in  the  case  of  Josef  Casals,  a  weaver, 
charged  before  the  Barcelona  tribunal  with  the  utterance  of 
shocking  blasphemies  in  the  church  of  Santa  Catalina.  A  century 
earlier  he  would  have  been  arrested  and,  on  proof  of  the  offence, 
he  would  have  been  sentenced  to  scourging  or  the  galleys.  In 
place  of  this  Padre  Miguel  Alberch  was  instructed  to  report  secretly 
as  to  the  character  of  the  accused,  which  he  did  to  the  effect  that 
Casals  had  regular  certificates  of  confession,  but  was  of  quick 
temper  and  occasionally  broke  out  in  curses.  Then  a  commission 
was  issued  to  Alberch  to  summon  Casals  and  to  represent  to  him 
the  gravity  of  his  offence  and  of  the  punishment  incurred,  and  the 
mercy  shown  by  the  tribunal,  which  would  keep  a  watch  on  him. 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  365,  n.  46,  fol.  56. 
'  Ibidem,  Leg.  4,  n.  3,  fol.  58. 


Chap.  I]  POLITICAL  FUNCTIONS  393 

In  pursuance  of  this  the  good  priest  reported  that  Casals  was 
deeply  repentant  and  desired  to  be  heard  in  confession,  which  he 
had  permitted/  The  case  is  trivial,  but  of  such  was  the  bulk  of 
inquisitorial  business,  and  the  temper  in  which  it  was  conducted 
was  of  no  little  import  to  the  people  at  large. 

Partly  this  may  be  attributable  to  the  modern  softening  of 
manners,  partly  to  a  growing  sense  of  insecurity,  and  partly  to  the 
inertia  which  led  the  officials  to  shun  all  avoidable  labor.  It 
was  becoming  more  and  more  a  political  machine  and  neglectful 
of  the  objects  of  its  creation.  During  the  inquisitor-generalship 
of  Manuel  Abad  y  la  Sierra,  from  1792  to  1794,  we  are  told  that, 
in  all  Spain,  there  were  but  sixteen  condemnations  to  public 
penance.  Abad  was  an  enlightened  man;  he  thought  of  assimi- 
lating the  inquisitorial  procedure  to  that  of  other  courts  of  justice, 
and  consulted  with  Llorente  as  to  the  formula  for  such  a  reform, 
but  conservatism,  however  relaxed  in  practice,  was  not  ready  for 
total  abandonment  of  the  old  methods.  His  design  became 
known:  he  was  forced  to  resign  and  was  relegated  to  the  Bene- 
dictine monastery  of  Sopetran,  under  a  charge,  as  we  have  seen 
of  Jansenism.^ 

In  fact,  an  absolute  renunciation  of  the  old  procedure  would 
have  largely  deprived  the  Inquisition  of  its  usefulness  in  its  new 
political  functions,  to  which  its  established  methods  were  pecu- 
liarly adapted.  When,  in  1796,  a  powerful  intrigue  was  formed 
for  the  overthrow  of  Godoy,  the  Inquisition  was  naturally  selected 
as  the  only  weapon  with  which  to  strike  at  the  favorite.  Three 
friars  were  found  to  denounce  him,  because  for  eight  years  he  had 
avoided  confession  and  communion,  and  because  of  his  scandalous 
relations  with  women.  Had  Inquisitor-general  Lorenzana  been 
resolute,  Godoy's  fate  might  have  been  that  of  Olavide,  but  he  was 
timid.  Archbishop  Despuig  of  Seville  and  Bishop  Muzquiz,  then 
of  Avila,  who  were  the  leaders  of  the  plot,  vainly  assured  him  that 
Godoy's  arrest  would  insure  success;  he  refused  to  act  except 
under  orders  from  Pius  VI.    Despuig  then  prevailed  upon  his 


'  MSS.  of  Am.  PhUos.  Society. 

'  Llorente,  Hist,  crit.,  cap.  xxix,  art.  iii,  n.  2;  cap.  xlvi. — Muriel,  Hist,  de 
Carlos  IV  (Mem.  hist,  espanol,  XXXIII,  154). 

Llorente  tells  us  that  he  pursued  the  task  confided  to  him  by  Abad  and  in  1797 
produced  his  "Discursos  sobre  el  6rden  de  procesar  del  Santo  Oficio"  which,  in 
1801,  exposed  him  to  a  smart  persecution. — Memoria  histdrica,  p.  11  (Madrid, 
1812). 


394  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

friend  Cardinal  Vincenti  to  induce  the  pope  to  write  to  Lorenzana 
reproaching  him  with  his  indifference  to  a  scandal  so  hurtful  to 
religion.  It  chanced  that  Vincenti's  letter,  inclosing  that  of  Pius, 
was  intercepted  at  Genoa  by  Napoleon  who,  to  ingratiate  him- 
self with  Godoy,  forwarded  to  him  the  correspondence.  Godoy 
assured  his  position  and  took  a  mild  revenge,  which  does  credit  to 
his  sense  of  humor,  by  sending  Lorenzana,  Despuig  and  Muzquiz 
into  honorable  exile  as  special  envoys  to  condole  with  the  pope  on 
the  occupation  of  his  territories  by  the  French.^  In  fact.  Cap- 
many  describes  the  Inquisition  of  the  period  as  devoted  to  the 
unholy  work  of  an  Inquisition  of  State,  in  order  to  preserve  its 
imperilled  existence,  and  its  ministers  as  trembling  at  the  sight 
of  the  infamous  favorite,  when  they  had  the  honor  of  joining  the 
crowd  of  his  flatterers.^ 

Inquisitors  might  reasonably  feel  anxious  as  to  their  position, 
for  projects  of  reform  were  in  the  air.  Gaspar  Melchor  de  Jove- 
llanos,  the  most  conspicuous  Spaniard  of  his  time  for  intellectual 
ability  and  rectitude,  had  been  exiled  from  the  court,  in  1790, 
and  had  betaken  himself  to  his  native  Gijon,  where  for  years  he 
labored  in  founding  the  Instituto  Asturiense.  Desiring  to  endow 
it  with  a  library  of  scientific  works,  he  appUed,  in  1795,  to  Loren- 
zana for  licence  to  import  them,  but  Lorenzana  refused  on  the 
ground  that  there  were  good  Spanish  writers,  rendering  recourse  to 
foreigners  unnecessary,  especially  as  foreign  books  had  corrupted 
the  professors  and  students  in  various  universities — a  process  of 
reasoning  applied  to  works  on  physics  and  mineralogy,  which 
Jovellanos  characterized  as  a  monumento  de  barbarie.  The  atten- 
tion thus  drawn  to  his  library  aroused  the  suspicions  of  the  com- 
missioner of  the  Inquisition,  Francisco  L6pez  Gil,  priest  of  Somio, 
who  secretly  entered  it  one  day  while  the  owner  was  taking  his 
siesta.  Word  was  brought  to  him  and  he  hastened  thither, 
finding  Gil  examining  a  volume  of  Locke.  Jovellanos  turned  him 
out,  telling  him  that  his  office  rendered  him  an  object  of  suspicion 
and  forbidding  him  to  enter  the  building  without  permission.  Gil 
became  a  spy  and  was  probably  the  author  of  a  denunciation  which 
cost  Jovellanos  years  of  captivity.' 


'  Muriel  (loc.  cit.,  XXXI,  190).— Lafuente,  Hist.  gen.  de  Espana.,  XXII,  124.— 
V.  de  la  Fuente,  Hist,  ecles.,  Ill,  400. 

2  Discusion  del  Proyecto,  p.  473  (Cddiz,  1813). 

'  Somoza  de  Montsoriu,  Las  Amarguras  de  Jovellanos,  pp.  47-8  (Gijon,  1889). 


Chap.  I]  JOVELLANOS  395 

He  was  suddenly  recalled  from  his  exile,  November  23,  1797, 
to  assume  the  position  of  minister  of  Gracia  y  Justicia,  where  he 
speedily  gave  the  Inquisition  abundant  cause  to  dread  him.     A 
competencia   had  arisen  between  the  Seville  tribunal  and  the 
episcopal  authorities  over  a  confessional  which  it  had  ordered  to 
be  closed.    The  matter  came  before  Carlos,  who  instructed  Jove- 
llanos  to  obtain  the  opinion  of  Tavira,  Bishop  of  Osma,  which  he 
duly  transmitted  to  the  king,  February  15,  1798,  with  a  Represen-  ' 
tation  arguing  that  the  time  had  come  to  restore  to  the  bishops 
their  old  jurisdiction  in  matters  of  faith;  the  object  for  which  the 
Inquisition  was  established  had  been  attained ;  its  processes  were 
cumbrous  and  inefHcient,  and  its  members  were  ignorant.     The 
jurisdiction  of  the  bishops  could  alone  furnish  an  effective  remedy 
for  existing  evils — a  jurisdiction  more  natural,  more  authoritative, 
more  grateful  to  the  people,  and  fuller  of  humanity  and  gentleness, 
as  emanating  from  the  power  granted  to  them  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
wherefore  the  authority  that  had  Ijeen  usurped  from  them  should 
be  restored.     Moreover  he  took  into  consideration  the  condition  of 
the  Holy  See,  deprived  ofjts  temporalities,  by  the  French  Repub-    / 
lie.    Everything,  he  said,  poTntedto  a  fearful  schism  at  the  death  ' 
of  Pius  VI,  in  which  case  each  nation  must  gather  itself  under  its 
own  pastors.     The  papacy 'would  endeavor  to  retain  the  cum- 
brous and  costly  organization  of  the  curia,  by  increasing  itsxx=_-_ 
actions,  and  it  would  have  to  be  reduced  to  the  f unctions^ercised. 
"durifig-the  first  eight  centuries.^ 

Jovellanos  was  a  sincere  CathoUc,  but  after  utterances  so  hardy 
it  was  not  difficult  for  his  enemies  to  convince  the  king  that  he 
was  inclined  to  heresy  and  atheism.  Godoy  had  grown  alarmed 
at  the  ascendancy  which  he  was  acquiring  over  Carlos;  his  fellow- 
minister  CabaUero  conspired  with  the  Inquisition,  and  on  August 
15th  the  king  signed  the  dismissal  of  his  minister,  whose  official 
life  had  endured  but  eight  months.  A  fortnight  later  a  royal 
carta  orden  declared  it  to  be  his  unalterable  will  that  the  Holy 
Office  should  permanently  enjoy  its  jurisdiction  and  prerogatives 
without  modification.^  Jovellanos  returned  to  Gijon  where  he 
lived  in  dignified  retirement  for  two  years  and  a  half.    His 


'  Somoza,  op.  cit,  pp.  301-5.— Muriel,  op.  cit.,  XXXII,  117.  For  the  ortho- 
doxy of  Jovellanos,  see  Men&dez  y  Pelayo,  III,  287-90. 

'  Somoza,  op.  cit,  pp.  57-60. — Discurso  hist6rico-]egal  sobre  el  Origen, 
Progresos  y  Utilidad  del  Santo  oficio,  p.  101  (ValladoUd,  1803). 


396  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

offence  however  had  been  too  great  for  pardon  and  his  influence 
was  still  dreaded.  An  anonymous  denunciation  of  the  flimsiest 
character  was  laid  before  Carlos,  describing  him  as  having  aban- 
doned all  religion  and  as  being  at  the  head  of  a  highly  dangerous 
party,  engaged  in  schemes  for  the  overthrow  of  Catholicism  and 
the  monarchy.  The  pusillanimous  king  adopted  the  course 
suggested  to  him  by  the  secret  accuser.  Before  day-break  of 
March  13,  1801,  the  house  of  Jovellanos  was  surrounded  by  a 
troop  of  horse;  he  was  aroused  from  sleep,  his  papers  were  seized 
and  transmitted  to  the  ministry  of  State ;  he  was  kept  in  his  house 
incomunicado  for  twenty-four  hours,  then  thrust  into  a  coach  and 
carried,  still  incomunicado,  across  Spain  to  Barcelona  and  thence 
to  Majorca,  where  he  lay  in  prison  until  the  abdication  of  Carlos, 
in  1808,  and  the  consequent  troubles  effected  his  release.' 

A  case  nearly  parallel  was  that  of  Mariano  Luis  de  Urquijo,  who 
followed  Jovellanos  in  the  ministry  of  Gracia  y  Justicia.  He  had 
no  cause  to  love  the  Inquisition.  Among  his  youthful  indiscre- 
tions was  a  translation  of  Voltaire's  Mort  de  Cesar,  which  led  the 
Inquisition  to  make  secret  investigations,  resulting  in  the  convic- 
tion that  he  was  dangerously  infected  with  philosophism.  He 
was  about  to  be  arrested  when  Aranda,  who  recognized  his  merit, 
recommended  him  to  the  king  and,  in  1792,  he  was  appointed 
to  a  position  in  Aranda's  office.  The  Inquisition  had  learned 
respect  for  royal  ofiicials  and  substituted  for  a  decree  of  arrest  a 
summons  to  an  audiencia  de  cargos,  ending  in  a  sentence  of  light 
suspicion  of  sharing  philosophic  errors,  absolution  ad  cautelam, 
some  secret  penances  and  the  suppression  of  his  book,  though  his 
name  was  considerately  omitted  in  the  edict  of  prohibition.  His 
official  promotion  was  rapid  and,  at  the  age  of  thirty,  he  found 
himself  a  minister,  employing  his  power,  possibly  with  more  zeal 
than  discretion,  in  encouraging  enlightenment  and  all  humanizing 
influences.  On  the  death  of  Pius  VI  he  incurred  Ultramontane 
hostility  by  inducing  the  king  to  sign  the  decree  of  September  5, 
1799,  restoring  to  the  bishops  the  right  of  issuing  dispensations— 
a  measure  which  provoked  long  and  bitter  discussion.  This  was 
followed,  as  we  have  seen  above  (Vol.  Ill,  p.  504)  October  11th 
by  a  sharp  rebuke  to  the  Inquisition,  ordering  it  to  confine  itself 
to  its  proper  duties  and,  soon  afterwards,  he  presented  to  Carlos 


'  Somoza,  op.  cit.,  pp.  77-84,  86-90, 141-2,  312-20. — Cean  Bermudez,  Memorias 
para  la  Vida  de  D.  Caspar  Melchor  de  Jove  Llanos,  p.  81  (Madrid,  1814). 


Chap.  I]  ATTEMPTED  SUPPRESSION  397 

for  signature,  a  decree  suppressing  the  institution  and  applying 
its  property  to  purposes  of  charity  and  public  utility.  This 
was  too  bold  a  measure;  the  king  shrank  from  the  responsibility 
and  Urquijo  only  succeeded  in  concentrating  upon  himself  clerical 
hostility,  which  was  reinforced  by  the  enmity  of  First  Consul 
Bonaparte,  whose  policy  he  had  opposed.  Godoy,  who  com- 
menced to  fear  him  as  a  rival,  and  who  was  irritated  by  some 
imprudent  jests,  withdrew  his  support.  A  triple  prosecution 
was  commenced  against  him  by  three  inquisitors  and  he  fell  in 
December,  1801.  He  was  sent  to  Pampeluna,  to  the  cell  which 
had  been  occupied  by  Floridablanca,  and  there  he  lay  for  a  year 
or  two,  deprived  of  fire,  lights,  books  and  writing  materials.  He 
was  liberated  under  surveillance ;  in  1808  he  refused  to  accompany 
Carlos  and  Fernando  to  Bayonne,  but  he  attended  the  so-called 
Junta  of  Notables  there,  accepted  the  French  domination,  served 
as  secretary  of  State  and,  with  the  other  Afrancesados,  sought 
refuge  in  France  in  1813,  dying  in  Paris  in  1817.^ 

It  is  evident  from  all  this  that  the  opposition  to  the  Inquisition 
was  gathering  strength  and  boldness,  but  that  its  foundations  were 
too  deep  and  sohd  to  be  overthrown  without  an  upheaval  that 
should  shatter  the  social  fabric.  A  well-intentioned,  but  some- 
what absurd,  attempt  was  made  by  Gregoire,  Constitutional 
Bishop  of  Blois,  whose  fervent  Catholicism,  combined  with 
equally  fervent  liberalism,  was  of  service  so  essential  in  piloting 
the  Church  of  France  through  the  storms  of  the  Revolution.  In 
1798,  he  addressed  a  letter  to  the  Spanish  inquisitor-general, 
urging  the  suppression  of  the  Inquisition  and  imiversal  toleration, 
as  a  preliminary  to  the  redemption  of  Spain  from  despotism, 
and  to  enabling  it  to  take  its  place  among  the  nations  which  had 
recovered  their  rights.  This  was  translated  into  Spanish  and 
some  thousands  of  copies  were  circulated;  it  may  have  made  some 
secret  converts  but  the  only  visible  result  was  to  ehcit  several 
replies.  One  of  these,  by  Pedro  Luis  Blanco,  told  Gregoire,  with 
more  or  less  courtesy,  to  mind  his  own  business;  assured  him  that, 
if  the  Inquisition  was  suppressed,  Spain  would  remain  as  intol- 
erant as  ever,  and  asserted  that  no  Spaniard  had  ever  imagined 
that  coercion  could  be  employed  to  obtain  conversion.  It  was 
probably  this,  mingled  with  some  skilful  adulation  of  the  king 


'  tlorente,  Hist,  crit.,  cap,  xlii,  art.  ii,  n.  1-13. — Muriel,  op.  cit.,  xxxiv,  110- 
19,— Men&dez  y  Pelayo,  III,  172-3. 


398  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

and  his  ministers,  that  procured  for  the  author,  in  1800,  the  episco- 
pate of  Leon.^  There  was  also  an  anonymous  "  Discurso  his- 
torico-legal,"  evidently  by  a  well-informed  inquisitor,  probably 
Riesco  of  Llerena.  It  was  the  most  rational  history  of  the 
Inquisition  that  had  as  yet  appeared,  although  it  assures  us  that 
experience  showed  that  penitents  were  most  grateful  for  the 
benevolence  shown  to  them,  and  that  it  was  a  tribunal  full  of 
gentleness,  the  centre  of  benignity,  compassion  and  mercy,  but 
also  of  justice.^ 

A  third  was  by  Lorenzo  Villanueva,  a  calificador  of  the  Valen- 
cia tribunal,  whose  defence  of  the  reading  of  Scripture  has  been 
alluded  to  above.  It  was  published  under  the  transparent  pseu- 
donym of  Lorenzo  Astengo,  his  maternal  name.  In  view  of  his 
subsequent  career  it  is  not  without  interest  to  see  his  indignation 
at  the  advocacy  of  toleration  and  his  dithyrambic  denunciation 
of  the  horrors  to  which  philosophism  has  led  in  the  assertion  of 
human  liberty.  The  first  portion  of  his  work  is  an  impassioned 
and  rhetorical  defence  of  persecution,  supported  by  ample  learning. 
Vigorous  is  his  denunciation  of  the  modern  theories  of  philoso- 
phism and  the  rights  of  man — since  original  sin,  he  asks,  what 
rights  has  man  save  to  slavery,  to  punishment,  to  ruin?  So 
he  combats  at  length  the  doctrine  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people, 
which  he  stigmatizes  as  a  delirium,  a  dream  and  a  deception. 
Yet  he  admits  that  the  Inquisition  is  not  perfect — that  it  has  com- 
mitted errors  through  imprudence,  through  ignorance,  through 
excessive  zeal,  and  through  human  frailty,  and  that  it  has  pre- 
vented the  development  of  some  things  which  would  aid  the 
prosperity  of  the  nation.'  If,  as  has  been  asserted,  he  expected 
a  bishopric  in  reward  for  this,  he  was  disappointed. 

Thus,  at  this  period  the  Inquisition  was  inert  and  its  very  exist- 
ence seemed  to  be  threatened,  but  its  potentiality  of  evil  was 
undiminished.  It  was  still  an  object  of  terror  to  all  inclined  to 
liberal  opinions,  and  it  was  regarded  by  the  ConservatTves-as  the 
\  bulwark  protecting  the  land  from  the  deluge  of  modern  thought. 
\  

'  Respuesta  pacffica  de  un  Espafiol  A  la  Carta  sediciosa  del  Frances  Gr^goire, 
que  se  dice  Obispo  de  Blois,  pp.  3,  31,  63,  74,  75,  76,  87  (Madrid,  1798). 

'  Discurso  historico-legal  sobre  el  Origen  etc.  del  S.  Oficio,  pp.  126,  185,  187 
(VaUadoUd,  1803). 

'  Cartas  de  un  Presbitero  espafiol,  pp.  3,  7,  98,  121,  123,  129,  lS2-i  (Madrid, 
1798). 


Chap.  I]  POLITICAL  UPHEAVAL  399 

Feeble  though  it  might  be  in  appearance  we  shall  see  how  prolonged 
and  stubborn  was  the  contest  required  for  its  final  suppression. 


The  Cortes. 

The  treaty  of  Fontainebleau,  October  27,  1807,  dismembered 
Portugal,  of  which  Godoy  was  to  have  the  southern  portion,  as 
an  independent  kingdom,  and  the  King  of  Etruria  (Ferdinand  of 
Parma)  the  northern  portion.  Napoleon  sent  Junot  with  an  army 
which,  accompanied  by  Spanish  troops,  speedily  overran  the  land, 
when  Junot  issued  a  decree  declaring  Portugal  annexed  to  the  em- 
pire. Simultaneously  French  armies,  under  Dupont  and  Moncey, 
entered  Spain  and  occupied  the  strongholds  of  Pampeluna, 
Barcelona,  Figueras  and  other  places.  Murat  was  sent  as  com- 
mander in  chief  and  took  possession  of  Madrid.  The  Tumult 
of  Aranjuez  drove  Godoy  from  power  and,  on  March  19,  1808, 
Carlos  abdicated  in  favor  of  his  son,  Fernando  VII,  whose  accession 
was  received  with  enthusiasm  by  the  nation.  Beauhamais,  the 
French  ambassador  at  Madrid,  and  Murat,  however,  refused  to 
recognize  him;  Carlos  protested  to  Napoleon  that  his  abdication 
had  been  coerced;  by  various  devices,  Carlos  and  his  queen, 
Fernando  and  his  younger  brother  Don  Carlos,  were  induced  to  go 
to  Bayonne  to  lay  their  respective  pretensions  before  the  emperor. 
There,  on  May  5,  Fernando  was  obliged  to  renounce  the  crown 
to  his  father  and  the  latter  to  transfer  it  to  Napoleon.  Carlos  and 
Maria  Luisa  were  sent  to  Compi^gne  and  Fernando  to  Valengay, 
where  he  remained  until  1814.  Meanwhile  in  Madrid,  Murat, 
under  instructions,  ordered  the  Infantes  Antonio  and  Francisco, 
the  remaining  members  of  the  royal  family,  to  depart  for  Bay- 
onne on  May  2d.  The  indignant  populace  rose,  with  the  aid  of  a 
few  officers  and  soldiers  and,  after  a  gallant  struggle  against  the 
veterans  of  Napoleon,  the  insurrection  was  repressed  with  heavy 
slaughter,  followed  by  numerous  executions.  The  heroic  "Dos 
de  Mayo"  was  the  signal  of  resistance  to  the  invader  and,  in  a  few 
weeks,  Spain  was  aflame;  the  desperate  six  years'  War  of  Libera- 
tion was  commenced,  and  the  nation  showed  what  a  people  could 
do  when  abandoned  by  its  incapable  and  cowardly  rulers.  With 
a  soldier's  contempt  for  an  unorganized  militia.  Napoleon  pursued 
his  plans.  Joseph  was  called  from  Naples  to  occupy  the  vacant 
throne  and  was  acknowledged  as  king  by  an  Assembly  of  Notables, 


400  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

convoked  at  Bayonne  in  June,  which  transformed  itself  into  Cortes 
and  adopted  a  Constitution. 

This  summary  of  the  situation  is  necessary  to  an  understanding 
of  the  position  of  the  Inquisition.  Whatever  may  have  been  the 
views  of  some  of  the  local  tribunals,  the  central  body  accepted 
the  intrusive  domination  and  was  afrancesado — a  term  which,  to 
the  patriots,  became  one  of  the  bitterest  contempt.  The  Constitu- 
tion of  Bayonne  provided  that,  in  Spanish  territories,  no  religion 
save  Roman  Catholicism  should  be  tolerated.  Raimundo  Ethe- 
nard.  Dean  of  the  Suprema,  was  a  member  of  the  Cortes  and,  when 
he  took  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  Joseph,  the  latter  assured  him 
that  Spain  was  fortunate  in  that  the  true  faith  alone  was  there 
honored.  When  the  Constitution  was  under  consideration,  two 
members,  Pablo  Arribas  and  Jose  Gomez  Hermosilla,  advocated 
the  suppression  of  the  Inquisition,  but  Ethenard  and  his  colleagues 
of  the  Inquisition,  Galarza,  Hevia  Noriega  and  Amarillas,  success- 
fully opposed  it,  although  they  admitted  that,  in  conformity  with 
public  opinion,  its  procedure  should  be  made  to  conform  to  that 
of  the  spiritual  courts  in  criminal  cases.^ 

The  Inquisition  thus  deemed  itself  safe  and  earnestly  supported 
the  Napoleonic  government.  After  the  sanguinary  suppression 
of  the  Madrid  rising  on  May  2d,  it  made  haste  to  counteract  the 
impression  produced  and,  on  the  6th,  the  Suprema  addressed  a 
circular  letter  to  the  tribunals,  describing  the  affair  as  a  scandalous 
attack  by  the  lowest  mob  on  the  troops  of  a  friendly  nation,  who 
had  given  no  offence  and  had  observed  the  strictest  order  and 
discipline.  Such  demonstrations,  it  said,  could  only  result  in 
turbulence  and  in  destroying  the  confidence  due  to  the  govern- 
ment, which  was  the  only  one  that  could  advantageously  direct 
patriotic  energies.  The  tribunals  were  therefore  instructed  to 
impress  on  their  subordinates,  and  the  commissioners  and  famiUars 
in  their  districts,  the  urgent  necessity  of  unanimously  contributing 
to  the  preservation  of  public  tranquillity.  This  communication 
was  received  by  the  Valencia  tribunal  on  May  9th  and,  on  the  11th, 
it  was  read  to  the  assembled  ofRcials,  calificadores,  notaries  and 
familiars  of  the  city,  with  exhortations  to  comply  strictly  with 


'  Jos6  Clemente  Carnicero,  La  Inquisicion  justamente  restablecida,  I,  8  (Madrid, 
1816). — Toreno,  Revolucion  etc,  de  Espana,  I,  160. — Llorente,  Hist.  cr!t.,  cap. 
xnv,  art.  i,  n.  19. — Rodrigo,  Hist,  verdadera,  III,  486.— Men^ndez  y  Pelayo, 
III,  417. 


Chap.  I]  SUPPRESSION  BY  NAPOLEON  401 

its  commands — action  which  was  doubtless  taken  by  the  other 
tribunals.^ 

The  Inquisition  thus  remained  in  Madrid  under  the  protection 
of  the  French  arms,  but  its  freedom  of  action  was  curtailed.  The 
Abate  Marchena,  a  fine  classical  scholar,  but  revolutionary  and 
tinctured  with  atheism,  had  abandoned  Spain  early  in  the  French 
Revolution  and  had  barely  escaped  the  guillotine  during  the  Terror. 
He  returned,  in  1808,  as  Murat's  secretary,  when  the  Inquisition 
thought  fit  to  arrest  him,  but  Murat  sent  a  file  of  grenadiers  and 
forcibly  released  him?  When  Napoleon  reached  Madrid,  Decem- 
ber 4,  1808,  the  capitulation  granted  to  the  city  provided  that  no 
religion  but  Catholicism  should  be  tolerated  but,  on  the  same  day, 
he  issued  a  decree  which  suppressed  the  Inquisition,  as  contrary  to 
sovereignty  and  to  civil  authority,  and  confiscated  its  property  to 
the  crown.^  The  Inquisitor  Francisco  Riesco  stated,  during  the 
debate  in  the  Cortes  of  Cddiz,  that  this  sudden  decree  was  motived 
by  the  refusal  of  the  members  of  the  Suprema  to  take  the  oath  of 
allegiance  to  the  new  dynasty,  but  this  is  evidently  incorrect, 
as  most  of  them  had  already  done  so  at  Bayonne,  and  Arce  y 
Reynoso,  who  resigned  his  inquisitor-generalship,  adhered  to  the 
French  and  accompanied  them  on  the  final  evacuation.  Riesco 
further  asserts  that  Napoleon  ordered  them  to  be  imprisoned,  but 
they  escaped  and  scattered  to  places  of  safety.^  The  Inquisition 
was  thus  left  in  an  anomalous  position  and  without  a  head,  for 
correspondence  with  Pius  VII  was  cut  off,  and  neither  his  accept- 
ance of  Arce's  resignation  nor  his  delegation  of  powers  to  a  succes- 
sor could  be  had.  The  Junta  Central,  which  was  striving  to  govern 
the  country,  attempted  to  fill  the  vacancy  with  Pedro  de  Quevedo 
y  Quintano,  Bishop  of  Orense,  but  he  could  obtain  no  papal  author- 
ization and  made  no  attempt  to  act.  It  was  argued  that  during  a 
vacancy  the  jurisdiction  continued  with  the  Suprema,  but  this 
was  denied  and  it  remained  an  open  question.^ 

'  See  Appendix.— On  January  9,  1813,  this  letter  was  produced  in  the  C6rtes, 
by  Sr.  Arguelles,  during  the  discussion  on  the  suppression  of  the  Inquisition. — 
Discusion  del  Proyecto,  p.  143. 

'  Men&dez  y  Pelayo,  III,  386-7.  For  a  vivid  sketch  of  the  adventurous  life 
of  Marchena  see  Antoine  de  Latour,  "  Espagne,  Traditions,  Mceurs  el  Litt^rature, 
p.  51  (Paris,  1869). 

'  Camicero,  op.  cit.,  I,  9.— Codigo  de  Jos6  Nap.  Bonaparte,  Tit.  xiii,  §  5  (Madrid, 
1845). 

*  Discusion  del  Proyecto,  p.  148. 

'  Toreno,  Historia  de  la  Revolucion,  III,  106  (Paris,  1838). 
VOL.  IV  26 


402  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

During  the  period  which  followed,  the  tribunals  maintained  their 
organization  and  exercised  their  functions  after  a  fashion,  when  not 
prevented  by  the  French  occupation.     Thus  when  the  invaders 
reached  Seville,  February  1,  1810,  the  Inquisition  was  suppressed, 
but  its  members  took  refuge  in  Ceuta.     Valencia  remained  in 
operation  until  the  city  was  captured  by  Suchet,  in  1811,  while  Bar- 
celona at  one  time  transferred  itself  to  Tarragona.     Activity  was 
intermittent  and,  in  the  excitement  of  that  stirring  time,  there  was 
little  energy  for  the  prosecution  of  heresy  while,  even  when  the 
enemy  had  withdrawn,  in  many  cases  the  buildings  had  been 
ruined.     The  Valencia  record  shows  that  the  total  number  of  cases 
brought  before  all  the  tribunals  in  1808  was  67;  in  1809,  22;  in 
1810,  17;  in  1811,  25;  in  1812,  1;  in  1813,  6.    Probably  few  of 
these  cases  were  regularly  heard,  if  we  may  judge  from  that  of 
Don  Vicente  Vald^s,  captain  of  volimteers  who,  in  1810,  was 
denounced  to  the  Valencia  tribunal  for  blasphemous  propositions. 
October  27th  it  was  ordered  that,  in  view  of  the  circumstances, 
a  fitting  occasion  should  be  awaited  for  the  audiencia  de  cargos 
demanded  by  the  fiscal — a  postponement  which  proved  to  be 
protracted  for  it  was  not  until  1816  that  he  was  tried.'    Still,  where 
the  Inquisition  itself  was  concerned  it  could  act  swiftly  and  effect- 
ively.    In  1809  the  French  took  possession  of  Santiago.    Felipe 
Sobrino  Taboada,  professor  of  civil  law  in  the  university,  was 
acting  as  police-magistrate  and,  by  order  of  the  director-general 
of  police,  he  issued  a  proclamation  exhorting  the  people  to  lay 
down  their  arms  and  praising  the  suppression  of  the  Inquisition. 
When  the  French  retired,  the  university  refused  to  readmit  him  to 
his  chair.     He  obtained  a  decision  of  the  tribunal  of  Public  Safety 
of  Coruna  re-establishing  him  and  then  the  Inquisition  arrested 
him,  without  the  prescribed  preliminary  formalities,  and  kept  him 
for  five  months  in  the  secret  prison.     Afterwards  he  was  allowed  to 
keep  his  house  as  a  prison  and,  when  finally  the  bounds  were 
enlarged  to  the  province  of  Galicia,  it  was  with  the  condition  that 
he  would  accept  no  public  office.^ 

The  Junta  Central,  which  had  endeavored  to  govern,  amid 
much  opposition  from  the  particularist  tendencies  of  the  provincial 
juntas,  retired  to  Cddiz  when  the   French  occupied  Andalusia. 


'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 
'  Puigblanch,  La  Inquisicion  sin  Mascara,  p.  429. 


Chap.  I]  ASSEMBLING  OF  THE  GOBTES  403 

On  January  1,  1810,  it  issued  a  convocation  for  the  assembling 
of  Cortes,  and  on  the  31st  it  dissolved,  after  appointing  a  Regency 
and  imposing  on  it  the  duty  of  convoking  the  Cortes  by  March  1st. 
The  Regency  delayed  until,  forced  by  the  pressure  of  public  opin- 
ion, on  June  18th  it  published  a  decree  ordering  elections  where 
they  had  not  been  held,  and  summoning  the  deputies  to  meet  in 
August  in  Isla  de  Leon,  now  San  Fernando,  near  Cddiz.  Suffrage 
was  virtually  universal  and,  in  the  letters  of  convocation,  the 
nation  was  called  upon  to  assemble  in  general  Cortes  "to  establish 
and  improve  the  fundamental  constitution  of  the  monarchy," 
while  the  commissions  of  the  delegates  empowered  them  to  decide 
all  points  contained  in  the  letters  and  all  others,  without  excep- 
tion or  limitation.^  The  C6rtes  accordingly  assumed  the  title  of 
Majesty,  as  embodying  the  will  of  the  people  and  occupying  the 
throne  of  the  absent  sovereign.  When  they  were  opened,  Septem- 
ber 24th,  about  a  hundred  deputies  were  present,  two-thirds  of 
whom  were  elected  by  the  provinces  not  occupied  by  the  French 
armies,  and  the  rest  selected  in  Cddiz  from  among  natives  of  the 
unrepresented  districts,  including  the  colonies,  then  more  or  less 
in  open  revolt,  while,  as  the  vicissitudes  of  the  war  permitted, 
deputies  came  straggling  in  from  districts  unrepresented  at  first. 
As  a  whole,  the  body  fairly  reflected  existing  public  opinion.  The 
Liberals  numbered  forty-five,  and  the  majority  consisted  of  eccle- 
siastics, men  of  the  privileged  classes  and  government  employees.^ 
It  was  an  unavoidably  hazardous  experiment,  this  sudden  wrench- 
ing of  Spain  from  the  old  moorings  and  launching  it  on  the  tem- 
pestuous waters  of  modern  ideas,  under  the  conduct  of  men  without 
training  or  experience  in  self-government.  Grave  mistakes  were 
inevitable  and  their  constructive  work  was  idealistic  and  doomed 
to  failure — a  failure  bound  to  result  in  blood  and  misery.  At  the 
moment,  however,  there  were  no  misgivings  and  the  Cortes  were 
regarded  as  the  salvation  of  the  nation.^ 


>  Toreno,  op.  cit.,  II,  197-202. 

'  Marliani,  Histoire  de  I'Espagne  modeme,  I,  171. 

'  Even  Evaristo  San  Miguel,  one  of  the  exaltados  of  1822  who,  as  secretary  of 
State,  was  largely  responsible  for  the  follies  which  invited  the  French  intervention 
of  1823,  admits  the  errors  of  the  Cortes  of  Cddiz.  The  Constitution  of  1812,  he 
says,  was  an  exotic  that  took  no  root  in  the  soil;  the  mass  of  the  people,  plunged 
in  ignorance  and  misery,  knew  of  it  only  by  hearing  from  their  spiritual  guides 
that  it  was  a  tissue  of  impieties. — De  la  Guerra  Civil  de  Espana,  p.  88  (Madrid, 
1836). 


404  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

The  oath  administered  to  the  members  bound  them  to  maintain 
Catholicism  as  the  exclusive  religion  of  Spain  and  to  preserve 
for  their  beloved  monarch  Fernando  VII  all  his  dominions.  Their 
first  act  was  to  adopt  a  series  of  five  resolutions,  offered  by  an 
ecclesiastic,  Diego  Munoz  Torrero,  rector  of  the  University  of 
Salamanca,  of  which  one  provided  that  the  Regency  should  be 
continued  as  the  executive  power,  on  taking  an  oath  recognizing 
the  sovereignty  of  the  nation  as  embodied  in  the  Cortes  and 
promising  obedience  to  their  enactments.  Rather  than  do  this, 
the  Regency  proposed  to  break  up  the  Cortes,  but  the  threatening 
aspect  of  the  people  and  the  army  caused  a  change  of  heart,  and 
that  same  night  they  took  the  oath,  except  the  implacable  conser- 
vative Quevedo  Bishop  of  Orense,  who  resigned  both  from  the 
Regency  and  the  Cortes.  His  resignations  were  accepted  but  he 
was  forced  to  take  the  oath  required  of  all  prelates  and  officials 
before  he  was  allowed  to  retire  to  his  diocese.  It  was  evident  that 
the  Cortes  and  the  Regency  could  not  pull  together;  on  October 
28th,  the  latter  was  dismissed,  its  membership  was  reduced  from 
five  to  three  and  a  new  Regency  was  installed  with  which  the 
Cortes  could  work  in  harmony.' 

After  settling  relations  with  the  other  departments  of  the  State, 
the  first  attention  of  the  Cortes  was  given  to  the  freedom  of  the 
press.  Two  days  after  the  opening  session  the  subject  was  intro- 
duced and  referred  to  a  committee;  no  time  was  lost,  a  decree  was 
reported  October  8th,  and  on  the  18th,  in  spite  of  the  reclamations 
of  the  opposition,  it  was  passed  by  a  vote  of  68  to  32.  This  was 
regarded  as  a  preliminary  attack  on  the  Inquisition,  which  was 
thus  deprived  by  implication  of  the  function  of  censorship.  Some 
members  desired  this  to  be  explicitly  stated,  giving  rise  to  a  hot 
debate  in  which  Inquisitor  Riesco,  a  member  of  the  Cortes,  pleaded 
in  vain  for  some  honorable  mention  of  the  Holy  OSice.  There 
was  also  indignation  excited  by  the  provision  subjecting  prohibi- 
tion by  the  bishops  to  revision  by  the  secular  power,  which  was 
subversive  of  the  imprescriptible  rights  of  the  Church,  whose 
judgements  are  final.^  If  this  was  really  the  first  move  in  a  cam- 
paign against  the  Inquisition,  it  was  not  unskilful,  for  it  set  at 
liberty  the  pens  which  had  hitherto  been  restrained.     At  once 

•  Toreno,  II,  208,  211,  223,  249.— Coleccion  de  los  Decretos  y  Ordenes  que 
han  expedido  las  C6rtes  Generales,  I,  1-3  (Madrid,  1820). 

'  V^lez,  Apologia  del  Altar  y  del  Trono,  I,  107-10,  113-19,  211-12  (Madrid, 
1825). — Coleccion  de  Decretos,  I,  16. 


Chap.  I]  THE  INQUISITION  ASSAILED  405 

there  arose  a  crowd  of  pamphleteers  and  journalists,  not  only  in 
Cddiz  but  throughout  Spain,  who  attacked  the  institution  unspar- 
ingly, raising  a  clamor  which  showed  how  severe  had  been  the 
repression.  Sturdy  defenders  were  not  lacking  and  the  wordy 
war  was  vigorously  waged.  The  two  most  prominent  champions 
on  either  side  were  Antonio  Puigblanch,  who,  under  the  pseu- 
donym of  Natanael  Jomtob,  issued  a  series  of  pamphlets,  collected 
under  the  title  of  "La  Inquisicion  sin  Mascara"  or  "The  Inquisi- 
tion unmasked,"  and  Padre  Maestro  Fray  Francisco  Alvarado,  a 
Dominican  of  high  repute  for  learning  and  eloquence,  whose 
letters  under  the  name  of  El  Fildsofo  Rancio  or  Antiquated  Phil- 

-  osopher,  continued  for  two  years  to  keep  up  the  struggle  against 

-all  the  innovations  of  the  Liberals.^ 

Puigblanch  was  no  exception  to  the  general  rule  that  those  who 
attacked  the  Inquisition  were  careful  to  profess  the  highest  vene- 
ration for  the  faith  and  in  no  way  to  advocate  toleration.  His 
work  commences  with  an  eloquent  description  of  religion  as  the 
foundation  of  all  civil  constitutions  and  Catholicism  as  the  noblest 
adornment  of  enlightenment  and  hberty,  the  only  question  being 
whether  the  Inquisition  is  the  fitting  institution  for  its  protection. 
He  is  careful  to  maintain  to  the  last  his  abhorrence  of  heresy  and 
his  desire  for  its  suppression,  which  he  proposes  to  effect  by 
reviving  episcopal  jurisdiction  imder  certain  limitations.^  With 
all  this  his  denunciation  of  the  Inquisition  was  unsparing,  and  he 
had  ample  store  of  atrocities  with  which  to  justify  his  attacks, 
although  there  was  unfairness  in  attributing  to  it,  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  cruelties  which  had  stained  its  previous  career. 

Alvarado  was  a  man  of  extensive  learning,  but  of  little  claim  to 
the  title  of  philosopher,  whether  antiquated  or  modern.  Though 
his  methods  were  not  such  as  to  make  converts,  they  were  well 
adapted  to  stimulate  those  of  his  own  side,  for  he  was  an  effective 
partizan  writer,  fluent,  sarcastic,  often  coarse,  vulgar  and  vitupera- 
tive, using  assertion  for  argument  and  indifferent  as  to  truth.  The 
chief  value  of  his  letters  is  the  flood  of  light  which  they  shed  on 
the  conservative  attitude  of  the  time,  which  explains  much  in  the 


^  These  letters  have  been  repeatedly  reprinted.  My  edition  is  of  Madrid,  1824-5 
in  five  volumes.  Under  the  Restoration,  Alvarado  was  appointed  a  member  of 
the  Suprema,  but  he  can  scarce  have  acted  as  he  died,  August  31,  1814. 

'  La  Inquisicion  sin  Mdscara,  pp.  5-12,  28,  299,  480-3  (Cddiz,  1811).— An 
English  translation  by  William  Walton  appeared  in  London,  in  1816,  with  a 
valuable  Introduction. 


406  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

subsequent  vicissitudes  of  Spain.  Philosophers,  he  says,  are  wolves, 
robbers  and  devils,  monsters  who  cannot  be  regarded  without 
horror,  enlighteners  who  are  nothing  but  ignoramuses  and  cheats 
and  emissaries  sent  by  hell.  To  seek  to  undermine  popular  confi- 
dence in  the  priesthood  he  holds  to  be  a  crime  greater  than  the 
crucifixion  of  Christ.  The  ferocity  of  his  intolerance  shows  how 
little  Spanish  churchmen  had  changed  since  the  days  of  Tor- 
quemada.  As  to  the  relations  of  religion  and  the  State,  he  assumes 
that  the  only  function  of  the  civil  power  is  to  punish  him  who 
offends  the  faith;  the  Catholic  religion  is  as  intolerant  as  light  is  of 
darkness,  or  as  truth  is  of  falsehood,  and  this  intolerance  distin- 
guishes it  from  all  religions  invented  by  man.  Repeatedly  and 
savagely  he  proclaims  that  burning  is  the  proper  remedy  for  un- 
belief, and  he  tells  his  adversaries  that,  if  they  wish  free  thought, 
they  may  go  to  England  or  to  the  United  States,  but  in  Spain  what 
they  had  to  expect  was  the  quemadero}  Such  advocacy  could  only 
render  the  Liberals  more  eager  to  accomplish  their  work. 

While  this  controversy  was  contributing  to  the  greater  enlighten- 
ment or  obscuration  of  public  opinion,  the  Cortes  were  engaged 
in  framing  a  Constitution.  The  committee  entrusted  with  this 
task  had  a  majority  of  conservatives,  including  several  eccle- 
siastics, but  these  were  quite  willing  to  circumscribe  the  royal 
power,  while  seeking  to  extend  the  privileges  of  the  Church,  and 
all  the  members  signed  the  project  as  presented.^  It  commenced 
by  asserting  the  sovereignty  of  the  nation,  which  had  the  exclusive 
right  to  establish  its  fundamental  laws,  and  could  never  be  the 
patrimony  of  any  person  or  family,  and  it  affirmed  that  the  religion 
of  the  nation  was,  and  always  forever  would  be  the  CathoUc, 
Apostolic,  Roman,  the  only  true  one,  which  the  nation  protects  by 
wise  and  just  laws,  and  prohibits  the  exercise  of  any  other.'  This 
apparent  concession  to  intolerance  was  denounced,  when  too  late, 
as  a  trap,  for  it  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  representatives  of  the 
nation  the  power  of  deciding  what  the  wise  and  just  laws  should 
be  for  the  protection  of  religion.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  C6rtes  were 
resolved  that  there  should  be  no  refusal  to  accept  the  new  frame- 


'  Cartas  del  Fil6sofo  Rancio,  I,  86,  87,  96,  98,  262,  265,  268,  297;  II,  21,  457, 
461. 

'  Marliani,  op.  cit.,  I,  175. 

'  Tit.  I,  cap.  i,  art.  2,  3;  Tit.  ii,  cap.  ii,  art.  12  (Coleccion  de  Decretos,  II, 
98,  100). 


Chap.  I]  THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  1812  407 

work  of  government.  In  secret  session  of  March  16, 1812,  it  was  de- 
creed that  whosoever  should  refuse  to  swear  to  it  should  be  declared 
an  luiworthy  Spaniard  and  be  driven  from  Spain,  and  measures 
were  taken  to  have  it  read  in  every  parish  church,  where  the  assem- 
bled people  should  swear  to  obey  it  and  to  be  faithful  to  the  king. 
As  the  French  armies  were  driven  back,  the  Spanish  commanders 
made  it  their  first  duty  to  see  this  ceremony  performed,  and  where 
there  was  opposition,  chiefly  arising  from  the  priests,  force  was 
employed.  A  priest  of  the  Cddiz  cathedral  who  alluded  to  it 
slightingly  as  a  lihelo,  or  little  book,  was  prosecuted,  and  the  irre- 
concileable  Bishop  of  Orense,  who  refused  to  take  the  oath,  was 
exiled  and  declared  to  be  an  unworthy  Spaniard.  As  a  whole, 
however,  it  was  enthusiastically  accepted  as  the  dawn  of  a  new 
era,  though  we  may  well  question  how  many  of  those  who  took 
the  oath  comprehended  the  purport  of  its  three  hundred  and 
eighty-four  articles,  covering  all  the  complicated  minutise  of 
institutions  based  on  an  entirely  new  conception  of  the  relations 
between  the  Government  and  the  governed.' 

It  was  inevitable  that,  in  the  effort  to  create  a  new  Spain,  the  fate 
of  the  Inquisition  should  be  involved,  especially  as  its  disabled 
condition  invited  attack.  That  a  struggle  was  impending  had  long 
been  evident  to  all  parties,  and  that  this  was  felt  to  be  decisive  as 
to  the  character  of  the  future  institutions  of  Spain  is  seen  in  the 
tenacity  with  which  it  was  fought.  The  Inquisition  was  the  con- 
servative stronghold,  to  be  defended  to  the  last,  after  all  the  outer 
defences  had  been  abandoned,  and  the  deep  roots  which  it  had 
established  are  manifested  by  the  tactics  required  for  its  overthrow, 
and  by  the  fact  that  the  contest  was  the  bitterest  and  the  most  pro- 
longed in  the  career  of  the  Cortes,  which  had  so  unceremoniously 
converted  Spain  from  absolutism  to  liberal  constitutionalism. 

Some  preparation  had  been  made  for  the  struggle  by  the  con- 
servatives. The  first  Regency  had  endeavored  to  reconstitute  all 
the  old  Councils  of  the  monarchy  and,  on  June  10,  1810,  Ethenard, 
the  Dean  of  the  Suprema,  addressed  to  it  a  memorial  requesting  it 
to  order  the  reassembling  of  the  Suprema,  to  which  it  responded, 
August  1st,  by  issuing  such  an  order.  The  scattering  of  the  mem- 
bers precluded  this,  but,  when  the  early  acts  of  the  Cortes  fore- 
shadowed what  was  to  come,  on  December  18th,  Ethenard  and 


'  Vdlez,  Apologia,  II,  116-27. — Marliani,  I,  179.— Carnicero,  Hist,  de  la  Revo- 
lucion,  III,  160,  184.— Coleccion  de  Decretos,  II,  166;  III,  60. 


408  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

Amarillas  asked  the  new  Regency  to  appoint  as  a  member  the 
fiscal  Ibar  Navarro  and  as  fiscal  the  Madrid  inquisitor,  Galarza, 
thus  enabling  the  body  to  resume  its  functions.  As  no  attention 
was  paid  to  this,  an  old  member,  Alejo  Jimenez  de  Castro,  who  had 
been  exiled  to  Murcia  by  Godoy,  was  brought  from  his  retreat 
to  Cadiz,  so  as  to  have  material  for  a  quorum  present.  The  occa- 
sion to  utilize  this  offered  itself  in  January,  1811.  The  freedom  of 
the  press  enabled  Don  Manuel  Alzaibar  to  start  "La  Triple  Ahan- 
za,"  a  frankly  irreligious  journal,  in  the  second  number  of  which 
there  appeared  an  article  ridiculing  the  immortality  of  the  soul 
and  suffrages  for  the  dead.  On  January  28th  advantage  was  taken 
of  this  to  ask  the  Cortes  to  refer  it  to  the  Inquisition  for  censure, 
which  was  carried  in  spite  of  opposition.  The  next  day  the 
editors  asked  that  the  action  be  rescinded,  leading  to  a  three  days' 
debate  in  which  the  Inquisition  was  denounced  as  a  mysterious, 
cruel  and  antichristian  tribunal  and,  for  the  first  time,  its  sup- 
pression was  openly  advocated.  President  Dou  ruled  that  the 
inculpated  journal  must  be  passed  to  the  Junta  de  Censura,  for 
he  understood  that  the  Inquisition  was  not  organized,  when  he  was 
told  that  there  were  three  members  of  the  Suprema  in  Cddiz,  and 
that  the  Seville  tribunal  was  in  Ceuta.  This  raised  larger  questions 
and  the  whole  matter  was  referred  to  a  committee  so  composed  that 
it  was  expected  to  report  against  re-establishment,  but  it  withheld 
its  report  for  a  long  time  and  meanwhile  there  were  other  moves 
in  the  game.^ 

On  May  16th,  the  members  of  the  Suprema  notified  the  Regency 
that  they  were  prepared  to  act,  in  response  to  which  the  minister 
of  Gracia  y  Justicia  expressed  his  surprise  that  they  should  meet 
as  a  tribunal,  without  awaiting  the  decision  of  the  questions 
submitted  to  the  Cortes,  and  forbade  them  from  forming  a  Council 
until  they  should  have  express  authorization.^  The  matter  was 
brought  before  the  C6rtes  and  Inquisitor  Riesco  vainly  argued  in 
favor  of  the  Inquisition;  his  motion  was  referred  to  the  committee. 


•  V«ez,  Apologia,  I,  126-34,  212-13.— Rodrigo,  III,  370.— Toreno,  III,  106-7. 

^  Apologia  de  la  Inquisicion,  pp.  16-18  (Cadiz,  1811). — Riesco,  in  a  speech 
before  the  C6rtes,  said  that  the  functions  of  the  Suprema  were  suspended  on  the 
pretext  that  its  members  had  not  been  "purified"  (Discusion  del  Proyecto,  p. 
148).  All  officials  who  had  in  any  way  been  concerned  with  the  French  were 
required  to  be  purified — that  is,  to  give  proofs  of  patriotism.  This  so-called 
purification  came  repeatedly  in  play  in  the  kaleidoscopic  changes  of  Spanish 
politics. 


Chap.  I]  SKIRMISHING  FOB  POSITION  409 

where  it  lay  buried  in  spite  of  repeated  calls  for  a  report.  The 
Liberals  insisted  that  a  National  Council  would  be  a  more  suitable 
body  for  the  mature  consideration  of  such  questions;  their  object 
was  solely  to  gain  time,  which  was  fighting  on  their  side,  but  the 
idea  was  seriously  entertained,  even  by  the  clericals.  The  com- 
mittee on  the  external  discipline  of  the  clergy  reported,  August 
22d,  in  favor  of  the  project,  with  a  list  of  matters  to  be  submitted 
to  the  Council ;  on  August  28th  the  C6rtes  ordered  it  to  be  convoked, 
but  postponed  consideration  of  the  details.  Other  matters  super- 
vened and  no  further  action  was  taken,  which  Archbishop  Velez 
assures  us  saved  Spain  from  a  schism,  or  at  least  from  a  scandal 
for,  under  the  proposed  program,  it  would  have  proved  a  second 
Synod  of  Pistoja.  In  fact,  the  journals  naturally  took  a  lively 
interest  in  the  matter;  thousands  of  pamphlets,  we  are  told, 
appeared  everywhere,  pointing  out  the  abuses  and  relaxed  morals 
of  the  clergy  and  demanding  a  reform  that  was  assumed  to  be 
necessary.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  that  the  ecclesiastical  authorities 
were  willing  to  let  the  project  drop.^ 

The  position  of  the  Liberals  was  greatly  strengthened  by  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution,  in  March  1812,  as  was  abundantly 
shown  in  the  next  debate  on  the  Inquisition.  This  was  provoked 
by  the  publication,  in  April  1812,  of  the  "Diccionario  critico- 
burlesco"  of  Gallardo,  librarian  of  the  Cortes,  in  which  all  that  the 
mass  of  the  population  held  sacred  was  treated  with  ridicule, 
neither  refined  nor  witty.  It  created  an  immense  sensation  and 
was  brought  before  the  C6rtes,  which  enabled  RiesCo,  on  April 
22d,  to  call  for  the  immediate  presentation  of  the  report  of  the  com- 
mittee on  the  Inquisition,  for  which  the  Cortes  had  been  waiting 
for  more  than  a  year.  The  committee,  in  fact,  had  reached  a 
decision,  in  July  1811,  in  favor  of  the  Inquisition,  and  we  are  not 
told  why  it  had  been  held  back,  for  four  members  had  concurred 
m  it  and  only  Muiioz  Torrero  had  dissented.  The  report  was 
accordingly  presented,  re-establishing  the  Suprema  in  its  functions, 
with  certain  limitations  as  to  political  action;  the  debate  was  hot, 
but  the  Liberals  had  taken  precautions  to  avoid  a  direct  vote  on 
the  question.  In  a  decree  of  March  25th,  creating  a  supreme 
court  of  justice,  they  had  introduced  an  article  suppressing  the 
tribunals  known  by  the  name  of  councils,  and  they  pointed  out 
that  this  embraced  the  Suprema,  which  gave  abundant  opportunity 

•  V^lez,  Apologia,  I,  214,  384-5,  399-418. 


410  DEOADENGE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

for  discussion.  Even  more  important  was  a  decision  of  the  Cortes, 
adroitly  planned  for  this  especial  purpose,  December  13,  1811, 
during  the  discussion  on  the  Constitution,  that  no  propositions 
bearing  on  the  fundamental  law  should  be  admitted  to  debate 
without  previous  examination  by  the  committee  on  the  Constitu- 
tion, to  see  that  it  was  not  in  opposition  to  the  articles  thereof. 
It  was  notorious  that  inquisitorial  procedure  was  in  direct  contra- 
vention of  the  constitutional  provisions  to  secure  justice  in  criminal 
prosecutions  and,  after  an  exciting  struggle  and  a  postponement, 
the  report  was  referred  to  the  committee  on  the  Constitution. 
The  Conservatives  were  so  exasperated  that  they  .proposed  to 
dissolve  the  C6rtes,  and  have  a  new  election  under  the  Constitution, 
to  which  the  Liberals  agreed,  except  that  the  new  body  should 
meet  October  1,  1813,  and  the  existing  one  should  remain  in  ses- 
sion until  then.  Archbishop  Velez  tells  us  that  the  policy  of  the 
Liberals  was  to  gain  time,  for  their  personal  safety  was  at  stake 
if  the  Inquisition  was  re-established,  nor  does  he  recognize  how 
monstrous  was  the  admission  involved  in  this,  for  an  institution 
that  could  prosecute  and  punish  legislators  for  their  official  acts 
was  virtually  the  despot  of  the  land.  Doubtless  the  deputies  felt 
this,  and  that  the  struggle  was  one  for  life  or  death.^ 

The  flank  of  the  enemy  was  thus  skilfully  turned.  The  com- 
mittee on  the  Constitution  was  in  no  haste  to  report  and  occupied 
itself  with  collecting  documentary  material  from  the  archives 
wherever  accessible.  Its  conclusion  was  that  the  Inquisition  was 
incompatible  with  the  fundamental  law  and,  on  November  13th, 
it  voted  on  a  project  for  establishing  "Tribunales  protectores  de  la 
fe"  in  compliance  with  the  constitutional  requirements.  Finally, 
on  December  8th  two  reports  were  presented.  That  of  the  minor- 
ity by  Antonio  Joaquin  Perez,  who  had  been  an  inquisitor  in 
Mexico,  argued  that  the  abuses  of  the  Inquisition  were  not  inherent; 
that  its  procedure  conflicted  with  the  Constitution  and  should  there- 
fore be  modified  accordingly.^ 

The  majority  report  was  a  very  elaborate  document,  tracing  the 
treatment  of  heresy  from  the  earliest  times,  and  pointing  out  the 
irreconcileable  incompatibility  of  the  Inquisition  with  the  constitu- 
tional provisions  securing  to  the  citizen  the  right  of  open  trial  and 
opportunities  for  defence.  It  concluded  with  the  draft  of  a  decree 
"Sobre  Tribunales  protectores  de  la  fe,"  in  which  such  caution 

'  Vflez,  Apologfa,  I,  134-52,  217,  219— Toreno,  III,  105-10. 
'  Discusion  del  Proyecto,  pp.  40-1,  398. 


Chap.  I]  DEBATE  ON  SUPPRESSION  411 

was  deemed  necessary  that  the  Inquisition  was  nowhere  men- 
tioned. It  appealed  to  the  national  pride,  by  simply  reviving  a 
law  of  the  Partidas  concerning  the  prosecution  of  heretics  by 
bishops,  it  prescribed  the  form  and  procedure  of  the  episcopal  tri- 
bunals, the  punishment  by  lay  judges  of  those  pronounced  guilty, 
and  it  provided  for  appeals  as  well  as  for  the  suppression  of  writings 
contrary  to  religion.  The  reports  were  duly  received  and  January 
4,  1813,  was  appointed  for  the  opening  of  debate.' 

Probably  no  measure  before  the  Cortes  provoked  so  bitter  and 
prolonged  a  debate.  The  Liberals  had  secured  the  advantage 
of  position,  and  the  Conservatives  felt  that  the  issue  involved  the 
whole  future  relations  of  Church  and  State.  There  was  a  prelimi- 
nary skirmish  on  December  29th,  when  Sanchez  de  Ocana  asked 
for  a  postponement  until  the  bishops  and  chapters  could  be  con- 
sulted, on  the  ground  that  the  Church  was  an  independent  body.^ 
This  was  voted  down  and  the  debate  was  opened  on  the  designated 
day,  January  4,  1813.  The  friends  of  the  Inquisition  had  not  been 
idle;  the  Church  organization  was  in  good  working  order,  and 
the  C6rtes  were  bombarded  with  memorials  from  bishops,  chapters, 
ayuntamientos,  military  officers,  towns  and  provinces,  showing 
how  active  the  canvass  had  been  during  the  two  years  in  which 
the  subject  had  been  mooted.  Yet  the  Conservatives  could  only 
procure,  out  of  the  fifty-nine  sees  existing  in  Spain,  protests  from 
two  archbishops  and  twenty-four  bishops,  the  authorities  of  three 
vacant  sees,  and  four  chapters  of  those  occupied  by  the  French; 
while  the  number  from  officers  of  the  army  was  not  large,  those 
from  towns  were  but  a  small  fraction  of  the  municipalities,  and 
only  two  provinces — Alava  and  Galicia — spoke  through  their 
authorities.  Muiioz  Torrero  declared,  January  10th,  that  every 
mail  brought  him  mountains  of  letters  in  favor  of  the  Inquisition 
and  Toreno  spoke  of  the  reclamations  that  came  in,  showing  how 
the  signers  of  protests  had  been  coerced.' 

'  Discusion,  pp.  38-iO. — The  law  of  the  Partidas  thus  revived  was  P.  vii,  Tit. 
xxvi,  ley  2,  which  says  that  heretics  can  be  accused  by  any  one  before  a  bishop 
or  his  vicar,  who  shall  examine  them  on  the  articles  of  faith  and  sacraments.  If 
error  is  found  he  must  labor  to  convert  them  by  reason  and  persuasion  when,  if 
willing  to  be  converted,  they  are  to  be  reconciled  and  pardoned.  If  persistent 
they  are  to  be  handed  over  to  the  secular  judge  for  punishment  by  fire  or  otherwise. 
The  revival  of  the  law  was  only  as  regards  the  functions  of  the  bishops. 

*  Ibidem,  pp.  42-7. 

'  Cartas  del  Filosofo  Rancio,  II,  453.— Men&dez  y  Pelayo,  III,  473.— Dis- 
cusion, pp  215,  229,  397. 


412  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

The  debate  was  vigorous  and  eloquent  on  both  sides  but,  while 
it  took  the  widest  range,  embracing  the  history  of  the  Church  from 
apostolic  times  and  the  career  of  the  Inquisition  from  the  thirteenth 
century,  the  parliamentary  question  in  reality  turned  upon  the 
power  of  the  Cortes  to  intrude  in  the  sphere  of  ecclesiastical  juris- 
diction.    After  discussion  lasting  until  January  22d  on  the  pre- 
liminary propositions,  the  decree  itself  was  taken  up,  article  by 
article  and  strenuously  fought  over;  amendments  were  presented 
and  accepted  or  rejected,  as  they  strengthened  or  weakened  the 
measure,  and  hot  resistance  was  offered  to  the  clauses  allowing 
appeals  from  the  judgements  of  the  bishops,  which  the  Liberals 
supported  on  the  ground  that  all  the  members  who  opposed  the 
Inquisition  had  been  denounced  throughout  Spain  as  heretics, 
and  the  safety  of  the  citizen  demanded  that  episcopal  definition 
of  heresy  should  not  be  final.     The  debate  was  prolonged  until 
February  5th,  when  the  last  article  was  agreed  to,  and  the  decree 
in  its  final  shape  did  not  differ  essentially  from  that  proposed  by 
the  Committee.     There  was  no  formal  suppression  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion ;  it  was  simply  declared  to  be  incompatible  with  the  Constitu- 
tion and  the  law  of  the  Partidas  was  revived.     This  latter  had  been 
agreed  to  on  January  26th  by  a  vote  of  92  to  30,  and  that  date  was 
assumed  as  determining  the  extinction  of  the  Inquisition,  regu- 
lating the  disposition  of  its  property.     It  is  not  worth  while  to 
recapitulate  the  details  of  the  episcopal  tribunals  and  the  pro- 
visions for  censorship,  as  the  bishops  took  little  interest  in  the 
exercise  of  their  restored  jurisdiction,  though  there  are  traces  of 
their  action  in  one  or  two  cases — that  of  Joaquin  Ramirez,  priest 
of  Moscardon  and  of  Dona  Antonia  de  la  Torre  of  Seville.'    During 
the  seventeen  months  that  elapsed  until  the  re-establishment  of 
the  Inquisition,  we  are  told  that,  although  the  land  was  full  of 
Freemasons  and  other  anticatholics,  the  bishops  had  no  occasion 
to  arrest  any  one,  for  no  informers  or  accusers  came  forward- 
doubtless  because  they  realized  that  their  names  would  be  known.^ 


'  Discusion  del  Proyecto,  pp.  59,  325,  495,  564,  630-9,  683,  687.— Coleccion  de 
Decretos,  III,  215,  220. — Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100.— 
Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  890. 

The  decree  concerning  property  continued  the  salaries  of  all  officials.  A  sub- 
sequent decree  of  September  13th,  regulating  the  national  debt,  applied  the  prop- 
erty of  the  extinguida  inguisicion  to  that  incurred  in  the  war  with  France. — 
Coleccion,  IV,  257. 

'  Camicero,  La  Inquisicion  justanaente  restablecida,  II,  115. 


Chap.  I]  THE  INQUISITION  SUPPRESSED  413 

In  the  debate  several  ecclesiastics  distinguished  themselves  by 
their  able  advocacy  of  the  measure,  among  whom  were  pre- 
eminent Munoz  Torrero,  who  had  borne  a  leading  part  in  drafting 
the  decree;  Lorenzo  Villanueva,  who  had  defended  the  Inquisition 
against  Bishop  Gr^goire,  and  Ruyz  Padron,  parish  priest  of 
Valdeorras  in  Galicia  and  formerly  of  the  Canaries.  How  they 
fared  in  consequence  we  shall  see  hereafter.  On  the  other  side  one 
of  the  most  vehement  was  Pedro  Inguanzo,  who  was  rewarded 
with  the  see  of  Zamora,  and  ultimately  with  the  archbishopric 
of  Toledo. 

The  Liberals  had  won  their  victory  by  unexpectedly  large 
majorities,  indicating  how  great  had  been  the  advance  in  public 
opinion.  No  measure  had  created  such  intensity  of  feeling  on 
either  side;  the  rejoicing  of  the  Liberals  was  extravagant,  and  the 
anger  of  the  clerical  party  may  be  gauged  by  the  declamation  of 
Archbishop  V^lez,  who  is  as  vehement  as  though  the  whole  fate 
of  Christianity  was  at  stake — the  abomination  of  desolation,  he 
declares,  seemed  to  have  established  its  throne  in  the  very  house 
of  God.^  The  clergy  had  already  been  alienated  by  various  mea- 
sures adverse  to  their  interests — the  appropriation  of  a  portion 
of  the  tithes  to  the  support  of  the  armies,  the  escheating  of  the 
property  of  convents  destroyed  by  the  invaders,  or  having  less 
than  twelve  inmates,  and  the  abrogation  of  the  Voto  de  Santiago, 
a  tax  on  the  agriculturists  of  some  provinces  based  on  a  fraud- 
ulent tradition  of  a  vow  made  by  Ramiro  I,  when,  by  the  aid  of 
St.  James,  he  won  the  suppositious  victory  of  Clavijo.^  The  debate 
on  the  Inquisition  had  heightened  the  reputation  of  the  Cortes  as 
an  irreligious  body,  and  it  was  not  wise  to  inflame  still  further 
the  hostility  of  a  class  wielding  such  preponderating  influence, 
but  the  Liberals,  intoxicated  by  their  victory,  proceeded  to  render 
the  measure  as  offensive  as  possible  to  the  defeated  clericals. 

On  February  5th,  after  the  final  vote,  the  committee  on  the 
Constitution  was  instructed  to  prepare  a  manifesto  setting  forth 
the  reasons  for  the  suppression  of  the  Inquisition  which,  together 
with  the  decree,  should  be  read  in  all  parish  churches  for  three  con- 
secutive Sundays,  before  the  offertory  of  the  mass;  that  in  all 
churches  the  insignia  of  those  condemned  and  penanced  should 
be  removed,  and  that  a  report  should  be  made  as  to  the  disposition 


'  Vflez,  Apologia,  I,  252-4. 

2  Coleccion  de  Decretos,  III,  26,  30,  66,  137,  211. 


414  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

of  the  archives  of  the  tribunals.  The  preparation  of  the  manifesto 
delayed  the  publication  of  the  decree  until  February  22d,  for  it 
was  a  long  and  wordy  document,  in  which  the  decadence  of  Spain 
was  attributed  to  the  abuses  of  the  Inquisition;  the  ancient  laws 
had  therefore  been  revived,  restoring  their  jurisdiction  to  the 
bishops,  in  whose  hands  the  Catholic  faith  and  its  sublime  morals 
would  be  secure ;  Religion  would  flourish,  prosperity  would  return, 
and  perchance  this  change  might  some  day  lead  to  the  i-eUgious 
brotherhood  of  all  the  nations/ 

It  was  not  long  before  the  imprudence  of  this  step  manifested 
itself,  for  it  gave  the  Church  a  battle-ground  on  which  to  contest, 
not  only  the  reading  of  the  manifesto  but  the  execution  of  the 
decree  itself  and,  if  defeated,  of  occupying  the  advantageous 
position  of  martyrdom.  Opposition  had  for  some  time  been  in 
preparation.  As  early  as  December  12,  1812,  the  six  bishops  of 
L^rida,  Tortosa,  Barcelona,  Urgel,  Teruel  and  Pampeluna,  in  the 
safe  refuge  of  Majorca,  had  prepared  a  manifesto  widely  circulated 
in  private,  representing  the  Church  as  outraged  in  its  ministers, 
oppressed  in  its  immunities,  and  combated  in  its  doctrines,  while 
the  Jansenist  members  of  the  C6rtes  were  described  as  adherents 
of  the  Council  of  Pistoja.^  No  sooner  was  the  decisive  vote  of 
February  5th  taken  than  the  chapter  of  the  vacant  see  of  Cadiz 
prepared  for  a  contest  over  the  reading  of  the  decree  and  mani- 
festo. It  had  already  appointed  a  committee  of  three  with  full 
powers,  and  it  now  instructed  the  committee  to  communicate 
secretly  with  refugee  bishops  in  Cddiz,  and  with  chapters  else- 
where, with  a  view  to  common  action.  Letters  were  sent  to  the 
chapters  of  Seville,  Mdlaga,  Jaen  and  C6rdova,  representing  that 
the  Cddiz  chapter  was  ready  to  be  the  victim,  but  would  be 
strengthened  by  the  union  of  others.  Seville  replied  with  promises 
to  do  the  same;  the  rest  more  cautiously,  for  they  felt  that  they 
were  treading  on  dangerous  ground. 

This  dampened  somewhat  the  ardor  of  the  fiery  Cddiz  chapter 
and  it  sought  for  other  support.  On  February  23d  the  parish 
priests  and  army  chaplains  of  Cadiz  were  assembled  and  addressed 
the  chapter  at  great  length.  To  read  the  decree  and  manifesto 
would  be  a  profanation  and  a  degrading  servility.  The  papal 
constitutions  creating  the  Inquisition  were  binding  on  the  con- 
sciences of  the  faithful,  until  revoked  by  the  same  authority,  and 


'Discusion  del  Proyecto,  pp.  683,  689-94.  '  Toreno,  III,  204. 


Chap.  I]  RESISTANCE  OF  THE  CLERGY  415 

from  this  obligation  the  secular  power  could  not  relieve  them. 
To  obey  would  be  to  incur  the  risk  of  a  dreadful  sacrilege,  and  the 
penalties  for  impeding  the  Inquisition  imposed  by  Julius  III  and 
Sixtus  V ;  it  was  better  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  man  than  into  those 
of  God,  and  they  were  ready  to  endure  whatever  fate  might  befall 
them.  This  was  rank  rebellion,  slightly  moderated  by  the  ex- 
pression of  a  desire  to  learn  the  opinions  of  the  holy  prelates  who 
were  in  Cadiz.  The  chapter  duly  transmitted  this  address  to  the 
prelates — the  Bishops  of  Calahorra,  Plasencia,  San  Marcos  de 
Leon,  Sigiienza  and  Albarracin  (Calahorra  and  San  Marcos  were 
deputies  in  the  Cortes  and  had  signed  the  Constitution) — stating 
that  it  entertained  the  same  sentiments  and  repeated  the  request 
for  their  opinion.  The  bishops  replied  cautiously,  and  in  sub- 
stance advised  that  representations  be  made  to  the  Government, 
which  might  be  induced  to  modify  its  decrees.* 

Time  was  growing  short,  for  March  7th  had  been  designated  as 
the  first  Sunday  for  reading  the  decree  and  manifesto.  On  March 
3d  a  capitular  meeting  was  assembled,  in  which  it  was  unanimously 
resolved  to  obey,  but  to  make  use  of  the  provisions  which  authorize 
citizens  to  obey  without  executing  and  to  represent  reverentially 
the  reasons  for  suspending  action  until  further  determination.^ 
This  was  the  first  step  in  the  development  of  a  somewhat  formid- 
able plot  which  was  organizing.  On  March  5th  the  papal  nuncio, 
Pedro  Gravina,  Archbishop  of  Nicsea,  addressed  to  the  Regency 
a  very  significant  protest  against  the  decree  itself.  The  abolition 
of  the  Inquisition,  he  said,  was  contrary  to  the  primacy  of  the 
Holy  See;  he  protested  against  this  and  he  asked  the  Regency  to 
induce  the  C6rtes  to  suspend  its  publication  and  execution  until 
happier  times  might  secure  the  consent  of  the  pope  or  of  the 
National  Council.  On  the  same  day  he  was  guilty  of  the  indis- 
cretion of  writing  to  the  Bishop  of  Jaen  and  to  the  chapters  of 
Malaga  and  Granada,  under  strict  injunctions  of  secrecy,  advising 
them  of  the  proposed  resistance  of  the  Cddiz  chapter  and  inviting 
their  cooperation.^  The  next  day,  March  6th,  the  chapter  sent  to 
the  Regency  the  address  of  the  priests  and  chaplains  of  Cadiz, 
with  a  communication  setting  forth  the  reasons  which  not  only 

•  Memoria  interesante  para  la  Historia  de  las  Persecu clones  de  la  Iglesia  Cat61ica 
y  de  sus  Ministros  en  Espafia,  Append.,  pp.  1-16  (Madrid,  1814). 

'  Ibidem,  pp.  17-20. 

'  Manifesto  istorico  del  Cardinale  Pietro  Gravina,  pp.  63-68  (Roma,  1824). — 
E.  Nunez  de  Taboada,  Le  dernier  soupir  de  I'lnquisition,  pp.  43-9  (Paris,  1814). 


416  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

prevented  the  execution  of  the  mandate  of  the  Cortes,  but  imperi- 
ously required  the  secular  power  to  protect  the  Church  and  relieve 
it  from  an  act  in  contravention  of  its  honor  and  sanctity.  The 
Chapter,  it  argued,  could  not  be  accused  of  disobedience  for 
insisting  on  the  spiritual  law  which  was  more  binding  than  the 
temporal/ 

The  Regency  evidently  was  participating  in  the  plot  to  overthrow 
the  Cortes  for  the  purpose  of  saving  the  Inquisition.  The  legis- 
lative and  executive  branches  of  the  Government  had  become 
estranged.  There  had  been  dissension  in  the  matter  of  the  sup- 
pression of  the  convents,  and  an  investigation  made  by  the  Cortes 
into  the  affairs  of  the  Regency  had  led  to  a  damaging  report  on 
February  7th.  The  Liberals  were  convinced  that  it  was  planning 
a  cowp  d'etat  when,  on  the  night  of  Saturday,  March  6th  the  rumor 
spread  that  it  had  dismissed  the  Governor  of  Cddiz,  D.  Cayetano 
Valdes,  and  had  replaced  him  with  D.  Jose  Maria  Alos.  Sunday 
passed  without  the  reading  of  the  decree  and  manifesto  in  the 
churches  and,  on  Monday,  the  minister  of  Gracia  y  Justicia  sent 
to  the  Cortes  the  communications  of  the  chapter  to  the  Regency. 
A  permanent  session  was  at  once  declared;  the  Cortes  dismissed 
the  regents  and  replaced  them  with  the  three  senior  members  of 
the  Council  of  State,  Cardinal  Luis  de  Bourbon,  Archbishop  of 
Toledo,  D.  Pedro  Agar  and  D.  Gabriel  Ciscar,  who  forthwith  took 
the  oaths  and  at  9  p.m.  assumed  possession  of  their  office,  the  dis- 
missed regents  offering  no  resistance.^ 

Harmony  between  the  legislature  and  the  executive  being  thus 
restored,  on  March  9th  the  Cortes  ordered  the  Regency  to  compel 
obedience.  Under  threats  of  measures  to  be  taken,  the  chapter 
yielded  at  10  p.m.  and  promised  that  the  next  morning,  and  on 
the  two  following  Sundays,  the  decree  and  manifesto  should  be 
duly  read.  It  was  obliged  to  furnish  authentic  copies  of  all  papers 
and  correspondence,  on  the  basis  of  which  a  sharp  reprimand  was 
addressed  to  the  Seville  chapter  and,  on  April  24th,  prosecution 
was  commenced  against  the  Cadiz  capitular  vicar  and  the  three 
members  of  the  committee,  for  treasonable  conspiracy.  Their 
temporalities  were  seized  and  for  six  weeks  they  were  imprisoned, 
incomunicado.  The  trial  dragged  on  until  the  restoration  of 
Fernando  VII  rendered  acquittal  a  matter  of  course  and  enabled 
them,  in  their  defence,  to  declare  that  to  destroy  the  Inquisition 


'  Memoria  interesante,  Append.,  pp.  23-6.  '  Toreno,  III,  193-203. 


Chap.  I]  RESISTANCE  OF  THE  CLERGY  417 

or  to  impede  its  action  in  matters  of  faith  was  the  same  as  prohibit- 
ing the  jurisdiction  of  the  Roman  Pontiff,  thus  trampling  under 
foot  a  dogma  established  by  Jesus  Christ.' 

The  documents  thus  obtained  showed  that  Nuncio  Gravina 
had  been  active  in  furthering  the  plot  of  resistance.  Now  that 
it  had  been  crushed,  policy  would  have  dictated  dropping  the 
matter  but,  on  April  22d,  the  minister  of  Gracia  y  Justicia  addressed 
him  a  sharp  letter,  expressing  the  confidence  of  the  Regency  that 
he  would  in  future  observe  the  limits  of  his  office,  as  otherwise  it 
would  be  obliged  to  exercise  all  its  authority.  To  this  he  of  course 
replied  defiantly;  whenever  ecclesiastical  matters  were  concerned 
he  might  find  himself  obliged  to  follow  the  same  course,  and  the 
Regency  could  do  as  it  pleased.  Some  further  correspondence 
followed  in  the  same  vein  and  then,  after  an  interval,  his  passports 
were  sent  to  him,  his  temporalities  were  seized,  and  he  was 
informed  that  the  frigate  Sabina  was  at  his  disposal  to  transport 
him  whither  he  desired.^  He  declined  the  proffered  frigate  and 
established  himself  in  Portugal,  near  the  border,  whence  he  con- 
tinued busily  to  stir  up  disaffection,  assuming  that  he  still  retained 
his  functions  as  nuncio.  On  July  24th  he  addressed  a  protest  to 
the  Government  and  sent  a  circular  to  the  bishops  inviting  them 
to  apply  to  him  in  cases  requiring  his  aid.  This  led  to  a  lively 
controversy,  in  which  the  Government  charged  him  with  deceit 
and  he  retorted  by  accusing  it  of  falsehood  and  challenging  it  to 
publish  the  documents.' 

This  was  by  no  means  the  only  trouble  excited  by  the  enforced 
reading  of  the  decree  and  manifesto.  Recalcitrant  priests  were 
found  in  many  places,  whose  cases  caused  infinite  annoyance  and 
bad  blood  and  the  Bishop  of  Oviedo  was  recluded  in  a  convent 
for  refusing  obedience.^  The  Government  triumphed,  but  it  was 
a  Pyrrhic  victory,  multiplying  its  enemies,  heightening  its  reputa- 
tion for  irreligion,  and  weakening  its  influence.'* 


'  Memoria  interesante,  pp.  ix,  x,  58;  Append.,  pp.  27-30.— V^lez,  Apologia,  I, 
262-87. 

'  Taboada,  op.  cit,  pp.  50-71. — GvnYraa,,  Manifesto  istorico,  pp.  68-106. 

'  V^lez,  Apologia,  I,  303.— Gravina,  Manifesto  istorico,  pp.  106-116,  1-41. 

*  V^lez,  Apologia,  I,  260. 

'  It  would  seem  as  though  some  of  the  tribunals  continued  to  act.     There  is 
a  case  of  a  Dominican  sub-deacon,  Fray  Tomas  Garcia,  who  denounced  himself 
for  sa3dng  mass  to  that  of  Valencia,  which  forwarded  the  sumaria  to  Cuenca, 
August  15,  1813. — Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 
VOL.  IV  27 


418  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

The  result  was  seen  in  the  elections  for  the  new  C6rtes  ordinarias, 
when  the  deputies  returned  were  largely  reactionary,  owing  to 
clerical  influence.  There  were  many  vacancies,  however,  which 
were  filled  by  the  old  members  for  the  corresponding  places,  and 
thus  the  parties  were  evenly  balanced.  The  new  Cortes  met, 
September  26th  and,  on  November  29th  adjourned  to  meet  in 
Madrid,  January  15, 1814 ;  the  Regency  transferred  itself  to  Madrid, 
January  5th.'  By  that  time  the  French  were  virtually  expelled 
from  Spain;  Wellington  was  following  Soult  into  France,  and 
Suchet  was  barely  holding  his  own  against  Copons  in  Catalonia. 

The  return  of  Fernando  el  Deseado  was  evidently  at  hand  and 
was  eagerly  expected.  The  reaction  following  the  prolonged 
excitement  of  the  war  was  beginning  to  be  felt.  There  was  wide- 
spread misery  in  the  devastated  provinces,  the  relief  of  which  was 
slow  and  difficult  and  was  aggravated  by  a  decree  of  the  Cortes 
requiring  those  which  had  been  subjugated  to  pay  the  arrears 
of  the  war  contributions.  Dissatisfaction  with  the  Cortes  was 
aroused  by  what  were  regarded  as  their  sins  both  of  commission 
and  omission — the  lowering  of  the  value  of  French  money  caused 
great  suffering  and  trouble;  all  who  had  served  under  the  intruso 
were  ejected  from  office;  the  parish  priests  were  reinstated  in  their 
old  cures,  which  turned  into  the  streets  the  new  incumbents; 
people  began  to  grumble  at  the  preponderance  of  the  Liberals  in 
the  Cortes — in  short,  there  was  no  lack  of  subjects  of  complaint.^ 
Exhaustion  and  poverty,  the  inevitable  consequences  of  so  pro- 
longed and  desperate  a  struggle,  produced  discontent,  and  it  was 
natural  that  those  who  had  guided  the  nation  through  its  tribu- 
lations should  be  held  responsible,  while  their  services  should  be 
forgotten.  The  military  also  were  dissatisfied  at  finding  that, 
at  the  close  of  a  successful  war,  they  had  not  the  importance  that 
they  considered  to  be  their  due,  while  the  clergy  were  outspoken 
in  opposition  and,  through  two  widely  circulated  journals,  "El 
Procurador  de  la  Nacion  y  del  Rey"  and  "La  Atalaya  de  la  Man- 
cha,"  attacked  the  Government  furiously.* 

During  all  this  period,  Fernando's  existence  at  Valengay  had 
been  as  agreeable  as  was  consistent  with  his  safe-keeping.  The 
only  restriction  on  his  movements  was  a  prohibition  to  ride  on 


>  Toreno,  III,  284-305. 

'  Camicero,  Historia  de  la  Revolucion,  III,  169-76. 

^  Miraflores,  Apuntes  para  escribir  la  Historia  de  Espana,  pp.  11-13  (Londres, 
1834), 


Chap.  I]  FERNANDO' S  RETURN  419 

horseback;  Napoleon  is  said  to  have  kept  him  supplied  with  women 
to  satisfy  his  strongly  developed  sensuality,  and  he  manifested 
his  characteristic  baseness  in  letters  to  his  captor  congratulating 
him  on  his  victories  and  soliciting  the  honor  of  a  matrimonial 
alliance  with  his  family.  After  the  battle  of  Liepzig,  Napoleon, 
striving  to  save  what  he  could  from  the  wreck,  represented  to 
Fernando  that  the  English  were  seeking  to  convert  Spain  into  a 
Jacobin  republic ;  Fernando  was  ready  to  agree  to  any  terms  and, 
on  December  11,  1813,  there  was  signed  what  was  known  as  the 
Treaty  of  Valengay,  under  which  peace  was  declared  between 
France  and  Spain,  the  English  and  French  troops  were  to  be  with- 
drawn, the  Afrancesados,  who  had  taken  refuge  in  France,  were 
to  be  restored  to  their  property  and  functions,  and  Fernando  was 
to  make  a  yearly  allowance  of  30,000,000  reales  to  his  father  and 
mother.^ 

Fernando  sent  the  Duke  of  San  Carlos  with  the  treaty  to  Madrid 
for  ratification,  instructing  him  that,  if  he  found  the  Cortes  and 
Regency  infected  with  Jacobinism,  he  was  to  insist  on  ratification 
pure  and  simple;  if  he  found  them  loyal,  he  was  to  say  that  the 
king  desired  ratification,  with  the  understanding  that  he  would 
subsequently  declare  it  invalid.  The  treaty  excited  general  indig- 
nation. As  early  as  January  1,  1811,  the  Cortes  had  decreed  that 
they  would  recognize  no  treaty  made  by  the  king  in  captivity,  and 
that  he  should  not  be  considered  free  until  he  was  surrounded  by 
his  faithful  subjects  in  C6rtes.  Now  the  Cortes  responded  to 
Femando's  message  with  a  decree  of  February  2,  1814,  reissuing 
the  former  one  and  adding  that  obedience  should  not  be  rendered 
to  him  until  he  should,  in  the  C6rtes,  take  an  oath  to  the  Constitu- 
tion ;  on  his  arrival  at  the  frontier  this  decree  was  to  be  handed  to 
him,  with  a  copy  of  the  Constitution  that  he  might  read  and 
imderstand  it;  he  was  to  follow  a  route  prescribed  by  the  Regency 
and,  on  reaching  the  capital,  he  was  to  come  directly  to  the  Cortes, 
take  the  oath,  and  the  government  would  then  be  solemnly  made 
over  to  him.  All  this  was  agreed  to  with  virtual  unanimity;  it 
was  signed  by  all  the  deputies  and  was  published  with  a  manifesto 
denouncing  the  treaty  and  expressing  the  warmest  devotion  to 
the  king.  The  publication  aroused  general  indignation  at  the 
treaty  and  the  manifesto  elicited  universal  applause.^ 

'  Miraflores,  Documentos  &  los  que  se  hace  referenda  en  los  Apuntes,  I,  &-23. 
'  Marliani,  I,  195-200.— Toreno,  III,  317,  395.— Coleccion    de  Decretos,  I, 
43;  V,  87. 


420  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

To  Fernando,  trained  in  the  traditions  of  absolutism,  the  Treaty 
of  Valengay  was  vastly  preferable  to  the  reception  prepared  for 
him,  but  he  uttered  no  word  of  dissent  when,  after  Napoleon  had 
liberated  him  without  conditions  on  March  7th,  he  was  transferred 
by  Suchet,  on  the  banks  of  the  Fluvid,,  March  24th,  to  Copons,  the 
Captain-general  of  Catalonia.  He  exercised  volition  however  in 
deviating  from  the  route  laid  down  by  the  Regency,  and  made  a 
detour  to  Saragossa  on  the  road  to  Valencia,  but  he  preserved 
absolute  silence  as  to  his  intentions.  Everywhere  he  was  received 
with  delirious  enthusiasm ;  the  people  idealized  him  as  the  symbol 
of  the  nationality  for  which  they  had  struggled  through  five  years 
of  pitiless  war,  and  there  were  no  bounds  to  their  exuberance  of 
loyalty. 

The  Restoration. 

To  few  men  has  it  been  given,  as  to  Fernando,  to  exercise  so 
profound  and  so  lasting  an  influence  on  the  destinies  of  a  nation. 
His  ancestor,  Henry  IV,  had  a  harder  task  when  he  undertook  to 
impose  harmony  on  compatriots  who,  for  a  generation  had  been 
savagely  cutting  each  others'  throats.  Fernando  came  to  a  nation 
which  had  been  unitedly  waging  war  against  a  foreign  enemy. 
Differences  of  opinion  had  grown  up,  as  to  the  reception  or  rejec- 
tion of  modern  ideas,  and  parties  had  been  formed  representing 
the  principles  of  conservatism  and  innovation ;  mistakes  had  been 
made  on  both  sides  and  bitterness  of  temper  was  rising,  but  a  wise 
and  prudent  ruler,  coming  uncommitted  to  either  side  and  enthu- 
siastically greeted  by  both,  could  have  exorcised  the  demon  of 
faction,  could  have  brought  about  compromise  and  conciliation, 
and  could  have  gradually  so  trained  the  nation  that  it  could  have 
traversed  in  peace  the  inevitable  revolution  awaiting  it.  This 
was  not  to  be.  Unfortunately  Fernando  was  one  of  the  basest 
and  most  despicable  beings  that  ever  disgraced  a  throne.  Cow- 
ardly, treacherous,  deceitful,  selfish,  abandoned  to  low  debauch- 
ery, controlled  by  a  camarilla  of  foul  and  immoral  favorites, 
his  sole  object  was  to  secure  for  himself  the  untrammelled  exercise 
of  arbitrary  power  and  to  abuse  it  for  sensual  gratification.  Cruel 
he  was  not,  in  the  sense  of  wanton  shedding  of  blood,  but  he  was 
callously  indifferent  to  human  suffering,  and  he  earned  the  name 
of  Tigrekan,  by  which  the  Liberals  came  to  designate  him.' 

'  Conservatives  concur  with  Liberals  in  denouncing  the  memory  of  Fernando. 
See  Men6ndez  y  Pelayo,  III,  495  and  V.  de  la  Fuente,  III,  472. 


Chap.  I]  REACTION  421 

When  Fernando  entered  Spain  he  was  naturally  undecided  as  to 
the  immediate  attitude  to  be  assumed  towards  the  changes  made 
during  his  absence,  but  the  enthusiasm  of  his  reception  and  the 
influence  of  the  reactionaries  who  surrounded  him  emboldened 
him  in  the  determination  to  assert  his  autocracy.  Several  secret 
conferences  were  held  during  the  journey  to  decide  whether  he 
should  swear  to  the  Constitution,  and  the  negative  opinion  pre- 
vailed. In  fact,  to  a  man  of  Fernando's  character,  voluntary 
obedience  to  the  Constitution  was  an  impossibility.  Not  only  did 
it  declare  that  sovereignty  resided  in  the  nation,  with  the  corre- 
sponding right  to  determine  its  fundamental  laws,  but  the  powers 
of  the  crown  were  limited  in  many  ways ;  the  Cortes  reserved  the 
right  to  exclude  unworthy  aspirants  to  the  succession,  and  to  set 
aside  the  incumbent  for  any  cause  rendering  him  incapable — 
clauses  susceptible  of  most  dangerous  interpretation.  At  this 
very  time,  indeed,  the  Cortes  were  deliberating  on  the  appropria- 
tion to  be  made  to  the  king  for  the  maintenance  of  his  court,  which 
implied  the  right  to  subject  him  to  the  most  galling  conditions.' 

If  anything  was  needed  to  induce  him  to  assert  the  full  powers 
enjoyed  by  his  predecessors  it  was  afforded  by  a  manifesto  known 
as  the  Representation  of  the  Persians,  from  an  absurd  allusion  to 
the  ancient  Persians  in  the  opening  sentence.  This  was  signed 
by  sixty-nine  deputies  to  the  C6rtes;  at  much  length  and  with 
turgid  rhetoric  it  set  forth  the  sufferings  inflicted  on  Spain  by  the 
Liberals;  it  argued  that  all  the  acts  of  the  Cortes  of  Cddiz  were 
null  and  invalid ;  it  pointed  out  the  limitations  on  the  royal  power 
prescribed  by  the  Constitution,  and  it  asserted  that  absolute 
monarchy  was  recognized  as  the  perfection  of  government.  It 
did  not  omit  to  declare  that  the  Inquisition  was  indispensable  to 
the  maintenance  of  religion,  without  which  no  government  could 
exist;  it  dwelt  on  the  disorders  consequent  upon  its  suppression 
and  it  reminded  Fernando  that,  from  the  time  of  the  Gothic  king- 
dom, intolerance  of  heresy  was  the  permanent  law  of  the  nation. 
Even  if  the  king  should  think  best  to  swear  to  the  Constitution, 
the  manifesto  protested  that  it  was  invalid  and  that  its  destructive 
principles  must  be  submitted  to  the  action  of  Cortes  assembled 
according  to  the  ancient  fashion.  This  paper,  dated  April  12th, 
was  drawn  up  and  secretly  circulated  by  Bernardo  Moza  Reales, 


'  Toreno,  III,  355-9. — Miraflores,   Documentos,  I,  30. — Constitucion,  art.  3, 
144-9,  173,  181,  187  (Coleccion  de  los  Decretos,  V,  148,  153,  182,  185). 


422  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

who  carried  it  to  Valencia  and  presented  it  to  Fernando,  receiving 
as  reward  the  title  of  Marquis  of  Mataflorida/ 

Fernando  reached  Valencia  April  16th  and  paused  there  until 
May  4th,  while  secret  preparations  were  made  to  overthrow  the 
government.  The  C6rtes,  unaware  of  the  contemplated  treachery, 
were  amusing  themselves  in  arranging  the  hall  for  the  solemnity 
of  the  king's  oath  and  his  acknowledgement  as  sovereign,  and  took 
no  measures  for  self-protection.  Troops  were  secretly  collected 
in  the  vicinity  of  Madrid,  under  General  Eguia,  a  violent  reaction- 
ary, who  was  made  Captain-general  of  New  Castile.  On  the  night 
of  May  10th,  when  Fernando  was  nearing  the  capital,  Eguia 
notified  Joaquin  P^rez,  President  of  the  C6rtes,  that  they  were 
closed;  troops  took  possession  of  the  hall  and  the  archives  were 
sealed,  while  police-agents  were  busy  making  arrests  from  a  list 
of  thirty-eight  marked  for  proscription,  including  two  of  the  regents, 
two  ministers  and  all  the  more  prominent  liberal  deputies.^  No 
resistance  was  encountered  and  the  precedent  was  established 
which  has  proved  so  disastrous  to  Spain. 

In  the  early  dawn  of  the  11th,  there  was  found  posted  every- 
where a  royal  manifesto  dated  at  Valencia  on  the  4th.  In  this, 
after  a  rambling  summary  of  antecedent  events,  Fernando  prom- 
ised to  assemble  as  soon  as  possible  C6rtes  of  the  old  fashion  and, 
in  conjunction  with  them,  to  establish  solidly  whatever  was 
necessary  for  the  good  of  the  kingdom.  He  hated  despotism; 
the  enlightenment  and  culture  of  Europe  would  never  permit  it, 
and  his  predecessors  had  never  been  despots.  But  the  C6rtes  of 
Cddiz  and  the  existing  body  were  illegal  and  all  their  acts  were 
invalid;  he  did  not  intend  to  swear  to  the  Constitution  or  to  the 
decrees  of  the  Cortes,  but  he  pronounc'ed  them  all  void  and  of  no 
effect,  and  any  one  supporting  them  in  any  manner  or  endeavoring 
to  impede  the  execution  of  this  manifesto  was  declared  to  be  guilty 
of  high  treason  and  subject  to  the  death-penalty.'    It  is  perhaps 


'  Representacion  y  Manifiesto  que  algunos  Diputados  &  las  C6rtes  ordinarias 
firmaron  en  los  mayores  Apuros  de  su  Opresion  en  Madrid,  pp.  12,  17,  59,  60 
(Madrid,  1814). 

^  Toreno,  III,  359,  361-1. — Koska  Vayo,  Historia  de  la  Vida  y  Reinado  de 
Fernando  VII,  II,  26,  32-5,  377  (Madrid,  1842).— Mariiani,  I,  206. 

'  Coleccion  de  las  Reales  C^dulas  etc.  de  Fernando  VII,  p.  1  (Valencia,  1814).— 
Toreno,  III,  400. — It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  slovenly  piece  of  writing 
than  this  celebrated  and  fateful  manifesto.  Its  authorship  was  attributed  to 
Juan  Pdrez  ViUamil,  the  head  of  the  Regency  dismissed  by  the  C6ri;es  in  March, 
1813.— Toreno,  III,  364. 


Chap.  I]  DESPOTISM  BE-ESTABLISHED  423 

needless  to  say  that  the  promised  convocation  of  Cortes  and  the 
salutary  legislation  never  took  place.  All  the  modernized  insti- 
tutions framed  since  1810  were  swept  away  at  a  word,  the  old 
organization  of  Government  was  restored,  and  Fernando  was  an 
absolute  despot,  disposing  at  his  pleasure  of  the  lives  and  property 
of  his  subjects  who  had  fought  so  desperately  for  his  restoration. 
How  he  used  this  power  was  manifested  in  the  case  of  the 
fifty-two  prisoners  who  were  arrested  at  the  time  of  the  cowp  d'etat. 
Nineteen  months  were  spent  in  endeavoring  to  have  them  con- 
demned by  tribunals  and  commissions  formed  for  the  purpose, 
but  no  crime  could  be  proved  that  would  not  equally  affect  all 
who  had  voted  with  them,  many  of  whom  stood  in  high  favor  at 
court.  The  last  tribunal  convened  for  their  trial  advised  Fernando 
to  sentence  them  in  the  exercise  of  his  royal  omnipotence,  and  he 
did  so,  December  17,  1815,  sending  them  to  distant  fortresses, 
African  presidios  and  convents,  with  strict  orders  to  allow  them 
to  see  no  one  and  to  send  or  receive  no  letters.^  As  regards  the 
three  specially  obnoxious  clerical  deputies,  Villanueva  was  recluded 
for  six  years  in  the  convent  of  la  Salceda,  from  which  we  shall  see 
him  emerge  and  again  play  a  brief  part  on  the  political  stage. 
Munoz  Torrero  was  sent  to  the  convent  of  Erbon,  in  Galicia.  He 
finally  fell  into  the  savage  hands  of  Dom  Miguel  of  Portugal  and 
perished,  after  severe  torture,  in  1829.^  Ruiz  de  Padron  was  not 
on  the  list  of  the  proscribed;  he  had  not  been  elected  to  the  new 
Cortes  but  was  detained  by  sickness  in  Cadiz.  On  his  return 
in  May  to  his  parish  of  Valdeorras,  his  bishop,  Manuel  Vicente 
of  Astorga,  made  a  crime  of  his  absence  from  his  cure  without 
episcopal  licence  and  prosecuted  him  for  this  and  for  sustaining 
in  the  Cortes  projects  adverse  to  religion  and  the  throne.  On 
November  2,  1815,  he  was  sentenced  to  perpetual  reclusion  in  the 
desert  convent  of  Cabeza  de  Alba  and,  to  prevent  appeal,  the 
bishop  sent  the  process  to  the  Inquisition  of  Valladolid.  Ruiz 
appealed  to  the  metropolitan,  but  the  bishop  refused  to  allow  the 
appeal.  Then  a  recurso  de  fuerza  to  the  Chancellery  of  Valla- 
dolid was  tried,  which  thrice  demanded  the  process  before  the 
bishop,  to  escape  exposure  in  a  secular  court,  allowed  the  appeal. 
Finally  the  metropolitan  annulled  the  proceedings  and  Ruiz  was 
set  at  liberty,  after  four  years'  imprisonment,  broken  in  health  and 


'  Marliani,  I,  208-17.— Koska  Vayo,  II,  48-52.— Toreno,  III,  405. 
'  Men^ndez  y  Pelayo,  III,  545. 


424  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

ruined  in  fortune.  This  action  probably  superseded  a  prosecution 
against  him  for  printing  his  speech  in  the  Cortes  against  the  Inqui- 
sition, a  prosecution  commenced  by  the  Madrid  tribunal  and  trans- 
ferred to  Valladolid/ 

It  was  at  first  thought  that  the  manifesto  of  May  4th,  by  invali- 
dating all  the  acts  of  the  Cortes,  in  itself  re-established  the  Inquisi- 
tion. In  fact,  Seville,  its  birth-place,  had  not  waited  for  this  and, 
on  May  6th,  a  popular  tumult  restored  it.  The  next  day  its  banner, 
piously  preserved  by  Don  Juan  Garcfa  de  Negra,  a  familiar,  was 
solemnly  conducted  to  the  castle  of  Triana  by  a  procession,  at 
the  head  of  which  marched  Juan  Acisla  de  Vera,  coadministrator  of 
the  diocese;  the  Te  Deum  was  sung  in  the  cathedral,  the  houses 
were  illuminated  and  splendidly  adorned  with  tapestries.^  All  this 
was  premature,  as  likewise  were  the  attempts  made  by  some  tribu- 
nals to  reorganize,  for  the  absence  of  an  inquisitor-general  and 
Suprema  rendered  irregular  the  transaction  of  business.  Repre- 
sentations were  made  to  the  king  by  Seville  and  other  towns,  by 
the  chapter  of  Valencia,  and  by  bishops,  praying  him  to  take  action, 
and  the  scruples  as  to  the  intervention  of  the  civil  power  in  spiritual 
affairs  vanished.'  Fernando  accordingly,  by  decree  of  July  21, 
1814,  recited  the  appeals  made  to  him  and  announced  that  he 
deemed  it  fitting  that  the  Holy  Office  should  resume  the  exercise 
of  its  powers,  both  the  ecclesiastical  granted  by  the  popes  and 
the  royal,  bestowed  by  his  predecessors.  In  both  of  these  the 
rules  in  force  in  1808  were  to  be  followed,  together  with  the  laws 
issued  at  sundry  times  to  restrain  abuses  and  curtail  privileges. 


'  Hervaz,  Ruiz  de  Padron  y  su  tiempo,  pp.  101-5  (Madrid,  1898). — Archive 
de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Libro  890. — His  speech  was  issued  in  Conifia  in  1813,  under 
the  title  of  "  Dictamen  del  Dr.  Antonio  Jos6  Ruiz  de  Padron  sobre  la  Inquisicion." 
Other  clerical  deputies  who  suiTered  reclusion  in  convents  were  Oliveros,  in  la 
Cabrera;  Gallego,  in  the  Cartuja  de  Jerez;  Ramos,  in  that  of  Valencia;  Arispe,  in 
that  of  Seville;  Lopez  Cepero,  in  the  Capuchins  of  Novelda;  Antonio  Larrazabal, 
wherever  the  Archbishop  of  Guatemala  might  designate,  and  Bemabeu,  in  one  not 
ascertained.  Besides  these  La  Canal  and  Jaime  Villanueva  were  recluded  for 
editing  a  periodical. — V.  de  la  Fuente,  III,  471. 

'  Amador  de  los  Rios,  III,  555. — When  the  royal  decree  of  July  21  was  received, 
August  16th,  the  cathedral  was  illuminated  and  the  bells  were  rung,  followed, 
August  23d  and  24th,  by  great  solemnities. — Relacion  histdrica  de  la  Juderia 
de  Sevilla,  pp.  46-8. 

'  Rodrigo,  III,  480. — Archivo  de  Sevilla,  Seccion  vi,  la  Escribanfa  del  Cabildo, 
Tomo  49,  n.  14. 


Chap.  I]  REORGANIZATION  425 

But,  as  other  reforms  might  be  necessary,  he  ordered  that,  as  soon 
as  the  Suprema  should  assemble,  two  of  its  members,  selected  by 
him,  and  two  of  the  Royal  Council  should  form  a  junta  to  investi- 
gate the  procedure  and  the  methods  of  censorship  and,  if  they 
should  find  anything  requiring  reform,  they  should  report  to  him 
that  he  might  do  what  was  requisite.'  Even  the  C6rtes  could' not 
assert  more  authoritative  domination. 

The  inquisitor-generalship  was  filled  by  the  appointment  of 
Francisco  Xavier  de  Mier  y  Campillo,  Bishop  of  Almerfa,  and  the 
vacancies  in  the  Suprema  were  supplied.  The  junta  of  reform 
was  organized  and  met  and  consulted.  In  1816  we  hear  of  their 
being  still  in  session,  but  we  are  told  that  they  found  nothing 
requiring  amendment.^ 

The  Suprema  lost  no  time  in  getting  to  work.  A  circular  of  Au- 
gust 8th,  to  the  tribunals,  enclosed  the  royal  decree  and  announced 
that,  in  virtue  of  it,  the  council  was  that  day  restored  to  its  author- 
ity and  functions,  which  had  been  interrupted  only  by  the  invasion 
and  the  so-called  Cortes.  The  tribunals  were  ordered  to  proceed, 
as  in  former  times,  with  all  business  that  might  offer,  and  the  offi- 
cials were  to  discharge  their  accustomed  duties,  until  the  Bishop 
of  Almeria  should  receive  his  bulls.  Lists  of  all  officials  were  to 
be  sent,  with  statements  of  their  dates  of  service,  and  of  popular 
report  as  to  their  conduct  during  the  troubles,  and  whether  they 
had  publicly  attacked  the  rights  of  the  sovereign  and  of  the  Holy 
Office.  A  process  of  "purification"  ensued,  investigating  the 
records  of  all  ofl&cials,  many  of  whom  had  bowed  to  the  tempest 
during  the  short-lived  triumph  of  Liberalism.  April  7,  1815,  a 
circular  letter  directed  that  any  one  who  had  petitioned  the  Cortes 
for  the  abolition  of  the  Inquisition,  or  had  congratulated  them  on 
their  action,  was  no  longer  to  be  regarded  as  in  office  or  entitled 
to  wear  the  insignia,  but  considerable  tenderness  was  shown  to 
the  erring.  Thus  Don  Manuel  Palomino  y  Lozano,  supernumer- 
ary secretary  of  the  Madrid  tribunal,  had  signed  an  address  of 
congratulation  to  the  C6rtes,  but  on  his  pleading  coercion  and 
fear  he  was  allowed  to  retain  office.' 

Allusion  has  already  been  made  (Vol.  II,  p.  445)  to  the  diffi- 
culties experienced  in  re-constituting  an  institution  which,  during 


'  Coleccion  de  C^dulas  de  Fernando  VII,  p.  85. 

'  Rodrigo,  III,  485. — Camicero,  La  Inquisicion  justamente  restablecida,  II,  51. 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  559;  890. 


426  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

five  years  of  war,  had  been  exposed  to  spoliation  and  destruction, 
resulting,  in  some  places,  in  the  wrecking  of  its  buildings,  the 
purloining  of  its  movables  and  the  scattering  of  its  papers.  Thus, 
for  instance,  in  September  and  October  1815,  the  Logrono  tribu- 
nal, which  had  lost  its  habitation,  was  negotiating  with  the  Marquis 
of  Monasterio  for  his  house,  which  he  offered  rent-free,  if  it  would 
keep  the  premises  in  repair  and  make  the  necessary  alterations; 
the  Suprema  instructed  it  to  secure  better  terms  if  it  could,  and 
to  be  very  economical  with  the  alterations.^  As  late  as  1817  we 
chance  to  learn  that  Santiago  and  Valladolid  had  no  prisons  and, 
in  1819,  that  Llerena  was  in  the  same  plight.^ 

The  financial  question  was  even  more  serious.  We  have  seen 
how,  under  Godoy,  the  tribunals  had  been  obliged  to  convert  all 
their  available  securities  into  Government  funds,  which  of  course 
had  become  worthless,  and  how  the  Cortes,  by  decree  of  December 
1,  1810,  had  applied  the  suppressed  prebends  to  the  conduct  of  the 
war.  It  must  therefore  have  been  well-nigh  starved  when  sup- 
pressed by  the  Cortes,  but  there  was  no  disposition  to  expose 
individuals  to  suffering  and,  when  its  property  was  declared  to 
belong  to  the  nation,  elaborate  provision  was  made  for  the  pay- 
ment of  salaries  and  the  customary  gratifications,  though  we  may 
safely  assume  that  in  the  majority  of  cases,  these  kindly  intentions 
failed  of  effect.' 

When  re-establishment  came  the  task  of  gathering  the  salvage 
from  the  wreck  of  the  past  six  years  was  most  disheartening.  The 
royal  decree  simply  called  on  the  Inquisition  to  resume  its  functions 
and  said  nothing  about  its  property,  the  restoration  of  which  was 
evidently  taken  for  granted,  under  the  manifesto  invalidating  the 
acts  of  the  Cortes.  There  was  no  disposition,  however,  on  the 
part  of  the  treasury  officials  to  do  this  and,  in  response  to  a  con- 
sulta  of  August  11th,  the  king,  on  the  18th,  issued  an  order  on 
them  to  make  over  to  the  tribunals  all  real  estate  of  every  kind 
that  had  been  absorbed  by  the  treasury,  the  account  of  rents  to 
be  made  up  to  July  21st  and  apportioned  on  that  basis.  This  left 
personal  property  out  of  consideration  and  a  further  decree  was 
procured,  September  3d,  ordering  the  restoration  of  everything 
that  had  passed  into  the  Caja  de  Consolidacion,  as  well  as  the 
fruits  of  the  suppressed  prebends,  balancing  the  accounts  up  to 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  559.  '  Ibidem,  Lib.  890. 

'  Coleccion  de  los  Decretos,  III,  220. 


Chap.  I]  FINANCIAL  TROUBLES  427 

July  21st.'  This  was  slackly  obeyed;  the  necessities  of  the  tribu- 
nals were  pressing,  and  the  Suprema  presented  consultas  of 
October  1st  and  23d  asking  that  they  should  be  allowed  to  collect 
the  revenues,  and  that  restitution  should  be  made  of  all  past  col- 
lections or,  in  default  of  this,  that  a  monthly  allowance  of  eighty 
thousand  reales  be  made  to  the  Inquisition.  To  this  Fernando 
replied  that  the  needs  of  the  royal  treasury  did  not  permit  the 
repayment  of  back  collections,  nor  could  it  meet  the  proposed 
monthly  allowance,  but  it  was  his  will  that  such  payments  as  the 
General  Treasury  and  the  Junta  del  Credito  Publico  could  spare 
should  be  made  as  a  payment  on  account  for  the  most  necessary 
expenses  of  the  Inquisition.  This  last  was  doubtless  an  empty 
promise;  the  royal  financiers  were  determined  not  to  go  back  of 
July  21st,  and  it  appears,  by  a  letter  of  December  16th,  that  the 
royal  officials  were  still  making  collections.  The  most  that  the 
Suprema  could  accomplish  was  to  procure  from  the  Junta  del 
Credito  Publico  an  order  of  January  9,  1815,  and  from  the  chief 
of  the  Treasury  one  of  January  30th,  to  their  subordinates  to  cease 
collecting  from  the  property  of  the  Inquisition,  under  the  rigid 
condition  that  an  account  should  be  kept  by  the  tribunals  of  their 
collections,  so  that  whatever  they  might  obtain  of  arrears  due  prior 
to  July  21st  should  enure  to  the  benefit  of  the  Government.^  In 
this,  however,  there  was  recognized  the  justice  of  a  claim  for  the 
unpaid  back  salaries  of  the  officials,  and  elaborate  arrangements 
were  made  to  ascertain  and  put  these  in  shape,  but  it  was  labor 
lost.  The  treasury  was  at  too  low  an  ebb,  and  the  claimants  for 
services  rendered  during  the  troubled  years  of  war  and  revolution 
were  too  numerous,  for  the  Inquisition  to  obtain  what  it  demanded. 

The  Suprema  was  also  diligent  in  seeking  to  recover  the  amounts 
which  the  tribunals  had  been  obliged  to  invest  in  Government 
securities,  but  this  was  as  fruitless  as  other  attempts  to  save  frag- 
ments of  the  wreck.  The  last  we  hear  of  it  is  in  1819,  when  the 
Suprema  was  still  endeavoring  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the 
Treasury  in  framing  lists  of  the  dates  and  numbers  of  the  bonds.' 

It  was  difficult  to  evolve  order  out  of  the  chaos  of  destruction, 
especially  where  the  papers  had  been  scattered,  so  that  evidences 
of  indebtedness  and  accounts  were  lost,  interfering  greatly  with 
efforts  to  reclaim  property.    In  November,  1814,  we  find  the 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  559. — See  Appendix. 

2  Ibidem,  Lib.  559.  "  Ibidem. 


428  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

Valencia  tribunal  issuing  an  edict  requiring  the  return  of  all  books 
and  papers  and  records  within  fifteen  days,  under  pain  of  excom- 
munication and  two  hundred  ducats;  as  to  the  furniture  and  other 
effects,  they  were  to  be  restored  under  threat  of  legal  proceedings. 
Although  Valencia  had  been  for  two  years  under  French  occupa- 
tion, it  seems  to  have  been  more  prompt  than  some  others  in  getting 
its  finances  into  intelligible  condition.  In  November  the  Suprema 
calls  upon  it  for  a  detailed  schedule  of  resources  and  expenses  and, 
in  the  latter  it  is  not  to  omit  the  contribution  required  by  the 
Suprema,  amounting  to  130,896  reales,  and  meanwhile  it  is  not  to 
pay  out  anything  for  salaries  or  other  purposes  without  awaiting 
permission.  Under  this  it  was  allowed,  January  21,  1815,  to  pay 
salaries  up  to  the  end  of  1814,  and  in  May  to  make  further  pay- 
ments. Yet  in  1816  we  find  it  reduced  to  seeking  a  loan  wherewith 
to  meet  the  salaries  and  a  sum  of  thirteen  thousand  reales  de- 
manded by  the  Suprema.^ 

The  Suprema  itself,  despite  the  contributions  which  it  sought  to 
levy  from  the  tribunals,  was  in  a  condition  of  penury  so  absolute 
that,  on  July  3,  1815,  it  announced  that  it  had  no  funds  wherewith 
to  pay  the  salaries  of  its  officials  or  the  postage  on  the  official  com- 
munications from  the  tribunals,  which  must  therefore  in  future 
arrange  with  the  Post-Office  to  prepay  the  postage  and  settle 
monthly  or  quarterly.  This,  however,  as  it  explained  August  19th, 
applied  only  to  what  was  addressed  to  it  as,  under  a  decree  of 
May  19,  1799,  letters  to  the  inquisitor-general  and  other  heads  of 
councils  were  carried  free.^ 

There  was  gradual  improvement,  but  it  was  slow.  A  carta 
acordada  of  September  3,  1818,  says  that  the  Suprema  cannot 
view  with  indifference  the  deplorable  financial  condition  of  nearly 
all  the  tribunals,  whose  diminished  revenues  force  them  to  allow 
the  meagre  salaries  of  their  officials  to  fall  into  arrears,  nor  can  it 
close  its  ears  to  the  clamors  of  these  unfortunates,  reduced  as  they 
are  to  the  deepest  indigence.  Seeking  for  partial  remedies,  it 
must  insist  on  the  avoidance  of  all  expenses  not  absolutely  indis- 
pensable, and  the  suppression  of  all  superfluous  offices.  One  of 
these  is  the  notariate  of  the  court  of  confiscations;  when  it  falls 
vacant  it  is  not  to  be  filled,  and  its  duties  are  to  be  performed  by 


'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  17,  n.  4,  fol.  9,  21,  36,  57,  85, 
88,  93. 

^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  559. 


Chap.  I]  RESUMPTION  OF  FUNCTIONS  429 

the  secretary  of  sequestrations,  whose  salary  will  consequently 
be  raised  by  fifty  ducats.  This  was  a  somewhat  exiguous  con- 
clusion of  so  solemn  an  exordium,  seeing  that  the  actual  work  of 
the  tribunals  could  readily  have  been  performed  by  less  than 
half  the  officials  who  swelled  their  pay-rolls,  but  it  is  not  without 
interest  as  showing  how  persistently  the  old  inflated  organization 
was  maintained,  and  was  struggling  to  support  itself  on  the  rem- 
nants of  its  once  prosperous  fortunes.  Under  such  a  system, 
poverty  naturally  continued  to  the  last.  When  the  Revolution  of 
1820  broke  out,  and  the  Seville  tribunal  contributed  six  thousand 
reales  to  the  committee  organized  to  resist  the  rising,  it  had  no 
funds  and  was  obliged  to  borrow  the  money  on  interest.  As 
almost  the  first  act  of  the  successful  revolutionists  was  to  suppress 
the  Inquisition,  the  lenders  in  this  case  doubtless  found  themselves 
to  be  involimtary  contributors.'  At  this  time  the  Seville  tribunal 
had  a  force  of  twenty-eight  officials,  with  a  pay-roll  of  92,300  reales, 
while  the  amount  of  its  work  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that 
the  revolutionists  found  only  three  prisoners  to  release.^ 

Thus  amid  difficulties  and  tribulations  the  tribunals  one  by  one 
resumed  their  functions.  In  October,  1814,  Seville  was  prosecuting 
Lt.  Colonel  Lorenzo  del  Castillo  for  propositions;  Saragossa  was 
receiving  the  self-denunciation  of  Mathias  Pintado,  priest  of 
Bujanuelo,  for  heregia  mista,  and  Valencia  was  suspending  the 
sumaria  of  the  Capuchin  Fray  Pablo  de  Altea  for  mala  doctrina, 
while  in  December  Murcia  was  prosecuting  Don  Josef  de  Zayas,  a 
prominent  lieutenant-general  of  the  royal  army,  for  Free-Masonry.^ 
Business,  however,  at  the  first  was  scanty.  In  the  book  of  secret 
votes  of  the  Suprema,  there  is  an  iaterval  from  December  22,  1814, 
until  February  16,  1815.  As  the  months  of  1815  passed  on,  the 
breaks  grow  shorter  and,  by  the  summer  of  1815,  the  decrees 
follow  each  other  closely.  Valladolid  seems  to  have  been  dilatory 
in  getting  to  work  for,  although  it  had  three  inquisitors  drawing 
salary,  no  case  came  up  from  it  until  January,  1817,  and,  from  this 
one  it  would  seem  that  it  had  not  been  in  operation  until  October, 
1816.* 

The  prosecution  of  such  a  man  as  Zayas  shows  that  the  reorgan- 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  559;  Lib.  435'. 
'  Relacion  de  la  Juderia  de  Sevilla,  pp.  49-51. 
'  Archive  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. 
*  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  890. 


430  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

ized  Inquisition  did  not  hesitate  to  grapple  with  those  in  high  place, 
and  another  early  case  illustrates  this  still  more  forcibly.  During 
the  French  occupation  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Sotomayor  and 
the  Countess  of  Mora  had  obtained  possession  of  the  books  and 
indecent  pictures  accumulated  in  the  Madrid  tribunal.  Apparently 
they  refused  to  surrender  them;  the  tribunal  prosecuted  them  and 
rendered  a  sentence,  subject  to  the  royal  permission,  that  these 
objects  should  be  seized,  but  in  such  a  manner  as  not  to  attract 
attention  or  to  provoke  resentment.  The  Suprema  confirmed  the 
sentence,  ordering  its  execution  by  a  single  inquisitor,  accom- 
panied by  a  secretary,  so  as  to  reconcile  the  respect  due  to  the 
parties  with  the  secrecy  that  was  essential.' 

A  politic  act  was  the  issue  of  a  general  pardon  for  all  that  had 
"impiously  and  scandalously"  been  uttered  and  done  against  the 
Inquisition  under  the  fatal  circumstances  of  the  recent  troubles.^ 
It  could  afford  to  assume  this  attitude  of  magnanimity,  seeing 
that  the  Government  was  pitilessly  avenging  it  on  its  most  promi- 
nent adversaries.  When  the  Government  failed  in  this  duty,  the 
Inquisition  had  no  hesitation  in  nullifying  its  edict  of  pardon.  We 
have  seen  its  prosecution  of  Ruiz  de  Padron,  until  it  found  that 
the  Bishop  of  Astorga  was  rendering  this  superfluous,  nor  was  this 
by  any  means  an  isolated  case.  In  August,  1815,  we  find  the 
Suprema  acting  on  sumarias  from  Canaries,  in  the  cases  of  Mariano 
Romero,  a  priest,  for  a  sonnet  against  the  Inquisition,  and  of 
Francisco  Guerra  for  a  sonnet  and  an  epitaph  of  the  same  character. 
So,  in  November,  1815,  there  is  a  prosecution  of  the  Duke  of  Par- 
que  Castrillo  for  congratulating  the  Cortes  on  the  abolition  of  the 
Inquisition  and  for  a  general  order  to  the  troops,  December  2, 1812. 
His  case  dragged  on  until  June  10,  1817,  when  its  suspension  was 
ordered.' 

Yet  it  was  not  easy  to  revive  the  old-time  veneration  for  an 
institution  that  had  been  so  buffeted  and  roughly  handled  by  the 
press  and  the  C6rtes.  A  couple  of  cases  in  Madrid,  in  1814,  of 
women  in  whose  shops  scandalous  pictures  and  objects  were 
exhibited,  would  seem  to  indicate  that  its  commands  were  not 
obeyed  with  alacrity.''  It  was  doubtless  with  a  view  of  over- 
coming this  indifference  that  Fernando  himself  assumed  the  office 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  890. 

'  Ibidem,  Sala  39,  Leg.  1473,  foL  29. 

'  Ibidem,  Lib.  890.  *  Ibidem. 


Chap.  I]  FERNANDO' S  FAVOR  431 

of  an  inquisitor,  February  3,  1815,  when  he  visited  the  Suprema, 
presided  over  its  deliberations  and  participated  in  its  decisions, 
examined  all  the  offices  and  expressed  his  royal  satisfaction  with 
the  methods  of  procedure.  By  royal  permission  the  Suprema 
sent  its  president  and  three  members  to  return  the  visit  and  express 
its  gratitude  for  a  mark  of  royal  favor  such  as  Ferdinand  the  Catho- 
lic nor  any  of  his  successors  had  ever  made.  A  full  report  was 
printed  in  the  Gaceta  of  February  16th,  copies  of  which  the  Supre- 
ma sent  to  the  tribunals  with  orders  to  read  it  to  the  officials  and 
place  it  in  the  archives.'  With  the  same  purpose,  he  erected, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  Congregation  of  San  Pedro  Martir  to  a 
knightly  Order,  with  a  habit  and  badge  and,  on  April  6th,  the 
feast  of  St.  Peter  Martyr,  he  presided  over  the  Congregation,  with 
his  brothers  Carlos  and  Antonio,  wearing  the  insignia.  In  com- 
municating this  to  the  tribunals,  the  Suprema  rendered  it  especially 
impressive  by  ordering  them  to  commence  the  payment  of  salaries 
earned  since  July  21st  and  to  continue  it  monthly.^  Noble  cour- 
tiers doubtless  found  that  assuming  office  in  the  Inquisition  was  an 
avenue  to  royal  favor,  and  we  speedily  see  many  of  them  sub- 
mitting their  genealogies  for  this  purpose.  The  great  Duke  of 
Berwick  and  Alva,  Fitzjames  Stuart  Silva  Stolberg  y  Palafox, 
thus  seeks  the  office  of  alguazil  mayor  of  the  tribunal  of  C6rdova; 
the  Marquis  of  Altamira  does  the  same  for  the  position  of  honorary 
secretary  in  that  of  Madrid,  and  we  happen  to  hear  of  the  Count 
of  Mazeda,  a  grandee  of  the  first  class,  serving  as  alguazil  mayor 
of  the  tribimal  of  Santiago,  and  the  Marquis  of  Iscar  as  honorary 
secretary  to  the  Suprema.^ 

In  spite  of  all  this,  the  Inquisition  could  not  regain  its  former 
position.  Not  only  was  it  not  respected  but  it  dared  not  to  enforce 
respect.  Two  Edicts  of  Grace  for  Free-Masons  were  issued, 
January  2d  and  February  12,  1815,  when  the  Valladolid  tribunal 
sent  those  for  Medina  del  Campo  and  its  district  to  its  commissioner 
Victor  Gonzalez  to  be  posted.  The  vicar-general  and  Ordinary, 
Doctor  Josef  Sudrez  Talavera,  as  ecclesiastical  judge,  demanded 
that  they  should  pass  through  his  hands,  and  when  they  were 
posted  they  bore  the  MS.  subscription  "Fixese,  Doctor  Sudrez," 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  659. — Rodrigo,  III,  4S9. 
'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  loc.  cit. 

'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Registro  de  Genealoglas,  n.  916,  fol  4,  12. — Inq.,  Lib. 
435^;  Lib.  659;  Leg.  1473. 


432  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

thus  assuming  that  it  was  by  his  permission,  and  arrogating  to 
himself  a  jurisdiction  superior  to  that  of  the  Inquisition.  When 
this  was  reported  to  the  tribunal  it  ordered  Gonzalez  to  take  them 
down  and  replace  them  with  unsullied  ones,  which  he  did.  There- 
upon Sudrez  sent  him  word  that,  but  for  starting  on  a  journey,  he 
would  make  him  repent  and  that,  had  he  known  of  his  being  in 
Medina  he  would  have  cast  him  in  prison  and  seen  who  could  get 
him  out.  The  tribunal  meekly  swallowed  this  flagrant  insult; 
it  was  under  instructions  to  perform  no  act  indicating  jurisdiction 
superior  to  that  of  the  Ordinaries,  so  it  quietly  gathered  evidence 
verifying  the  facts  and  sent  the  papers,  September  15th,  to  the 
Suprema.^ 

The  Inquisition  recognized  and  felt  acutely  its  altered  position. 
In  a  report  to  the  king  on  the  subject  of  visitos  de  navios,  made 
by  the  Suprema,  in  1819,  there  are  repeated  confessions  of  power- 
lessness;  the  times  are  so  unfortunate  that  its  regulations  fail  to 
effect  their  object.^  The  same  consciousness  of  weakness  is  mani- 
fest in  the  conduct  of  the  occasional  competencias  which  still 
occurred.  In  such  of  these  as  I  have  had  an  opportunity  of  exam- 
ining there  are  a  studied  courtesy  and  evident  desire  to  avoid 
giving  offence,  without  wholly  abandoning  the  claims  of  the 
Holy  Office. 

To  the  same  cause  we  may,  at  least  partially,  ascribe  the  marked 
tendency  to  mitigation  of  punishment — except  in  the  case  of  politi- 
cal offenders — and  to  avoid  all  unnecessary  hardship  and  humil- 
iation of  culprits.  When,  in  March,  1819,  the  Madrid  tribunal 
pronounced  a  severe  sentence  on  Teodoro  Bachiller,  for  propo- 
sitions, the  Suprema  moderated  it  greatly  in  every  way,  in  order, 
it  said,  to  make  him  understand  its  benignity  in  taking  care  of 
his  honor  and  of  the  comfort  of  his  family.  In  January,  1817, 
Lorenzo  Ayllon  was  tried  in  Seville  for  abusing  a  priest  while 
celebrating  mass  and  endeavoring  to  snatch  away  the  host- 
offences  for  which,  of  old,  he  could  scarce  have  escaped  the  stake, 
but  now  he  had  only  absolution  ad  cautelam,  a  reprimand,  two 
years  of  presidio  followed  by  six  years  of  exile,  and  the  Suprema 
relieved  him  of  the  vergiienza  which  had  been  included.  Even 
more  marked  was  the  case  of  Diego  BWsquez,  postmaster  of  Villa- 
nueba  de  la  Serena,  who  with  some  others  committed  the  sacrilege 
of  burying  a  dog  with  funeral  rites.  The  Llerena  tribunal  com- 
menced a  prosecution  and  sent  the  sumaria  to  the  Suprema,  which 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Leg.  1473.  '  Ibidem. 


Chap.  I]  MISGOVERNMENT  433 

contented  itself  with  ordering  a  courteous  note  to  be  addressed  to 
the  secular  and  ecclesiastical  judges,  expressing  a  hope  that  they 
would  not  permit  a  repetition  of  such  scandals/  It  would  be 
easy  to  multiply  similar  instances,  but  these  will  suffice  to  show 
how  completely,  in  dealing  with  offences  against  the  faith,  the 
spirit  of  the  Inquisition  had  been  tamed,  and  how  factitious  was 
the  claim  that  its  existence  was  essential  for  the  preservation  of 
religion,  when  there  were  over  half  a  hundred  episcopal  tribunals 
perfectly  competent  to  try  such  offences  and  perfectly  ready  to 
treat  them  with  greater  severity. 

Meanwhile  Femando's  reign  had  continued  as  it  commenced. 
Under  the  influence  of  a  camarilla  of  low-caste  and  ignoble  favor- 
ites, who  pandered  to  his  vices  and  enriched  themselves  by 
trafficking  in  offices  and  in  contracts  and  in  justice,  his  government 
was  a  compoimd  of  brutality  and  imbecility,  and  the  affairs  of 
the  nation  fell  into  complete  disorder.  All  the  abuses  that  had 
flourished  under  Godoy  were  intensified  and  coupled  with  persist- 
ent cruel  persecution  of  those  designated  as  Liberals,  who  filled 
the  gaols  through  constantly  recurring  lists  of  proscriptions.  De 
Martignac,  who,  as  royal  commissioner,  accompanied  the  Duke 
of  Angouleme  in  the  invasion  of  1823,  was  a  thoroughly  well- 
informed  and  unprejudiced  observer,  who  after  a  vigorous  de- 
scription of  the  misgovernment  of  Fernando  sums  up  by  saying 
"We  can  conceive  the  influence  of  such  a  regime  on  the  prosperity 
of  the  land,  and  yet  it  is  difficult  to  realize  the  extent  of  disorder, 
wretchedness  and  weakness  to  which  it  fell.  It  was  necessary 
to  resort  to  arbitrary  taxes,  to  exorbitant  duties  which  destroyed 
commerce,  to  loans  raised  without  credit.  It  was  impossible  to 
provide  for  the  most  pressing  necessities  of  the  State;  everything 
was  neglected  or  abandoned;  the  army  was  unpaid;  the  navy, 
destroyed  at  Trafalgar,  remained  in  ruins;  the  administration, 
destitute  of  all  means  of  action,  did  nothing  and  could  do  nothing 
to  improve  conditions,  or  even  to  preserve  what  there  was.  From 
this  arose  the  discontent  of  the  people."^  It  can  scarce  excite 
surprise  that  the  crazy  enthusiasm  of  Fernando's  welcome  in  1814 
had  evaporated.    ^ 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  890. 

^  L'Espagae  et  ses  Revolutions,  p  148 — quoted  by  Marliani,  I,  235.  See  also 
Miraflores  (Apuntes,  pp.  23,  26)  who,  as  an  aristocrat,  had  no  affiliation  with  the 
Liberals. 

VOL.  IV  28 


434  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 


The  Revolution  of  1820. 

During  this  disastrous  period,  every  year  saw  an  attempt  at 
revolution.  In  1814  it  was  tried  at  Pampeluna  by  General  Mina, 
who  escaped;  in  1815  in  Galicia  by  Porlier,  who  was  executed; 
in  1816  in  Madrid  by  Richard,  who  shared  the  same  fate;  in  1817 
in  Catalonia  by  Lacy,  who  was  shot;  in  1818  in  Valencia  by  Vidal, 
who  was  put  to  death.  Again  in  Valencia  a  plot  was  formed  to 
break  out  January  1,  1819,  but  it  was  betrayed  and  thirteen  of 
the  conspirators  were  hanged.  O'Donnell,  Count  of  la  Bisbal, 
an  able  soldier  and  unscrupulous  intriguer,  was  privy  to  this,  but 
averted  suspicion  and  was  appointed  to  command  an  expedi- 
tionary force  collecting  at  Cddiz  for  Buenos  Ayres,  against  the 
revolted  colony.  With  customary  negligence,  transports  were  not 
provided;  the  troops  lay  idle  for  months,  discontent  spread  and 
a  formidable  conspiracy  was  organized,  which  counted  on  la 
Bisbal's  support;  he  concluded  that  loyalty  was  safest  and  seized 
the  leading  plotters,  for  which  he  was  rewarded  with  the  grand 
cross  of  Carlos  III.,  but  suspicion  arose;  he  was  removed  and 
replaced  by  the  incapable  Count  of  Calderon. 

The  situation,  however,  was  growing  impossible,  and  revolution 
was  in  the  air.  A  portion  of  the  troops  were  cantoned  at  las 
Cabezas  de  San  Juan,  a  town  not  far  from  Cadiz.  There,  on 
January  1,  1820,  Rafael  de  Riego,  commander  of  the  battalion 
of  Asturias,  assembled  his  men,  made  an  inflammatory  harangue, 
and  they  all  declared  for  the  Constitution.  He  made  a  dash  for 
Arcos,  where  he  captured  Calderon  and  three  of  his  generals, 
effected  a  junction  with  the  battalions  Espana  and  Corona,  under 
Colonel  Antonio  Quiroga,  and  failed  in  an  attack  on  Cadiz.  Delay 
and  irresolution  followed,  until  January  27th,  when  Riego,  at  the 
head  of  fifteen  hundred  men,  marched  to  Algeciras,  where  he 
remained  until  February  7th.  Defeated  in  an  attempt  on  Malaga, 
he  reached  C6rdova  on  March  7th,  with  some  five  hundred  des- 
pairing followers.  No  effort  was  made  to  capture  them;  the 
garrison  and  citizens  looked  on  placidly,  while  Riego  refreshed 
his  men  and  headed  for  the  Sierra  Morena;  they  dropped  off  during 
the  march  and  he  was  left  with  fifty  followers;  so  far  as  he  was 
concerned,  the  movement  was  a  failure. 

Still,  its  preliminary  success  had  aroused  the  slumbering  ele- 
ments of  discontent.     On  February  21st  revolution  broke  out  at 


Chap.  I]  REVOLUTION  ACCOMPLISHED  435 

Corufia  and  spread  to  Ferrol  and  Vigo,  when  the  Count  of  San 
Roman  abandoned  Galicia  without  a  struggle.  Saragossa  fol- 
lowed on  March  2d,  the  captain-general  and  garrison  joining  the 
magistrates  and  people.  When  the  news  reached  Barcelona,  on 
March  10th  the  people  rose  and  sacked  the  Inquisition,  but  did 
no  injury  to  the  ofl&cials.^  Within  a  few  days  Tarragona,  Gerona 
and  Matar6  followed  the  example,  the  garrisons  participating  in 
the  movement.  In  Navarre,  Mina's  account  of  the  rising  shows 
that  there  was  prearrangement,  and  that  the  municipal  authorities 
and  military  officials  were  fully  in  accord.  When  he  reached  Pam- 
peluna  with  a  large  force,  gathered  on  his  way  from  the  border, 
he  found  that  the  revolution  had  already  been  peacefully  accom- 
plished on  March  11th.  Meanwhile  la  Bisbal,  seeing  that  the 
movement  promised  success,  spared  no  promises  to  obtain  com- 
mand of  the  forces  concentrating  in  la  Mancha  to  put  down 
Riego's  rising.  He  received  the  appointment  and,  on  reaching 
Ocana,  he  induced  the  regiment  Alejandro  to  cry  "Viva  la  Con- 
stitucion."  The  revolution  was  accomplished  and  was  bloodless, 
save  a  hideous  massacre  at  Cddiz  of  the  unarmed  multitude, 
perpetrated  in  cold  blood  by  Don  Manuel  Freyre.^ 

During  the  two  months  of  this  desultory  movement,  which 
prompt  action  could  so  readily  have  suppressed,  the  court  was 
nerveless  and  incapable.  When  the  news  came  of  the  rising  in 
Galicia,  Fernando  issued,  February  28th,  a  plaintive  appeal, 
promising  amendment.  His  terror  increased  as  evil  tidings  came 
pouring  in,  and  on  March  3d  he  published  a  decree  bewailing  the 
state  of  the  kingdom,  and  announcing  that  he  had  ordered  the 
Council  of  State  to  prepare  a  comprehensive  scheme  of  reform. 
This  was  followed,  March  6th,  by  another  calling  an  immediate 


'  Many  documents  were  gathered  in  the  streets  and  sent  to  the  United  States, 
which  have  mostly  perished  through  neglect,  but  some  which  were  secured  by 
Mr.  Andrew  Thomdike,  then  a  resident  of  Barcelona,  were  presented,  in  1840, 
to  the  American  Philosophical  Society,  through  whose  courtesy  I  have  been 
enabled  to  use  them. 

Some  cases,  from  a  similar  source  were  translated  and  printed  in  Boston,  in 
1828,  under  the  title  of  "Records  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  translated  from  the 
original  Manuscripts." 

In  Majorca  the  populace  was  more  aggressive  and  destroyed  the  palace  of  the 
Inquisition. 

'  Koska  Vayo,  II,  133-54,  170.— Miraflores,  Apuntes,  pp.  26-37;  Documentos, 
I,  73-81.— Memorias  de  Francisco  Espoz  y  Mina,  II,  255-72.— Martinez  de  la 
Rosa,  Examen  critico  de  las  Revoluciones  de  Espana,  I,  14-22, 


436  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

convocation  of  C6rtes.  It  was  too  late ;  he  found  himself  aban- 
doned by  all,  even  by  his  Royal  Guard,  which  General  Ballesteros 
reported  was  planning  to  retire  to  Buen  Retiro  and  send  a  depu- 
tation asking  him  to  swear  to  the  Constitution.  This  was  decisive 
and,  on  the  night  of  the  7th,  he  issued  another  decree  announcing 
his  intention  to  do  so.  This  was  received,  on  the  8th,  with  popular 
rejoicings,  but,  as  no  further  action  was  taken,  an  impatient  mob, 
on  the  9th,  surrounded  the  palace  with  seditious  cries  and  threats. 
The  guard  was  impassive;  Fernando  was  deserted  and  was  abso- 
lutely alone  when  the  crowd  began  to  mount  the  stairs  to  demand 
that  he  should  swear  to  the  Constitution,  but  they  were  restrained 
on  learning  that  he  had  ordered  the  reassembling  of  the  Ayun- 
tamiento  of  Madrid  as  it  had  existed  under  the  Constitution.  Its 
members  were  got  together  and  proceeded  immediately  to  the 
palace,  where  Fernando  received  them  with  warm  expressions  of 
affection ;  he  took  the  required  oath  of  his  own  free  will,  and  ordered 
Ballesteros  to  make  the  army  do  the  same.  A  general  illumination 
and  bell-ringing  for  three  nights  were  ordered,  and  the  people 
dispersed,  not,  however,  without  first  visiting  the  Inquisition, 
releasing  the  prisoners  and  scattering  the  archives.  Only  two  or 
three  prisoners  were  found  and  these  were  political.  Rodrigo 
tells  us  that  the  mob  wanted  them  to  pose  as  victims  of  persecution, 
but  they  prudently  refused,  and  a  neighboring  cobbler  was  per- 
suaded to  exhibit  himself  as  the  presiding  figure  of  the  celebration.' 
On  the  same  day,  March  9th,  Fernando  issued  a  decree  abolish- 
ing the  Inquisition.  This  bore  that,  as  its  existence  was  incom- 
patible with  the  Constitution  of  1812,  for  which  reason  it  had,  after 
mature  deliberation,  been  suppressed  by  the  Cortes,  and  in  con- 
formity with  the  opinion  of  the  Junta  this  day  established,  he 
ordered  that,  from  this  day,  the  Suprema  and  the  Inquisition  be 
suppressed  throughout  the  monarchy,  setting  at  liberty  all  prisoners 
confined  for  political  or  religious  opinions,  and  transferring,  to 
the  bishops  in  their  respective  dioceses,  their  cases  to  be  deter- 
mined in  accordance  with  the  decree  of  the  Cortes.^  This  was 
followed,  March  20th,  by  a  royal  order  providing  for  inventories 
of  all  property  pertaining  to  the  Inquisition,  and  reviving  the 
decree  of  February  22,  1813 ;  the  Bureau  of  Public  Credit  was  to 

'  Urquinaona,  La  Espafia  bajo  el  Poder  arbitrario  do  la  Congregacion  Apost61ica, 
p.  14  (Madrid,  1835). — Miraflores,  Apuntes,  pp.  40-5;  Documentos,  I,  87-91.— 
Cappa,  La  Inquisicioa  espafiola,  p.  239. — Rodrigo,  III,  495. 

'  See  Appendix, 


Chap.  I]  INQUISITION  SUPPBESSED  437 

take  possession  of  and  administer  the  property,  until  its  destination 
should  be  determined  by  the  C6rtes  shortly  to  be  assembled,  while 
the  salaries  of  officials  were  to  be  continued.  When  the  Cortes 
met,  a  decree  of  August  9th  included  this  with  other  escheated 
property,  to  be  sold  at  auction  by  the  Junta  nacional  de  Credito.^ 

During  the  slow  progress  of  the  Revolution,  the  Inquisition 
seems  to  have  been  watching  events  with  full  consciousness  of 
the  fate  in  store  for  it  if  the  movement  should  prove  successful. 
A  letter  of  January  19th,  from  the  Seville  tribunal  to  the  Suprema, 
states  that  it  had  delayed  the  arrests  of  the  Trinitarian,  Fray 
Juan  Montes,  and  of  Don  Tomas  Diaz  in  consequence,  at  first  of 
the  epidemic,  and  then  of  the  insurrection,  to  which  the  Suprema 
replied,  January  24th,  that  it  left  future  action  to  the  prudence 
of  the  tribunal.^  Considering  how  feeble  at  the  time  was  the 
demonstration  of  Riego,  this  shows  that  its  ultimate  consequences 
were  fully  apprehended.  Still  the  Inquisition  continued  at  work, 
but  the  last  case  acted  upon  by  the  Suprema  was  its  confirmation, 
February  10th,  of  a  sentence  rendered  January  28th,  by  the 
Toledo  tribunal,  on  Manuel  de  la  Peiia  Palacios,  priest  of  Ontoba. 
As  the  last  act  of  the  dreaded  Holy  Office,  after  a  career  of  three 
centuries  and  a  half,  it  has  an  interest  beyond  its  inherent  trivial 
character,  and  it  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix. 

At  least  one  liberated  prisoner  gave  expression  to  his  delight 
at  his  release.  Don  Antonio  Bernabeu,  a  priest,  had  been  a 
member  of  the  Cortes  of  Cddiz  and  had  been  arrested  with  the 
others  in  May,  1814,  but  seems  to  have  been  released  in  about  six 
months.  He  was  a  Jansenist  of  an  extreme  type  and,  in  1813,  had 
printed  a  pamphlet  to  prove  that  the  State  could  seize  all  eccles- 
iastical property  and  reduce  the  overgrown  numbers  of  the  clergy, 
putting  those  who  were  left  on  moderate  salaries.  The  tract  was 
a  terrible  indictment  of  the  Church  for  its  greed  of  accumulation, 
its  neglect  of  duty  and  its  departure  from  the  old  standards  in 
concentrating  all  power  in  the  pope,  which  he  attributed  to  the 
Isidorian  Decretals.  On  his  release  from  prison,  December  14, 
1814,  he  hastened  to  denounce  himself  for  this  to  the  Inquisition 
and  was  placed  in  reclusion.  In  1816  he  denounced  himself  a 
second  time  for  matters  at  first  omitted.  The  fiscal  presented  the 
accusation,  April  20,  1817,  rather  cleverly  drawn,  for  it  demanded 

>  Archivo  de  SeviUa,  Seccion  VII,  1820-3,  Tomo  xvii,  n.  2.— Rodrigo,  III,  495. 
— Coleccion  de  los  Decretos,  VI,  33. 
^  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  435^ 


438  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

precise  definition  of  his  opinions  on  the  wide  range  of  subjects, 
in  which  he  charged  the  Church  with  deviation  from  primitive 
times,  and  specific  proofs  of  his  somewhat  vague  declamation  as 
to  abuses.  To  satisfy  this  would  require  the  resources  of  a  large 
library  and  years  of  research,  while  Bernabeu  was  confined  in  a 
convent  and  was  denied  even  a  copy  of  his  offending  pamphlet, 
besides  being  exposed  to  all  manner  of  persecutions  by  his  fellow 
inmates.  His  trial  was  still  pending  when  the  decree  of  March  9th 
liberated  him;  he  was  promptly  returned  as  a  deputy  to  the  Cortes 
of  1820,  and  he  celebrated  his  release  by  reprinting  his  pamphlet, 
with  an  account  of  his  sufferings  and  his  answers  to  the  charges 
of  the  fiscal.^ 

It  would  carry  us  too  far  from  our  subject  to  recount  in  detail 
the  extravagancies  and  follies  with  which  the  triumphant  Liber- 
als invited  the  cruel  reaction  that  awaited  them.  Moderation, 
perhaps,  was  scarce  to  be  expected  of  men,  smarting  under  the 
persecution  of  the  last  six  years,  and  suddenly  brought  from 
fortresses  and  presidios,  or  from  exile,  to  take  charge  of  the 
Government,  and  to  frame  laws  for  the  nation.  That  they  should 
in  turn  persecute  their  persecutors  was  natural  but  impolitic; 
mutual  hatreds  were  inflamed,  and  the  land  was  divided  into 
factions  between  which  harmony  and  forbearance  became  impos- 
sible. The  long  centuries  of  despotism  and  the  repression  of 
independent  thought  and  action  had  rendered  the  people  incapable 
of  the  large  measure  of  self-government  provided  by  the  Consti- 
tution. So-called  patriotic  societies  were  rapidly  formed — de 
Lorencini,  de  San  Fernando,  la  Fontana  de  Oro,  la  Cruz  de  Malta, 
la  Landaburana  and  others — which  in  reality  were  Jacobinical 
clubs,  where  the  most  radical  measures  were  advocated,  and  the 
most  violent  means  of  effecting  them  were  urged.  An  unbridled 
press  was  busy  in  adding  fuel  to  the  flames  and  in  stimulating  the 
ardor  which  sought  to  realize  anarchical  dreams.    Masonry  had 


'  Espana  venturosa  per  la  vida  de  la  Constitucion  y  la  muerte  de  la  Inquisicion. 
Madrid,  1820. 

Of  course  pamphleteers  did  not  allow  the  opportunity  to  escape,  but  I  have 
met  with  only  two  of  their  productions — "Memorial  de  la  Santa  Inquisicion  d 
los  Sefiores  Ministros  de  Francia"  and  "Oracion  funebre  en  las  Exequias  que  se 
hicieron  &  la  difunta  Inquisicion  en  el  Templo  de  Fanatismo  de  la  Villa  de  Igno- 
rancia,  por  un  Ministro  de  la  misma."  Their  only  interest  lies  in  their  expression 
of  the  feelings  of  the  period. 


Chap.  I]  SUICIDE  OF  LIBERALISM:  439 

been  busy  in  preparing  the  revolution,  and  with  its  success  Masonry 
became  the  avenue  to  power  and  place;  its  lodges  multiplied  and 
were  rapidly  filled.  Then,  with  the  progress  of  advanced  ideas, 
Masonry  became  too  conservative  for  the  exaltados,  who  left  it 
and  established  the  Comuneros,  whose  statutes  formed  a  state  of 
revolutionary  character  within  the  State.  They  rivalled  the 
Masons  in  numbers  and  influence,  and  the  virulent  struggle  for 
supremacy  between  the  two  bodies  at  times  paralyzed  the  Govern- 
ment and  neutralized  the  forces  of  order.  The  disorderly  element 
existing  in  all  communities  was  utilized  whenever  there  was  an 
object  to  be  gained,  and  mob  rule  became  of  frequent  occurrence, 
not  only  in  Madrid  but  in  nearly  all  the  cities.  The  orders  of  the 
Government  were  obeyed  or  disregarded  as  suited  the  temper  of 
the  populace  or  of  its  instigators.  Officials  commissioned  as 
captains-general  or  governors  or  magistrates  were  admitted  or 
rejected;  orderly  administration  was  becoming  impossible,  and 
everywhere  turbulence  reigned  supreme.  Liberalism  was  com- 
mitting suicide. 

Yet  Liberalism  had  need  of  its  undivided  strength  to  maintain 
itself  against  the  opposing  forces.  Fernando,  while  playing  the 
part  of  a  constitutional  king,  was  constantly  plotting  to  throw  off 
the  yoke,  and  was  entertaining  secret  relations  with  those  who  were 
striving  to  overthrow  the  Government.  Successive  Cortes  seemed 
to  take  pleasure  in  exacerbating  the  hostihty  of  the  clergy,  whose 
influence  over  the  mass  of  the  people  was  unbounded.  Much  of 
this  legislation  was  no  doubt  salutary  in  itself  but,  at  the  moment, 
it  was  dangerous,  and  the  blows  succeeded  each  other  so  rapidly 
that  the  sufferers  might  well  regard  it  as  systematic  persecution. 
August  31,  1820,  a  law  organizing  the  national  army  exempted 
from  service  only  such  clerics  as  were  actually  in  holy  Orders. 
One  of  September  26th  subjected  all  clerics,  secular  and  regular, 
to  secular  jurisdiction  for  offences  incurring  corporal  punishment. 
Within  a  week,  another  decree  suppressed  a  large  portion  of  the 
monastic  Orders,  and  the  Mendicants  who  were  left  were  subjected 
to  the  bishops  and  consohdated  into  houses  of  not  less  than  twelve 
inmates,  and  this  was  followed  by  other  special  decrees  of  sup- 
pression. The  property  of  the  suppressed  houses  was  applied  to 
the  Credito  piiblico  and,  when  Fernando  refused  his  signature,  a 
popular  tumult  was  organized  which  frightened  him  into  acquies- 
cence. October  26th  it  was  ordered  that  dispensations  for  mar- 
riage within  prohibited  degrees  should  be  issued  without  charge 


440  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

to  those  applying  in  forma  pauperis,  thus  cutting  off  a  large  source 
of  income.  When  bands  of  insurgent  royalists  began  to  make  their 
appearance,  and  were  joined  or  led  by  priests,  the  bishops  were 
ordered,  April  20,  1821,  to  report  what  steps  they  had  taken  to 
punish  them  and,  within  eight  days,  to  issue  edicts  requiring 
their  flocks  to  obey  the  law.  Then,  on  June  29th,  without  papal 
authority,  a  contribution  of  thirty  million  reales  was  levied  on 
the  clergy  and,  on  the  same  day,  the  tithes  were  reduced  one- 
half,  while  allowing  some  compensation  in  the  removal  of  certain 
imposts.  The  clergy,  not  unnaturally,  promoted  disaffection,  and 
to  check  this,  decrees  of  November  1,  1822,  authorized  the  Govern- 
ment, at  discretion,  to  transfer  from  one  place  to  another  all  parish 
priests  and  ecclesiastics,  the  cost  of  maintenance  of  those  thus 
deported  being  thrown  upon  the  bishops.' 

In  fact,  the  irreconcileable  claims  of  State  and  Church  rendered 
hostility  inevitable.  It  was  impossible  for  the  latter  to  understand 
that,  when  it  entered  politics  and  became  a  political  factor,  it  had 
to  be  treated  like  other  political  bodies.  The  theocracy  of  the 
middle  ages  had  so  long  enjoyed  power  without  responsibility 
that  its  immunity  became  part  of  Latin  doctrine.  Elsewhere 
the  impracticability  of  this  had  been  demonstrated,  but  in  Spain 
the  Church  has  never  ceased  to  struggle  for  the  maintenance  of 
medievalism,  or  has  understood  that  sedition  in  the  pulpit  should 
not  be  treated  differently  from  sedition  in  the  tribune.  It  refused 
to  recognize  that  self-preservation  is  the  first  law  of  governments 
as  of  individuals,  and  that  they  cannot  allow  artificial  privileges 
to  work  their  destruction.  The  theory  of  the  Liberals  was  that 
external  ecclesiastical  discipline  was  subject  to  the  civil  authority, 
while  internal  discipline  was  reserved  to  the  Church.  The  Church 
asserted  that  in  all  things  it  ruled  itself,  and  that  any  secular 
interference  was  a  laying  of  profane  hands  on  the  Ark.  The  gage 
of  battle  was  virtually  thrown  by  Veremundo  Arias,  Archbishop 
of  Valencia,  who,  on  October  20,  1820,  addressed  to  the  Cortes  a 
long  manifesto,  upholding  all  the  extreme  claims  of  the  Church, 
and  denying  the  distinction  between  external  and  internal  disci- 
pline. On  November  10th  he  was  arrested  and,  on  the  24th,  was 
put  on  board  ship  and  sent  to  France.  This  was  the  commence- 
ment of  a  persecution  in  which  many  bishops  suffered.    Alvarez 


'  Coleccion  de  Decretos,  VI,  64,  141,  155,  258;  VII,  57,  60,  245,  251;  IX,  384; 
X,  16,  17,  31. 


Chap.  I]  QUARREL  WITH  THE  CHURCH  441 

de  Palma  of  Granada  was  set  aside  and  replaced  by  the  liberal 
Archpriest  Vinegas.  Uriz  y  Lafaga  of  Pampeluna  was  summoned 
to  Madrid  but,  on  the  road,  was  rescued  by  royalists  and  conveyed 
to  France.  Bias  Beltran  of  Coria  was  banished.  The  Bishop- 
elect  of  Santa  Marta  (Colombia)  received  his  sentence  of  exile  on 
his  death-bed  in  Plasencia.  Cienfuegos  of  Cddiz  had  to  fly  to 
save  his  life.  Pablo  de  Sichar  of  Barcelona  fled  and  remained 
absent  until  1823.  Renteria  y  Reyes  of  Lerida  was  carried  under 
guard  to  Barcelona,  narrowly  escaped  execution,  and  was  detained 
in  Malaga  until  1823.  Ramon  Strauch  y  Vidal  of  Vich  was  im- 
prisoned in  Barcelona,  then  sent  to  Tarragona  and  on  the  road, 
under  a  pretext,  was  made  to  descend  and  was  shot  with  his  attend- 
ant. Others  who  were  exiled  were  Jaime  Creus  of  Tarragona, 
Ceruelo  de  la  Fuente  of  Oviedo,  Rafael  de  Velez  of  Ceuta  and 
Castillon  y  Salas  of  Tarazona.'  It  is  true  that  the  worst  of  these 
acts  were  committed  by  mobs  or  irresponsible  parties  in  the 
growing  disorders  of  the  times,  but  they  remained  unrebuked  and 
unpunished. 

A  government  which  thus  treated  its  clergy  was  not  likely  to 
maintain  friendly  relations  with  the  Holy  See.  One  of  the  earliest 
measures  of  the  new  government  was  an  act  of  August  17,  1820, 
suppressing  the  Jesuits.^  Pius  VII  met  this  with  a  letter  of 
September  16th  to  Fernando,  deploring  the  perils  that  threatened 
religion  and  the  Church  and  reciting  the  obnoxious  measures 
taken,  for  which  he  had  ordered  his  nuncio  to  make  reclamation, 
but  without  effect.'  Relations  were  not  improved  when,  April  21, 
1821,  a  decree  suppressed  all  payments,  whether  in  money  or 
other  equivalent,  for  papal  bulls  for  archbishops,  bishops,  matri- 
monial dispensations  and  other  rescripts,  in  lieu  of  which  the  paltry 
annual  sum  of  9000  silver  dollars  was  offered.^  This  was  unwise 
but  still  more  so  was  the  sending  to  Rome  as  ambassador  of 
Joaquin  Lorenzo  Villanueva,  towards  the  close  of  1822,  when 
the  intervention  of  the  Holy  Alliance  was  impending.  At  Turin 
he  was  met  by  a  papal  order  forbidding  him  to  come  further  and 
asking  the  ministry  to  appoint  some  one  else.  Evaristo  San 
Miguel,  the  Secretary  of  State,  insisted;  the  papal  foreign  secretary 
replied  that  the  opinions  expressed  by  Villanueva  in  the  "Cartas 

'  H.  Briick,  Die  geheimen  Gessellschaften  in  Spanien,  pp.  233-9,  250-60. — 
V.  de  la  Fuente,  III,  477-9. 
'  Coleccion  de  los  Decretos,  VI,  43.  '  Modesto  Lafuente,  XXVII,  83. 

'  Coleccion  de  los  Decretos,  VII,  36. 


442  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

de  Don  Roque  Leal"  and  in  the  Cortes  were  such  that  the  Holy- 
See  could  never  receive  him.  To  this  the  answer  was  to  send  to 
the  nuncio  his  passports  with  orders  to  leave  Spain.  The  rupture 
with  Rome  was  complete  and,  in  the  eyes  of  pious  Spaniards,  the 
government  had  justified  the  clerical  definition  of  the  Constitution 
as  heresy.* 

The  clerical  temper  thus  stimulated  is  fairly  exhibited  in  a  little 
pamphlet  by  Padre  Miguel  Canto,  parish  priest  of  Callosa  de 
Segura,  celebrating  the  downfall  of  Constitutionalism.  He  is 
fairly  drunk  with  joy  and  consigns  the  Liberals  to  the  bottomless 
pit  for  eternity  with  vigorous  delight.  That  the  civil  power  should 
dare  to  assume  any  control  over  the  externals  of  the  Church  fills 
him  with  astonishment  and  rage,  all  the  greater  in  view  of  the 
suffering  which  it  inflicted,  especially  on  the  regulars.  Canto 
tells  us  that  the  fabric  of  his  church  had  enjoyed  a  revenue  of 
four  thousand  pesos,  and  that  it  was  reduced  to  such  poverty  that 
he  had  not  wherewith  to  provide  wafers  and  wine  for  the  sacra- 
ment, or  oil  for  the  lamps.^  Yet  the  resources  of  the  Spanish 
Church  were  such  that  it  still  had  ample  funds  for  political  uses. 
When,  in  October,  1823,  after  his  release  by  the  French,  Fernando 
travelled  from  Cddiz  to  Madrid,  he  received  in  voluntary  offerings 
from  the  chapters  of  Toledo,  Seville,  Granada,  Jaen  and  Cuenca, 
11,970,000  reales  in  silver,  although  the  land  was  in  a  condition 
of  complete  exhaustion.' 

It  is  not  difficult  to  believe  that  the  pulpit  and  the  confessional 
were  energetically  used  to  inflame  and  organize  the  disaffection 
that  rapidly  succeeded  to  the  enthusiasm  for  the  Constitution. 
The  new  administration  was  no  more  efficient  than  the  old. 
Ministries,  hampered  with  the  underhand  intrigues  of  the  king, 
perpetually  guarding  against  eager  rivals,  and  speedily  engrossed 
with  suppressing  the  armed  resistance  springing  up  on  every  hand, 
had  little  opportunity  of  rectifying  the  abuses  which  had  made 
Fernando  unpopular.     To  the  people  at  large  the  only  visible 


'■  Koska  Vayo,  III,  42.  In  the  reaction  of  1823,  Villanueva  escaped  to  England 
where,  as  Men^ndez  y  Pelayo  tells  us  (Heterodoxos,  III,  527),  under  the  pressure 
of  miseiy,  he  nearly  or  quite  embraced  Protestantism.  Puigblanch,  who  was 
also  a  refugee,  amused  himself  with  writing  violent  diatribes  against  his  fellows 
in  misfortune  and  especially  against  Villanueva,  who  retorted  in  kind.  He  died 
in  Dublin,  reconciled  to  the  Church,  March  25,  1836,  at  the  age  of  80. 

''  Canto,  El  Coloso  constitucional  derrocado  (Orihuela,  1823). 

'  Koska  Vayo,  III,  181. 


Chap.  I]  DEVELOPMENT  OF  REVOLT  443 

result  of  the  revolution  was  that  the  Liberals  in  turn  were  perse- 
cuting the  Serviles.  The  nobles,  moreover  were  alienated  by 
the  suppression  of  Mayorazgos  and  Vinculaciones,  or  entails  and 
perpetual  charges  on  lands,  a  reform  which  had  long  been  urged 
by  statesmen  such  as  Jovellanos.^  Willing  and  receptive  listeners 
to  clerical  invective  were  abundant,  and  movements  to  overthrow 
the  Government  speedily  began  taking  shape.  Before  the  year 
1820  was  out,  in  Galicia  there  was  organized  a  Junta  Apostolica 
and  in  Burgos  there  was  a  crazy  conspiracy  of  some  frailes  and  a 
general.^  Soon  wandering  bands  of  insurgents  sprang  up,  among 
whom  members  of  the  clergy  were  conspicuous,  as  though  it  was 
a  holy  war.  Suppressed  in  one  place,  they  appeared  in  another, 
waging  a  guerrilla  warfare  like  that  against  Napoleon.  The  land 
was  torn  with  faction,  and  Liberals  and  Royalists  seemed  to  emu- 
late each  other  in  contributing  to  its  ruin.  Early  in  July,  1822, 
the  royal  guards,  with  the  secret  connivance  of  the  king,  en- 
deavored to  gain  possession  of  Madrid ;  after  a  sanguinary  conflict 
in  the  streets  they  were  defeated,  when  Fernando,  from  a  balcony 
of  his  palace,  stimulated  the  nationals  in  pursuit  of  the  flying 
wretches.  Civil  broils  are  apt  to  be  pitiless,  but  in  Spain  they 
assumed  a  ferocity  not  often  witnessed  elsewhere.  If  the  Royalists 
in  Catalonia  massacred  in  cold  blood  the  garrison  of  the  Seo  de 
Urgel,  a  Liberal  noyade  in  Coruna  despatched  fifty-one  political 
prisoners,  many  of  them  ecclesiastics  and  persons  of  distinction.' 
The  revolt  was  constantly  assuming  proportions  more  alarming, 
especially  in  Catalonia,  where  it  had  the  almost  unanimous  support 
of  the  peasantry.  The  insurrectionary  bands  coalesced  into  a 
force  of  five  thousand  men  styling  itself  the  Army  of  the  Faith 
which,  on  June  21,  1822,  captured  the  Seo  de  Urgel  and  made 
it  their  stronghold.  There,  on  August  15th,  was  organized  a 
royalist  Regency,  composed  of  Creus,  the  exiled  Archbishop  of 
Tarragona,  the  Baron  of  Eroles,  a  soldier  of  some  reputation,  and 
the  Marquis  of  Mataflorida.  The  Counter-revolution  thus  adopted 
a  public  and  official  character;  the  Regency  assumed  to  speak 
for  the  king,  held  in  durance  by  the  Jacobins — in  fact,  as  early  as 
June  1st  he  had  authorized  Mataflorida  to  organize  it,  and  was 
in  constant  communication  with  it,  through  one  of  the  officials 
of  the  court.     It  obtained  quasi-recognition  abroad ;  it  negotiated 


'  Coleccion  de  los  Decretos,  VI,  145;  VII,  4,  92,  105. 

'  Miraflores,  Apuntes,  p.  65.  '  Koska  Vayo,  II,  317;  III,  121. 


444  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

a  loan  of  8,000,000  with  the  Parisian  capitalist  Ouvrard  and,  with 
the  support  of  Pius  VII,  it  opened  negotiations  with  Austria  and 
Russia,  offering  surrenders  of  territory  in  exchange  for  aid.' 

Spain  was  rapidly  drifting  into  anarchy.  The  Government  was 
too  weak  to  suppress  disorder,  whether  committed  by  friends  or 
foes.  Compromise  between  the  factions  was  not  to  be  hoped  for, 
and  even  patriots  could  see  that  the  only  path  to  order  lay  through 
intervention  from  abroad.  That  this  was  impending  became  more 
and  more  evident.  The  example  of  Spain  had  been  followed  by 
Naples  and  Portugal,  and  then  by  Piedmont,  in  forcing  on  their 
sovereigns  constitutions  like  that  of  1812;  the  Holy  Alliance  took 
the  alarm ;  the  Congresses  of  Troppau  in  1820  and  of  Laybach  in 
1821  ordered  armed  intervention,  and  the  new  institutions  of 
Naples  and  Piedmont  were  readily  overthrown.  In  May,  1821, 
communications  from  Russia  to  Spain,  and  a  Russian  circular  to 
the  courts  of  Europe,  openly  expressed  dissatisfaction  at  the  success 
of  armed  rebellion,  with  scarcely  veiled  threats  of  action  in  case 
the  C6rtes  should  prove  disobedient  to  the  monarch;  and  the  con- 
flict with  the  royal  guard,  in  July  1822,  gave  the  foreign  ministers 
in  Madrid  a  pretext  for  warnings  which  were  diplomatically  veiled 
threats  of  intervention.^  Preparations  for  it  were  already  on  foot 
in  France.  An  epidemic  of  yellow  fever  in  Barcelona  served  as 
an  excuse  for  establishing  a  cordon  sanitaire  on  the  border,  grad- 
ually strengthened  until  it  became  an  army  of  observation  and  in 
reality  a  support  for  the  Catalan  insurgents,  as  Mina  found  when 
he  conducted  a  successful  campaign  which  in  the  beginning  of  1823 
forced  the  Regency  to  take  refuge  in  France.' 

The  Congress  of  Verona  met  in  the  autumn  of  1822.  The  Urgel 
Regency  sent  there  the  Count  de  Espana  as  its  representative  to 
urge  that  Spain  should  be  restored  to  the  condition  prior  to  March 
9,  1820;  the  Government  sent  no  envoy,  relying  on  the  friendly 
aid  of  England,  represented  by  the  Duke  of  Wellington.  Without 
his  knowledge  the  Allied  Powers  signed,  on  November  22d,  a 
secret  treaty,  in  which  they  declared  against  the  sovereignty  of 
the  people,  representative  government  and  the  freedom  of  the 
press,  and  in  favor  of  the  clergy  as  an  instrument  for  enforcing 
the  passive  obedience  of  the  subject;  and  each  signatory  pledged 


'  Miraflores,  Documentos,  II,  76,  79. — Koska  Vayo,  III,  8. 
'  Miraflores,  Documentos,  I,  214-25;  II,  15. 
'  Mina,  Memorias,  III,  16,  111-13,  159,  169. 


Chap.  I]        INTERVENTION  OF  THE  HOLY  ALLIANCE  445 

itself  to  a  subsidy  of  twenty  millions  of  francs  annually  to  France, 
to  which  was  assigned  the  duty  of  suppressing  these  destructive 
principles  in  Spain  and  Portugal,  and  of  restoring,  the  Peninsula 
to  the  conditions  prior  to  1820/  Even  yet  intervention  was  not 
certain,  for  France  was  not  eager  for  the  task,  and  there  were  some 
negotiations  looking  to  modifications  of  the  Constitution,  but  the 
Liberals  would  not  listen  to  such  suggestions.  Chateaubriand, 
however,  that  curious  compound  of  idealism,  bombast  and  vanity, 
who,  as  French  foreign  minister  and  representative  at  Verona, 
takes  to  himself  all  the  credit  for  the  enterprise,  is  especially  careful 
to  point  out  that  its  real  object  was  the  restoration  of  France  to 
the  hegemony  of  the  Continent,  after  the  abasement  of  the  Restora- 
tion by  foreign  bayonets — an  object  which  he  assumes  was  fully 
accomplished.^ 

Early  in  January,  1823,  four  notes  from  the  Allies  were  presented 
collectively,  offering,  in  more  or  less  offensive  fashion,  the  alter- 
native of  a  return  to  absolutism  or  invasion.^  These  portentous 
communications  were  received  with  the  utmost  nonchalance.  On 
the  night  of  their  reception.  Secretary  of  State  San  Miguel  carried 
them  to  the  Grand  Orient  and  drew  up  his  replies,  in  which  Fer- 
nando is  said  to  have  cunningly  stimulated  defiance  to  banded 
Europe.  Whatever  might  be  the  decision  of  France,  San  Miguel 
said,  Spain  would  tranquilly  follow  the  path  of  duty  and  justice; 
its  rule  of  conduct  would  be  firm  adhesion  to  the  Constitution  of 
1812  and  refusal  to  recognize  the  right  of  intervention  on  any 
side.* 

These  would  be  dignified  and  resolute  words  in  a  united  nation 
facing  a  coalition  but,  under  the  circumstances,  they  were  mere 
idle  vaporing.  The  Government,  in  fact,  was  barely  able  to 
make  head  against  the  insurrection,  save  in  Catalonia.  Navarre, 
Biscay  and  Aragon  were  in  open  civil  war,  with  forces  equally 
balanced.  In  Murcia,  the  famous  robber  Jaime  Alfonso  was 
posing  as  the  defender  of  the  faith;  in  Castile,  the  Cura  Merino  and 
el  Rojo  de  Valderas  were  levying  war;  in  Andalusia,  Zaldivar 
held  his  own  in  spite  of  repeated  defeats;  in  Toledo  and  Cuenca, 
Joaquincillo  and  the  Cura  Atanasio  were  maintaining  the  rebellion; 

'  Miraflores,  Documentos,  II,  32-99. 

^  Ibidem,  11,  1 14-72.— Koska  Vayo,  II,  317;  III,  8.— Mina,  Memorias,  III, 
88-9. — Chateaubriand,  El  Congreso  de  Verona,  Traducela  Cayetano  Cort6s,  II, 
379-80,  384. 

^  Miraflores,  Documentos,  II,  172^,  177-80.  *  Ibidem,  pp.  174-6. 


446  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

in  Sigiienza  the  insurrection  of  Cuesta  was  organizing  and  was  soon 
to  break  out.     In  short,  the  whole  of  Spain  was  in  convulsion.^ 

The  only  explanation  of  the  attitude  of  the  Liberals  is  that  they 
were  living  in  a  fool's  paradise,  and  seem  to  have  welcomed  inter- 
vention in  the  belief  that  it  would  kindle  national  feeling  and 
restore  national  unity.  Hallucination  was  carried  to  the  point 
that  they  anticipated  a  popular  rising  like  that  of  1808,  that  the 
forty  thousand  insurgents  in  arms  would  turn  against  the  invader, 
even  that  the  French  troops  would  abandon  their  standards  for 
those  of  Spain,  and  that  England,  which  had  calmly  seen  the 
Constitution  overthrown  in  1814,  would  provoke  a  war  with  all 
Europe  in  its  defence.  They  closed  their  eyes  to  the  fact  that,  in 
1808,  the  clergy  aroused  the  masses  against  the  French  and  were 
now  their  warmest  allies,  eager  to  revenge  systematic  persecution; 
that  the  throne  was  secretly  undermining  them,  and  that  they  were 
without  resources,  for  the  treasury  was  exhausted,  the  army 
scarce  existed  save  on  paper,  the  magazines  were  empty,  and  the 
party  in  power  was  rent  into  bitterly  opposing  factions.  A  kmd 
of  delirium  seized  the  deputies  when  San  Miguel  on  January  9th 
laid  the  correspondence  before  the  Cortes,  and  his  replies  were 
clamorously  approved  without  distinction  of  party .^ 

Yet  this  effervescence  soon  subsided.  A  decisive  victory 
gained  by  the  insurgents  at  Brihuega,  not  far  from  Madrid,  on 
January  24th,  threw  the  capital  into  a  tremor  and,  on  February 
16th,  the  Cortes  adopted  a  decree  looking  to  the  transfer  of  the 
Government  in  case  of  necessity.'  New  Cortes  opened  their 
sessions  March  1st  and  their  first  thought  was  to  place  themselves 
in  safety,  carrying  with  them  Fernando,  both  as  a  hostage  and  as 
necessary  to  the  assumption  that  the  government  of  Spain  travel- 
led with  them.  Resistance  on  his  part  postponed  the  move  until 
March  20th,  when  the  exodus  to  Seville  took  place  There  they 
remained  until  June,  when  the  approach  of  the  French  necessi- 
tated a  further  flight  and,  on  the  9th,  Cddiz  was  selected  as  the 
place  of  refuge.  This  time  Fernando  resolutely  refused  to  fly 
from  his  liberators  and,  as  coercion  of  the  monarch  was  incom- 
patible with  the  theory  that  he  was  still  governing,  it  was  assumed 
that  he  was  incapacitated  by  reason  of  a  temporary  delirium; 
he  was  deposed  and  a  Regency  was  appointed  which  ordered 


'  Miraflores,  Apuntes,  p.  163.  '  Ibidem,  pp.  172-5. 

'  Coleccion  de  los  Decretos,  X,  162. 


Chap.  I]  THE  FRENCH  INVASION  447 

the  transfer  to  Cddiz;  on  the  12th  the  king  and  royal  family  left 
Seville;  the  C6rtes  adjourned  to  meet  in  Cddiz  June  18th;  in  four 
days  Fernando  was  declared  to  be  again  in  his  right  mind  and 
the  Regency  resigned.  The  spectacle  of  a  flying  Government 
dragging  with  it  a  captive  king,  whom  it  recognized  as  still  actively 
reigning,  was  worse  than  ludicrous;  it  gave  to  Fernando  a  claim 
on  the  sympathy  which  he  had  forfeited,  and  served  as  an  incentive 
and  an  excuse  for  cruel  reprisals.' 

Meanwhile  the  army  of  invasion  had  been  gathering  on  the 
border  under  the  Duke  of  Angouleme,  nephew  of  Louis  '^^^"^'i 
From  Bayonne,  on  April  2d,  he  issued  a  manifesto  to  the  effect 
that  he  did  not  come  to  make  war  but  to  liberate  a  captive  king, 
to  restore  the  Altar  and  the  Throne,  to  release  the  priesthood  from 
exile,  and  the  whole  people  from  a  domination  that  was  preparing 
the  destruction  of  Spain.  On  April  7th  the  army  crossed  the  Bidas- 
soa,  consisting  of  91,000  men,  of  whom  35,000  were  Spanish  royal- 
ists. Its  discipline  was  perfect  and  its  conduct  admirable.  Every- 
where it  was  received  as  a  liberator,  with  cries  of  "Viva  el  Rey 
absoluto,  Viva  la  Religion  y  la  Inquisicion."  Resistance  was 
impossible  and,  although  five  armies  had  been  organized,  none 
worthy  of  mention  was  attempted,  except  in  Catalonia,  where  the 
mdomitable  Mina  prolonged  the  useless  struggle  until  November, 
and  at  Cadiz,  where  the  so-called  Government  was  battling  for 
existence.  Siege  was  laid  there  on  June  23d,  and  was  prolonged 
until  October  1st,  when  Fernando  was  ceremoniously  conveyed 
to  the  camp  of  his  French  deliverers.  Yet,  if  rhetoric  could  have 
repelled  the  invaders,  they  would  have  been  glad  to  escape  from 
the  eloquence  which  accompanied  a  solemn  declaration  of  war 
on  April  29th,  when  Florez  Calderon  boasted  that  the  breasts  of 
the  deputies  would  make  an  impenetrable  rampart  around  the 
constitutional  King  and  his  family.^ 

If  the  French  came  as  pacifiers,  they  made  a  mistake  in  bringing 
with  them  a  Junta  Provisional  of  four  rabid  royalists,  formally 
installed  at  Ozarzun,  April  9th.  It  assumed  to  be  the  Govern- 
ment and  issued  a  manifesto  rescinding  all  the  acts  of  the  Revo- 
lution and  restoring  the  conditions  prior  to  March  7,  1820.'    It 

'  Miraflores,  Apimtes,  pp.  185, 215;  Documentos,  11, 284-94. — Koska  Vayo,  III, 
72,  101-12. 

'  Miraflores,  Documentos,  II,  240,  244;  Apuntes,  pp.  189,  191,  194. — Koska 
Vayo,  III,  74. 

'  Miraflores,  Documentos,  II,  242. 


448  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

used  its  authority  in  such  unsparing  proscriptions  that  even  the 
royalists  became  alarmed  and  appealed  to  de  Martignac,  the  royal 
commissioner  accompanying  Angouleme,  pointing  out  the  evils  to 
be  apprehended  from  such  ferocity.  Quarrels  within  the  Junta 
afforded  an  excuse  for  superseding  it,  and  Angouleme,  on  reaching 
Madrid,  empowered  the  Councils  of  Castile  and  Indias  to  nominate 
a  Regency,  at  the  head  of  which  was  the  Duke  del  Infantado. 
This  body,  on  June  4th,  published  a  manifesto  promising  to  use 
its  power  to  prevent  persecutions  and  excesses,  to  maintain  inter- 
nal peace,  execute  the  laws  and  make  the  royal  power  respected.' 

These  were  fair  words,  belied  by  acts.  The  whole  arrangement 
had  been  dictated  by  secret  instructions  from  Fernando,  and 
proscription  and  persecution  continued  as  active  as  ever.  The 
Regency  confirmed  a  measure  of  the  Junta  organizing  bodies  of 
so-called  Royalist  Volunteers,  whose  duties  consisted  in  arresting 
and  imprisoning  all  whom  greed  or  malevolence  might  designate 
as  objects  of  suspicion,  in  which  work  they  were  aided  by  the 
mob,  always  ready  for  violence  and  rapine.  In  Saragossa  fifteen 
hundred  persons  were  dragged  to  prison  by  the  populace  led  by 
priests  and  frailes.  In  Navarre,  the  guerrilla  chief  known  as  el 
Trapense  committed  revolting  excesses.  In  Madrid  and  Cordova 
the  gaols  were  crowded  with  prisoners.  This  work  went  on  in 
most  of  the  towns,  as  the  national  forces  retreated,  the  victims 
being  mostly  citizens  of  wealth  and  position,  while  the  pulpits 
resounded  with  exhortations  to  persecution  and  extermination 
and  the  French  troops,  in  so  far  as  they  could,  restrained  the 
outrages.^ 

Despite  his  reluctance  to  interfere,  Angouleme  felt  called  upon 
to  put  an  end  to  the  cruelty  and  impolicy  of  these  persecutions 
and,  on  his  way  to  Cddiz,  he  issued  from  Andujar,  August  8th,  a 
decree  forbidding  arrests  by  the  Spanish  authorities  without 
authorization  from  the  commandants  of  the  troops  of  the  districts, 
who  were  instructed  to  liberate  all  political  prisoners,  and  to 
arrest  those  who  contravened  these  orders,  while  all  periodicals 
were  subjected  to  the  inspection  of  the  commandants.  The 
foreign  ministers,  however,  protested  against  this  as  an  invasion 
of  Spanish  independence,  which  emboldened  the  Regency  to 
remonstrate  in  a  haughty  and  insolent  manner.    The  Royahst 


'  Miraflores,  Documentos,  II,  247-70. 

'  Koska  Vayo,  III,  97-8.— Miraflores,  Apuntes,  pp.  219-21. 


Chap.  I]  RELEASE  OF  FERNANDO  449 

Volunteers  of  Navarre,  in  a  manifesto  of  August  20th,  were  prodi- 
gal of  insults  and  menaces  to  the  duke;  a  memorial  addressed  to 
him,  August  23d,  signed  by  Eguia  and  a  large  number  of  military 
chiefs  and  priests,  stigmatized  his  effort  at  pacification  as  an 
attempt  to  perpetuate  an  impious  faction,  and  demanded  the  res- 
toration of  the  Inquisition.  Wherever  there  were  no  French  troops 
the  decree  was  ignored  and  finally  Angouleme,  whether  instructed 
by  his  court  or  afraid  openly  to  oppose  the  Regency,  issued  an 
explanatory  order,  which  virtually  annulled  the  decree.  Evi- 
dently there  was  to  be  no  peace  for  the  distracted  land.'  Even 
the  Regency  felt  it  necessary  to  disclaim  responsibility  for  the 
horrors  enacting  on  every  hand.  August  10th,  it  ordered  the 
prosecution  of  the  rioters  who,  at  Alcaki,  Guadalajara  and  Torre- 
jon  had  committed  terrible  excesses  under  pretext  of  avenging 
the  transfer  of  the  king  to  C^diz  and,  on  August  13th,  it  commanded 
the  people  to  restrain  their  zeal  in  making  arrests  but,  while  it 
was  powerful  to  excite  passion  it  was  powerless  to  enforce  order.^ 
When,  in  view  of  the  hopelessness  of  further  resistance  at  Cddiz, 
Fernando  was  informed,  September  28th,  that  he  was  at  liberty 
to  seek  the  French  camp,  a  tumult  arose  and  a  demand  for  guaran- 
tees. He  summoned  the  ministers,  telling  them  that  he  desired 
to  give  assurances  and  ordering  Jos^  Maria  Calatrava  to  draw 
up  a  decree  declaring  of  his  own  free  will  and,  on  the  faith  of  his 
royal  word,  that  he  would  adopt  a  form  of  government  assuring 
the  happiness  of  the  nation,  the  personal  security,  the  property 
and  the  civil  liberty  of  Spaniards,  with  complete  oblivion  of  the 
past.  The  amnesty  was  rendered  complete  with  elaborate  details 
and,  when  it  was  presented  to  him  for  signature  on  the  30th,  he 
said  that,  to  remove  all  doubts,  he  would  make  some  changes 
with  his  own  hand,  which  he  accordingly  did,  rendering  some  of 
the  clauses  clearer  and  more  emphatic'  When,  on  the  next  day, 
he  was  received  by  AngoulSme,  he  shut  himself  up  with  the  Duke 
del  Infantado  and  Victor  Damien  Saez,  his  former  confessor,  whom 
he  appointed  universal  minister  and,  before  the  colloquy  was  over, 
there  was  drawn  up  and  signed  a  decree  of  two  articles;  the  first 
declared  null  and  void  all  acts  since  March  7,  1820;  the  second 


'  Miraflores,  Apuntes,  pp.  221-4;  Documentos,  11,  294-6.— Koska  Vayo,  III, 
442. 

'  Koska  Vayo,  III,  128. 

'  Ibidem,  III,  126-154.— Miraflores,  Apuntes,  pp.  234-44;  Documentos,  II, 
316-38. 

VOL.  IV  29 


450  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

confirmed  the  proscriptions  of  the  Junta  of  Ozarzun  and  the 
Regency.  Printed  copies  of  this,  together  with  that  of  the  day 
before,  were  circulated  to  the  no  small  perplexity  of  all  concerned. 
Then  General  Bourmont,  the  French  commander,  learned  that 
Ferdinand  had  passed  secret  sentence  of  death  on  some  prominent 
liberals  there  present,  whereupon  they  were  conveyed  on  naval 
vessels  to  Gibraltar  and  saved  from  his  sanguinary  vengeance. 
This  was  but  a  foretaste  of  the  wrath  to  come.*  Proscriptive 
and  oppressive  measures  followed  each  other  and  the  persecution 
inaugurated  by  the  Regency  was  sharpened  and  systematized. 


Ten  Years  of  Reaction. 

The  French  had  already  discovered  that  they  had  raised  a 
demon  whom  they  could  not  exorcise.  They  had  restored  uncon- 
ditionally to  absolute  power  a  prince  who  was  utterly  faithless, 
whom  no  promises  could  bind,  who  cared  only  for  the  gratification 
of  his  passions,  and  who  was  surrounded  by  vindictive  counsellors, 
eager  for  the  blood  and  spoils  of  their  countrymen.  The  prisons 
were  crowded  to  repletion  and  the  untamed  ferocity  of  the  mul- 
titude, stimulated  by  the  pulpit,  was  let  loose  upon  defenceless 
victims.  It  was  a  scandal  in  the  face  of  all  Europe  and  was  felt 
acutely.  Effort  was  made  to  repair  the  mischief,  but  with  scant 
success.  Fernando,  on  leaving  C^diz,  had  written  to  Louis  XVIII, 
expressing  his  gratitude,  and  Louis  seized  the  opportunity,  in  his 
reply,  to  impress  on  him  his  own  example  and  that  of  their  ancestor 
Henry  IV,  as  the  only  means  of  bringing  peace  to  a  distracted  land, 
warning  him  that  a  blind  despotism  weakened  instead  of  strength- 
ening royal  power.  Angouleme  had  manifested  his  disappro- 
bation of  the  decree  of  October  1st,  and  a  coolness  arose  between 
him  and  Fernando,  which  went  on  increasing.  They  parted, 
October  11th,  Angouleme  refusing  all  honors  on  his  homeward 
journey,  and  leaving  Bourmont  in  command.  The  French  army 
was  gradually  reduced,  but  the  last  detachments  did  not  leave 
Spain  until  November,  1827. 

Secure  in  this  protection,  Fernando  was  deaf  to  remonstrances. 
It  is  true  that,  when  the  ambassadors  of  the  powers  met  him  in 
Seville,  under  their  pressure,  he  issued  a  decree,  October  22d, 


Koska  Vayo,  III,  159-64. 


Chap.  I]  CHATEAUBRIAND'S  FAILURE  451 

holding  out  expectations  of  what  he  would  do  on  reaching  Madrid, 
but  promises  cost  him  nothing  and  these  were  as  futile  as  those  of 
September  30th.  To  emphasize  the  necessity  of  conciliation,  the 
French  cabinet  prevailed  upon  the  Russian  ambassador,  Pozzo 
di  Borgo,  to  visit  Madrid,  in  the  name  of  the  Holy  Alliance.  He 
arrived  there  October  28th  and  held  long  conferences  Avith  Fer- 
nando and  Victor  Saez,  urging  clemency  and  a  general  amnesty, 
but  he  met,  in  reply,  with  nothing  but  vague  generaUzations.^ 

If  the  welfare  of  a  nation  had  not  been  at  stake,  the  reflections 
of  Chateaubriand  on  the  success  of  his  enterprise,  and  his  corre- 
spondence with  Talaru,  the  French  ambassador,  might  well  raise 
a  smile.  He  was  disgusted,  he  said,  with  having  to  do  with  a 
monarch  who  would  burn  his  kingdom  in  a  cigar,  and  he  declared 
that  the  sovereigns  of  today  seem  specially  created  to  destroy  a 
society  ready  to  perish.  In  Spain,  the  political  sore  is  the  king  and 
it  is  almost  impossible  to  apply  a  remedy.  At  first  he  assumed 
that  he  could  dictate  a  policy,  and  asserted  that  he  would  not 
tolerate  the  follies  of  the  king  nor  allow  France  to  appear  as  an 
accomplice  in  stupidity  and  fanaticism.  Talaru  was  to  speak  as 
a  master;  if  the  ministry  was  not  to  his  mind,  he  was  to  have 
it  changed,  the  threatened  withdrawal  of  the  troops  being  what 
would  force  Fernando  to  listen  to  reason.  He  soon  found,  how- 
ever, that  behind  the  ministry  was  the  camarilla — the  real  power 
that  could  not  be  dislodged — and  that  the  clergy  was  also  a  body 
to  be  reckoned  with.  Chateaubriand's  effervescence  wore  itself 
out  against  the  impenetrability  to  reason  and  argument  of  Fer- 
nando and  his  advisers,  and  his  demands  shrank  to  asking  for 
a  decree  of  amnesty — it  would  be  badly  framed,  he  knew,  but  at 
least  it  would  have  the  appearance  of  doing  something.  After 
months  of  urgency,  at  last  Fernando  agreed  to  it.  A  fairly  liberal 
scheme  was  drawn  up  but,  after  it  had  been  submitted  to  the 
revision  of  the  friends  of  Don  Carlos,  of  the  bishops,  of  the  secret 
Junta  de  Estado  and  of  the  Council  of  Castile,  its  framers  could 
scarce  recognize  it.  While  it  offered  pardon  to  all  participants 
in  the  disturbances  since  1820  in  support  of  the  Constitution, 
there  were  fifteen  excepted  classes,  some  of  them  vague  and  com- 
prehensive. It  ordered  the  discharge  of  all  prisoners  not  comprised 
within  the  exceptions,  but  this  was  not  obeyed.  It  ordered  the 
bishops  to  contribute  to  bring  about  union,  but  few  of  them  did  so. 


Koska  Vayo,  III,  175,  184. 


452  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

It  was  dated  May  1,  1824,  but  was  not  published  until  the  20th, 
and  the  interval  was  employed  all  over  Spain  in  gathering  evi- 
dence to  bring  individuals  under  the  excepted  classes,  so  that  they 
could  be  arrested  simultaneously  with  the  publication  of  the  decree; 
the  prisons  were  filled  with  new  victims,  and  the  courts  were  over- 
whelmed with  prosecutions.  The  courts,  moreover,  were  supple- 
mented with  military  commissions,  whose  procedure  was  informal 
and  summary.  The  Gaceta  de  Madrid,  between  August  24th  and 
October  12,  1824,  chronicled  112  executions  by  shooting  or  hang- 
ing. Whatever  scanty  favor  was  shown  to  Liberals  in  the  decree 
was  more  than  counterbalanced  by  another  of  July  1st,  granting 
pardon  for  all  assaults  and  injuries  committed  on  them  or  their 
property  except  when  murder  had  resulted.'  The  Royalist 
Volunteers  thus  had  fuU  licence,  and  the  Liberals  were  virtually 
outlawed. 

Proscription  and  persecution  were  systematized  in  a  manner 
without  precedent,  by  the  compilation  of  lists  of  all  suspects. 
During  the  constitutional  period,  Fernando  had  kept  a  Libro 
Verde,  noting  down  the  names  of  all  who  displeased  him,  thus 
marking  them  for  future  vengeance.  On  his  restoration  to  power, 
a  secret  Junta  de  Estado,  consisting  chiefly  of  ecclesiastics,  was 
formed,  whose  business  it  was  to  gather  information  against  all 
who  were  opposed  to  absolutism.  Denunciations  were  invited 
from  priests  and  frailes,  from  enemies  and  from  the  lowest  class 
of  informers,  to  whom  inviolable  secrecy  was  promised,  and  all 
the  scandal  and  false  evidence  thus  accumulated  was  recorded 
opposite  the  name  of  the  party,  for  use  as  occasion  might  require. 
The  list  was  divided  into  districts,  and  copies  were  sent  to  the 
respective  intendants  of  police,  who  contributed  such  further 
names  and  charges  as  they  could  gather  from  all  sources  however 
vile.  Thus  every  man's  liberty  and  property  were  at  the  mercy 
of  secret  and  irresponsible  informers.  It  was  a  Libro  Verde  on  a 
scale  which  the  Inquisition  itself  had  never  imagined,  and  the 
system  was  more  thorough  and  more  dangerous  to  the  innocent 
than  that  of  the  Inquisition.^  Such  was  the  condition  of  Spain 
during  the  terrible  ten  years,  from  1823  to  1833,  known  as  the 


'  El  Congreso  de  Verona,  II,  234,  265,  268,  302,  307,  311,  317,  319,  322,  324, 
339,  342.— Martinez  de  la  Rosa,  I,  372,  392,  394,  408.— Koska  Vayo,  III,  319. 

'  Koska  Vayo,  III,  185. — Miraflores,  Apuntes,  p.  224;  Documentos,  II,  296.— 
Urquinaona,  p.  195. 


Chap.  I]  DEMANDS  FOR  THE  INQUISITION  453 

Epocha  de  Chaperon— Chaperon  being  the  president  of  the  military 
commission  of  Madrid  and  notorious  for  his  cruelty. 

One  result  of  this  is  well  set  forth  in  a  singularly  outspoken 
representation  addressed  by  Javier  de  Burgos  to  Fernando,  Jan- 
uary 24,  1826.  He  had  been  sent  to  Paris  to  negotiate  a  loan,  and 
he  ascribes  his  failure,  not  so  much  to  the  poverty  of  the  land,  as 
to  the  absence  of  peace  essential  to  prosperity,  and  this  arose  from 
the  successive  proscriptions  which  had  desolated  Spain.  Now, 
he  says,  simple  police  orders  deprive  of  common  rights  whole 
classes,  and  subject  them  to  penalties  which  in  well-ordered 
countries  can  be  inflicted  only  by  tribunals.  Much  is  said  of 
the  league  of  European  bankers  against  Spanish  credit,  but  this 
has  only  been  made  invincible  by  the  efforts  of  the  six  or  eight 
thousand  proscribed  exiles  in  England,  France  and  Belgium.  A 
few  days  ago  the  journal  which  represents  commerce  and  industry 
said  "As  for  Spain,  it  continues  to  fall  rapidly  into  barbarism. 
It  is  a  second  Turkey,  only  more  miserable  and  worse  governed." 
Mexico,  Colombia,  Peru  and  Chile  obtain  loans,  even  though 
their  independence  is  not  recognized,  but  Spain  cannot  get  a 
maravedi.'  It  is  creditable  to  Fernando  that  he  took  this  plain- 
speaking  good-naturedly  and  subsequently  gave  the  writer  the 
cross  of  Carlos  III,  but  he  v/as  impervious  to  the  good  advice. 

The  decrees  of  the  Regency  and  of  Fernando,  restoring  the 
conditions  prior  to  March  7, 1820,  and  invalidating  all  subsequent 
acts,  seemed  necessarily  to  revive  the  Inquisition.  Its  officials, 
however,  hesitated  to  resume  their  functions  without  positive 
orders,  and  it  was  known  that  the  French  were  opposed  to  its 
restoration.  Numerous  petitions  for  it  were  made  to  Angouleme, 
but  he  evaded  categorical  replies,  saying  that  he  would  procure 
the  liberation  of  the  king  and  leave  him  to  determine  what  would 
best  promote  the  happiness  of  the  nation.^  After  Fernando's 
release,  fehcitations  came  pouring  in,  warmly  thanking  him  for 
his  prescriptive  measures  and  among  these  were  many  urging 


'  Javier  de  Burgos,  Afiales  del  Reinado  de  Da  Isabel  11,  I,  46  (Madrid,  1850). 

A  characteristic  freak  of  Fernando  was  the  establishment  in  Seville  of  a  school 
of  buU-fighting,  with  Don  Pedro  Ramiro  at  its  head,  on  a  salary  of  12,000  reales. 
When  Burgos  became  minister  of  Fomento,  under  Isabel  II,  he  had  the  satisfac- 
tion of  suppressing  this. 

'  Rodrigo,  III,  497.— Mirafiores,  Dooumentos,  II,  299. — Barrantes,  Aparato 
para  la  Historia  de  Extremadura,  III,  43. 


454  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

that  the  Inquisition  should  be  set  to  work.  If,  at  the  moment,  he 
desired  to  meet  these  wishes,  he  was  restrained  by  the  earnest 
opposition  of  the  AUies,  who  especially  shrank  from  the  responsi- 
bility of  resuscitating  an  institution  so  universally  abhorred.  As 
Chateaubriand  wrote  to  Talaru,  December  1st,  "We  will  not 
permit  our  victories  to  be  dishonored  by  proscriptions  or  that  the 
fires  of  the  Inquisition  be  raised  as  altars  to  our  triumphs"  and, 
on  December  11th,  he  declared  it  to  be  necessary  that  the  royal 
confessor  should  not  be  an  inquisitor.' 

Fernando,  however,  seems  already  to  have  questioned  whether 
the  Inquisition  would  really  be  of  service  to  him  politically  and,  as 
religion  with  him  was  merely  a  matter  of  policy,  he  preferred  to 
let  the  question  slumber,  without  committing  himself.  It  is  related 
that  once,  when  a  bishop  of  extreme  views  was  urging  upon  him 
the  utility  which  the  Inquisition  had  always  been  to  the  crown, 
he  walked  across  the  room  to  a  balcony  and,  looking  up  at  the 
serene  sky,  exclaimed  "What  a  cloud!  a  great  storm  is  coming."^ 
His  intentions,  however,  were  indirectly  manifested,  by  a  decree 
of  January  1,  1824,  which  withdrew  from  the  Credito  publico 
the  administration  of  the  property  of  the  Inquisition  and  placed 
it  with  the  Colector-general  de  Espolios,  who  was  charged  to  pay 
the  salaries  of  all  the  officials  of  the  tribunals.'  This  indicated 
that  there  was  no  intention  to  restore  the  institution  to  activity, 
and  to  this  Fernando  adhered,  notwithstanding  the  urgency  which 
continued. 

In  fact,  as  the  reaction  established  itself,  Fernando  could  not 
but  recognize  that  he  had  nothing  to  gain  from  the  Inquisition 
and  might  risk  something.  His  one  object  was  unlimited  absolut- 
ism. Circumstances  had  enabled  him  to  attain  this  to  a  degree 
which  none  of  his  predecessors  had  enjoyed.  The  defeat  of  the 
Liberals  was  so  complete,  and  the  servility  of  the  Royalists  so 
great,  that  he  could  disregard  whatever  remnants  of  the  old 
Spanish  institutions  had  still  placed  some  restraints  on  the  crown. 
There  was  no  secret  made  of  this.  A  royal  order  of  October  17, 
1824,  destroyed  at  a  blow  all  the  municipal  self-government  of 
Spain ;  the  Ayuntamientos  of  the  towns  were  no  longer  to  be  elect- 
ive; those  in  office  were  to  choose  their  successors  in  thirds  at  a 
time,  and  the  appointees  were  subjected  to  revision  by  the  royal 


»  El  Congreso  de  Verona,  II,  283,  302. 

'  Koska  Vayo,  III,  206.  »  Rodrigo,  III,  498. 


Chap.  I]  TSE  INQUISITION  DORMANT  455 

Audiencias  while,  in  the  preamble,  the  object  of  this  was  openly- 
stated  to  be  that  there  should  disappear  for  ever  from  Spanish 
soil  the  most  remote  idea  that  sovereignty  resided  elsewhere  than 
in  the  royal  person,  and  the  people  should  Imow  that  not  the 
slightest  alteration  would  ever  be  made  in  the  fimdamental  laws 
of  the  monarchy/ 

The  only  claim  of  the  Inquisition  to  efficiency,  greater  than  that 
of  the  police  and  royal  tribunals,  was  in  its  delegated  faculties 
from  the  pope  and,  to  a  monarch  thus  resolved  to  concentrate  in 
his  own  hands  all  power,  it  was  naturally  distasteful  to  employ 
for  political  ends  foreign  authority  which,  nominally  at  least, 
was  not  under  his  own  control.  This  objection  he  might  have 
disregarded,  if  he  had  reason  to  expect  from  the  Inquisition  any 
special  service,  but  such  there  was  not.  While  there  still  was 
law  in  Spain  the  Inquisition  might  be  useful  as  being  above  the 
law,  but  now  that  law  was  merely  the  sic  volo,  sic  jubeo,  the  Inqui- 
sition was  superfluous,  while  its  secret  procedure  was  more  tardy 
and  cumbrous — perhaps  even  less  certain — than  that  of  the 
military  commissions;  and  the  system  described  above  of  lists  of 
suspects  with  evidence  gathered  from  every  source  by  thousands 
of  informers  was  far  more  comprehensive  in  plan  and  in  detail 
than  anything  that  the  inquisitorial  organization  had  ever 
attempted. 

The  Inquisition  thus  had  nothing  to  offer  and,  careless  as  was 
Fernando  of  the  public  opinion  of  Europe,  even  he  could  recognize 
the  wisdom  of  avoiding  the  odium  of  re-establishing  an  institu- 
tion so  generally  condemned.  To  the  victims  it  made  little  dif- 
ference whether  their  judges  were  called  military  commissioners 
or  inquisitors;  their  offences  were  justiciable  by  either,  for  the 
pulpits  resounded  with  the  doctrine  that  all  Constitutionalists 
and  Liberals  were  Jansenists  and  heretics — a  doctrine  justified 
by  a  royal  order  of  May  2,  1824,  to  the  bishops,  requiring  them  to 
celebrate,  in  their  dioceses.  Missions  calling  the  Liberals  to  re- 
pentance.^ 

Yet  there  was  a  lurking  Jansenism  in  this  tacit  assumption  that 
the  regalias  enabled  the  king  to  prolong  at  his  pleasure  that  sup- 
pression of  the  Holy  Office  which,  in  1813,  had  been  proved  by 
learned  theologians  to  be  in  violation  of  the  canons  and  of  the 


'  Martfnez  de  la  Rosa,  I,  422.— Koska  Vayo,  III,  241. 
»  Koska  Vayo,  III,  222. 


456  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

authority  of  the  Holy  See.  The  clerical  party  was  restless  and 
dissatisfied,  the  more  so  because,  as  Fernando's  theory  of  govern- 
ment was  to  render  his  own  power  secure  by  promoting  discord 
among  his  followers,  he  occasionally  favored  the  moderate  Royal- 
ists against  the  extremists.  The  latter  were  not  content  even  with 
the  prevailing  cruel  persecution,  and  longed  for  one  more  searching 
with  the  Inquisition  as  its  instrument.  The  secret  organization 
known  as  the  Junta  Apostdlica,  or  Angel  Exterminador,  had  cast 
its  eyes  upon  Don  Carlos  as  a  leader  who  could  realize  their 
aspirations,  for  he  was  completely  under  priestly  influence  and 
belonged  to  the  extreme  faction,  besides  being  heir  presumptive 
in  the  probable  case  of  Fernando  dying  without  issue.  Carlos, 
however,  though  not  a  man  of  strong  character,  was  strictly 
honorable  and  was  bound  to  Fernando  with  ties  of  a  mutual  affec- 
tion which  endured  to  the  end.  He  was  quite  content  to  await 
the  chances  of  succession,  but  his  wife  Francisca  of  Portugal  and 
her  sister  the  Princess  of  Beira,  widow  of  the  Infante  Pedro,  were 
ambitious.  His  apartments  in  the  royal  palace  were  the  centre 
of  intrigues,  in  which  he  did  not  personally  participate,  while 
Fernando  who,  through  his  spies,  was  kept  informed  of  them, 
did  not  interfere,  confiding  in  his  brother's  loyalty  and  his  own 
ability  to  crush  attempts  against  himself. 

In  1824  and  1825  there  were  movements  and  risings  of  the 
extremists  in  various  provinces,  which  indicated  concerted  action 
and  were  suppressed  with  more  or  less  facility,  except  in  Catalonia. 
There  the  hidden  leaders  of  the  conspiracy  found  a  population 
discontented  with  what  they  deemed  the  lukewarmness  of  the 
Government,  which  they  were  told  was  now  controlled  by  Free- 
Masons.  The  old  members  of  the  Army  of  the  Faith,  moreover, 
deemed  themselves  insufficiently  rewarded  for  their  services,  and 
organized  under  the  name  of  Agraviados,  forming  the  nucleus  of 
a  "Federacion  de  Realistas  puros,"  more  royalist  than  the  king. 
Towards  the  end  of  1826  there  was  circulated  a  manifesto  from 
the  Federation  urging  the  necessity  of  placing  Don  Carlos  on  the 
throne;  its  organization  rapidly  extended,  and  April  1,  1827,  was 
appointed  for  the  rising,  which  was  readily  suppressed  and  a  free 
pardon  was  granted  to  the  insurgents.  The  pacification  was  but 
temporary.  In  July,  at  Manresa,  a  Junta  superior  was  formed, 
and  in  August  the  tolling  of  the  bells  summoned  the  somatenes 
or  levies  en  masse  to  arms,  when  a  portion  of  the  troops  joined 
the  insurrection,  which  was  soon  supreme  in  Catalonia.    A  report 


Chap.  I]  RISING  IN  CATALONIA  467 

made,  August  27th,  by  Dehesa,  fiscal  of  the  court  of  Barcelona, 
states  that  the  war-cry  of  the  insurgents  was  "Long  live  the 
Inquisition!  Death  to  the  Constitution!  Death  to  the  negros! 
Death  to  the  police !"  They  were  told  that  the  rising  was  by  order 
of  the  pope  and  that  the  king  was  surrounded  by  Free-Masons; 
it  was  supposed  to  be  the  work  of  the  clergy,  who  desired  the 
re-establishment  of  the  Inquisition,  and  to  make  themselves  all- 
powerful  by  working  on  the  fanaticism  of  the  ignorant  moun- 
taineers/ 

That  the  situation  was  becoming  dangerous  is  .manifested  by 
the  only  kingly  act  in  Fernando's  record,  for  he  resolved  to 
visit  Catalonia  himself,  after  sending  the  Count  de  Espana  there 
with  full  powers.  He  reached  Tarragona  September  28th,  being 
received  everywhere  with  enthusiasm,  though  there  was  an 
abortive  project  of  abducting  him  by  a  large  body  of  Royalist 
Volunteers  assembled  as  though  to  do  him  honor.  From  Tarra- 
gona he  issued  a  proclamation  to  the  effect  that  those  who  should 
not  lay  down  their  arms  within  twenty-four  hours  must  expect 
no  mercy,  and  that  he  would  deal  with  their  leaders  as  he  saw  fit. 
The  secret  societies  had  already  issued  orders  of  pacification; 
organized  resistance  was  abandoned,  nine  of  the  chiefs  were 
hanged  and  the  land  was  speedily  at  peace.  Carlos  took  no  part 
in  the  rising,  but  he  knew  of  the  plans  and  had  not  opposed  them, 
and  the  name  of  Carlists  was  thereafter  used  to  designate  the 
extreme  royalists.^ 

It  is  significant  that,  when  Fernando  ordered  the  bishops  to 
exhort  their  subjects  to  peace,  some  of  them  obeyed,  but  Pablo 
de  Jesus  de  Corcuera  y  Caserta,  the  prelate  of  Vich,  refused  in  a 
letter  of  October  6th,  on  the  ground  that  he  could  not  consci- 
entiously do  so.  Fernando,  he  said,  had  not  kept  his  promises; 
he  had  assembled  a  junta  to  examine  all  books  in  circulation,  yet 
poisonous  ones,  like  that  of  Thomas  a  Kempis,  were  allowed  to 
be  read;  he  had  ordered  the  restoration  of  everything  to  the  con- 
ditions prior  to  March  7,  1820,  yet  the  Inquisition  had  not  been 
re-established;  other  royal  short-comings  were  pointed  out  and, 
in  the  face  of  all  this  it  was  impossible  for  a  bishop  not  to  take 
part  in  temporal  matters;  to  preach  obedience  as  required  would  be 
to  compromise  the  episcopate  and  to  become  the  instrument  of 

'  Modesto  Lafuente,  XXVIII,  453-63;  XXIX,  393-5.— Urquinaona,  pp.  141-2. 
'  Modesto  Lafuente,  XXVIII,  465-71;  XXIX,  7-13.— Koska  Vayo,  III,  305, 
311. 


468  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

the  enemies  of  God,  nor  would  it  avail  anything,  for  it  would  be 
impossible  to  make  the  people  think  otherwise.  These  outspoken 
sentiments  of  the  fiery  bishop  explain  much  that  is  saddest  in 
modern  Spanish  history ;  he  was  not  punished  for  them  but,  when 
the  Count  de  Espafia  came  to  Vich  he  summoned  the  recalcitrant 
prelate  before  him  and  reminded  him  of  the  fate  of  Acuna  of 
Zamora,  which  might  be  repeated  if  it  so  pleased  the  Catholic 
king/ 

After  this  there  was  no  further  demand  for  the  restoration  of 
the  Inquisition,  as  Fernando's  determination  was  recognized  as 
unalterable.  For  awhile  however  it  had  not  accepted  its  sup- 
pression as  final,  and  it  still  sought  to  perform  some  of  its  functions 
in  hopes  of  being  again  revived.  This  is  demonstrated  by  the 
Valencia  register,  laboriously  and  faithfully  compiled  and  brought 
up  to  the  end  of  1824,  and  the  same  seems  to  have  been  done  in 
Madrid  for,  in  a  document  of  1817,  there  is  an  appended  note 
referring  to  the  Madrid  register  of  January  31,  1824.  As  the  sal- 
aries were  continued,  an  organization  was  kept  up  and  a  show  was 
made  of  performing  some  kind  of  work.  The  Valencia  register  thus 
contains  several  cases  in  which  it  acted  in  1824,  though  it  modestly 
styles  itself  "este  tribunal  eclesiastico"  and  not  "Santo  Oficio." 
Thus  Valero  Andreu  was  accused  to  it  of  a  blasphemous  propo- 
sition and  was  duly  sentenced.  The  criminal  court  of  Valencia 
regarded  it  as  still  functioning  and,  when  in  trials  there  came  evi- 
dence of  matters  cognizable  by  the  Inquisition,  the  proofs  would 
be  sent  to  the  tribunal  which  would  summon  the  offender  and 
pass  judgement  on  him,  the  penalty  however  being  not  more  than 
a  reprimand.  Three  cases  of  this  kind  are  recorded,  the  latest 
being  July  3,  1824.^  We  may  fairly  assume  that  in  some,  at  least, 
of  the  other  tribunals,  trivial  work  of  this  kind  was  similarly 
performed. 

Some  papers  connected  with  a  quarrel  between  the  officials  of 
the  Majorca  tribunal  give  us  an  insight  into  its  internal  condition 
in  1830.  Its  business  consisted  in  the  collection  of  the  censos 
and  other  sources  of  revenue.  There  were  many  of  these — loans 
to  towns  and  villages  as  well  as  to  individuals  throughout  the 
islands;  payments  were  apt  to  be  tardy  and  the  labor  of  collection 


'  Urquinaona,  p.  143. — Modesto  Lafuente,  XXVIII,  475. 
'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  100. — Archivo  de  Simancas, 
Inq.,  Lib.  890. 


Chap.  I]  REMNANTS  OF  THE  INQUISITION  459 

was  considerable,  frequently  involving  legal  proceedings.  The 
inquisitor  had  disappeared,  although  from  another  document 
we  learn  that  he  was  named  Francisco  Antonio  Andraca  and  that 
he  was  drawing  his  salary  elsewhere.  The  existing  head  of  the 
tribunal  was  a  juez  subdelegado,  a  representative  of  the  old  juez 
de  bienes;  there  was  a  treasury  and  an  auditing  department  with 
an  administrador  tesorero,  Juan  Antonio  Togores,  who  was  dis- 
abled and  represented  by  his  son,  Jos6  Antonio  Togores.  The 
secretary  of  the  secreto  was  Bartolom6  Serra  y  Bennassar,  acting 
as  auditor  ad  interim,  whose  clerk  was  Pedro  Mascaro,  notary  of 
sequestrations.  The  only  other  official  was  the  portero,  Sebastian 
Banza.  Togores  claims  that,  when  the  buildings  were  destroyed 
in  1820,  he  incurred  many  enmities  by  efforts  to  compel  restitution 
of  plundered  materials — among  others  a  Count  of  Ayamans  was 
sued  for  purloining  building  stone.  Togores  constructed  a  wall 
around  the  site,  and  the  heaps  of  stone  and  tiles  still  lay  scattered 
there.  Outside  of  the  enclosure,  a  couple  of  small  buildings  were 
erected  for  offices,  with  a  warehouse  below  for  the  storage  of 
the  rescued  materials.  One  of  the  charges  against  him  was  that 
he  had  used  the  site  of  the  old  garden  of  the  senior  inquisitor  to 
raise  vegetables  and  flowers  for  himself.*  There  is  impressiveness 
in  this  glimpse  of  the  old  officials  clinging  to  the  ruins  of  what  had 
once  been  so  formidable. 

From  this  quarrel  we  learn  that  the  central  authority  of  the 
Inquisition  was  the  General  Superintendent  of  the  Property  of 
the  Inquisition — apparently  a  subordinate  of  the  Colector-general 
de  Espolios,  to  whom  the  assets  were  confided  by  the  decree  of 
January  1,  1824.  In  1830  this  General  Superintendent  was  an 
old  inquisitor,  Valentin  Zorilla,  and  he  had  as  fiscal  another 
inquisitor,  Vicente  Alonso  de  Verdejo.  The  Inquisitor-general, 
Geronimo  Cavillon  y  Salas,  Bishop  of  Tarazona,  was  still  drawing 
his  salary  of  71,491  reales  24  mrs.  and  did  not  die  until  1835. 
Of  the  Suprema  there  were  but  two  survivors,  the  Dean  Ethenard 
and  Cristobal  Bencomo,  Archbishop  of  Heraclea,  who  by  1833 
had  disappeared,  leaving  Ethenard  alone.  There  was  still  a 
relator,  a  private  secretary  of  the  inquisitor-general,  a  keeper  of 
the  archives,  and  four  minor  officials.  All  these,  however,  were 
mere  pensioners.  The  active  organization  consisted  of  the  super- 
mtendent  and  his  fiscal,  with  a  treasurer  and  receiver-general 


Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Leg.  463,  Hacienda  xvi. 


460  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

ad  interim,  Don  Angel  Abad,   whose  accounts  for  1830  show 
that  he  had  received  by  drafts  drawn  upon  the  several  tribunals 


From  Valencia    . 

.      .     35,000  rs. 

From  Santiago    .     . 

.     .     52,000 

Cdrdova    . 

.      .     26,000 

Murcia 

.     60,000 

Barcelona 

.      .     28,000 

Majorca     . 

.     50,000 

Granada   . 

.      .     60,000 

Saragossa  . 

.     84,000 

America    . 

.     .     93,417.17 

Canaries    . 

.   112,635.17 

Logroiio,  Madrid,  Cuenca  and  Llerena  apparently  contributed 
nothing.  The  sums  credited  to  America  and  Canaries  were 
probably  old  balances.  The  receipts  from  prebends  must  have 
gone  directly  to  the  Superintendent,  for  the  decree  of  final  ex- 
tinction in  1834  shows  that  they  were  still  held  for  the  benefit  of 
the  Inquisition.  There  were  other  sources  of  revenue,  principally 
from  censos,  of  which  the  most  notable  was  one  of  the  Count  of 
Altamira,  from  whom  was  collected,  in  1830,  the  sum  of  272,335 
reales  25  mrs.,  being  arrearages  that  seem  to  run  back  to  1818. 
He  was  still  hereditary  alguazil  mayor  of  the  Seville  tribunal, 
in  which  capacity  he  was  receiving  a  yearly  salary  of  4411  reales 
26  mrs.  The  Duke  of  Medinaceli,  as  alguazil  mayor  of  the  Madrid 
tribunal,  was  still  drawing  his  yearly  stipend  of  a  thousand  reales 
and  personally  signing  monthly  receipts.  There  are  scattering 
entries  of  payments  to  officials  of  various  tribunals,  showing  that 
they  were  gradually  thinning  out,  and  refugees  from  the  American 
Inquisitions  were  kept  on  the  pay-roll.*  Such  was  the  moribund 
condition  of  the  Holy  Office  on  the  eve  of  its  extinction. 

While  the  Inquisition  was  thus  suspended,  the  more  zealous 
bishops  replaced  it  with  so-called  Juntas  de  fe,  based  on  the  same 
principles,  with  secrecy  of  procedure  and  exercising  jurisdiction 
in  the  external  as  well  as  internal  forum.  No  record  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  these  anomalous  tribunals  seems  to  have  been  pre- 
served except  in  the  case  of  Valencia,  where  the  archbishopric 
was  held  by  Simon  L6pez,  in  reward  for  his  defence  of  the  Holy 
Office  in  the  Cortes  of  Cadiz.  Almost  his  earliest  act  on  assuming 
his  new  dignity,  in  1824,  was  to  issue  a  pastoral  confirming  the 
junta  de  fe,  established  by  his  predecessor  Veremundo  Arias,  and 
empowering  it  to  receive  denunciations.  He  took  the  presidency 
with  Dr.  Miguel  Toranza,  the  former  inquisitor  of  Valencia  as  his 
colleague,  Dr.  Juan  Bautista  Falco  as  fiscal  and  Dr.  Jos4  Royo 
as  secretary.^ 

•  Archivo  hist,  naeional.  Leg.  6462.  '  Koska  Vayo,  III,  207. 


Chap.  1]  JUNTAS  DE  FE  461 

Thus  the  old  tribunal  was  revived  under  another  name,  and  it 
speedily  proved  that  such  juntas  were  more  dangerous  than  those 
of  the  Inquisition,  as  they  were  not  subject  to  the  supervision  and 
control  of  the  Suprema.  A  poor  schoolmaster  of  Rizaffa,  named 
Cayetano  RipoU,  had  served  in  the  War  of  Liberation  and  had 
been  carried  as  a  prisoner  to  France,  where  he  became  a  pervert. 
He  abandoned  Christianity  for  Deism,  while  at  the  same  time  he 
was  a  living  embodiment  of  the  teachings  of  Christ,  sharing  his 
scanty  pittance  with  the  needy,  and  constantly  repeating  "Do 
not  unto  others  what  you  would  not  have  done  unto  you."  He 
did  not  seek  to  propagate  his  beliefs,  but  he  was  denounced  to 
the  Junta  by  a  beata  for  not  taking  his  scholars  to  mass,  for  not 
making  them  kneel  to  the  passing  viaticum,  and  for  substituting 
in  his  school  the  ejaculation  "Praise  be  to  God"  instead  of  "Ave 
Maria  purissima."  He  was  arrested  September  29,  1824,  and 
his  trial  lasted  for  nearly  two  years.  The  testimony  confirmed 
the  denunciation  and  showed  that  the  only  religious  instruction 
which  he  gave  his  pupils  was  the  Ten  Commandments.  During 
his  prolonged  trial  he  made  no  complaints;  he  shared  his  meagre 
prison  fare  with  his  fellow-prisoners;  he  openly  avowed  his  con- 
victions, and  the  repeated  efforts  of  the  theologians  to  convert 
him  were  futile.  The  sentence  bore  that  the  tribunal  had  consulted 
with  the  Junta  de  Fe  and  concluded  that  he  be  relaxed,  as  a  formal 
and  contumacious  heretic,  which  had  been  confirmed  by  the 
archbishop.  There  was  no  hypocritical  plea  for  mercy,  and  the 
Sala  del  Crimen  of  the  Audiencia,  to  which  he  was  handed  over, 
gave  him  no  hearing  or  opportunity  for  defence.  Its  function 
was  purely  ministerial,  and  he  knew  nothing  of  its  action  until 
the  sentence  was  announced  to  him  that,  within  twenty-four 
hours,  he  was  to  be  hanged  and  burnt,  but  the  burning  might  be 
figurative  by  painting  flames  on  a  barrel,  in  which  his  body  should 
be  thrust  into  unconsecrated  ground.  He  listened  to  this  with  the 
patient  resignation  that  he  had  exhibited  throughout  his  trial, 
and  his  last  words  on  the  gibbet,  July  26,  1826,  were  "  I  die  recon- 
ciled to  God  and  man."' 

This  barbarity  scandalized  all  Europe  and  proved  to  be  the  last 
execution  for  heresy  in  Spain.  While  it  gratified  the  zealots, 
who  were  clamoring  for  the  resurrection  of  the  Inquisition,  it 


•  Modesto  Lafuente,  XXIV,  346.— Men^ndez  y  Pelayo,  III,  524.— Vicente  de  la 
Fuente,  III,  482. 


462  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

displeased  Fernando,  who  caused  the  Audiencia  to  be  notified  that 
the  Government  recognized  no  such  tribunals  as  the  juntas  de  fe.' 
In  spite  of  this  rebuke,  the  episcopal  juntas  continued  to  exercise 
an  irregular  and  irresponsible  jurisdiction,  until  the  sufferers  sought 
from  the  Holy  See  the  protection  denied  to  them  at  home.  Pius 
VIII  listened  to  their  prayer,  whether  from  motives  of  humanity 
or  of  establishing  in  Spain  the  jurisdiction  which  the  Inquisition 
had  sought  so  sedulously  to  exclude,  and,  in  a  constitution  of 
October  5,  1829,  he  recited  the  numerous  prayers  reaching  him 
from  those  persecuted  in  Spain  for  matters  of  faith,  asking  that 
they  might  have  opportunity  of  appealing  from  sentences  rendered 
by  archbishops  and  bishops,  before  being  subjected  to  punish- 
ment. To  save  them  from  the  expenses  and  delays  of  appeals 
to  Rome,  he  empowered  the  tribunal  of  the  Rota,  in  the  papal 
nunciature,  to  hear  all  appeals  in  matters  of  faith,  even  twice, 
thrice,  four  or  five  times  in  succession,  until  three  concordmg 
sentences  should  be  rendered.^  Fernando  was  less  sensitive  than 
his  predecessors  as  to  papal  encroachments,  and  he  gave  this  the 
force  of  law  by  a  royal  order  of  February  6,  1830. 


Cristina. 

The  death  of  Queen  Amalia,  May  17,  1829,  was  an  abundant 
source  of  intrigue,  for  a  fourth  marriage  of  Fernando  might  prove 
fruitful  and  thus  destroy  the  prospects  of  Don  Carlos.  The  efforts 
of  the  Carlists  to  prevent  it  were  vain  and,  on  December  9th,  Fer- 
nando married  his  neice,  the  Neapolitan  princess,  Maria  Cristina 
de  Bourbon,  whose  sister  Carlotta  was  the  wife  of  the  Infante 
Francisco  de  Paula,  the  second  brother  of  Fernando.  There  was 
soon  prospect  of  an  heir  to  the  throne,  and  the  uncertainty  as  to 
sex  rendered  it  advisable  to  determine  in  advance  whether  the 
Salic  law  excluding  females  from  the  succession  was  in  force  or 
not.  The  ancient  Spanish  law,  as  expressed  in  the  Partidas, 
provided  for  the  succession  of  a  daughter  in  the  absence  of  sons 
or  of  children  of  a  son.'  Under  this,  Spain  had  seen  the  glorious 
reign  of  Isabella  the  Catholic  and  the  unfortunate  one  of  Juana 


'  Modesto  Lafuente,  loc.  cit. — V.  de  la  Fuente,  loc.  cit. 
^  Pii  PP.  VIII  Const.  Cogitationes  nostras,  5  Oct.  1829  (Bullar.  Roman.  Contin., 
IX,  76). 
^  Partidas,  P.  ii,  Tit.  xv,  ley  2. 


Chap.  I]  QUESTION  OF  SUCCESSION  463 

la  Loca,  and  female  succession,  in  default  of  male  children,  was 
firmly  established  in  the  tradition  of  the  nation  until  1713,  when 
Maria  Luisa  of  Savoy  persuaded  her  husband  Philip  V  to  effect 
a  change.  Much  pressure  was  required  to  bring  this  about,  but 
a  pragmdtica,  agreed  to  by  the  Cortes,  provided  that  only  in  the 
event  of  the  total  default  of  male  representatives  should  the 
daughters  of  the  last  reigning  sovereign  succeed,  according  to  age, 
and  all  laws  to  the  contrary  were  annulled.* 

In  1784  there  was  talk  of  revoking  this  pragmdtica,  but  it  was 
postponed  until  after  the  accession  of  Carlos  IV,  when  the  Cortes 
of  1789  petitioned  for  the  revival  of  the  law  of  the  Partidas.  The 
king  assented  but,  to  avoid  giving  offence  to  reigning  houses  whose 
possible  claims  to  the  succession  were  thus  cut  off,  it  was  kept 
a  profound  secret,  although  filed  away  in  the  archives.^  This  was 
the  position  when  Fernando,  to  assure  the  succession  to  a  possible 
daughter,  by  a  pragmdtica  of  March  29,  1830,  ordered  that  of 
1789  to  be  published  and  commanded  the  literal  observance  of 
the  law  of  the  Partidas.'  The  proceedings  of  1789  were  freely 
denounced  as  fraudulent  by  the  Carlists;  they  were  confident  in 
the  support  of  two  hundred  thousand  Royalist  Volunteers,  and 
they  regarded  the  new  pragmdtica  as  a  reason  for  more  energetic 
organization. 

In  due  time,  on  October  10th,  a  girl  was  born,  known  to  history 
as  Isabel  II.  Carlos  believed  that  his  rights  had  been  sacrificed 
and,  though  he  refused  to  snatch  at  the  sceptre  during  his  brother's 
life-time,  he  assured  his  partizans  that  he  would  not  permit  his 
neice  to  mount  the  throne.  Fernando's  health  was  rapidly  giving 
way  under  repeated  attacks  of  gout  and,  on  September  17,  1832, 
his  life  was  despaired  of.  The  prospect  was  most  critical.  Propo- 
sitions were  made  to  Carlos  about  sharing  the  government,  but  he 
declared  that  conscience  and  honor  would  not  permit  him  to 
abandon  rights  given  to  him  at  his  birth  by  God.  In  the  per- 
plexity of  the  situation,  Calomarde,  who  for  ten  years  had  been  the 
king's  most  trusted  minister,  represented  to  Cristina  the  terrors  of 
the  inevitable  civil  war,  and  the  dangers  to  herself  and  her  children, 
for   she   had  recently  given  birth  to  a  second  daughter,   Maria 


'  Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  v,  Tit.  vii,  Auto  5. 

'  Andres  Muriel,  Hist,  de  Carlos  IV  (Mem.  hist,  espanol,  XXIX,  14-29). 
'  Juan  Pdrez  de  Guzman  (Revista  de  Archives,  April,  1904,  p.  267). — Modesto 
Lafuente,  XXIX,  51. 


464  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

Luisa  Fernanda.  She  yielded,  Fernando  assented  and  signed  a 
paper  annulling  the  pragmdtica  of  1830,  which  was  read  to  the 
assembled  ministers  on  the  night  of  September  18th,  under  the 
strictest  injunctions  of  secrecy,  but  it  was  treacherously  divulged, 
and  copies  were  posted  about  the  court.  Cristina's  servants 
commenced  packing  her  effects  for  departure  and  Carlos,  in  his 
apartments,  was  saluted  as  king. 

Fernando  however  commenced  to  rally;  many  nobles  offered 
their  lives  to  Cristina  and  formed  an  association  to  defend  the 
claims  of  Isabel.  Carlotta,  who  was  in  Andalusia,  hastened  to 
Madrid,  reaching  it  on  the  22d  and,  being  of  a  determined  character 
scolded  Cristina  and  threatened  Calomarde — it  is  even  said  that  she 
cuffed  him  in  the  face,  when  with  ready  wit  he  quoted  Calderon — 
"White  hands  inflict  no  disgrace."  Fernando  agreed  to  recall 
the  decree,  when  she  obtained  the  original  and  the  copies  and 
destroyed  them.  This  only  led  the  followers  of  Carlos  to  prepare 
to  assert  his  claims  by  force,  and  there  was  no  time  to  be  lost  in 
organizing  a  party  to  resist  them.' 

This  necessitated  a  reversal  of  the  policy  of  the  last  ten  years, 
identified  with  Calomarde — in  fact  the  period  was  often  desig- 
nated as  the  Epocha  de  Calomarde.  The  ministry  was  dismissed; 
Calomarde  was  banished  to  his  native  place,  and  then  was  ordered 
to  the  citadel  of  Minorca,  but  he  was  concealed  in  a  convent  from 
which  he  escaped  to  France.  Fernando,  on  October  6th  signed  a 
decree  constituting  Cristina  regent  during  his  illness;  the  next  day 
she  issued  a  general  pardon  of  all  political  prisoners  and,  on  the 
15th,  a  general  amnesty,  including  the  exiles  who  were  allowed 
to  return,  the  only  exceptions  being  those  who  at  Seville  had  voted 
to  replace  the  king  with  a  regency,  and  those  who  had  commanded 
bodies  of  troops  against  him,  all  of  whom  Fernando  obstinately 
refused  to  pardon.  This  complete  reversal  of  policy  led  to  some 
premature  insurrectionary  movements  by  the  Carlists,  but  they 
were  easily  suppressed.^ 

The  declaration  of  September  18th  had  been  destroyed,  but  it 
had  not  been  invalidated.  To  effect  this  in  the  most  impressive 
manner  an  assembly  was  held  on  December  31st  of  all  the  great 
officers  of  the  Government,  representatives  of  the  grandees,  and 
deputations  of  the  provinces,  in  which  Fernando  presented  a 


'  Koska  Vayo,  III,  342,  352,  358-68.— Modesto  Lafuente,  XXIX,  191. 
'  Koska  Vayo,  III,  369-75,  387.— Modesto  Lafuente,  XXIX,  152. 


Chap.  I]  ISABELLA  RECOGNIZED 


465 


holograph  paper  setting  forth  that  advantage  had  been  taken  of 
his  desperate  illness  to  threaten  him  with  civil  war  and  induce  him 
to  sign  a  revocation  of  the  pragmatic  sanction  of  March  29,  1830; 
now,  convinced  of  his  inability  to  alter  the  immemorial  customs 
of  the  land,  he  pronounced  the  nullity  of  the  declaration  which  had 
been  snatched  from  him  by  surprise.  Then  he  signed  and  rubri- 
cated the  paper,  all  present  were  asked  whether  they  had  under- 
stood its  purport,  and  the  next  day,  January  1,  1833,  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  C6rtes  of  1789  and  their  confirmation  by  Carlos  IV 
were  published.' 

The  next  step  was  the  assembling  of  C6rtes  to  take  the  oath  of 
allegiance  to  Isabel,  and  for  this  summons  were  issued  April  4th 
appointing  June  20th.  Carlos  was  got  out  of  the  way  by  inducing 
Dom  Miguel  of  Portugal  to  invite  him,  but,  when  Fernando  desired 
to  remove  him  still  further  to  Italy,  a  long  and  very  curious  cor- 
respondence ensued  between  the  brothers,  couched  in  the  most 
affectionate  terms,  in  which  Carlos  evaded  obedience.  He  was  the 
only  absent  member  of  the  royal  family  when  the  Cortes  met, 
where  all,  including  bishops,  grandees,  nobles  and  the  procurators 

'  Koska  Vayo,  III,  380. 

That  the  Cariists  should  regard  the  opportune  resurrection  of  this  long-buried 
pragmdtica  as  a  fraud  was  not  unnatural,  but  the  records  produced  in  its  favor 
bear  every  evidence  of  genuineness.  From  them  it  appears  that  on  May  31,  1789, 
Carlos  IV  summoned  the  C6rtes  to  assemble  on  September  23d  to  take  the  oath 
of  allegiance  to  his  son  Fernando  and  to  transact  other  business.  The  oath  was 
duly  taken  on  that  day;  on  the  30th  a  petition  in  the  customary  form  was  ad- 
dressed to  the  king  for  the  abrogation  of  the  pragm^tica  of  Philip  V  and  the  resto- 
ration of  the  ancient  law  of  succession.  The  session  continued  with  various  acts 
of  legislation ;  on  October  7th  Carlos  obtained  an  approval  of  the  measure  from 
fourteen  archbishops  and  bishops  who  had  joined  in  the  oath  of  allegiance;  on 
October  30th  he  confirmed  the  pragmdtica,  but  ordered  absolute  secrecy  to  be 
maintained  with  respect  to  it  and  to  this  all  concerned  took  a  solemn  oath.  Still 
it  did  not  remain  wholly  unknown  and,  in  December  1809,  Dofia  Carlota,  Prin- 
cess of  Brazil,  applied  to  the  supreme  Junta  Central,  then  ruling  the  kingdom, 
to  have  her  possible  rights  to  the  succession  under  it  acknowledged.  The  Junta 
was  sitting  in  Seville;  the  archives  were  in  Madrid,  then  in  possession  of  the 
French,  and  inquiries  were  made  of  such  survivors  of  the  Cortes  of  1789  as  could 
be  reached,  who  confirmed  the  fact  of  the  adoption  of  the  pragmdtica  and  of  the 
secrecy  enjoined,  whereupon  the  Consejo  de  Espana  d  Indias  reported  in  favor 
of  the  Portuguese  princess's  application.  That  these  records,  with  their  wealth 
of  names  and  dates  and  elaborate  details  could  be  manufactured  is  simply  incred- 
ible.^Testimonio  de  las  Actas  de  Cortes  de  1789  sobre  la  Sucesion  en  la  Corona 
de  Espana,  y  de  los  Dictdmenes  dados  sobre  esta  materia;  publicado  por  real 
decreto  de  S.  M.  la  Reina  Nra  Sra.  Afio  de  1833,  Madrid,  en  la  Imprenta  Real. 
VOL.  rv  30 


466  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

of  the  cities  duly  took  the  oath  of  allegiance.  The  whole  kingdom 
followed  the  example,  and  the  Biscayans,  under  the  historic  Oak 
of  Guarnica,  spontaneously  recognized  Isabel  as  the  heiress  of 
Biscay.  Yet  sparks  of  rebellion  manifested  themselves  in  one 
place  after  another,  and  there  were  symptoms  of  insubordination 
in  the  army,  showing  that  the  Carlist  organization  was  at  work 
and  was  awaiting  only  the  death  of  Fernando.* 

By  the  beginning  of  September  he  was  scarce  more  than  a  living 
corpse  and  on  the  29th  the  end  came.  The  obsequies  were  held  on 
October  3d,  the  leaden  cofHn  having  a  glass  plate  through  which 
the  face  could  be  seen  and  verified.  The  Duke  of  Alagon,  as 
captain  of  the  body-guard,  commanded  silence  and,  in  a  loud 
voice  exclaimed  Senor!  Seiior!  Senor!  As  there  was  no  reply, 
he  added  "Since  his  majesty  does  not  answer,  he  is  truly  dead." 
Despite  the  leaden  coffin,  the  stench  was  such  that  several  persons 
fainted.^  It  might  be  said  that  his  malignant  influence  lasted 
until  the  grave  covered  him — or,  perhaps,  the  truth  is  more  fully 
expressed  by  Benito  Perez  Galdos:  "That  king,  who  deceived 
his  parents,  his  masters,  his  friends,  his  ministers,  his  partizans, 
his  enemies,  his  four  wives,  his  people,  his  allies,  all  the  world 
in  fact,  deceived  also  death,  who  thought  to  make  us  happy  in 
delivering  us  from  such  a  devil,  for  he  left  us  his  brother  and 
his  daughter,  who  kindled  a  fearful  war,  and  the  legacy  of  misery 
and  scandal  is  yet  unexhausted."^ 

It  is  not  our  province  to  enter  into  the  horrors  of  the  savage 
Carlist  war,  which  broke  out  forthwith  and  lasted  until  the  Convenio 
de  Vergara  in  1839.  The  rapid  sketch  which  we  have  given  of  its 
antecedents  suffices  to  show  how  Cristina,  in  order  to  make  head 
against  the  extremists,  was  perforce  obliged  to  consolidate  a  party 
composed  of  the  moderate  Royalists  and  the  Liberals,  while  the 
progress  of  events  threw  her  more  and  more  into  the  arms  of  the 
latter.  The  solemn  proclamation  of  Isabel's  succession,  October 
20th,  was  accompanied  by  measures  restricting  the  oppressive 
powers  of  the  Royalist  Volunteers,  restoring  the  laws  respectmg 
mayorazgos  and  other  reforms  of  the  Constitutional  period. 
That  this  process,  once  begun,  should  continue  with  accelerated 
momentum  was  inevitable,  and  also  that  it  should  sweep  aside 


■  Koska  Vayo,  III,  393^25.  *  Ibidem,  p.  437. 

'  Quoted  by  Hervaz,  Ruiz  de  Padron,  p.  160. 


Chap.  I]  DEFINITE  EXTINCTION  467 

the  poor  remnants  of  the  Inquisition.  This  was  so  much  a  matter 
of  course  and,  in  the  comatose  condition  of  the  institution,  was  of 
importance  so  slender,  that  the  memoir  writers  and  historians  of 
the  period,  if  they  allude  to  it  at  all,  do  so  in  the  briefest  and  most 
perfunctory  manner.  Yet  the  profound  roots  which  it  had  struck 
in  the  national  life,  and  the  hold  which  it  had  acquired  on  popular 
veneration,  are  manifested  in  the  fact  that  the  struggle  for  its 
extinction  had  extended  over  a  period  of  more  than  twenty  years, 
and  required  for  its  consummation  a  change  in  the  ideals  of  a 
majority  of  the  people.  The  time  for  this  had  at  last  come,  and 
the  final  dissolution  was  accomplished  with  only  so  much  of  dis- 
cussion as  to  show  that  the  opinions  of  those  called  upon  to  decide 
were  virtually  unanimous  in  principle  and  only  different  as  to  the 
opportuneness  of  the  measure. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Consejo  de  Gobierno,  July  9,  1834,  there  was 
submitted  the  project  of  a  decree  for  the  extinction  of  the  Inqui- 
sition and  the  disposition  of  its  property.  This  was  considered, 
July  11th,  when  the  majority,  consisting  of  the  Archbishop  of 
Mexico,  the  Duke  of  Bailen,  the  Marquis  of  las  Amarillas  and  Don 
Jose  Marfa  Puig,  approved  of  the  decree,  with  some  unessential 
modifications.  The  minority,  consisting  of  the  Marquis  of  Santa 
Cruz,  the  Duke  of  Medinaceli  and  Don  Francisco  Xavier  Caro, 
opposed  the  article  extinguishing  the  Inquisition,  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  already  extinguished,  matters  of  faith  were  treated  in 
the  episcopal  tribunals,  and  it  was  inopportune  to  call  public 
attention  to  an  affair  which  all  the  world  regarded  as  settled, 
while  the  application  of  the  property  ought  to  be  submitted  to  the 
approaching  C6rtes.  At  the  next  meeting,  held  July  13th,  a 
dictamen  was  adopted,  embodying  the  views  of  the  majority  and 
suggesting  certain  amendments,  of  no  special  moment  in  principle, 
which  were  virtually  accepted  by  the  Regency.^  No  time  was 
lost  in  making  the  final  draft,  which  was  published  July  15th. 
The  preamble  recited  the  desire  of  the  Regency  to  strengthen 
the  pubUc  credit  in  all  ways  compatible  with  justice;  that  the  late 
king  had  considered  the  imprescriptible  episcopal  jurisdiction  and 
the  laws  of  the  land  sufficient  for  the  protection  of  religion;  that 


'  Archive  de  AlcaM,  Ministerio  de  Estado,  Leg.  897,  n.  30;  Leg.  906,  ii.  87,  88. 
— (See  Appendix.) 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Duke  of  Medinaceli  was  alguazil  mayor  of  the 
Madrid  tribunal,  and  as  such  was  drawing  a  yearly  stipend  of  a  thousand  reales. 


468  DECADENCE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

a  decree  of  January  4, 1834,  had  committed  to  the  bishops  censor- 
ship over  writings  on  religion,  morals  and  discipline;  that  the 
labors  on  the  criminal  code,  now  completed,  established  appro- 
priate penalties  for  assaults  on  religion,  and  that  the  Junta  ecle- 
siastica,  created  by  decree  of  April  22d,  was  occupied  with  pro- 
posing what  was  deemed  necessary  to  this  end.  Therefore  the 
Regent,  in  order  to  provide  a  remedy,  in  so  far  as  the  Real  Patronato 
extended  and  with  the  concurrence  of  the  Holy  See,  as  far  as  this 
was  necessary,  after  consulting  the  Council  of  Government  and 
the  ministers,  decreed — 

Art.  I.  The  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition  is  declared  to  be  defi- 
nitely suppressed. 

Art.  II.  Its  property  is  appropriated  to  the  extinction  of  the 
public  debt. 

Art.  III.  The  one  hundred  and  one  canonries  annexed  to  the 
Inquisition  are  applied  to  the  same  object,  subject  to  the  royal 
decree  of  March  9th  last,  and  for  the  time  expressed  in  the  Apos- 
tolic bulls. 

Art.  IV.  The  employees  who  possess  prebends  or  obtain  sal- 
aried civil  offices  will  have  no  claim  on  the  funds  of  the  Tribunal. 

Art.  V.  The  other  employees  will  receive  from  the  sinking 
fund  the  exact  salaries  corresponding  to  the  classification  which 
they  will  establish  with  the  Junta  eclesiastica.' 

Such  was  the  brief  and  decisive  decree  which  terminated  the 
existence  of  the  institution  created  by  the  piety  of  Isabella  and 
the  fanaticism  of  Torquemada. 

There  still  remained  the  juntas  de  fe  of  the  bishops,  some,  at 
least,  of  whom  persisted  in  maintaining  them,  with  the  old  inquisi- 
torial methods,  in  spite  of  the  constitution  of  Pius  VIII  and  the 
royal  decree  of  February  6,  1830.  Their  continuance  was  incom- 
patible with  the  rapidly  increasing  anticlerical  spirit  of  the  dom- 
inant party,  and  they  were  prohibited  by  a  decree  of  July  1, 1835, 
in  which,  after  alluding  to  the  disregard  of  the  papal  and  royal 
utterances,  Cristina  ordered  that  they  should  cease  immediately  " 
wherever  they  had  been  established.  The  ordinary  episcopal 
courts  were  required  to  observe  the  law  of  the  Partidas,  the  canons 
and  the  common  law  in  all  cases  of  faith  and  others,  of  which  the 


'  See  Appendix.  The  allusion  to  the  concurrence  of  the  Holy  See  is  a  pure 
assumption,  seeing  that,  for  political  reasons,  Isabel  and  the  Regency  were  not 
recognized  by  the  papacy  for  many  years. 


Chap.  I]  VICISSITUDES  OF  TOLERATION  469 

extinguished  Inquisition  had  had  cognizance,  conforming  their 
procedure  to  that  in  other  ecclesiastical  matters  and  admitting 
the  appeals  allowed  by  law.  Cases  of  solicitation  were  provided 
for  by  a  clause  providing  that,  where  scandal  or  offence  to  morals 
might  ensue,  a  prudent  secrecy  should  be  observed,  the  hearings  to 
be  held  with  closed  doors,  in  the  presence  of  the  accused  and  his 
counsel,  from  whom  nothing  was  to  be  withheld/  Thus  the  last 
trace  of  inquisitorial  procedure  was  forbidden  on  Spanish  soil. 

After  so  many  centuries  of  conscientious  intolerance,  the  lesson 
of  toleration  was  hard  to  learn.  On  August  14,  1836,  the  Motin 
de  la  Granja  forced  Cristina  to  proclaim  once  more  the  Consti- 
tution of  1812,  with  its  prohibition  of  any  religion  save  Roman 
Catholicism.  This  instrument,  with  all  its  crudities,  was  soon 
found  to  be  unworkable,  and  the  Constitution  of  1837  marked  an 
advance,  in  its  simple  declaration  that  the  State  obligated  itself 
to  maintain  the  cult  and  ministers  of  the  Catholic  religion,  which 
was  that  of  Spaniards.  Then  came  a  reaction  and,  when  the 
Constitution  was  revised  in  1845,  the  principle  of  intolerance  was 
reaffirmed.  The  European  disturbances  of  1848  strengthened 
this  spirit  in  the  Church,  and  it  found  expression  in  the  penal  code 
of  1851,  of  which  Articles,  128,  129,  130  and  131  inflict  imprison- 
ment and  exile  for  any  attempt  to  change  the  religion  of  Spain, 
for  public  worship  in  other  faiths,  for  apostatizing  from  Catholi- 
cism, or  for  publishing  doctrines  in  opposition  to  it.^  The  Spanish 
bishops  were  even  encouraged  to  call  for  the  revival  of  the  Inqui- 
sition under  their  management,  but  this  would  have  been  super- 
fluous.' That  the  law  was  quite  sufficient  for  the  repression  of 
Protestant  propaganda  was  shown,  in  1855  by  the  long  imprison- 
ment and  exile  of  Francisco  Ruet  at  Barcelona.  It  is  true  that  in 
1856,  during  the  brief  return  of  the  Liberals  to  power,  a  Constitu- 
tion on  a  more  tolerant  basis  was  framed,  but  a  speedy  reaction 
prevented  this  from  going  into  effect,  and  the  instrument  of  1845 
remained  in  force  until  the  revolution  of  1868.  Ruet's  chief 
disciple  was  Manuel  Matamoros,  who  made  numerous  converts 
in  Malaga,  Granada  and  Seville,  but,  in  1860,  prosecution  caused 
him  to  fly  to  Barcelona,  where  he  was  thrown  in  gaol  and  taken 


'  Castillo  y  Ayensa,  Negociaciones  con  Roma,  I,  Append,  p.  156  (Madrid,  1859). 
'  Antequera,  Historia  de  la  Legislacion  espanola,  p.  419  (Madrid,  1884). 
'  Soler,  Un  Milagro  y  una  Mentira,  p.  5  (Valencia,  1858). 


470  DECADENOE  AND  EXTINCTION  [Book  IX 

back  to  Granada.  Some  twenty  more  were  arrested,  among 
whom  were  his  two  principal  aids  Jose  Alhama  and  Trigo.  Mata- 
moros  and  Alhama  were  condemned  to  eight  years  of  presidio  and 
Trigo  to  four,  while  similar  sentences  were  pronounced  in  Seville  on 
Tomas  Bordallo  and  Diego  Mesa  Santaello.  The  affair  made  a 
sensation  throughout  Europe;  the  Evangelical  Alliance  bestirred 
itself  and  a  deputation  representing  nearly  every  nation  assembled 
in  Madrid  to  intercede  for  the  convicts.  The  pressure  was  so 
great  that,  on  May  20,  1862,  the  sentence  rendered  three  weeks 
before  was  commuted  to  nine  years'  of  exile,  which  enabled  the 
Evangelicals,  from  the  safe  refuge  of  Gibraltar,  to  maintain  rela- 
tions with  their  secret  converts.^  That  imder  this  reaction  the 
resuscitation  of  the  Inquisition  was  seriously  considered,  may  be 
assumed  from  the  publication,  in  1859,  of  a  pamphlet  containing 
the  speech  of  Ostolaza,  in  the  Cortes  of  Cadiz,  in  favor  of  the 
Inquisition,  and  those  of  Munoz  Torrero  and  Toreno  against  it, 
with  the  manifesto  of  the  Cortes,  thus  contributing  to  the  debate, 
under  the  guise  of  impartiality,  the  weight  of  argument  against 
the  Holy  Office^ 

When  came  the  revolution  of  1868,  the  Constituent  Cortes, 
after  a  vigorous  debate,  affirmed.  May  8,  1869,  the  principle  of 
religious  liberty  by  the  decisive  vote  of  163  to  40.  In  the  new 
Constitution,  proclaimed  June  6th,  the  free  exercise,  public  and 
private,  of  faiths  other  than  Catholicism  was  guaranteed  both  to 
foreigners  and  Spaniards.'  Under  this  the  Cddigo  penal  refor- 
mado,  which  is  still  in  force,  provides  penalties  of  fine  and  im- 
prisonment for  any  interference  with  religious  belief,  whether  by 
constraint  to  acts  of  worship  or  impeding  those  of  the  individual's 
chosen  faith.*  Finally,  in  1876,  still  another  Constitution,  which 
has  endured  to  the  present  time,  after  declaring  Roman  Catholi- 
cism to  be  the  religion  of  the  State,  prohibits  the  molestation  of 
any  one  for  religious  opinion  or  for  the  exercise  of  his  cult,  in  so 
far  as  Christian  morals  are  respected,  but  it  does  not  permit 
public  ceremonies  other  than  those  of  the  State  religion.* 


'  Menfodez  y  Pelayo,  III,  682-3,  686.— Hermann  Dalton,  Die  evangelische 
Bewegung  in  Spanien,  pp.  40-5  (Wiesbaden,  1872). 

^  A.  Luque  y  Vicens,  La  Inquisicion,  su  Pro  y  su  Contra,  Segunda  Bdicion, 
Madrid,  1859. 

'  Parades,  Curso  de  Derecho  polftieo,  p.  720  (Madrid,  1883). 

*  No'S'isimo  C6digo  penal,  arts.  236-41  (Valencia,  1872,  pp.  126-7). 

°  Paredes,  op  cit.,  p.  666. 


Chap.  I]  VICISSITUDES  OF  TOLERATION  471 

This  summary  of  the  vicissitudes  in  the  progress  of  toleration, 
since  the  suppression  of  the  Inquisition,  is  not  foreign  to  our  sub- 
ject, for  it  teaches  two  lessons.  One  is  that  the  main  assaults 
on  the  ecclesiastical  system  of  Spain,  its  members  and  its  tempo- 
ralities, were  committed  before  toleration  was  extended  to  the 
heretic,  for  the  secularization  of  church  property,  the  abrogation 
of  tithes  and  first  fruits  and  the  suppression  of  the  regular  Orders 
were  chiefly  effected  by  measures  adopted  between  1835  and 
1855.  The  other  is  that  the  slender  results  of  Protestant  prop- 
agandism,  from  the  days  of  George  Borrow  to  those  of  Pastor 
Fliedner,  show  how  little  Catholicism  has  to  fear  from  such  efforts 
among  a  people  who,  if  they  abandon  the  faith  of  their  fathers, 
are  much  more  apt  to  seek  refuge  in  negation  of  religion  than  in 
heresy.  Together  they  demonstrate  that  the  terrors  of  the  Inqui- 
sition were  superfluous,  and  that  the  injuries  which  it  inflicted 
on  Spain  were  not  compensated  by  any  corresponding  benefits, 
even  from  the  stand-point  of  the  Church. 


CHAPTER  11. 

RETROSPECT. 

No  modern  European  nation  has  endured  such  vicissitudes  of 
good  and  evil  fortune  as  the  Spanish.  From  the  virtual  anarchy 
of  the  Castilian  kingdoms  under  Juan  II  and  Enrique  IV,  the 
resolute  wills  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  evoked  order  and,  by 
the  union  with  Aragon,  the  conquest  of  Granada,  Naples  and 
Navarre  and  the  acquisition  of  the  New  World,  they  left  Spain  in 
a  most  commanding  position.  When,  under  Charles  V,  to  this 
were  added  the  Netherlands,  the  Austrian  possessions,  Milan  and 
the  headship  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  the  hegemony  of  Europe 
was  secured,  and  the  prospect  of  attaining  the  universal  monarchy 
seemed  sufEciently  possible  to  arouse  the  fears  of  Europe.  The 
loss  of  the  Empire  and  of  Austria,  awarded  to  the  younger  branch 
of  the  Hapsburgs,  strengthened  rather  than  weakened  the  inheri- 
tance of  Philip  II,  by  rendering  it  less  cumbrous  and  unwieldy, 
while  the  acquisition  of  Portugal  unified  the  Peninsula  and  the 
increasing  wealth  of  the  Indies  promised  almost  unlimited  re- 
sources for  the  extension  of  his  power.  Yet  this  power,  so  colossal 
in  outward  seeming,  was  already  becoming  a  mere  shell,  covering 
emptiness  and  poverty,  for  its  rulers  had  exhausted  the  nation 
in  enterprises  beyond  its  strength  and  foreign  to  its  interests. 
Throughout  the  seventeenth  century  its  downward  progress  was 
rapid  until,  at  the  death  of  Carlos  II,  in  1700,  it  had  reached  a 
depth  of  misery  and  helplessness  in  which  it  might  almost  despair 
of  recuperation.  Yet  its  efforts,  in  the  War  of  Succession,  showed 
that  it  still  possessed  a  virile  nationality ;  its  decadence  was  arrested, 
and  a  slow  upward  progress  was  begun,  accelerated  under  the 
enlightened  rule  of  Carlos  III,  until,  at  his  death  in  1788,  it  had  so 
far  regained  its  position  that,  if  not  yet  a  power  of  the  first  rank, 
it  might  not  unhopefuUy  look  forward  to  attaining  that  position. 
Then  followed  the  weak  and  disastrous  reign  of  Carlos  IV,  under 
the  guidance  of  Godoy,  when  impotence  invited  the  intrusion  of 
Napoleon,  resulting  in  the  manifestation  of  national  energy,  which 
surprised  the  world  in  the  heroic  War  of  Liberation.    After  the 

(472) 


Chap.  II]  PEESENT  CONDITION  473 

Restoration  in  1814,  the  land  was,  for  more  than  half  a  century 
the  scene  of  almost  unintermittent  conflict  between  antagonistic 
forces,  resulting  in  the  apathy  of  exhaustion  after  attaining  the 
form  of  democratic  constitutional  monarchy.  Yet  we  are  told  that 
absolute  monarchy  has  merely  been  replaced  by  absolute  Caci- 
quismo  or,  in  American  parlance,  the  rule  of  the  political  "boss."^ 
Government,  it  seems,  is  exploited  purely  for  the  private  interest 
of  the  office-holding  class  and  the  strength  of  the  nation  has  been 
wasted,  its  development  has  been  neglected,  until  the  unexpected 
feebleness  revealed  in  the  war  of  1898  led  earnest  patriots  to  declare 
that,  if  the  existing  maladministration  were  to  continue,  it  would 
be  better  to  seek  shelter  under  England  or  France,  and  to  put  an 
end  to  the  history  of  Spain  as  an  independent  nation.^  This  shock 
to  the  national  consciousness,  and  the  skilful  and  vigorous  agitation 
to  which  it  gave  birth,  bear  promise  of  results  in  the  political  as 
well  as  in  the  material  and  industrial  development  of  the  land, 
and  we  may  reasonably  hope  that  a  nation,  which  has  suffered  so 
much  with  fortitude,  is  entering  upon  a  new  career  that  may  make 
amends  for  the  miseries  of  the  past. 

Vicissitudes  such  as  these  have  their  causes,  and  we  cannot 
conclude  this  long  history  of  the  Inquisition  without  inquiring 
what  share  it  and  the  spirit,  which  at  once  created  and  was  stimu- 
lated by  it,  contributed  to  the  misfortunes  endured,  with  few  inter- 
missions, by  the  Spanish  people  since  its  organization.  These 
causes  are  numerous,  many  of  them  not  directly  connected  with 
our  subject,  but  yet  to  be  enumerated  in  order  that  undue  impor- 
tance may  not  be  ascribed  to  the  influence  of  the  Inquisition. 

To  begin  with,  the  Spanish  monarchy  developed  into  a  pure 
despotism,  based  on  the  maxim  of  the  Institutes— gwod  principi 
placuit  legis  habet  vigorem — the  prince's  pleasure  has  the  force  of 
law.    All  legislative  and  executive  functions  were  concentrated 


'  See  the  very  interesting  collection  of  papers  published  by  the  Ateneo  Cien- 
tifico  y  LUerario  of  Madrid  under  the  title  Oligarguia  y  Cadguismo  como  la  forma 
actual  de  Gobierno  en  Espafla;  urgencia  y  modo  de  cambiarla  (Madrid,  1903). 

This  Caciquism  is  described  as  "  a  despotism  a  hundred  times  worse  than  that 
of  the  absolute  kings"  (p.  33). 

'  Reconstitucion  y  Europeizacion  de  Espafia,  pp.  113,  123,  289  (Madrid,  1900). 
— Ricardo  Macias  Picavea,  El  Problema  nacional,  p.  304  (Madrid,  1899). 

Another  eloquent  exposition  of  the  deplorable  condition  of  public  affairs  in  Spain 
is  Doctor  Madrazo's  El  Pueblo  espaflol  ha  muerto?  (Santander,  1903). 


474  RETBOSPECT  [Book  IX 

in  the  crown;  the  king  issued  laws,  levied  taxes,  raised  troops, 
declared  war,  made  peace  at  his  will,  and  the  execution  of  the 
Justicia  Lanuza,  in  1591,  without  a  trial,  shows  that  the  lives  of 
his  subjects  were  at  his  disposal.  It  was  the  same  with  their 
liberties,  as  illustrated  by  the  imprisonment,  without  a  hearing, 
of  ministers  like  Cabarrus,  Floridablanca,  Jovellanos  and  Urquijo. 
For  awhile  the  ancient  fueros  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  crown  of 
Aragon  served  as  some  restraint  in  those  territories,  but  Philip  V, 
in  1707  and  1714,  took  advantage  of  the  War  of  Succession  to 
declare  them  forfeited.  Under  such  concentration  of  authority,  the 
fate  of  the  nation  depended  on  the  character  and  capacity  of  the 
monarch.  Charles  V  had  unquestioned  ability,  but  his  ambitious 
enterprises,  while  flattering  to  the  national  vanity,  not  only  ex- 
hausted the  resources  of  Spain,  in  quarrels  foreign  to  its  interests, 
but  crippled  its  prosperity  by  the  reckless  devices  employed  to 
supply  his  needs.  Philip  II  was  a  man  of  very  moderate  talents, 
irresolute  and  procrastinating  to  that  degree  that  the  Venetian 
envoy  Vendramino,  in  1595,  declared  that  what  would  cost 
another  prince  ten  ducats  cost  him  a  hundred,  in  consequence  of 
his  dilatoriness.'  His  enormous  and  disjointed  empire  was  too 
much  for  his  narrow  intelligence,  and  his  vast  expenditures  in 
defence  of  Latin  Christianity  consumed  all  his  resources  and  kept 
him  in  perpetual  financial  straits.  At  his  death,  in  1598,  he  had 
nothing  to  show  for  the  ruin  of  his  country  but  the  gloomy  pile 
of  the  Escorial  and  the  acquisition  of  Portugal.  Holland  was 
hopelessly  lost;  his  rival,  Henry  IV,  was  firmly  seated  on  the 
throne  of  a  reunited  France,  and  the  papacy  was  alienated.  The 
internal  condition  of  the  land  is  depicted  in  the  despairing  com- 
plaints of  the  Cortes  of  1594 — "The  truth,  which  cannot  be  ques- 
tioned, is  that  the  kingdom  is  totally  exhausted.  Scarce  any  man 
has  money  or  credit,  and  those  who  have  it  do  not  employ  it  in 
trade  or  for  profit,  but  hoard  it  to  live  as  sparingly  as  possible,  in 
hope  that  it  may  last  them  to  the  end.  Thus  comes  the  universal 
poverty  of  all  classes ....  There  is  not  a  city  or  a  town  but  has 
lost  largely  in  population,  as  is  seen  by  the  multitude  of  closed 
and  empty  houses,  and  the  fall  in  the  rents  of  the  few  that  are 
inhabited."' 

With  Philip  III  we  commence  the  long  line  of  favorites  who 


'  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  V,  p.  463. 

'  Clemencin,  Elogio  de  la  Reina  Isabel,  p.  302  (Madrid,  1821). 


Chap.  11]  G 0 VEENMENT  BT FA  VOBITES  475 

dominated  Spain  during  the  seventeenth  century.  Well  meaning, 
but  weak  and  incapable,  he  left  everything  to  the  Duke  of  Lerma, 
under  whose  guidance  a  reckless  course  of  prodigality  was  followed 
as  though  the  only  trouble  was  to  get  rid  of  surplus  revenues. 
Charles  V  had  cast  aside  the  severe  simplicity  of  the  old  Castilian 
court  for  the  stately  magnificence  of  the  Burgundian  household; 
his  successors  followed  his  example,  in  spite  of  the  remonstrances 
of  the  Cortes,  but  where  Philip  II  spent  on  it  four  hundred  thousand 
ducats  a  year,  Philip  III  lavished  a  million  and  three  hundred 
thousand,  while  he  was  begging  money  of  his  nobles  and  prelates 
and  seeking  to  seize  all  the  plate  in  the  kingdom  in  order  to  coin 
it.  He  was  not  alone  in  this,  for  the  nobility  and  gentry  were 
consumed  with  usury  and  overwhelmed  with  debt,  owing  to  their 
extravagance.  The  Venetian  envoy  Contarini,  in  1605  describes 
the  land  as  overspread  with  poverty  and  general  discontent  and 
all  the  evils  attendant  upon  a  corrupt  and  vicious  government, 
under  an  indolent  king  and  a  rapacious  and  incapable  minister. 
The  worst  war,  he  concludes,  that  could  be  made  on  Spain  was  to 
allow  it  to  consume  itself  in  peace  under  misgovernment,  while  to 
attack  it  would  be  to  arouse  the  dogged  determination  of  the 
people.  The  reports  of  the  Lucchese  envoys  tell  the  same  story.' 
Such  was  the  condition  when  the  expulsion  of  the  Moriscos  robbed 
the  land  of  its  most  productive  class. 

Matters  grew  worse  when  Philip  IV  ascended  the  throne,  in 
1621.  Good-natured,  affable,  indolent  and  pleasure-loving,  his 
thirty-one  unacknowledged  natural  children,  besides  the  acknow- 
ledged one — the  second  Don  John  of  Austria — serve  to  explain 
why  he  abandoned  the  cares  of  state  to  his  favorite,  the  Count- 
Duke  Olivares,  after  whose  fall  in  1643  his  nephew,  Don  Luis  de 
Haro,  succeeded  to  the  post.  The  official  historiographer  describes 
Spain,  at  his  accession,  as  being  in  extremity,  and  the  people 
crushed  under  their  burdens;  everjrthing  was  in  disorder,  and 
the  condition  of  the  nation  so  weakened  that  it  could  only  be 
deplored  and  not  amended.  Yet  Philip's  first  act  was  to  break 
the  truce  with  Holland  and,  from  that  time  to  the  end  of  his  long 
reign,  he  was  involved  in  almost  continual  war.  He  called 
together  the  Cortes  and  asked  for  supplies  to  which  they  replied 
by  petitioning  him  to  try  to  stop  the  general  depopulation  and 


'  Cabrera,  Relaciones,  passim;  Append,  pp.  582-3. — Relazioni  di  Ambasciadori 
Lucchesi,  pp.  29,  31  (Lucca,  1903). 


476  BETBOSPECT  [Book  IX 

find  occupation  for  the  people,  who  were  wandering  with  their 
families  over  the  country  in  vain  search  for  work/  Yet  Philip, 
engrossed  with  his  plebeian  amours  and  the  pleasures  of  his  court, 
continued  his  wars  and  his  extravagance,  without  giving  thought 
to  the  misery  of  his  people  whom  he  was  crushing  with  ever  new 
exactions.  The  courtly  festivities  were  conducted  with  a  mag- 
nificence till  then  unexampled;  the  carnival  festival  of  1637  was 
officially  admitted  to  cost  three  hundred  thousand  ducats  and  was 
popularly  estimated  at  half  a  million.^  In  1658  the  Venetian 
envoy  reports  his  giving  to  the  son  of  Don  Luis  de  Haro  fifty 
thousand  pesos  for  skilfully  arranging  a  ballet  for  the  ladies  of 
the  court.  Every  bull-fight  cost  him  sixty  thousand  reales,  and 
the  celebration  at  the  birth  of  Prince  Prosper  (who  speedily  died) 
involved  an  expenditure  of  eight  hundred  thousand  pesos.  All 
this,  as  the  envoy  remarks,  was  extracted  from  the  blood  of  the 
miserable  people,  who  were  poorer  in  Spain  than  anywhere  else. 
The  immense  resources  of  the  kingdom  were  absorbed  by  the 
rapacity  of  the  ministers  or  were  dissipated  by  the  profuseness  of 
the  king.' 

In  1665,  Carlos  II,  then  but  four  years  of  age,  succeeded  to  his 
father,  under  the  regency  of  the  Queen-dowager  Maria  Ana  of 
Austria.  We  have  seen  how  she  abandoned  affairs  to  her  con- 
fessor, the  Jesuit'  Nithard,  and  when  he  was  dismissed  by  the 
efforts  of  Don  John  of  Austria,  in  1669,  she  replaced  him  with 
the  worthless  favorite  Fernando  de  Valenzuela.  Again  Don  John 
was  called  in;  Valenzuela  was  exiled  to  the  Philippines  and  Don 
John  assumed  the  reins  of  government.  His  limited  abiUties 
were  unequal  to  the  task;  he  was  driven  from  power  and  died  soon 
afterwards  in  1679.  Carlos  had  been  declared  of  age  in  1675; 
he  was  utterly  incapable  and,  though  he  can  scarce  be  said  to  have 
had  favorites,  under  such  ministers  as  the  Duke  of  Medinaceli  and 
the  Count  of  Oropesa,  Spain  sank  deeper  in  misery  and  degradation 
until  his  death  in  1700.  The  kingdom  was  reduced  to  the  last 
extremity,  without  money,  without  industry,  without  means  of 
defence  to  resist  the  aggressive  wars  of  Louis  XIV,  or  to  defend 
the  colonies  from  the  ravages  of  buccaneers.  The  population  is 
said  to  have  shrunk  to  5,000,000;  in  1586  it  had  been  estimated 


'  Cespedes  y  Meneses,  Don  Felipe  Quarto,  Lib.  ii,  cap.  i,  x. 

'  A.  Rodriguez  Villa,  La  Corte  y  Monarquia  de  Espafia,  p.  110  (Madrid,  1886). 

'  Zanctomato,  Relazione  della  Corte  de  Espana,  pp.  76-82  (Cosmopoli,  1672). 


/„ 


Chap.  II]  JRESOUBOES  AND  POSSIBILITIES  477 

at  8,000,000  by  the  Venetian  envoy  Gradenigo.*  Such  was  the 
result  of  two  centuries  of  absolute  government,  under  monarchs 
not  wilfully  evil,  who  merely  reigned  according  to  the  light  vouch- 
safed them. 

Yet  it  was  not  so  much  the  extravagance  of  the  court,  or  the  I 
perpetual  wars  of  the  Hapsburgs,  or  the  emigration  to  the  colonies,  ) 
that  reduced  the  population  and  the  power  of  Spain.  The  land 
could  have  endured  all  these  if  its  rich  resources  and  vast  oppor- 
tunities had  been  wisely  developed.  Lying  between  two  seas  and 
holding  Sicily  and  Naples,  it  commanded  the  Atlantic  and  the 
Mediterranean;  with  its  wealthy  colonies,  the  source  of  the  precious 
metals  which  revolutionized  the  finances  of  Europe  and  furnished 
the  basis  for  the  most  profitable  commerce  that  the  world  had 
seen,  it  was  invited  to  become  the  greatest  of  maritime  states,  with 
a  navy  and  a  mercantile  marine  beyond  rivalry,  dominating  the 
seas  as  the  Catalans  had  dominated  the  Mediterranean  in  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries.  It  was  largely  secured  from 
hostile  aggression  by  the  Pyrenees,  and  could  work  out  its  destinies 
with  little  to  fear  from  external  enemies.  It  is  true  that  much  of 
its  surface  is  mountainous,  and  that  large  districts  suffer  from 
insufficient  precipitation,  but  the  Moors  had  shown  what  wonders 
could  be  wrought  by  irrigation,  and  how,  by  patient  labor,  even 
moimtain  sides  could  be  made  to  yield  their  increase.  No  land 
could  boast  a  greater  variety  of  agricultural  products,  including 
those  of  semi-tropical  and  temperate  zones  which,  combined  with 
mineral  wealth,  should  have  rendered  it  self-supporting.  All 
that  was  needed  was  steady  and  intelligent  industry,  fostered  by 
wise  legislation,  encouraging  production  and  commerce,  and  enab- 
ling every  man  to  work  out  his  own  career  with  as  few  artificial 
impediments  as  possible,  and  Spain  might  be  today  what  she  was 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  leader  among  civilized  nations. 

This  was  not  to  be.  The  fatal  gift  of  the  Burgundian  inheritance 
distracted  the  attention  of  her  rulers  from  the  true  arena  of  her 
expansion  in  Africa  and  on  the  ocean,  to  distant  enterprises  wholly 
foreign  to  her  true  interests,  while  the  undeviating  determination 
to  enforce  unity  of  faith  at  home,  and  to  combat  heresy  elsewhere, 
led  her  to  drive  out  her  most  useful  population,  and  involved  her_ 
in  ruinous  expenditures  abroad.  To  extort  the  means  for  the 
furtherance  of  this  poUcy,  industry  was  strangled  with  the  most 


'  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  V,  p.  396. 


L^' 


478  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

burdensome  and  complicated  system  of  taxation  that  human 
folly  could  devise,  the  weight  of  which  fell  almost  exclusively  on 
the  oppressed  producing  classes,  who  were  least  able  to  endure  it, 
while  the  nobles  and  gentry  and  clergy,  who  held  by  far  the  larger 
portion  of  Spanish  wealth,  were  exempt.'  As  taxation  was  vir- 
tually at  the  discretion  of  the  monarch,  imposts  were  added  as 
the  exigencies  of  extravagance  demanded,  usually  with  little 
thought  as  to  their  consequences,  until  the  taxpayer  was  entangled 
in  a  network  which  crippled  him  at  every  step.  This  moreover 
was  accompanied  with  regulations  to  prevent  evasions,  and  to 
protect  the  consumer  at  the  expense  of  the  producer,  which  greatly 
enhanced  the  deadly  influence  of  the  anomalous  and  incongruous 
ccumulation  of  exactions. 

All  this  fell  with  peculiar  weight  on  agriculture  and  on  the 
labradores  or  peasants,  on  whom  ultimately  the  support  and  pros- 
perity of  the  nation  depended.  When,  in  1619,  the  Royal  Council, 
in  obedience  to  the  commands  of  Phihp  III,  presented  an  elaborate 
consulta  on  the  causes  of  depopulation,  it  commenced  by  ascribing 
this  to  the  grinding  and  insupportable  taxation  of  the  producing 
taxables,  and  the  exemption  of  the  consuming  classes — ^the  mules 
and  cart  of  the  peasant  were  seized  for  taxes,  he  was  driven  from 
the  land  and  hid  himself  in  the  large  cities,  or  sought  a  livehhood 
abroad.^  The  warning  was  unheeded  and,  ten  years  later.  Fray 
Benito  de  Penalosa  y  Mondragon,  while  enthusiastically  extolling 
the  power  and  wealth  of  Spain,  describes  the  condition  of  the 
labradores  as  the  poorest,  most  completely  miserable  and  depressed 
of  all,  as  though  all  the  other  classes  had  combined  and  conspired 


'  The  C6rtes  of  1570  complained  of  the  sale  of  hidalguias,  which  were  bought 
by  the  richer  taxpayers,  whose  burden  was  thus  thrown  on  the  poor  and  miser- 
able. To  this  Philip  II  replied  that  his  necessities  compelled  him  to  it,  but  that 
more  consideration  would  be  shown  in  future. — C6rtes  de  Cordova  del  afio  de 
setenta,  fol.  5  (Alcald,  1575). 
By  the  censuses  of  1768  and  1787  the  exempt  classes  were— 

1768.  1787. 

Hidalgos 722,794  480,589 

Clergy 183,965  151,973 


906,759  632,562 

Floridablanca  felicitated  himself  on  the  reduction  thus  shown  in  the  exemp- 
tions, resulting  from  greater  strictness  in  admitting  claims,  while  the  population 
had  increased  from  9,309,804  to  10,409,879,— Censo  espanol  en  el  ano  de  1787. 
'  D^vila,  Vida  de  Felipe  III,  p.  216. 


Chap.  II]  OPFBESSIVE  TAXATION  479 

to  ruin  and  destroy  them.  Their  cabins  and  huts  of  mud  walls 
are  decaying  and  crumbling,  they  possess  some  badly  cultivated 
lands  and  lean  cattle,  always  hungry  for  lack  of  the  common 
pasture,  and  they  are  burdened  with  tributes,  mortgages,  taxes, 
censos  and  many  impositions,  demands  and  almsgivings  that 
cannot  be  escaped.  In  place  of  wondering  at  the  depopulation 
of  villages  and  farms,  the  wonder  is  that  any  remain.  Probably 
most  of  those  who  go  to  the  Colonies  are  labradores  and  they  also 
flock  to  the  cities,  engaging  in  all  kinds  of  service.^ 

The  process  went  on  without  interruption.  A  century  later  an 
experienced  financial  ofiicial  tells  the  same  story,  in  a  report  to 
Philip  V.  The  burden  of  taxation  fell  upon  the  poor;  all  that  was 
unpaid  was  added  to  the  levy  of  the  succeeding  year;  a  horde  of 
blood-suckers  lived  by  selling  out  delinquents,  when  the  costs 
amounted  to  more  than  the  taxes.  Consequently  the  poor  were 
obliged  to  sell  their  property  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  tax- 
gatherer,  or  to  let  it  be  seized  and  sold,  thus  becoming  beggars 
and  tramps,  and  every  year  saw  their  numbers  increase.  The 
peasant,  moreover,  was  subject  to  special  and  ruinous  restrictions. 
The  tassa  or  price  of  his  grain  was  officially  determined  every  year, 
at  a  maximum  above  which  he  was  forbidden  to  sell  it;  moreover 
it  could  not  be  exported,  nor  could  it  be  transported  by  sea  from 
one  province  to  another  to  prevent  infractions  of  the  prohibition. 
The  result  of  this  was  that  if  the  harvest  was  deficient,  grain  was 
secreted  and  held  at  exorbitant  prices  and  this  infraction  of  the 
law  was  winked  at  under  necessity.  The  sufferer  was  the  peasant, 
who  had  not  the  means  of  storing  his  grain  but  had  to  sell  it  to  the 
wealthy  who  could  withhold  it,  and  thus,  whether  the  harvests  were 
abundant  or  scanty  he  fared  ill.  Thus  production  was  discouraged 
and  diminishing;  the  producer  realized  little,  while  the  consumer 
paid  extravagantly,  checking  both  production  and  consumption. 
Lands  were  left  uncultivated  and  labor  was  unemployed;  every- 
thing moved  in  a  vicious  circle,  and  the  evil  was  constantly  grow- 
ing. Trade  was  similarly  strangled.  The  alcavala  of  10  per  cent, 
and  the  cientos  of  4  per  cent,  were  levied  on  every  transaction, 
no  matter  how  often  an  article  changed  hands.  Manufactures, 
under  this  system,  had  almost  disappeared.  Spaniards  were 
forced  to  sell  their  raw  products  to  foreigners  at  low  prices,  for 


'  Libro  de  las  Cincas  Excelencias  del  Espanol  que  despueblan  d  Espafla,  fol. 
163,  170  (Pamplona,  1629). 


480  BETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

there  were  no  other  buyers,  and  to  purchase  them  back  in  their 
finished  state  at  the  sellers'  prices.  The  heavy  tariff  increased 
the  cost  to  the  consumer,  while  innumerable  smugglers  enabled 
the  importers  to  realize  the  benefit  of  the  duties.  The  foreigner, 
moreover,  secured  all  the  precious  metals  of  the  Indies,  for  all 
exports  thither  were  of  foreign  goods,  with  which  Spaniards  could 
not  compete,  owing  to  the  excessive  imposts  and  tributes,  which 
doubled  the  price  of  everything  to  the  consumer.  Yet  of  the 
product  of  these  crushing  burdens  but  little  reached  the  treasury, 
owing  to  the  system  of  collection,  smuggling,  and  frauds.' 

the  disabilities  thus  imposed  on  agriculture,  industry,  and  trade 
were  greatly  aggravated  by  the  absence  of  means  of  intercom- 
munication, and  it  is  symptomatic  of  Spanish  policy  that  the 
energies  of  the  rulers  were  concentrated  on  the  suppression  of 
heresy,  foreign  wars  and  court  festivities  to  the  exclusion  of  care 
for  internal  development.  It  is  true  that,  under  Charles  V  and 
Philip  II,  considerable  effort  was  spent  on  the  water-ways;  the 
Canal  Imperial  de  Aragon  was  built  along  the  Ebro,  as  well  as 
the  smaller  canals  of  Jarama  and  Manzanares,  and  there  were 
improvements  in  the  navigation  of  the  Tagus  and  Guadalquivir, 
but  these  ceased  and  no  attention  was  paid  to  the  roads  which, 
for  the  most  part  were  mere  caminos  de  herradura,  or  mule-tracks. 
Even  as  late  as  1795,  Jovellanos  teUs  us  that  there  was  no  com- 
munication by  wagon  between  the  contiguous  provinces  of  Leon 
and  Asturias,  so  that  the  wines  and  wheat  of  Castile  could  not  bear 
the  expense  of  mule  carriage  to  the  seaboard.  In  1761  Carlos  III 
undertook  to  construct  highways  from  Madrid  to  Andalusia,  Valen- 
cia, Catalonia,  Galicia,  Old  Castile,  Asturias,  Murcia  and  Extre- 
madura,  but  in  1795  none  of  them  had  reached  half-way,  and  no 
attention  was  paid  to  interprovincial  wagon-roads,  to  enable  the 


'  Representacion  al  Rey  D.  Felipe  V  dirigida  al  mas  seguro  aumento  del  Real 
Erario.  Hecha  per  D.  Miguel  de  Zavala  y  Aunon,  pp.  7-35,  74-97  (Madrid,  1732). 

It  should  be  observed  that  in  none  of  the  descriptions  of  the  burdens  imposed 
on  the  peasantry  is  any  allusion  made  to  what  perhaps  was  the  most  grievous 
of  all,  both  in  amount  and  method  of  collection — the  tithe  by  which  the  enormous 
church  establishment  was  supported.  This  was  wholly  beyond  control  by  the 
secular  power  and  was  therefore  left  out  of  consideration. 

In  1820,  Dr.  Sebastian  de  Mifiano,  in  his  Cartas  del  Pdbredto  Holgazan,  gives 
a  graphic  picture  of  the  ecclesiastical  burdens  of  the  peasant — the  first  fruits, 
the  tithes  and  the  obligatory  "almsgiving"  to  all  the  neighboring  convents.— 
Ochoa,  Epistolario  espafiol,  II,  616. 


Chap.  II]  THE  MESTA— FORESTRY  LAWS  481 

miserable  peasant  to  get  from  village  to  village,  or  from  market  to  ) 
market,  save  at  the  cost  of  exhausting  his  cattle  and  at  the  risk;:0f 
losing  everything  in  a  mudhole/  ^^~^ 

Another  intolerable  burden  on  agriculture  was  the  Mesta,  or 
combination  of  owners  of  the  immense  flocks  of  sheep,  which 
wintered  in  the  lowlands  and  summered  in  the  mountains. 
Through  privileges  dating  from  the  fourteenth  century  and 
gradually  increased,  the  provinces,  through  which  the  trashu- 
mantes  or  migratory  flocks  passed,  were  subjected  to  serious 
disabilities.  Pasturage  could  not  be  broken  up  for  cultivation, 
its  rental  was  fixed  by  an  unalterable  tassa,  and  a  mesteno  tenant 
could  not  be  evicted.  All  enclosures  were  forbidden  in  order  that 
the  flocks  when  migrating  might  feed  without  payment  on  the 
stubble  in  the  autumn  and  on  the  fallow  land  in  the  spring,  al- 
though this  privilege  was  somewhat  curtailed  in  1788  by  permitting 
the  enclosure  of  orchards,  vineyards  and  plantations.  Thus  the 
husbandman  was  deprived  of  control  over  his  property  and  the 
raising  of  horses  and  of  stationary  herds  of  cattle  and  sheep — 
vastly  more  important  than  the  trashumantes — was  effectually 
discouraged  within  the  range  of  the  Mesta.  Equally  short-sighted 
were  the  forestry  laws,  designed  to  foster  the  production  of  lumber, 
which  was  greatly  needed  both  for  building  and  shipping.  The 
owner  was  obliged  to  get  and  pay  for  a  permit  before  he  could 
fell  a  tree,  to  obey  fixed  rules  as  to  pruning,  to  sell  against  his  will 
and  at  a  fixed  price,  to  admit  inspections  and  official  visits,  and 
to  answer  for  the  condition  and  number  of  his  trees — thus  opening 
the  door  to  unlimited  extortion.  In  short,  the  freedom  of  action 
through  which  men  seek  their  interests,  and  thus  contribute  to 
the  general  welfare,  was  destroyed  by  the  paternalism  of  an 
absolute  government,  which  blindly  hampered  all  improvement 
and  checked  all  individual  initiative  and  ambition.^ 


'  Jovellanos,  Informe  en  el  Expediente  de  Ley  Agraria  (Obras,  VII,  165-8). 

The  trouble  still  exists.  In  1898  the  Chamber  of  Agriculture  of  Upper  Aragon 
states  that  notwithstanding  large  subventions  to  railroads  and  highways  the 
greater  part  of  the  population  is  as  isolated  as  ever,  and  it  urges  the  expenditure 
of  400  or  500  millions  of  pesetas  to  convert  250,000  kilometres  of  mule-track 
into  cheap  wagon  roads. — Reconstitucion  de  Espana,  pp.  24,  89. 

'  Cortes  de  Leon  y  de  Castilla,  II,  344. — Jovellanos,  Informe,  pp.  48-80. 

The  exorbitant  privileges  of  the  Mesta  were  largely  curtailed  by  the  Cortes  of 
Cddiz,  but  were  promptly  restored  by  Fernando  VII,  in  a  decree  of  October  2, 
1514  (Coleccion  de  C^dulas  etc.,  p.  170). 

VOL.   IV  31 


482  BETBOSPECT  [Book  IX 

This  explains  the  despohlados  and  baldios — the  depopulated 
villages  and  uncultivated  lands — which  were  the  despair  of  the 
statesmen  who  discussed  the  possible  regeneration  of  Spam. 
According  to  Zavala,  in  the  circumscription  of  Badajoz  alone, 
the  baldios  amounted  to  over  three  hundred  square  leagues,  mostly- 
good  farm  land,  in  which  the  remains  of  buildings  could  be  traced, 
but  then  grown  up  in  copses  and  thickets,  affording  refuge  to 
wolves,  smugglers  and  robbers.  In  Andalusia,  Jovellanos  tells 
us  that  these  baldios  were  immense;  they  were  less  in  Extremadura, 
La  Mancha  and  the  two  Castiles,  while,  in  the  northern  provinces, 
from  the  Pyrenees  to  Portugal,  the  population  was  denser  and  the 
baldios  less  frequent  and  of  inferior  quality.^  We  have  seen  the 
attempt  made  by  Carlos  III  to  reclaim  these  districts  with  the 
nuevas  poblaciones,  and  how  the  promising  experiment  was  checked 
by  the  Inquisition. 

As  though  these  blind  and  irrational  policies  were  insufficient 
to  destroy  prosperity,  an  equally  efficient  factor  was  devised  in 
tampering  with  the  coinage.  This  began  tentatively  in  1566  by 
Phihp  II,  in  diminishing  the  alloy  of  silver  in  the  vellon  or  copper 
coinage.  In  1602,  Phihp  III,  in  his  financial  distress,  was  bolder 
and  resolutely  issued  a  pure  copper  coinage  with  a  fictitious  value 
of  seven  to  two,  calling  forth  the  protest  of  Padre  Mariana  which 
cost  him  his  prosecution  by  the  Inquisition.  In  1605  the  LuccheSe 
envoy  informs  us  that  the  treasury  had  already  reaped  a  profit 
of  25,000,000  ducats  by  this  fiat  money,  of  which  the  marc  cost 
80  maravedls  and  had  a  forced  circulation  of  280.  This  was  the 
first  of  a  long  series  of  violent  measures  continued  throughout 
the  seventeenth  century,  of  alternate  expansion  and  contraction. 
Thus,  in  1642  the  fictitious  legal-tender  value  was  suddenly  reduced 
to  one-sixth,  followed  in  1643  by  raising  it  fourfold,  and  in  1651 
by  increasing  it  still  further.  In  1652  an  attempt  was  made  to 
demonetize  the  vellon,  June  25th,  which  was  abandoned  November 
14th.  In  1659  the  vellon  grueso  was  reduced  in  value  one-half  and, 
in  1660  it  was  trebled.  Attempts  were  made  to  regulate  prices  by 
decrees  of  maxima  and  to  prevent  or  define  the  inevitable  premium 
on  gold  and  silver,  but  the  unwritten  laws  of  trade  were  impera- 
tive, until  at  last,  in  1718,  the  real  de  plata  was  admitted  to  be  worth 
twice  the  real  de  vellon,  a  ratio  which  remained  nearly  permanent. 
The  largest  vellon  coin  was  the  cuartillo,  or  fourth  of  a  real,  equiva- 


'  Zavala  y  Aufion,  pp.  104-30. — Jovellanos,  p.  44. 


Chap.  II]  INDOLENCE  483 

lent  to  about  three  cents  of  American  money,  which  became  the 
standard  of  value  in  Spanish  trade;  the  coins  were  tied  in  bags 
of  definite  amount  and  these  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  for  the 
precious  metals  necessarily  disappeared,  and  were  rarely  seen 
except  in  Seville,  in  spite  of  the  most  savage  decrees  against  their 
exportation.'  It  would  be  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  disastrous 
influence  on  industry  and  commerce  of  these  perpetual  fluctuations 
of  the  circulating  medium.  The  relations  between  debtor  and 
creditor,  between  producer  and  consumer,  were  ever  at  the  mercy 
of  some  new  decree  that  might  upset  all  calculations.  All  trans- 
actions, from  the  purchase  of  a  day's  supply  of  bread  to  a  contract 
for  a  cargo  of  merchandise  were  mere  gambling  speculations. 

These  causes  of  decadence  were  accentuated  by  an  aversion  and  / 
contempt  for  labor,  which  was  recognized  as  a  Spanish  character-/ 
istic,  attributable  perhaps  to  the  long  war  of  the  Reconquest  and 
the  endless  civil  broils  which  rendered  arms  the  only  fitting  career 
for  a  Spaniard,  and  accustomed  him  to  see  all  useful  work  per- 
formed by  those  whom  he  regarded  as  belonging  to  inferior  races — 
Jews  and  Mud^jares.  Their  expulsion  was  destructive  to  all 
industrial  pursuits,  but  the  Old  Christian  still  looked  down  on 
the  descendants  of  the  Conversos  who  were  to  a  large  extent  de- 
barred, by  the  statutes  of  Limpieza,  from  the  Spanish  resource  of 
living  without  labor  by  entering  the  Church  or  holding  office. 
The  evil  effects  of  this  were  intensified  by  constitutional  indolence. 
The  Spanish  Conquistadores  gave  memorable  examples  of  inde- 
fatigable energy  and  hardihood,  sparing  no  toil  when  their  imagi- 
nations were  inflamed  with  the  lust  of  conquest  or  the  hopes  of 
gold,  but  they  would  not  work  as  colonists.  One  of  them,  Ber- 
nardo de  Vargas  Machuca,  who  for  thirty  years  was  Governor 
of  Margarita,  defends  the  enslavement  of  the  Indians  by  candidly 
saying  that  Spaniards  would  not  settle  on  unoccupied  land,  no 
matter  how  healthy  or  how  rich  in  gold  and  silver,  but  would 
go  where  there  were  Indians,  even  if  the  land  were  sterile  and 
unhealthy  for,  if  they  had  not  Indians  to  work  for  them,  they 
could  not  enjoy  its  products,  and  its  possession  would  be  no  ben- 
efit.^   Nor  were  the  Spaniards  of  whom  he  speaks  gentlemen 


'  Relazioni  Lucchese,  p.  29. — For  the  multifarious  laws  respecting  the  coinage 
see  Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  v,  Tit.  xxi. 
'  Discorsos  apol6xicos  (Coll.  de  Doc.  in^d.,  LXXI,  220). 


484  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

adventurers,  but  were  mostly  drawn  from  the  humbler  classes. 
It  was  the  same  at  home.  Already,  in  1512,  Guicciardini,  who 
spent  two  years  in  Spain  as  envoy  from  Florence,  describes  Spain 
as  a  land  rich  in  natural  resources,  but  sparsely  populated  and 
largely  undeveloped.  The  people,  he  says,  are  warlike  and 
skilled  in  arms,  but  they  look  upon  industry  and  trade  with  disdain; 
artisans  and  husbandmen  will  work  only  under  pressure  of  neces- 
sity and  then  rest  in  idleness  until  their  earnings  are  spent.*  The 
Cortes  of  Valladolid,  in  1548,  complain  that  agricultural  laborers 
and  mechanics  would  not  come  to  work  before  10  or  11  o'clock, 
and  would  break  off  an  hour  or  two  before  sunset.  A  century 
later.  Dormer,  the  historiographer  of  Aragon,  reproves  the  indo- 
lence of  the  people,  except  in  Catalonia,  for  they  would  not  work 
as  was  customary  in  other  lands,  but  only  a  few  hours  a  day,  with 
perhaps  frequent  intermissions,  and  they  expected  this  to  provide 
for  them  as  fully  as  the  incessant  labor  of  other  lands.^ 

Spanish  indolence  was  a  frequent  theme  with  the  Venetian 
envoys  who  describe  Spain  as  aboimding  in  resources,  and  able 
to  supply  all  its  needs,  but  dependent  upon  foreign  nations  in 
consequence  of  the  rooted  dislike  for  labor.  As  Gianfrancesco 
Morosini  writes,  in  1581,  the  people  have  little  aptitude  for  any 
of  the  mechanic  arts,  and  are  most  negligent  in  agriculture,  while 
in  manual  labor  they  are  so  slow  and  lazy  that  what  anywhere 
else  would  be  done  in  a  month,  here  takes  four.'  The  Lucchese 
envoys,  in  the  next  century,  tell  the  same  story.  There  are  few  • 
Spaniards,  they  say,  except  office-holders,  who  will  work;  the 
greater  part  of  the  workmen  are  foreigners,  who  have  made  a  new 
Spain,  to  the  great  detriment  of  the  old  kingdoms.  This  explains 
why  Spain  is  only  a  port  through  which  the  precious  metals  pass; 
the  Spaniards  consume  only  foreign  merchandise  imported  by 
foreign  merchants;  among  the  contractors  there  is  not  a  single 
Castilian,  and  there  are  more  pieces  of  eight  in  China  than  in 
Spain.^  So,  in  1687,  Luis  de  Salazar  y  Castro  attributes  the  decline 
of  the  monarchy  to  its  substance  flowing  out  through  every  pore, 
and  the  ultimate  cause  of  this  is  the  lack  of  energy.  "  I  say  it  is 
our  indolence,  ignorance  and  want  of  application  . . .  .we  attribute 


'  I  owe  this  passage  to  Professor  James  Harvey  Robinson's  "Readings  in 
European  History,"  II,  25. 

^  Colmeiro,  Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos,  II,  223. 

'  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  Ill,  p.  256,  287;  V,  18;  VI,  360. 

'  Relazioni  Lucchese,  pp.  58,  70. 


Chap,  II]  EDUCATED  IDLENESS  435 

to  deficient  population  what  is  laziness  and  sloth.  Could  our 
torpidity  go  further  than  our  requiring  Frenchmen  to  makes  tiles, 
to  grind  kiiives,  to  carry  water  and  to  knead  bread  ?'"  A  moralist 
of  the  period  is  excessively  severe  upon  this  indolence  coupled 
with  reckless  extravagance,  which  he  compares  with  the  tireless 
industry  and  thrift  of  the  Frenchman."  To  this  he  attributes  the 
poverty  of  Spain,  as  we  have  seen  (Vol.  Ill,  p.  390)  had  been  done, 
in  1594,  by  Francisco  de  Idiaquez,  the  secretary  of  Philip  II. 

One  development  of  this  indisposition  to  labor  is  touched  upon 
by  the  consulta  of  the  Royal  Council  in  1619,  when  it  alludes  to 
the  multiplication  of  grammar-schools,  to  which  the  peasants  send 
their  children  for  a  smattering  of  education,  and  thus  withdraw 
them  from  productive  industry.^  The  C6rtes  of  the  same  year 
asked  for  restrictions  on  this  and  Navarrete,  in  his  commentary  on 
the  consulta,  dwells  at  some  length  on  the  evils  thence  arising,  for 
the  sons  of  peasants  flock  thither,  to  gain  the  exemptions  of  the 
learned  classes;  an  infinite  number  of  them  fail  to  reach  the  priest- 
hood, becoming  beggars  and  vagrants  and  criminals,  while  many 
of  those  who  enter  orders  are  forced  to  dishonorable  practices, 
the  public  suffering  in  consequence  from  the  lack  of  laborers  and 
artisans.^  Protests  were  in  vain  and,  in  1753,  Gregorio  Mayans  y 
Siscar  still  called  attention  to  the  crowds  of  half-educated  students 
who  sponged  on  the  community — drones  who  sucked  the  honey 
while  they  might  be  of  service  in  driving  a  plough  or  handling 
a  musket — a  complaint  echoed  with  still  greater  vigor  by  Jove- 
llanos  in  1795.* 

To  this  tendency  may  be  attributed  the  frenzied  rush  for  office,  to 
which  the  suggestive  name  of  empleomania  has  been  given,  bur- 
dening the  State  with  a  vast  superfluity  of  employees  and  depriving 
it  of  their  services  in  useful  production.     In  1674  the  Lucchese 

'  Discurso  politico  (Semanario  enidito,  II,  143). 

A  modern  writer  attributes  to  the  infusion  of  Saracen  blood  this  charac- 
teristic— "este  cardcter  indolente  y  apAtico,  que  nos  impede  Uegar  d  tiempo  en 
nuestras  empresas,  6  que  no  nos  consiente  Uevarlas  ^  termino  bien  cumplido." — 
Madrazo,  El  pueblo  espanol  ha  muerto?  p.  29  (Santander,  1903). 

'  Francisco  Santos,  El  No  Importe  de  :^spana,  pp.  149,  203  (Madrid,  1668). 

'  Ddvila,  Vida  de  Felipe  III,  p.  216. 

'  Pedro  Fernandez  Navarrete,  Discursos  polfticos,  fol.  66  (Barcelona,  1621), 

See  also  his  later  Conservacion  de  Monarquias,  Discurso  XLvi  (Madrid,  1626) 
where  he  states  that  there  were  thirty-two  universities  and  more  than  four  thou- 
sand grammar-schools  where  Latin  was  taught. 

=  Semandrio  erudite,  XXVI,  108.— Jovellanos,  Informe,  p,  154. 


h^. 


486  BETBOSPECT  [Book  IX 

envoy  wonders  at  the  revenues,  estimated  at  seventy-five  millions, 
without  apparent  result,  which  he  ascribes  partly  to  the  waste  in 
collecting,  the  collectors  employed  numbering  two  hundred  thou- 
sand— a  manifest  exaggeration,  but  yet  suggestive.'  About  1740, 
Macanaz  ranks  this  as  the  first  in  his  enumeration  of  the  causes  of 
Spain's  condition ;  there  are,  he  says,  a  thousand  employees  where 
forty  would  suflfice,  if  they  were  kept  at  work,  and  the  rest  could 
be  set  at  some  useful  labor.^  The  evil  still  continues,  if  we  may 
believe  modern  writers  who  regard  it  as  one  of  the  serious  impedi- 
ments to  prosperity.' 

From  the  depth  of  poverty,  disorder  and  humiliation  to  which 
Spain  had  fallen,  the  process  of  recuperation  under  the  Bourbons 
was  slow  and  at  first  vacillating.  Something  was  accomplished 
by  Philip  V,  in  spite  of  his  continual  wars  and  his  melancholy 
madness,  when  he  had  rid  himself  of  such  adventurers  as 
Alberoni  and  Ripperda  and  gave  scope  to  the  practical  genius  of 
Patino.^  The  upward  impulse  continued  under  Fernando  VII, 
while,  under  Carlos  III  and  his  enlightened  ministers  the  progress 
was  rapid.  A  memorial  addressed  by  Floridablanca  to  the  king, 
towards  the  close  of  his  reign,  enumerates  the  reforms  and  works 
of  utility  undertaken  during  his  ministry.  There  were  canals, 
both  for  navigation  and  irrigation,  the  drainage  of  marsh  lands, 
the  establishment  of  the  nuevas  poblaciones,  the  improvement  of 
roads.  The  trade  to  the  colonies  was  thrown  open  to  all  the 
ports  instead  of  being  restricted  to  Seville,  with  the  result  that  the 
exports  quickly  trebled  and  the  customs  revenue  doubled.  The 
Banco  Nacional  was  founded  and  the  public  credit,  which  had 
fallen  very  low,  was  speedily  restored.  Insurance  companies  were 
established  and  other  trading  associations,  which  gave  hfe  to 
industry  and  commerce.  The  tariff  on  imports  was  rendered 
uniform  at  all  the  ports,  and  its  schedules  were  arranged  so  as  to 
foster  internal  development,  being  light  on  machinery  and  raw 
materials  and  heavy  on  articles  produced  in  Spain,  not  only 
stimulating  industry  to  the  great  prosperity  of  the  land,  but  in- 


'  Relazioni  Lucchese,  p.  89. 

'  Semandrio  enidito,  VII,  167,  169. 

'  Juan  de  Valera,  Disertaciones  y  Judicios  literdrios,  p.  201  (Madrid,  1878). — 
Reconstitucion  de  Espafia,  p.  29. 

*  See  the  very  instructive  sketch  by  D.  Antonio  Rodriguez  Villa,  "  Patiflo  y 
Campillo,"  Madrid,  1882. 


Chap.  II]  IMPROVEMENT  487 

creasing  the  customs  revenue  to  a  hundred  and  thirty  millions 
when  it  had  previously  never  exceeded  thirty  millions  in  the  most 
prosperous  years.  The  complicated  and  burdensome  Rentas 
Provinciates  were  regulated  so  as  to  fall  equally  on  the  various 
provinces  and  to  be  easily  borne;  the  Millones  were  reduced  one- 
half;  the  formalities  of  the  alcavala  were  simplified  and  its  per- 
centage greatly  reduced,  so  as  to  bear  lightly  on  industry,  and  with 
the  expectation  of  its  abrogation.  The  numbers  of  the  exempts 
were  diminished.  All  the  mechanic  arts  were  "habilitated,"  so 
that  nobles  engaging  in  them  should  not  forfeit  their  nobility, 
thus  taking  away  the  excuse  for  idleness  and  vice  of  those  who 
called  themselves  noble  and  refused  to  work,  however  poor  they 
might  be.  Through  this  policy  during  the  reign  of  Carlos  III, 
the  population  of  Peninsular  Spain  increased  by  a  miUion  and  a 
half  and,  under  his  guidance  it  emerged  from  the  Middle  Ages 
and  began  to  take  position  with  modern  nations.^ 

Much  as  had  thus  been  accomplished,  much  remained  to  do, 
as  set  forth,  in  1795,  by  Jovellanos  in  his  celebrated  "Informe." 
Unfortunately  progress  was  arrested  by  the  indolent  Carlos  IV 
and  his  favorite  Godoy.  Then  came  the  Napoleonic  wars,  and 
the  course  of  events,  as  traced  in  the  preceding  chapter,  was  not 
conducive  to  improvement.  Yet,  in  all  the  vicissitudes  which 
Spain  has  endured  since  then,  if  we  may  trust  the  growth  of  popu- 
lation as  an  index  of  advancement,  the  substitution  of  liberal 
institutions  for  absolutism  has  proved  a  success  and,  however  real 
may  be  the  abuses  of  which  the  reforming  element  complains,  the 
present  situation  is  vastly  better  than  the  past.  The  census  of 
1768  showed  a  total  of  9,309,804;  that  of  1787,  10,409,879;  that 
of  1799,  something  over  12,000,000.  Then  there  was  a  falling  off 
and,  in  1822,  it  was  11,661,980.  Yet,  in  spite  of  Carlist  wars  and 
political  troubles,  in  1885,  it  had  risen  to  17,228,776,  and  it  is 
now  reckoned  at  19,000,000  or  about  double  that  of  the  period  of 
Spanish  greatness.  The  fair  inference  from  this  is  that  Spain 
has  a  future ;  that,  while  much  remains  to  do,  much  has  been  accom- 
plished, and  that  there  is  progress  which,  if  continued,  will  restore 
in  great  measure  her  ancient  strength,  although  the  enormous 
growth  of  modern  nations  precludes  the  expectation  that  she  can 
resume  her  commanding  position. 


'  Vida  poKtica  y  ministerial  del  Conde  de  Floridablanca.    This,  I  believe,  has 
never  been  printed.     My  copy  is  in  MS. 


RETBOSPEGT  [Book  IX 

'in  addition  to  these  secular  causes  of  Spanish  decadence,  there 
remains  to  be  considered  another  class  of  no  less  importance — 
those  arising  from  clericalism,  or  the  relations  of  the  Church  to 
the  State,  and  its  influence  on  the  popular  character  and  tendencies. 

The  accumulation  of  lands  and  wealth  by  the  Church,  and 
especially  by  the  religious  Orders,  was,  from  an  early  time,  a  source 
of  concern  to  statesmen  and  of  complaint  by  the  people,  for  the 
exemption  from  the  royal  jurisdiction,  from  military  service  and 
from  taxation,  claimed  as  imprescriptible  rights  by  the  Church, 
weakened  the  power  of  the  State  and  threw  increased  burdens 
upon  the  population.  Almost  all  the  European  nations  endeavored 
to  curb  this  acquisitiveness  by  laws  of  which  the  English  Statutes 
of  Mortmain  and  the  French  droits  d'amortissement  may  be  taken 
as  examples.  These  acquisitions  came  from  two  sources,  each 
abundantly  productive — gifts  or  bequests  and  purchase.  The 
sinner,  unable  to  redeem  in  money  the  canonical  penance  for  his 
sins  impossible  to  perform,  would  make  over  a  piece  of  land  and 
obtain  absolution  or,  if  on  his  death-bed,  would  bequeath  a  portion 
of  his  estate  to  be  expended  in  masses  for  his  soul — perhaps  found- 
ing a  capellania  for  that  purpose,  or  as  provision  for  a  son  who 
would  serve  as  chaplain.  So  audacious  became  the  demands  of 
the  Church  on  the  estates  of  the  dying  that,  in  1348,  the  C6rtes  of 
AlcaM  complained  that  all  the  Orders  obtained  from  the  royal 
chancery  letters  empowering  them  to  examine  all  testaments, 
whereupon  they  claimed  all  bequests  made  to  uncertain  places  or 
persons;  also,  if  there  was  not  a  bequest  for  each  Order,  those 
omitted  demanded  one  equal  to  the  largest  in  the  will  and  they 
further  claimed  the  whole  estates  of  those  who  died  intestate.  If 
these  demands  were  contested,  they  wearied  the  heirs  with  liti- 
gation into  a  compromise.  Alfonso  promised  to  revoke  all  such 
letters  but  the  Black  Death,  which  speedily  followed,  brought  an 
immense  accretion  of  lands  for  the  foundation  of  anniversaries 
and  chaplaincies,  which  led  to  lively  reclamations  by  the  C6rtes 
of  Valladolid,  in  1351.^ 

With  wealth  thus  constantly  accumulating,  the  church  or 
monastery  would  purchase  lands  from  the  laity,  and  as  these 
became  exempt  from  taxation  it  could  afford  to  pay  more  than 
a  secular  purchaser.  Whatever  thus  passed  into  ecclesiastical 
possession  was  never  alienated;  it  remained  in  the  grip  of  the 


'  C6rtes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos,  I,  605;  II,  65,  66,  134,  140,  143. 


Chap.  II]  THE  BURDEN  OF  THE  03UBCH  489 

Dead  Hand  which,  by  constant  accretions,  came  to  hold  a  large 
portion  of  the  most  desirable  lands  and  thus  of  the  wealth  of  the 
kingdom. 

It  would  be  tedious  to  recapitulate  the  complaints  of  the  Cortes 
and  the  devices  attempted  by  legislation  from  the  eleventh  century 
onward  to  check  this  growth,  which  was  regarded  as  threatening 
the  most  serious  evils  to  the  nation.'  Laws  were  adopted  only 
to  be  evaded  or  forgotten,  and  the  process  went  on.  A  new  ele- 
ment, however,  was  injected  into  the  struggle  when,  in  1438,  the 
Cortes  of  Madrigal  made  a  vigorous  representation  to  Juan  II 
that,  if  no  remedy  were  applied,  all  the  best  lands  in  the  kingdom 
would  belong  to  the  Church,  resulting  in  manifold  injury  to  the 
people  and  the  crown,  to  which  the  feeble  king  evasively  replied 
that  he  would  apply  to  the  pope.^  Hitherto  Spanish  independence 
of  the  papacy  had  regarded  all  such  questions  as  subject  to  national 
regulation,  but  this  utterance  indicated  that  papal  confirmation 
was  beginning  to  be  recognized  as  necessary  in  everything  that 
affected  the  Church.  This  was  not  at  once  admitted,  for  Juan,  in 
1447,  in  response  to  the  Cortes  of  Valladolid,  and  by  a  decree  of 
1452,  imposed  a  tax  of  twenty  per  cent,  on  all  purchases,  bequests 
and  donations,'  but  it  gradually  established  itself  and  furnished  a 
ready  answer  to  the  vigorous  representations  which,  with  growing 
insistence,  the  Cortes  of  the  sixteenth  century  made  in  1515,  1518, 
1523,  1528,  1532,  1534,  1537,  1538,  1542,  1544,  1551  and  1573.* 
This  put  all  remedy  out  of  the  question,  for  no  pope  could  be 
expected  to  set  limits  to  ecclesiastical  wealth  and  influence,  from 
which  the  curia  derived  its  revenues;  and  the  petitions  of  the 
Cortes  served  only  to  emphasize  the  magnitude  of  the  evil  and  its 
universal  recognition  by  the  people. 

It  was  not  only  the  progressive  absorption  of  wealth  and  land 
that  was  detrimental  but  the  corresponding  increase  in  the  numbers 
of  the  clergy,  regular  and  secular,  who  were  released  from  all  the 
duties  of  the  citizen,  and  whose  vows  of  celibacy  aided  in  accelera- 
ting the  diminution  of  the  population.  The  process  continued 
with  added  vigor,  especially  after  the  commencement  of  the  seven- 

•■  Cortes  de  los  antiguos  Reinos,  I,  2,  24,  42,  43,  51,  244,  246,  289,  291,  360-1, 
470.— Fuero  viejo,  Lib.  v,  Tit.  ii,  ley  1;  Lib.  I,  Tit.  i,  ley  3. 

'  Cortes  etc.  Ill,  339-40. 

'  Ibidem,  516-18.— Autos  acordados,  Lib.  v,  Tit.  x.  Auto  1. 

'  Colmeiro,  C6rtes,  II,  88,  98,  121,  147,  163,  168,  ISO,  192,  199,  207.— C6rtes 
de  Madrid  del  afio  de  Setenta  y  tres,  Peticion  57  (Alcald.  1575). 


490  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

teenth  century,  owing  partly  to  a  wave  of  religious  fervor  which 
led  to  the  founding  of  chapels  and  convents  on  a  greater  scale  than 
ever,  and  partly  to  the  growing  destitution  forcing  men  to  seek 
conventual  refuge,  where  they  might  at  least  escape  starvation, 
and  inducing  parents  to  give  their  sons  such  smattering  of  educa- 
tion as  might  enable  them  to  take  orders  and  have  at  least  a  chance 
to  secure  a  livelihood  free  from  the  crushing  burdens  of  taxation. 
The  result  of  this  is  seen  in  Fray  Bleda's  boast,  in  1618,  that  one- 
fourth  of  the  Christians  of  Spain  were  priests,  frailes  or  nuns,  and, 
even  though  this  is  obviously  an  over-estimate,  it  indicates  how 
great  was  the  task  imposed  on  the  producing  classes  to  support 
in  idleness  so  large  a  portion  of  the  population/  The  increase 
was  largely  in  the  Mendicant-  Orders,  whose  systematic  begging, 
that  no  one  dared  refuse,  was  a  grievous  addition  to  the  tithes  and 
first  fruits. 

^  A  single  instance  will  illustrate  this  inordinate  growth.  Cardi- 
nal Mendoza,  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  the  "third  king"  imder 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  stubbornly  refused  to  allow  convents  to 
be  founded  in  his  province,  saying  that  there  were  already  many 
that  were  injurious  to  the  people  obliged  to  sustain  them,  but  this 
ceased  with  his  death  in  1495.  His  biographer.  Doctor  Pedro  de 
Salazar,  penitentiary  of  the  cathedral,  tells  us  that  the  city  of 
Toledo  held  a  privilege  from  Alfonso  X  prohibiting  the  erection 
of  convents  there.  At  that  time  there  were  six,  but  in  1625,  when 
he  wrote,  these  had  been  enlarged  and  numerous  others  had  been 
founded,  so  that  they  then  occupied  more  than  fifty  royal  and  noble 
houses  and  more  than  six  hundred  smaller  ones.  The  disastrous 
influence  of  this  on  the  prosperity  of  the  place  is  self-evident  and 
Salazar  regards  this  portentous  development  of  ecclesiasticism  as 
the  chief  cause  of  the  decline  in  the  population  of  Spain,  which 
he  estimates  at  twenty-five  per  cent.^ 

The  consulta  of  the  Council  of  Castile,  in  1619,  naturally  included 
in  its  enumeration  of  the  causes  of  national  distress  the  foundation 
of  so  many  religious  houses,  which  were  filled  with  those  attracted, 
not  by  vocation  but  by  a  life  of  idleness,  while  their  lands  were 
exempt  from  taxation.^  In  a  similar  mood,  the  C6rtes,  assembled 
by  Philip  IV  on  his  accession,  made  a  forcible  and  somewhat 


'  Bleda,  Coronica  de  los  Mores,  pp.  864,  1025. 

^  Salazar,  Cr6nica  del  Gran  Cardenal  de  Espana,  Lib.  i,  cap.  68  (Madrid,  1625). 

'  Ddvila,  Vida  de  Felipe  III,  p.  216. 


Chap.  II]  THE  BURDEN  OF  THE  CHURCH  491 

rhetorical  representation,  asking  for  measures  to  restrain  the 
multipUcation  of  foundations  and  the  purchases  of  land,  which 
not  only  diminished  the  alcavalas  but,  in  a  few  years,  would  ex- 
empt all  real  estate  from  the  royal  jurisdiction  and  accumulate  all 
taxation  on  the  miserable  poor,  thus  destroying  the  population  of 
the  provinces,  for  it  was  evident  that,  if  the  clergy  continued  to 
increase  as  it  was  doing,  the  villages  would  be  without  inhabitants, 
the  fields  without  laborers,  the  sea  without  mariners  and  the  arts 
without  craftsmen;  commerce  would  be  extinct  and,  marriage 
being  despised,  the  world  would  not  last  for  a  century.^ 

At  the  earnest  request  of  the  kingdom,  which  represented  that 
it  could  not  support  these  idle  multitudes  or  furnish  soldiers  for 
war.  Urban  VIII,  in  1634,  granted  a  bull  reforming  the  religious 
Orders  and  suppressing  some  of  the  Barefooted  ones,  but  the 
opposing  influences  were  too  strong  and  it  was  ineffective.^  In 
1677  the  matter  was  again  debated,  including  the  excessive  num- 
bers of  the  secular  clergy,  but  action  was  postponed  until  there 
was  a  better  prospect  of  results.  The  recognized  evils  were  too 
serious  to  remain  thus  pigeon-holed,  and  an  attempt  was  again 
made  in  1691,  the  feebleness  of  which  demonstrates  how  com- 
pletely the  Church  dominated  the  State  and  could  not  be  reformed 
without  its  own  consent.  The  king  deplored  the  multiplication 
of  convents,  and  the  consequent  relaxation  of  discipline,  and  the 
pope  was  to  be  asked  for  authority  to  appoint  visitors  with  fuU 
powers.  The  excessive  increase  of  the  secular  priesthood,  he  said, 
was  the  cause  of  numerous  disorders,  to  cure  which  the  pope  was 
to  be  applied  to  for  faculties  enabling  bishops  and  abbots  to  reduce 
their  numbers,  so  that  all  incumbents  could  live  decently.  The 
clergy  in  minor  orders  were  so  numerous  that  their  exemption  from 
the  royal  jurisdiction  and  the  public  burdens  was  a  grievous  injury 
to  the  laity  and  the  bishops  were  asked  to  limit  their  ordination. 
The  absorption  of  lands  by  the  Church  was  an  evil  which  had 
puzzled  the  wisest  heads  in  all  ages;  many  states  had  adopted  laws 
regulating  this,  but  he  hesitated  to  have  recourse  to  such  measures 
until  statistics  could  be  gathered,  and  it  could  be  decided  how  to 
reduce  the  numbers  of  the  secular  clergy.^  In  short,  the  Church 
was  an  Old  Man  of  the  Sea,  strangling  the  State,  which  lacked 
power  to  rid  itself  of  its  oppressor. 

'  Cespedes  y  Meneses,  Don  Felipe  Quarto,  Lib,  11,  cap.  10. 
'  Carinas  de  Jesuitas  (Mem.  hist,  espanol,  XIII,  86). 
^  Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  iv,  Tit.  i,  Auto  4. 


492  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

With  the  advent  of  the  Bourbons  there  was  less  tendency  to  this 
hopelessness  and,  in  1713,  the  plain-spoken  Macanaz,  in  a  report 
to  the  king,  presented  a  terrible  picture  of  the  misery  and  im- 
poverishment resulting  from  the  overgrown  numbers  and  wealth 
of  the  clergy/  Yet,  short  of  revolution,  effective  remedy  was 
impossible,  and  Philip  V  contented  himself  with  a  decree  express- 
ing regret  that,  without  papal  assent  or  a  concordat,  he  could  not 
afford  general  relief  to  his  vassals.  While  awaiting  this,  however, 
he  severely  characterized  the  frauds  of  confessors  in  inducing  the 
dying  to  impoverish  their  heirs.  Such  testators  were  declared  not 
to  be  of  free  will,  their  bequests  were  invalid  and  scriveners  draw- 
ing them  were  threatened  with  condign  punishment.^ 

Much  of  this  evil  would  have  been  averted  had  the  salutary 
reforms  prescribed  by  the  Council  of  Trent  been  enforced,'  but 
they  had  been  a  dead  letter,  at  least  in  Spain.  In  1723,  however, 
Philip  induced  the  Spanish  bishops  to  supplicate  Innocent  XIII 
on  the  subject,  resulting  in  a  constitution  in  which  he  embodied  at 
great  length  the  Tridentine  decrees  as  to  restricting  ordinations 
and  the  number  of  religious  in  convents.^  It  was  a  tribute  to  the 
capacious  learning  rather  than  to  the  consistency  of  Macanaz  that 
the  Regular  Orders  employed  him  to  draw  up  a  memorial  to  the 
king,  protesting  against  the  enforcement  of  the  papal  decree,  in 
which  he  lavished  praises  on  them,  and  argued  vigorously  against 
any  restriction  on  numbers  beyond  the  capacity  of  support.^  This, 
however,  was  but  a  lawyer's  argument  for  a  client  and  did  not 
prevent  him,  in  memorials  to  Philip  V,  about  1740  and  to  Fernando 
VI,  in  1746,  from  expressing  his  true  opinions  as  to  the  evils  which 
were  a  main  cause  of  Spanish  distress — more  than  half  the  land 
held  in  mortmain  and  exempt  from  public  burdens,  and  the  im- 
mense number  of  those  who,  in  place  of  being  good  laborers  were 
bad  priests,  wandering  around  as  beggars  to  the  scandal  of  rehgion, 
while  the  overgrown  religious  Orders  were  useless  consumers, 
living  on  the  rest  of  the  nation." 


'  Llorente,  Coleccion  diplomdtica,  p.  44. 

'  Autos  Acordados,  Lib.  v,  Tit.  x,  Auto  3. 

'  C.  Trident.  Sess.  xxi,  De  Reform,  cap.  2;  Sess.  xxiii,  De  Reform,  cap.  4,  5, 
7,  10,  11,  12,  13,  14;  Sess.  xxv,  De  Reg.  et  Mon.  cap.  3. 

"  Innocent.  PP.  XIII,  Constit.  Apostolici  ministerii,  13  Maii,  1723.  Confirmed 
by  Benedict  XIII,  September  23,  1724  (BuUar.  Roman.  XIII,  60). 

'  Semandrio  erddito,  X,  149-58. 

»  Ibidem,  VII,  172,  182-4;  VIII,  231-33. 


Chap.  II]  THE  BURDEN  OF  THE  CHUBOH  493 

In  negotiating  the  Concordat  of  1737,  Philip  obtained  with 
difficulty  a  concession  subjecting  to  taxation  future  acquisitions, 
but  it  was  impossible  of  enforcement  and  repeated  decrees  by  him, 
in  1745,  by  Fernando  VII  in  1756  and  by  Carlos  III  in  1760  and 
1763,  only  attest  the  powerlessness  of  the  State  when  dealing  with 
the  Church.  In  1795  Godoy  dallied  with  a  project  of  secularizing 
Church  property  to  meet  the  expenses  of  the  disastrous  war  with 
France,  but  was  obliged  to  abandon  the  project  and  only  imposed 
a  tax  of  fifteen  per  cent,  on  new  acquisitions.^  It  was  inevitable 
that  the  Cortes  of  Cddiz  and  the  constitutional  Government  of 
1820-3  should  partially  carry  out  what  Spanish  publicists  for 
centuries  had  demanded,  and  should  earn  the  bitterest  clerical 
hostility. 

As  a  matter  of  course  the  wealth  of  so  numerous,  powerful  and 
worldly  a  Church  was  enormous.  As  early  as  1563  Paolo  Tiepolo 
states  that  the  clergy  possessed  little  less  than  one  half  the  total 
revenues  of  Spain.  He  rates  the  income  of  the  Archbishop  of 
Toledo  at  150,000  ducats,  and  in  addition  the  church  of  Toledo 
had  300,000.^  Exemption  from  public  burdens  gave  ample  oppor- 
tunity of  Lucrease  and,  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
archbishop  was  estimated  as  enjoying  an  income  of  half  a  million 
dollars.'  Navarrete,  in  1624  regards  as  one  of  the  leading  causes 
of  the  hatred  entertained  for  the  Church  by  the  laity,  the  contrast 
between  its  affluence  and  the  general  poverty,^  nor  is  this  unlikely 
for,  during  the  worst  periods  of  national  disaster,  the  Church  seems 
always  to  have  enjoyed  superabundant  resources.  As  its  income, 
other  than  the  produce  of  its  lands,  was  largely  derived  from 

'  Novfs.  Recop.,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  v,  leyes  14,  15,  17,  18. 
Under  Carlos  III  the  numbers  of  the  clergy  were: 

1768.  1787. 

Parish  priests 15,639  16,689 

Beneficed  clergy,  vicars  etc 51,408  42,707 

Regular  clergy,  males      ....           .      .  55,453  47,515 

Do.        Do.     females         27,665  24,559 

Servants,  sacristans,  acolytes,  etc 25,248  16,376 

Treasurers  of  religious  houses 8,552  4,127 

183,965  151,973 

The  falling  off  in  1787  is  probably  due  to  greater  rigor  in  scrutinizing  claims 
to  exemption. 
'  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  V,  p.  19. 
'  Ricordi  sulla  Spagna  nell'anno  1853  (Ibidem,  III,  469). 
*  Conservaeion  de  Monarqulas,  Discurso  xLV. 


494  BETBOSPEQT  [Book  IX 

tithes,  it  necessarily  varied,  from  year  to  year,  but  was  always 
enormous.  In  1653,  we  find  Plasencia  spoken  of  as  one  of  the 
four  most  lucrative  bishoprics  in  Spain,  with  an  income  of  40,000 
ducats,  but  that  there  were  years  in  which  it  had  been  worth 
80,000 — and  this  at  a  time  when  the  State  was  virtually  bankrupt, 
the  currency  in  frightful  disorder,  commerce  and  industry  pros- 
trate, and  the  whole  land  steeped  in  poverty.^  Against  this,  it 
is  true,  must  be  set  the  habit  of  the  monarch  in  calling  upon  the 
bishops,  as  well  as  on  the  nobles,  for  contributions,  as  we  have 
seen  in  the  case  of  Vald^s;  thus  Cardinal  Quiroga,  when  Archbishop 
of  Toledo,  from  1577  to  1594,  is  said  to  have  given  to  Philip  II 
an  aggregate  of  a  million  and  a  half  of  ducats.^  There  were  also 
certain  papal  grants  to  the  crown  on  the  revenues  of  the  clergy 
at  large,  known  as  the  subsidio  and  the  excusado  which,  in  1573, 
were  reckoned  at  575,000  crowns  a  year  and  in  1658  at  something 
over  two  million  ducats.' 

It  betrays  a  consciousness  of  overgrown  wealth  that  all  know- 
ledge of  its  amount  was  carefully  concealed.  In  1741,  Benedict 
XIV  granted  to  Philip  V  eight  per  cent,  of  the  revenues  of  the 
clergy,  regular  and  secular,  for  that  year.  The  collection  of  this 
in  Granada  was  delegated,  with  full  coercive  powers,  to  the,  Arch- 
deacon Juan  Bautista  Simoni  who,  after  Easter  1742,  issued  an 
edict  requiring  all  incumbents,  within  ten  days,  to  render  sworn 
statements  of  their  property  and  income.  This  aroused  intense 
excitement.  Under  one  pretext  or  another  all,  from  the  arch- 
bishop down,  endeavored  to  escape  the  revelation  of  their  wealth; 
there  were  meetings  held  and  open  threats  were  made  of  a  cessatio 
a  divinis  if  the  measure  was  insisted  on.  A  compromise  was 
offered  of  payment  of  a  double  servicio,  which  was  assumed  to 
be  equivalent  to  eight  per  cent.,  but  they  refused  absolutely  to 
make  a  return  of  property  and  income.  Simoni  seems  to  have 
been  sincerely  desirous  of  executing  his  unpleasant  duty  with  as 
little  friction  as  possible  but,  in  reporting  this  repugnance  to  make 
sworn  statements,  he  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  its  object  was 


'  Bibl.  nacional,  MSS.,  D,  118,  fol.  146,  n  49. 

'  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  V,  p.  450. 

'  Ibidem,  T.  VI,  p.  378.— Zanctomato,  p.  88. 

The  subsidio  was  a  grant  from  Paul  IV  to  arm  sixty  g-illeys,  a  purpose  wliich 
was  speedily  forgotten.  The  excusado  was  a  grant  from  Paul  V  empowering  the 
king  to  claim  in  each  parish  the  tithe  of  the  largest  tithe-payer,  but  it  led  to 
difficulties  in  collecting  and  was  commuted. 


Chap.  II]  THE  BURDEN  OF  THE  CHURCH  495 

to  prevent  the  king  from  learning  that  about  three  fourths  of  all 
the  property  in  Spain  was  in  the  hands  of  the  clergy,  secular  and 
regular,  and  especially  of  the  Carthusians,  Jesuits,  Geronimites 
and  Dominicans.  It  proved  to  be  impossible  to  compel  the  arch- 
bishop to  -make  the  return,  and  finally  it  was  compromised  by 
taking  the  average  of  a  valuation  made  during  five  years  of  a 
vacancy,  1728-32,  which  resulted  in  estimating  the  revenues  of 
the  see  at  about  39,000  ducats— evidently  an  undervaluation, 
although  Granada  was  reckoned  as  the  poorest  of  the  five  Cas- 
tilian  archbishoprics.' 

All  this  wealth  and  splendor  was  drawn,  in  its  ultimate  source, 
from  the  labor  of  the  husbandman  and  the  administration  of  the 
sacraments,  casting  a  grievous  burden  on  the  industry  of  the  land 
and  counting  for  much  in  the  general  impoverishment.  When 
the  little  development  of  Protestantism  in  1558  excited  so  much 
dread,  it  was  assumed  as  a  matter  of  course  that  the  people  would 
welcome  a  reform  that  would  bring  relief  from  the  burdens  of  the 
church  establishment.  Jovellanos  asks  what  is  left  of  the  ancient 
glory  of  Castile  save  the  skeletons  of  its  cities,  once  populous  and 
full  of  workshops  and  stores,  and  now  filled  with  churches,  con- 
vents and  hospitals,  which  survive  the  misery  that  they  have 
caused.^  So,  in  1820,  the  learned  Canon  Francisco  Martfnez 
Marina,  in  indicating  the  measures  necessary  to  restore  prosperity, 
says  that  the  first  one  is  to  reduce  the  wealth  of  the  clergy  for  the 
benefit  of  agriculture  and  the  poor  and  oppressed  peasant,  and 
to  abohsh  forever  the  unjust  and  insupportable  tribute  of  the  tithe, 
a  tribute  unknown  to  Spain  before  the  twelfth  century,  a  tribute 
which  directly  prevents  the  progress  of  agriculture  and  one  of 
those  which  have  inflicted  the  greatest  misery  on  the  husbandman.' 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion  de  Granada,  Expedientes  varies,  Leg.  2. 

^  Jovellanos,  Informe,  p.  88. 

'  Marina,  Teoria  de  las  C6ri;es,  P.  i,  cap.  xiii,  n.  24  (Madrid,  1820). 

The  burden  of  the  tithe  was  the  same  in  France  under  the  ancien  regime.  As 
a  recent  writer  remarks  "Les  dimes  ^taient  une  des  plus  lourdes,  peuttee  mtoe 
celle  qui  pesait  sur  les  campagnes  de  la  faf on  la  plus  g^n^rale  et  la  plus  facheuse 

on  ne  devrait  pas  oublier  que  le  droit  en  lui-mgme  6tait,  le  plus  souvent, 

bien  moins  odieux,  moins  funeste,  que  les  abus  auxquels  il  donnait  lieu  ou  servait 
de  pr^texte."— Edme  Champion,  La  Separation  de  I'Eglise  et  de  I'Etat  en  1794 
(Paris,  1903). 

The  tithes  and  first  fruits  were  by  no  means  the  only  ecclesiastical  exaction 
which  impoverished  the  husbandman.  An  anonymous  Presbitero  secular  who, 
in  1828,  vigorously  defended  the  temporalities  of  the  Church,  candidly  admits 


496  BETBOSPEOT  [Book  IX 

A  clergy  thus  worldly,  and  so  far  removed  from  apostolic 
poverty,  was  not  apt  to  be  devoted  to  its  duties,  or  to  set  an  exam- 
ple of  morality  to  its  subjects.  A  project,  drawn  up  by  a  Spanish 
bishop,  of  matters  to  be  urged  on  the  Council  of  Lateran  in  1512, 
affords  a  glimpse  into  the  deplorable  condition  of  the  Church 
which  was  so  deeply  concerned  with  the  salvation  of  the  Mar- 
ranos  and  Moriscos.  Few  among  the  laity  observed  the  prescribed 
fasts  and  feasts,  and  even  the  Easter  communion  was  neglected. 
The  priests  were  negligent  and,  even  in  cathedrals,  it  was  some- 
times difficult  to  have  divine  service  performed.  Among  the 
clergy,  from  bishops  to  the  lower  orders,  concubinage  was  uni- 
versal and  shameless,  while  simony  ruled  everywhere.^  The  pro- 
visions of  the  Council  of  Seville  in  1512,  and  of  Coria  in  1537, 
indicate  the  vicious  and  degraded  character  of  the  priesthood 
and  the  impossibility  of  restraining  their  habitual  concubinage.^ 
Alphonso  de  Castro  argues  that  if  it  were  not  for  the  protection 
of  God  it  would  be  difficult  to  preserve  religion  in  view  of  the 
unworthiness  of  the  priests  and  their  wickedness.  It  is  known 
to  all,  he  says,  that  the  contempt  felt  for  them  arises  first  from 
their  excessive  numbers,  secondly  from  their  ignorance  and  lastly 
from  their  flagitious  fives.'  Archbishop  Carranza  is  emphatic 
in  reproving  the  negligence  of  the  clerics,  who  were  so  indifferent 
to  their  duty  that  they  abandoned  their  churches  and  might  as 
well  be  non-existent,  in  addition  to  which  were  their  evil  and 
scandalous  lives  and  the  abuse  of  their  wealth.^ 


the  oppressiveness  of  some  of  its  revenues.  Among  those  enumerated  was  one 
known  as  Luctuosa — the  right  to  the  best  head  of  cattle  on  the  death  of  the 
peasant.  The  lay  lords  had  mostly  commuted  this  for  a  small  money  payment, 
but  the  clergy  farmed  it  out  and  the  farmers  exacted  it  with  the  utmost  rigor, 
not  only  on  the  death  of  the  head  of  a  family  but  on  that  of  every  member,  so 
that  the  survivors,  in  the  hour  of  bereavement,  were  often  stripped  of  the  means 
of  cultivating  their  holdings.  In  1787  the  people  of  the  see  of  Lugo,  after  a  long 
struggle,  obtained  from  Carlos  III  a  decree  restricting  it  to  the  death  of  the  head 
of  the  family  and  commuting  it  to  a  money  payment  of  sixty  reales  when  four 
head  of  cattle  were  owned  and  lesser  sums  for  a  smaller  number. — Historia  y 
Origan  de  las  Rentas  de  la  Iglesia  de  Espana,  pp.  90-7  (Madrid,  1828). 

This  exaction  was  by  no  means  confined  to  Spain.  See  Bum's  Law  Dictionary 
s.  v.  Heriot  and  Du  Cange  s.  vv.  Hereotum,  Luctuosa. 

'  Breve  Memoria  (Dollinger,  Beitrage  zur  polit.  kirchl.  u.  Cultur-Geschichte, 
III,  203). 

'  C.  Hispalens.  ann.  1512,  cap.  13,  17,  23,  26,  27  (Aguirre,  T.  V).— Barrantes, 
Aparato  para  la  Hist,  de  Extremadura,  I,  469. 

'  De  justa  Hsereticorum  punitione,  Lib.  iii,  cap.  5. 

'  Comentarios,  fol.  167,  260. 


Chap.  II]  CLERICAL  DEMORALIZATION  497 

This  is  confirmed  by  Inquisitor-general  Vald^s  who  states  that 
when,  in  1546,  he  assumed  the  archbishopric  of  Seville,  he  found 
the  clergy  and  the  dignitaries  of  his  cathedral  thoroughly  demoral- 
ized. They  had  no  shame  in  their  children  and  grandchildren; 
their  women  lived  with  them  openly,  as  though  married,  and 
accompanied  them  to  church,  and  many  of  them  kept  public  gam- 
ing tables  in  their  houses,  which  were  resorts  of  disorderly  charac- 
ters. If  we  may  believe  him,  he  resolutely  undertook  a  reform 
and  effected  it  at  great  labor  and  expense,  owing  to  appeals  and 
suits  in  Rome  and  in  Granada  and  in  the  Royal  Council  and  before 
apostolic  judges.  Then  Francisco  de  Erasso,  a  favorite  of  Charles 
V,  obtained  a  canonry  and  joined  those  who  desired  to  return  to 
their  former  dissolute  Hfe,  against  which,  in  1556,  he  appeals  to 
Philip  II  for  protection.^  The  lower  ranks  of  the  clergy  were  no 
better,  if  we  may  believe  the  synod  of  Orihuela,  in  1600,  which 
asserts  that  their  concubinage  was  the  cause  of  the  animosity  of 
the  people  against  them,^  and  we  have  seen,  when  treating  of 
Solicitation,  how  frequent  was  the  advantage  taken  of  the  oppor- 
timities  of  the  confessional. 

There  were  few  prelates  as  conscientious  as  Valdes  represents 
himself.  Alfonso  de  Castro  attributes  the  existence  of  heresy  to 
their  negligence;  they  were  so  slothful  that  they  paid  no  attention 
to  their  duties;  those  who  did  otherwise  were  so  rare  that  they 
were  like  jewels  among  pebbles.'  The  Venitian  envoy,  Giovanni 
Soranzo  is  less  cautious  in  his  utterance,  for  he  describes  them  as 
living  luxuriously  and  squandering  their  revenues  on  splendid 
estabUshments;  few  of  them  were  without  children,  in  whom  they 
took  no  shame  and  for  whose  advancement  they  employed  every 
means.*  At  the  other  end  of  the  scale  were  the  clerks  in  the  lower 
orders,  immersed  in  secular  affairs,  who  took  the  tonsure  in  order 
to  enjoy  the  protection  from  justice  afforded  by  the  Church. 
These  were  the  despair  of  those  responsible  for  pubhc  order. 
Fernando  de  Aragon,  Viceroy  of  Valencia,  complains,  August  21, 
1544,  of  the  impossibility  of  enforcing  justice  owing  to  the  zeal 
with  which  the  church' authorities  protected  the  tonsure,  whether 
right  or  wrong.  The  officials  of  the  archbishops,  he  says,  have 
been  debased  and  ignorant  men,  whose  sole  aim  has  been  to  save 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Patronato  Real,  Inq.,  Leg.  linico,  fol.  76. 
2  Synod.  Oriolan.,  ann.  1600,  cap.  xxviii  (Aguirre,  VI,  457). 
'  Alphonsus  a  Castro  adversus  Hsereses,  Lib.  i,  cap.  xii. 
'  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  V,  p.  79. 
VOL.  IV  32 


498  RETBOSPECT  [Book  IX 

criminals  from  the  punishment  of  their  crimes.  He  is  encouraged 
to  hope  for  better  things  from  the  appointment  as  archbishop  of 
San  Tomas  de  Vilanova,  and  the  latter  follows,  September  8th, 
with  allusions  to  his  own  sufferings  in  consequence  of  his  efforts 
to  remedy  this  condition,  which  is  an  offence  to  justice  and  to  God 
and  a  great  damage  to  the  people/ 

A  Church  composed  of  such  elements  was  not  fitted  to  exercise 
for  good  the  enormous  influence  which  it  enjoyed  over  public 
affairs,  not  only  in  shaping  the  policy  of  the  kingdom  but  in 
directing  the  national  tendencies.  The  theory  was  still  the 
medieval  one — that  the  ecclesiastical  power  is  the  sun  and  the 
royal  power  the  moon,  which  derives  its  light  from  the  sun.^  To 
its  influence,  as  represented  by  Torquemada,  was  due  the  expul- 
sion of  the  Jews;  by  Ximenes,  the  enforced  conversion  of  the 
Moors;  by  Espinosa,  the  rebellion  of  Granada;  by  Juan  de  Ribera 
and  his  fellows,  the  expulsion  of  the  Moriscos.  In  the  royal 
councils,  which  formed  a  bureaucracy,  prelates  held  leading  and 
often  dominant  positions,  and  their  subordinates  were  largely 
drawn  from  clerical  ranks.  In  1602  a  proposition  to  increase 
the  schools  of  artillery  was  referred  to  a  junta  presided  over  by 
the  royal  confessor,  which  reported  that  the  expense  could  not  be 
afforded;  the  schools  came  to  be  under  the  charge  of  Jesuits  and 
frailes  and  speedily  dwindled  to  nothmg.^  The  position  of  royal 
confessor  was  one  of  the  highest  political  importance.  Under 
Charles  V  he  participated  in  all  deliberations  and  had  a  prepon- 
derating influence.^  Under  Philip  II,  his  confessor  Fray  Diego 
de  Chaves,  played  a  leading  part  in  the  tragedy  of  Antonio  Perez. 
Fray  Gaspar  de  Toledo,  confessor  of  Philip  III  boasted  that,  when- 
ever he  told  the  king  that  a  thing  must  be  done  under  pain  of 
mortal  sin  or  that  it  was  sinful,  he  was  obeyed  without  discus- 
sion.°  The  Regent  Maria  Ana  of  Austria  was  completely  under 
the  domination  of  her  confessor  Nithard,  and  the  letters  to  him  of 
Clement  XI,  on  European  politics,  indicate  that  he  was  the  real 
ruler."     The  substitution  of  Froilan  Diaz  for  Fray  Pedro  Matilla, 

•  Col.  de  Doc.  in6d.,  V,  83,  85. 

'  Bleda,  Cor6tiica  de  los  Moros,  p.  910.— See  Bonifacii  PP.  VIII,  Bull.  Vmm 
Sanctum  (Extrav.  Commun.,  Lib.  i,  Tit.  viii,  cap.  1).  Also  the  De  Begimine 
Principum,  Lib.  ill,  cap.  x,  xiii,  xix,  which  passes  under  the  name  of  Aquinas. 

'  Picatoste,  La  Grandeza  y  Decadencia  de  Espana,  III,  192  (Madrid,  1887). 

'  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  II,  p.  208. 

'  Ddvila,  Hist,  de  Felipe  III,  Lib.  ii,  cap.  Ivii. 

'  Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Lib.  v,  fol.  93,  95,  97. 


Chap.  II]  FANATICAL  INTOLERANCE  499 

as  confessor  of  Carlos  II,  was  the  only  step  necessary  to  effect  a 
revolution  in  the  government  and,  when  Diaz  fled  to  Rome,  he 
was  reclaimed  as  a  fugitive  chief  minister  of  state.  We  have  seen 
under  Philip  V  the  power  wielded  by  his  confessors  Daubenton 
and  Robinet,  and  the  part  played  by  Rdbago  under  Fernando  VI. 
What  thus  ruled  the  court  was  perpetually  at  work  in  every  parish 
and  every  family,  where  the  pulpit  and  the  confessional  exercised 
an  incalculable  influence.  What  the  Spaniard  became  was  what 
the  Church  wished  him  to  be.  Clericalism  thus,  for  good  or  for 
evil,  was  a  leading  factor  in  controlling  the  destinies  of  Spain,  in 
exhausting  its  resources,  in  moulding  the  character  of  its  people, 
and  the  Inquisition  was  its  crowning  work. 

Under  such  influences,  the  toleration  which  had  been  so  marked 
a  feature  of  the  medieval  period  gradually  gave  place  to  a  fanati- 
cism finding  its  expression  in  the  Inquisition  and  inflamed  into 
greater  fierceness  by  the  existence  and  reaction  of  that  institution. 
There  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  sincere  devoutness  of  Charles 
V,  according  to  the  unanimous  testimony  of  the  Venetian  envoys, 
who  describe  his  punctual  discharge  of  all  religious  observances 
and  who  state  that  the  surest  avenue  to  his  favor  was  the  mani- 
festation of  earnest  zeal  for  religion.^  Shortly  before  his  death, 
he  expressed  deep  regret  that  he  had  not  executed  Luther  at 
Worms,  in  spite  of  his  pledged  safe-conduct,  for  he  ought  to  have 
forfeited  his  word  in  order  to  avenge  the  offence  to  God.  In  his 
will,  executed  in  1554  at  Brussels,  he  charged  Philip  II  in  the  most 
earnest  manner  to  favor  in  all  ways  the  Inquisition,  because  of 
the  many  and  great  offences  to  God  which  it  prevents  or  punishes 
and,  in  the  codicil  of  September  9,  1558,  dictated  on  his  death- 
bed, his  first  thought  is  to  repeat  the  injunction  and  to  urge  his  son, 
by  the  obedience  due  to  a  father,  to  prosecute  heresy,  rigorously, 
unsparingly  and  relentlessly.^  Philip  II  needed  no  such  exhor- 
tations. From  his  earliest  youth  he  had  breathed  an  atmosphere 
surcharged  by  the  conflict  with  heresy;  he  had  been  taught  that 
a  sovereign's  highest  duty  to  God  and  man  was  to  enforce  unity 
of  faith,  not  only  as  a  paramount  religious  obligation,  but  because 
it  was  an  axiom  of  the  statesmanship  of  the  time  that,  in  no  other 
way,  could  the  peace  of  a  kingdom  be  preserved.  There  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  his  perfect  sincerity  when,  in  1568,  the  Archduke 


•  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  I,  pp.  341-2;  II,  61,  213;  III,  222-3. 

'  Sandoval,  Vida  del  Emp.  Carlos  V,  II,  740,  777,  792  (Barcelona,  1625). 


50O  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

Charles  came  to  Spain,  as  the  representative  of  the  German 
princes,  to  urge  an  accommodation  with  the  Netherlands,  and 
Philip,  besides  his  formal  reply,  gave  the  archduke  secret  instruc- 
tions to  tell  the  emperor  that  no  human  influence,  or  considerations 
of  state,  or  all  that  the  whole  world  could  say  or  do,  would  make 
him  vary  a  hair's  breadth  from  the  course  which  he  had  adopted 
and  intended  to  pursue  in  this  matter  of  religion,  throughout 
all  his  dominions ;  that  he  would  listen  to  no  advice  with  regard  to 
it,  and  would  take  ill  any  that  might  be  offered.  At  the  same  time 
he  wrote  to  Chantonnay,  his  ambassador  at  Vienna,  that  what  he 
was  doing  in  the  Netherlands  was  for  their  advantage  and  the 
preservation  of  the  Catholic  faith,  and  that  he  would  make  no 
change  in  his  policy,  if  it  involved  risking  all  his  possessions  and 
if  the  whole  world  should  fall  upon  his  head.  So,  in  1574,  the 
instructions  to  the  commissioners  sent  to  Breda  to  confer  with  the 
deputies  of  William  the  Silent,  were  to  declare  emphatically  that 
he  would  suffer  no  one  to  live  under  his  throne  who  was  not  com- 
pletely a  Catholic.^  Philip  was  merely  translating  into  practice 
the  teachings  of  the  Church  and  won  its  unstinted  admiration. 
Cardinal  Pallavicini  contrasts  the  vacillating  persecution  in 
France  with  his  sanguinary  rigor,  which  was  not  only  grateful  to 
heaven  but  propitious  to  his  kingdom,  thus  saved  by  salutary 
blood-letting.^ 

It  was  natural  that  Philip,  in  his  will,  executed  March  7,  1594, 
should  reiterate  to  his  son  and  successor  the  injunctions  which 
he  had  received  from  his  father.  The  Inquisition  was  to  be  the 
object  of  special  favor,  even  greater  than  in  the  past,  for  the  times 
were  perilous  and  full  of  so  many  errors  in  the  faith.^  Philip  III 
had  not  energy  enough  to  be  an  active  persecutor  and  if,  under 
the  guidance  of  Lerma,  he  expelled  the  Moriscos,  under  the  same 
tutelage  he  made  peace  with  England  in  1605  and  a  truce  with 
Holland  in  1609,  to  the  disgust  of  the  pious  who  could  not  under- 
stand any  dealings  with  heretics.    Yet  he  was  a  most  religious 


'  Gachard,  Correspondance  de  Philippe  II,  Tom.  II,  27,  44,  58;  III,  588. 

'  Pallavicini,  Hist.  Cone.  Trident.,  Lib.  xiv,  cap.  xi,  n.  2. 

See  also  the  letter  of  St.  Pius  V,  April  26,  1569,  to  the  Duke  of  Anjou  (Henry 
III)  congratulating  him  on  his  victory  over  the  Huguenots  at  Jamac,  and 
urging  him  to  show  himself  inexorable  to  those  who  should  plead  for  mercy 
towards  heretics  and  rebels. — Pii  Quinti  Epistolar.  Lib.  v,  p.  168  (Antverpiffl, 
1640). 

'  Tegtamento  y  Codicilo  del  Rey  Don  Felipe  II,  p.  14  (Madrid,  1882). 


Chap.  II]  FANATICAL  INTOLERANCE  501 

prince,  who  spent  hours  every  day  in  his  devotions  and  in  examin- 
ing his  conscience,  and  who  set  a  shining  example  by  the  frequency 
with  which  he  sought  confession  and  communion/ 

It  was  a  matter  of  course  that  he  should,  in  his  will,  leave  to  his 
successor  the  customary  instructions  to  foster  the  Inquisition. 
As  to  Philip  IV,  we  have  seen  abundant  instances  of  his  subser- 
vience to  it,  during  his  half-century  of  reign,  and  of  his  readiness 
to  subordinate  to  it  all  other  interests.  He  showed  his  consistency 
in  this  when,  at  the  dictation  of  the  Suprema,  he  incurred  a  war 
with  England  through  his  refusal  to  sign  a  treaty  forbidding  the 
persecution  of  Englishmen  in  Spain  on  account  of  their  religion^ 
and,  in  his  will,  executed  in  1665,  he  laid  the  customary  injunctions 
on  his  successor  to  aid  and  favor  the  Inquisition,  adding  an 
exhortation  to  honor  and  defend  the  clergy  in  all  their  exemptions 
and  immunities,  and  earnestly  to  labor  for  the  reformation  of  the 
religious  Orders.^ 

Carlos  II  was  a  nonentity  who  need  not  be  considered  and, 
with  the  Bourbons,  we  enter  on  the  dawn  of  a  new  era,  in  which 
fanaticism  no  longer  dominates  the  policy  of  the  State.  It  is  true 
that  Philip  V,  when  abdicating,  in  1724,  enjoined  on  his  son  Luis 
the  preservation  of  the  faith  through  the  instrumentality  of  the 
Inquisition  as  fervently  as  any  of  his  predecessors  and  that,  during 
the  first  third  of  the  century,  there  was  a  fierce  recrudescence  of 
inquisitorial  acivity,  but  we  have  seen  how  the  spirit  of  the  age 
gradually  made  itself  felt  and,  although  the  duty  of  exterminating 
heresy  was  still  admitted  in  theory,  in  practice  its  enforcement 
was  greatly  mitigated. 

It  is  difficult  for  us,  in  the  indifferentism  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, to  realize  or  to  understand  the  violence  of  the  passions  excited 
by  questions  of  faith,  dissociated  from  all  temporal  interests,  and 
their  influence  on  a  people  so  emotional  as  the  Spaniards  and  so 
apt,  as  they  tell  us  themselves,  to  be  swayed  by  imagination  rather 
than  by  reason.     "We  have  seen  (Vol.  Ill,  p.  284)  the  whole  king- 


'  Relazioni  Lucchese,  p.  16. 

'  In  his  instructions  to  Colonel  Lockhart,  his  envoy  to  France  after  the  nego- 

'  tiation  of  the  treaty  of  1656,  Cromwell  tells  him  to  explain  to  Cardinal  Mazarin 

"  what  my  principles  are  which  led  me  to  a  closure  with  France  rather  than  with 

Spaine viz.  that  the  one  gives  libertie  of  conscience  to  the  professors  of  the 

Protestant  religion  and  the  other  persecuteing  it  with  losse  of  life  and  estate." — 
Prof.  C.  H.  Firth,  in  English  Historical  Review,  October,  1906,  p.  744. 

'  Coleccion  de  Tratados  de  Paz;  Phelipe  IV,  P.  VII,  p.  685. 


502  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

dom  of  Portugal  thrown  into  excitement  by  the  theft  of  a  pyx 
with  a  consecrated  host  and  that  only  the  opportune  discovery 
of  the  culprit  saved  all  the  New  Christians  from  expulsion.  It 
might  seem  to  us  a  very  trivial  affair  that,  on  the  eve  of  Good 
Friday,  1640,  there  was  posted,  in  the  chapter-house  of  Granada, 
a  placard  ridiculing  the  Christian  religion,  praising  the  Mosaic 
Law,  and  blaspheming  the  purity  of  the  Virgin,  but  it  produced 
the  greatest  excitement  throughout  Spain.  Special  services  were 
held  in  all  the  churches  to  appease  the  insulted  deity  and  to  dis- 
cover the  malefactor.  He  was  detected,  in  the  person  of  a  hermit 
of  the  Santa  Imagen  del  Triunfo,  who  was  arrested,  and  Inquisitor 
Rodezno  deemed  it  advisable  to  break  the  inviolable  secrecy  of 
the  Inquisition  in  order  to  calm  the  public  agitation,  by  letting  the 
people  know  that  the  culprit  had  been  discovered  and  convicted. 
Learned  doctors  improved  the  occasion  by  printing  dissertations 
in  which  it  was  proved  that  he  must  be  burnt  alive,  if  no  death 
more  atrocious  could  be  invented  to  suit  the  crime.*  The  fanatical 
hatred  of  heresy  per  se,  thus  sedulously  inculcated  and  engrained 
in  the  moral  fibre  of  every  Spaniard  is  seen  in  the  statutes  of  Lira- 
pieza,  which  closed  the  avenues  to  distinction  to  the  descendants 
of  Conversos  and  of  those  who  had  been  penanced  by  the  Inquisi- 
tion, so  that  even  arrest  and  imprisonment  for  a  trivial  offence 
inflicted,  according  to  popular  prejudice,  an  indelible  stigma  on 
a  family.  We  have  seen  to  what  insane  extent  this  was  carried 
and  what  evil  it  wrought  in  the  social  organization,  but  more 
prolific  in  evil  was  the  habit  of  thought  by  which  it  was  engendered 
and  which  it  intensified. 

Yet  practically  the  religion  which  was  so  sensitive  as  to  purity 
of  faith  was  of  a  very  superficial  character.  External  observances 
were  strictly  enforced,  and  the  Inquisition  was  ever  on  the  watch 
to  punish  any  irreverence  in  act  or  word,  yet  Alfonso  de  Castro 
tells  us  that,  in  the  mountainous  provinces,  sucE^as^-*Agtunas^ 
Galicia  and  elsewhere,  the  word  of  God  was  so  rarely  preached  to 
the  people  that  they  observed  many  pagan  rites  and  many  super- 
stitions.^ To  labor  on  Sunday  or  feast-day  was  a  serious  offence, 
involving  suspicion  of  heresy,  yet  Carranza  says  that  more  offences 
against  God  were  committed  on  Sundays  than  in  all  the  week- 
days combined ;  those  who  went  to  mass  mostly  spent  the  time  in 


1  MSS.  of  Bodleian  Library,  Arch  Seld.,  130. 
'  A.  de  Castro  adv.  Hasreses,  Lib.  i,  cap.  xiii. 


Chap.  II]  SUPERFICIAL  DEVOUTNESS  tqj 

business  or  in  talking  or  sleeping;  those  who  did  not  go,  gratified 
their  vanity  or  their  appetites;  the  ancient  Jews  used  to  say  that, 
on  their  feast-days,  the  demons  left  the  cities  for  refuge  in  the 
mountain  caves,  but  now  it  would  seem  that  on  week-days  the 
demons  avoided  the  people  who  were  busy  with  their  labors  and, 
on  feast-days,  came  trooping  joyfully  from  the  deserts,  for  then 
they  find  the  doors  open  to  all  kinds  of  vices.^ 

Paolo  Tiepolo,  in  1563,  observes  that,  in  all  external  signs  of 
religion,  the  Spaniards  are  exceedingly  devout,  but  h6  doubts 
whether  the  interior  corresponds;  the  clergy  live  as  they  choose, 
without  any  one  reprehending  them,  and  he  is  scandahzed  by  the 
buffooneries  and  burlesques  performed  in  the  churches  on  feast- 
days.^  The  churches,  in  fact,  seem  to  have  been  places  for  every- 
thing save  devotion.  Azpilcueta  describes  the  profane  obser- 
vances during  divine  service,  the  inattention  of  the  priests,  the 
processions  of  masks  and  demons,  the  banquets  and  feastings, 
and  other  disgraceful  profanations,  so  that  there  are  few  of  the 
faithful  who  do  not  sin  in  church,  and  few  who  do  not  utter  idle, 
vain,  foul,  evil  or  profane  words;  in  hot  weather,  the  coolness  of 
the  churches  made  them  favorite  lounging-places  for  both  sexes, 
including  monks  and  nuns,  and  much  that  was  indecent  occurred; 
they  were  moreover  places  for  the  transaction  of  business,  and 
more  bargaining  took  place  there  than  in  the  markets.^  This 
was  not  a  mere  passing  custom.  A  century  later  Francisco  Santos 
pictures  for  us  a  church  crowded  with  so-called  worshippers, 
where  the  services  could  scarce  be  heard  for  the  noise;  beggars 
crying  for  alms  and  wrangling  among  themselves;  two  men 
quarrelling  fiercely  and  on  the  point  of  drawing  their  swords;  a 
group  of  young  gallants  chattering  and  maltreating  a  poor  man 

'  Comentarios,  fol.  209. 

Spain  was  not  exceptional  in  this.  In  1700,  a  pastoral  of  Archbishop  Pre- 
cipiano  of  Mechlin  describes  with  equal  energy  this  profanation  of  saints'  days. 
— CoUectio  Synodorum  Archiep.  Mechliniensis,  II,  434  (Mechlinise,  1829). 

^  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  V,  p.  18. — In  1565,  Giovanni  Soranzo  makes 
the  same  statement  and  both  remark  on  the  facility  with  which  Spanish  troops 
passed  over  to  the  infidel. — Ibid,  p.  82. 

'  Azpilcueta  de  Oratione,  cap.  v,  n.  25-35. 

It  was  not  until  1772  that  Carlos  III  prohibited,  in  the  churches  of  Madrid,  the 
dances  and  gigantones  and  tarascas,  or  great  pasteboard  figures  of  giants  and  ser- 
pents, in  the  processions,  as  causing  disorder  and  interfering  with  devotion;  and 
in  1780  this  was  extended  over  the  whole  kingdom. — Novfs.  Recop.,  Lib.  i.  Tit. 
i,  ley  12. 


504  BETBOSPEOT  [Book  IX 

who  had  chanced  to  touch  them  in  passing;  people  leaving  one 
mass  that  had  commenced  to  follow  a  priest,  who  had  the  repu- 
tation of  greater  despatch  in  his  sacred  functions;  in  a  chapel  a 
bevy  of  fair  ladies  drinking  chocolate,  discussing  fashions  and 
waited  on  by  their  admirers — all  is  worldly  and  the  religious 
observance  is  the  merest  pretext.'  This  irreverence  was  shared 
by  the  priests.  A  brief  of  Urban  VIII,  January  30,  1642,  recites 
complaints  from  the  dean  and  chapter  of  Seville  concerning  the 
use  of  tobacco  in  the  churches,  both  in  smoking  and  snuffing, 
even  by  priests  while  celebrating  mass,  and  of  their  profanation 
of  the  sacred  cloths  by  using  them  and  staining  them  with  tobacco, 
wherefore  he  decrees  excommunication  latce  sententim  for  the  use 
of  the  weed  within  the  sacred  precincts.^  It  is  evident  that  the 
Inquisition,  while  enforcing  conformity  as  to  dogma  and  outward 
observance,  failed  to  inspire  genuine  respect  for  religion. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  how  little  really  was  gained  for  religion  by 
the  spirit  of  fierce  intolerance  largely  responsible  for  the  material 
causes  of  decadence  which  we  have  passed  rapidly  in  review. 
The  irrational  resolve  to  enforce  imity  of  faith  at  every  cost  spurred 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella  to  bum  and  pauperize  those  among 
their  subjects  who  were  most  economically  valuable,  to  expel 
those  who  could  not  be  reduced  to  conformity  and  to  institute  a 
system  of  confiscation  of  which  we  have  seen  the  destructive  in- 
fluence on  industry  and  on  the  credit  on  which  commerce  and 
industry  depend,  while  the  application  of  this  to  the  conderonation 
of  the  dead  not  only  brought  misery  on  innocent  descendants 
but  unsettled  titles  and  involved  all  transactions  in  insecurity. 
This  sanctified  the  ambition  of  Charles  V  with  the  halo  of  religion. 
This  was  the  motive  which  imderlay  the  suicidal  policy  of  Philip  II, 
leading  to  the  endless  wars  with  the  Netherlands,  to  the  rebellion 
of  Granada  and  to  the  wasteful  support  of  the  Ligue.  This  was 
at  the  bottom  of  the  Morisco  disaffection,  culminating  m  the 


'  Santos,  El  no  Importe,  pp.  107-31. — For  a  similar  description  by  Juan  de 
Zabaleta  see  his  "El  dia  de  fiesta,"  Obras,  p.  166  (Madrid,  1728).  The  El  no 
Importe  was  reprinted  in  1787. 

These  profanities  were  not  confined  to  Spain  and  were  condemned  by  the 
Council  of  Tours  in  1583  and  by  Archbishop  Precipiano  of  Mechlin,  in  1700. — 
Concil.  Turonens.,  ann.  1583,  Tit.  xv  (Harduin  X,  1424).— Collect.  Synod. 
Mechlin.,  II,  436). 

'  Bibliothfique  nationale  de  France,  fonds  Dupuy,  no.  589,  fol.  30. 


Chap.  II]  RESULTS  OF  INTOLERANCE  505 

expulsion  of  1610,  just  after  Philip  III  had  practically  accepted 
the  loss  of  Holland  by  the  truce  of  1609.  The  land  was  robbed  of 
its  most  industrious  classes,  it  was  drained  of  its  bravest  soldiers, 
its  trade  and  productiveness  were  fatally  crippled,  and  it  was 
reduced  to  the  lowest  term  of  financial  exhaustion,  all  for  the 
greater  glory  of  God,  and  in  the  belief  that  it  was  avenging  offences 
to  God.  To  meet  the  exigencies  arising  from  this,  and  from  the 
thoughtless  extravagance  of  the  monarchs,  the  labor,  on  which 
rested  the  resources  of  the  State,  was  crushed  to  earth  and  sub- 
jected to  burdens  that  defeated  their  own  ends,  for  they  drove  the 
producer  in  despair  from  the  soil.  Productive  industry  and 
commerce,  enfeebled  by  the  expulsions,  were  so  handicapped  that 
they  dwindled  almost  to  extinction  and  passed  virtually  into  the 
hands  of  foreigners,  who  dealt  under  the  mask  of  testas  ferrias — 
of  Spaniards  who  lent  their  names  to  the  real  principals,  for  the 
most  part  the  very  heretics  whom  Spain  had  exhausted  herself  to 
destroy.  Trade  and  credit  were  hampered,  not  only  through  the 
vitiation  of  the  currency  but  through  the  ever-impending  risk  of 
sequestration  and  confiscation,  and  the  impediments  of  the  censor- 
ship as  developed  in  the  visitas  de  navios.  The  bUndness  and 
inefficiency  of  the  Government  intensified  in  every  way  the  evils 
created  by  its  mistaken  policy  but,  at  the  root  of  all,  lay  the  pro- 
longed and  relentless  determination  to  enforce  conformity,  at  a 
time  when  the  industrial  and  commerical  era  was  opening,  which 
was  to  bring  wealth  and  power  to  the  nations  wise  enough  and 
liberal  enough  to  avail  themselves  of  its  opportunities — oppor- 
tunities which  Spain  was  invited  virtually  to  monopohze  through 
its  control  of  the  trade  of  the  Indies  and  the  production  of  the 
precious  metals.  There  is  melancholy  truth  in  the  boast  of  Doctor 
Pedro  Peralta  Barnuevo,  in  his  relation  of  the  Lima  auto  of  1733,, 
that  the  determination  to  enforce  unity  of  faith  at  all  costs  had 
rendered  Spain  rather  a  church  than  a  monarchy,  and  her  kings 
protectors  of  the  faith  rather  than  sovereigns.  She  was  a  temple, 
in  which  the  altars  were  cities  and  the  oblations  were  men,  and 
she  despised  the  prosperity  of  the  State  in  comparison  with  devo- 
tion to  religion.^ 

Isabella  and  her  Hapsburg  descendants  were  but  obeying  the 
dictates  of  conscience  and  executing  the  laws  of  the  Church,  when 
they  sought  to  suppress  heresy  and  apostasy  by  force,  and  they 


1 


Relacion  del  Auto  de  fe  de  1733.     Discurso  isagogico,  §  2  (Lima,  1733). 


506  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

might  well  deem  it  both  duty  and  good  policy  at  a  time  when  it 
was  universally  taught  that  unitj'^  of  faith  was  the  surest  guarantee 
of  the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  nations.  Spain,  with  accus- 
tomed thoroughness,  carried  out  this  theory  for  three  centuries  to 
a  reductio  ad  absurdum,  through  the  Inquisition,  organized,  armed 
and  equipped  to  the  last  point  of  possible  perfection  for  its  work. 
The  elaborate  arguments  of  its  latest  defender  only  show  that  it 
cannot  be  defended  without  also  defending  the  whole  policy  of 
the  House  of  Hapsburg,  which  wrought  such  misery  and  degra- 
dation.^ It  was  the  essential  part  of  a  system  and,  as  such,  it 
contributed  its  full  share  to  the  ruin  of  Spain. 

That  occasionally  even  an  inquisitor  could  have  a  glimmer  of 
the  truth  appears  from  a  very  remarkable  memorial  addressed 
to  Philip  IV  by  a  member  of  the  Suprema,  with  regard  to  the 
Portuguese  Jews.  He  states  that  they  consider  the  rigor  of  the 
Inquisition  as  a  blessing,  since  it  drives  them  from  Spain  to  other 
lands,  where  they  can  enjoy  their  religion  and  acquire  prosperity. 
He  wishes  to  prevent  this  exodus,  which  is  depriving  Spain  of 
population  and  wealth  and  exposing  it  to  peril,  and  to  win  back 
those  who  have  expatriated  themselves,  to  which  end  he  proposes 
greatly  to  soften  inquisitorial  severity  in  regard  to  confiscation, 
imprisonment  and  the  wearing  of  the  sanbenito,  except  in  the  case 
of  hardened  impenitents.  He  would  welcome  them  back  and,  even 
if  their  Catholicism  were  merely  external,  he  argues  that  their 
children  would  become  good  Catholics,  even  as  has  proved  to  be 
the  case  with  the  descendants  of  the  Castilian  Jews.  Indeed,  he 
goes  so  far  as  to  urge  that  foreigners  in  general  should  be  encour- 
aged to  bring  their  capital  to  Spain,  to  settle  and  be  naturalized, 
to  marry  Spanish  wives  and  thus  minister  to  the  wealth  and  pros- 
perity of  the  land.^    The  worldly  wisdom  of  this  was  too  oppugnant 


'  P.  Ricardo  Cappa,  S.  J.,  La  Inquisicion  espanola,  Madrid,  1888. 

'  Don  A.  Rodriguez  Villa  has  printed  the  essential  portions  of  this  memorial 
in  the  Boletin  for  July — September  1906,  pp.  87-103.  It  is  anonymous  and  with- 
out date,  though  he  teUs  us  that  a  note  on  the  MS.,  in  a  contemporary  hand, 
attributes  it  to  P.  Hernando  de  Salazar  or  to  D.  Diego  Serrano  de  Silva,  of  the 
Suprema.  It  is  unquestionably  by  a  member  of  the  Suprema,  for  no  one  else 
would  have  such  knowledge  of  the  internal  affairs  of  the  Inquisition  or  discourse 
of  them  so  freely,  even  to  the  sovereign.  Allusion  to  the  successes  of  the  Dutch 
in  Brazil  assign  it  to  the  time,  between  1620  and  1630,  when  there  was  so  much 
discussion  as  to  the  Portuguese  New  Christians  (see  Vol.  Ill,  p.  275),  to  which 
this  paper  was  doubtless  a  contribution. 


Chap.  II]  INFLUENCE  ON  THE  PEOPLE  ^Q)>j 

to  the  prejudices  of  the  time,  which  clamored,  as  we  have  seen, 
for  extermination  and  isolation,  and  its  sagacious  counsels  were 
unheeded.  The  Judaizers  were  driven  forth,  to  aid  in  building 
up  Holland  with  their  wealth  and  intelligence,  and  Spain,  in  ever 
deepening  poverty,  continued  to  cherish  the  ideals  which  she  had 
embodied  in  the  Inquisition. 

There  was  one  service  the  performance  of  which  it  was  never 
tired  of  claiming  for  itself  and  is  still  claimed  for  it  by  its  advo- 
cates— that  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  it  preserved 
Spain  from  the  religious  wars  which  desolated  France  and  Ger- 
many. This  service  may  well  be  called  in  question,  for  the  tem- 
perament and  training  of  the  Spanish  nation  render  ludicrous  the 
assumption  that  a  couple  of  hundred  heretics,  among  whom  but 
half  a  dozen  had  the  spirit  of  martyrdom  for  their  faith,  could 
cause  such  spread  of  dissidence  as  to  endanger  peace;  yet  even 
should  we  admit  this  service,  its  method,  in  causing  intellectual 
torpor  and  segregating  the  nation  from  all  influences  from  abroad, 
only  postponed  the  inevitable,  while  intensifying  the  disturbance 
when  the  change  should  come  from  medievalism  to  modernism. 
The  nineteenth  century  bore,  in  an  aggravated  form,  the  brunt 
which  should  have  fallen  on  the  sixteenth.  When  the  spirit  of 
the  Revolution  broke  in,  it  found  a  population  sedulously  trained 
to  passive  obedience  to  the  State  and  submissiveness  to  the  Church. 
It  had  been  so  long  taught,  by  theocratic  absolutism,  that  it  must 
not  think  or  reason  for  itself,  that  it  had  lost  the  power  of  reasoning 
on  the  great  problems  of  life.  It  was  without  reverence  for  law, 
for  it  was  accustomed  to  see  the  arbitrary  will  of  an  absolute 
sovereign  override  the  law,  and  it  was  without  experience  to 
choose  between  the  sober  realities  of  responsible  government  and 
the  glittering  promises  of  ardent  idealists.  Yet  the  Revolution 
passed  away  leaving  matters  as  they  were  before.  The  habit  of 
unquestioning  submission,  inherited  through  generations,  has 
become  so  fixed  a  part  of  the  national  character  that,  as  we  are 
told,  the  people  fail  to  recognize  that  they  are  as  completely  under 
bondage  to  Caciquism  as  erstwhile  they  were  to  monarchy — that 
in  fact  the  nation  is  still  in  its  infancy  and  is  unfit  to  govern  itself.* 

As  in  temporal,  so  it  has  been  in  the  spiritual  field.  In  the 
turmoil  of  the  Revolution  the  Inquisition  died  a  natural  death, 
but  the  Church  filled  the  vacancy.     It  had  grown  so  accustomed 

'  Oligarqufa  y  Caciquismo,  pp.  22,  679  (Madrid,  1903). 


508  BETBOSPEGT  [Book  IX 

to  the  acceptance,  on  all  hands,  of  its  divine  mission,  it  had  so 
long  enjoyed  unassailable  wealth  and  power,  that  it  could  not 
adapt  itself  to  the  necessities  of  the  new  situation  and,  when  it 
could  not  rely  upon  the  brute  force  of  the  State,  it  called  into  play 
the  popular  passions  which  it  had  fostered.  As  an  irreconcile- 
able,  it  provoked  the  attacks  made  on  its  overgrown  wealth  and 
numbers;  it  was  uncompromising  and  would  listen  to  no  adjust- 
ment, for  it  claimed  the  full  benefit  of  the  canon  law  under  which 
it  was  exempted  from  all  interference  by  the  State;  its  attitude  was 
of  immovable  hostility  to  the  new  order  of  things,  and  it  suffered 
the  rough  handling  that  inevitably  resulted,  courting  martyrdom 
rather  than  tamely  to  permit  profane  hands  to  be  laid  upon  the 
ark.  It  has  thus  continued  to  be  an  unassimilable  element  in 
the  political  situation,  its  policy  directed  from  Rome  and  the  vast 
influence  of  its  perfect  organization  employed  to  retard  rather 
than  to  stimulate  progress  in  good  government  and  material 
prosperity.^  What  may  be  the  outcome  of  the  pending  struggle 
between  Church  and  State,  aroused  by  the  recognition  of  civil 
marriage,  it  is  too  early  to  predict. 

Thus  the  conclusion  that  may  be  drawn  from  our  review  of  the 
causes  underlying  the  misfortunes  of  Spain  is  that  what  may  fairly 
be  attributable  to  the  Inquisition  is  its  service  as  the  official 
instrument  of  the  intolerance  that  led  to  such  grave  results,  and 
its  influence  on  the  Spanish  character  in  intensifying  that  intoler- 
ance into  a  national  characteristic,  while  benumbing  the  Spanish 
intellect  until  it  may  be  said  for  a  time  to  have  almost  ceased  to 
think.  The  objects  for  which  it  was  so  shrewdly  and  so  carefully 
organized  were  effectually  attained  and,  in  the  eyes  of  experienced 
statesmen,  at  the  time  of  its  fullest  development,  it  was  the  bul- 
work  of  the  faith.    In  1573,  Leonardo  Donato  reflects  the  prevail- 


'  Doctor  Madrazo,  while  deploring  the  antinational  policy  of  the  ecclesiastical 
establishment,  bears  emphatic  testimony  to  the  individual  virtues  of  the  clergy, 
regular  and  secular  and  their  efforts  to  realize,  each  in  his  own  sphere,  the  ideal 
of  Christianity.  He  attributes  their  influence  on  Spanish  policy  to  the  power 
possessed  by  the  papacy  of  precipitating  through  them  at  any  moment  a  Carlist 
revolt. — El  Pueblo  espanol  ha  muerto?  pp.  140-6  (Santander,  1903). 

In  a  very  thoughtful  paper,  Professor  Rafael  Altamira  and  his  colleagues  of 
the  University  of  Oviedo  allude  to  the  theocratic  reaction  which  opposes  all 
progress  in  the  direction  of  toleration  and  culture  and  which  threatens  a  civil 
war  that  would  be  the  end  of  Spain. — OUgarquia  y  Caciquismo,  p.  192. 


Chap.  II]  INDIFFERENCE  TO  MORALS  509 

ing  view  in  governmental  circles  when  he  speaks  of  its  authority 
and  severity  as  absolutely  necessary,  for  the  number  of  the  New 
Christians  was  everywhere  so  great,  recently  baptized  with  God 
knows  what  disposition,  and  with  ancestral  memories  still  vivid, 
that,  if  it  were  not  for  the  incessant  watch  kept  over  them  by  the 
Inquisition,  there  would  be  great  danger  that  Spain  would  lose 
her  religion.  In  1581,  Gioan  Francesco  Morosini  declares  that, 
although  the  Spaniards  were  in  appearance  the  most  devout  and 
Catholic  of  nations,  yet,  what  between  the  Jews,  Moriscos  and 
heretics,  Spain  would  be  more  infected  than  Germany  or  England 
if  it  were  not  for  the  fear  inspired  by  the  severity  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion; and  the  same  views  are  expressed  by  Giambattista  Con- 
falonieri  in  1591,  and  by  the  Lucchese  envoy  Damiano  Bernardini, 
in  1602/  Yet  the  faith,  thus  sedulously  preserved  at  such  fear- 
ful cost,  was  largely,  as  we  have  seen,  one  of  exterior  observance, 
without  corresponding  internal  piety,  ready  to  burst  into  flame 
for  the  maintenance  of  a  dogma  like  the  Immaculate  Conception, 
and  to  earn  heaven  by  paying  for  masses  and  anniversaries  and 
chaplaincies,  but  not  to  labor  for  it  by  purity  of  life  and  self- 
abnegation,  or  by  obeying  the  divine  command  to  earn  its  bread 
by  the  sweat  of  its  brow.  The  natural  result  of  this,  when  brought 
face  to  face  with  modern  conditions,  is  that  CAnovas  del  Castillo, 
in  a  debate  in  the  Cortes  of  1869,  declared  with  sorrow  that  Spain, 
of  all  nations,  was  the  one  most  indifferent  to  religion,  and  a  recent 
author  asserts  that  there  would  be  no  hazard  in  affirming  the 
Spaniards  to  be  the  most  irreligious,  indifferent,  and  practically 
atheist  people  in  Europe.^ 

In  fact,  the  dissociation  of  religion  from  morals — the  incon- 
gruous connection  of  ardent  zeal  for  dogma  with  laxity  of  life — 
was  stimulated  by  the  Inquisition.  As  we  have  seen,  it  paid  no 
attention  to  morals  and  thus  taught  the  lesson  that  they  were 
unimportant  in  comparison  with  accuracy  of  belief.  No  matter 
how  dissolute  was  the  conduct  of  the  confessor  with  his  spiritual 
daughters,  he  was  safe  so  long  as  he  did  not  commit  a  technical 
transgression  inferring  suspicion  of  misbelief  as  to  the  sacrament, 
and  even  when  he  neglected  these  precautions  we  have  seen  how 
benignant  was  the  treatment  extended  to  him.     It  is  true  that, 


1  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  VI,  p.  371;  T.  V,  p.  288.— Spioilegio  Vaticano, 
I,  461. — Relazioni  Lucchese,  p.  21. 
'  Ortf  y  Lara,  La  Inquisicion,  p.  xiv.— Macias  Picavea,  El  Problema,  p.  229. 


510  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Inquisition  showed 
remarkable  ardor  in  prosecuting  those  who  gave  utterance  to 
the  common  opinion  that  there  was  no  sin  in  simple  fornication 
between  the  unmarried,  and  that  in  large  measure  it  suppressed 
the  utterance,  but,  as  it  punished  only  the  utterance  and  not  the 
sin,  this  did  nothing  to  advance  morality.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  its  ignorant  destruction  of  works  of  art  which  it  regarded 
as  indecent  and  the  occasional  prohibition  of  a  book  or  play  that 
evoked  its  disapprobation.  In  the  absence  of  more  serious  work 
a  few  cases  may  be  found  of  its  undertaking  to  vindicate  morals, 
but  they  are  too  rare  for  us  to  attribute  to  them  any  motive  save 
a  desire  to  intermeddle.  The  advancement  of  morality  in  fact 
was  no  part  of  its  functions  as  a  bulwark  of  the  faith;  rather, 
indeed,  it  aided  in  disseminating  corruption  by  its  custom  of 
reading  at  the  autos  de  f  e  sentences  con  meritos  of  which  the  details 
were  an  effective  popular  education  in  vice.^  The  result  is  seen 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  when  the  only  heretics  were  the  scat- 
tered and  persecuted  Portuguese,  and  yet  there  has  probably 
never  existed  a  society  more  abandoned  to  corruption — so  aban- 
doned, indeed,  that  even  the  sense  of  shame  was  lost.  Padre 
Corella  was  no  rigorist  but,  towards  the  close  of  the  century,  he 
draws  a  hideous  picture  of  social  conditions;  everywhere,  he  says, 
is  vice  and  crime,  lust  and  cruelty,  fraud  and  rapine,  in  the  seats 
of  trade,  in  the  halls  of  justice,  in  the  family,  in  the  court,  in  the 
churches,  while  the  clergy,  if  possible,  are  worse  than  the  laity. 
Philip  IV,  who  so  reUgiously  supported  the  Inquisition,  was  not 
only  notorious  for  his  licentiousness,  but  amused  himself  with 
scandalously  sacrilegious  comedies  and  farces  in  his  palace  theatre, 
where  the  scenes  and  persons  of  Scripture  were  made  subjects 
of  ridicule,  and  this  style  passed  into  popular  literature  and 
rhymes  which  escaped  the  censure.^ 

Spanish  theology,  which  was  supreme  in  the  sixteenth  and  early 
seventeenth  centuries,  made  only  one  real  contribution — ^the 
invention  of  Probabilism  by  Bartolome  de  Medina  in  his  com- 
mentaries on  Aquinas  in  1577.     On  this  was  founded  the  new 


'  In  the  Toledo  auto  of  January  1,  1651,  in  the  sentence  of  Ana  de  Cervantes 
for  sorcery,  there  is  a  wholly  superfluous  account  of  how  she  had  "tratado 
torpemente  con  otras  mugeres  como  si  esta  fuese  hombre,  usando  para  ello  un 
instrumento  que  Uaman  baldres." — Arohivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 

'  Corella,  Praxis  Confessionis,  P.  ii,  Perorat.  n.  3. — Picatoste,  III,  113-23,  158, 
162,— Villa,  La  Corte  y  Monarqufa,  p.  xvi. 


Chap,  II]  CONTEMPT  FOU  LAW  511 

science  of  Moral  Theology,  devoted  to  evading  the  penalties  of 
sin,  and  to  applying  to  the  decrees  of  God  the  favorite  Spanish 
device  for  eluding  those  of  the  king,  by  obeying  and  not  executing. 
Escobar,  held  up  to  an  infamous  immortality  by  Pascal,  merely 
compiled  what  he  found  in  theologians  of  the  highest  authority 
and,  when  the  laxity  of  the  Jesuit  Moya's  Opusculum  called  forth 
a  papal  prohibition  in  1666,  repeated  in  1680,  the  Spanish  Inquisi- 
tion asserted  its  independence  by  refusing  to  put  the  work  on  the 
Index/  The  practical  influence  of  all  this  is  described  in  a  memo- 
rial of  nine  Spanish  bishops,  in  1717,  to  Clement  XI,  against  the 
Consultas  Morales  of  the  Capuchin  Martin  de  Torricella,  in  which 
they  state  that  Probabilism  had  undermined  all  morality  and  all 
obedience  to  divine,  municipal  and  canon  law,  and  that  multitudes 
lived  disorderly  lives  under  appeal  to  probabilistic  casuistry,  for 
so-called  probable  opinions  could  be  had  to  justify  whatever 
men  desired  to  do.' 

If  the  power  of  the  Inquisition  thus  was  withheld  when  it  might 
have  been  exerted  with  benefit  to  society,  it  was  actively  employed, 
under  the  later  Hapsburgs,  to  loosen  the  bonds  of  social  order  and 
stimulate  contempt  for  law.  To  it  was  largely  attributable  the 
virtual  anarchy  of  Spain,  during  the  seventeenth  century,  arising 
from  the  numerous  competing  jurisdictions  and  the  contempt 
felt  for  the  royal  officials.  This  found  its  origin  in  the  insolent 
audacity  with  which  the  Inquisition  enforced  its  claims  to  juris- 
diction. When  the  royal  officials  were  excommunicated,  arrested 
and  imprisoned  without  scruple,  and  the  Mghest  courts  were 
treated  with  contempt  and  contumely,  respect  for  law  and  its 
ministers  was  fatally  weakened.  That  the  other  privileged  juris- 
dictions— the  Cruzada,  the  spiritual,  and  the  military — should 
follow  the  example  was  inevitable,  and  the  social  condition  of 
Spain  became  deplorable.^  In  1677,  the  Council  of  Castile  repre- 
sented to  Carlos  II  the  evils  thus  inflicted  on  the  people  by  the  two 
chief  offenders,  the  Inquisition  and  the  Cruzada,  the  most  oppres- 
sive form  of  which  was  the  abuse  of  excommunication  for  matters 
purely  secular.  The  Council  had  endeavored  to  remedy  this, 
but  its  authority  had  been  suspended  and  it  was  powerless  to 
protect  the  vassals  of  the  crown.     Carlos  feebly  replied  that, 


'  Chapters  from  the  Rehgious  History  of  Spain,  p.  102. 
Dollinger  u.  Reusch,  Moral-Streitigkeiten,  I,  319. 
For  this  social  anarchy  see  Picatoste,  III,  86-9. 


512  BETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

although  he  could  deprive  them  of  the  royal  jurisdiction  which 
they  abused,  yet  he  deemed  it  better  not  to  do  so,  and  he  contented 
himself  with  prohibiting  the  use  of  censures  in  temporal  matters— 
a  prohibition  which  of  course  was  disregarded.'  In  the  very  next 
year  Carlos  was  made  to  feel  his  powerlessness  in  the  face  of  the 
arrogant  superiority  asserted  by  the  Inquisition. 

When,  in  1678,  the  raid  on  the  whole  trading  community  of 
Majorca  gave  promise  of  immense  confiscations,  Carlos  prudently 
ordered.  May  30th,  the  viceroy  to  look  after  the  safety  of  the 
sequestrations.  The  viceroy  thereupon  asked  for  inventories  or 
statements  and,  on  their  refusal,  made  threats  of  taking  further 
measures.  The  tribunal  reported  to  the  Suprema  which  instructed 
the  inquisitors  to  defend  their  jurisdiction  by  censures  and,  if 
necessary,  by  a  cessatio  a  divinis,  when,  if  this  did  not  suffice, 
they  were  to  entrust  their  prisoners  to  the  bishop  and  sail  for  Spain, 
reporting  to  the  pope.  After  despatching  this  defiant  and  revo- 
lutionary missive,  the  Suprema,  on  August  8th,  condescended  to 
inform  the  king  of  it  in  the  form  of  a  stinging  rebuke.  The  request 
of  the  viceroy,  it  said,  was  an  unexampled  assault  on  religion  and 
the  Holy  See,  and  also  a  profanation  of  the  most  venerable  sacred- 
ness  of  the  Inquisition;  sequestrated  property  was  ecclesiastical 
property  until  confiscated,  and  to  allow  a  layman  to  control  it 
would  be  subversive  of  all  law,  as  well  as  a  violation  of  the  secrecy 
of  the  Inquisition.  Carlos  humbly  apologized ;  he  had  not  meant 
to  show  distrust  and  would  punish  the  viceroy  if  he  had  exceeded 
his  instructions,  but  he  complained  that,  without  notice  to  him, 
the  inquisitors  should  have  been  ordered  to  leave  Majorca,  and 
thus  cause  irreparable  evils.  The  Suprema,  in  reply,  followed 
up  its  advantage.  The  abandonment  of  Majorca  by  the  inquisitors 
would  be  a  less  evil  than  violating  the  secrecy  of  the  Inquisition; 
the  viceroy  should  have  positive  orders  to  keep  his  hands  off, 
and  the  king  ought  to  have  consulted  it  before  issuing  such  instruc- 
tions; this  would  have  prevented  all  trouble,  for  the  operations 
of  the  Inquisition  were  so  special  and  peculiar  that  even  his  superior 
intelligence  could  not  understand  them  without  explanations.^ 
This  insolence  accomplished  its  purpose;  Carlos  was  effectually 
snubbed,  and  we  have  seen  how  small  was  the  share  of  the  spoils 
eventually  doled  out  to  him. 


'  Roda,  Dictamen  &  una  Consulta  (MS.  penes  me). 
'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  69,  fol.  2,  8, 


Chap.  II]  DOMINATION 


513 


The  Inquisition,  in  fact,  was  virtually  an  independent  power 
in  the  state,  which  asserted  itself  after  the  vigorous  personality 
of  Ferdinand  had  been  forgotten.  Its  aspiration  to  dominate 
the  land  was  revealed  in  the  projected  Order  of  Santa  Maria  de 
la  Espada  hlanca  which  PhiUp  II  was  shrewd  enough  to  crush 
while  yet  there  was  time,  but  the  measure  of  independence  which 
it  had  already  attained  was  seen  when  the  Cortes  of  the  kingdoms 
of  Aragon  sought  to  get  the  signature  of  the  inquisitor-general,  as 
well  as  of  the  king,  to  the  concessions  which  they  secured,  and  when 
the  Inquisition  ignored  the  royal  agreements,  even  to  the  point 
of  deUberately  contravening  them  in  the  matter  of  confiscations. 
It  was  manifested,  in  the  affair  of  Antonio  Perez,  when  Philip 
II  was  obhged  to  call  it  to  his  assistance,  and  it  followed  its  own 
interests  in  disregard  of  the  royal  policy.  So,  in  the  long  struggle 
with  Bilbao  over  the  visitas  de  navios,  it  virtually  set  at  defiance 
both  the  crown  and  all  the  authorities  of  Biscay.  If  it  helped  the 
monarchy  in  the  struggle  with  Rome  over  the  regalfas,  when  it 
had  thus  secured  its  independence  of  the  papal  Inquisition  it  had 
no  scruple  in  turning  its  powers  of  censorship  against  the  royal 
prerogative.  But  for  the  advent  of  the  Bourbon  dynasty,  it 
might  reasonably  have  looked  forward  to  becoming  eventually 
dominant,  for  it  combined  legislative  and  executive  functions, 
temporal  and  spiritual  jurisdiction,  and  asserted,  like  the  Church, 
the  right  to  define  the  limits  of  its  own  powers.  Its  whole  career, 
indeed,  shows  how  baseless  is  the  modern  theory  that  it  was  an 
instrument  of  the  State  in  establishing  the  autocracy  of  the  mon- 
arch. If  the  fallacy  of  this  requires  further  proof  it  is  sufficiently 
demonstrated,  even  under  the  first  of  the  Bourbons,  by  the  fate 
of  Macanaz,  whom  it  dismissed  from  power  and  condemned  to 
a  life  of  poverty  and  exile  because,  in  the  service  of  the  king,  he 
endeavored  to  render  it  what  Ranke  and  Gams  fancy  it  to  have 
been.  It  is  true  that,  in  its  period  of  decadence,  it  joined  forces 
with  the  crown  to  withstand  the  inroad  of  free  thought,  which 
was  equally  threatening  to  both,  and  that  it  employed  its  expiring 
power  to  suppress  political  as  well  as  spiritual  heresy,  but  in  this 
it  was  fighting  its  own  battle  as  much  as  that  of  the  monarchy  on 
which  it  depended  for  existence. 

Defenders  of  the  Inquisition,  in  the  controversy  over  its  sup- 
pression and  since  then,  have  relied  largely  on  the  assertion  that, 
during  its  existence,  no  voice  was  raised  against  it,  that  all  organs 
VOL.  IV  33 


514  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

of  public  opinion  and  all  writers  praised  it,  as  the  protector  of 
religion,  and  as  extremely  careful  to  administer  exact  justice.  So 
far  from  this  being  the  case,  we  have  seen  its  own  admissions 
(Vol.  I,  p.  538)  of  the  hearty  hatred  felt  for  it  and  its  officials, 
and  we  have  heard  the  complaints  of  the  C6rtes  of  Valladolid  in 
1518  and  1523,  of  Coruna  in  1520  and  of  Madrid  in  1575,  besides 
the  ceaseless  struggles  of  Aragon  and  Catalonia,  whose  Cortes 
had  not  been  reduced  to  servility.  What  was  its  reputation 
throughout  Europe  may  be  gauged  by  the  fact  that,  in  1535,  when 
Joao  III  was  endeavoring  to  have  an  Inquisition  of  his  own  in 
Portugal,  and  there  was  talk  of  referring  the  subject  to  the  general 
council  then  expected  shortly  to  assemble,  his  ambassador  at 
Rome,  Martinho,  Archbishop  of  Funchal,  warned  him  that,  if 
the  matter  was  broached  in  the  council,  it  would  result  in  abolish- 
ing the  Inquisition  of  Spain.'  In  Spain,  its  reputation  is  to  be 
gathered  from  the  unbiased  reports  of  the  Venetian  envoys,  who 
lauded  its  services  in  the  suppression  of  heresy,  and  to  whom, 
as  practical  statesmen,  it  was  an  object  of  wonder  and  admiration, 
as  a  machine  perfectly  devised  to  keep  the  people  in  abject  sub- 
jection. In  these  reports  it  is  observable  that,  while  all  are  emphatic 
as  to  its  rigor,  not  one  hazards  approval  of  its  justice.  The 
envoys  were  profoundly  impressed  by  the  universal  awe  which  it 
inspired.  As  early  as  1525,  Gaspare  Contarini  tells  us  that  every 
one  trembled  before  it,  for  its  severity  and  the  dread  entertained 
for  it  were  greater  even  than  for  the  Council  of  Ten.  In  1557, 
Federico  Badoero  speaks  of  the  terror  caused  by  its  pitiless  pro- 
cedure. In  1563,  Paolo  Tiepolo,  after  dwelling  on  the  secrecy 
and  unsparing  rigor  of  its  judgements,  says  that  every  one  shudders 
at  its  very  name,  as  it  has  supreme  authority  over  the  property, 
life,  honor  and  even  the  souls  of  men.  Two  years  later  Giovanni 
Soranzo  speaks  of  the  great  fear  inspired  by  it,  for  its  authority 
transcends  incomparably  that  of  the  king.  In  1567,  Antonio 
Tiepolo  echoes  these  assertions,  and  all  agree  in  their  comments 
on  the  influence  of  the  mysterious  secrecy  of  its  operation  and 
the  relentless  severity  of  its  action.^ 

It  scarce  needs  this  testimony  to  explain  why  no  unfavorable 
opinion  of  the  Inquisition  is  to  be  expected  of  Spaniards  during 


'  Corpo  Diplomatico  Portugues,  III,  247. 

'  Eelazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  II,  p.  40;  T.  Ill,  p.  252;  T.  V,  pp.  22,  83,  144, 
288,  392,  485;  T.  VI,  pp.  367,  412. 


Chap.  II]  HABITUAL  SELF-BESTRAINT  515 

its  existence,  except  by  those  who  spoke  as  mandatories  of  the 
people  in  the  Cortes  or  high  officials  in  contests  over  competencias. 
Terror  rendered  silence  imperative,  and  secrecy  made  ignorance 
universal.  The  discharged  prisoner  was  sworn  to  reveal  nothing 
of  what  he  had  endured  and  any  complaint  of  injustice  subjected 
him  to  prosecution.  Criticism  was  held  to  be  impeding  its  action 
and  was  a  crime  subject  to  condign  punishment.  Writers  had 
ever  to  keep  in  view  its  censorship,  with  the  certainty  that  any  ill- 
judged  word  would  ensure  the  suppression  of  a  book,  and  any 
attempt  at  self-justification  would  lead  to  worse  consequences,  as 
Belando  found  when  a  petition  to  be  heard  cost  him  life-long 
imprisonment  and  prohibition  to  use  the  pen.  When,  in  the 
yearly  Edict  of  Faith,  every  one  was  required,  under  pain  of 
excommunication,  to  denounce  any  impeding,  direct  or  indirect, 
of  the  tribunal,  or  any  criticism  of  the  justice  of  its  operation, 
restraint  became  universal  and  habitual  and,  in  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation,  men  would  naturally  seek  to  teach  themselves 
and  their  children  not  even  to  think  ill  of  the  Inquisition  lest,  in 
some  unguarded  moment,  a  chance  utterance  might  lead  to  pro- 
secution and  infamy.  The  popular  rejran,  Con  el  Rey  y  la  Inqui- 
sidon,  chiton! — Silence  as  to  the  king  and  the  Inquisition — 
reveals  to  us  better  than  a  world  of  argument,  the  result  of  this 
repression  through  generations,  and  its  efficiency  is  seen  in  the 
fact  that  in  Toledo,  from  1648  to  1794,  there  was  but  a  single 
trial  for  speaking  ill  of  the  Holy  Office.  Such  training  bore  its 
fruits  when  autocracy  broke  down  imder  the  Revolution  and  the 
experiment  of  self-government  was  essayed. 

The  Spaniard  was  taught  not  alone  to  repress  his  opinions  as 
to  the  Inquisition  but  to  keep  a  guard  on  his  tongue  under  all 
circumstances,  not  only  in  public  but  in  the  sacred  confidence  of 
his  own  family,  for  the  duty  of  denunciation  applied  to  husband 
and  father,  to  wife  and  children.  Even  as  early  as  1534,  the  ortho- 
dox Juan  Luis  Vives  complained  to  Erasmus  that  in  those  difficult 
times  it  was  dangerous  either  to  speak  or  to  keep  silent.^  The 
cautious  Mariana  tells  us  that  the  most  grievous  oppression  caused 
by  the  introduction  of  the  Inquisition  was  the  deprivation  of  free- 
dom of  speech,  which  some  persons  regarded  as  a  servitude  worse 
than  death,^    We  have  seen  how  seriously  were  treated  even  the 


'  Erasmi  Epistolse,  Auctarium,  p.  114  (Londoni,  1642). 
'  Mariana,  Hist,  de  Espafia,  Lib.  xxiv,  cap.  xvii. 


516  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

most  trivial  and  careless  expressions,  which  could  be  tortured  into 
disregard  of  some  theological  tenet  or  disrespect  for  some  church 
observance,  and  it  behooved  every  one  to  be  on  his  guard  at  all 
times  and  in  all  places.  The  yearly  Edict  of  Faith  kept  the  terror 
of  the  Inquisition  constantly  before  every  man  and  was  perhaps 
the  most  efficient  device  ever  invented  to  subject  a  population 
to  the  fear  of  an  ever-impending  danger.  No  other  nation  ever 
lived  through  centuries  under  a  moral  oppression  so  complete, 
so  minute  and  so  all-pervading. 

That  the  Inquisition  inspired  a  dread  greater  than  that  felt  for 
the  royal  authority  is  illustrated  by  a  curious  instance,  in  which 
it  was  utilized  for  good  in  subduing  a  lawless  community.  In 
1588,  Ijupus  Martin  de  Go  villa.  Inquisitor  of  Barcelona,  in  a 
visitation  came  to  Montblanch,  where  no  inquisitor  had  been  for 
many  years.  He  found  it  a  populous  town,  torn  by  factions  so 
bitter  that  men  were  slain  in  the  streets,  battles  were  fought  in 
the  plaza,  and  women  at  their  windows  were  shot  with  arquebuses. 
After  publishing  the  Edict  of  Faith  he  discovered  that  witnesses 
were  afraid  to  come  to  him  through  the  streets  and,  regarding  this 
as  a  contempt  of  the  Inquisition,  he  issued  a  proclamation  for- 
bidding the  carrying  of  arquebuses  and  cross-bows,  and  his  order 
was  obeyed.  He  made  an  example  of  one  offender  by  requiring 
him  to  hear  mass  as  a  penitent,  banishing  him  and  confiscating 
his  arquebus,  which  quieted  the  people,  so  that  the  Inquisition 
could  be  carried  on.  Then  a  murder  occurred,  and  the  regidors 
procured  from  the  viceroy  full  powers  for  him  to  pacify  the  town; 
by  general  agreement  all  placed  themselves  under  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  Inquisition,  as  there  was  no  safety  under  the  royal,  and  they 
gave  thanks  to  God  that  peace  was  restored,  and  that  men  could 
move  around  without  arms.  Govilla  went  to  Poblet,  when  news 
was  brought  him  of  another  murder;  he  returned  and  imprisoned 
and  penanced  those  guilty,  who  complained  to  the  viceroy,  but  the 
Audiencia,  after  examination  dismissed  the  complaint,  and  this- 
strange  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition  seems  to  have  continued 
for  some  ten  years.^ 

Before  dismissing  the  impression  produced  by  the  severity  of 
the  Inquisition  it  will  not  be  amiss  to  attempt  some  conjecture 
as  to  the  totality  of  its  operations,  especially  as  regards  the  bum- 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.  de  Barcelona,  C6rtes,  Leg.  17,  fol.  74. 


Chap.  II]  STATISTICS  OF  VICTIMS  517 

ings,  which  naturally  affected  more  profoundly  the  imagination. 
There  is  no  question  that  the  number  of  these  has  been  greatly 
exaggerated  in  popular  belief,  an  exaggeration  to  which  Llorente 
has  largely  contributed  by  his  absurd  method  of  computation,  on 
an  arbitrary  assumption  of  a  certain  annual  average  for  each 
tribunal  in  successive  periods.  It  is  impossible  now  to  reconstruct 
the  statistics  of  the  Inquisition,  especially  during  its  early  activity, 
but  some  general  conclusions  can  be  formed  from  the  details 
accessible  as  to  a  few  tribunals. 

The  burnings  without  doubt  were  numerous  during  the  first  few 
years,  through  the  unregulated  ardor  of  inquisitors,  little  versed 
in  the  canon  law,  who  seem  to  have  condemned  right  and  left, 
on  flimsy  evidence,  and  without  allowing  their  victims  the  benefit 
of  applying  for  reconciliation,  for,  while  there  might  be  numerous 
negativos,  there  certainly  were  few  pertinacious  impenitents.  The 
discretion  allowed  to  them  to  judge  as  to  the  genuineness  of  con- 
version gave  a  dangerous  power,  which  was  doubtless  abused 
by  zealots,  and  the  principle  that  imperfect  confession  was  con- 
clusive of  impenitence  added  many  to  the  list  of  victims,  while 
the  wholesale  reconciliations  under  the  Edicts  of  Grace  afforded 
an  abundant  harvest  to  be  garnered  under  the  rule  condemning 
relapse.  In  the  early  years,  moreover,  the  absent  and  the  dead 
contributed  with  their  efSgies  largely  to  the  terrible  solemnities 
of  the  quemadero. 

Modern  writers  vary  irreconcileably  in  their  estimates,  influenced 
more  largely  by  subjective  considerations  than  by  the  imperfect 
statistics  at  their  command.  Rodrigo  coolly  asserts  as  a  positive 
fact  that  those  who  perished  in  Spain  at  the  stake  for  heresy  did 
not  amount  to  400  and  that  these  were  voluntary  victims,  who 
refused  to  retract  their  errors.^  Father  Gams  reckons  2000  for 
the  period  up  to  the  death  of  Isabella,  in  1504,  and  as  many 
more  from  that  date  up  to  1758.^  On  the  other  hand,  Llorente 
calculates  that,  up  to  the  end  of  Torquemada's  activity,  there 
had  been    condemned   105,294    persons,   of  whom  8800    were 


'  Historia  verdadera,  III,  509. 

'  Die  Kirchengeschichte  von  Spanien,  Bd.  Ill,  Abt  ii,  p.  74.— Cf.  Hefele,  Der 
Cardinal  Ximenes,  pp.  327  sqq. 

Father  Gams  exposes  his  ignorance  when  he  tells  us  that  he  excludes  the  burn- 
ings for  other  crimes  than  heresy,  as  if  there  were  such,  except  the  rare  cases  of 
unnatural  crime  in  Aragon.  He  even  implies  that  the  Inquisition  burnt  for 
usury  and  smuggling. 


518  BETBOSPECT  [Book  IX 

burnt  alive,  6500  in  effigy  and  90,004  exposed  to  public  penance, 
while,  up  to  1524,  the  grand  totals  amounted  to  14,344,  9372  and 
195,937/  Even  these  figures  are  exceeded  by  Amador  de  los 
Rios,  who  is  not  usually  given  to  exaggeration.  He  assumes  that, 
up  to  1525,  when  the  Moriscos  commenced  to  suffer  as  heretics,  the 
number  of  those  burnt  alive  amounted  to  28,540,  of  those  burnt 
in  effigy  to  16,520  and  those  penanced  to  303,847,  making  a  total 
of  348,907  condemnations  for  Judaism.^  Don  Melgares  Marin, 
whose  familiarity  with  the  documents  is  incontestable,  tells  us 
that,  in  Castile,  during  1481,  more  than  20,000  were  reconciled 
under  Edicts  of  Grace,  more  than  3000  were  penanced  with  the 
sanbenito,  and  more  than  4000  were  burnt,  but  he  adduces  no 
authorities  in  support  of  the  estimate.' 

The  only  contemporary  who  gives  us  figures  for  the  whole  of 
Spain  is  Hernando  de  Pulgar,  secretary  of  Queen  Isabella.  His 
official  position  gave  him  facilities  for  obtaining  information,  and 
his  scarcely  veiled  dislike  for  the  Inquisition  was  not  likely  to 
lead  to  underrating  its  activity.  He  states  at  15,000  those  who 
had  come  in  under  Edicts  of  Grace,  and  at  2000  those  who  were 
burnt,  besides  the  dead  whose  bones  were  exhumed  in  great  quan- 
tities; the  number  of  penitents  he  does  not  estimate.  Unluckily, 
he  gives  no  date  but,  as  his  Chronicle  ends  in  1490,  we  may 


'  Hist,  crit.,  T.  IX,  pp.  209,  211,  213,  214  (Madrid,  1822). 

The  total  of  Llorente's  extravagant  guesses,  from  the  foundation  of  the  Inqui- 
sition to  1808,  is: 

Burnt  in  person 31,912 

Burnt  in  effigy 17,659 

Heavily  penanced 291,450 

341,021 
Hist,  crft,  IX,  233. 
This  is  slightly  modified  by  Gallois  in  his  abridgement  of  Llorente's  work  (His- 
toire  abreg^e  de  la  Inquisition  d'Espagne,  6e  Ed.,  p.  351-2,  Paris,  1828).    He  gives 
the  figures: 

Burnt  alive 34,658 

Burnt  in  effigy 18,049 

Condemned  to  galleys  or  prison 288,214 

340,921 
It  will  be  observed  "that  Gallois  unscrupulously  classifies  all  personal  relax- 
ations as  burnings  alive  and  all  penances  as  galleys  or  prison. 
'  Hist,  de  los  Judios  de  Espana,  III,  492-3. 
'  Procedimientos  de  la  Inquisicion,  I,  116-17  (Madrid,  1886). 


Chap.  II]  STATISTICS  OF  VICTIMS  519 

assume  that  to  be  the  term  comprised.'  With  some  variations 
his  figures  were  adopted  by  subsequent  writers.^  Berndldez 
only  makes  the  general  statement  that  throughout  Spain  an  infi- 
nite number  were  burnt  and  condenmed  and  reconciled  and 
imprisoned,  and  of  those  reconciled  many  relapsed  and  were 
burnt.^ 

Imperfect  as  are  the  records,  we  may  endeavor  to  test  these 
various  estimates  by  such  evidence  as  is  at  hand  respecting  a  few 
of  the  tribunals.  In  this  we  may  commence  with  Seville,  which 
was  unquestionably  the  most  active.  The  Inquisition  had  started 
there,  as  the  centre  of  crypto-Judaism;  it  was  the  most  populous 
city  of  Castile,  with  nearly  half  a  million  of  inhabitants,  and  its 
unrivalled  commercial  activity  rendered  it  peculiarly  attractive 
to  the  Conversos,  while  Isabella's  Andalusian  decree  of  expulsion 
must  have  largely  increased  the  number  of  pseudo-proselytes. 
In  1524,  there  was  placed  over  the  gateway  of  the  castle  of  Triana, 
occupied  by  the  tribunal,  an  inscription  of  which  the  purport  is 
not  entirely  clear,  but  signifying  that,  up  to  that  time,  it  had  caused 
the  abjuration  of  more  than  20,000  heretics  and  had  burnt  nearly 
1000  obstinate  ones.''  This  is  probably  an  understatement,  if 
we  are  to  believe  Berndldez,  who  asserts  that  in  eight  years,  from 
the  founding  of  the  Seville  tribunal  up  to  1488,  it  had  burnt  in 
person  more  than  700  heretics,  besides  many  effigies  of  fugitives 
and  an  infinite  number  of  bones;  those  reconciled  during  the  same 
period  he  estimates  at  5000.^  Still  its  activity  must  soon  have 
greatly  diminished  for,  in  1502,  Antoine  de  Lalaing,  visiting  the 
Castle  of  Triana,  describes  it  as  containing  more  than  twenty 
heretic  prisoners  which  he  evidently  regards  as  a  large  number, 
but  which  would  argue  a  very  moderate  amount  of  persecution  in 
view  of  the  leisurely  procedure  that  was  becoming  usual.'  There 
is  therefore  an  apparent  tendency  to  exaggerate  the  achievements 
of  the  Holy  Ofiice  in  the  statement  of  its  secretary  Zurita,  some 

'  Pulgar,  Cronica,  P.  ii,  cap.  Ixxvii. 

'  L.  Marmffii  Siculi  de  Reb.  Hispan.,  Lib.  xix. — Illescas,  Hist.  Pontifical,  P. 
II,  Lib.  VI,  c.  xix. — Mariana,  Hist,  de  Espafia,  Lib.  xxiv,  cap.  xvii.— Paramo, 
p.  139. — Garibay,  Comp.  Hist.,  Lib.  xviii,  cap.  xvii. 

'  Hist,  de  los  Reyes  Catolicos,  cap.  xliv. 

*  Zuniga,  Annales  de  Sevilla,  ailo  1524,  n.  3  — Varflora,  Compendio  de  Sevilla, 
P.  II,  cap.  1. 

'  Bemdldez,  ubi  sup. 

"  Lalaing,  Voyage  de  Philippe  le  Beau  (Gachard,  Voyages  des  Souverains,  I, 
203). 


520  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

half-century  or  more  later,  that  in  Seville  alone,  up  to  the  year 
1520,  there  were  more  than  4000  culprits  burnt  and  more  than 
30,000  reconciled  and  penanced,  besides  the  numerous  fugitives, 
and  he  adds  that  an  author,  very  diligent  in  the  matter,  affirms  these 
figures  to  be  exceedingly  defective  and  that,  in  the  archbishopric 
of  Seville  alone,  there  were  condemned  as  Judaizing  heretics,  more 
than  a  hundred  thousand  persons,  including  those  reconciled.' 
Cardinal  Contarini,  when  Venetian  envoy  in  1525,  was  evidently 
misled  by  this  tendency  to  amplification,  when  he  describes  the 
Inquisition  as  having  made  a  slaughter  of  the  New  Christians 
impossible  to  exaggerate.^ 

Unfortimately  no  authentic  records  have  seen  the  light  by  which 
to  test  the  accuracy  of  these  varying  estimates  of  the  activity  of 
the  most  destructive  tribunal  during  the  early  period.  It  is  other- 
wise with  several  of  those  that  ranked  next  to  it  in  importance. 
For  the  province  of  Toledo,  as  we  have  seen,  the  first  tribimal  was 
established  at  Ciudad  Real  where,  in  its  two  years  of  existence,  it 
relaxed  in  person  47  and  in  effigy  98.'  Transferred  to  Toledo,  in 
1485,  its  operations  at  first  were  energetic,  but  they  diminished 
greatly  towards  the  end  of  the  century  until,  in  1501,  it  had  a 
spasmodic  period  of  activity  through  the  discovery  of  "La  Moga 
de  Herrera"  (Vol.  I,  p.  186)  a  young  Jewish  prophetess,  to  whose 
numerous  believers  no  mercy  was  shown,  for  those  who  had  been 
reconciled  thus  incurred  the  penalty  of  relapse.  The  total  opera- 
tions of  the  Toledo  tribunal,  from  its  origin  in  1485  until  1501, 
amount  to  250  relaxed  in  person,  over  500  in  effigy,  about  200 
imprisoned  and  5200  reconciled  under  Edicts  of  Grace.  Of  the 
personally  relaxed,  nearly  half,  or  117,  were  followers  of  the 
prophetess,  leaving  only  139  ordinary  Judaizers  and,  of  those 


'  Zurita,  Anales,  Lib.  XX,  cap.  xlix.  The  fact  that  so  careful  an  historian  as 
Zurita,  who  sought  everywhere  for  documentary  evidence,  had  no  official  sta- 
tistics to  cite  shows  that  none  such  existed  in,  the  Suprema  relating  to  the  early 
years  of  the  Inquisition. 

^  Relazioni  Venete,  Serie  I,  T.  II,  p.  40. 

^  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  262. — It  is  possible  that  these 
figures  may  be  only  of  residents  of  Ciudad  Real.  Pdramo  (p.  170)  states  the 
numbers  for  the  tribunal,  during  its  two  years  of  existence,  at  52  relaxations  ia 
person,  220  in  effigy  and  183  reconciliations.  The  record  just  cited  gives  for 
Ciudad  Real,  from  1484  to  1531, 113  relaxed  in  person,  129  in  effigy,  16  reconciled, 
11  penanced,  19  absolved,  3  discharged  on  bail  and  8  of  which  the  sentence  is  not 
stated — all,  apparently,  residents  of  the  town. 


Chap.  II] 


STATISTICS  OF  VICTIMS 


521 


imprisoned,  about  140  may  be  accounted  for  in  the  same  way.' 
Saragossa  was  reckoned  as  one  of  the  most  deadly  tribunals  in 
Spain — indeed,  Llorente  remarks  that  if  he  had  taken  it  and  Toledo 
as  the  basis  of  his  calculations,  he  would  have  tripled  the  number 
of  victims.^  For  this  we  have  the  details  of  the  sixty-five  autos, 
held  from  1485  to  1502,  furnished  by  the  record  printed  in  the 
Appendix  to  Volume  I.  Summarized,  this  gives  the  totals  of 
119  burnt  alive,  5  quartered,  beheaded  or  strangled  prior  to  burn- 
ing, 3  bodies  burnt,  29  effigies  burnt  and  458  penanced,  or  an 
aggregate  of  614.^  The  Libra  Verde  de  Aragon,  moreover,  gives 
us  an  official  list  of  the  residents  of  Saragossa  burnt,  from  1483 
to  1574,  in  summarizing  which  it  appears  that,  during  these 
ninety-two  years,  the  total  of  relaxations  in  person  was  125  and 
in  effigy  77,  including  seven  witches,  three  sorcerers  and  four 
Protestants.  Tabulation  by  years  emphasizes  the  diminution  of 
activity  after  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century.* 

Barcelona  is  another  important  tribunal  of  which  we  have 
accurate  statistics  during  its  early  years,  furnished  by  the  royal 
archivist,  Pare  Miguel  Carbonell.     From  its  foundation  to  the 


'  Relacion  de  la  Inquisicion  Toledana  (Boletin,  XI,  292  sqq). 

The  Cordova  tribunal  also  burned  90  residents  of  Chillon,  who  had  been  duped 
by  the  prophetess  of  Herrera  (Ibidem,  p.  308). 

'  Hist,  crit.,  IX,  210. 

'  See  Appendix  of  Vol.  I.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that,  in  the  early  years, 
small  autos  were  held  elsewhere  than  in  the  centres.  Thus,  in  the  Libra  Verde 
there  are  allusions  to  them  in  Barbastro,  Huesca,  Monzon,  L^rida  and  Tamarit 
(Revista  de  Espana,  CVI,  250-1,  263-4,  266).  The  aggregate  for  these,  however, 
would  make  little  difference  in  the  totals. 

*  Libro  Verde  (Revista  de  Espana,  CVI,  670-83).  The  relaxations  by  years 
were: 


1483—  1 

1495—  9 

1512—4 

1542—1 

1485—  4 

1496—  1 

1520—1 

1543—1 

1486—26 

1497—18 

1521—2 

1546—2 

1487—25 

1498—  2 

1522—1 

1549—1 

1488—13 

1499—13 

1524^1 

1561—4 

1489—  2 

1500—  5 

1526—1 

1563—1 

1490—  1 

1502—  2 

1528—2 

1565—1 

1491—10 

1505—  1 

1534—1 

1566—1 

1492—15 

1506—  5 

1535—1 

1567—2 

1493—11 

1510—  1 

1537—1 

1574—2 

1494—  1 

1511—  5 

1539—1 

The  number  in  1486-7-8  is  attributable  to  the  assassination  of  San  Pedro 

Arbu6s. 

522  BETBOSPECT  [Book  IX 

end  of  Torquemada's  career,  in  1498,  there  were  thirty-one  autos 
celebrated  in  Barcelona,  Tarragona,  Lerida,  Gerona,  Perpignan, 
Vich,  Elne  and  Balaguer.  In  these  the  totals  are  only  10  strangled 
and  burnt,  13  burnt  alive,  15  dead  and  430  burnt  in  effigy,  1 
reconciled  in  effigy,  116  penanced  with  prison  and  304  reconciled 
for  spontaneous  confession/ 

Valencia,  of  all  the  tribunals,  was  the  one  which  best  maintained 
its  activity  throughout  the  sixteenth  century,  owing  to  the  dense 
Morisco  population.  We  have  a  list  of  all  persons  imprisoned  for 
heresy,  from  the  beginning  in  1485  up  to  1592  inclusive,  amounting 
in  all  to  3104,  of  whom  530  were  contributed  by  the  last  four  years, 
1589-92,  when  the  persecution  of  the  Moriscos  was  particularly 
active.  There  is  also  an  alphabetical  list  of  persons  relaxed,  from 
the  beginning  until  1593,  unfortunately  imperfect  and  ending  with 
the  letter  N,  but,  by  adding  twenty-five  per  cent,  we  can  obtain 
a  reasonably  close  approximation  to  the  total.  Th'e  list  as  we 
have  it  gives  515  relaxations  in  person  and  383  in  effigy,  or,  with 
the  addition  of  twenty-five  per  cent.,  643  of  the  former  and  479 
of  the  latter,  being  nearly  an  average  of  six  per  annum  of  the  former 
and  four  and  a  half  of  the  latter.^ 

Valladolid  had  the  most  extensive  territory  of  all  the  tribunals, 
but  it  comprised  the  northern  provinces,  where  the  New  Christians 
were  comparatively  few.  It  was  not  organized  for  work  until 
1488,  making  its  first  arrest  on  September  29th  of  that  year,  and 
holding  its  first  auto  on  June  19,  1489,  when,  after  nine  months' 
work  on  new  ground,  there  were  but  eighteen  relaxations  in  person 
and  four  in  effigy.  The  next  auto  recorded  did  not  occur  until 
January  5,  1492,  when  the  relaxations  in  person  numbered  thirty- 
two  and  in  effigy  two.'  This,  while  sufficiently  cruel,  indicates 
that  the  victims  in  the  northern  provinces  bore  but  a  small  pro- 
portion to  those  in  the  southern. 

At  the  other  extremity  of  Spain  was  the  little  tribunal  of  Ma- 
jorca, which  acquired  a  sudden  and  sinister  reputation  by  the 
occurrences  of  1678  and  1691.  It  started  in  1488  and  for  some 
years  was  fairly  active,  lapsing  in  time  into  virtual  torpor,  as  far 
as  persecution  was  concerned,  so  that,  including  its  autos  of  1678 
and  1691,  the  whole  aggregate  of  its  work  for  over  two  centuries 


'  CarboneU  de  Gestis  Hferet.  (Col.  de  Doc.  de  la  C.  de  Aragon,  XXVII,  XXVIII). 

^  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Valencia,  Leg.  98,  300. 

"  Cronicon  de  Valladolid  (Col.  de  Doc.  inM.,  XIII,  176-9,  187). 


Chap.  II]  STATISTICS  OF  VICTIMS  523 

amounted  to  139  relaxations  in  person,  482  in  effigy  and  637 
reconciliations,  in  addition  to  338  reconciled  under  Edicts  of  Grace 
in  1488  and  1491.^ 

In  the  later  periods  there  are  records  which  enable  us  to  reach 
a  fairly  accurate  computation  of  the  activity  of  some  at  least  of 
the  tribunals.  A  few  of  these  I  have  had  the  opportunity  of  con- 
sulting'and  the  researches  of  future  students  will  doubtless  in  time 
compile  tolerably  complete  statistics  for  the  second  and  third 
centuries  of  the  Inquisition,  after  the  Suprema  had  compelled  the 
tribunals  to  render  periodical  reports. 

We  have  those  of  Toledo,  from  1575  to  1610,  not  wholly  com- 
plete, for  the  auto  of  1595  is  omitted,  and  the  MS.  breaks  off  at  the 
commencement  of  that  of  1610.  Toledo,  at  the  time,  was  the 
most  important  tribunal  in  Spain,  for  it  included  Madrid,  yet  during 
these  thirty-five  years  the  relaxations  amount  to  only  eleven  in 
person  and  fifteen  in  effigy,  so  that,  allowing  for  the  omissions, 
there  may  have  been  one  in  person  every  three  years  and  one  in 
effigy  every  two  years,  while  the  various  penances  number  in  all 
nine  hundred  and  four.^  Small  as  are  these  results  they  continued 
to  diminish.  For  the  same  tribunal  we  have  a  record  extending 
from  1648  to  1794  and,  during  this  century  and  a  half,  there  were 
only  eight  relaxations  in  person  and  sixty-three  in  effigy,  the  latest 
execution  occurring  in  1738.  This  gives  us  an  average  of  one  of  the 
former  every  eighteen  years  and  one  of  the  latter  every  two  years 
and  a  quarter.  In  addition,  there  were  a  thousand  and  ninety- 
four  penanced  in  various  ways.'  It  is  true  that,  about  1650,  a 
separate  tribunal  was  erected  in  Madrid,  but  a  list  of  relaxations 
there,  from  its  foundation  up  to  1754,  when  relaxation  had  vir- 
tually become  obsolete,  gives  us  only  an  aggregate  of  nineteen 
in  person  and  sixteen  in  effigy,  or  one  in  every  five  years  of  the 
former  and  in  six  years  of  the  latter.''  During  the  height  of  the 
renewed  persecution  of  Judaizers  in  the  eighteenth  century,  in 
the  whole  of  the  sixty-four  autos  celebrated  throughout  Spain 
from  1721  to  1727,  the  total  number  of  relaxations  was  seventy- 
seven  in  person  and  seventy-four  in  effigy,  making  an  average 
of  about  eleven  a  year  of  each  class — a  grim  record  enough,  but 


'  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  595. 
'  MSS.  of  Library  of  Univ.  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I. 
'  Archivo  hist,  nacional,  Inq.  de  Toledo,  Leg.  1. 
*  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  1020. 


524 


RETROSPECT 


[Book  IX 


vastly  less  than  has  been  popularly  accepted.*     Nor  must  it  be 
forgotten  that,  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases,  the  victim  was  merci- 


-|     V 


Saragossa,  1485-1502. 


'  Royal  Library  of  Berlin,  Qt.  9548. 

To  illustrate  the  discrepancy  between  the  facts  as  stated  above  and  the  reckless 
computations  of  Llorente,  which  have  been  so  largely  accepted,  it  may  not  be 
amiss  to  compare  the  facts  with  the  corresponding  figures  resulting  from  his 
system  of  calculation,  for  the  tribunals  and  periods  named: 

Toledo,       1483-1501.  Relaxed  in  person 

Relaxed  in  effigy 

Imprisoned,  about 

Reconciled  under  edicts 
Do.  1575-1610.  Relaxed  in  person 

Relaxed  in  effigy 

Penanced 
Do.  1648-1794.   Relaxed  in  person 

Relaxed  in  effigy 

Penanced 

Relaxed  in  person 

Relaxed  in  effigy 

Penanced 
Barcelona,      1488-98.   Relaxed  in  person 

Relaxed  in  effigy 

Imprisoned 

Reconciled  under  edicts 

Relaxed  in  person 

Relaxed  in  effigy 

Tried        .      .      . 

Relaxed  in  person 

Relaxed  in  effigy 

Penanced 
Majorca,     1488-1691.   Relaxed  in  person 

Relaxed  in  effigy 

Penanced 
All  tribunals,  1721-27.   Relaxed  in  person 

Relaxed  in  effigy 

Penanced 

It  will  thus  be  seen  how  entirely  fallacious  was  the  guess-work  on  which  Llo- 
rente based  his  system. 

An  even  more  conclusive  comparison  is  furnished  by  the  little  tribimal  of  the 
Canaries.  After  1524,  Llorente  includes  it  among  the  tribvmals  by  which  he 
multiplies  the  number  of  yearly  victims  assigned  to  each.  He  thus  makes  it 
responsible,  from  first  to  last,  for  1118  relaxations  in  person  and  574  in  effigy. 
Millares  (Historia  de  la  Inquisicion  en  las  Islas  Canarias,  III,  164-8)  has  printed 
the  official  list  of  the  quemados  during  the  whole  career  of  the  tribunal,  and  they 
amount  in  all  to  eleven  burnt  in  person  and  a  hundred  and  seven  in  effigy.  The 
number  of  the  latter  is  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that,  to  render  its  autos  interest- 


Valencia,    1485-1592. 


Valladolid,     1485-92. 


Records. 

Llorente. 

.   297 

666 

600 

433 

200  ■ 
s  5200- 

6,200 

11 

252 

15 

120 

.   904 

1,396 

8 

297 

63 

129 

1094 

1,188  up  to  1746 

124 

584 

32 

392 

.   458 

7,004 

23 

432 

.   430 

316 

116' 
s   304/ 

5,122 

643 

1,538 

.   479 

869 

.  3104 

16,677  penanced. 

50 

424 

6 

312 

? 

3,884 

139 

1,778 

482 

978 

.   975 

17,861 

77 

238 

74 

119 

.   811 

1,428 

Chap.  II]  CONSCIENTIOVS  CRUELTY  525 

fully  strangled  before  the  fire  was  set.  We  have  seen  how  very 
small  was  the  proportion  of  impenitents  who  persevered  to  the 
last  and  refused  to  earn  the  garrote  by  professing  conversion. 

The  material  at  hand  as  yet  is  evidently  insufficient  to  justify 
even  a  guess  at  the  ghastly  total.  Yet,  after  all,  it  is  not  a  matter 
of  as  much  moment,  as  seems  to  have  been  imagined,  to  determine 
how  many  human  beings  the  Inquisition  consigned  to  the  stake, 
how  many  bones  it  exhumed,  how  many  effigies  it  burnt,  how 
many  penitents  it  threw  into  prison  or  sent  to  the  galleys,  how  many 
orphans  its  confiscations  cast  penniless  on  the  world.  The  story 
is  terrible  enough  without  reducing  it  to  figures.  Its  awful  sig- 
nificance lies  in  the  fact  that  men  were  found  who  conscientiously 
did  this,  to  the  utmost  of  their  ability,  in  the  name  of  the  gospel 
of  peace  and  of  Him  who  came  to  teach  the  brotherhood  of  man. 
It  is  enough  to  know  that  the  inquisitors  used  their  utmost  efforts 
to  stamp  out  what  they  deemed  heresy,  and  the  tale  of  their  vic- 
tims is  not  the  gauge  of  their  cruelty  but  of  the  number  of  heretics 
whom  they  could  discover.  Save  when  pride  or  cupidity  or 
ambition  may  have  been  the  impelling  motive,  the  men  are  not 
to  be  blamed,  but  the  teaching  which  gave  them  such  a  conception 
of  the  duty  so  relentlessly  performed,  and  framed  a  system  of 
procedure  which  shrouded  their  acts  in  darkness  and  deprived 
the  accused  of  his  legitimate  means  of  defence.  The  good  Cura 
de  los  Palacios  was  evidently  a  kindly  natured  man,  but  he  de- 
clares that  the  fires  lighted  by  the  Inquisition  shall  burn  to  the 
very  heart  of  the  wood,  until  all  Judaizers  are  slain  and  not  one 
remains,  even  to  their  children  if  infected  with  the  same  leprosy.' 

In  the  hurried  work  of  the  early  period  there  was  no  effort 
made  to  induce  the  conversion  that  would  save  the  accused  from 
the  stake,  but,  in  later  times,  the  persistent  labor  bestowed  on 
the  condemned,  during  the  three  days  prior  to  the  auto,  is  evidence 
that  the  tribunals  did  not  act  through  thirst  of  blood  and  that 
they  were  sincerely  desirous  to  save  both  the  body  and  soul  of 


ing,  it  was  often  in  the  habit  of  prosecuting  in  absentia  Moorish  and  negro  slaves 
who  escaped  to  Africa  after  baptism  and  who  thus  were  constructively  relapsed. 

Dr.  Schafer  (Beitrage,  I,  157),  after  an  exhaustive  examination  of  the  accessible 
records,  has  collected  references  to  2100  persons  tried  tor  Protestantism  during 
the  second  half  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Protestants  were  punished  with  special 
severity,  but  in  these  cases  the  total  of  relaxations  in  person  was  about  220  and 
in  efEgy  about  120,  and  all  these,  as  we  have  seen,  were  largely  foreigners. 

'  Bemdldez,  Hist,  de  los  Reyes  Cat61icos,  cap,  xliv. 


526  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

the  heretic,  in  the  same  spirit  that  torture  was  sometimes  piously 
administered  in  order  to  confirm  the  sufferer  in  the  faith.  Still, 
at  times,  there  was  doubtless  a  certain  pride  in  affording  to  the 
populace  the  spectacle  of  a  relaxation  and  thus  demonstrating 
the  authority  of  the  Holy  Office.  That  the  public  should  relish 
the  entertainment  thus  provided  was  natural,  both  from  the 
inherent  attraction  which  the  sight  of  suffering  has  for  a  certain 
class  of  minds,  and  from  the  assiduous  teaching  that  heresy  was 
to  be  exterminated  and  that  the  slaying  of  a  heretic  was  an  accept- 
able offering  to  God.  The  Inquisitor  Lorenzo  Flores  relates  that, 
at  the  great  Valladolid  auto  of  1609,  where  there  were  seventy 
penitents,  many  of  them  reconciled  or  sentenced  to  abjuration 
de  vehementi,  the  people  murmured  because  the  one  condemned  to 
relaxation  had  professed  conversion  in  time  and  had  thus  escaped 
the  stake,  and  there  were  many  complaints  that  the  auto  was  not 
worth  the  expense  of  coming  to  see.  He  adds  that,  at  Toledo, 
where  there  was  no  one  relaxed,  the  people  declared  that  the  auto 
was  a  failure.^ 

There  is  something  terrible  in  the  fierce  exultation  which  fanati- 
cism experienced  in  the  agonies  of  the  misbeliever.  Padre  Garau, 
in  his  account  of  the  Mallorquin  auto  of  May  6,  1691,  gloats  with 
an  exuberance,  which  he  knew  would  be  shared  by  his  readers,  on 
the  agonies  of  the  three  impenitents  who  were  burnt  alive.  As 
the  flames  reached  them  they  struggled  desperately  to  free  them- 
selves from  the  iron  ring  which  clasped  them  to  the  stake.  Rafael 
Benito  Terongi  succeeded  in  releasing  himself  but  to  no  purpose, 
for  he  fell  sideways  into  the  fire.  His  sister  Cathalina,  who  had 
boasted  that  she  would  cast  herself  into  the  flames,  when  they 
began  to  lick  her,  shrieked  to  be  set  free.  Rafael  Vails,  who  had 
professed  stoical  insensibility,  stood  motionless  as  a  statue  so 
long  as  only  the  smoke  reached  him,  but,  when  the  flames  attacked 
him,  he  bent  and  twisted  and  writhed  till  he  could  no  more;  he 
was  as  fat  as  a  sucking-pig  and  burnt  internally,  so  that,  after  the 
flames  left  him,  he  continued  burning  like  a  hot  coal  and,  bursting 
open,  his  entrails  fell  out  like  those  of  Judas.  Thus  burning  alive 
they  died,  to  burn  forever  in  hell.^    Such  were  the  lessons  which 

'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  979,  fol.  40. 

'  Garau,  La  Fee  triunfante,  pp.  86,  91. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  it  was  only  in  1790  that  in  England  the  burning 
of  women  for  high  and  petty  treason  was  commuted  to  drawing  and  hanging  by 
30  Geo.  Ill,  cap.  48  (Statutes  at  Large,  XVI,  57). 


Chap.  II]  PROFITABLE  PERSECUTION  527 

the  Church  inculcated  and  such  was  the  training  which  it  gave 
to  Spain,  so  that  the  auto  de  fe  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  spectac- 
ular religious  entertainment  on  the  occasion  of  a  royal  visit,  or  in 
honor  of  the  marriage  of  princes.  Incidental  to  this  was  the  cruel 
perpetuation  of  ancestral  disgrace  by  the  display  of  sanbenitos 
in  churches,  which  Philip  II  rightly  reckoned  as  the  severest  of 
inflictions.  It  intensified  the  terror  inspired  by  the  tribunal 
which,  with  a  word,  could  consign  a  whole  lineage  to  infamy.  It 
kept  alive  and  vigorous  the  horror  of  heresy  and  was  aggravated 
by  the  statutes  of  Limpieza. 

I  hesitate  to  impugn  the  motives  of  those  who  were  active  in  these 
terrible  "triumphs  of  the  faith,"  as  they  were  fondly  termed  and, 
as  stated  above,  the  efforts  to  induce  conversion  show  that  there 
was  no  absolute  thirst  of  blood,  yet  it  is  impossible,  in  reviewing 
the  career  of  the  Inquisition,  not  to  recognize  how  powerful  an 
adjunct  to  fanaticism  was  the  profitableness  of  persecution.  Had 
the  Holy  Office  been  a  source  of  expense  instead  of  income,  we 
may  reasonably  doubt  whether  the  ardor  of  Ferdinand  and  Isa- 
bella would  have  sufficed  for  its  introduction,  and  it  certainly 
would  have  had  but  a  comparatively  short  and  inactive  career. 
We  have  seen  how  closely  Ferdinand  watched  its  expenditures  and 
endeavored  to  keep  down  its  cost,  while  enjoying  the  results  of 
its  productiveness,  and  how  grudgingly  the  crown  ministered  to 
its  necessities  when  aid  was  unavoidable.  We  have  seen  moreover 
how  eagerly  the  Inquisition  itself  grasped  at  all  sources  of  gain, 
how  it  was  stimulated  to  convict  its  victims  by  the  prospect  of 
their  confiscations,  and  how  fines  and  penances  were  scaled,  not 
by  the  guilt  of  the  culprits  but  by  its  necessities;  how  jealously 
it  guarded  its  receipts,- and  how  little  it  recked  of  deception  and 
mendacity  when  there  was  attempt  to  investigate  its  finances. 
After  all  is  said,  the  Inquisition  was  an  institution  with  a  double 
duty— the  destruction  of  heresy  and  the  raising  of  money  to  encom- 
pass that  destruction — and  there  a,re  not  wanting  indications  that 
the  latter  tended  to  supersede,  or  at  least  to  obscure,  the  former. 
We  may  well  question  the  purity  of  zeal  which  provided  punish- 
ments and  disabilities  for  heresy  and  at  the  same  time  chaffered 
over  the  market  price  of  commutations  and  dispensations  through 
which  those  penalties  could  be  evaded.  Not  only  confiscation 
but  pecuniary  penance  and  fines  were  a  source  of  revenue  pro- 
vocative of  continual  abuse,  and  the  rage  for  Limpieza  provided 
abundant  opportunities  for  extortion.     The  filthy  odor  of  gain 


528  BETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

pervades  all  the  active  period  of  the  Inquisition,  and  its  compara- 
tive inactivity  during  its  later  career  may  perhaps  be  attributed 
as  much  to  the  absence  of  wealthy  heretics  as  to  the  diminishing 
spirit  of  intolerance. 

Various  ingenious  theories  have  been  framed  to  relieve  the 
Inquisition  of  responsibility  for  the  remarkable  eclipse  of  Spanish 
intellectual  progress  after  the  sixteenth  century/  It  is  one  of 
the  interesting  problems  in  the  history  of  literature  that  Spain, 
whose  brilliant  achievements  throughout  the  Reformation  period 
promised  to  make  her  as  dominant  in  the  world  of  letters  as  in 
military  and  naval  enterprise,  should,  within  the  space  of  a  couple 
of  generations,  have  become  the  most  imcultured  land  in  Chris- 
tendom, without  a  public  to  encourage  learning  and  genius,  and 
without  learning  and  genius  to  stimulate  a  public.  For  this 
there  must  have  been  a  cause  and  no  other  adequate  one  than 
the  Inquisition  has  been  discovered  to  account  for  this  occultation. 

Indeed,  but  for  the  effort  to  argue  it  away,  it  would  seem  super- 
fluous to  insist  that  a  system  of  severe  repression  of  thought^  by 
all  the  instrumentalities  of  InquisitiofPand  State,  is  an  ample 
explanation  of  the  decadence  of  Spanish  learning  and  literature, 
especially  when  coupled  with  the  obstacles  thrown  around  printing 
and  publication  by  their  combined  censorship.  The  tribulations 
of  Luis  de  Leon  and  Francisco  Sdnchez  illustrate  the  dangers  to 
which  independent  thinkers  were  exposed;  the  great  printing- 
house  of  Portonares  was  ruined  by  the  exigencies  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion in  the  matter  of  the  Vatable  Bible.  All  a  priori  considerations 
cast  the  responsibility  on  the  censorship  of  thought,  whether  printed 
or  expressed  verbally  in  what  were  known  as  "  p:fopositions," 
and  the  burden  of  proof  is  throxvn  upon  those  who  deny  it.  Their 
reliance  is  on  the  fact  that  Isabella  stimulated  the  development  of 
Spanish  culture  and,  at  the  same  time,  established  the  Inquisition, 
which  thus  was  in  existence  for  more  than  a  century  before  the 
decadence  became  marked.  This  is  quite  easily  explicable.  The 
Inquisition  was  founded  to  extirpate  Jewish  and  Moorish  apostasy; 
in  this  it  long  had  ample  work  without  developing  its  evil  capacity 
in  the  direction  of  censorship,  save  in  such  a  sporadic  instance  as 


'  Juan  de  Valera,  Del  Influjo  de  la  Inquisicion  (Disertaciones,  p.  108). — 
Men&dez  y  Pelayo,  II,  707. — Orti  y  Lara,  La  Inquisicion,  p.  270.— P.  Ricardo 
Cappa,  La  Inquisicion  espafiola,  p.  146. 


Chap.  II]  INTELLECTUAL  TORPIDITY  529 

Diego  Deza's  prosecution,  in  1504,  of  the  foremost  scholar  of  his 
time,  EUo  Antonio  de  Nebrija,  for  venturing  to  correct  the  errors 
of  the  Vulgate  for  the  Complutensian  Polyglot,  in  the  service  of 
Ximenez  who  protected  him  and,  when  inquisitor-general,  allowed 
him  to  resume  his  labors.^  With  the  advent  of  Lutheranism  there 
gradually  commenced  the  search  for  errors;  crude  Indexes  of 
condemned  books  were  compiled,  reading  and  investigation  be- 
came restricted;  the  pragm^tica  of  1559  forbade  education  at 
foreign  seats  of  learning  and  an  elaborate  system  was  gradually 
organized  for  protecting  Spain  from  intellectual  intercourse  with 
other  lands,  while  at  home  every  phrase  that  could  be  construed 
in  an  objectionable  sense  was  condemned.  For  awhile  the  men 
whose  training  had  been  free  from  these  trammels  persisted,  in 
spite  of  persecution  more  or  less  severe,  but  they  gradually  died 
out  and  had  no  successors.  In  1601  Mariana  explained  that  he 
translated  his  History  from  the  original  Latin  becausejthere  were" 
few  who  understood  that  language;  such  leafmng  Brought  neither 
honor  nor  pr6fit"and~he'f eared  the  unskilfulness  of  those  who  threat- 
ened to  undertake  the  task.^  It  is  true,  however,  that  Latin  was 
widely  studied  as  essential  to  gaining  place  in  Church  or  State, 
but  to  the  neglect  of  everything  else.  Fray  Penalosa  y  Mon- 
dragon,  in  1629,  while  boasting  of  the  thirty-two  universities  and 
four  thousand  Latin  schools  and  of  Spanish  pre-eminence  in  the 
supreme  science  of  theology,  for  which  there  were  infinite  rewards, 
admits  that  there  were  none  for  the  other  sciences  and  arts,  which 
were  not  regarded  with  favor  or  estimated  as  formerly.^  The 
intellectual  energy  of  the  nation,  diverted  from  more  serious 
channels,  continued  through  another  period  to  exhibit  itself  in 
the  lighter  fields  of  literature,  where  the  names  of  Cervantes,  Lope 
de  Vega,  Tirso  de  Molina,  Calderon  de  la  Barca,  Quevedo  de  Vil- 
legas  and  others  show  of  what  Spanish  intellect  was  still  capable 
if  it  were  allowed  free  play.  Even  these  however  passed  away  and 
had  no  successors  in  the  growing  intellectual  torpor  created  by 
obscurantist  censorship,  and  a  dreary  blank  followed  which  even 
the  stimulation  attempted  by  Phifipv  could  not  relieve. 

To  produce  and  preserve  this  torpor,  by  repressing  all  dangerous 
intellectuality,  Spain  was  ~care?uiry  kept  out  of  the  current  of 


•  Estudio  del  Maestre  Nebrija,  pp.  53-7,  97  (Madrid,  1879). 

'  Historia  de  Espafia,  Pr61ogo. 

'  Las  Cinco  Excelencias  del  Espanol,  fol.  49,  52  (Pamplona,  1629). 

VOL.  IV  34 


[ 


530  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

European  progress.  In  other  lands  the  debates  of  the  Refor- 
mation forced  Catholics  as  well  as  Protestants  to  investigations 
and  speculations  shocking  to  Spanish  conservatism.  The  human 
mind  was  enabled  to  cast  off  the  shackles  of  the  Dark  Ages,  and 
was  led  to  investigate  the  laws  of  nature  and  the  relations  of  man 
to  the  universe  and  to  God.  From  all  this,  bustling  .intellectual 
movement  Spain  was  carefully  secluded.  Short-sighted  oppor- 
tunism, seeing  the  turmoil  which  agitated  France  and  England 
and  Germany,  might  bless  the  institution  which  preserved  the 
Peninsula  in  peaceful  stagnation,  but  the  price  paid  for  torpidity 
was  fearfully  extravagant,  for  Spain  became  an  intellectual 
nonentity.  Even  the  great  theologians  and  mystics  disappeared 
from  the  field  which  they  had  made  their  own,  and  were  succeeded 
by  a  race  of  probabilistic  casuists,  who  sought  only  to  promote 
and  to  justify  self-indulgence.  How  intellectual  progress  fared 
under  these  influences  may  be  estimated  by  a  single  instance. 
When,  in  England,  Halley  was  investigating  the  periodicity  of 
the  comet  which  bears  his  name,  in  Spain  learned  professors  of 
the  universities  of  Salamanca  and  Saragossa  were  publishing 
tracts  to  reassure  the  frightened  people,  by  proving  that  the 
dreadful  portent  boded  evil  only  to  the  wicked — to  the  Turk  and 
the  heretic.^  The  perfect  success  of  the  Inquisition  in  its  work  is 
manifested  in  the  contrast  between  the  eighteenth  and  the  early 
sixteenth  century,  as  illustrated  by  the  statement  of  Juan  Antonio 
Mayans  y  Siscar,  that  a  cartload  of  the  precious  MSS.  bestowed 
by  Ximenes  on  his  University  of  AlcaU  was  sold  to  the  fire-works 
maker  Torrecilla,  for  a  display  in  honor  of  Philip V,  and  that  several 
other  similar  collections  had  shared  the  same  fate.^  Even  after 
half  a  century  of  Bourbon  effort  to  revitalize  the  dormant  intellect 
of  Spain,  Father  Rdbago,  the  royal  confessor,  grudged  the  money 
spent  on  historiographers  and  academies;  it  was  a  pure  gift,  he 
says,  for  it  yields  no  fruits.'  In  fact,  the  awakening  from  intel- 
lectual stupor  was  slow,  for  Dom  Clemencin  tells  us  that  there  was 
less  printing  in  Spain  at  the  cominencement  of  the  nineteenth 
century  than  there  had  been  in  the  fifteenth  under  Isabella.^ 


'  See  tracts  by  Laurean  P^rez  of  Salamanca  and  Geronimo  L6pez  of  Saragossa 
in  Bodleian  Library,  A,  Subt.  16. 
^  Revista  critica  de  Historia  y  Literatura,  T.  VI,  p.  6. 
"  Ochoa,  Epistolario  espaiiol,  II,  182. 
*  Elogio  de  la  Reina  Catolica  Dona  Isabel,  p.  51  (Madrid,  1821.) 


Chap.  II]  INFLUENCE  FOR  EVIL  631 

It  is  impossible  not  to  conclude  that  the  Inquisition  paralyzed  both 
the  intellectual  and  the  economic  development  of  Spain  and  it  is  . 
scarce  reasonable  for  Valera  to  complain  that,  when  Spain  was  j 
aroused  from  its  mental  maraspms,  it  was  to  receive  a  foreign  and  I 
not  to  revive  a  native  culture/ 

That  science  and  art  and  literature  should  thus  be  submerged 
was  a  national  misfortune,  but  even  more  to  be  deplored  were 
the  indirect  consequences.  Material  progress  became  impossible, 
industry  languished,  and  the  inability  to  meet  foreign  competition 
assisted  the  mistaken  internal  policy  of  the  government  in  pro- 
longing and  intensifying  the  poverty  of  the  people.  Nor  was 
this  the  chief  of  the  evils  that  sprung  from  keeping  the  mind  of 
the  nation  in  leading-strings,  from  repressing  thought  and  from 
excluding  foreign  ideas,  for  the  people  were  thus  rendered  abso- 
lutely unfitted  to  meet  the  inevitable  change  that  came  with  the 
Revolution.  To  this,  in  large  measure,  may  be  attributed  the 
sufferings  through  which  Spain  has  passed  in  the  transition  from 
absolutism  to  modern  conditions. 

We  have  thus  followed  the  career  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition 
from  its  foundation  to  its  suppression;  we  have  examined  its    1/ 


methods  and  its  acts  and  have  sought  to  appraise  its  influence  and 
its  share  iiTEEelmsfortunes  which  overwhelmedrthe  nation.  The 
conclusion  can  scarce  be  avoided  that  its  work  was  almost  wholly 
evil  and  that,  through  its  reflex  agtion,  the  persecutors  suffered 
along  with  the  peifecutedt  Yet~^ho  can  blame  Isabella  or  Tor-/ 
quemada  or  the  Hapsburg  princes  for  their  share  in  originating 
and  maintaining  this  disastrous  instrument  of  wrong?  The 
Church  had  taught  for  centuries  that  implicit  acceptance  of  its 
dogmas  and  blind  obedience  to  its  commands  were  the  only 
avenues  to  salvation;  that  heresy  was  treason  to  God,  its  exter- 
mination the  highest  service  to  God  and  the  highest  duty  to  man. 
This  grew  to  be  the  universal  belief  and,  when  Protestant  sects 
framed  their  several  confessions,  each  one  was  so  supremely  con- 
fident of  possessing  the  secret  of  the  Divine  Being  and  his  dealings 
with  his  creatures  that  all  shared  the  zeal  to  serve  God  in  the 
same  cruel  fashion. 

The  Spanish  Inquisition  was  only  a  more  perfect  and  a  more  last- 
ing institution  than  the  others  were  able  to  fashion — as  regards 


/ 


'  Del  Influjo  de  la  Inquisicion  (Disertaciones,  pp.  108,  121). 


532  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

witchcraft,  indeed,  a  more  humane  and  rational  one,  for  no  one  can 
appreciate  the  service  which  in  this  matter  it  rendered  to  Spain 
who  has  not  realized  the  horrors  of  the  witchcraft  trials  in  which 
Catholic  and  Protestant  Europe  rivalled  each  other.  The  spirit 
among  all  was  the  same,  and  none  are  entitled  to  cast  the  first 
stone,  unless  we  except  the  humble  and  despised  Moravian 
Brethren  and  the  disciples  of  George  Fox.  The  faggots  of  Miguel 
Servet  bear  witness  to  the  stern  resolve  of  Calvinism.  Lutheran- 
ism  has  its  roll-call  of  victims.  Anglicanism,  under  Edward  VI, 
in  1550  undertook  to  organize  an  Inquisition  on  the  Spanish 
pattern,  which  burnt  Joan  of  Kent  for  Arianism,  and  the  writ 
De  hwretico  comburendo  was  not  abolished  until  1676.^  Much  as 
we  may  abhor  and  deplore  this  cruelty,  we  must  acquit  the  actors 
of  moral  responsibility,  for  they  but  acted  in  the  conscientious 
belief  that  they  were  serving  the  Creator  and  his  creatures.  The 
real  responsibihty  can  be  traced  to  distant  ages,  to  St.  Augustin 
and  St.  Leo  the  Great  and  the  fathers,  who  deduced,  from  the 
doctrine  of  exclusive  salvation,  that  the  obstinate  dissident  is  to 
be  put  to  death,  not  only  in  punishment  for  his  sin  but  to  save  the 
faithful  from  infection.  This  hideous  teaching,  crystallized  into 
a  practical  system,  came,  in  the  course  of  centuries,  to  be  an 
essential  feature  of  the  religion  which  it  distorted  so  utterly  from 
the  love  and  charity  inculcated  by  the  Founder.  To  dispute  it 
was  a  heresy  subjecting  the  disputant  to  the  penalties  of  heresy, 
and  not  to  enforce  it  was  to  misuse  the  powers  entrusted  by  God 
to  rulers  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  his  kingdom  on  earth. 

In  Spain,  under  peculiar  conditions,  this  resolve  to  enforce  unity 
of  belief,  in  the  conviction  that  it  was  essential  to  human  happiness 
here  and  hereafter,  led  to  the  framing  of  a  system  of  so-called 
justice  more  iniquitous  than  has  been  evolved  by  the  cruellest 
despotism;  which  placed  the  lives,  the  fortunes  and  the  honor, 
not  only  of  individuals  but  of  their  posterity,  in  the  hands  of  those 
who  could  commit  wrong  without  responsibihty;  which  tempted 
human  frailty  to  indulge  its  passions  and  its  greed  without  restraint, 
and  which  subjected  the  population  to  a  blind  and  unreasoning 
tyranny,  against  which  the  slightest  murmur  of  complaint  was 
a  crime.  The  procedure  which  left  the  fate  of  the  accused  vir- 
tually in  the  hands  of  his  judges  was  rendered  doubly  vicious  by 


'  Strype's  Memorials,  II,  214-15. — Burnet's  Reformation,  Vol.  II,  Collections, 
n.  33.— XXIX  Car.  II,  c.  9  (Statutes  at  Large,  II,  390). 


Chap.  II]  BETRIBVTION  533 

the  inviolable  secrecy  in  which  it  was  enveloped— a  secrecy  which 
invited  injustice  by  shielding  its  perpetrators  and  enabling  them 
to  make  a  parade  of  benignant  righteousness.  It  was  the  crowning 
iniquity  of  the  Inquisition  that  it  thus  afforded  to  the  evil-minded 
the  amplest  opportunity  of  wrong-doing.  History  affords  no 
parallel  to  such  a  skilfully  organized  system,  working  relentlessly  . 
through  centuries. 

The  inquisitors  were  men,  not  demons  or  angels,  and  when 
injustice  and  oppression  were  rife  in  the  secular  courts  it  would 
be  folly  not  to  expect  them  in  the  impenetrable  recesses  of  the 
Holy  Office.  If  we  have  occasionally  met  with  instances  of  kind- 
hness  and  genuine  desire  to  do  right,  we  have  incidentally  encoun- 
tered the  opposite  too  often  for  us  to  doubt  its  frequency.  That 
the  rulers  of  the  Inquisition  recognized  the  danger  of  this  and 
sought  to  diminish  it  by  moral  influences  is  evident  from  the 
admirable  prayer  the  utterance  of  which,  by  a  carta  acordada  of 
April  13,  1600,  was  ordered  daily  after  mass  at  the  opening  of 
the  morning  session.  This  implored  the  Holy  Spirit  to  fill  their 
hearts  and  guide  their  judgements,  so  that  they  might  not  be  misled 
by  ignorance  or  favor,  or  be  corrupted  by  gifts  or  acceptance  of 
persons;  that  their  decisions  might  be  in  unison  with  His  will,  so 
that  in  the  end  they  might  earn  eternal  reward  by  well-doing.' 
Yet  we  might  feel  more  confidence  in  the  sincerity  of  this  attempt 
to  curb  by  moral  influence  the  evil  tendencies  fostered  by  the 
system  if  there  had  been  stern  repression  and  punishment  of 
official  wrong-doing,  instead  of  the  habitual  mercy  which  served 
as  an  encouragement. 

After  all,  the  great  lesson  taught  by  the  history  of  the  Inquisition 
is  that  the  attempt  of  man  to  control  the  conscience  of  his  fellows 
reacts  upon  himself;  he  may  inflict  misery  but,  in  due  time,  that 
misery  recoils  on  him  or  on  his  descendants  and  the  full  penalty 
is  exacted  with  interest.  Never  has  the  attempt  been  made  so 
thoroughly,  so  continuously  or  with  such  means  of  success  as  in 
Spain,  and  never  has  the  consequent  retribution  been  so  palpable  ' 
and  so  severe.  The  sins  of  the  fathers  have  been  visited  on  the 
children  and  the  end  is  not  yet.  A  corollary  to  this  is  that  the' 
unity  of  faith,  which  was  the  ideal  of  statesman  and  churchman 
alike  in  the  sixteenth  century,  is  fatal  to  the  healthful  spirit  of 


'  Archive  de  Simancas,  Inq.,  Lib.  942,  fol.  53. — MSS.  of  Royal  Library  of  Copen- 
hagen, 218b,  p.  200. — See  Appendix. 


534  RETROSPECT  [Book  IX 

competition  through  which  progress,  moral  and  material,  is  fos- 
tered. Improvement  was  impossible  so  long  as  the  Holy  See  held 
a  monopoly  of  salvation  and,  however  deplorable  were  the  hatred 
and  strife  developed  by  the  rivalry  which  followed  the  Refor- 
mation, it  yet  was  of  inestimable  benefit  in  raising  the  moral 
standards  of  both  sides,  in  breaking  down  the  stubbornness  of 
conservatism  and  in  rendering  development  possible.  Terrible 
as  were  the  wars  of  religion  which  followed  the  Lutheran  revolt, 
yet  were  they  better  than  the  stagnation  preserved  in  Spain  through 
the  efforts  of  the  Inquisition.  So  long  as  human  nature  remains 
what  it  is,  so  long  as  the  average  man  requires  stimulation  from 
without  as  well  as  from  within,  so  long  as  progress  is  the  reward 
only  of  earnest  endeavor,  we  must  recognize  that  rivalry  is  the 
condition  precedent  of  advancement  and  that  competition  in  good 
works  is  the  most  beneficent  sphere  of  human  activity. 


APPENDIX. 


Abjuration  of  Joseph  Fernandez  de  Toro,  Bishop  of  Oviedo. 

(Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  Libro  V,  fol.  150). 
(See  p.  75). 

Ego  Joseph  Fernandez  de  Toro,  olim  episcopus  Ovetensis,  coram 
Sanctissimo  in  Christo  Patre  et  Domino  nostro  Domino  Clemente 
Divina  Providentia  papa  undecimo  humiliter  genuflexus  vobis  E™'^ 
et  R™^  DD.  cardinalibus  contra  hsereticam  pravitatem  Generalibus 
Inquisitoribus  ei  assistentibus,  sacrosancta  Dei  Evangelia  coram  me 
posita  manibus  tangens,  sciens  neminem  salvum  fieri  posse  extra  illam 
fidem  qiiam  tenet,  credit,  profitetur  ac  docet  Sancta  Catholica  et 
Apostolica  Romana  Ecclesia  contra  quam  fateor  et  doleo  me  graviter 
errasse  quia  tenui  et  docui  respective  errores  et  haereses  formales  ac 
dogmata  contra  veritatem  ejusdem  S.  Ecclesiae,  et  praecipue  quia  tenui 
et  credidi  quod  non  peccaverim  nee  peccare  fecerim  ex  speciali  Pro- 
videntia Dei  in  quibusdam  actibus  turpibus  a  me  habitis  cum  foeminis. 
Quod  concussiones  et  corporis  tremores  cum  pollutione  sequuta  attrib- 
uendi  essent  operationi  Dsemonis  ideoque  absque  peccato  essent.  Quod 
actus  exteriores  amplexuum,  osculorum  aliarumque  operationum 
inhonestarum  essent  supernaturales  in  causa,  adeoque  a  Deo  et  a  Jesu 
procederent.  Quod  prsedicta  oscula  et  amplexus  essent  immunes 
a  motu  libidinis  et  essent  motiva  maximse  humiliationis  ex  supposita 
unione  cum  Deo.  Quod  facta  turpia  cum  fcemina  complici  procederent 
ex  redundantia  amoris  erga  Jesum  adeoque  a  parte  inferiore  procede- 
rent et  ex  motu  ipsius  Jesu  impellerentur.  Quod  stante  supposita  tam 
mea  quam  foeminse  complicis  unione  cum  Deo,  posset  utriusque  status 
componi  una  simul  cum  exterioribus  actibus  peccaminosis  omnesque 
impulsus  quos  in  eandam  fceminam  habebam,  Dei  et  Jesu  essent 
impulsus.  Quod  pessima  doctrina  a  me  insinuata  Dei  esset  doctrina. 
Quod  a  Deo  haberem  donum  discretionis,  spirituum  impulsus  et  illus- 
trationes  ad  agnoscendum  spiritualem  animse  statum,  ipsaque  spiri- 
tuum discretio  ac  doctrinarum  cognitio,  esset  lux  mihi  a  Deo  infusa, 

(535) 


536  APPENDIX 

essem  super  omnes  illustratus,  ideoque  essem  omnibus  superior.  Quod 
facta  turpia  a  me  habita  cum  foemina  complici  essent  exercitium  et 
martyrium  a  Deo  missum  ad  utriusque  humiliationem  et  purificationem. 
Quod  deosculando  et  amplectendo  fceminam  complieem  in  me  adesset 
Jesus  ipseque  Jesus  mediante  me  ita  ageret  et  loqueretur.  Quod 
stante  dicta  supposita  unione  cum  Deo  ab  ipso  motse  essent  potentiae 
mese,  memoria,  intellectus  et  voluntas,  ipseque  Deus  esset  meus  intel- 
lectus,  memoria,  voluntas  et  spiritus  idque  esset  idem,  ac  tres  distinctae 
personae,  una  Majestas  et  unus  Deus,  et  alias  credidi  propositiones  et 
dogmata  mihi  in  processu  contestata;  quae  quidem  propositiones  tan- 
quam  temerariae,  erroneae,  scandalosse,  Christianffi  disciplinae  relaxa- 
tivae,  male  sonantes,  periculosae,  praesimiptuosae,  errori  proximse,  abusi- 
ve verborum  Sacrae  Scripturse,  injuriosse  in  Sanctos,  insanae,  sacrilegae, 
haeresim  sapientes,  de  haeresi  suspectae,  impiae,  blasphemae,  coincidentes 
cum  propositionibus  Molinos  et  haereticae  respective  censuratae  et  qualifi- 
catae  fuerunt.  Nunc  de  praedictis  erroribus  et  haeresibus  dolens,  certus 
de  veritate  fidei  Catholicae,  corde  sincero  ac  fide  non  ficta  abjuro,  de- 
testor,  maledico,  anathematizo  et  respective  retracto  omnes  supradictos 
errores  et  haereses,  quos  et  quas  tenui  et  credidi,  et  promitto  ac  juro  me 
nunc  toto  corde  absque  uUa  haesitatione  credere  et  in  futurum  firmiter 
crediturum  quicquid  tenet,  credit,  praedicat,  profitetur  ac  docet  eadem 
S.  Catholica  Ecclesia,  et  abjuro,  detestor,  maledico  et  anathematizo  non 
solum  supradictos  errores  et  haereses  verumetiam  generaliter  omnem 
alium  errorem  dictae  sanctae  Ecclesiae  contrarium,  omnemque  aliam 
haeresim  et  promitto  et  juro  me  neque  corde  neque  voce  neque  scripto 
unquam  recessurum  quacunque  occasione  sive  prsetextu  a  sancta  fide 
CathoUca  nee  crediturum  vel  edocturum  aliquem  errorem  eidem  contra- 
rium seu  aliquam  haeresim.  Promitto  etiam  me  integre  adimpleturum 
omnes  et  singulas  pcenitentias  mihi  a  Sanctitate  vestra  impositas  sive 
imponendas  et  si  unquam  alicui  ex  dictis  meis  promissionibus  et  jura- 
mentis  (quod  Deus  avertat)  contravenero  me  subjicio  omnibus  poenis 
a  sacris  canonibus  aliisque  constitutionibus  generalibus  et  particularibus 
contra  hujusmodi  delinquentes  inflictis  et  promulgatis.  Sic  me  Deus 
adjuvet  et  illius  sancta  Evangelia  quae  propriis  manibus  tango.  Ego 
Joseph  Fernandez  de  Toro  supradictus  abjuravi,  juravi,  promisi  et  me 
obligavi  ut  supra  et  in  fidem  veritatis  praesentem  schedulam  meae 
abjurationis  propria  mea  manu  subscripsi  eamque  recitavi  de  verbo 
ad  verbum.  Romae,  in  palatio  Quirinali  hac  die,  17  Julii,  1719. — 
Ego  Joseph  Fernandez  de  Toro  Episcopus  abjuravi  ut  supra  manu 
propria. 


APPENDIX  537 

II. 

Abstract  of  the  Case  of  Catalina  Matheo  in  1591. 

(Relacion  de  las  causas  despachadas  en  el  auto  de  la  fee  que  se  celebro 

en  la  Inquisicion  de  Toledo,  Domingo  de  la  SS""  Trinidad, 

nueve  dias  de  Junio,  1591  anos. — Konigl.  Universi- 

tats  Bibliothek  of  Halle,  Yc,  20,  T.  I.). 

(See  p.  224). 

Catalina  Matheo,  viuda,  vezina  del  Cazar,  de  edad  de  cinquenta 
anos  fue  presa  por  el  vicario  de  Alcala  con  diez  y  seis  testigos  de  que 
en  la  dicha  villa  de  quatro  anos  a  esta  parte  abian  muerto  quatro  o 
cinco  criaturas  de  muertes  violentas  que  era  imposible  averlas  hecho 
sino  bruxas,  y  de  que  la  dicha  Catalina  Matheo  y  Olalla  Sobrina  y 
Joana  Yzquierda  eran  tenidas  por  tales  publicas,  y  specialmente  la 
dicha  Matheo.  Hizole  proceso  y  diole  tormento  y  en  el  la  dicha  Cata- 
lina Matheo  dixo  que  era  berdad,  que  podria  aber  quatro  o  cinco  anos 
que  Olalla  Sobrina  la  abia  dicho  si  queria  ser  bruxa,  ofreciendole  que 
el  Demonio  tendria  con  ella  aceso  torpe  y  que  era  buen  officio.  Y 
que  una  noche  por  medio  de  la  dicha  Joana  Yzquierda  la  abia  llamado 
a  su  casa  adonde  estando  todas  tres  abia  entrado  el  demonio  en  figura 
de  cabron,  y  hablando  aparte  primero  con  las  dichas  Olalla  y  Joana  las 
abia  abra9ado  y  despues  a  la  dicha  Matheo,  porque  ellas  le  abian  dicho 
que  tambien  ella  queria  ser  bruxa,  y  que  el  dicho  Demonio  le  abia 
pedido  alguna  cosa  de  su  cuerpo,  y  ella  le  abia  ofrecido  una  una  de  un 
dedo  del  medio  de  la  mano  derecha,  y  que  por  regozijo  del  concierto 
abian  bailado  con  el  dicho  cabron  y  el  se  abia  echado  carnalmente  con 
todas  tres  en  presencia  de  todas.  Y  que  aquella  noche  la  dicha  Olalla 
la  abia  untado  las  coiunturas  de  los  dedos  de  pies  y  manos  y  en  com- 
pania  del  dicho  cabron  abian  ydo  a  una  casa  y  Uebando  unas  brosas 
en  una  teja  abian  entrado  por  una  ventana  a  las  doze  de  la  noche  y 
echando  sueno  a  los  padres  con  unas  dormideras  y  otras  yerbas  puestas 
debaxo  de  la  almohada,  les  abian  sacado  una  nina  de  la  cama  y  apretan- 
dola  por  las  areas  la  abian  ahogado,  y  encendido  lumbre  con  lo  que 
Uebaban,  y  la  quemaron  las  partes  traseras,  y  quebrantando  los  bragos, 
y  que  al  ruido  abian  despertado  los  dichos  padres,  y  ellas  se  abian 
buelto  con  el  dicho  cabron  por  el  ayre  a  casa  de  la  dicha  Olalla,  adonde 
se  abian  bestido  y  ydo  cada  una  a  su  casa,  y  que  a  la  yda  y  buelta  yban 
por  el  ayre  desnudas.  y  diziendo  de  viga  ( ?)  con  la  yra  de  Sancta  Maria. 
Y  que  de  aUi  a  pocos  dias  el  dicho  cabron  abia  ydo  una  noche  a  casa  de 
la  dicha  Matheo  y  hallandola  acostada  la  abia  forgado  y  tenido  cuenta 
carnal  con  ella,  diziendo  en  esto  algunas  particularidades  y  lo  mesmo 


538  APPENDIX 

abia  tenido  otras  diez  o  doze  noches,  y  en  los  dichos  quatro  anos  otras 
vezes  a  menudo,  y  lo  mesmo  abia  hecho  en  las  carceles  del  dicho  vicario. 

Y  que  a  cabo  de  algunos  pocos  dias  en  casa  de  la  dicha  Olalla  le  abia  dado 
un  cuchillo  y  con  el  se  abia  cortado  la  una  que  le  abia  mandado  y  se  la 
abia  entregado.  Y  otras  noches  untandose  en  casa  de  la  dicha  Olalla  y 
en  compania  de  lo  dicho  cabron  abian  ydo  a  otra  casa  y  ahogado  un  nino 
y  arrancadole  sus  berguenzas,  y  despues  a  otras  dos  casas  en  diferentes 
noches  y  ahogado  otras  dos  criatiu'as.  Y  que  una  sola  vez  abia  inbocado 
al  demonio  diziendole  Demonio  ven  a  mi  llamado  y  mandado.  Y  pasa- 
das  las  oras  del  derecho  se  ratifico  en  la  dicha  confesion,  y  el  dicho 
vicario  higo  acareacion  de  la  dicha  Catalina  Matheo  con  la  dicha  Olalla 
y  en  su  presencia  la  dicha  Matheo  le  dixo  todo  lo  arriba  dicho,  afirman- 
dose  en  ello,  y  la  otra  negandolo.  Y  en  este  estado  remitio  a  la  dicha 
Matheo  a  este  S*°  Off"  al  qual  aviendo  sido  trayda  presa  en  la  primera 
audiencia  que  con  ella  se  tubo  dixo  que  pedia  misericordia  del  grave 
pecado  que  havia  hecho  en  lebantarse  a  si  y  las  dichas  Olalla  y  Yzqui- 
erda  lo  que  dellas  avia  dicho  y  de  si  confessado  ante  el  dicho  vicario  lo 
qual  avia  dicho  por  miedo  del  tormento.  Y  abiendose  examinados 
diez  y  seis  testigos  en  el  Cazar  consto  ser  verdad  que  los  dichos  ninos 
abian  sido  muertos  y  se  hallaron  de  la  misma  manera  y  forma  muertos 
y  maltratados  que  la  sobredicha  Matheo  lo  abia  confessado.  Y  a\'ien- 
dose  substanciado  su  processo  fue  puesta  a  question  de  tormento,  y 
abiendose  proHunciado  la  sentencia  y  abaxadola  a  la  camara  para 
executarse  antes  de  desnudarse  abiendo  sido  amonestada  dixo  ser 
berdad  todo  lo  que  abia  dicho  antel  vicario  de  Alcala,  y  en  efecto  lo 
refirio  en  substancia,  aunque  en  algunas  circonstancias  mudo  alguna 
cossa,  asegurando  mucho  ser  berdad  ansi  en  la  manera  del  confesar 
como  del  jurarlo,  y  pasadas  las  oras  del  derecho  se  ratifico  en  sus  con- 
fesiones,  y  en  otras  audiencias  que  con  ella  se  tubieron  despues  dixo 
lo  mesmo,  negando  saber  de  que  fuesen  hechos  los  dichos  inguentos 
ni  aber  tenido  otro  pacto  tacito  ni  expresso  con  el  Demonio  mas  de 
que  abia  dicho,  y  dixo  las  causas  que  abia  tenido  de  bengarse  de  los 
padres  en  la  muerte  de  sus  hijos  que  son  las  mesmas  que  los  padres 
testificaron,  por  donde  sospechaban  que  ellas  se  los  obiesen  muerto. 

Y  subtenciose  su  causa  y  votose  auto  con  coroga,  levi,  dogiento  agotes 
y  reclusa  por  el  tiempo  que  pareciere. 


APPENDIX  539 

III. 

Letter  of  the  Suprema  on  the  Tumult  of  May  2,  1808. 

(Archivo  hist6rico  nacional,  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  Cartas  del  Con- 
sejo,  Legajo  17,  No.  3,  fol.  31). 
(Seep.  401). 

Las  fatales  resultas  que  se  han  experimentado  en  esta  Corte  el  dia 
2  del  corriente  por  el  alboroto  escandaloso  del  bajo  Pueblo  contra  las 
tropas  del  Emperador  de  los  Franceses  hacen  necesaria  la  vigilancia 
mas  activa  y  esmerada  de  todas  las  autoridades  y  cuerpos  respetables 
de  la  Nacion  para  evitar  que  se  repitan  iguales  excesos  y  mantener  en 
todos  los  pueblos  la  tranquilidad  y  sosiego  que  exige  su  propio  interes 
no  menos  que  la  hospitalidad  y  atencion  debida  A  los  oficiales  y  soldados 
de  una  nacion  amiga  que  d  ninguno  ofenden  y  han  dado  hasta  ahora 
las  mayores  pruebas  de  buen  orden  y  disciplina,  castigando  con  rigor 
d  los  que  se  propasan  6  maltratan  &  los  Espafiioles  en  su  persona  6 
bienes.  Es  bien  presumible  que  la  malevolencia  6  la  ignorancia  haian 
seducido  d  los  ineautos  y  sencillos  para  empenarles  en  el  desorden 
revolucionario  so  color  de  patriotismo  y  amor  al  Soberano,  y  corres- 
ponde  por  lo  mismo  d  la  ilustracion  y  zelo  de  los  entendidos  el  desim- 
presionarles  de  un  error  tan  prejudicial,  haciendoles  conocer  que 
semej  antes  movimientos  tumultuarios  lejos  de  producir  los  efectos 
propios  del  amor  y  lealtad  bien  dirigidos,  solo  sirven  para  poner  la 
Patria  en  convulsion,  rompiendo  los  vinculos  de  subordinacion  en  que 
esta  afianzada  la  salud  de  los  Pueblos,  apagando  los  sentimientos  de 
humanidad  y  destruyendo  la  confianza  que  se  debe  tener  en  el  Gobierno, 
que  es  el  unico  d,  quien  toca  dirigir  y  dar  impulso  con  uniformidad  y 
con  provecho  al  valor  y  &  los  esfuerzos  del  patriotismo.  Estas  verdades 
de  tanta  importancia  ninguno  puede  persuadirlas  mejor  que  los  Minis- 
tros  de  la  Religion  de  Jesu  Cristo,  que  toda  respira  paz  y  fraternidad 
entre  los  hombres  igualmente  que  sumision,  respeto  y  obediencia  d 
las  autoridades;  y  como  los  individuos  y  Dependientes  del  Santo  Oficio 
deban  ser  y  han  sido  siempre  los  primeros  en  dar  exemplo  de  Ministros 
de  paz  y  que  procuran  la  paz,  hemos  creydo,  Senores,  conveniente  y 
muy  propio  de  la  obligacion  de  nuestro  Ministerio  el  dirigiros  la  pre- 
sente  carta  para  que  enterados  de  su  contexto  y  penetrados  de  la  urgente 
necesidad  de  concurrir  unanimemente  i.  la  conservacion  de  la  tran- 
quilidad publica  la  hagais  entender  &  los  subalternos  de  ese  Tribunal 
y  &  los  Comisarios  y  Famihares  del  Distrito,  d,  fin  de  que  todos  y  cada 
uno  contribuir  {sic)  por  su  parte  con  quanto  zelo,  actividad  y  prudencia 
les  fuere  posible  i,  tan  interesante  objeto.    Tendreislo  entendido,  y 


640  APPENDIX 

del  recibo  de  esta  dareis  el  correspondiente  aviso.  Dios  os  guarde. 
Madrid  6  de  Maio  de  1808.— Dr.  D.  Gab'  Nevia  y  Noriega.— D.  Rai- 
mundo  Eltenhard  y  Salinas. — Fr.  Man'  de  San  Joseph. — Rubricado. 
Recibida  en  9  de  Mayo  de  1808. — SS.  Bertran,  Laso,  Acedo,  Encina. — 
Executese  come  S.  A.  lo  manda.    Rubrica.    Valencia. 

Certifico  el  infrascrito  Secretario  del  Secreto  del  Santo  Oficio  de  la 
Inquisicion  de  Valencia  que  en  el  dia  once  del  mes  de  Mayo  del  ano 
mil  ochociento  y  ocho,  estando  en  su  audiencia  de  la  manana  los  S™ 
Inquisidores  Dr.  D.  Mathias  Bertran,  Licen''°  D.  Nicolas  Rodriguez 
Laso,  Dr.  D.  Pablo  Acedo  Rico  y  Dr.  D.  Fran""  de  la  Encina,  entraron 
en  ella  los  Ministros,  Calificadores,  Titulados,  Notarios  y  Familiares 
que  viven  en  esta  ciudad,  d  los  quales,  precedida  convocacion  para 
este  fin,  se  les  ley6  esta  carta  de  los  Senores  del  Consejo  de  S.  M.  de  la 
Santa  y  General  Inquisicion  y  en  seguida  se  les  exort6  por  el  Senor 
Inquisidor  Decano  &  su  mas  exacto  cumplimiento.  Y  para  que  lo 
susodicho  conste  doy  la  presente  Certificacion  que  firmo  en  la  Camara 
del  Secreto  de  la  Inquisicion  de  Valencia,  en  el  dia  11  del  mes  de  Mayo 
de  1808. — D.  Man'  Fuster  y  Bertran,  Secretario.    Rubricado. 


IV. 

Decree  of  Fernando  VII,  September  9,  1814,  Restoring  the 
Property  op  the  Inquisition. 

(Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  559). 
(See  p.  427). 

Exc""  Senor: — Por  Real  decreto  de  veintiuno  de  Julio  ultimo,  se 
sirvio  S.  Magestad  mandar  restablecer  en  todos  sus  dominios  el  Santo 
Oficio  de  la  Inquisicion  al  pie  y  estado  en  que  se  hallaba  el  afio  de  mil 
ochocientos  ocho  y  que  para  la  subsistencia  y  decoro  de  los  Ministros 
y  demas  empleados  de  sus  tribunales  se  restituyesen  toda  clase  de  bienes 
y  efectos  pertenecientes  i,  su  dotacion,  como  son  frutos,  creditos,  reditos 
de  censos,  vales  y  caudales  que  se  hallan  impuestos  en  la  Caja  de  con- 
solidacion,  asi  como  de  los  rendimientos  de  las  canongias  perpetua- 
mente  anejas  al  Santo  Officio  afectas  por  Brebes  apostolicos. 

Comunicado  este  Real  decreto  al  supremo  Consejo  de  Inquisicion 
para  su  observancia  consulto  &  S.  Magestad  lo  que  en  su  razon  tubo 
por  combeniente  al  cabal  cumplimiento  de  las  piadosas  Reales  inten- 
ciones,  manifestando  al  propio  tiempo  los  ruinosos  y  destruidos  que 
se  hallaban  los  edificios  destinados  al  tribunal  del  Santo  Oficio,  estravio 


APPENDIX  541 

de  sus  papeles  mas  interesantes,  ya  de  causas  de  fe,  ya  de  la  Hacienda 
del  Real  fisco  que  fueron  presa  de  los  executores  de  los  decretos  de 
abolicion  de  los  tribunales  de  Inquisicion.  Enterado  S.  Magestad  de 
todo  y  deseoso  de  Uevar  A  debido  efecto  su  citado  Real  Decreto  de 
veinteuno  de  Julio  ha  resuelto  se  pongan  desde  luego  sin  demora  ni 
detencion  alguna  i,  disposicion  de  los  tesoreros  de  los  respectivos 
tribunales  de  Inquisicion  todas  las  fincas  y  efectos  de  qualquiera  clase 
que  sean  pertinecientes  al  tribunal  y  que  en  este  concepto  hayan  sido 
secuestrados,  confiscados,  detenidos  6  aplicados  d,  lo  que  se  llama 
hacienda  publica  6  Nacional,  devolviendo  todos  los  titulos  de  propiedad 
y  legitimacion  de  creditos  que  hubiesen  recebido  y  cortando  la  cuenta 
el  dia  veinteuno  de  Julio  del  presente  ano  den  razon  de  las  personas 
obligadas  al  pago  de  sus  arrendamientos  y  obligaciones  con  expresion 
de  sus  cantidades  y  procedencias. 

De  orden  del  Rey  lo  comunico  A  V.  E.  para  su  inteligencia  y  puntual 
cumplimiento,  y  d  fin  de  que  esta  real  resolucion  la  haga  circular  & 
los  Gobernadores,  Intendentes,  Directores  del  credito  pubhco  6  sugetos 
encargados  de  la  Real  recaudacion  de  intereses  en  los  Pueblos  de  sus 
distritos.  Dios  guarde  &  V.  E.  muchos  aiios.  Madrid,  3  de  Setiembre 
de  1814. 

S'  Virrey  y  Capitan  General  de  etc. 


Decree  of  Suppression,  March  9,  1820. 

(Miraflores,  Documentos  d,  los  qu^  se  hace  referencia  en  los  Apuntes 
hist6rico-criticos,  I,  93. — Rodrigo,  Historia  Verdadera,  III,  494). 

(See  p.  436). 

Considerando  que  es  incompatible  la  existencia  del  Tribunal  de  la 
Inquisicion  con  la  constitucion  de  la  Monarquia  Espaiiola  promulgada 
en  Cadiz  en  1812  y  que  por  esta  razon  lo  suprimieron  las  Cortes  generales 
y  estraordinarias  por  decreto  de  22  de  Febrero  de  1813,  previa  una 
madura  y  larga  discusion:  oida  la  opinion  de  la  Junta  formada  por 
decreto  de  este  dia,  y  conformandome  con  su  parecer,  he  venido  en 
mandar  que  desde  hoy  quede  suprimido  el  referido  Tribunal  en  toda 
la  Monarqma  y  por  consecuencia  el  Consejo  de  la  Suprema  Inquisicion, 
poniendose  inmediatamente  en  libertad  a  todos  los  presos  que  est^n 
en  sus  cdrceles  por  opiniones  poHtfcas  6  religiosas,  pasandose  d  los 
Reverendos  Obispos  las  causas  de  estos  tiltimos  en  sus  respectivas 


542  APPENDIX 

Diocesis  para  que  las  sustancien  y  determinen  con  arreglo  en  todo  al 
espresado  decreto  de  las  C6rtes  estraordinarias.  Tendreislo  entendido 
y  dispondreis  lo  conveniente  d,  su  cumplimiento.  Palacio,  9  de  Marzo 
de  1820.     Esta  rubricado.    Al  Secretario  de  Gracia  y  Justicia. 


VI. 

The  Last  Vote  of  the  Supreme  Council,  February  10,  1820. 

(Libro  de  Votos  Secretes,  Archivo  de  Simancas,  Inquisicion,  Libro  890). 

(See  p.  437). 

Toledo. — Don  Manuel  de  la  Peiia  Palacios. 

En  el  consejo  d  10  de  Febrero  de  1820.  Senores  Hevia,  Ettenhard, 
Amarilla,  Galarza,  Martinez,  Beramendi,  Prado. — Hagan  justicia  como 
lo  tienen  acordado. 

Voto  del  Tribunal.  En  el  Santo  Oficio  de  Toledo  en  29  dias  del  mes 
de  Enero  de  1820,  estando  en  la  audiencia  de  su  maiiana  el  Senor 
Inquisidor  Doctor  Don  Jos6  Francisco  Bordujo  y  Rivas  (que  asiste 
solo)  haviendo  visto  esta  causa  contra  Don  Manuel  de  la  Pefia  Palacios, 
Presbitero  Cura  que  fue  del  lugar  de  Ontoba  y  actualmente  de  Torrejon 
del  Rey  en  este  arzobispado  por  delitos  de  proposiciones  y  propagar 
doctrinas  peligrosas  contrarias  al  sentir  de  la  Iglesia:  Dixo,  Que  su 
voto  y  parecer  es  que  d  este  reo  d  puerta  cerrada  en  la  sala  de  Audiencia 
y  a  presencia  del  Secretario  de  la  causa  se  le  reprenda  amoneste  y 
conmine  por  las  proposiciones  propaladas  ya  en  sus  sermones  ya  en 
sus  conversaciones  familiares;  se  le  absuelva  ad  cautelam  y  por  quince 
dias  se  le  exercite  spiritualmente  en  el  convento  de  Padres  Carmelitas 
Descalzos  de  esta  Ciudad  al  cargo  de  Director  que  se  le  sefiale;  se  le 
advierta  que  por  ahora  le  trata  el  Tribunal  con  toda  conmiseracion 
y  clemencia  por  haverselo  implorado  en  las  audiencias  que  con  el 
se  ban  tenido  y  por  esperar  su  total  enmienda  en  el  modo  irregular 
con  que  hasta  aqui  se  ha  conducido  con  sus  Feligreses  y  se  estard  d 
la  mira  de  su  conducta  y  operaciones;  y  antes  de  executarse  se  remita 
d  S.  A.  con  todos  los  expedientes  que  ban  precedido  para  su  aprobacion; 
y  lo  rubric6  de  que  certifico.  Estd  rubricado. — D.  Domingo  Sanchez 
Fijon,  Secretario. 


APPENDIX  643 


VII. 


DiCTAMEN    OF    THE    CoNSEJO    DE    GOBIERNO    ON   THE    DeCREE    EXTIN- 
GUISHING THE  Inquisition. 

(Archive  de  Alcald,  Ministerio  de  Estedo,  Legajo  906,  n.  88). 
(See  p.  467). 

Seiior  Secretario  de  Estado  y  del  Despacho  de  Gracia  y  Justicia. 
Ex"°  Seiior:  He  recibido  el  oficio  de  V.  E.  de  9  del  presente  con  el 
proyecto  de  decreto  en  que  se  declara  suprimido  el  Tribunal  de  la 
Inquisicion,  se  adjudican  sus  bienes  y  rentas  d,  la  estincion  de  la  deuda 
publica  y  se  fija  la  suerte  de  los  dependientes  del  Tribunal,  cuyo  pro- 
yecto remits  V.  E.  de  Real  orden  al  Consejo  por  que  lo  examine  y 
esponga  su  dictamen. 

Enterado  de  todo  y  despues  de  una  detenida  discusion  ha  acordado 
el  Consejo  manifieste  d  V.  E.  que  reconoce  la  conveniencia  de  coadyubar 
al  sostenimiento  del  credito  del  Estado  por  cuantos  medios  esten  al 
alcance  del  Gobierno  y  reconoce  asi  mismo  que  los  bienes  de  la  Inqui- 
sicion (suprimida  A  lo  menos  de  hecho  por  el  Rey  difunto  que  nunca 
permitio  que  restableciese)  podran  proporcionar  algun  ausiho  &  la  caja 
de  amortizacion  sin  agravio  de  nadie,  pues  en  el  proyecto  de  Decreto 
se  establece  el  conveniente  para  asegurar  d  los  empleados  del  Tribunal 
las  asignaciones  que  les  correspondan  segun  sus  circunstancias  y 
clasificaciones. 

Por  estas  consideraciones  no  haUa  reparo  el  Consejo  en  que  S.  M. 
apruebe  en  lo  substancial  el  proyecto  de  Decreto  aunque  en  su  dicta- 
men  podrian  hacerse  en  el  las  siguientes  modificaciones. 

P  En  la  parte  del  preambulo  donde  hablando  de  la  autoridad  Ponti- 
ficia  se  usa  de  la  espresion:  Primado  de  la  Iglesia  universal,  cree  el 
consejo  que  podria  seguirse  el  uso  constants  de  designar  dicha  autoridad 
Pontificia  con  el  nombre  de  Santa  Sede  6  Sumo  Pontifice;  no  porque 
el  Consejo  desconozca  la  propiedad  del  titulo  de  Primado  de  la  Iglesia 
universal  con  arreglo  A  los  sacros  canones,  sino  porque  en  materia  de 
denominaciones  y  formulas  es  siempre  preferible  el  uso  de  las  estable- 
cidas  y  mas  comunes  que  inovarlas,  porque  puede  darse  lugar  a  que 
se  crea  que  la  inovacion  envuelva  algun  designio  que  la  malignidad 
interpreta  segun  su  antojo. 

2"  Cuando  en  el  Art"  1°  se  dice  que  se  declara  suprimido  el  Tribuno 
de  la  Inquisicion  podra  darse  motivo  A  que  se  infiera  por  esta  espresion 
que  el  Gobierno  lo  habia  creido  subsistente  hasta  el  dia  de  derecho: 
cuya  idea  no  parece  enteramente  exacta,  pues  el  Seiior  Don  Fernando 
7°  resistiendo  siempre  A  las  gestiones  de  alcunas  corporaciones  para 


544  APPENDIX 

su  restablecimiento,  y  habiendo  restituido  &  los  Arzobispos  y  Obispos 
el  conocimiento  sobre  las  causas  de  fe  que  les  corresponde  por  derecho 
comun  dio  bastante  d  entender  que  su  Real  animo  estaba  decidido  i 
la  estincion  de  la  Inquisicion  aunque  por  ciertas  consideraciones  no  la 
hubiere  pronunciado  mas  esplicitamente,  cree  pues  el  Consejo  pre- 
ferible  que  en  dicho  articulo  se  haga  algun  mencion  de  lo  hecho  por  el 
difunto  Rey  sobre  esta  materia,  d  que  aparezca  dicha  estinciorfcomo 
un  acto  de  la  Regencia  en  STi  totalidad:  Y  si  no  juzga  S.  M.  que  haya 
necesidad  de  ello,  por  lo  menos  el  Consejo  cree  que  al  espresado  articulo 
combendra  anadir  la  palabra  definitivamente,  para  que  diga  se  declara 
suprimido  definitivamente  el  Tribunal  de  la  Inquisicion. 

3°  El  consejo  entiende  que  en  la  actualidad  convendria  suprimir 
enteramente  el  Art°  4°  por  el  que  se  autoriza  al  Senor  Secretario  del 
Despacho  de  Hacienda  para  la  pronta  enagenacion  de  las  fincas:  pues 
habiendose  vendido  muchas  de  ellas  en  tiempo  del  Gobierno  consti- 
tucional,  y  no  siendo  posible  todavia  hacer  distincion  alguna  entre  las 
que  se  enageraron  y  las  que  no  se  enageraron  en  dicha  epoca  hasta  que 
las  Cortes  examinen  la  grave  cuestion  relativa  &.  los  compradores  de 
bienes  nacionales,  podria  darse  motivo  ^  que  se  sospechase  que  se 
decidia  este  punto  general  por  el  presente  Decreto  de  una  manera  in- 
directa,  mandando  vender  todos  los  bienes  de  la  Inquisicion  indistinta- 
mente  y  sin  hacer  diferencia  alguna  entre  los  enagenados  y  los  non 
enagenados.  Parece  pues  que  por  ahora  combiene  limitarse  &.  lo  que 
se  previene  en  el  Art°  2°  aplicando  la  masa  de  los  bienes  de  la  Inqui- 
sicion d  la  estincion  de  la  deuda  publica  sin  mas  esplicacion. 

4°  El  art"  6°  en  que  se  ordena  que  los  sueldos  de  los  empleados  del 
Tribunal  se  paguen  del  Tesoro  ptiblico,  cree  el  Consejo  que  podria  modi- 
ficarse  mandando  que  este  pago  se  hiciese  por  la  caja  de  Amortizacion 
pues  no  parece  justo  imponer  este  nuebo  gravamen  al  Real  Tesoro 
cuando  nada  es  mas  natural  que  satisfacer  el  gravamen  vitalicio  que 
pesa  sobre  los  bienes  y  rentas  del  Tribunal  por  el  mismo  establecimiento 
adonde  han  i,  ingresar  sus  productos.  Esto  no  ofrecerd.  inconveniente 
aun  despues  que  se  vendan  todas  las  fincas  que  pertenecian  i,  la  Inqui- 
sicion, pues  siempre  quedardn  las  ciento  y  una  Canongias  de  que  habla 
el  Art°  3°  del  proyecto  que  no  son  susceptibles  de  enagenacion,  y  con 
cuyo  producto  habrd  mas  que  lo  suficiente  para  pagar  a  los  cesantes 
del  ramo  cuyo  ntimero  se  hallara  muy  reducido  por  los  que  han  fallecido 
6  pasado  i.  otros  destinos  desde  el  ano  de  1823  hasta  el  dia,  y  se  reducira 
todabia  mas  por  las  disposiciones  de  los  Art"'  5°  y  6°  del  mismo  proyecto 
de  Decreto. 

Lo  que  por  acuerdo  del  Consejo  digo  d  V.  E.  en  contestacion  d  su 
citado  oficio  con  devolucion  del  Proyecto. 

Dios  etc.    Madrid,  13  de  Julio  de  1834.    El  Conde  de  Ofalia. 


APPENDIX  545 

VIII. 

Decree  of  July  15,  1834,  Abolishing  the  Inquisition. 

(Printed  by  Castillo  y  Ayensa,  Negociaciones  con  Roma,  Madrid,  1859. 

Tom.  I,  Append,  p.  165). 

(See  p.  468). 

Deseando  aumentar  el  cr^dito  publico  de  la  Nacion  por  todos  los 
medios  compatibles  con  los  principios  de  justicia:  teniendo  en  consider- 
acion  que  mi  augusto  Esposo  (Q.  E.  E.  G.)  creyo  bastante  eficaz  al 
sostenimiento  de  la  Religion  del  Estado  la  nativa  e  imprescriptible 
autoridad  de  los  muy  RR.  Arzobispos  y  RR.  Obispos,  protegida 
cual  corresponde  por  las  leyes  de  la  Monarquia:  que  mi  Real  decreto 
de  4  de  Enero  proximo  pasado  ha  dejado  en  manos  de  dichos  Prelados 
la  censura  de  los  escritos  concernientes  d  la  fe,  &.  la  moral  y  disciplina, 
para  que  se  conserve  ileso  tan  precioso  deposito :  que  estan  ya  conclu- 
idos  los  trabajos  del  Codigo  criminal  en  que  se  establecen  las  conve- 
nientes  penas  contra  los  que  intenten  vulnerar  el  respeto  debido  i, 
nuestra  Santa  Religion;  y  que  la  Junta  eclesiistica,  creada  por  mi 
Real  decreto  de  22  de  Abril  se  ocupa  de  proponer  cuanto  juzgue  con- 
ducente  &  tan  importante  fin,  para  que  provea  yo  de  remedio  hasta 
donde  alcance  el  Real  Patronato,  y  con  la  concurrencia  de  la  Santa 
Sede  en  cuanto  menester  fuere:  en  nombre  de  mi  excelsa  Hija  Dofia 
Isabel  II,  oido  el  Concejo  de  Gobierno  y  el  de  Ministros,  he  venido  en 
mandar  lo  siguiente :  Articolo  1°.  Se  declara  suprimido  definitivamente 
el  Tribunal  de  la  Inquisicion.  2°  Los  predios  rflsticos  y  urbanos, 
censos  ti  otros  bienes  con  que  le  habia  dotado  la  piedad  soberana  6 
cuya  adquisicion  le  proporciono  por  medio  de  leyes  dictadas  para  su 
proteccion,  se  adjudican  d.  la  extincion  de  la  Deuda  publica.  3°  Las 
ciento  una  canongias  que  estaban  agregadas  d  la  Inquisicion  se  aplican 
al  mismo  objeto,  con  sujecion  &  mi  Real  decreto  de  9  de  Marzo  ultimo 
y  por  el  tiempo  que  expresan  las  Bulas  apost61icas  sobre  la  materia. 
4°  Los  empleados  de  dicho  Tribunal  y  sus  dependencias  que  posean 
prebendas  eclesidsticas  li  obtengan  cargos  civiles  de  cualquiera  clase 
con  sueldo,  no  tendrdn  derecho  ^  percibir  el  que  les  correspondia  sobre 
los  fondos  del  mismo  Tribunal,  cuando  Servian  en  el  sus  destinos.  5° 
Todos  los  demas  empleados,  mientras  no  se  les  proporcione  otra  colo- 
cacion,  percibirdn  exactamente  de  la  Caja  de  Amortizacion  el  sueldo 
que  les  corresponda,  segun  clasificacion  que  solicitardn  ante  la  Junta 
creada  al  efecto.  Tendreislo  entendido  y  dispondreis  lo  necesario  £ 
su  cumplimiento.  En  San  Ildefonso  d  15  de  Julio  de  1834.— A.  D. 
NicoMs  Maria  Garelly. 

VOL.  IV  35 


546  APPENDIX 

IX. 

Prayeh  Recited  Daily  at  Opening  op  Morning  Session. 

(Biblioteca  nacional,  Seccion  de  MSS.  D,  122,  fol.  1). 
(See  p.  583). 

Adsumus  Domine,  Sancte  Spiritus,  adsumus  quidem  peccati  im- 
manitate  detenti,  sed  in  nomine  tuo  specialiter  aggregati.  Veni  ad 
nos,  adesto  nobis,  dignari  illabi  cordibus  nostris;  doce  nos  quid  agamos, 
quo  gradiamus;  ostende  quid  officere  debeamus  ut,  te  auxiliante,  tibi 
in  omnibus  placers  valeamus.  Esto  salus  et  suggestor  et  effector  judi- 
ciorum  nostrorum,  qui  solus  cum  Deo  patre  et  ejus  Filio  nomen  pos- 
sides  gloriosum.  Non  nos  patiaris  perturbatores  esse  justitise  qui 
summam  diligis  iEquitatem,  ut  in  sinistrum  nos  ignorantia  non  trahat, 
non  favor  infectat,  non  acceptio  muneris  vel  personae  corrumpat,  sed 
junge  nos  tibi  efScaciter  solius  tuse  gratise  dono  ut  simus  in  te  unum  et 
in  nullo  deviemus  a  vero  quatenus  in  nomine  tuo  coUecti,  sic  in  cunctis 
teneamus  cum  moderamine  pietatis  justitisBque  ut  hie  a  te  in  nullo 
dissentiat  sententia  nostra,  ut  in  futuro  pro  bene  gestis  consequamur 
premia  sempiterna.    Amen. 


INDEX. 


A  BAD  y  la  Sierra,  Inq.-genl.,  iv,  293, 
294 

his  resignation,  i,  321 

proposes  reform,  iv,  393 
Abenamir  Brothers,  case  of,  iii,  362 
Abencerrages  leave  Spain,  iii,  318 
Abd-el-mumin  persecutes  Jews,  i,  51 
Abderrhaman  II,  his  embassy  to  Otho 

the  Great,  i,  47 
Abiatar  Aben  Crescas  cures  Juan  II, 

Abito  y  cdrcel,  ii,  411 
penitencial,  iii,  163 
Abjuration,  de  Levi  and  de  vehementi, 
iii,  124 
formulas,  iii,  124 

effects  of,  ii,  143;  iii,  125,  126,  178 
with  acquittal,  iii,  106 
in  sorcery,  iv,  198 
for  propositions,  iv,  143 
in  bigamy,  iv,  319,  321 
Abogado  de  los  presos,  ii,  250;  iii,  45 

fiscal,  ii,  250.     See  also  Advocate. 
Abolition  of  Inqn.  suggested  in  1704, 
ii,  176. 
in  1798  and  1799,  iv,  395,  397 
by  Cortes  in  1813,  iv,  411 
decrees  of,  in  1820  and  1834,  iv,  436, 
467,  541,  543,  545 
Abonos,  iii,  63 
Abravanel,  Isaac,  his  financial  services, 

i,  131 
Absent,  prosecution  of  the,  ii,  466,  467; 
iii,  80,  86 
effigies  of,  burnt,  i,  183 
can  return  and  claim  trial,  iii,  89 
disabilities  of  children  of,  iii,  176 
and  dead,  procurator  for,  iii,  50 
Absence  from  duty,  ii,  226 
Absolution  for  occult  heresy,  ii,  20 
for  formal  heresy,  ii,  23 

under  indulgences,  ii,  25 
revocation  of,  ii,  591 
dependent  on  denunciation,  iv,  106, 
108 
in  solicitation,  iv,  121,  126 
by  accomplice  in  sin,  iv,  95,  113 
papal  letters  of,  ii,  104,  113,  590 


Absolutism,  development  of,  iv,  249, 
473 
of  Fernando  VII,  iv,  454 
Abu  Ishac,  his  satire,  i,  51 
Abu  Jusuf,  i,  54,  56 
Abu-l-Hafan  provolies  war  with  Gran- 
ada, i,  21 
Abuses  repressed  by  Ferdinand,  i,  187 
in  Barcelona,  i,  529 
of  commissioners,  ii,  269 
in  confiscation,  ii,  346 
of  fines  and  penances,  ii,  397 
Academy  of  History,  its  censorship,  iii, 

489 
Accomplice,  absolution  of,  by  partner 

in  sin,  iv,  95,  113 
Accomplices,  their  denunciation  essen- 
tial, ii,  460,  462,  577;  iii,  199,  371 
torture  to  discover  them,  iii.  10,  11 
in  witchcraft,  iv,  213,  234 
of  familiars,  i,  445 
Account  of  a  receiver,  i,  294;  ii,  446 

600 
Accumulation  of  cases  for  autos,   iii, 

72,  77 
Accusatio,  ii,  479 
Accusation,  formula  of,  iii,  41 

to  be  presented  within  ten  days,  iii, 

76,  78 
affects  limpieza,  ii,  311 
Accused,  protection  of,  in  Aragon,  ii, 
466 
position  of,  in  Inqn.,  ii,  482 
identification  of,  ii,  553 
his  genealogy  taken,  iii,  38 
sworn  to  secrecy,  ii,  473 
charges  withheld  from,  iii,  39 
not  allowed  to  select  advocate,  iii, 

45,  52 
can  always  obtain  audience,  iii,  37 
his  examinations,  iii,  70 
examined  as  to  property,  ii,  321 
expenses  thrown  on  him,  ii,  494;  iii, 

35 
required   to   answer  accusation,   iii, 

42 
his  witnesses,  ii,  539 
treatment  of  his  evidence,  ii,  543 
(547) 


648 


INDEX 


Accused  kept  in  ignorance  of  sentence, 

iii,  94 
Accuser,  liability  of,  ii,  466 
sworn  to  secrecy,  ii,  473 
Acevedo,  Abp.,  publishes  papal  decree, 

iii,  536 
Acquittal,  iii,  105 

decreasing  number  of,  iii,  112 
honors  paid  in  case  of,  ii,  561 
with  abjuration,  iii,  106 
with  punishment,  iii,  107 
Activity,  diminished  in  18th  century, 
iv,  388 
change  in  its  objects,  iv,  391 
political,  iv,  248 

disappearance  of  feudalism,  iv,  249 
trivial  use  by  Ferdinand,  iv,  251 
the  Germania,  iv,  252 
case  of  Jeanne  d'Albret,  iv,  253 

of  Antonio  P^rez,  iv,  254 
occasional  cases,  iv,  273 
in  War  of  Succession,  iv,  275 
used  by  Bourbons,  iv,  276 
under  the  Restoration,  iv,  277 
export  of  horses,  iv,  278 
coinage,  iv,  283 
Acts  of  heretics  invalid,  ii,  325,  327 
Acuna,  Bp.  of  Zamora,  case  of,  ii,  44 
Adam,  cult  of,  iv,  357 
Ad  beneplacitum,  commissions,  i,  176; 

ii,  161 
Adivinas,  iv,  180 

Adjuration  for  mercy,  iii,  184,  185,  188 
Ad  perpetuam  rei  memoriam,  ii,  545 
Adrian,  Cardinal,  made  inq.-general,  i, 
181,  216 
restores  Calcena  and  Aguirre,  i,  215 
action  in  the  case  of  Prat,  i,  277 
powers  of  appointment,  i,  298 
seeks  to  appoint  successor,  i,  303 
requires  episcopal  concurrence,  ii,  14 
refers  appeals  to  Manrique,  ii,   121, 

126 
case  of  Blanquina  Diaz,  ii,  122 
shares  in  confiscations,  ii,  383 
prescribes  kindness  to  prisoners,  ii, 

524 
seeks  to  relieve  Moriscos,  iii,  328 
suppresses  Lutheran  books,  iii,  413, 

421 
inaugurates  censorship,  iii,  481 
annexes  Military  Orders  to  crown,  i, 
34 
Advocates  allowed  to  accused,  iii,  43 
papers  furnished  to,  iii,  44,  48 
selection  of,  iii,  45,  52 
restrictions  on,  iii,  44,  48,  49 
their  functions,  iii,  47,  56,  69 
become  officials,  iii,  45 
ask  places  at  autos,  iii,  46 
Affonso  V  on  Jewish  ostentation,  i,  96 


Afrancesados,  iv,  400 

classed  as  Jansenists,  iv,  297 
Agde,  Council  of,  on  Jews,  i,  39 
Age   requirements   of  officials,  ii,  220, 

233,  236,  279 
Age  of  responsibility,  ii,  3,  536 

minimum,  for  witnesses,  ii,  536 
for  confiscation,  ii,  321 
for  reconciliation,  iii,  150,  206 
for  prison,  iii,  161 
for  disabilities,  iii,  174 
Age,  old,  scourging  in,  iii,  137 

exempts  from  galleys,  iii,  140 

no  exemption  from  torture,  iii,  13 
Agent,  Roman,  of  Inqn.,  ii,  110 
Agermanados,  iii,  346 
Agraviados,  iv,  456 
Agriculture,  burdens  on,  iv,  478 
Agueda  de  Luna,  case  of,  iv,  76 
Aguilar,  Inq.-genl.,  his  death,  ii,  172 
Aguirre,  dismissed  and  restored,  i,  215 

shares  in  Seville  composition,  ii,  362 
Ailly,  Cardinal  d',  on  Jews,  i,  82 
Ajodadores,  iv,  180 
Albarracin,  conversion  of  Moors  of,  iii, 

345 
Albaycin,  depopulation  of,  iii,  339 
Alberghini,  his  definitions  of  proposi- 
tions, iv,  139 

on  witchcraft,  iv,  240 

on  suspicion,  iii,  123 
Alberoni,  Card.,  i,  317,  318 
Albertino,  Amaldo,  his  works,  ii,  475 

on  mercy  to  Jews,  i,  144 

on  Time  of  Mercy,  ii,  461 

on  consuUa  de  fe,  iii,  73 

on  the  Sabbat,  iv,  211,  217 

on  clerical  marriage,  iv,  337 
Alberto,  Miguel,  his  Reperiorium,  ii,  475 
Albertus  Magnus  on  coerced  baptism, 

iii,  349 
Alboraycos,  i,  146 
Albomoz,  Carlos,  ii,  220,  455 
Albrecht  of   Austria  as  inq.-genl.,  iii, 

265 
Albret,  Jeanne  d',  sends  missionaries, 
iii,  450 

her  prosecution,  iv,  253 
Alcaide  de  las  cdrceles,  ii,  248 

his  duties,  ii,  515,  519 
Alcaide  of  penitential  prison,  ii,  249 
Alcald,  University  of,  admits  Converses, 
ii,  287 

MSS.  of,  burnt,  iv,  530 
Alcaldes  de  Casa  y  Corte  excommuni- 
cated, i,  382 
Alcantara,  Pedro  de,  on  observances,  iv, 

3 
Alcaraz,  Firmin  de,  iv,  92,  93 
Alcaraz,  Pedro  Riiiz  de,  a  mystic,  iv,  8 
Alcaraz,  tribunal  of,  i,  541 


INDEX 


649 


Alcavala,  iv,  479 

penitents  exempt  from,  iii,  150,  155 
officials  subject  to,  i,  377 
Alexander  II  tolerates  Jews,  i,  88 
Alexander  III  on  Jewish  synagogues,  i, 
81 
prescribes  confiscation,  ii,  316 
limits  canonization,  iv,  356 
Alexander  IV  on  disabilities  of  descend- 
ants, iii,  173 
on  sorcery,  iv,  184 
on  usury,  iv,  372 
Alexander  VI  praises  Torquemada,  i, 
174 
appoints  four  inqs.-genl.,  i,  178 
grants  the  penances  to  Ferdinand,  i, 
338 
rehabilitations,  ii,  402 
patronage,  ii,  416 
canonries  to  Inqn.,  ii,  423 
insists  on  episcopal  concurrence,  ii, 

12 
reserves  jurisdiction  over  bps.,  ii,  43, 

44 
his  treatment  of  appeals,  ii,  113,  116 
his  speculative  Inqn.,  ii,  114 
allows  laymen  as  inqrs.,  ii,  234 
excludes  Conversos,  ii,  286 
authorizes  galley-service,  iii,  140 
charges  bishops  with  censorship,  iii, 
480 
Alexander  VII,  his  jubilee  indulgence, 
ii,  26 
confirms  subjection  of  regulars,  ii,  37 
on  Villanueva's  case,  ii,  157 
objects  to  fines,  ii,  400 
opposes  relief  of  New  Christians,  iii, 

284 
on  absolution  in  solicitation,  iv,  113 
condemns  Jansenism,  iv,  287 
on  Immaculate  Conception,  iv,  369 
Alexander  VIII  persecutes  Pelagini,  iv, 
46 
attacks  Molinos,  iv,  54 
persecutes  mystics,  iv,  60 
See  also  Ottoboni. 
Alexandria,  expulsion  of  Jews  from,  i, 
38 
captured  by  Muladles,  i,  49 
Alfonso  VI  deports  Mozdrabes,  i,  47 
takes  refuge  with  Moors,  i,  53 
his  policy  with  Moors,  i,  58 
with  MudSjares,  i,  61 
Alfonso  el  Batallador,  i,  48 
Alfonso  X  limits  spiritual  courts,  i,  15 
is  aided  by  Moors,  i,  54 
descriminates  against  Jews,  i,  61 
patronizes  Jews,  i,  89,  99 
on  trade  with  Moors,  i,  56 
burning  for  renegades,  iii,  183 
on  sorcery,  iv,  180 


Alfonso  XI  restores  order,  i,  3 

loses  Gibraltar,  i,  54 

policy  with  Jews,  i,  95,  100 

claims  half  of  confiscations,  ii,  316 
Alfonso  VI  (Aragon)  expels  Jews  from 

Barcelona,  i,  110 
Alfonso   of  Aragon  made  Archbp.   of 

Saragossa,  i,  13 
Alguazil,  his  position  and  functions,  ii, 
245 

pays  prison  expenses,  ii,  210,  259 
Alguaziles  of  commissioners,  ii,  270 

of  Moriscos,  their  exactions,  iii,  370 
Alguazil  mayor,  ii,  246 
Alguazilships,  sale  of,  ii,  213 
Alhondiga,  i,  388 

Aliaga,  Amador  de,  his  defalcation,  ii, 
452 

opposes  grants  from  confiscations,  ii, 
383 
Aliaga,  inq.-genl.,  forced  into  Suprema, 
i,  323 

his  resignation,  i,  307 
Aliaga,  Abp.,  tries  cases  of  solicitation, 

iv,  102,  104 
Alicante,  failure  of  Christians  in,  i,  67 

visitas  de  navios,  iii,  314,  519 
Alienation  of  property  by  heretics,  ii, 

324,  339 
Aljaferfa  assigned  to  the  Inqn.,  i,  255 

shops  opened  in,  i,  389 

attacked   to  rescue   Ant.  P^rez,  iv, 
259 

tribunal  ejected,  ii,  441 
Aljamas  responsible  for  fines,  ii,  395 
Allende,  Fr.  Lucas  de,  case  of,  ii,  532; 

iii,  96 
Allegiance,  renunciation  of,  i,  1 

Aragonese  oath  of,  i,  229 
Allowance  to  prisoners,  ii,  531 

to  families  of  prisoners,  ii,  500 
Almaden,  service   in,  as   penance,  iii, 

145 
Almagro,  Moriscos  of,  iii,  330 
Almanzor  aided  by  Christians,  i,  53 
Almenara,  Count  of,  iv,  256,  259 
Almeria,  its  prosperity  under  Moors,  i, 
67 

quarrel  over  its  precentorship,  ii,  425 
Almirantazgo,  iii,  510 
Almohades,  their  fanaticism,  i,  48,  51 
Almojarife,  i,  74,  98 
Almoravides,  their  invasion,  i,  47 
Alms  as  pecuniary  penance,  ii,  320,  389 
Alonso  de  la  Fuente  attacks  Luis  de 
Granada,  iv,  17 

assails  Jesuit  mystics,  iv,  19 
Altamira,   Margarita,   case  of,  ii,  187, 

497;  iii,  67,  137 
Alum,  cargoes  of,  confiscated,  iii,  463 
Alumbrados  appear  in  Spain,  iv,  6 


550 


INDEX 


Alumbrados  of  Llerena,  iv,  23 

errors  ascribed  to,  iv,  24 

oases,  ii,  135;  iii,  62 
Alumbrado  y  solicitante,  iv,  118,  121 
Alumbramiento,  iv,  4 
Alvarado,  his  Cartas  del  FiWsofo  Rancio, 
iv,  405 

on  calificadores,  ii,  264 

on  solicitation,  iv,  135 

on  witclicraft,  iv,  242 

on  political  use  of  Inqn.,  iv,  277 

on  philosophers,  iv,  314 
Alvarez,  Hernando,  iv,  20,  21,  23 
Alva,  Duke  of,  interferes  with  Inqn.,  i, 

186 
Alzaibar,  Manuel,  his  Triple  Alianza, 

iv,  408 
Ambrose,  St.,  on  Jews,  i,  37 
Amin,  i,  593 ;  ii,  566 
Amnesty,  decree  of  1824,  iv,  451 

and  pardon  of  1832,  iv,  464 
Amort,  Dr.,  on  revelations,  iv,  5 
Amusquibar  quarrels  with  abp.,  ii,  17 
Anarchy,  virtual,  of  Castile,  i,  4 

in  17th  century,  iv,  511 
Ana  of  Austria,  her  obsequies,  i,  362 
Anathema   in   quarrels  with    spiritual 
courts,  i,  494 

in  Edict  of  Faith,  ii,  95 
Ancona,  Jews  invited  to,  iii,  254 
Anchias,  Juan  de,  his  Libro  Verde,  i, 
260;  ii,  298 

as  informer,  ii,  324 
Andalusia,   persecution   of   Conversos, 
i,  129 

expulsion  of  Jews,  i,  131 
of  Moriscos,  iii,  398 

effect  of  Inqn.  in,  ii,  103 

English  merchants  in,  iii,  467 
Andorra,  subject  to  Barcelona,  i,  543; 

iii,  460 
Andujar,  decree  of,  iv,  448 
Angel  Exterminador,  iv,  456 
Angelo  da  Chivasso  on  the  Sabbat,  iv, 

209 
Anger  as  extenuation,  iii,  63 
Anglican  Catechism  in  Spain,  iii,  451 
Angouleme,  Due  d',  iv,  447,  448,  450 
Antequera,  capture  of,  i,  4,  65 

quarrel  over  canonry,  i,  342,  348 
Antist,  Inqr.,  besieged,  i,  466 
Antagonism,  racial,  i,  75,  81,  121,  126 
Antonino,  St.,  on  the  Sabbat,  iv,  209 
Antwerp,  torture  in,  iii,  3 
Anusim — unwilling  Christians,  i,  146 
Apartments,  autos  held  in,  iii,  221 
Aplaceria,  ii,  508 

ApoUinaris,  Sidonius,  on  Jews,  i,  39 
Apostate  Jews,  their  bitterness,  i,  113 
Appeals,  devolutionary  and  suspensive, 
ii,  187 


Ajjpeals  from  sentence  of  torture,  iii,  6 
in  secular  cases,  i,  509 
to  inq.-genl.  become  obsolete,  ii,  187 
to  king,  how  smothered,  ii,  26 
none  from  Inqn.,  i,  341,  356,  437 
referred  to  bps.,  ii,  108, 110, 112,  113, 

116 
to  Suprema,  i,  271;  ii,  164;  iii,  95 
Appeals  to  Rome,  ii,  103 
Villanueva's  case,  ii,  145 
forbidden  by  Philip  III,  i,  494, 496 
about  canonries,  ii,  422 
Appel  comme  d'abus,  i,  341 
Appellate    jurisdiction    renounced,    ii, 

126,  128,  129 
Appointees,  temporary,  ii,  220 
Appointments  reserved  to  the  crown, 
i,  158,  290,  300,  302;  ii,  237 
made  by  inq.-genl.,  i,  177,  302;  ii, 

161,  167 
shared  by  Suprema,  i,  298 
sale  of,  ii,  212 
nepotism  in,  ii,  219 
Aquelarre,  iv,  220 

Aquinas  on  consultation  of  demons,  ii, 
173 
on  coerced  baptism,  iii,  349 
on  trances,  iv,  4 

on  Immaculate  Conception,  iv,  359 
Arabic,  its  use  prohibited,  iii,  332,  335, 
340 
writers  on  magic,  iv,  180 
Aragon,  the  Hermandad  in,  i,  31 
rates  of  interest  in,  i,  97 

gopular  liberties  in,  i,  229 
ourt  of  the  Justicia,  i,  450 
liberties  curtailed  in  1592,  iv,  270 
clerics  liable  to  taxes,  i,  375 
export  of  wheat,  i,  385 

of  horses,  iv,  279 
right  of  asylum,  i,  422,  424 
coinage,  i,  565 

protection  of  accused,  ii,  466 
rules  as  to  witnesses,  ii,  536,  559 
torture  not  used,  iii,  2 
trials  in  absentia,  iii,  81 
galley-service  forbidden,  iii,  139 
the  sanbenito  unknown,  iii,  162 
usurers  not  prosecuted,  iv,  372 
massacre  of  1391,  i,  108,  112 
oppression  of  Jews,  i,  117 
early  tribunals  in,  ii,  206 
separate  Inqn.  for,  i,  180 

its  Suprema,  ii,  164 
Torquemada  appointed,  i,  236,  238 
opposition  to  !tiqn.,  i,  245 
effect  of  murder  of  Arbu6s,  i,  252 
fate  of  New  Christians,  i,  259 
contest  over  Concordia  of  1519,  i,  277 
repetition  of  complaints,  i,  285 
special  oppression,  i,  439 


INDEX 


651 


Aragon,  Concordia  of  1568^  i,  454 
conflicts  of  jurisdiction,  i,  452 
reforms  evaded  in  1626,  i,  455 
privileges  compared  with  Castile,  i, 

453,  458,  459 
C6rtes  of  1645-6,  i,  458,  460   619 
number  of  familiars  reduced,  i,  462 
troubles  over  familiars,  ii,  274 
tribunal  impoverished,  i,  463 
agreement  not  to  appeal  to  Rome,  ii, 

118 
voluntary  conversion  of  Moors,  iii, 

344 
conversion   of    Moors   enforced,    iii, 

354,  356 
position  of  Moriscos,  iii,  342 
their  disarmament,  iii,  379 
their  expulsion,  ii,  436;  iii,  401 
extensive  confiscations,  i,  256 
grievances  of  confiscation,  ii,  327 
confiscations  taxed,  ii,  352 
composition  for  confiscation,  ii,  354 
penance  replaces  confiscation,  ii,  395 
Inqn.  depends  on  confiscation,  ii,  434 
Morisco  confiscations,  iii,  359 
carrying  arms  at  night,  i,  408 
number  of  officials  in  tribunal,  ii,  211 
absence  of  Judaism,  iii,  309 
sorcery,  iv,  182,  184 
affair  of  Antonio  P^rez,  iv,  256 
bigamy  punished,  iv,  316 
jurisdiction  over  blasphemy,  iv,  328 

unnatural  crime,  iv,  363,  366 
Council  of,  on  familiars,  i,  447 
Aragon,  Antonio  de,  forced  on  Suprema, 
i,  324 
his  report  on  Catalonia,  i,  477 
Arancel,  or  fee-bill,  ii,  252 
Aranda,  Bp.  of  Calahorra,  case  of,  ii,  43 
Aranda,  Council  of,  i,  10,  123 
Aranda,  Count  of,  iv,  261,  264,  265,  266, 

390 
Aranjuez,  Tumult  of,  iv,  390,  399 
Arbufe,  Pedro,   i,  244,  249,  251,  252, 
255- 
punishment  of  his  assassins,  i,  256 
Area  de  ires  llaves,  ii,  231,  450,  452 
Arce  y  Reynoso,  Diego  de,  his  salary 
as  professor,  ii,  252 
submits  nominations  to  king,  i,  301 
resigns  see  of  Plasencia,  i,  310;  ii,  154 
evades  the  media  aflata,  i,  378 
strives  for  independence,  i,  489 
suppresses  Madrid  tribunal,  i,  545 
reopens  case  of  San  Placido,  ii,  138 
admits  that  appeals  lie  to  Rome,  ii, 

149 
prohibits  sale  of  offices,  ii,  215 
case  of  Luisa  de  Carrion,  iv,  38 
permits  cult  of  fictitious  saints,  iv, 
358 


Arce  y  Rejrnoso,  Ramon  de,  his  resig- 
nation, i,  321 

joins  the  French,  iv,  401 
Archbishops,  visits  not  to  be  paid  to,  i, 

358 
Archives  of  the  Inquisition,  i,  159 
Ares  Fonseca,  his  memorial,  iii,  279 
Ar^valo,  Pragmdtioa  of,  i,  121,  123 
Argiielles,   Fray,   consults  demons,   ii, 

171 
Arguello,  his  collection  of  instructions, 

i,  182 
Arguments  of  advocates,  iii,  69 
Arians,  their  toleration  of  Jews,  i,  38 
Arias,  Abp.,  arrested  and  exiled,  iv,  440 

his  junta  de  fe,  iv,  460 
Arias,  Garcfa,  case  of,  iii,  427,  429 
Arjona,  inquisitorial  proceedings,  i,  212; 

ii,  555 
Arm  nailed  to  cross  as  punishment,  iii, 

133 
Armas  alevosas,  i,  402 
Arms,  right  to  carry,  i,  270,  401;  ii 
272 

forbidden  to  Moriscos,  iii,  323,  332 
Army  of  the  Faith,  iv,  443 
Army,  Inqn.  of,  i,  541 

conflicting  jurisdiction,  i,  504 
Arnaud  of  Narbonne,  his  intolerance, 

i,  59 
Arquebuses,  flint-lock,  prohibited,  i,  404 
Arquer,  Sigismondo,  case  of,  iii,  453 
Arrese,  Juan  de,  tries  Luis  de  Leon,  iv, 
160 

suppresses  astrology,  iv,  193 
Arrest  by  Inqn.,  complaint  of,  i,  185 

power  of,  i,  186,  241,  357;  ii,  179 

its  preliminaries,  ii,  486 

arbitrary,  ii,  491 

proof  required  for,  ii,  490 

without  proof,  ii,  493;  iii,  232 

without  jurisdiction,  iv,  364 

segregation  of  prisoner,  ii,  493 

sequestration,  ii,  496 

money  seized  for  expenses,  ii,  494 

supervised  by  Suprema,  ii,  184 

abuses,  ii,  492 

infamy  caused  by,  ii,  311,  490,  492 
Arrogance  towards  royal  judges,  i,  519 

towards  spiritual  courts,  i,  494 
Ars  Notoria,  ii,  142;  iv,  185 
Art,  censorship  of,  iii,  546 
Arts,  mechanic,  habilitated,  iv,  487 

occult,  iv,  179 
Asalariados,  i,  376 
Ashes  of  culprit  scattered,  iii,  220 
Aspa  de  San  Andres,  iii,  163 
Assassination  of  Arbu^s,  i,  251 
Assassins  of  Arbu6s,  their  punishment, 
i,  256 

their  sanbenitos,  i,  258 


552 


INDEX 


Assembly  of  experts,  ii,  265;  iii,  72 
Assent  of  Suprema  to  royal  decrees  re- 
quired, i,  325 
Assessments  in  compositions,  ii,  359 
Assessor,  the,  ii,  232 

as  judge  of  confiscations,  ii,  350 
Assumpgao,  Fray  Diogo  de,  iii,  293 
Astesanus  on  sorcery,  iv,  181 
Astrology,  prosecution  for,  ii,  140 

punishment  of,  iv,  194 

taught  at  Cordova,  iv,  180 

condemned  by  Sixtus  V,  iv,  189 

suppressed  in  Salamanca,  iv,  193 
Asylum  afforded  by  Inqn.,  i,  421,  465, 

460 
Atheism,  punishment  of,  iv,  307 
Auction  on  arrest  of  accused,  ii,  494, 
500 

of  confiscated  property,  ii,  363 

sale  of  offices  at,  ii,  214 

prebends  farmed  out  at,  ii,  430 
Auctorem  Fidei,  bull,  iv,  286,  293,  295 
Audience-chamber,  the,  ii,  231,  541,  554 

sentence  read  in,  iii,  96,  180 
Audience  granted  when  asked  for,  iii, 
37 

delay  in  granting,  iii,  78 

at  the  auto  de  fe,  ii,  586 
Audiencta  de  cdrcel,  ii,  467,  471 

de  oargos,  iii,  40 

de  hacienda,  ii,  321,  497 

de  preguntas,  iii,  71 
Audiencia  of  Seville,  its  injustice,  ii,  468 
Auditor-general,  his  duties,  ii,  366 
Auditors  of  receivers'  accounts,  ii,  447 
Auditorship,  price  of,  ii,  214 
Augustin,  St.,  on  marriage  with  Jews,  i, 

37 
Augustinians  exempted  from  Inqn.,  ii, 
31 

attacked  by  Jesuits,  iv,  288 
Authors,  classification  of,  iii,  500 

defence  allowed  to,  iii,  541 
Authorship,  discouragement  of,  iii,  549 
Authorities  must  be  present  at  autos, 

iii,  211 
Autillo,  iii,  220 
Auto  de  fe,  the,  iii,  209 
Auto  ■particular,  iii,  210,  220 
Avto  publico  general,  iii,  209 
its  discontinuance,  iii,  222 

preparations  for,  iii,  214 

public,  as  spectacle,  iii,  211,  227 

the  procession,  iii,  217 

sentences  read  in,  iii,  93 

confession  during,  iii,  191 

audience  at,  ii,  586 

oath  taken  by  kings,  i,  353 

the  first  at  Seville,  i,  163 

centralized  in  tribunal  cities,  iii,  210 

in  Saragossa,  i,  692 


Atito  controlled  by  Suprema,  iii,  211 

reports  required  of,  ii,  183 

cases  accumulated  for,  iii,  72,  77 

unattractive  without  burning,  iv,  526 

in  Rome  in  1498,  ii,  114 
Auto-suggestion  in  witchcraft,  iv,  208, 

221,  238 
Autos  sacramentales  of  Suprema,  ii,  195. 

198 
Autocracy,  growth  of,  iv,  250 

limited  by  bureaucracy,  i,  346,  418 
Avellaneda  on  witchcraft,  iv,  214 
Avignon,  slaughter  of  witches,  iv,  242 
Avila,  conversion  of  Moors,  iii,  325 

tribunal  of,  i,  171,  542 
Avila,  Bp.  of,  appeals  referred  to,  ii,  113 
Avisos  de  cdrceles,  ii,  515 
Avora,  Gonzalo  de,  on  Lueero,  i,  195 
Ayala,  Abp.,  his  edict  of  faith,  ii,  8 

seeks  to  instruct  Moriscos,  iii,  367, 
375 
Ayerbe,  Francisco  de,  iv,  263,  271 
Aymar,  Juan,  his  visitation  of  Gerona, 

ii,  239 
Ayuda  de  casta,  i,  294 

its  development,  ii,  253 

subjected  to  king,  i,  336 

restricted  by  Philip  V,  ii,  223 

conditioned  on  reports,  ii,  183 
on  visitations,  ii,  240 

paid  from  fines  and  penances,  ii,  254 
Azanza,   Miguel    de,   his  Masonry,  iv, 

303 
Azevedo,  Inq.-genl.,  his  death,  i,  307 
Azofras,  iii,  376 

Azpilcueta  is  advocate  of  Carranza,  ii, 
71 

on  denial  of  sacraments,  ii,  520 

on  sinful  prayer,  iv,  16 

on  the  Sabbat,  iv,  220 

on  profanation  of  churches,  iv,  503 


BADAJOZ,  conversion  of  Moors,  iii, 
326 

mystics  of,  iv,  20 
Badges  imposed  on  Jews  and  Moors,  i, 
68,  115 

of  Inquisition,  ii,  284 
Badia,  Juan  de  la,  plots  to  kill  Arbu^s, 

i,  251,  257,  602 
Bagages,  i,  395 

Bahia,  New  Christians  in,  iii,  279 
Bail,  admission  to,  ii,  507;  iii.  111 
Baius,  Michael,  his  errors,  iv,  284 
Baker,  Anthony,  case  of,  iii,  437 
Bakery,  troubles  over,  i,  388,  391 
Balaguer,  tribunal  of,  i,  542 
Baldios,  iv,  309,  482 
Balearic  Isles,  i,  266 


INDEX 


553 


Ballads  of  the  Cid,  i,  1 
Moors  in  the,  i,  52 

Balmaseda,  Jews  expelled  from,  i,  125 

BalmSs,  his  opinion  of  Carranza,  ii,  85 

Banoh  Reyal  of  Catalonia,  i,  465,  472 

Bandits  as  familiars,  i,  453 

Banishment,  iii,  126 

Bankruptcy  of  familiars,  i,  445 
cases,  treatment  of,  i,  453 

Banquillo,  iii,  20 

Baptism  necessary  to  heresy,  ii,  3;  iii, 
69 
torture  to  ascertain,  iii,  34 
forcible,  doctrine  of,  i,  41,  93,  294; 

iii,  348 
of  children  of  Converses,  i,  146 
of  Valencian  Moors,  iii,  346,  355 
of  Morisco  children,  iii,  380 
manumits  slaves,  i,  57 
of  coins,  iv,  199 

Bar,  Catherine  of,  her  missionary  pro- 
ject, iii,  451 

Barbarj,  Filippo  de,  his  influence,  i,  155 

Barbary,  conveying  arms  to,  iii,  104 

Barbastro,  tribunal  of,  i,  543 

Barber  of  tribunal,  ii,  249 

Barbers'  busts,  censorship  of,  iii,  547 

Barcelona,  massacre  of  1391,  i,  108 
its  aljama  destroyed,  i,  110 
admits  tribunal,  i,  263 
disrepute  of  tribunal,  i,  187,  467,  468, 

481 
visitations,  i,  369,  528 
abuses  of  commissioners,  ii,  268 
of  fines  and  penances,  ii,  393,  397, 
399 
punishes  espontaneados,  ii,  571 
prosecutes  for  exporting  horses,  iv, 

282 
confusion  of  its  records,  ii,  258 
negligence  as  to  limpieza,  ii,  295 
conviction  on  one  witness,  ii,  562 
its  finances,  ii,  434,  437,  439,  441 
its  condition  in  1632,  i,  417 
quarrels  over  its  canonries,  ii,  430 
its  perpetual  prison,  iii,  153,  157 
fuero  of  servants  vindicated,  i,  433 
severity  to  Frenchmen,  iii,  459 
case  of  billeting  troops,  i,  396 
removal  of  sanbenitos,  iii,  165 
humihation  of  royal  judges,  i,  518 
deportation  of  Inq.  Munoz,  i,  482 
visitas  de  navios,  iii,  314,  518 
tribunal  argues  away  Concordias,  i, 

472 
right  of  asylum,  i,  423,  424 
witch  cases  in,  iv,  217,  224 
acquittals  in,  iii,  106 
operations  of  Inqn.  in,  iv,  521 
the  Inqn.  invaded  in  1567,  i,  469 
inqrs.  banished  in  1611,  i,  473 


Barcelona,  rising  of  1640,  i,  476 

tribunal  during  rebellion,  i,  476 

inqrs.  during  rebellion,  i,  477 

tribunal  re-established,  i,  480 
during  War  of  Succession,  i,  483 

Inqn.  sacked  in  1820,  iv,  435 
Barcena,  Antonio  de,  i,  211,  212 
Bamuevo,  Dr.,  on  Spanish  intolerance, 

iv,  505 
Baronius,  his  Annals,  iii,  534 
Barons,  oath  of,  i,  351 

ineligible  as  familiars,  ii,  281 
Barre,  Chev.  de  la,  case  of,  iii,  100 
Barroeta,  Abp.,  his  quarrel  with  inqrs., 

ii,  17 
Basante,  Juan  de,  iv,  258,  262 
Basin,  Bernardo,  on  pact  with  demon, 
iv,  185 

on  the  Sabbat,  iv,  210 
Basle,  Council  of,  its  oppression  of  Jews, 

i,  119 
Bastida,  Francisco  de  la,  iv,  346 
Baths,  prohibition  of,  iii,  332,  335 
Bayonne,  Constitution  of,  iv,  400 
Beaurains,  his  grant  on  Seville  com- 
position, ii,  362 
Bearing  arms,  i,  401 
B^am,  export  of  horses  to,  iv,  280 
Beas,  Judaizers  of,  iii,  90,  298 
Beata  de  Piedrahita,  iv,  6 
Beata  de  Cuenca,  iv,  90 
Beata  Clara,  iv,  91 
Beatas,  the,  iv,  6 

revelanderas,  iv,  25,  81,  83 
Beccarellisti,  iv,  61 
Becerro,  libros  de,  ii,  307 
Bedding  of  the  relapsed  confiscated,  ii, 

337 
Beds  supplied  to  prisoners,  ii,  528 
Begghards  and  Beguines,  iv,  2 
Belando,  his  History  condemned,  i,  316 
Beir  Uomo,  Gottardo,  iv,  51 
Belmonte,  suppression  of  canonry,  ii, 

428 
Beltran,  Beatriz,  her  compurgation,  iii, 

114 
Beltran,  FeUpe,  his  commission,  i,  303, 
612 

suppression  of  sanbenitos,  iii,  170 
Beltraneja,  La,  i,  19 
Benalcdzar,    Count     of,    impedes    the 

Inqn.,  i,  186 
Ben-Astruch  disputes  with  Christid,  i, 

91 
Benavente,  Counj;  of,  his  insolence,  i,  8 
Btoe,  Amaury  of,  iv,  2 
Benedict  XII,  his  tax-roll,  iv,  340 
Benedict  XIII  entertains  appeal  from 

Spain,  ii,  160 
Benedict  XIV  on  episcopal  jurisdiction, 
ii,  10 


654 


INDEX 


Benedict    XIV   on  use  of  vernacular 
Bible,  iii,  529 
limits  censorship,  iii,  541 
condemns  the  Mistica  Ciudad,  iv,  41 
on  solicitation,  iv,  112,  113 
on  witchcraft,  iv,  245 
defends  Card.  Noris,  iv,  289 
condemns  Masonry,  iv,  300 
his  grant  to  Philip' V,  iv,  494 
Benedict  XIII  (antipope)  on  the  Jews, 

i,  US 
Benefit  of  clergy,  i,  427 
Benefices,  ii,  319,  415,  418,  440;  iii,  176 
Beneplacitum  commissions,  i,  176 
Beni-Cassi  supreme  in  Aragon,  i,  50 
Benet,  Jaime,  on  coerced  baptisms,  iii, 

351 
Bequest,  pious,  seized,  ii,  337 

claims  of  ReKgious  Orders  for,  iv  488 
Berin,  Judaizers  of,  iii,  300 
Bernabeu,  Antonio,  case  of,  iv,  437 
on  effect  of  denunciation,  iv,  138 
Bemal,  Juan,  an  Alumbrado,  iv,  23 
Berndldez  on  Judaism  of  New  Chris- 
tians, i,  151 
account  of  the  expulsion,  i,  139 
his  statistics,  iv,  519 
his  persecuting  zeal,  iv,  525 
Bemat,  Hugues,  case  of,  iii,  449 
Bemi^res-Louvigni,  his  Quietism,  iv,  63 
Berri,  Jean  de,  case  of,  ii,  129 
Berrocosa,  Fray,  case  of,  iii,  456 
Berwick  and  Alva,  Duke  of,  is  alguazil 

mayor,  iv,  431 
Betrothal  leads  to  bigamy,  iv,  317 
Bewitchment  of  Carlos  II,  ii,  171 
Bfoiers,   Council  of,  on  disabilities  of 

descendants,  iii,  173 
Bibles,  Hebrew,  burnt,  iii,  480 
list  of  prohibited,  iii,  485 
censorship  of,  iii,  527 
vernacular,  iii,  528,  529,  575 
Bibliothigue  Janseniste,  iv,  289,  290 
Bigamy,  cognizance  of,  forbidden,  i,  271 
secular  punishments,  iv^  316 
Inqn.  assumes  jurisdiction,  iv,  317 
spiritual  punishment,  iv,  318 
competencias  with  civil  courts,  iv, 

319 
punishment  by  Inqn.,  iv,  321 
IS  mixti  fori,  iv,  323 
jurisdiction  limited,  iv,  324 
resumed  under  Restoration,  iv,  326 
number  of  cases,  iv,  327 
stimiilates  false-witness,  ii,  659 
Bigamists,  their  cases  not  califlcado,  ii, 

488 
Bilbao,  quarrel  over  visitas  de  navios,  iii, 

513 
Billeting  of  troops,  i,  394 
Bisbal,  la,  Count  of,  iv,  434,  435 


Biscay  admits  the  Hermandad,  i,  31 

composition  for,  ii,  356 

protection  of  accused,  ii,  466 

visitas  de  navios,  iii,  515 

witchcraft  in,  iv,  211,  215 
Bishops,  their  character,  i,  8;  iv,  497 

dispute  ov£r  their  appointment,  i,  13 

of  Jewish  extraction  not  admitted, 
ii,  12 

their  jurisdiction,  i,  153;  ii,  5 
over  heresy,  ii,  19;  iv,  411 
over  witchcraft,  iv,  242 
over  bigamy,  iv,  318,  320 

their  concurrent  jurisdiction,  i,  230; 
ii,  6-12;  iii,  71 

appointment  of  delegates,  ii,  17 

their  juntas  de  fe,  iv,  460 

quarrels  with  inqrs.,  i,  620 

struggle  for  precedence,  i,  358,  361 

their  exemption  from  the  Inqn.,  i, 
147,  159,  501;  ii,  41,  45,  73,  87;  iii, 
423 

their  censorship,  iii,  480,  544 

allowed  to  grant  dispensations,  iv, 
396 

officiate  in  degradation,  iii,  182 

ordered  to  instruct  Moriscos,  iii,  367 

protest  against  suppression  of  Inqn., 
iv,  414 

their  persecution,  in  1820-3,  iv,  440 
Black  Death,  massacres  caused  by,  i, 

101 
Blackstone,  Sir.  Wm.,  on  witches,  iv, 

247 
Bldnca,  coin,  i,  562 
Blanco,  Dr.,  case  of,  iii,  427,  429 
Blanco,  Pedro  Luis,  his  reply  to  Gr^- 

goire,  iv,  397 
Blank  papal  letters  ot  exemption,  ii,  110 

pages,  rebuke  for,  ii,  190 
Blasphemy,  cognizance  of,  forbidden,  i, 
271 

heretical  and  non-heretical,  iv,  328 

definitions,  iv,  331 

cumulative  jurisdiction,  iv,  333 

punishment,  iii,  134 ;  iv,  334 

number  of  cases,  iv,  335 

used  in  trial  of  Ant.  P^rez,  iv,  258 
Blau,  Jaime,  his  fine,  ii,  398 
Bleda,  Fray,  his  Defensio  Fidei,  iii,  388 

on  wealth  of  Inqn.,  ii,  437 

on  number  of  clergy,  iv,  490 
Blood  of  Arbu^s,  its  liquefaction,  i,  251 

judgements  of,  i,  367;  iii,  184,  188, 
223 
Bobadilla,  his  Tizon  de  la  nobhza,  ii,  298 
Bodies,  briefs  for  secret  burning  of,  i, 

296 
Bohorques,  Juana  de,  iii,  446 
Bohorques,  Maria  de,  iii,  443 
Bolgeni  on  Jansenism,  iv,  286 


INDEX 


555 


Bolsa,  1,415 

Bona,  Bartolommeo,  iv,  47,  48 

Bonaventura,  St.,  on  danger  of  mys- 
ticism, iv,  9 

Bonds  required  of  receivers,  ii,  446 

Boniface  VIII,  his  bull  Clericis  laicos, 
i,  375 
exempts  bps.  from  Inqn.,  ii,  41 
suppression  of  witnesses'  names,  ii, 

548 
disabilities  of  descendants,  iii,  173 
coerced  baptism,  iii,  348 

Bonifaz,     Inq.-geiil.,    banished     from 
court,  i   321 ;  iii,  540 
removes  Card.  Noris  from  Index,  iv, 
291 

Bonifaza,  case  of  convent  of,  ii,  348 

Books  submitted  to  censors,  ii,  263 
official  revisers  of,  iii,  501 
Lutheran,  sent  to  Spain,  iii,  421 
in  English  prohibited,  iii,  523 
lascivious,  in  Index,  iii,  545 
all  new  ones  seized,  iii,  504 
fate  of  those  seized,  iii,  509 
edict  prohibiting,  iii,  573 

penalties  for   disregarding  it,   iii, 
482,  488,  525 
importation  of,  iii,  489,  505,  506,  508, 

510,  512,  517 
exports  of,  supervised,  iii,  607 
in  transit  examined,  iii,  508 
expurgation  of,  iii,  492,  494,  497,  498 
allowed  to  prisoners,  iv,  157 

Booksellers,  regulations  for,  iii,  501 
prosecutions  of,  iii,  499,  525 

Book-shops,  search  of,  iii,  482,  486,  487 
489,  495,  498,  501,  502 

Book-trade,    foreign,    passes    through 
Suprema,  iii,  506 
domestic,  supervision  of,  iii,  507 

Borja,  Card.,  mterferes  with  Valencia 
tribunal,  i,  230,  240 

Borja,  Cffisar,  prosecution  of,  iv,  252 

Borja,  St.  Francisco  de,  his  books  con- 
demned, iii,  530;  iv,  16 

Borja,  Galceran  de,  case  of,  iv,  370 

Borri,  Fran.  Gius.,  iv,  44 

Borromeo,    S.    Carlo,    his   pension   on 
Toledo,  ii,  70 
introduces  confessional,  iv,  96 
burns  witches,  iv,  242 

Bossuet,  his  quarrel  with  F&elon,  iv, 
64 

Bostezo,  iii,  19 

Bouillon,  Card,  de,  defends  Ftoelon,  iv, 
66 

Bourbons,  restraint   of   Inqn.  under — ■ 
control  of  finances  and  confiscations, 

i,  336 
inquisitorial  arrogance,  i,  348 
case  of  Canary  tribunal,  i,  349 


Bourbons,  questions  of  precedence,  i, 
364 

enforcement  of  police  rules,  i,  365 

tax  of  salaried  officials,  i,  383 

salt-privilege  in  Valencia,  i,  394 

billeting  of  troops,  i,  399 

carrying  of  arms,  i,  411 

exemption  from  military  service,  i, 
415 

conflicts  of  jurisdicition,  i,  514 

appeals  to  Rome,  ii,  159 

rivalry  of  Suprema    and  inq.-genl., 
ii,  178 

restriction  of  jubilation  and  ayudas 
de  costa,  ii,  223 

financial  exactions,  ii,  440 

restrictions  on  censorship,  iii,  540 

jurisdiction  over  bigamy,  iv,  323 

political  use  of  Inqn.,  iv,  275 
Bourmont,  Gen.,  saves  Liberals,  iv,  450 
Bourignon,  Antoinette,   her  Quietism, 

iv,  63 
Box  for  sentences,  iii,  215 
Brasero,  see  Qvemadero. 
Bravonel  the  Moor,  i,  52 
Brazil,  no  tribunal  there,  iii,  261 

New  Christians  in,  iii,  272,  279 
Bread-knife,  mode  of  holding,  ii,  567 
Breakfast  at  autos,  iii,  217 
Breviary  prohibited,  iii,  531 
Brianda  de  Bardaxf,  her  penance,  ii,  390 
Bribery  in  cases  of  limpieza,  ii,  304 

of  prison  officials,  ii,  520 

of  executioner,  iii,  32 

in  witchcraft  accusations,  iv,  233 

Bricklayer  reckoned  as  official,  ii,  211 

Bridle  and  pannier  as  penance,  iii,  133 

Briefs,  papal,  for  private  reconciliation, 

i,  296 

Eenalty  for  using,  ii,  110 
ers,  transfer  of  offices  to,  ii,  220, 

221 
Brunon  de  Vertiz,  case  of,  iii,  40 

delays  in  his  trial,  iii,  79 
Buchanan,  George,  his  prosecution,  iii, 

263 
Buen  confitentes  sent  to  galleys,  iii,  143 
Buendias,  the,  their  hardships,  ii,  355 
Bugia,  Converses  to  be  seized  in,  i,  185 
Buildings  for  tribunals,  ii  206 
Bulario  de  la  Orden  de  Santiago,  i,  159 
Bull-fights,  perquisites  of,  ii,  197,  198 

school  for,  iv,  453 
Bureaucracy  undermines  autocracy,  i, 

346,  418 
Burgos,  complaint  of  Jews  of,  i,  89 

tribunal  of,  i,  543 
Burgos,  Javier  de,  his  memorial,  iv,  453 
Burgundian  influence,  iv,  475,  477 
Burial  rite,  Jewish,  ii,  566 

secret,  of  prisoners,  ii,  521,  522 


656 


INDEX 


Burning  of  heretics,  iii,  183;  iv,  406 
the  sentence  to,  iii,  185,  219,  220,  225 
of  effigies,  iii,  81 
for  false-witness,  ii,  557 
for  relapse,  iii,  204 
for  unnatural  crime,  iv,  361,  367,  368 
its  popular  attractiveness,  iv,  526 
statistics  of,  iv,  517 
alive  for  pertinacity,  iii,  197 
for  negatives,  iii,  198 
infrequency  of,  iii,  193,  194 
Burton,  Nicholas,  case  of,  iii,  446 
Butcher  is  a  titular  official,  i,  491 
Butchers  of  San  Sebastian,  i,  34 

Morisco,  iii,  381 
Butcher-shops  of  Inqn.,  i,  389,  392 


CABALLERIA,  Jaime  de  la,  i,  295 
Pedro  de  la,  i,  115 

Caballero,   Francisca  de  Paula,  iv,  80 

Cabarriis,  Count,  his  letters,  iv,  314 

Cabezon,  Declaration  of,  i,  19 

Cabra,  Count  of,  resists  assessments,  ii, 
360 

Caciquismo,  iv,  473 

Cadets,  limpieza  required  for,  ii,  312 

Cddiz,  tribunal  of,  i,  543 

visitas  de  navios,^  iii,  315,  518,  520 
composition  of,  ii,  357 
C6rtes  convoked  at,  iv,  403 
C6rte3  of,  their  Jansenism,  iv,  297 

contest  with  Chapter,  iv,  414 
massacre  in  1820,  iv,  435 
as  refuge  in  1823,  iv,  446 

Cajsarius  of  Heisterbach  on  Jews,  i,  82 

Cag  de  la  Maleha  as  almojarife,  i,  99 

Cagliostro  founds  the  lodge  Espafia,  iv, 
303 
condemned  for  Masonry,  iv,  300 

Caietano   on  exclusion  of  New  Chris- 
tians, ii,  289 

Caladui,  battle  of,  iii,  323 

Calahorra,  tribunal  of,  i,  543 
cost  of  prisoner's  food,  ii,  532 

Calatayud,  Aljama  of,  fined,  i,  94 
tribunal  of,  i,  544 

Calatrava,  Order  of,  attacks  New  Chris- 
tians, i,  126 

Calcena,  Ferdinand's  secretary,  i,  193 
his  influence,  i,  210 
dismissed  and  restored,  i,  215 
his  gains  from  confiscations,  ii,  362, 

372 
ignores  and  enforces  heretic  debts, 
ii,  329 

Caldera,  his  Mistica  Teologia,  iv,  29 

Calderon,  Francisco  Garcia,  case  of,  ii, 
134 

Calidad  de  oficio,  ii,  485,  488 

Calificacion,  ii,  486 


Calificacion,  its  process,  ii,  487 

after  arrest,  ii,  492 

becomes  obsolete,  ii,  488 
Calificadores,  ii,  216,  263,  486,  488 
Calomarde,  his  disgrace,  iv,  463 
Camargo,    Juan    de,    enforces   subjec- 
tion of  regulars,  ii,  37 
Camarilla,  power  of,  iv,  451 
Caminos  de  herradura,  iv,  480 
Campillo,  Jos^  de,  ii,  100 
Campo,  Elvira  de,  her  case,  ii,  489 

her  torture,  iii,  24 
Canals,  iv,  480 
Canaries,  tribunal  of,  i,  544 

excesses,  i,  348;  ii,  527 

Englishmen  subject  to  the  Index,  iii, 
467 

foreign  sailors,  iii,  462 

(juarrel  over  canonry,  i,  342,  348 

inspection  of,  ii,  229 

receipts  from,  in  1824,  iv,  460 

relaxations  in,  iv,  524 
Candia  captured  by  Muladfes,  i,  49 
Candles,  lighting  of,  on  Friday,  ii,  566 

for  penitents,  iii,  215 
Cangas,  demoniacs  of,  ii,  170 
Cano,  Melchor,  his  parecer,  ii,  51;  iii, 
533 

relations  with  Carranza,  ii,  56,  62,  63 

on  Jesuit  mysticism,  iv,  18 
Canonical  purgation,  iii,  114 
Canonization  of  Arbu^s,  i,  252 

of  saints,  iv,  355 
Canonries  granted  to  officials,  ii,  416 

doctoral  and  magistral,  ii,  421 

suppressed  for  Inqn.,  ii,  423,  426,  429 
for  Inqn.  of  Portugal,  iii,  266 

their  revenues,  ii,  430,  443 
Canons  as  commissioners,  ii,  422 

of  Majorca  obtain  papal  brief,  i,  498 
Canopies,  Inqn.  deprived  of,  i,  364 
Cantadores,  iv,  180 
Canticles,  Luis  de  Leon's  version  of,  iv, 

152 
Canto,  Miguel,  his  pamphlet,  iv,  442 
Caone,  Hilario,  case  of,  iv,  130 
Capellanias,  foundation  of,  iv,  488 
Cappa,  Ricardo,  on  pact  with  demon, 

iv,  205 
Capodiferro,  nuncio,  iii,  242,  243 
Captives,  redemption  of,  ii,  411 
Caraceioli,  Card.,  on  Quietism,  iv,  53 
Caraffa,  Card.,  speculates  on  Jews,  iii, 

254 
Carbonell,  Pere  Miguel,  his  statistics,  iv, 

521 
Cdrcel  y  abito,  ii,  411 ;  iii,  163 
Cdrcel  de  familiares,  ii,  508 
Carcelero,  ii,  247 
Cdrceles  medias,  comunes,  p&blicas,  ii, 

508 


INDEX 


657 


Cdrceles  secretas,  ii,  230,  471,  607 

preferable  to  other  gaols,  ii,  509 

terror  inspired  by,  ii,  511 
Cardona,   Duke   of,   banishes  Inqn.,  i 

475 
Cardona,    Folch   de,    resists   arrest   of 
Admiral  of  Castile,  ii,  172 

resists  Inq.-genl.  Mendoza,  ii,  175, 177 
Cargoes,  seizure  of,  ii,  338,  497 
Carlists  prepare  for  Fernando's  death, 

iv,  466 
Carlos,  Don,  case  of,  iv,  253 
Carlos,  Don,  head  of  ultra  rovalists,  iv, 
456 

his  prospects  of  succession,  iv,  462 

insists  on  his  claims,  iv,  463 

is  sent  to  Portugal,  iv,  465 
Carlos  II  claims  confiscations,  i,  335 

increased  power  of  Inqn.,  i,  347 

rejects  appeal  of  Suprema,  i,  464 

forbids  pistols,  i,  411 

rebuffed  by  Majorca  clergy,  i,  504 

seeks  to  check  abuses,  i,  511;  ii,  215, 
222,  234,  413 

his  character,  ii,  169 

his  bewitchment,  ii,  170 

abandons  Froilan  Diaz,  ii,  173 

requires  inqrs.  to  be  lawyers,  ii,  235 

his  oath  at  auto,  iii,  218 

orders  search  for  Huguenots,  iii,  471 

Eerseoutes  Jansenists,  iv,  287 
is  disastrous  reign,  iv,  476 
on  growth  of  Church,  iv,  491 
unable  to  protect  his  subjects,  iv,  511 
humiliated  by  Inqn.,  iv,  512 
Carlos   III   scrutinizes   commission   of 

inq.-genl.,  i,  303 
on  Catechism  of  Mesengui,  i,  321 
regulates  the  Suprema,  i,  323 
enforces  police  regulations,  i,  365 
annuls  exemption  from  billets,  i,  400 
forbids  bearing  arms,  i,  412 
exemptions  from  military  service,  i, 

414 
orders  Concordias  observed,  i,  483 
limits  the  fuero,  i,  516 
insists  on  courtesy,  i,  520 
expedites  competencias,  i,  525 
relieves  Mallorquin  New  Christians, 

ii,  313 
on  pay  of  commissioners,  ii,  423 
on  non-Catholic  recruits,  iii,  476 
requires  proof  before  arrest,  ii,  493 
his  Pragmdtica  del  Exequatur,  iii,  540 
limits  censorship,  iii,  541 
expels  the  Jesuits,  iv,  294 
his  action  as  to  bigamy,  iv,  323 
his  control  of  Inqn.,  iv,  389 
progress  under  him,  iv,  387,  480,  486 
taxes  church  acquisitions,  iv,  493 
on  profanation  of  churches,  iv,  503 


Carlos  IV  dismisses  inq.-genl.,  i,    321 
on  conflicts  of  jurisdiction,  i,  505,  524 
exclusion  of  Jews,  iii,  314 
registers  all  foreigners,  iii,  472 
confirms  censorship  law,  iii,  489 
revolution  is  heresy,  iii,  543 
evokes  the  case  of  Salas,  iv,  313 
his  disastrous  reign,  iv,  390 
his  treatment  of  Jovellanos,  iv,  395 
sent  to  Compifigne,  iv,  399 
revives  law  of  succession,  iv,  463,  465 
taxes  church  acquisitions,  iv,  493 

Carlotta  de  Bourbon,  iv,  464 

Carmelites,  disoalced,  ask  for  commu- 
tations, ii,  410 

Carniceria  of  Logrono,  trouble  over,  i, 
532 

Carpenter's  bill  referred  to  Ferdinand, 
i,  293 

Carranza,  Abp.,  case  of,  ii,  46 
his  reforming  tendencies,   ii,   52 
his  Commentaries,  ii,  55 
his  trial  commenced,  ii,  62 
delays,  ii,  71,  73 
surrendered  to  the  pope,  ii,  79 
his  sentence,  ii,  82 
his  death,  ii,  84 
his  mysticism,  iv,  15 
on  character  of  clergy,  iv,  486 
on  observance  of  Sundays,  iv,  502 

Carranza,  Sancho  de,  persecutes  witches, 
iv,  215 

Carrillo,  Abp.,  his  turbulence,  i,  8,  287 
his  treatment  of  Ximenes,  i,  13 
appoints  an  inquisitor,  i,  167 
on  exclusion  of  New  Christians,  ii, 
285 

Cartagena,  tribunal  of,  i,  544 
visitas  de  navios,  iii,  314 
contribution  from,  ii,  201 

Cartas  acordadas,  i,  182;  ii,  475 
de  gracia,  ii,  346 
del  Filosofo  Rancio,  iv,  405 

Cartillas  prohibited,  iii,  531 
of  commissioners,  ii,  269,  272 

Casa  de  penitencia,  ii,  507;  iii,  155 
its  alcaide,  ii,  249 

Casafranca,  Jaime  de,  case  of,  ii,  344 

Casas,  Diego  de  las,  case  of,  ii,  124 

Caspe,  conversion  of  Moors  of,  iii,  344 

Castellano,  coin,  i,  560 

Castile,  its  turbulence,  i,  1 
rates  of  interest  in,  i,  97 
massacres  in  1391,  i,  107,  112 
expulsion  of  Jews,  i,  136 
Inqn.  for,  granted  by  Nicholas  V,  i, 
147 
established,  i,  188 
separate  Inqn.  tor,  i,  180 
resistance  provoked  by  Lucero,  i,  189 
complaints,  i,  217,  220,  222,  485 


658 


INDEX 


Castile,  complaints  of  temporal  juris- 
diction, i,  510 
Concordia  of  1553,  i,  436 
familiars,  i,  458;  ii,  275,  277 
secular  procedure,  ii,  466,  468 
rules  as  to  witnesses,  ii,  535,  559 
use  of  torture  in,  iii,  1 
forcible  conversion  of  Moors,  iii,  324 
Moriscos  persecuted,  iii,  330,  390 

expelled,  iii,  399 
sorcery  in,  iv,  182,  184 
struggle  over  blasphemy,  iv,  330 
unnatural  crime,  iv,  364 
export  of  horses,  iv,  278 
See  also  C6rtes 
Castro,  Alfonso  de,  on  duty  of  denun- 
ciation ii,  486 
on  disabilities  of  descendants,  iii,  173 
on  witchcraft,  iv,  217 
on  the  clergy,  iv,  496,  497 
on  religion,  iv,  502 
Castro,  Archdeacon  of,  case  of,  i,  193 
Castro,  Leon  de,  iv,  150,  159 
Castro,  Pedro  de,  Bp.  of  Cuenca,  ii, 

50,  56,  87 
Castro,  Rodrigo  de,  arrests  Carranza,  ii, 
64 
sent  to  Rome,  ii,  74 
persecutes  mystics,  iv,  21 
Catalina,   Dofia,   Ordenamiento   de,   i, 

116,  123 
Catalonia,  papal  patronage  resisted,  i, 
12 
contempt  for  New  Christians,  i,  125 
introduction  of  Inqn.  in,  i,  236,  260 
complaints,  i,  265,  283,  285,  286 
Concordia  of  1512,  i,  283 
Mercader's  Instructions,  i,  273 
donation  to  Inqn.  in  1520,  i,  284 
familiars,  i,  270,  273,  398,  401;  ii, 

275 
struggles  with  Inqn.,  i,  326,  465,  469- 

74 
outrages  of  billeted  troops,  i,  396 
right  to  bear  arms,  i,  403 
excludes  officials  from  office,  i,  416 
limitation  of  jurisdiction,  i,  432 
rejects  Concordia  of  1568^  i,  469 
social  condition  in  1632,  i,  474 
rebellion  of  1640,  i,  476;  iii,  543 
forms  a  national  Inqn.,  i,  477,  479 
collapse  of  rebellion,  i,  479 
hostility  continued,  i,  483 
its  coinage,  i,  565 
Edict  of  Faith  in,  ii,  92 
exacts  pledges  as  to  Moors,  iii,  343 
expulsion  of  Moors  decreed,  iii,  354 
complains  of  corsairs,  iii,  384 
Morisco  expulsion,  iii,  401 
Inqn.  judges  sorcery,  iv,  183 
struggle  over  bigamy,  iv,  317 


Catalonia,  struggle  over  blasphemy,  iv, 
329 

jurisdiction  over  unnatural  crime,  iv, 
363  371 

revolt'  of  1822,  iv,  443 

rising  of  ultra  royalists,  iv,  456 
Catechism  of  Mesengui,  i,  320 

for  New  Christians,  i,  155 

of  Juan  P^rez,  iii,  428 

Anglican,  for  Spain,  iii,  451 

in  Romance  prohibited,  iii,  530 
Cathedrals,  sanbenitos  hung  in,  iii,  166 
Catholic  Kings,  reasons  for  the  title,  i, 

143 
Catholicism,  feigned,  punished,  iii,  474, 

476 
Catholics  burnt  for  denying  heresy,  ii, 
586 

tried  for  Lutheranism,  iii,  420 
Cato,  Precepts  of,  iii,  447 
Cazalla,  Dr.  Agustin,  ii,  318,  512;  iii, 

201,  430,  431,  438 
Cazalla,  Bishop,  iv,  12 
Cazalla,  Maria,  iii,  96;  iv,  5,  12 
Cazalla,  Pedro  de,  iii,  429,  431,  442 
Cazalla  house,  razed,  iii,  130 
Celestina,  the,  iii,  546 
Celibacy  stimulated  by  limpieza,  ii,  309 

of  clergy,  iv,  336 
Cell-companions,  betrayal  by,  ii,  518, 

579 
Cella,  Jews  expelled  from,  i,  124 
Celo  de  Crista  contra  los  Judios,  i,  115 
Celosia  in  audience-chamber,  ii,  231, 

554 
Celso,  Hugo  de,  case  of,  iii,  423 
Cemeteries,   Jewish,  their  destination, 

i,  138 
Censors  or  calificadores,  ii,  263 
Censorship  confided  to  Inqn.,  iii,  482 

independence  of,  iii,  486,  493,  535 

savage  law  of  Philip  II,  iii,  488 

trivialities  of,  iii,  491 

penalties  for  infraction,  iii,  525 

cases  of  infraction,  iii,  526 

its  extension,  iii,  532 

f)ower  conferred  by,  iii,  539 
imited  by  Carlos  III,  iii,  541 

political  use  of,  iii,  542 

under  Restoration,  iii,  544 

over  morals  and  art,  iii,  545 

by  the  State,  iii,  549 

of  the  pulpit,  iv,  173 

of  Immaculate  Conception,  iv,  361 

of  scientific  works,  iv,  394 

abolished  by  C6rtes  of  Cddiz,  iv,  404 

its  influence,  iv,  528 
Censos  due  to  confiscated  estates,  i,  270 

investments  in,  ii,  435 
Census  of  Inqn.  in  1746,  ii,  216 

of  Inqn.  exempts,  ii,  217 


INDEX 


659 


Centallas,  Caspar,  case  of,  iii,  453,  655 
Centimo,  value  of,  i,  565 
Centralization,     development     of,     ii, 

184,  186 
Ceremonial,  quarrels  over,  i,  359 

of  autos,  iii,  213 
Certificate  of  limpieza,  ii,  598 

of  discharge,  iii,  109 

de  no  obstancia,  iii,  177 
Cervantes  on  Moriscos,  iii,  341 
Cervantes,    Caspar,    his   visitation    of 

Barcelona,  i,  467,  529 
Cervera,  capitulations  of,  i,  20 

Univ.  of,  its  Jansenism,  iv,  295 
Cessatio  a  divinis,  i,  495,  514 
Cevallos,  Ger6n.,  his  book  condemned, 

iii,  535 
Chains,  prisoners  kept  in,  ii,  466,  467, 

511 
Chair,  ceremonial,  question  of,  i,  362, 

364 
Chamorro  and  Uliff,  correspondence  of, 

i,  133 
Chaplain  of  tribunal,  ii,  249 
Chapter  of  Belmonte  submits,  ii,  428 

of  Cddiz,  its  contest  with  the  C6rtes, 
iv,  414 

of  Valencia,  prosecution  of,  ii,  133 
Chapters  resist  grants  of  canonries,  ii, 

418,  420,  421 
Character  in  priesthood,  iv,  336 
Character,   influence   of   Inqn.   on,  iv, 

138,  507,  515 
Charges  withheld  from  accused,  iii,  39 
Charles  V  restrains  clerical  immunity,  i, 
18 

regulates  butchers,  i,  33 

obtains  masterships  of  Military  Orders 
i,  34 

protests  against  papal  letters,  ii,  122, 
123,  124,  126 

his  early  vacillation,  i,  216 

his  project  of  reform,  i,  218 

swears  to  Concordias,  i,  275,  276 

contest  over  Concordia  of  1519,  i,  278 

his  answers  to  C6rtes  of  1528  and 
1533,  i,  286 

power  to  appoint  inq.-genl.,  i,  303 

grants  from  confiscations,  i,  329;  ii, 
362,  380,  381,  385 

annuls  statutes  restricting  Inqn.,  i, 
365 

deprives  familiars  of  arms,  i,  404 

asserts  right  to  public  office,  i,  415 

grants  the  fiiero  to  servants,  i,  432, 
434 

suspends  c^dula  of  1518,  i,  435 

firma  served  on  him,  i,  451 

abolishes  passive  fuero,  i,  466 

offer  to  him  as  to  confiscations,  i,  583 

memorial  to  him  from  Cranada,  i,  585 


I  Charles  V  executes  Bp.  Acufia,  ii,  44 
his  orders  to  receivers,  ii,  191 
protects  Virufe,  ii,  127;  iii,  418 
empowers  inspectors,  ii,  228 
on  limpieza,  ii,  289 
confirms  grants  by  heretics,  ii,  328 
less  liberal  than  Ferdinand,  ii,  348 
enforces  exclusive  juri.sdiction,  ii,  352 
his  concession  to  the  Guimeras,  ii,  354 
orders  release  of  galley-slaves,  ii,  412 
seeks  canonries  for  Inqn.,  ii,  424 
regulates  prison  expenses,  ii,  530 
on  suppression  of  witnesses'  names,  ii, 

550 
on  punishment  of  false-witness,  ii,  556 
hesitates  as  to  galley-service,  iii,  141 
on  enforcement  of  disabilities,  iii,  175 
aids  Joao  III,  iii,  241 
Edicts  of  Grace  for  Moriscos,  iii,  328 
his  Granada  edict,  iii,  332 
protects  Converses  of  Teruel,  iii,  345 
confirms  coerced  baptisms,  iii,  351 
orders  baptism  of  Moors,  iii,  352 
his  edict  of  expulsion,  iii,  354 
on  Morisco  confiscations,  iii,  359 
suspends  Inqn.  as  to  Moriscos,  iii,  373 
asks  Inqn.  to  protect  Moriscos,  iii,  376 
forbids  Moriscos  to  change  domicile, 

iii,  377 
forbids  butchering  by  Moriscos,  iii, 

381 
suppresses  Luther's  books,  iii,  413 
favors  Erasmus,  iii,  414 
urges  extermination  of  Protestants, 

iii,  434 
his  list  of  prohibited  authors,  iii,  484 
letter  of  January  25,  1550,  iii,  565 
on  export  of  horses,  iv,  278 
confiscates  for  bigamy,  iv,  316 
evades  complaints  as  to  blasphemy, 

iv,  330 
confines  usury  to  secular  courts,  iv, 

374 
results  of  his  reign,  iv,  474 
his  devoutness,  iv,  499 
his  death,  ii,  57 
Charles  le  Chauve  sends  for  relics,  i,  47 
Charles  II   (Navarre)   and  his  Moors, 

iii,  317 
Charles  II  (England),  his  treaty  with 

Philip  IV,  iii,  470 
Charles    IX    (France)     complains    of 

arrests  of  Frenchmen,  iii,  459 
Charms,  curative,  iv,  186,  188,  201 
Chateaubriand  prepares  French  inter- 
vention, iv,  445 
strives  to  repair  mischief,  iv,  451 
protests  agamst  Inqn.,  iv,  454 
Chaves,  Fr.  Diego  de,  iv,  257,  259 
Child-bed,  removal  from  prison  duringj 
ii,  505,  524 


560 


INDEX 


Children,  baptism  of  Jewish,  i,  93 
ot  Moriscos,  iii,  380 

prosecution  of,  ii,  3,  321 ;  iii,  150,  161, 
206 

must  denounce  parents,  ii,  485 

ot  heretics,  provision  for,  ii,  336,  528 

their   impoverishment  a  benefit,   ii, 
336 

of  accused  can  consult  counsel,  iii,  44 
refused  access  to  counsel,  iii,  48 

of  dead,  their  citation,  iii,  83 

disabilities  off  iii,  172 

Morisco,  detained,  iii,  395,  399,  401, 
403 
Chinchilla,  Juan,  case    of,  ii,  468,  iii, 

190 
Christid,   Pablo,   disputes  with  Nach- 

manides,  i,  90 
Christian   co-operation  with  Saracens, 
i,  49,  52,  56 

converts  to  Islam,  i,  49 

Love,  confraternity  of,  ii,  285 

Moriscos  expelled,  iii,  403,  409 
Christianity,  hatred  of,  inspired,  iii,  321, 

330 
Christianization  of  Moriscos,  iii,  365 
Christians  under  Saracen  rule,  i,  45 

not  to  be  burnt  alive,  iii,  192 

burnt  as  negativos,  iii,  287 
Christina  of  Sweden  favors  Molinos,  iv, 

49,  54 
Chrysostom,  St.  John,  on  Jews,  i,  37 
Chuetas,  ii,  312 
Church,  the,  its  immunities,  i,  11 

on  forcible  conversion,  i,  41 ;  iii,  348 

seeks  to  estrange  the  races,  i,  55,  64, 
68,  72,  75 

on  Jews,  i,  74,  81,  86 

revenues  derived  from  Jews,  i,  86 

condemnation  of  usury,  i,  96;  iv,  372 

burden  of  Inqn.  thrown  on,  i,  331; 
ii,  423 

its  claim  on  confiscations,  ii,  316,  318 

its  responsibility  for  burning,  4ii,  183 

hostility  to  it  in  1820-3,  iv,  439 

used  to  enforce  passive  obedience,  iv, 
444 

its  wealth,  iv,  488,  493,  495 

its  oppressiveness,  iv,  492 

its  influence,  iv,  498,  507 
Churches,  asylum  in,  i,  421 

sanbenitos  hung  in,  iii,  165 

autos  held  in,  iii,  221 

judgements  of  blood  in,  iii,  223 

for  Moriscos,  iii,  366 

pollution  of,  iv,  130 

profanation  of,  iv,  503 
Churrucca  persecutes  Moriscos,  iii,  347 
.    investigates  conversions,  iii,  350 
Cib6,  Card.,  on  mystics,  iv,  56 
Cid,  the,  i,  1,  11,  53 


Cientos,  iv,  479 

Cifuentes,  church  of,  objects  to  sanbeni- 
tos, iii,  168 
Circumcision  of  New  Christians,  i,  151 

as  evidence,  ii,  566 
Ciruelo  on  jurisdiction  over  sorcery,  iv, 
184 

on  astrology,  iv,  192 

on  punishment  for  sorcery,  iv,  197 

on  the  Sabbat,  iv,  220 
Cirujano  y  harhero,  ii,  249 
Cisneros,  Leonor  de,  iii,  429,  441 
Cistercians  subjected  to  Inqn.  ii,  31 
Citation  of  children  of  dead,  iii,  83 

of  the  absent,  iii,  87 

to  Rome,  ii,  118 
Cities  represented  in  Cortes,  i,  2 

assigned  as  prison,  ii,  508 
Ciudad  Real,  tribunal  of,  i,  166,  544 

its  activity,  i,  167;  iii,  82;  iv,  520 

persecution  of  Converses,  i,  126 

New  Christians  denied  office,  i,  128 
Civil  law,  confiscation  in,  ii,  316 
Claims,  buying  up  of,  i,  265,  270,  430 

of  creditors  of  heretics,  ii,  328 
Clementines,  rules  in  the,  ii,  5 

canon  on  usury,  i,  95 
Clamosa,  the,  ii,  489 
Clara,  Beata,  case  ot,  iv,  91 
Clasquerin,  Archbp.,  on  sorcerers,  iv, 

182 
Class  privileges,  i,  375 
Classification  ot  heresy,  ii,  4 

ot  authors,  iii,  500 

of  propositions,  iv,  139 
Cleanliness  as  evidence,  ii,  566;  iii,  329 
Clemencin,  Dom,  on  decline  of  printing, 

iv,  530 
Clement,  Joseph,  his  mission,  iv,  293, 

307,  390 
Clement  III  favors  Jews,  i,  81 
Clement  IV  rebukes  Jaime  I,  i,  70,  91 
Clement  V  subjects  Jews  of  Toledo  to 

the  chapter,  i,  94 
Clement  VI  strives  to  arrest  massacres, 

i,  101 
Clement  VII  on  absolution  for  occult 
heresy,  ii,  20  > 

his  policy  as  to  regulars,  ii,  31,  32 

limited  jurisdiction  over  bps.,  ii,  45 

renounces  appellate  jurisdiction,  ii, 
126 

appeals  for  Francisco  Ortiz,  ii,  127; 
iv,  12 

forbids  taxes  on  confiscations,  ii,  353 

action  as  to  Portuguese  Inqn.,  iii,  239, 
240 
as  to  Valencia  Moors,  iii,  351,  352 
as  to  Moriscos,  iii,  371,  376 
as  to  Lutherans,  iii,  422,  423 

brief  ot  July  15,  1531,  iii,  563 


INDEX 


561 


Clement  VII  grants  jurisdiction  over 
unnatural  crime,  iv,  363 
withdraws  usury  from  Inqn.,  iv,  374 
Clement   VIII   asserts   episcopal    cog- 
nizance of  heresy,  ii,  8 
asserts  appellate  jurisdiction,  ii,  132 
on  age  of  inqrs.,  ii,  236 
commutes  relapse,  iii,  261 
prohibits  defamatory  writings,  iii,  531 
confirms  jurisdiction  over  regulars,  ii, 

36 
heresies  treated  as  relapse,  iii,  201 
insists   on    denunciation   of   accom- 
plices, ii,  462;  iii,  373 
on  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  iii,  534 
relaxation    for    personating    priest- 
hood, iv,  340 
Clement    IX    sustains    the    Majorca 

Church,  i,  502 
Clement  X  suspends  Portuguese  Inqn., 

iii,  288 
Clement  XI,  his  instructions  to  Vidal 
Marin,  i,  302;  ii,  175,  178 
tries  Toro  of  Oviedo,  ii,  88;  iv,  73 
condemns  use  of  Bible,  iii,  529 
Clement  XII  condemns  Masonry,  iv, 

299 
Clement    XIII    condemns    Mesengui's 

Catechism,  i,  320 
Clergy,  their  character,  i,  9,  10;  iv,  496, 
508 
their  immunity,  i,_17,  345;  iv,  497 
their  inviolability,  i,  367 
as  tax-collectors,  i,  99 
taxed  in  kingdoms  of  Aragon,  i,  375, 

379 
not  to  be  familiars,  i,  443,  454 
leniency  towards,  iii,  100;  iv,  368 
arrests   and    sentences   require   con- 
firmation, ii,  184,  185 
confiscation  of,  ii,  318 
levy  on,  for  Inqn.,  ii,  426 
subject  to  torture,  iii,  13 
sentenced  in  audience-chamber,  iii,  96 
spiritual  penance  for,  iii,  132 
circular  discipline  for,  iii,  138 
exempt  from  galleys,  iii,  140 
not  exposed  in  autos,  iii,  180 
formal  heresy  in,  iii,  181 
judgements  of  blood  forbidden  to,  iii, 

184 
tried  for  treason  by  Inqn.,  iv,  275 
alienated  by  Cortes  of  Cddiz,  iv,  413 
resist  the  suppression  of  Inqn.,  iv,  414 
hostihty  to,  in  1820-3,  iv,  439 
their  numbers,  iv,  489,  492,  493 
refuse  to  reveal  their  wealth,  iv,  494 
of  Majorca,  obtain  papal  brief,  i,  499 
triumph  over  Inqn.,  i,  503 
Clericalism,  influence  of,  iv,  488,  498 
Clericis  laicos,  bull,  i,  375 


Climent,  Bp.,  of  Barcelona,  iv,  293 
Clothes  of  relapsed  confiscated,  ii,  337 

supplied  to  prisoners,  ii,  528 
Coaches,  trouble  over,  in  Logrono^  i,  531 
Coadjutorships  with  reversion,  li,  222 
Coast-guard  duty  of  familiars,  i,  412 
Coasts  unprotected,  iii,  383 
Code,  penal,  on  toleration,  iv,  470 
Caelestis  Pastor,  bull,  iv,  59 

circulated  in  Spain,  iv,  68 
Call  et  Terra;,  bull,  iv,  189 
Coello,  Juana,  iv,  254,  255,  256,  270 
C<ena  Domini,  bull  in,  ii,  19 
Coercion  in  baptism,  i,  41 ;  iii,  349 
Coffer  of  three  keys,  ii,  450,  452 
Cofradia  de  S.  Pedro  Martir,  ii,  282 
Coinage,  Spanish,  i,  560 

debased  under  Henry  IV,  i,  7 

violation  of  laws  on,  i,  438 

debasement  of,  iv,  482 

Inqn.  invoked,  iv,  283 

Mariana's  attack  on  it,  iv,  273 
Coins,  baptism  of,  iv,  199 
Colegios  de  Familiares,  ii,  282 
Collection  of  debts,  i,  434 
through  Inqn.,  i,  266 

of  media  aflata,  i,  378 

of  confiscations,  ii,  341 
College  for  Moriscos,  iii,  366,  367,  369, 
379 

of  Santiago  in  Huesca,  i,  456 
Colleges,  limpieza  required  by,  ii,  298 
Colonial  tribunals,  their  finances,  i,  332 

remittance,  seizure  of,  i,  333 
Colonies,  New  Christians  in,  iii,  280 

contribute  to  Suprema,  ii,  200 
Comets,  superstition  as  to,  iv,  530 
Commentaries  of  Carranza,  ii,  55,  56,  59, 

73,  83,  85 
Commerce,    damage    to,   ii,   331,   38G, 

446,  462,  506,  511,  514 
Commercial  operations  of  Inqn.,  i,  176, 

389 
Commission  paid  to  informers,  ii,  323 
Commissions  of  inqrs.-genl.,  i,  303 

Lutheranism  included,  iii,  423 

solicitation  included,  iv,  99 

sorcery  included,  iv,  189 

of  inquisitors,  ii,  595 

issued  by  inqrs.,  ii,  218 

of  familiars,  i,  409,  516 

renewal  of,  ii,  162 

for  discovering  hidden  property,   i, 
268 

to  investigate  New  Christians,  i,  156 

on  secular  business,  i,  468 

of  absolution,  papal,  ii,  106 

military,  their  cruelty,  iv,  452 
Commissioners,  ii,  268_ 

their  appointment,  ii,  237 

their  fees,  ii,  271 


VOL.  IV 


36 


562 


INDEX 


Commissioners  take  ratifications,  ii,  644 
cannot  form  competencias,  i,  444 
must  be  present  at  autos,  iii,  214 
in  investigating  limpieza,  ii,  302 
instructions  as  to  witchcraft,  iv,  237 
temporary,  ii,  272 
Commmiion,  daily,  taught  by  Molinos, 

iv,  51 
Commutation  of  punishment,  ii,  402, 
408;  iii,  161 
grants  of,  ii,  410 
Companhia  da  Bolsa,  iii,  282 
Competencia  in  1530,  i,  268 
difficulty  of  settling,  i,  481,  524 
delays  caused  by,  i,  464,  512,  525 
formula  of,  i,  518,  519 
refusal  of,  i,  513,  516,  522 
in  bigamy  cases,  iv,  319 
courtesy  displayed,  iv,  432 
Complaints  of  Inqn.  punished,  iv,  515 
Compositions  for  confiscation,  i,  236, 
267,  331  ;ii,  353 
their  violation,  ii,  355 
the  great  one  of  Seville,  ii,  357 
for  individuals,  ii,  356 
for  imperfect  confession,  ii,  460 
for  immunity,  iii,  362 
for  military  service,  i,  334 
Compurgation,  iii,  113 

in  trials  of  the  absent,  iii,  87 
Comte,  Juan,  inq.  of  Barcelona,  i,  261, 

263 
Comuneros  of  1820-3,  iv,  439 
Comunidades,  iv,  250 

Inqn.  not  concerned  in,  i,  221 
Concealment  of  finances,  i,  330,  332 

of  property,  ii,  322 
Conception,  the  Immaculate,  iv,  174, 

359 
Conclusion  of  case,  iii,  71 
Concordat  of  1737,  iv,  493 

of  1753,  iv,  291 
Concordia  Compromisoria  of  1465,  i,  123 
Concordia  of  Castile,  in  1553,  i,  436 
familiars  in,  ii,  275,  277 
asked  for  by  Aragon,  i,  450 
of  Aragon  in  1512,  i,  270 

confirmed  by  Ferdinand,  i,  274 

in  1520,  i,  282 
its  guarantees,  i,  465 
ignored  by  Inqn.,  i,  283,  472 
on  jurisdiction,  i,  432 
on  familiars,  ii,  274 
on  violation  of  compositions,  ii,  356 
on  bigamy,  iv,  317 
on  blasphemy,  iv,  329 
on  usury,  iv,  373 
of  1519,  i,  276 
of  1520,  i,  466 
of  1568,  i,  442,  454 
its  printing  forbidden,  i,  445 


Concordia  of  1568  made  a  fuero,  i,  455 
on  witnesses,  i,  492 
on  commissioners,  ii,  270 
on  familiars,  ii,  281 

of  Zapata,  i,  474 

of  1646,  i,  460,  464 

of  1554  for  Valencia,  i,  440 

Morisco,  of  1528,  iii,  357,  376,  378 
Concordias,     their     observance     com- 
manded, i,  483 
Concubinage  of  clergy,  i,  10,  16;  iv,  496 
Concurrence,  episcopal,  i,  159,  230;  ii, 
11;  iii,  71 

effort  to  avoid  it,  ii,  14 

its  necessity,  ii,  16 

its  decline,  ii,  18 ;  iii,  74 
Concurrent  witnesses  required,  ii,  562 
Condemned,  efforts  to  convert  the,  iii, 

196 
Conditions  justifying  torture,  iii,  6 

of  patient  in  torture,  iii,  14 
Conditional  acquittal,  iii,  106 
Con  el  Rey  y  la  Inqwisicion,  chiton!  iv, 

515 
Confession,  judicial,  ii,  569 

urgency  to  induce  it,  ii,  570 

spontaneous,  ii,  571 

must  be  complete,  ii,  573 

imperfect,  ii,  353;  iii,  199 

time  of,  ii,  580;  iii,  143,  191 

variable,  ii,  582 

revocation  of,  ii,  582;  iii,  10,  200 

relaxation  after,  iii,  190 

under  torture,  ii,  581 ;  iii,  26 
must  be  ratified,  iii,  27 
retraction  of,  iii,  28 

useless  in  relapse,  iii,  202 

under  Edict  of  Grace,  ii,  457,  459,  605 

of  witches,  iv,  219,  223,  231,  232,  235, 
237 
Confession,     sacramental,     its    divine 
origin,  iii,  412 

of  heresy,  i,  234;  ii,  20 

of  prisoners,  ii,  521 

denied  to  negativos,  iii,  198 

not  to  be  heard  in  houses,  iv,  96 

seal  of,  ii,  24;  iv,  31,  377 
Confessional,  the,  introduced,  iv,  96 

indecency  in,  by  mystics,  iv,  25,  31 

its  use  in  censorship,  iii,  490 

seduction  in,  see  Solicitation 
Confessional  letters,  ii,  104,  590 
Confessions  heard  by  laymen,  iv,  344 
Confessors,  inqrs.  are  not,  ii,  21 

of  tribunals,  ii,  249 

hcensed  to  absolve  for  heresy,  ii,  22, 24 

elicit  information  as  to  property,  ii, 
322 

require  penitents  to  obey  the  Index, 
iii,  490 
to  denounce  solicitors,  iv,  101,  108 


INDEX 


563 


Confessors,  royal,  their  influence^  iv,  498 

are  members  of  Suprema,  i,  323 
Confidence,  destruction  of,  ii,  91,  100 
Confinement  not  solitary,  ii,  518 
Confirmation  of  commissions,  ii,  162 

of  sentences,  ii,  184 
Confiscation,  demanded  by  Ferdinand, 
i,  158 
at  Cordova,  i,  191 
of  offices,  i,  192 

evils  of,  i,  218;  ii,  343,  386;  iv,  504 
offers  for  its  suppression,  i,  219,  221, 

583;  ii,  368 
compositions  for,  see  Composition 
complaints  of,  in  Valencia,  i,  236 
extensive,  in  Afagon,  i,  256 
debts  of  estates,  i,  266 
controlled  by  Suprema,  i,  329 
concealed  from  crown,  i,  330 
reclaimed  by  crown,  i,  331,  336 
revert  to  Inqn.,  i,  337 
jurisdiction  over,  ii,  209 
the  most  deterrent  penalty,  ii,  316, 

336 
included  in  sentence,  ii,  318 
operates  from  first  act  of  heresy,  ii, 

316,  325,  331,  339,  348 
in  reconciliation,  ii,  320;  iii,  149 
its  enforcement,  ii,  321,  334,  335,  341 
professional  informers,  ii,  323 
estates  of  the  dead,  ii,  327;  iii,  82 
creditors  and  debtors,  ii,  328 
dowries,  ii,  332,  599 
system  of  collection,  ii,  341 
of  alienated  property,  ii,  339 
of  persons  of  heretics,  ii,  340 
Valencia  court  of,  ii,  330 
abuses,  ii,  346 

no  appeal  from  Inqn.,  ii,  349 
insurance  against,  ii,  353 
productiveness,  ii,  367 
waste  of  property,  ii,  363,  364,  370 
malversation,  ii,  365 
use  made  of  its  products,  ii,  371 
grants  from,  i,  187;  ii,  373,  380 
investments  from,  ii,  433,  442 
stimulus  to  condemn,  ii,  377 
prosecution  of  the  wealthy,  ii,  385 
becomes  obsolete,  ii,  370 
distinguished  from  penances,  ii,  393 
replaced  by  penance,  ii,  394 
of  1679  in  Majorca,  i,  335;  iii,  306; 

iv,  512 
of  Morisco  property,  iii,  359 
annual  payment  substituted,  i,  331 ; 
iii,  361 
of  expelled  Moriscos,  iii,  409 
Valencia  register  of,  i,  581 
for  bigamy,  iv,  316,  317 
sequestration  a  preliminary,  ii,  503 
razing  houses,  iii,  129 


Confiscation,  account  of  a  receiver,  ii, 
600 
in  Portugal,  iii,  260,  281 
Conflicts  of  jurisdiction,  i,  427 
in  Valencia,  i,  439 
in  Aragon,  i,  450 
in  Catalonia,  i,  465 
in  Majorca,  i,  484 
in  Castile,  i,  485 
with  spiritual  courts,  i,  493 
with  army,  i    504 
methods  of  settlement,  i,  517 
See  also  Competencias. 
Confrontation,  ii,  553 
Conjurators,  iii,  113,  117 
Congregacion  de  S.  Pedro  Martir,  ii,  282 
presided  over  by  Fernando  VII,  iv, 

431 
Catdlica,  i,  207 
Conjurations,  iv,  188,  199,  203 
Conquests  by  husband  and  wife,  ii,  334 
Conscience,  jurisdiction  over,  ii,  19 
Conscription,  exemptions  from,  i,  414 
Consent   in   solicitation   not   enquired 

into,  iv,  122 
Consejeros  de  la  tarde,  i,  323;  ii,  195 
Consejo  de  la  Suprema  y  General  Ingui- 
sicion,  i,  173 
de  Poblaciones,  iii,  340 
Conspiracy  of  San  Bias,  iv,  303 
Constantinople,  Council  of,  on  Jews,  i,  39 
Constitution  of  Bayonne,  iv,  400 
of  Cddiz,  iv,  406 

restrictions  on  the  crown,  iv,  421 
abrogated  by  Fernando  VII,   iv, 

422 
revived  in  1820,  iv,  436 
in  1836,  iv,  469 
Consulta  Magna,  the,  i,  512 
Consulta  de  fe,  ii,  266;  iii,  72 
preliminary,  ii,  489 
before  auto  de.je,  iii,  210 
votes  on  torture,  iii,  4 
its  action,  iii,  73 
its  obsolescence,  ii,  268;  iii,  74 
fiscal  present  in,  ii,  481 
its  service,  iii,  75 
Consultation  of  demons,  ii,  170,  173 
Consultores,  ii,  266 
their  appointment,  ii,  267 
their  functions,  iii,  71,  73 
become  unnecessary,  iii,  74 
are  not  officials,  i,  443 
diminished  number  of,  ii,  216 
Contemplation,  iv,  1,  6,_  19,  28 
condemned  in  Seville,  iv,  30 
taught  by  Molinos,  iv,  50,  52 

by  S.  Franpois  de  Sales,  iv,  62 
its  results,  iv,  55,  74 
Contestes,  ii,  562 
Continence,  test  of,  iv,  2,  9,  10,  34 


564 


INDEX 


Contraband  tobacco,  search  for,  i,  425 
trade,  facilities  for,  i,  385 

Contrafuero,  cry  of,  i,  451 ;  iv,  259 

Contracts  of  heretics,  ii,  325 
of  peace  and  truce,  i,  445 

Contreras,  Ant.  de,  disregards  quaran- 
tine, i,  264 

Contumacy,  absence  is,  iii,  86 
proves  heresy,  iii,  89 

Conventicles,  houses  used  as,  iii,  128 

Convents  used  as  prisons,  iii,  151,  154 
reolusion  in,  iii,  180 
autillos  held  in,  iii,  221 
their  multiplication,  iv,  490 
have  licences  for  prohibited  books, 
iii,  503 

Conversion,  forcible,  doctrine  of,  i,  41; 
iii,  347 
efforts  at,  i,  63 

by  preaching  authorized,  i,  91 
in  massacre  of  1391,  i,  111 
of  Jews  in  1413,  i,  118 
checked  by  Inqn.,  i,  131 
of  Moors  of  Granada,  iii,  319 
of  Valencian  Moors,  iii,  348,  355 
of  Moriscos.  iii,  365 
at  autos,  iii,  191,  193,  216,  218 
after  sentence,  iii,  193,  194,  197 
efforts  to  obtain,  iii,  196 
confirmed  by  torture,  iii,  11 

Conversos,  see  New  Christians 

Converts,  favor  shown  to,  i,  63 
to  Judaism,  iii,  293 
from  Protestantism,  iii,  476 

Convicts  transferred  for  execution,  iii, 
222 
effort  to  convert,  iii,  191,  196;  iv,  525 

Copper  coinage,  i,  564 

Cordeles,  iii,  19 

Cordova,  massacres  of  Jews,  i,  51,  115 
persecution  of  New  Christians,  i,  128 
its  tribunal,  i,  166,  544 
its  inquisitors,  i,  190 
its  struggle  with  Lucero,  i,  192 
ceremonial  in  the  mass,  i,  361 
persecution  of  provisor  of,  i,  495 
dispute  over  a  house,  i,  528 
Confraternity  of  Christian  Love,  ii, 

285 
exclusion  of  Conversos,  ii,  290 
benefices  of  its  officials,  ii,  420 
its  doctoral  canonry,  ii,  421 
tortures  used  in,  hi,  20 
houses  rebuilt,  iii,  129 
conversion  of  Moors,  iii,  324 
Molinistas  alumbrados,  iv,  71 
its  school  of  magic,  iv,  180 

Coidova,  Sancho  de,  case  of,  ii,  29 

C6rdovan  martyrs,  relics  of,  i,  47 

Coria,  Council  of,  on  clergy,  iv,  496 

Corona,  coin,  i,  561 


Coroza,  iii,  215 

Corregidor  of  Logrono,  his  punishment, 

i,  351 
Correspondence  of  Chamorro  and  Uliff, 

i,  133 
Corsairs,  their  ravages,  iii,  383 
Corte,  tribunal  of,  i,  545 
Cortes  of  Castile,  representation  in,  i,  2 
resist  papal  patronage,  i,  12 
of  1380  on  Jews,  i,  77 
of  1385  on  Jews,  i,  99 
of  1387  on  Jews  and  Moors,  i,  77 
of  1462  ask  for  trade  with  Jews,  i,  122 
never  ask  for  Inqn.,  i,  154,  157 
of  1523  renounce  power,  i,  33 
complain  of  Inqn.,  i,  217,  220,  222, 

485;  ii,  14 
ask  for  fixed  salaries,  ii,  349 
complain  of  courts,  ii,  468 
of  wealth  of  Church,  iv,  489 
of  number  of  convents,  iv,  490 
of  1532  define  Old  Christians,  ii,  288 
of  1570  ask  for  teaching  of  astrology, 

iv,  192 
of  1789  on  the  succession,  iv,  463, 465 
of  Cddiz  convoked  in  1810,  iv,  403 
suppress  benefices,  ii,  445 
on  sanbenitos,  iii,   171 
grant  freedom  of  press,  iii,  543; 

iv,  404 
adopt  Constitution,  iv,  406 
struggle  over  the  Inqn.,  iv,  407 
prolonged  debate,  iv,  411 
Inqn.    informally   suppressed,   iv, 

412 
alienate  the  clergy,  iv,  413 
contest  with  chapter  of  Cddiz,  iv, 
414 
of  1813-14,  iv,  418 
prescribe  terms  to  Fernando  VII, 

iv,  419 
are  ejected,  iv,  422 
of  1823  move  to  Seville  and  Cddiz, 

iv,  446 
of  1833  acknowledge  Isabella  II,  iv, 
465 
C6rtes  of  Aragon,  their  independence, 
i,  229 
accept  Torquemada,  i,  238 
of  1510,  their  demands,  i,  269 
on  usury,  iv  373,  374 
on  episcopal  concurrence,  ii,  14 
of  1519,  their  articles,  i  276 
of  1526,  demands  evaded,  i,  455 
of  1528  and  1533,  grievances,  i,  285, 

286 
of  1533,  members  threatened,  i,  452 
of  1547  and  1553,  their  complaints, 

i,  440,  453 
of  1564,  their  complaints,  i,  441 
of  1585  ask  for  new  Concordia,  i,  454 


INDEX 


565 


C6rtes  of  1646,  their  victory,  i,  458 

Cortes  of  Valencia  oppose  Inqn.,  i,  239 

Corufia,  noyade  at,  iv,  443 

Cosas  arbitrarias,  ii,  401;  iii,  173,  174, 
179 
de  Luteranos,  iii,  453 

Cost  of  a  tribunal,  i,  478,  479;  ii,  209 
of  autos  and  toros,  ii,  198 
of  maintaining  prisoners,  ii,  529,  532 

Costs  collected  from  the  accused,  ii,  533 

Costa,  Pastor  de,  his  pension,  ii,  252 

Cote,  Juan,  case  of,  i,  300;  ii,  348;  iii, 
102 

Cotoner,  Inqr.,  i,  424,  478 

Council  of  Castile,  its  protests,  i,  487, 
489 
on  temporal  jurisdiction,  i,  510 
evades  royal  order,  i,  531 
its  opinion  of  Inqn.,  i,  532 

Council  of  Aragon  trifles  with  Philip  IV, 
i,  418 
sustains  the  Bishops,  i,  501 

Councils,  royal,  organized,  i,  172 

Counsel  allowed  to  accused,  iii,  42 
his  functions,  iii,  44,  69 
secrecy  enforced  on,  ii,  474 
furnished  at  public  expense,  ii,  467 

Counterfeiting,  extent  of,  i,  563 
an  excepted  crime,  i,  438 

Couriers,  expense  of,  ii,  179 

Court  of  confiscation,  ii,  330,  350 
of  Justicia  of  Aragon,  i,  450 
its  conflicts  with  tribunal,  i,  452, 

454,  456 
acquits  Antonio  P^rez,  iv,  258 

Courts,  secular,  of  Castile,  ii,  468 
use  of  torture  in,  iii,  3 

Courts,  spiritual,  limitations  on,  i,  15 
procedure  in,  ii,  469,  470 

Credit,  destruction  of,  ii,  331 

Creditors,  claims  of,  ii,  328,  330,  331 

Creix,  ii,  334 

Crime,  heresy  as,  ii,  4 
unnatural,  iv,  36l 

Cristina,  Maria,  de  Bourbon,  iv,  462 
is  appointed  regent,  iv,  464 
her  enforced  Liberalism,  iv,  466 

Criticism  of  Inqn.  punishable,  i,  372 
captious,  of  censors,  iii,  491 

Crooe,  Giov.  Gius.  della,  his  mysticism, 
iv,  68 

Cromwell    demands   freedom    of    con- 
science, iii,  469;  iv,  501 

Crops,  division  of,  by  Moriscos,  iii,  377 

Cross,  the,  of  Casar  de  Palomero,  i,  133 
of  the  sanbenito,  iii,  162 
green,  procession  of,  iii,  214 
white,  at  brasero,  iii,  216 
irreverence  to,  iv,  353,  355 

Crosses  of  Luisa  de  Carrion,  iv,  38 
green,  of  the  relaxed,  iii,  214 


Cross-examination,    none    of    accusing 
witnesses,  ii,  542 
of  witnesses  for  defence,  ii,  544 
of  witnesses  in  Aragon,  ii,  466 

Crossing,  forms  of,  ii,  568 

Crown,  impoverishment  of,  i,  7 
its  relations  with  Inqn.,  i,  289 
its   appointing    power,   i,   158,   290, 

298,  300,  302 
enforces  resignations,  i,  304 
its  relations  with  Suprema,  i,  322 
loses  control  over  finances,  i,  330 
reclaims  confiscations,  i,  331;  ii,  317 
its  demands  on  Inqn.,  i,  332 
claims  salary  from  Suprema,  ii,  196 

Crucifix,  irreverence  to,  iv,  333 

Crudeli,  Tomaso,  his  works  condemned, 
iii,  547 

Cruelty  and  benignity,  iii,  99 

Crusades,  Jewish  massacres  caused  by, 
i,  83,  88 

Cruz,  Ger6nimo  de  la,  on  limpieza,  ii, 
306 

Cruzada  indulgence,  complaints  of,  ii, 
24;iv,  511 

Cruzado,  value  of,  i,  566 

Cuartel,  i,  399 

Cuesta,  la,  brothers,  their  persecution, 
iv,  296 

Cuenca,  aliama  of,  its  usury,  i,  97 
Bp.  of,  deprived  of  his  palace,  ii,  207 
composition  for,  ii,  356 
tribunal  of,  i,  546 
troubles  in  1520,  i,  221 
refuses  to  pay  taxes,  i,  377 
judges  its  own  case,  ii,  428 
fines  for  overcoming  torture,  iii,  31 
sanbenitos  hidden,  iii,  168 

Cult  of  uncanonized  saints,  iv,  356 

Cum  quorundam,  bull,  iii,  201 

Cum  sicut  dilecti,  brief,  i,  499 

Curador  for  minors,  iii,  50 
present  at  sentence  of  torture,  iii,  6 
for  the  insane,  iii,  59 

Curanderos,  punishment  of,  iv,  200 

Cure  of  souls,  benefices  with,  ii,  419 

Cures,  superstitious,  iv,  188 

Curia,  the,  its  treatment  of  Portuguese 
Converses,  iii,  239 

Cushions,  inqrs.  deprived  of,  i,  364 

Custos  morum,  Inqn.  as,  iv,  376 

Customs  duties,  exemption  from,  i,  376, 
384 
Jewish  and  Moslem,  i,  145;  ii,  565 

Cyril,  St.,  persecutes  Jews,  i,  38 


T)AIMIEL,  Moriscos  of,  iii,  330 

Dameto,  Jorje,  case  of,  i,  500 
Danger  of  using  papal  letters,  ii,  105 
of  witnesses,  ii,  550 


566 


INDEX 


Danger  of  denouncing  solicitation,  iv, 
108 
in  mysticism,  iv,  2 

Daroca,  tribunal  of,  i,  547 

Date  of  heretical  acts,  ii,  325,  331,  348 

Daubenton,  P^re,  expels  Alberoni,  i,  318 

Daughters,  offices  transmitted  through, 
ii,  221 

Davila  Bp.  of  Segovia,  case  of,  ii,  42 

Day  of  judgement  imitated  in  autos, 
iii,  209 

Dead  Hand,  the,  iv,  489 

Dead,  trials  of  the,  iii,  80 
suspension  forbidden,  iii,  109 
form  of  sentence,  iii,  85 
reconciliation,  iii,  149 
confiscation  of  estates,  ii,  327 
property  not  sequestrated,  ii,  503 

Dean  of  Suprema,  ii,  166 

Death  in  prison,  ii,  510,  522 ;  iii,  197,  285 
trial  continued,  iii,  85 
through  torture,  iii,  23 
during  auto,  iii,  218 
of  owners  of  libraries,  iii,  502,  504 
mystic,  of  Molinos,  iv,  49 

Death-penalty  for  Masonry,  iv,  299 
for  seducing  female  prisoners,  ii,  524 
commuted  for  galley- service,  iii,  139 
confiscation  equivalent  to,  ii,  316 

Death-sentences   reported  in  advance, 
iii,  187 

De  Auxiliis,  controversy  over,  iv,  160 

Debtors  excommunicated,  ii,  322 
imprisoned,  ii,  340 

Debts  of  heretics,  ii,  325,  328 
of  confiscated  estates,  i,  266 
due  to  confiscated  estates,  i,  270 
due  to  Jews,  i,  103,  115 
to  reconciliados  repudiated,  ii,  336 
of  familiars,  i,  453 
buying  up  of,  i,  430 
collected  through  Inqn.,  i,  266,  434 

Decadence  and  Extinction,  iv,  385 
change  under  the  Bourbons,  iv,  386 
influence  of  Philip  V,  and  his  sons, 

iv,  387 
rapid  decadence,  iv,  388 
limitations  under  Carlos  III,  iv,  389 
influence  of  Frepch  Revolution,  iv, 

390 
amelioration  of  procedure,  iv,  392 
suppression  proposed,  iv,  394 
the  French  invasion,  iv,  399 
Inqn.  supports  Napoleon,  iv,  400 
suppressed  by  Napoleon,  iv,  401 
condition  during  the  war,  iv,  402 
the  Cortes  of  Cddiz,  iv,  403 
struggle  over  the  Inqn.,  iv,  407 
Inqn.  informally  suppressed,  iv,  412 
protests  of  the  clergy,  iv,  414 
reaction  after  the  war,  iv,  418 


Decadence,  restoration  of  Fernando  VII 
iv,  420 
Inqn.  re-established,  iv,  424 
financial  troubles,  iv,  426 
resumes  its  functions,  iv,  429 
comparative  feebleness,  iv,  431 
^abolition  decreed  in  1820,  iv,  436 
French  intervention,  iv,  447 
Fernando  keeps  it  suspended,  iv,  453 
condition  in  1830,  iv,  459 
replaced  by  Juntas  de  fe,  iv,  460 
final  dissolution  in  1834,  iv,  467 

Deceit  forbidden,  iii,  70 

Decrees  suppressing  the  Inqn.,  iv,  436 
468,  541,  643,  545 
royal,  require  assent  of  Suprema,  i, 
325 

Defalcations  of  receivers,  ii,  451,  454 

Defamatory  writings  prohibited,  iii,  531 

Defaulters,  receivers  as,  ii,  451,  454 

Defence,  facilities  for,  denied,  ii,  482 
suppression  of  witnesses'  names,  ii, 

552;  iii,  66 
witnesses  for  the,  ii,  539 
treatment  of  evidence,  ii,  543 
advocates  allowed,  iii,  43 

perfunctory  character  of,  iii,  56 
pleas  in  abatement,  iii,  57 
by  iachas  and  abonos,  iii,  64 
of  non-baptism,  iii,  69 
in  trials  of  the  dead,  iii,  84 
no  prescription  of  time  against,  iii,  89 

Defendant  entitled  to  his  own  court, 
i,  430,  466 
deprived  of  his  own  court,  i,  467 

Defensor  de  oflcio,  iii,  542 

Definition  of  limpieza,  ii,  288,  297 
of  solicitation,  iv,  100,  112 

Degradation  of  clerics,  i,  179;  iii,  181 
for  marriage  in  orders,  iv,  339 

Degrees,  Conversos  ineligible  to,  ii,  287 

Dejamiento,  iv,  4,  8,  9 
of  Molinos,  iv,  50 

Delation,  habit  of,  ii,  99;  iv,  138,  616 

Delay  in  confession,  ii,  580 

Delays  in  trials,  iii,  40,  75 
forbidden  by  Ferdinand,  i,  187 
complaints  of,  i,  226;  iii,  77 
caused  by  temporal  jurisdiction,  i, 
509,  512 
by  competencias,  i,  526 
by  ratification,  ii,  548 
by  evidence  for  defence,  iii,  67 
of  Suprema  in  deciding  cases,  ii,  182 
forbidden  in  trials  of  the  dead,  iii,  84 
in  cases  of  absentees,  iii,  90 
in  expurgation,  iii,  497,  508 

Delegates  of  bishops,  ii,  12 

Delusion  in  Mysticism,  iv,  79 
in  witchcraft,  iv,  208,  212,  217,  219, 
229,  231,  237 


INDEX 


567 


Demoniacal  possession,  iv,  348 
jurisdiction,  iv,  349 
epidemics,  iv,  350 
imposture,  iv,  351 
Demoniacs,  their  utterances,  ii,  134 

their  responsibility,  iv,  349 
Demons,  revelations  of,  ii,  134 
consultation  of,  ii,  170,  173 
invocation  of,  iv,  199 
pact  with,  iv,  185 
illusive  relations  with,  iv,  220 
Denial  of  intention,  ii,  576 
Denial,  pertinacity  in,  ii,  585;  iii,  198 
Denmark,  treaty  of  commerce,  iii,  467 
De  no  obstancia,  certificates  of,  iii,  178 
Denunciation,  Edict  of,  ii,  91 
habit  of,  ii,  99 

duty  of,  i,  168;  ii,  93,  96,  485 
in  solicitation,  iv,  101,*  106 
two  required,  iv,  120,  123 
of  accomplices,  ii,  460,  462,  577;  iii, 

371 
of  self,  ii,  571;iv,  130 
of  prohibited  books,  iii,  482,  490 
danger  relieves  from  duty,  iv,  108 
threats  of,  iv,  348 
Depopulation,  causes  of,  ii,  309;  iv,  478 
Depositario  of  sequestrations,  ii,  499 
de  los  pretendientes,  ii,  304 
sale  of,  ii,  214 

delay  in  rendering  accounts,  ii,  449 
money  used  to  replace  sanhenitos, 
iii,  170 
Deposits  in  coffer,  delays  allowed,  ii,  453 
Deposition  of  Avila,  i,  4 
Deputados  of  Portuguese  Inqn.,  iii,  262 
Derecho  de  Inquisicion,  iii,  520 
Descendants  of  dead  to  be  cited,  iii,  84 
Descendants,  disabilities  of,  iii,  172,  557 
of  penitents,  their  hardships,  iii,  177 
Despatch  urged  in  trials,  iii,  76,  78 
Despoblados,  iv,  482 

caused  by  confiscation,  ii,  364 
Details,  supervision  over  by  Suprema, 
ii,  184 
suppressed  in  pubhcation,  iii,  54 
Detenoration  of  officials,  iv,  388 
Devolutionary  appeals,  ii,  l87 
Deza,  Diego,  his  Jewish  blood,  i,  120 
appointed  inq.-genl.,  i,  180 
action  in  the  case  of  Lucero,  i,  196, 

201,  202,  203 
compelled  to  resign,  i,  205 
forbids  officials  to  trade,  i,  534 
orders  Edict  of  Denunciation,  ii,  92 
appeals  referred  to,  ii,  116 
Deza,  Pedro  de,  his  action  in  Granada, 
iii,  335 
urges  depopulation,  iii,  339 
Diana  and  Herodias,  iv,  208 
Dfaz,  Bernardino,  case  of,  ii,  123,  550 


Dfas,  Blanquina,  case  of,  ii,  122 
Dfaz,  Froilan,  case  of,  ii,  169 
Diccionario  critico-burlesco,  iv,  409 
Diego  de  Uceda,  case  of,  ii,  288,  553; 

iii,  28,  66,  415 
Diminucio,  ii,  573,  578;  iii,  10,  199 
Dinerillo,  i,  566 
Dinero,  value  of,  i,  565 
Diogo  da  Annunciasam,  his  sermon,  iii, 

302 
Diputados  of  Aragon,  i,  271 

coerced  by  Inqn.,  i,  274 

their  powers  restricted,  iv,  270 
Disabilities  of  Jews  and  Moors,  i,  77, 
95,  117,  119,  121,  124 

of  penitents,  iii,  172 

under  Edict  of  Grace,  i,  170 

of  Conversos,  ii,  286 

of  culprits,  ii,  401 

of  descendants,  iii,  172,  177,  557 

of  Mallorquin  New  Christians,  ii,  314 

enforced  by  Inqn.,  iii,  175 

fine  for  disregard  of,  iii,  179 

composition  for,  ii,  358 

removal  of,  ii,  407 
Disabling  of  witnesses,  iii,  64,  68 
Disarmament  of  Moriscos,  iii,  332,  378 
Disarming  a  famihar,  case  of,  i,  405 
Disbursements  under  royal  authority, 

i,  329 
Discharge  without  sentence,  iii,  112 
Discipline,  the,  iii,  135;  iv,  116 

circular,  iii,   138,  181 
Discipline,  relaxation  of,  ii,  225 

in  perpetual  prisons,  iii,  152,  154,  155 
Discordia,  ii,  163,  179 

as  to  arrests,  ii,  185 

between  calificadores,  ii,  487 
Discourtesy,  prosecution  for,  ii,  132 
Discretion  as  to  torture,  iii,  10,  30 
Dismissal,  power  of,  by  inq.-genl.,   i, 
177 

controlled  by  Ferdinand,  i,  291 
Disobedience  of  Inqn.,  i,  616 
Disorder  of  records,  ii,  258 
Dispensations,  ii,  401 

sale  of,  ii,  408 

for  lack  of  limpieza,  ii,  297 

for  familiars,  ii,  279 

en  lo  arhitrario,  ii,  408 

from  imprisonment,  iii,  160 

episcopal,  iv,  396 

papal,  ii,  402,  405,  406 

for  non-residence,  i,  303,  307;  ii,  415 
Dispensero,  ii,  249,  526 
Disputations  between  Jew  and  Chris- 
tian, i,  90,  118 

scholastic,  iv,  150,  159 
Disqualification  of  witnesses,  ii,  536,  538 
Disregard  of  papal  letters,  ii,  106,  108, 

131 


568 


INDEX 


Disrepute  of  Barcelona  tribunal,  i,  481 
Dissipation  of  the  confiscations,  ii,  434 
Districts  of  tribunals,  ii,  206 

visitation  of,  ii,  238 
Divination,  punishment  of,  iv,  182 
Ddbla  de  la  banda,  i,  560 
Doblon,  i,  561 
Doctoral  canonries,  ii,  421 
Documents  of  the  Inqn.,  i,  159 
Dog,  funeral  rites  for,  iv,  432 
Dogmatizers,  fate  of,  iii,  200 
Doli  capaces,  ii,  3 
Dolores,  Beata,  case  of,  iv,  89 
Domination  of  Inqn.,  iv,  513,  516 
Dominicans  employ  Jewish  physicians, 
i,  75 

as  inqrs.,  ii,  234 

member  of  Suprema,  i,  323 

subjected  to  Inqn.,  ii,  31 

on  exclusion  of  New  Christians,_ii,  288 

deny  Immaculate  Conception,  iv,  359 

persecuted  by  Inqn.,  iv,  380 
Donee  corrigatur,  iii,  484 
Don  Quixote,  correction  of,  iv,  16 
Dos  de  Mayo,  iv,  399 
Doubts  solved  by  torture,  iii,  33 
Dowry  of  Catholic  wife,  i,  270,  286; 
ii,  325,  328 

illustrative  cases,  ii,  332,  333 

husband  liable  for  wife's,  ii,  334,  341 

receipt  given  for,  ii,  599 

office  regarded  as,  ii,  221 
Dozy,  his  view  of  the  Cid,  i,  53 
Dread  inspired  by  Inqn.,  iv,  514,  516 

of  imprisonment,  ii,  511 
Dream-expounding,  iv,  185 
Drunkenness,  inquiry  as  to,  iii,  63 
Dryander,  Franciscus,  iii,  424 
Ducat,  value  of,  i,  560 
Duels  forbidden  to  clergy,  i,  11 

subjection  to  Inqn.  suggested,  iv,  379 
Duns  Sootus  on  coerced  baptism,  iii,  349 
Durango,  tribunal  of,  i,  547 
Durango,  Vidau,  i,  251,  256 
Duration  of  torture,  iii,  22 

of  imprisonment,  iii,  159 
Dutch,   privileges  granted  to  the,  iii, 
463,  465,  467 

struggles  in  Brazil,  iii,  262 

aided  by  Portuguese  refugees,  iii,  279 

TjiBOLI,  Princess  of,  iv,  254 

■^     Eckart,  Master,  case  of,  ii,  30;  iv,  2 

Ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  limited,  i,  15 

Ecclesiastics,  see  Clergy 

Ecija,  milder  treatment  of  Judaism  in, 
iii,  236 

Edict  of  Faith,  ii,  91,  587 
as  issued  in  1696,  ii,  93 
solemnities  of  publication,  ii,  94 


Edict  published  in  visitations,  ii,  239 

its  distribution,  ii,  97 

its  effectiveness,  ii,  98,  486;  iv,  516 

gradual  disuse,  ii,  98 

includes  Lutheranism,  iii,  422 
prohibited  books,  iii,  482 
mysticism,  iv,  18,  24 
solicitation,  iv,  103,  104,  105 
sorcery,  iv,  184 
astrology,  iv,  194 
export  of  horses,  iv,  280 
blasphemy,  iv,  329 
Edict  of  Grace,  i,  165;  ii,  457,  604 

its  conditions,  ii,  459;  iii,  371 

penalties  under,  i,  169,  243,  337 

sanbenitos  of  the  reconciled  under 
iii,  165,  167 

its  advantages,  ii,  460 

shunned 'by  Conversos,  ii,  461 ;  iii,  274 

confession  in,  ii,  571 

for  mystics,  iv,  30 

for  witches,  iv,  211,  226,  228,  230 

causes  witch-craze,  iv,  234 

in  Navarre,  i,  224 

in  Barcelona,  i,  263 

in  Majorca,  i,  267 

none  in  Saragossa,  i,  244 

for  Moriscos,  iii,  328,  371 

revived  in  1815,  ii,  463 

in  Portugal,  iii,  274 
Edict  of  1572,  for  Moriscos,  iii,  340 

of  Morisco  expulsion,  iii,   394,   398, 
400 

of  expurgation,  iii,  498 

prohibiting  book,  iii,  573 
Edicts,  reading  of,  in  churches,  i,  359 
Education  abroad  prohibited,  iii,  449 

after  expulsion  of  Jesuits,  iv,  294 
Edward  I  banishes  Jews,  i,  83 
Efficacy    of    inquisitorial    process,    ii, 

482 
Effigies  of  dead  burnt,  iii,  81 

reconciliation  of,  iii,  85,  149 

preparation  of,  iii,  215 

carried  in  autos,  iii,  91,  226 

relaxed  in  churches,  iii,  223 

no  plea  for  mercy  for,  iii,  188 
Bgidio,  Dr.,  case  of,  iii,  424,  445 
Egiza  exterminates  Judaism,  i,  43 
Ejercieio  de  las  tres  Potencias,  iv,  17 
Elna,  Bp.  of,  resists  Inqn.,  i,  268 
Elches,  iii,  320 

El  Espanol  Constitucional,  iii,  544 
Elizabeth,     Queen,    intercedes    for    a 

galley-slave,  iii,  460 
Elvira,  Council  of,  on  Jews,  i,  37 
Elvira  del  Campo,  case  of,  iii,  24,  233 
Embargo,  ii,  504 
Embezzlement,  ii,  365,  451,  454 
Emhustero  in  mysticism,  iv,  82 

in  sorcery,  iv,  197,  201 


INDEX 


569 


Emigration  of  Converses  forbidden,  i, 
183 

forbidden  in  Aragon,  i,  246 

of  Portuguese  forbidden,  iii,  271,  303 

permission  for,  sold,  iii,  271,  277 

to  France,  iii,  271,  278 

of  Moriscos  forbidden,  iii,  378 
Emmerich,  Katherine,  iv,  94 
Empleomania,  iv,  485 
Ems,  Congress  of,  iv,  292 
Enchiridion  Militis  Christiani,  iii,  412, 

414 
Encubierto,  el,  iv,  253 
Endemoniadas,  iv,  350 

consulted  in  behalf  of  Carlos  II,  ii,  170 
Endowment,   scanty,  of  Inqn.,  i,  293; 

ii,  433 
Enemies  sought  as  witnesses,  iii,  65 
Energumens,  iv,  351 
Enforcement  of  sentences,  iii,   101 
England,  Carranza's  labors  in,  ii,  49 

treaties  with,  iii,  332,  464,  466,  470 

protests  against  visitas   de  navios, 
iii,  515,  517,  518 

witchcraft  in,  iv,  246 

burning  of  women,  iv,  526 

Inqn.  in,  iv,  532 
Englishmen,  privileges  granted  to,  iii, 

464,  467 
English  sailors  prosecuted,  iii,  462,  463 
Enguera,  Juan,  Inq.-genl.  of  Aragon,  i, 
180 

swears  to  Concordia,  i,  271 
En  juicio  plenario,  ii,  545 
Enmity  disqualifies  witness,  ii,  538;  iii, 
64,  68 

disregarded,  iv,  156 
Enmity  towards  Jews,  iii,  272,  290 
Enrfquez,  Ana,  case  of,  iii,  90,  299 
Ensalmadores,  iv,  180 
Enslavement  of  Moriscos,  iii,  338 
Enzinas,  Francisco  de,  iii,  424 
Epidemics  of  demoniacal  possession,  iv, 
350 

of  witchcraft,  iv,  214,  234 
Episcopal  Inquisition  at  work,  i,  153; 
iv,  461 

courts  succeed  the  Inqn.,  iv,  468 

jurisdiction,  i,  497;  ii,  5 

concurrence,  see  Concurrence 
Episcopi,  canon,  iv,  209,  217,  220,  239 
Epocha  de  Calomarde,  iv,  464 
Epocha  de  Chaperon,  iv,  453 
Eppinger,  Elizabeth,  iv,  93 
Equality  of  judges  and  inqrs.,  i,  520 
Erasmists,  their  persecution,  iii,  415 
Erasmus,  his  freedom  of  utterance,  iii, 
412 

his  means  of  support,  iii,  417 
Errors  ascribed  to  mysticism,  iv,  24 
E  scaler  a,  iii,  19 


Escape  from  prison,  ii,  513 

from  penitential  prison,  iii,  103 
Escobar  on  limpieza,  ii,  300,  309 
on  penalties  of  descendants,  iii,  177 

on  single  witnesses,  ii,  562 
Escobedo,  Juan  de,  his  murder,  iv,  254 
Escorial,  its  library  expurgated,  iii,  499 
Escudo,  coin,  i,  561 
Espada    y    Landa,    Bp.,    accused    of 

Masonry,  iv,  305 
Espafia,  Count  de,  iv,  444,  457 
Espana,  lodge,  iv,  303 
Esperandeu,  Juan  de,  i,  251,  256,  596 
Espina,    Alonso    de,    his    Fortalicium 
Fidei,  i,  36,  75,  149 

on  the  Sabbat,  iv,  209 
Espina,  Alonso  de,  inq.  of  Barcelona,  i, 

263 
Espino,  Dr.,  attacks  Jesuits,  iv,  380 
Espinosa,  Diego  de,  Inq.-genl.,  i,  306; 

iii,  334 
Espontaneados,  ii,  571 

spared  public  penance,  i,  232 

in  solicitation,  iv,  130 

in  witchcraft,  iv,  236 

confiscation  enforced,  ii,  320,  321 
Estates  of  dead  confiscated,  ii,  327 

confiscated,  debts  of,  i,  266 

books  belonging  to,  iii,  502,  504 

claims  of  Church  on,  iv,  488 
Estella,  tribunal  of,  i,  227,  547 
Estilo  of  Inqn.,  ii,  475 
Estr^es,  Card,  d',  favors  Borri,  iv,  45 

persecutes  Molinos,  iv,  51,  54 
Ethenard,  Raimundo,  iv,  400,  407,  459 
Estrada,  Duke  of,  his  torture,  iii,  3 
Etiquette,  contests  over,  i,  359 
Eugenius  IV,  oppresses  the  Jews,  i,  119 
Eulogio,  St.,  of  Cordova,  i,  46 
Evangelical  Alliance  stops  persecution, 

iv,  470 
Evidence,  ii,  535 

how  obtained  at  Arjona,  i,  212 

for  prosecution  not  sifted,  ii,  543 

its  sufficiency,  ii,  561 

hearsay  admitted,  ii,  563 

not  to  be  investigated,  iv,  261 

ratification  of,  ii,  544 

publication  of,  iii,  53 

sufficient  for  torture,  iii,  9 

purged  by  torture,  iii,  7,  30 

for  defence  kept  secret,  ii,  543 
obstructions  to,  iii,  64 
carefully  sought  for,  iii,  67 

as  to  limpieza,  ii,  300 

against  Judaizers,  ii,  566;  iii,  232 

against  Moriscos,  iii,  329 

against  familiars,  i,  447 

in  solicitation,  iv,  120 

in  witchcraft,  iv,  218,  235 
Evils  of  temporal  jurisdiction,  i,  513 


570 


INDEX 


Examination  of  accused,  iii,  70 

of  witnesses,  ii,  479,  541 

of  imports,  iii,  505 

of  book-shops  and  libraries,  iii,  487, 
495,  498,  574 

in  sorcery  cases,  iv,  196 

of  witches,  iv,  218 
Excellency,  title  of,  contested,  i,  358 
Excepted   crimes  under  Concordia,   i, 

436,  438 
Exclusion  from  public  office,  i,  416 

of  foreigners,  iii,  472 

of  Jews,  iii,  311,  314 
Excommunication,  power  of,  i,  355 

abuse  of,  i,  379,  484,  487,  489,  495, 
511,  523 

endurance  of,  proves  heresy,  i,  271; 
iii,  89 

threats  of,  i,  519 

in  Edict  of  Faith,  ii,  95 

of  the  absent,  iii,  86 

of  alcaldes  de  Corte,  i,  382 

of  spiritual  judges,  i,  494 

for  concealing  property,  ii,  322 

for  refusal  to  burn  heretics,  iii,  185, 
187 
Excommunicates  as  witnesses,  ii,  538 
Excusado,  iv,  494 

Execution  of  sentence,  ministerial,   i, 
354 

of  heretics  compulsory,  iii,  187 

expenses  of,  iii,  187 

under  temporal  jurisdiction,  iii,  188 
Executioners  as  torturers,  iii,  17 

bribery  of,  iii,  32 

their  fees,  iii,  35 

their  skill,  iii,  195 
Executors,    duty   of,    with   regard   to 

books,  iii,  602 
Exemptions,  papal,  issued  in  blank,  ii, 
110 

from  taxation,  i,  376,  381 ;  iv,  478 

from  billets  of  troops,  i,  396 

from  prohibition  to  bear  arms,  i,  403 

from  military  service,  i,  412 
Exempts,  census  of,  ii,  217 

number  of  clerical,  iv,  493 
Exequatur  required  for  papal  briefs,  iii, 

540 
Exercises,  spiritual,  as  penance,  iii,  132 
Exhumation,  secret,  special  briefs  for, 
i,  296 

of  heretic  corpses,  iii,  80 
Exile,  iii,  126 

varieties  of,  iii,  127 

infraction  of,  iii,  103,  128 
Exiles,  Jewish,  their  sufferings,  i,  139 

from   Granada,  their  prosperity,  iii, 
341 

Morisco,  their  fate,  iii,  406 
Exercisers  denounced,  iv,  351 


Exorcism  of  demons,  ii,  170;  iv,  349 
Expatriation  forbidden,  i,  183,  246;  iii, 

238,  271 
Expenses,  oilers  to  defray  them  i  220, 
221 

defrayed  by  the  crown,  i,  231,  293 

met  by  penances,  ii,  393 

controlled  by  Suprema,  ii,  189,  447 

thrown  on  accused,  ii,  494 

of  prisoners,  ii,  528 

of  executions,  iii,  187 

of  proving  Kmpieza,  ii,  302,  308 
Experts,  assembly  of,  ii,  265 
Exponi  nobis,  bull,  i,  275 
Export  of  wheat  from  Aragon,  i,  385 

of  horses,  iv,  278 

of  books  supervised,  iii,  507 
Expropriation  of  houses,  ii,  207,  208 
Expulsion  of  Jews  in  1492,  i,  135 

of  Moriscos  proposed,  iii,  390 
determined  on,  iii,  392 
terms  of  the  edicts,  iii,  394,  398, 
401 

of  Protestants,  iii,  572 
Expurgation  of  books,  iii,  484,  491,  492, 

494,  497,  498 
Expurgators,  professional,  iii,  497 
Exsurge  Domine,  bull,  iii,  184 
External  heresy,  ii,  4 
Extinction,  decree  of,  1834,  iv,  545 

See  Decadence. 
Extradition  of  heretics,  i,  191,  253;  iii, 

278 
Extremadura,  tribunal  of,  i,  549 

milder  treatment  of  Judaizers,  iii,  236 

mystics  of,  iv,  20 
Eymerich  on  friendship  with  Moors,  i, 
56 

on  mysticism,  iv,  6 

on  sorcery,  iv,  183 


PABRICA  DE  SEVILLA,  ii,  201 

Factions,  turbulent,  in  Valencia,  i, 
449 
Faculties  to  absolve  for  heresy,  ii,  24 
Faith,  Edict  of,  see  Edict 

matter  of,  its  significance,  i,  357,  406 
not  interfered  with,  i,  294 
Philip  III  intervenes  in  one,  i,  300 
Faith,  prosecutions  not  of,  ii,  257 
False-witness,  i,  223,  271 ;  ii,  554 
detected  in  ratification,  ii,  547 
cognizance  of,  ii,  555 
few  oases  of,  ii,  559 
in  cases  of  limpieza,  ii,  304 
in  Portugal,  iii,  287 
in  witchcraft  cases,  iv,  233 
Fame,  common,  as  to  limpieza,  ii,  300 
Familiars  not  subject  to  secular  law, 
i,  265 


INDEX 


671 


Familiars,  exclusive  jurisdiction  over,  i, 

429,  432,  435 
their  privileges,  i,  465 
claim  exemption  from  taxation,  1,  381 

from  billets  of  troops,  i,  397 

from  military  service,  i,  412 

right  of  asylum,  i,  422 
their  right  to  bear  arms,  i,  403 
their  right  to  hold  office,  i,  419 
relegated  to  secular  courts,  i,  435 
under  Concordia  of  Castile,  i,  436 
their  character,  i,  447 
their  fuero  in  civil  cases,  i,  444 
their  fuero  limited,  i,  516 
their  qualifications,   i,   443,   454;  ii, 

275,  279,  280,  281,  294 
as  witnesses,  i,  492 

as  bankrupts,  i,  445 
their  advantages  in  trade,  i,  535 
as  feudal  vassals,  i,  537 
imprisoned  for  resigning,  ii,  212 
their  numbers,  i,  270,  273,  436,  440, 
443,  453,  454,  462,  467;  ii,  217,  274, 

276,  283 
confraternity  of,  ii,  282 

fines  imposed  on  them,  ii,  398 

forbidden  to  make  arrests,  ii,  492 

must  be  present  at  autos,  iii,  214,  226 

Moriscos  as,  iii,  379 

in  Portuguese  Inqn.,  iii,  262 
Familiarships,  sale  of,  ii,  213 

value  of,  ii,  279 
Families,  inquisitorial,  ii,  221 

of  officials  enjoy  the  fuero,  i,  440 

of  prisoners,  provision  for,  ii,  499 
Fanaticism  exultant  over  burnings,  iv, 

526 
Farda,  iii,  333 
Far  fanes,  i,  45 

Farmers  of  revenues,  Jews  as,  i,  98 
Farming  of  prebends,  ii,  430 
Farnese,  Cardinal,  iii,  252,  253,  255,  257 
Fautorship  of  heresy,  ii,  492 
Favorites,  royal,  in  17th  cent.,  iv,  474 
Feast-days,  autos  celebrated  on,  iii,  212 

Moriscos  forbidden  to  work,  iii,  370, 
375 

profanation  of,  iv,  502 
Febronius  de  Statu  Ecclesise,  iv,  292 
Fe  de  confiscacion,  ii,  318 
Fees  in  secular  business,  i,  463,  468 

of  officials,  ii,  252 
of  Suprema,  ii,  200 

of  secretaries,  ii,  244 

in  litigation  of  officials,  ii,  279 

for  dispensations,  ii,  279 

for  investigating  limpieza,  ii,  302 

for  torturer,  iii,  17,  35 

for  visiting  ships,  iii,  510,  511,  513, 
520 
Felix  of  TJrgel,  his  heresy,  i,  46 


Female  prisoners,  ii,  523,  525,  526 
succession  to  the  throne,  iv,  462 
F6nelon,  his  persecution,  iv,  64 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella  object  to  papal 
legates,  i,  15 
restrict  spiritual  jurisdiction,  i,  16, 

428 
punish  clerical  malefactors,  i,  17 
their  mutual  relations,  i,  20 
defray  cost  of  Hermandad,  i,  33 
re-enact  oppressive  laws,  i,  75,  124 
establish  ghettos,  i,-  78 
expulsion  of  Jews,  i,  135 
ask  Sixtus  IV  for  Inquisition,  i,  157 
investigate  Valladolid  Inqn.,  i  169, 

171 
organize  the  Inqn.,  i,  172 
claim  the  confiscations,  ii,  317 
elude  the  claims  of  Xeres,  ii,  329 
liberate  slaves  of  heretics,  ii,  339 
capitulations  of  Granada,  iii,  318 
welcome  Portuguese  Moors,  iii,  319 
their  law  of  censorship,  iii,  480 
on  diviners,  iv   183 
on  export  of  horses,  iv,  278 
on  unnatural  crime,  iv,  362 
their  influence,  iv,  504 
Ferdinand  the   Catholic,  his  claim   to 
church  patronage,  i,  13 
his  character,  i,  20 
his  conquest  of  Granada,  i,  21 
instances  of  liberality,  i,  22;  ji,  332, 

336,  344,  378,  499 
controls  the  Military  Orders,  i,  34 
enforces  decree  of  Vienne,  i,  71 
his  Jewish  blood,  i,  120 
enforces  the  senal,  i,  124 
banishes  Jews  of  Saragossa,  i,  132 
requires  Jews  to  denounce  apostates, 

i,  168 
divides  the  Inquisition,  i,  180 
rebukes  excesses,  i,  187,  265 
insists  on  obedience,  i,  188 
his  pleasure  in  autos  de  fe,  i,   188; 

iii,  209 
he  supports  Lucero,  i,  196,  209 
suspends  the  Inqn.,  i,  199 
abandons  Deza,  i,  206 
instructions  to  Charles  V,  i,  214 
founds  Inqn.  of  Navarre,  i,  224 
revives  Inqn.  of  Aragon,  i,  230 
his  struggle  vrith  Sixtus  IV,  i,  233 
imposes  Torquemada  on  Aragon,  i, 

238 
breaks  down  resistance  in  Valencia,  i, 

239 
his  action  in  Aragon,  i,  246,  254 
forces  Inqn.  on  Catalonia,  i,  261 
treatment  of  Concordia  of  1512,  i,  272 
his  control  over  Inqn.,  i,  290,  322 
inculcates  rectitude,  i,  297 


572 


INDEX 


Ferdinand  claims  the  fines   and  pen- 
ances, i,  338 
grants  royal  jurisdiction,  i,  343,  439 
exempts  from  taxation,  i,  376 
right  to  bear  arms,  i,  403 
right  to  hold  office,  i,  415 
limits  privileges  in  Aragon,  i,  466 
Military  Orders  not  exempt,  i,  505 
letter  to  Torquemada,  i,  567 
letter  to  Sixtus  IV,  i,  590 
excludes   bishops   from   jurisdiction, 

ii,  6 
evades  episcopal  concurrence,  ii,  11 
opposes  papal  letters,  ii,  110,  111,  116, 

117 
obtains  papal  letters,  ii,  112 
threats  against  refugees,  ii,  115 
troubled  by  citations  to  Rome,  ii,  118 
tribunals  wherever  necessary,  ii,  205 
tries  to  keep  down  salaries,  ii,  209 
approves  hereditary  transmission,  ii, 

219 
leniency  to  official  offenders,  ii,  224 
on  qualifications  of  inqrs.,  ii,  234 
orders  consultores  to  serve,  ii,  266 
seeks  to  restrain  familiars,  ii,  274 
explains  why  he  confiscates,  ii,  317 
grants  one-third  to  feudal  lords,  ii, 

319 
on  concealment  of  property,  ii,  322 
pays  informers,  ii,  323 
on  debts  due  by  heretics,  ii,  329 
Inqn.  made  judge  of  confiscations,  ii, 

350 
bad  faith  as  to  compositions,  ii,  353 
enforces  composition  of  Seville,  ii,  359 
struggles  with  receivers,  ii,  365 
pious  gifts  from  confiscations,  ii,  371 
his  lavish  grants,  ii,  373,  380 
checked  by  Inqn.,  ii,  374 
double  dealing,  ii,  376 
appropriates   from   confiscations,    ii, 

378 
spirit  of  justice,  ii,  379 
claims  sale  of  dispensations,  ii,  402 
his  use  of  benefices,  ii,  415 
obtains  gfant  of  prebends,  ii,  416,  423 
provides   no   endowment   for  Inqn., 

ii,  433 
uses  sequestrated  property,  ii,  497 
protection  of  witnesses,  ii,  549 
letter  to  Torquemada,  ii,  602 
on  diminished   confiscations,  ii,   603 
objects  to  paying  torturers,  iii,  16 
on  razing  houses,  iii,  129 
employs  galleys  as  penance,  iii,  140 
enforces  the  fiLero  for  penitents,  iii, 

150 
orders  prison  built,  iii,  151 
exempts  Moriscos  from  relapse,  iii, 

204 


Ferdinand  orders  officials'  presence  at 
autos,  iii,  212 
suppresses  Granadan  revolt,  iii,  322 
orders  instruction  of  Moriscos,  iii,  327 
orders  zealous  inquisitors,  iii,  328 
his  pledges  as  to  Moors  of  Aragon,  iii, 

343 
forbids  enforced  conversion,  iii,  344 
yields  as  to  confiscation,  iii,  358 
depopulates  the  southern  coast,  iii, 

384 
favors  the  Beata  de  Piedrahita,  iv,  7 
on  jurisdiction  over  sorcery,  iv,  183 
irregular  use  of  Inqn.,  iv,  251,  378 

Fermosa  Fembra,  la,  i,  162 

Fernandez,    Francisco,    his    letter    of 
absolution,  ii,  105 

Ferntodez   de  Aguilar,   Inq.-genl.,   his 
death,  i,  314 

Fernando  de  Aragon  on  clerical  immu- 
nity, i,  428 ;  iv,  497 

Fernando  I,  his  policy,  i,  58 

Fernando  III  assists  the  Almohades,  i, 
48 
favors  Jews,  i,  69,  89 

Fernando  IV  favors  Hermandades,  i,  29 
protects  Jews  of  Toledo,  i,  94 

Fernando  VI  rebukes  Inqn.,  i,  364 
forbids  carrying  arms,  i,  411 
limits  jurisdiction  of  Inqn.,  i,  515; 

iv,  389 
subjects  familiars  to  taxation,  ii,  281 
on  non-Catholic  recruits,  iii,  476 
defends  the  Index  of  1747,  iv,  290 
persecutes  Masonry,  iv,  301 
makes  bigamy  mixti  fori,  iv,  323 
encourages  culture,  iv,  387 
taxes  church  acquisitions,  iv,  493 

Fernando  VII  places  his  confessor  in 
Suprema,  i,  323 
restores  the  fuero,  i,  521 
Order  of  Knighthood  for  officials,  ii, 

283;  iv,  431 
suppresses  torture,  iii,  34 
exclusion  of  Jews,  iii,  314 
political  use  of  Inqn.,  iv,  277 
persecutes  Masonry,  iv,  304,  306 
dispossesses  his  father,  iv,  390 
sent  to  Valenpay,  iv,  399,  418 
his  return — his  character,  iv,  420 
overthrows  the  Cortes,  iv,  422 
sentences  the  Liberals,  iv,  423 
restores  the  Inqn.,  iv,  424 
acts  as  inquisitor,  iv,  430 
his  misgovernment,  iv,  433 
forced  to  abolish  the  Inqn.,  iv,  436 
his  policy,  iv,  439 
carried  to  Seville  and  Cddiz,  iv,  446 
liberated — his  faithlessness,  iv,  449 
his  ruthless  proscriptions,  iv,  451 
his  absolutism,  iv,  454 


INDEX 


573 


Fernando  VII  keeps  Inqn.  in  abeyance, 
iv,  455 
suppresses  Catalan  rising,  iv,  457 
suppresses  juntas  de  fe,  iv,  462 
marries  Queen  Cristina,  iv,  462 
revives  law  of  succession,  iv,  463,  465 
his  death,  iv,  466 

Fernando  Noronha,  captured  by  Jews, 
iii,  280  ' 

Ferrandez,  Juan,  his  letter  ot  absolu- 
tion, ii,  105 

Ferrer,  Benito,  case  of,  iii,  47,  60 

Ferrer,  Dr.,  of  Tortosa,  his  appeal,  i, 
439 

Feudalism,  its  rights  undermined,  i,  537 
its  disappearance,  iv,  249 

Feudal  lorcls  threatened,  i,  161 

Feyjoo,  Padre,  on  Masonry,  iv,  301 

Fez,  fate  of  exiled  Jews  there,  i,  139 

Fictitious  confession,  ii,  574 

Fiestas  de    toros,  ii,  197,  198 

Figueroa,   Bp.,    of    Segorbe,   instructs 
Moriscos,  iii,  369 

Filippo  di  Santa  Pelagia,  iv,  46 

Filosojo  Rancio,  el,  iv,  405 

Finance,  its  influence  on  persecution,  ii, 
357;  iv,  527 

Finances,  exhaustion  of  Spanish,  ii,  374 ; 
iii,  337 
of  Inqn.,  ii,  433 

contributions  from  the  Church,  i,  331 
control  of,  i,  328,  336;  ii,  190 
of  colonial  tribunals,  i,  332 
its  system,  ii,  442 
of  Inqn.  in  1731,  ii,  609 
under  Restoration,  iv,  428 
decree  of  Sep.  9,  1814,  iv,  540 
during  suppression,  iv,  460 

Financial  services  of  Jews,  i,  86 

Fineness,  standard  of,  i,  560 

Fines  under  Edict  of  Grace,  i,  169;  ii, 
320 
of  clergy  of  Murcia,  i,  421 
on  officials,  revenue  from,  ii,  279,  396 
applied  to  tribunals,  ii,  393 
proportioned  to  their  wants,  ii,  396; 

iv,  219 
their  productiveness,  ii,  398 
enforced  by  punishments,  ii,  399 
substituted  for  confiscation,  iii,  360, 

361 
for  overcoming  torture,  iii,  31 
for  fraud  in  limpieza,  ii,  304 
for  disregarding  disabilities,  iii,  175, 

179 
for  solicitation,  iv,  129 
for  propositions,  iv,  144 

Fines  and  penances,  their  abuse,  ii,  397 
See  also  Penances. 

Fire-arms,  length  of  barrel  of,  i,  402 
their  discharge  prohibited,  i,  408 


Fire-locks  prohibited,  i,  404 
Firma,  i,  451 

obtained  by  Villanueva,  ii,  145 
Fiscal,  his  position,  ii,  241 

his  early  subordination,  ii,  242 

assimilated  to  inqr.,  ii,  243 

his  duties,  ii,  480 

his  right  of  appeal,  ii,  481 ;  iii,  96 

g resents  clamosa,  ii,  489 
is  fictitious  functions,  ii,  491 
presents  accusation,  iii,  41 
refuses  counsel  to  accused,  iii,  44 
present  in  consulta  de  fe,  iii,  72 
not  in  compurgation,  iii,  116 
of  Suprema,  vote  refused  to  him,  i,  324 
Fish  not  to  be  detained  for  inqrs.,  i,  534 
Fitzwilliam,  Ellen,  pleads  for  her  hus- 
band, iii,  460 
Flagellation  of  penitents,  iv,  116 
Flanders,  Jansenism  in,  iv,  287 
Flemings,  their  greed  under  Charles  V 

ii,  381 
Flemish  sailors  prosecuted,  iii,  448,  462 
Flight  presumed  in  heresy,  ii,  491 

from  prison,  iii,  157 
Florence,  illuminism  in,  iy,  43 
Masonry  introduced,  iv,  299 
Floridablanca,  his  account  of  his  ser- 
vices, iv,  486 
Foch,  Johann,  case  of,  iii,  472,  473 
Fonolleda,  Damian  de,  sent  to   Rome, 

ii,  152,  155 
Fonseca,  Abp.,  favors  Erasmus,  iii,  417 
Fontaine,  Jacques  de  la,  S.  J.,  iv,  287 
Fontainebleau,  treaty  of,  iv,  399 
Food  for  prisoners,  ii,  524,  525,  527,  532 
its  cost,  ii,  532 
supplied  by  kindred,  ii,  530 
Forbearance  to  official  offenders,  ii,  223 
Force,  use  of,  in  conversion,  i,  41;  iii, 

348 
Foreign     merchants,     their     property 

seized,  ii,  338 
Foreigners  ineligible  for  familiars,  ii,  279 
their  losses  by  sequestration,  ii,  332 
self-confessed,  ii,  573 
their  number  in  Spain,  iii,  457 
precautions  against,  iii,  461 
privileges  granted  to,  iii,  464 
watched  by  spies,  iii,  467 
all  registered,  iii,  472 
freedom  of  conscience  for,  iii,  473 
Protestant,  cases  of,  iii,  426,  447,  448 
455,  458 
regulations  for,  iii,  472 
Forestry  laws,  iv,  481 
Forgotten  sins,  ii,  574 
Formal  heresy,  ii,  4 
Formalities  in  torture,  iii,  4 
Fornication  no  sin,  ii,  100;  iv,  145 
sequestration  in,  ii,  503 


574 


INDEX 


Fortalicium  Fidei,  i,  148 
Forty  years'  prescription,  ii,  328 
Forum  of  conscience,  heresy  in,  ii,  20 
Fourquevaux  on  French  galley-slaves, 

iii,  459 
Frailes  not  to  be  familiars,  i,  443,  454 

their  confession  of  heresy,  ii,  22 

sent  to  the  galleys,  iii,  142 
Frampton,  John,  case  of,  iii,  446 
France,  Catalonia  submits  to,  i,  477 

inquisitorial  process  in,  ii,  465 

transit  to,  iii,  271,  278 

Morisco  plots  with,  iii,  386 
exiles  pass  through,  iii,  400,  402, 
407 

complains  of  cruelty,  iii,  459 

relations  with,  iii,  470 

protests  against  visitas  de  navios,  iii, 
517,  518 

mysticism  in,  iv,  62 

indifference  to  solicitation,  iv,  101 

witchcraft  in,  iv,  246 

export  of  horses  to,  iv,  280 

Jansenism  in,  iv,  285 

favors  Masonry,  iv,  300 

intervention  of  1823,  iv,  447 

the  tithe  in,  iv,  495 
Franch,  Francisco,  case  of,  iii,  44 
Francis,  St.,  latria  due  to  him,  iv,  175 
Franciscans  urge  Inqn:,  i,  152 

claim  exemption,  ii,  30 

refuse  admission  to  Conversos,  ii,  287, 
293 

Buchanan's  satire  on,  iii,  263 

empowered  to  absolve  Lutherans,  iii, 
422 

Inqn.  used  to  reform  them,  iv,  251 
Franpois  de  Sales,  St.,  his  Quietism,  iv, 

62 
Fraud  in    office   deprived  of  fuero,  i, 
444 

in  cases  of  limpieza,  ii,  304 

in  confiscation,  ii,  363 
Frederic  II  on  disabilities  of  descend- 
ants, iii,  172 

burning  for  heretics,  iii,  183 
Free  Companions,  massacres  by,  i,  102 
Freedom  of  press  granted,  iii,  543;  iv, 

404 
Free-Masonry,  its  origin,  iv,  298 

condemned  by  Rome,  iv,  299 

prosecuted  in  Spain,  iv,  300 

its  development,  iv,  302 

its  political  activity,  iv,  303 

under  the  Restoratioa,  iv,  304 

number  of  cases,  iv,  305 

influence  in  1820-3,  iv,  438 
Free-quarters  for  troops,  i,  394 
Free-will  in  Quietism,  iv,  57 
Frejenal,   struggle  over  sanbenitos,  iii, 

167 


Frenchmen,  their  number  in  Spain,  iii, 
457 

sent  to  galleys,  iii,  459 

not  to  be  molested,  iii,  473 
Friendship  with  Jews  and  Moors,  i,  75, 

100,  111 
Friday  lighting  of  candles,  ii,  566 
Frigiliana,    Count   of,    on   finances   of 

Inqn.,  i,  335;  ii,  440 
Fuero,  active  and  passive,  i,  429,  434 

granted  to  all  claimants,  i,  468 

protects  those  in  trade,  i,  535 

under  Valencia  Concordia  of  1554,  i, 
440 

for  penitents,  iii,  150 
Fuero  Juzgo,  Jews  in,  i,  84 

sorcery  in,  iv,  179 
Fugitives,  number  of,  i,  263,  267 

effigies  of,  burnt,  i,  183 

prosecution  of,  iii,  80,  86 
Furtado  de  Mendonpa,  his  narrative, 

iii,  311 


n  ABRIEL  DE  NARBONNE,  case  of, 

^    iii,  425 

Gads,  iii,  332 

Gain,  incentive  of,  iv,  527 

Gains,  heretic  incapable  of  making,  ii, 
335 

Gag  for  prisoners,  ii,  512 
as  punishment,  iii,  139 

Gal^s,  Pedro,  case  of,  iii,  454 

Galicia  pacified  by  Isabella,  i,  25 
opposes  the  Hermandad,  i,  31 
outrages  of  billeted  troops,  i,  396 
tribunal  of,  i,  547 
its  methods  of  torture,  iii,  21 
severity  of  its  tribunal,  iii,  236 
precautions  against  Lutheranism,  iii, 

422 
witch-craze  in,  iv,  221 

Galileo,  his  Dialogo,  iii,  536 

Gallardo,  his  Gahinete  de  Curiosidades, 
iii,  545 
his  Diccionario  critico-burlesco,  iv,  409 

Galley-service  as  penance,  iii,  139 
superseded  by  presidios,  iii,  145 
transfer  of  culprits,  iii,  210 
Frenchmen    condemned   to,   iii,   459 
for  various  offences,  iv,  128,  129,  316, 

321,  331,  334,  338,  342,  345 
redemption  of,  ii,  411 

Galley-slaves  reclaimed  by  Inqn.,  iii, 
143 

Gallicanism,  tendency  to,  iv,  292 
influence  of,  iv,  386 

Gallois,  his  statistics,  iv,  518 

Gambling,  forbidden  to  priests,  i,  10 
inqrs.  to  be  moderate  in,  ii,  227 
its  prohibition,  as  penance,  iii,  133 


INDEX 


575 


Gams,  Father,  on  Spanish  peculiarities, 

on  Inqn.,  iv,  248 

his  statistics  of  burnings,  iv,  517 
Ganancias,  ii,  334 
Gandfa,  rout  of,  iii,  346 
Gandfa,  Duke  of,  ships  his  Moriscos,  iii, 

396 
Gaol-breaking,  ii,  513;  iii,  156 
Gaoler,  the,  ii,  247 

his  duties,  ii,  515,  519 

pays  expenses  of  prison,  ii,  529 

prebend  granted  to,  ii,  417 
Gaols,  condition  of,  ii,  509 
Gaon,  Jewish,  i,  87 
Garau,  Father,  on  Converses,  ii,  312 

describes  burnings,  iv,  526 
Garcia,  Pablo,  his  Orden  de  Procesar,  ii, 
475 

on  non-performance  of  sentence,  iii, 
102 

on  acquittal,  iii,  107 

on  compurgation,  iii,  117 
Garments,  Moorish,  prohibited,  iii,  332, 

335,  342 
Garrote  before  burning,  i,  263;  iii,  192, 

193,  194 
Garrotes,  iii,  19 
Garrucka,  iii,  18 
Gaspar  d.e  Toledo,  confessor  of  Philip 

III,  iv,  498 
Gastos  extraordinarios,  ii,  393 
Geltruda,  burnt  for  Molinism,  iv,  62 
Genealogies  of  accused  recorded,  ii,  260; 
iii,  38 

required  of  officials,  ii,  296 

importance  of,  ii,  256 

registers  of,  ii,  288 
General  Inquisition,  ii,  238 
General  utility,  iv,  378 

miscellaneous    duties    assumed,    iv, 
379,  382 

Jesuits  aided  against  Dominicans,  iv, 
380 

wheat-famine  in  Granada,  iv,  381 
-  quarantine  work,  iv,  381 
Generales  de  la  ley,  ii,  539 
Genoa,  mystics  in,  iv,  45 
Gentility,  privileges  of,  iii,  100 
Gentlemen  ineligible  as  familiars,  ii,  281 

sent  to  galleys,  iii,  141 

sent  to  presidios,  iii,  144 
Germaine,  Queen,  grant  to  her,  ii,  377 
Germanfa  of  Valencia,  iii,  346;  iv,  362 

Inqn.  invoked  a,gainst,  iv,  252 
Germany  indifferent  to  solicitation,  iv, 
101 

witchcraft  in,  iv,  246 

priestly  marriage  in,  iv,  337 
Gerona,  attacks  on  Jews,  i,  92,  93,  119 

auto  de  fe  in,  i,  264 


Ger6nimites  defend  New  Christians,  i, 
153 

exclude  New  Christians,  ii,  286 

of  San  Isidro,  iii,  427,  447,  448 
Ger6nimo  de  la  Madre  de  Dios,  iv,  5,  26 
Gerson,  John,  on  visions,  iv,  4 
Gesner,  Conrad,  de  Piscibus,  iii,  488 
Ghettos,  establishment  of,  i,  77 
Ghiberti,  Matteo,  his  severity,  iv,  97 
Gibraltar,  Jews  offer  to  purchase,  i,  123 

Jews  and  Moors  excluded,  iii,  312 
Gigantones,  iv,  503 
Gil,  Juan,  see  Egidio 
Giudice    Inq.-genl.,  i,  314,  318,  319 

shields  Canary  tribunal,  i,  349 
Goa,  its  tribunal,  iii,  261,  271,  310 
God  not  to  be  asked  for  anything,  iv, 

8,  26,  28 
Godoy,  Manuel,  his  career,  iv,  390 

reaction  under,  iv,  295 

his  variable  influence,  iv,  313 

plot  against  him,  iv,  393 

his  fall  from  power,  iv,  399 
Goes,  Damiao  de,  his  persecution,  iii, 

264 
Gold  coinage,  i,  560 
Gomez,  Mari,  her  release,  iii,  556 
Gonsales,  Maria,  her  confession,  ii,  459 
Gonsalvo  the  Painter,  case  of,  iii,  413 
Gonzd,lez,  Andres,  case  of,  ii,  2,  460 
Gonzalez,    Diego,   has   charge   of   Car- 

ranza,  ii,  68,  79 
Gonzd,lez  de  Mendoza  urges  expulsion 

of  Moors,  iii,  319 
Gonzalez,  Tirso,  combats  Jansenism,  iv, 

288 
Gosa,  Dr.  Juan  de,  his  opinion,  ii,  338 
Gossip  as  evidence,  ii,  563 
Government  by  favorites,  iv,  474 

loans,  investments  in,  ii,  439,  444 
Gowrie,  Earl  of,  his  corpse  tried,  iii,  81 
Goya,  his  Caprichos,  iii,  547 
Grace,  Edict  of,  see  Edict 
Grain,  import  and  export  of,  i,  385 

price  of,  fixed,  iv,  479 
Granada  pays  tribute  to  Castile,  i,  49 

treaties  with  Aragon,  i,  55 

offer  of  Moriscos  to  Charles  V,  i,  222, 
585 

its  Inqn.,  i,  548 

right  of  asylum,  i,  422  _ 

advantage  of  penitents  in,  iii,  150 

discipline  of  its  prison,  iii,  155 

sanbenitos  removed  from  Cathedral, 
iii,  168 

capitulations  of  1492,  iii,  318 

forcible  conversion,  iii,  320 

Moriscos  relieved  from  Inqn.,  iii,  323 

oppression  of  Moriscos,  iii,  331 

Edict  of  1526,  iii,  332,  335 

rebellion  of  1568,  iii,  336 


676 


INDEX 


Granada,  Morisco  expulsion,  iii,  398 
Morisoos  in  1728,  iii,  406 
quarrels  with  Chancilleria,  i,  364,  486, 

488,  517;  ii,  351,  360 
solicitation   subjected   to  Inqn.,  iv, 


fictitious  martyrs,  iv,  357 

wheat  famine  in,  iv,  381 

wealth  of  clergy  of,  iv,  494 
Granata,  la,  in  Seville,  iv,  30 
Grand  Orient  of  Madrid,  iv,  302 
Grants  from  confiscations,  ii,  373,  380 

of  commutations,  ii,  410 
Gratuities  given  by  Suprema,  ii,  197 
Gravina,  Nuncio,  contest  with  Cortes, 

iv,  415,  417 
Great  Britain,  witchcraft  in,  iv,  246 
Gr^goire,  Bp.,  his  letters  on  the  Inqn., 

iv,  397 
Gregory  I  on  Jews,  i,  39 
Gregory  IV  on  forcible  conversion,  i,  41 
Gregory  VII  on  office  holding  by  Jews, 

i,  86 
Gregory  IX  on  badges  for  Jews,  i,  69 
Gregory  XI  on  friendship  with  Moors, 

i,  56 
Gregory  XIII  on  Jews,  i,  36,  75 

on  abuse  of  privileges,  i,  454 

exempts  Jesuits  from  Inqn.,  ii,  33 

revises  Carranza's  trial,  ii,  81 

wishes  to  subordinate  Spanish  Inqn., 
ii,  128 

excludes  heresy  from  indulgences,  ii, 
25 

admits  refugees  to  Rome,  ii,  129 

seeks  to  limit  limpieza,  ii,  306 

exempts  from  irregularity,  iii,  189 

confiscations  in  Portugal,  iii,  260 

licenses   Jesuits   to   read   prohibited 
books,  iii,  522 

encourages  Maria  de  la  Visitacion,  iv, 
84 

grants    jurisdiction    in    personating 
priesthood,  iv,  341 
Gregory    XV    causes    Aliaga's    resig- 
nation, i,  308 

orders  expulsion  of  heretics,  iii,  470 

annuls  all  licences,  iii,  523 

on  solicitation,  iv,  100 

on  sorcery,  iv,  244 
Green  cross,  procession  of,  iii,  216 
Guaccio,  his  Compendium  Makficarum, 

iv,  244 
Guadalajara,  number  of  cases  in,  i,  170 

mystics  of,  iv,  4,  7 
Guadalupe,  Inqn.  of,  i,  171,  548;  ii,  367 

trials  of  the  absent,  iii,  88 
Guadoc,  iii,  329 
Gualbes,  Cristobal  de,  i,  230,  233,  235, 

237 


Guanzelli  da  Brisighella,  his  Index,  iii, 

492 
Guerrero,  Abp.,  on  Carranza's  Commen- 
taries, ii,  60,  81 

causes  rebellion  of  Granada,  iii,  334 

seeks  to  repress  solicitation,  iv,  99 
Guevara,  Ant.  de,  labors  in  Granada,  iii, 
331 

in  Valencia,  iii,  348,  355 
Guevara,    Inq.-genl.,   on    unfitness    of 
inqrs.,  i,  299 
his  resignation,  i,  306 
Guicciardini  on  Spanish  indolence,  iv, 

484 
Guidd  spirituale  of  Molinos,  iv,  49,  50, 

54,  68 
Guienne,  seizure  of  refugees,  iii,  278 
Guilds  and  confraternities,  i,  445 
Guilt,  assumption  of,  ii,  465,  482 
Guimeras,  the,  their  hardships,  ii,  354 
Guipiizcoa,  complaints  of  clergy,  i,  16 

exclusion  of  Converses,  ii,  285 

witch-craze  in,  iv,  221 
Guiral,  Inqr.,  his  peculations,  i,  190 
Gutierrez,    Alfonso,    seeks   to   remove 

secrecy,  i,  221 
Guyon,  Madame  de  la  Mo4he,  iv,  63 
Guzman,  his  service  with  Moors,  i,  56 


HABILITATION  of  mechanic  arts,  iv, 
487 

Habit,  the  penitential,  ii,  401;  iii,  162 

Habitelli,  iii,  172 

Hansa,  privileges  of  the,  iii,  463,  467 

Hardships  from  violated  compositions, 
ii,  355 

Half-pay  in  jubilation,  ii,  224 

Haro,  sales  of  land  forbidden  in,  i,  122 

Haste  in  early  trials,  iii,  76 

Hatred  of  Inquisition,  i,  469,  538 
of  laity  for  clergy,  iv,  496,  497 

Havana,  its  capture  planned  by  Jews, 
iii,  280 
Frenchmen  arrested  in,  iii,  459 

Hebrcsomastix,  i,  115 

Hefele,  Bp.,  on  the  Inqn.,  iv,  248 

Heirs  of  dead,  their  citation,  iii,  83 

Henna,  staining  nails  with,  iii,  329,  335 
use  of,  as  evidence,  ii,  566 

Henrlquez,    Henrique,    his   book   con- 
demned, iii,  534 

Henry  of  Portugal,  iii,  242,  245,  247, 
248,  249,  252,  259,  261,  265;  iv  22 

Henry,  Infante,  serves  King  of  Tunis,  i, 
57 

Henry  I,  his  concessions,  i,  3 

Henry  II  orders  badges  for  Jews  and 
Moors,  i,  69 
persecutes  Jews,  i,  101,  103  _ 
represses  Ferran  Martinez,  i,  104 


INDEX 


577 


Henry  III  represses  Ferran  Martinez, 
i,  105 
promises  protection  to  Jews,  i,  115 
claims  half  of  confiscations,  ii,  316 
on  divination,  iv,  182 

Henry  IV,  his  deposition,  i,  4 
his  improvident  grants,  i,  7 
his  treatment  of  his  daughter,  i,  19 
encourages  the  Hermandad,  i,  30 
employs  Moorish  troops,  i,  55 
favors  Jews,  i,  122 
on  Judaizing  New  Christians,  i,  152 
punishment  for  blasphemy,  iv,  328 

Henry    IV   (France),   his    plots    with 
Moriscos,  iii,  386 

Henry    VIII    (England),    his    list    of 
prohibited  books,  iii,  484 

Heredia,  Diego  de,  iv,  259,  262,  263, 
266,  271,  282 

Hereditary  offices,  ii,  219 

Hereges  flagelantes,  iv,  117 

Heresiarchs,  fate  of,  iii,  200 

Heresy,  its  denunciation  required,  i,  168 
it  disables  kings,  i,  340 
duty  of  exterminating  it,  ii,  1 
in  children,  ii,  3 
grades  of,  ii,  4 

exclusive  jurisdiction  of,  ii,  8 ;  iii,  187 
inferential,  ii,  10;  iii,  207 
a  reserved  papal  case,  ii,  19 
occult,  absolution  for,  ii,  19,  22 
formal,  absolution  for,  ii,  23 
in  trials  of  dead,  iii,  84 
in  clerics,  iii,  181 
absolution  under  indulgences,  ii,  25 
acquittal  never  final,  ii,  137,  142;  iii, 

107 
it  infects  everything,  ii,  337 
flight  presumed  in,  ii,  491 
fautorship  of,  ii,  492 
a  condition  of  sequestration,  ii,  503 
scourging  for,  iii,  136 
burning  for,  iii,  183 
requires  reconciliation,  iii,  146 
in  refusal  to  bum  heretics,  iii,  185 
in  revolutionary  principles,  iii,   543 
in  solicitation,  iv,  99,  113,  121 
in  propositions,  iv,  143,  146 
in  sorcerjr,  iv,  185 
in  exporting  horses,  iv,  281 
of  Jansenism,  iv,  285 
in  bigamy,  iv,  316,  317,  319 
in  blasphemy,  iv,  329,  331 
in  priestly  marriage,  iv,  338 
or  sanctity,  iv,  16 

Heretic,  the  last,  executed  in  Spain,  iv, 
461 

Heretics,  extradition  of,  i,  252 
never  to  be  alluded  to,  ii,  55 
their  benefices  enure  to  pope,  ii,  319 
invalidity  of  their  acts,  ii,  325,  327 

VOL.  IV 


Heretics,  claims  of  their  creditors,  ii, 
328 
incapable  of  making  gains,  ii,  335 
forfeiture  of  ships  carrying,  ii,  338 
confiscated  in  person,  ii,  340 
incapable  of  inheritance,  ii,  348 
outlawry  of,  iii,  388 
their  oaths  not  received,  iii,  467 
advocates  must  not  defend,  iii,  48 
exhumation  of  corpses,  iii,  80 
foreign,  regulations  for,  iii,  464,  472, 
473,  475 

Hergenrother,  Card.,  on  Inqn.,  iv,  248 

Heriot,  iv,  496 

Hermandad  de  S.  Pedro  Martir,  ii,  282 
la  Santa,  i,  29 

Hermaphrodites  punished,  iv,  187 

Hernia,  torture  in  cases  of,  iii,  15 

Hernandez  Diego,  iii,  416 

Herntodez,  Francisca,  iii,  416;  iv,  9 

Hernandez,  Julian,  iii,  427,  429,  445 

Herraiz,  Isabel  Maria,  iii,  208;  iv,  90 

Herrera,  prophetess  of,  her  arrest,  i,  186 
her  followers  burnt,  iv,  520 

Herrezuelo,  Antonio  de,  iii,  429,  431, 
440 

Hidalguia,    privileges   of,  i,    375,   396; 
iv,  478 

Hindu  converts,  iii,  261 

Hojeda,  Alonso  de,  urges  Inquisition,  i, 
154,  163 

Holy  Alliance  on  Liberalism,  iv,  444 
intervenes  in  Spain,  iv,  445 

Holy  See,  its  supreme  jurisdiction,  ii,  160 
rupture  with,  iv,  441 

Holland,  emigration  to,  iii,  279 

protests  against  visitas  de  navfos,  iii, 
517 

Honestas  personas,  ii,  544 

Honey  and  feathers  as  penance,  iii,  133 

Honey,  case  of  load  of,  iii,  287 

Honorary  officials,  ii,  216 

Honorius  III  on  badges  for  Jews,  i,  69 

Honorius  IV  on  disabilities  of  descend- 
ants, iii,  173 

Hornachos,  Moriscos  of,  iii,  342 

Horses,  export  of,  iv,  278 

Horstmann,  J.  Heinrich,  case  of,  iii,  477 

Hospitals,  sick  transferred  to,  ii,  523 
insane  sent  to,  iii,  59 
service  in,  as  penance,  iii,  145 
used  as  prisons,  iii,  151 

Host,  sacrilege  on,  by  Jews,  i,  116 
insults  to  it,  iv,  355,  432 

Hostegesis,  Bp.,  of  Mdlaga,  i,  46 

Hostility,  racial,  stimulated,  i,  75,  81 
to  Inquisition,  i,  214,  527 

Hours  of  the  Virgin  in  Romance  pro- 
hibited,  iii,   528 
of  work  not  observed,  ii,  226 

Houses,  appropriation  of,  i,  527 


37 


578 


INDEX 


Houses  rented  for  tribunals,  ii,  206 
private,  used  as  prisons,  iii,  151 
furnished   to   officials,   ii,    195,   208, 

218 
rents  paid  from  penances,  ii,  394 
of  officials  and  familiars  as  asylums,  i, 

422 
razing  of,  iii,  128,  207 ;  iv,  266 
Huesca,  tribunal  of,  i,  548 
College  of  Santiago,  1,  456 
episcopal  edict  of  faith,  ii,  7 
Huguenots  in  Spain,  iii,  450,  458,  471 
Humanity  to  prisoners,  ii,  524,  525 
Hunting  licences  granted,  iv,  383 
Husbands  liable  for  wives'  dowries,  ii, 

334,  341 
Hypnotism  in  mysticism,  iv,  2 

in  witchcraft,  iv,  220 
Hysteria  in  demoniacal  possession,  iv, 
350 


TDEAL  of  Inqn.,  ii,  483 

Identification  of  accused,  ii,  553 
of  witnesses  prevented,  iii,  S3 
Idiaquez,  Fran,  de,  on  Moriscos,  iii,  391 
Ignorance  as  extenuation,  iii,  63 
Illescas,  Abbot,  on  Protestants,  iii,  432, 
440,  444 

expurgation  of  his  book,  iii,  498 
niness,  removal  from  prison  during,  ii, 
505,  523 

torture  during,  iii,  15 
lUuminism,  ii,  135;  iv,  4,  9 

in  the  Edict  of  Faith,  iv,  18,  24 

in  Extremadura,  iv,  20 

taught  by  Caldera,  iv,  29 

errors  ascribed  to,  iv,  30 

is  formal  heresy,  iv,  34 

treatment  of,  iv,  35 

in  Italy,  iv,  43 

mystic,  iv,  73 
lUuminists  of  Llerena,  iv,  23 

of  Seville  burnt,  iv,  34 
Illusion  in  witchcraft,  iv,  208,  212,  217, 

219,  229,  231,  237 
Huso,  iv,  79 
Images,  irreverent,  suppressed,  iii,  546 

outrages  on,  iii,  100;  iv,  352,  391 
Immaculate  Conception,  iv,  359 

controversy  over  it,  iv,  359 

jurisdiction,  iv,  360 

censorship  over  books,  iv,  361 
Immorality  in  mysticism,  iv,  9,  23,  25, 
31,  35,  42,  43,  56,  57,  61,  70,  74 

of  17th  century,  iv,  510 
Immunity  of   clergy  disregarded,  i,  16, 
428;  iv,  497 

of  officials,  i,  265 

for  false- witness,  ii,  557 
Impartiality  to  be  preserved,  ii,  483 


Impeccability  of  mystics,  iv,  2,  8,  31, 

43,  55,  56,  74 
Impeding  the  Inqn.,  i,  341 ;  ii,  472,  492 

case  of  Ant.  P^rez,  iv,  260,  268,  269 
Imperfect  confession,  ii,  574 
Importation  of  grain,  i,  385 
Imports  supervised  by  Inqn.,  iii,  505 

of  books,  iii,  489,  505,  507,  508 

of  vellon  coinage,  iv,  283 
Impostors,  mystic,  iv,  81,  86,  87,  88 

in  Italy,  iv,  44 

in  sorcery,  iv,  197,  201 
Imposture  of  personating  officials,  iv, 
345 

of  demoniacal  possession,  iv,  351 
Imposts  on  Moriscos,  iii,  377 
Imprisonment  destroys  limpieza,  i,  357, 
510,  512;  ii,  311,  334,  340;  iii,  177 

dread  of,  ii,  511 

nature  of,  ii,  509,  514,  515,  618,  519 

as  torture,  iii,  4 

escape  from,  iii,  103 

sentences  to,  iii,  158 

cum  and  absque  misericordia,  iii,  159 
Improvidence  of  the  tribunals,  ii,  435 
Impurity  of  blood,  consequences  of,  ii, 
297 
through  penance,  ii,  299 
limitation  on,  ii,  306 
its  infection,  ii,  310 
In  absentia,  trials,  iii,  86 
In  caput  alienum,  torture,  iii,  12 
Income  from  canonries,  ii,  431 

of  Church  of  Toledo,  iv,  493 
Income-tax,  exemption  from,  i,  384 
Incomunicado,  ii,  494,  513 
In  conspectu  tormentorum,  iii,  6 
Incriminating  questions  forbidden,  ii, 

466 
Incubus,  an  illusion,  iv,  220,  231 
Indecency  of  exerciser,  iv,  352 
Independence,  financial,  of  Inqn.,  i,  328 

claimed  by  Inqn.,  i,  342 

of  Spanish  censorship,  iii,  535 
Index  Librorum  Prohibitorum,  iii,  484 

earliest  Spanish,  ni,  485 

expurgatory,  of  Bibles,  iii,  486 

Tndentine,  iii,  492 

expurgatory,  iii,  492,  494 
of  Brisighella,  iii,  492 

of  Quiroga,  iii,  493 

successive  Indexes,  iii,  495 

classification  of  authors,  iii,  500 

of  defamatory  writings,  iii,  531 

lascivious  books,  iii,  545 

astrology  placed  in,  iv,  193 

uncanonized  saints,  iv,  357 
Indexes  to  registers,  ii,  256,  259 
Indian  Bibles  suppressed,  iii,  529 
Indies,  trading  with,  by  Converses,  ii, 

357 


INDEX 


579 


Indies,  tribunals  modify  sentences,  iii, 
98  J  ,     , 

Indirecias,  iii,  63 

Indolence,  Spanish,  iv,  483 

Indulgences  not  to  include  heresy,  ii,  25 
for  disregarding  papal  letters,  ii,  106 
for  bringing  wood  to  stake,  iii,  184 
for  attending  autos,  iii,  209 

Industry,  disdain  for,  i,  2;  iv,  485 
of  Mud^jares,  i,  66 
effect  of  confiscation  on,  ii,  386 
burdens  on,  iv,  479 

In  eminenti,  bull,  iv,  299 

Infamy  caused  by  prison,  i,  510,  512 
by  arrest,  ii,"311,  490,  492 
of  impurity  of  blood,  ii,  297 
perpetuated  by  sanbenitos,  iii,  166 
no  disqualification  for  witnesses,  ii, 
538 

Infantado,  Duke  del,  shares  in  confis- 
cations, ii,  319 

Infanzones,  their  right  of  asylum,  i,  422 

Infection  shed  by  heresy,  ii,  337 

Infidel,  warlike  exports  to  the,  iv,  279 

Influence  of  Edict  of  Faith,  ii,  99 
of  confiscation,  ii,  386 
of  unjust  taxation,  iv,  478 
of  intolerance,  iv,  505 
of  Inquisition,  iv,  138,  507 
of  delation,  iv,  515 
on  intellectual  development,  iv,  528 

Informacion  de  morihus,  ii,  251 

Informers,  secrecy  enforced  on,  ii,  473 
as  to  property,  ii,  323 

Inhibition,  power  of,  i,  355 
certificates  of,  i,  495 

Innocence,  assertion  of,  ii,  584 
information  concerning,  ii,  256 

Innocent  III  on  Jews,  i,  81 

prohibits  vernacular  Bible,  iii,  527 

Innocent  IV  orders  expulsion  of  Moors, 
i,  60 
on  badges  for  Jews,  i,  69 
subjects  friars  to  Inqn.,  ii,  30 
on  dowries,  ii,  325 

Innocent  VIII  recommissions  Torque- 
mada,  i,  176 
removes  old  inqrs.,  i,  239,  263 
orders  extradition  of  heretics,  i,  253 
on  absolution  of  heresy,  ii,  20 
subjects  friars  to  Inqn.,  ii,  30 
reserves  jurisdiction  over  bps.,  ii,  41 
plays  fast  and  loose  with  appeals,  ii, 

111,  591 
on  exclusion  of  Conversos,  ii,  286 
on  qualifications  of  inqrs.,  ii,  234 
asks  mercy  for  the  reconciled,  ii,  335 
his  quinquennial  indult,  ii,  4l6 
diminishes  disabilities,  iii,  173 
on  duty  of  burning,  iii,  186 
stimulates  witchcraft,  iv,  207 


Innocent  X,  his  action  in  Villanueva's 

case,  ii,  147,  150,  154,  156 

encourages  Inqn.  of  Portugal,  iii,  282 

Innocent  XI  reforms  Portuguese  Inqn., 

iii   288 

condemns   the   Mistica   Ciudad,  iv, 

40 
favors  Molinos,  iv,  49 
his  bull  Ccclestis  Pastor,  iv,  59 
protects  Card.  Noris,  iv,  285 
condemns  Plomos  del  Sacromonte,  iv, 
358 
Innocent  XII  commends  F&elon,  iv,  67 

protects  Jansenists,  iv,  287 
Innocent    XIII    restricts    number    of 

clergy,  iv,  492 
Inns,  foreigners  forbidden  to  keep,  iii, 

465 
Inquisitio,  ii,  478 

in  case  of  Ant.  P^rez,  iv,  258 
Inquisition  of  Portugal — 

negotiations  with  Rome,  iii,  239 
Inqn.  established,  iii,  245 
has  jurisdiction  over  bps.,  ii,  87 
its  activity,  iii,  247,  259,  265,  273, 

283,  290,  308,  310 
non-residence  of  officials,  iii,  248 
investigation  into,  iii,  251 
transaction  establishing  it,  iii,  253, 

257 
suppression  of  names,  iii,  257 
confiscation,  iii,  260,  282,  288 
its  organization,  iii,  262 
intellectual  influence,  iii,  263 
under  Spanish  rule,  iii,  265 
obtains  canonries,  iii,  266 
urges  stronger  action,  iii,  275 
under  Joao  IV,  iii,  280 
opposes  reforms,  iii,  286 
resists  papal  interference,  iii,  289 
its  suspension  removed,  iii,  290 
Pombal's  reform,  iii,  310 
c6dula  of  January  17,  1619,  iii,  558 
persecutes  Masonry,  iv,  302 
unnatural  crime,  iv,  365 
Inquisition  of  Rome — 

protection  of  officials,  i,  368,  436 
annuls  papal  pardons,  ii,  107 
not  to  interfere  with  Spanish  Inqn., 

ii,  128 
rarely  imposes  fines,  ii,  400 
secrecy,  ii,  470 
sequestration,  ii,  495 
denies  sacraments  to  prisoners,  ii, 

520 
husbands  and  wives  as  witnesses,  ii, 

538 
confrontation,  ii,  553 
use  of  torture,  iii,  3 
accused  does  not  pay  torturer,  iii, 
35 


^ 


580 


INDEX 


Inquisition  of  Rome — 

procedure  reformed  by  Pius  VII, 

iii,  92 
acquittal,  iii,  105 
suspension,  iii,  106 
compurgation,  iii,  119 
scourging,  iii,  136 
galleys  as  penance,  iii,  146 
removes  sanbenitos  from  churches, 

iii,  172 
its  judgements  final,  iii,  186 
judgements  of  blood,  iii,  189 
strangulation  before  burning,   iii, 

193 
personating  priesthood,  iii,  207 ;  iv, 

340 
discards  use  of  mitres,  iii,  215 
autos  held  in  churches,  iii,  222 
intercourse  with  heretics,  iii,  465 
forbids   residence   of   heretics,   iii, 

470 
mystic  extravagance,  iv,  45 
persecutes  Pelagini,  iv,  46,  48 
solicitation,  iv,  100,  108,  109,  112, 

121,  122,  124,  128,  130 
witchcraft,  iv,  242 
bigamy,  iv,  321 
blasphemy,  iv,  333 
prosecutes  exorciser,  iv,  352 
seal  of  confession,  iv,  377 
Inquisition  of  Spain — 

asked  for  in  1451,  i,  147 
episcopal  Inqn.  ordered  in  1464,  i, 

153 
attempt  by  Sixtus  IV  in  1475,  i, 

154 
founded  in  1480,  i,  160 
Castile  receives  it,  i,  161 
imposed  on  Navarre,  i,  223 
resistance  in  Valencia,  i,  239 

in  Aragon,  i,  244 

in  Catalonia,  i,  260 
received  by  Majorca,  i,  266 
relations  with  the  State,  i,  289 
subordination  under  Ferdinand,  i, 

289 
growth     of     independence     under 
Hapsburgs,  i,  325 

culminating  under  Carlos  II,  ii- 
512 
Bourbons  reassert  control,  i,  348 
powers    which    gave    it   predomi- 
nance, i,  351 

excommunication     and     inhibi- 
tion, i,  355 

it  defines  its  own  powers,  iii,  539 

frames  its  own  rules,  i,  181;  ii, 

477 

keeps  them  secret,  ii,  475,  606 

prescribes  its  punishments,   iii, 

393  I 


Inquisition  of  Spain — 

a  crime  to  examine  its  methods, 

iv,  261 
superior  to  all  law,  i,  265,  365 
has  royal  jurisdiction  over  its  offi- 
cials, i,  345,  429 
privileges  and  exemptions,  i,  375 
resistance  in  Valencia,  i,  435 
in  Aragon,  i,  450 
in  Catalonia,  i,  465 
conflicts  with  civil  authorities,  i, 
484 
with  spiritual  courts,  i,  493 
popular  hatred  thence  arising,  i, 

527 
jurisdiction  over  heresy,  ii,  1 
enforced  on  regular  Orders,  ii,  29 
bishops  exempted,  ii,  41 
device  of  the  Edict  of  Faith,  ii,  91 
appeals  to  Rome,  ii,  103 
organization,  ii,  161 
the  Suprema  becomes  the  govern- 
ing power,  ii,  167 
organization  of  the  tribunals,  ii,  205 
limpieza,  or  purity  of  blood,  ii,  285 
finances — are  kept  secret-,  i,  325 
confiscation  the  chief  support,  ii, 

315 
fines  and  penances,  ii,  389 
dispensations,  ii,  401 
benefices,  ii,  415 
system  of  management,  ii,  453 
practice — the  Edict  of  Grace,  ii, 
457 
the  inquisitorial  process,  ii,  465, 
arrest  and  sequestration,  ii,  485 
the  secret  prison,  ii,  507 
character  of  evidence,  ii,  535 
confession  of  the  accused,  ii,  569 
the  use  of  torture,  iii,  1 
conduct  of  the  trial,  iii,  36 
the  defence,  iii,  56 
the  consulta  de  fe,  iii,  71 
the  sentence,  iii,  93 
compurgation,  iii,   113 
minor  penalties,  iii,  121 
harsher  penalties,  iii,  135 

sanbenitos  in  churches,  iii,  164 
the  quemadero — burning,  iii,  183 

responsibility  for  it,  iii,  184 
the  auto  de  fe,  iii,  209 
persecution  of  Jews,  iii,  231 
the  Portuguese  Inqn.,  iii,  237 
disappearance    of   Judaism,    iii, 
311 
persecution  of  Moriscos,  iii,  317 

tlieir  expulsion,  iii,  393 
persecution   of  Protestantism,  iii, 
411 
policy  with  foreigners,  iii,  457 
censorship,  iii,  480 


INDEX 


581 


Inquisition  of  Spain — 

censorship,  the  Indexes,  iii,  484 

visitos  de  navios,  iii,  510 

independence    from    Rome,    iii, 
533 
mysticism,  iv,  1 

in  Italy,  iv,  42 

in  France,  iv,  G2 

Molinism,  iv,  68 
solicitation,  iv,  95 
propositions,  iv,  138 
sorcery  and  occult  arts,  iv,  179 

astrology  forbidden,  iv,  192 
witchcraft,  iv,  206 

rationalistic  treatment,  iv,  231 
political  activity,  iv,  248 

case  of  Antonio  Perez,  iv,  253 

subservience  to  the   crown,  iv, 
276 

export  of  horses,  iv,  278 
Jansenism,  iv,  284 
Free-Masonry,  iv,  298 
philosophism,  iv,  307 
bigamy,  iv,  316 
blasphemy,  iv,  328 
marriage  in  Orders,  iv,  336 
personation  of  priesthood,  iv,  339 

of  officials,  iv,  344 
demoniacal  possession,  iv,  348 
outrages  on  images,  iv,  352 
uncanonized  saints,  iv,  355 
the    Immaculate    Conception,    iv, 

359 
unnatural  crime,  iv,  361 
usury,  iv,  371 
morals,  iv,  375 
the  seal  of  confession,  iv,  377 
general  utility,  iv,  378 
decadence  under  the  Bourbons,  iv, 

386 
action  on  the  Dos  de  Mayo,  iv,  400, 

539 
suppression  by  the  Cortes  in  1813, 

iv,  407 
re-establishment   in  the   Restora- 
tion, iv,  424 
suppression  in  1820,  iv,  436,  541 
dormant  under  the  reaction,  iv,  458 
definitely  abolished  in  1834,  iv,  467, 

545 
its  object  the  saving  of  souls,  ii, 

482,  569;  iii,  196 
its  service  in  preserving  peace,  iv, 

507 
contemporary  opinion,  iv,  508,  514 
indifference  to  morals,  iv,  509 
influence  on  prosperity,  iv,  504 

on  national  character,  iv,   138, 
531 

on  Spanish  intellect,  iv,  138, 148, 
528 


Inquisition  of  Spain — 

statistics  of  its  operations,  iv,  517 
its  greed,  iv,  527 

Inquisidor  de  las  Galeras,  i,  541 

Inquisitorial  process,  ii,  465 

Inquisitors-general,  list  of,  i,  556 
four  appointed,  i,  178 
formula  of  commission,  i,  176,  303, 
612 
its  duration,  ii,  161 
appointed  by  King,  i,  302 
resignations,  i,  304 
appointing  power,  i,  290,  298,  302; 

li,  161,  167,  237 
delegate  power  to  Suprema,  i,  322 
appellate  jurisdiction,  ii,  129,  187 
effect  of  their  death,  ii,  162 
fix  salaries,  ii,  163 
their  salary,  ii,  165,  196 
their  power  diminished,  ii,  166,  177, 

178 
have  but   one  vote   in  Suprema,  ii 

168 
struggle  with  Suprema,  ii,  173 
lose  control  of  finances,  ii,  192 
grant  commutations,  ii,  409 
grant  licences  for  prohibited  books, 
iii,  522 

Inquisitors,  first  appointment  of,  i,  160 
their  quahfications,  i,  188;  ii,  233,  237 
their  appointing  power,  i,  177;  ii,  237, 

280 
their  inviolability,  i,  214,  368 
their  coercive  powers,  i,  355 
claim  superiority,  i,  357 
privileges  in  travelling,  i,  395 
judges  in  their  own  suits,  i,  437 
equality  with  judges,  i,  520 
proclamation  on  taking  office,  i,  617 
delegated  by  bps.,  ii,  12 
have  no  spiritual  functions,  ii,  21,  569 
are  excommunicated,  ii,  120,  123 
their  commissions,  ii,  161,  595 
their  early  independence,  ii,  179 
their  authority,  ii,  205,  233 
are  judges  of  confiscations,  ii,  209,  350 
deputize  their  duties,  ii,  218 
rarely  dismissed,  ii,  224 
cannot  punish  officials,  ii,  225 
must  abstain  from  outside  business, 

ii,  227 
employed  as  inspectors,  ii,  228 
their  visitations,  ii,  238 
two  required  for  action,  ii,  241 
act  as  fiscals,  ii,  243 
are  prosecutors,  ii,  479 
retain  papers,  ii,  257 
cannot  grant  commutations,  ii,  409 
examine  witnesses,  ii,  541 
conduct  ratification  of  evidence,  ii, 
544 


582 


INDEX 


Inquisitors  must  draw  up  the  publica- 
tion, iii,  54 

control  defence,  iii,  64,  543 

must  examine  accused,  iii,  70 

cannot  modify  sentences,  iii,  98 

both  must  be  present  at  auto,  iii,  212 

grant  licences  to  print,  iii,  483 
Insaculacion,  i,  415,  455 
Insane,  the,  as  witnesses,  ii,  538 
Insanity,  punishment  for,  ii,  495 

torture  in  cases  of,  iii,  8 

as  a  defence,  iii,  58 
Insecurity  of  titles,  ii,  327,  339,  346 

caused  by  confiscation,  ii,  345 
Inspection,  its  routine,  ii,  228,  229 

of  prisons,  ii,  509,  524,  525;  iii,  153 
Inspectors,  li,  227 

of  books,  iii,  501 
Instruction  of  New  Christians  attempt- 
ed, i,  155 

of  con\-erts  neglected,  iii,  231 

of  Moriscos,  attempts  at,  iii,  366 
Instruciones  Antiguas,  i,  181 

Nuevas,  i,  182 

of  Mercader,  i,  273 

issued  by  command  of  the  crown,  i, 
291;  ii,  163 
by  Suprema,  ii,  162 

to  inq.-genl.,  i,  299,  300,  301 

of  December,  1484,  i,  571 

of  January,  1485,  i,  576 

of  1500,  i,  579 

kept  secret,  ii,  475,  606 

for  witchcraft  cases,  iv,  219 

of  1614  on  witchcraft,  iv,  235 
Roman,  of  1657,  iv,  244 
Insult  to  Inq.  of  Valladolid,  iv,  432 
Insults  to  images,  iv,  352 
Insurance  against  confiscation,  ii,  353 
Intellect,  Spanish,  influence  of  Inqn.  on, 

iv,  138,  148,  528 
Intention,  denial  of,  ii,  576;  iii,  199 

torture  for,  ii,  576 
Intercommunication  of  records,  ii,  2C0 
Intercourse  with  Moors  and  Jews,  i,  55, 

75,  117 
Interdict,  power  of,  i,  355 

abuse  of,  i,  120,  187,  495,  514 
Interest,  rates  of,  i,  97 
Interim,  priestly  marriage  in,  iv,  337 
Intermarriage  of  Moriscos,  iii,  380 

of  New  and  Old  Christians,  i,  120 
in  Portugal,  iii,  238 
Inter  multiplices,  bull,  iii,  107 
Internal  heresy,  ii,  4 
Interpreters,  two  required,  ii,  182 
Interrogatories   in   inspections,   ii,   229 

of  witnesses,  ii,  542 

for  defence,  ii,  593;  iii,  64 
Interval  before  ratification,  ii,  546 
Intolerance,  rise  of,  i,  59 


Intolerance,  its  results,  iv,  504 

its  prevalence,  iv,  531 
Intoxication,  plea  of,  iii,  63 
Invalidity  of  acts  by  heretics,  ii,  325, 327 
Invasion  of  secular  jurisdiction,  i,  431 

the  French,  in  1823,  iv,  447 
Inventory  .at  sequestration,  ii,  496 

charged  to  receiver,  ii,  341 
Investments  of  tribunals  controlled  by 
Suprema,  ii,  191 

converted  to  government   loans,  ii, 
203 

of  Suprema,  ii,  201 
Investigation  into  limpieza,  ii,  301 
Inviolability,  i,  367 
Invocation  of  demon,  iv,  199 
Irregularity  in  judgements  of  blood,  i, 

273;  iii,  184,  188 
Irremlssible  prison  redeemed,  ii,  411 
Irresponsibility  of  Inqn.,  i,  341;  ii,  181, 

478 
Irreverence  to  sacred  objects,  iv,  353 
Isabel  de  la  Cruz,  a  mystic,  iv,  7 
Isabella  the  Catholic  appoints  Ximenes 
to  Toledo,  i,  14 

her  character,  i,  22 

her  enforcement  of  jurisdiction,  i,  24, 
28 

her  vigilant  justice,  i,  26 

her  share  in  government,  i,  27 

expels  Jews  of  Andalusia,  i,  131 

disregards  appeals  for  Inquisition,  i, 
155 

delays  organization  of  Inquisition,  i, 
160 

intercedes  for  a  servant,  ii,  114 

seeks  to  avoid  appeals  to  Rome,  ii,  108 

revision  of  criminal  procedure,  ii,  466 

converts  Moors  of  Castile,  iii,  324 
Isabella,    Empress,   violates  privileges 
of  Inqn.,  i,  304,  404 
on  juero  of  servants,  i,  433 
Isabella  II  recognized  as  queen,  iv,  465 
Isidor  of  Seville  (St.)  on  Jews,  i,  40 
Islam,  toleration  under,  i,  45 

disappears  from  Spain,  iii,  405 
Isolation  of  prisoners,  ii,  515 

of  Spain,  iii,  411,  449 
Italy,  Mendicant  Orders  subjected  to 
Inqn.,  ii,  33 

Portuguese  Conversos  invited,  iii,  253 

mysticism,  iv,  42 

witchcraft,  iv,  242 

unnatural  crime,  iv  365 
Itinerant  tribunals,  ii,  206 


TAEN,  tribunal  of,  i,  166,  548;  iii,  332 
"     its  cruelties,   i,   211,  213;  ii,  526, 
529 
exclusion  of  Conversos,  ii,  290 


INDEX 


683 


Jaen,  case  of  the  chapter  of,  ii,  346 
complaint  of  false  witness,  ii,  555 
as  to  advocates,  iii,  45,  48 

Jaime  I,  his  relations  with  Moors,  i,  55 
refuses  to  expel  Moors,  i,  70 
presides  over  disputation,  i,  90 
authorizes  conversion  by  preaching, 

i,91 
restrams  persecution,   i,   92 
on  confiscation,  iii,  359 
prohibits  vernacular  Bible,  iii,  527 

Jaime  II,  his  treaties  with  Moors,  i,  55 
protects  Jews,  i,  89 
the  Jews  of  Palma,  i,  93 
his  use  of  Inquisition,  i,  94 

Jansenism,  iv,  284 

nature  of  the  heresy,  iv,  285,  292 
struggle  in  Flanders,  iv,  287 
Index  of  Prado  y  Cuesta,  iv,  289 
its  development,  iv,  293 
reaction  under  Godoy,  iv,  295 
its  disappearance,  iv,  297 
is  Masonry,  iv,  298 
is  Liberalism,  iv,  455 

Jeanne  of  Navarre  pillages  Jews,  i,  100 

Jehoshua  Ha-Lorqui,  i,  115 

Jesi,  Quietists  in,  iv,  54 

Jesuit  member  of  Suprema,  i,  323 

Jesuits  of  Palermo,  their  drama,  i,  370 
claim  exemption  from  Inqn.,  ii,  33 
case  of  Padre  Briviesca,  ii,  34 
struggle  to  escape  jurisdiction,  ii,  36 
hcensed  to  read  prohibited  books,  iii, 

522 
attacked  by  Universities,  iii,  532 
their  mysticism,  iv,  18 
attack  Molinos,  iv,  51 
defend  F(Snelon,  iv,  66 
attack  Card.  Noris,  iv,  284 
control  Inqn.,  iv,  288 
their  expulsion,  iv,  294 
repatriated,   iv,   295 
aided  against  Dominicans,  iv,  380 
suppressed  in  1820,  iv,  441 

Jew  as  a  name  of  disgrace,  iii,  291 

Jewish  observances,  prosecution  for,  i, 
147;  ii,  565;  iii,  232 

Jews,  their  vicissitudes,  i,  35 

attitude  of  Church  towards  them,  i, 

36 
forced  conversions  in  Gothia,  i,  39 
persecutions  in  Gothic  Spain,  i,  41 
they  favor  the  Moorish  conquest,  i,  44 
their  position  under  Saracens,  i,  50 
are  citizens  in  Castile,  i,  60,  84 
badges  imposed  on,  i,  68 
influence  of  Council  of  Vienne,  i,  71 
forbidden  to  hold  office,  i,  73,  94 

to  practise  medicine,  i,  74 
intimacy  with,  forbidden,  i,  75 
their  segregation  ordered,  i,  76 


Jews,  position  in  Middle  Ages,  i,  81 
massacres,  i,  83 
toleration  in  Spain,  i,  84 
their  services,  i,  85 
their  numbers,  i,  86 
favor  shown  to  them  i,  87 
massacred  by  crusaders,  i,  88 
conversion  by  preaching,  i,  91 
commencement  of  hostility,  i,  94 

its  causes,  i,  96 
massacre  in  Navarre,  i,  100 

caused  by  Black  Death,  i,  101 

in  1366,  i,  102 

in  1391,  i,  106 
its  effects,  i,  110 
increasing  oppression,  i,  115 
extensive  conversions,  i,  118 
reaction  in  their  favor,  i,  121 
oppression     under     Ferdinand     and 

Isabella  i,  124 
diminished  numbers,  i,  125 
not  subject  to  Inquisition,  i,  130 
expulsion  of  1492,  i,  135 
return  forbidden,  i,  141;  iii,  311,  314 
number  of  exiles,  i,  142 
settlements  with  the  exiles,  i,  569 
hatred  of  them  stimulated,  i,  150 
required  to  denounce  New  Christians, 

i,  168 
foreign,  their  property  seized,  ii,  338 
as  witnesses,  li,  536 

not  for  defence,  ii,  539 
neglect  of  instruction,  iii,  231 
character  of  proofs,  i,  147;  ii,  565; 

iii,  232 
apparent  extirpation,  iii,  234 
treatment  in  Portugal,   iu,   237-50, 

272 
invited  to  Italy,  iii,  254 
influx  from  Portugal,  iii,  266,  277 
purchase  pardon  from  Philip  III,  iii, 

267 
Judaizers  are  all  Portuguese,  iii,  270 
enmity  towards  them.,  iii,  272,  290 
dangers  apprehended  from  them,  iii, 

276 
their  assistance  to  Holland,  iii,  279 
offers  for  relief  in  Portugal,  iii,  283, 

286 
their  admission  proposed,  iii,  292 
proselytism  ascribed  to,  iii,  293 
persistent  persecution  iii,  297,  303 
concealment  practised,  iii,  300 
persecution  in  Majorca,  iii,  305 
cessation  of  persecution,  iii,  311 
exclusion  of  foreign,  iii,  311,  314 
admitted  to  Spain,  iii,  315 
argument  in  their  favor,  iv,  506 
Joan  of  Kent  burnt,  iv,  532 
Joao  II  bargains  with  Jews,  i,  137 
Joao  III  bargains  for  Inqn.,  iii,  239 


684 


INDEX 


Joao  III,  his  quarrel  with  da  Silva,  iii, 
244 
his  struggle  with  Paul  III,  iii,  250 
his  payments  to  Rome,  iii,  252 
obtains  unrestricted  Inqn.,  iii,  254 
his  inquisitorial  policy,  iii,  256 
founds  no  colonial  Inqn.,  iii,  260 

Joao  IV,  his  policy,  iii,  280 
evades  confiscation,  iii,  281 

Joctilarity  as  extenuation,  iii,  63 

John  of  Austria,  Don,  sent  to  Granada, 
iii,  338 

John  of  Austria  (2d)  expels  Nithard,  i, 
311 

John,  King,  his  extortions,  i,  83 

John  XXII  persecutes  sorcery,  iv,  181 

Jos6,  Dom  of  Portugal,  his  reforms,  iii, 
310 

Joseph  ben  Joshua  ben  Mier  on  the 
expulsion,  i,  143 

Joseph  Bona^art,  King  of  Spain,  iv,  399 

Jovellanos,  Caspar  Melchor  de,  iv,  394 
on  lack  of  roads,  iv,  480 
on  burden  of  Church,  iv,  495 

Juan    I    (Castile)    regulates    Herman- 
dades,  i,  29 
prohibits  employment  of  Jews,  i,  99 
avenges  Yu9af  Pichon,  i,  103 
represses  Ferran  Martinez,  i,  104 
on  sorcery,  iv,  182 

Juan  II  (Castile),  his  disastrous  reign, 

favors  Hermandad,  i,  30 

favors  Jews,  i,  121 

applies  for  Inquisition,  i,  147 

exemptions  from  military  service,  i, 
412 

applies  to  the  pope,  iv,  489 
Juan  I  (Aragon)  represses  massacre  of 

1391,  i,  108 
Juan  II  (Aragon)  relieved  of  cataract, 
i,  75 

proposes  expulsion  of  Moors,  iii,  317 

his  oath  as  to  usury,  iv,  372 
Juan  de  Avila  on  illusions,  iv,  15 
Juan  de  la  Cerda  serves  king  of  Morocco, 

i,  57 
Juan  de  la  Cruz  on  observances,  iv,  3 

his  persecution,  iv,  17 
Juan  de  la  Cruz  an  alumbrado,  iv,  25 
Juan  Manuel,  his  turbulence,  i,  54 
Juan  de  Olmillos  a  mystic,  iv,  7 
Jfuan  of  Seville,  his  fate,  ii,  108,  109 
Juana,  daughter  of  Henry  IV,  i,  19 
Juana  and  Philip,  appealed  to  by  C6r- 

dova,  i,  196,  201 
Juana,  Princess,  banishes  Vald^s,  ii,  47 ; 
iii,  433 

has  Carranza  arrested,  ii,  64 
Jubilation,  ii,  174,  216,  224 

restricted  by  Philip  V,  ii,  223 


Jubilee  indulgences  objected  to,  ii,  24, 

578 
Judaism  of  New  Christians,  i,  151 ;  ii, 

232,  238,  300,  305 
Judaism,  its  extirpation,  iii,  234,  300 

books  on,  burnt,  iii,  480 

converts  to,  iii,  293 
Judaizers,  their  cases  not  calificado,  ii, 
488 

are  all  Portuguese,  iii,  270 
Juderias,  i,  64,  77 

Judgements  of  blood,  iii,  184,  188,  273 
permitted,  i,  367 
in  churches,  iii,  223 
Judge,  secular,  his  sentence,  iii,   185, 
186,  219,  225 

penalty  for  not  executing  sentence, 
iii,  187 
Judges  as  prosecutors,  ii,  465 

recusation  of,  ii,  467 

responsibility  of,  iii,  1 

discretion  as  to  torture,  iii,  30 

as  consultores,  ii,  266 
Judges,  royal,  humiliation  of,  i,  518,  519 

terrorism  of,  i,  439 

must  be  present  at  autos,  iii,  212 
Juez  de  los  bienes,  ii,  250,  350 

disappears,  ii,  217,  371 
Juglar,  Caspar,  appoints  inqrs.,  i,  231 

his  commission  withdrawn,  i,  233 

his  poisoning   i,  244,  592 
Julian,  St.,  on  Jews,  i,  43 
Julius  II  asserts  appellate  jurisdiction, 
ii,  116 

separates  Inqn.  of  Aragon,  i,  180 

authorizes  Talavera's  prosecution,  i, 
199 

decides  against  Cordova,  i,  203,  582 

orders  trial  ot  Lucero^  i,  206 

renews  quinquennial  mdult,  ii,  417 

subjects  usury  to  Inqn.,  iv,  372 
Julius  III  confirms  sale  of  pardons  for 
crime,  ii,  107 

renounces  appellate  jurisdiction,  ii, 
128 

enforces  limpieza,  ii,  293 

on  profits  of  nuncios,  iii,  243 

gifts  to  him,  iii,  252 

protects  Jews  in  Italy,  iii,  254 

stimulates  the  Inqn.,  iii,  426 

annuls  licences  for  prohibited  books, 
iii,  521 
Junta  Apostolica,  iv,  443,  456 

Central  orders  Cortes  convoked,  iv, 
402 

de  Estado,  i,  525 

Grande  de  Competencias,  i,  324 

de  hacienda,  ii,  230,  453 

Magna,  the,  i,  511 

of  Ozarzun   iv,  447 
Juntas  de  fe,  iv,  460,  461,  468 


INDEX 


685 


Jurisdiction,  supreme,  of  Rome,  ii,  103, 
160 
of  bishops,  i,  497;  ii,  5,  12 
cumulative,  of  Inqn.  and  bps.,  ii,  10 
exclusive,  of  Inqn.,  i,  341,  437 
the  Inqn.  defines  its  own,  ii,  89 
of  Inqn.,  its  superiority,  i,  357 
illegal  extension  of,  i,  431 
over  officials,  i,  429 
claims  made  for  it,  i,  343,  490,  614 
conflict  with  royal  jurisdiction    iii 

539 
over  conscience,  ii,  19 
over  confiscations,  ii,  209,  350 
over  solicitation,  iv,  99 
over  sorcery,  iv,  183,  189 
over  witchcraft,  iv,  213, 216, 222,  228, 

236 
over  export  of  horses,  iv,  279 
over  Masonry,  iv,  300 
over  bigamy,  iv,  316,  324 
over  blasphemy,  iv,  329 
over  unnatural  crime,  iv,  362 
over  usury,  iv,  372 
over  morals,  iv,  375 
military,  conflicts  with,  i,  504 
appellate,  of  Ifiigo  Manrique,  ii,  108 

of  inq.-genl.,  ii,  187 
ecclesiastical,  struggle  over,  iii,  534 
Jury  relieves  judges,  iii,  1 
Justice  enforced  by  Isabella,  i,  24 
inculcated  by  Ferdinand,  i,  297 
perversion  of,  in  Castile,  ii,  468 
Justicia  of  Aragon,  i,  450;  iv,  257,  270 
Justification    by    works    rejected    by 

mystics,  iv,  3,  8,  28 
Juzgado,  ii,  250 

KINDLINESS  to   prisoners,  ii,  524, 
525 
of  Ferdinand,  i,  22;  ii,  332,  344,  378, 
499 
Kindred,  infamy  extends  to,  ii,  143, 311 
duty  of  denunciation,  ii,  96,  462,  578 
as  witnesses,  ii,  537,  539 
their  consultation  with  counsel,  iii, 
44,48 
Kings   must   make   inquiries   through 
Suprema,  i,  326 
ask  and  do  not  command  Inqn.,  i, 

327 
subject  to  Inqn.,  i,  340;  ii,  29 
their  oaths  at  autos,  i,  353;  iii,  218 
as  ultimate  judges,  i,  356 
inqrs.  to  consult  with,  ii,  163 
Knighthood,  Order  of,  for  officials,  ii, 

283 
Knives  allowed  to  Moriscos,  iii,  379 

censorship  of,  iii,   546 
Koran  classed  with  Bible,  iii,  529 


T  A   ALMIRANTA,    her   martyrdom, 
-^     iii,  197 

La  Barre,  Jean  de,  case  of,  ii,  557 
Labor,  aversion  for,  i,  58;  iv,  483 

forced,  of  Moriscos,  iii,  377 
Labour,  Pays  de,  witches  in,  iv,  228, 246 
Labradores,  i,  375 ;  iv,  478 
La  Force,  his  plots  with  Moriscos,  iii, 
387 

receives  Morisco  exiles,  iii,  402 
La  Croix,  Ursule  de,  her  relapse,  ii,  572 
La  Guardia,  el  Santo  Nino  de,  i,  134 
Laity  not  subject  to  spiritual  courts,  i, 

15 
La  Mancha,  Morisco  expulsion,  iii,  400 
La  Mata^complaint  of  people  of  j  ii,  347 
Lancre,  Pierre  de,  on  witchcraft,  iv,  228, 

246 
Lanuza,  Juan  de,  iv,  262,  263,  264,  265 
Lanuza,  Martin  de,  iv,  263,  264,  266, 271 
Lanz,  Miguel,  his  cruelty,  iv,  267 
Lara,  Maria,  her  heresy,  ii,  23 
Las  Casas,  Diego  de,   his  mission  to 

Rome,  i,  276 
Lata  sententioe,  excommunication,  i,  393 
Latan^on,  Marcos  de,  case  of,  iv,  131 
Lateau,  Louise,  iv,  94 
Lateran  Council  imposes  badges,  i,  68 
on  Jewish  rites,  ii,  565 
on  dealings  with  infidels,  iv,  279 
Latin  schools,  number  of,  iv,  485 
Laws,  codification  of,  i,  27 

of  the  Moors,  i,  65 

Inqn.  superior  to,  i,  365 

enforced  by  Inqn.,  iv,  278 
Lawyers,  inqrs.  must  be,  ii,  235 

as  consultores,  ii,  266 
Laxity  of  prison  discipline,  ii,  518 

of  rules  of  evidence,  ii,  564 
Laybach,  Congress  of,  iv,  444 
Laymen  as  inspectors,  ii,  228 

as  assessors,  ii,  232 

as  inquisitors,  ii,  235 

in  judgements  of  faith,  ii,  266,  267 

as  commissioners,  ii,  269 

acting  as  confessors,  iv.  111,  344 
Lazaeta,  Inqr.,  case  of,  i,  461 
Lee,  Edward,  on  errors  of  Erasmus,  iii, 

414 
Leganes,  Marquis  of,  as  alguazil  mayor, 

i,  162;  ii,  207 
Legates,  Spain  objects  to,  i,  15 
Legatine  Inquisition  of  Sixtus  IV,  i,  154 
Legitimacy  as  qualification,  ii,  251,  279 
Leguina,  commissioner,  his  quarrels,  iii, 

514 
Le  Maitre  de  Saci,  his  Bible,  iii,  530 
Lencastre,  Inq.-genl.,  his   contumacy, 

iii,  289 
Leniency  to  official  offenders,  ii,  223 

to  espontaneados,  ii,  573 


586 


INDEX 


Leniency  towards  clerics,  iii,  100 
in  solicitation,  iv,  127 
in  personating  priesthood,  iv,  344 
in  insults  to  images,  iv,  354 
in  unnatural  crime,  iv,  369 
of  spiritual  courts,  ii,  469;  iv,  97 
Leo  X  orders  Inqn.  in  Navarre,  i,  224 
permits  judgements  of  blood,  i,  273, 

367;  iii,  89 
action  in  the  Aragonese  quarrels,  i, 

272,  274,  279,  280,  281,  284 
limits  jurisdiction,  i,  432 
orders  episcopal  concurrence,  ii,  14 
issues  and  annuls  letters,  ii,  118,  121 
case  of  Miguel  Vedrena,  ii,  120 
case  of  Blanquina  Diaz,  ii,  122 
commits  appeals  to  Adrian,  ii,  125 
confers  appellate  power  on  Suprema, 

ii,  164 
confirms  acts  by  heretics,  ii,  328 
on  prosecuting  the  wealthy,  ii,  385 
his  dispensations,  ii,  405 
refuses  canonries  to  Inqn.,  ii,  424 
on  false  witness,  ii,  555 
on  burning  heretics,  iii,  184 
suppression  of  Luther's  books,  iii,  413 
Leo   XIII,    canonization  of   Maria   de 
Agreda,  iv,  41 
blesses  Sor  Patrocinio,  iv,  93 
Leon  tribunal  of,  i,  548 
Leoni,  the  brothers,  condemned,  iv,  59 
Leonor  of  Navarre,  her  borrowing,  i,  98 
Leopold  I  sends  exorcist  to  Carlos  II, 

ii,  172 
Leopold  of  Tuscany,  his  Jansenism,  iv, 

286 
Lequeitio  complains  of  its  priests,  i,  16 
L&ida,  its  surrender  in  1149,  i,  52 

its  tribunal,  i,  549 
Lerma,  Duke  of,  his  downfall,  i,  307 

his  greed,  iii,  410 
Lerma,  Pedro  de,  case  of,  iii,  419 
Le  Sauvage,  Jean,  favors  reform,  i,  218 
Letrados  as  inqrs.,  ii,  234 
Letters,  papal,  to  Conversos,  struggle 
over,  ii,  104,  110,  111,  113,  114, 
117,  121,  123,  125,  128,  131;  iii, 
245,  247,  249 
regulated  by  Carlos  III,  i,  321 
of  exemption  from  conscription,  i,  414 
Leyes,  Jacobo  de  las,  on  sorcery,  iv,  179 
Liberalism,  its  follies  in  1820-23,  iv,  438 
Liberals,  proscription  of,  iv,  433,  452 
Liberties,  popular,  in  Aragon,  i,  229 
Libra,  value  of,  i,  565 
Libraries,  examination  of,  iii,  487,  489, 
495,  498,  499,  501^  502 
commission  for  examining,  iii,  574 
death  of  their  owners,  iii,  502,  504 
Libra  del  Becerro,  ii,  299 
for  property,  ii.  454 


Libra  de  manifestacianes,  ii,  341 

Verde  de  Aragon,  ii,  298,  307 
its  statistics,  iv,  521 
of  Fernando  VII,  iv,  452 
Libras  Vacandarum,  ii,  260 
Licences  to  trade  with  Saracens,  i,  56 

for  emigration,  i,  184,  246 

to  import  wheat,  i,  386 

to  absolve  for  heresy,  ii,  21 

to  convey  property,  ii,  346 

for  rehabihtations,  ii,  404 

for  Jews,  iii,  312,  313,  315 

papal,  to  Jews,  i,  124 

for  residence  of  foreigners,  iii,  472 

to  print,  iii,  481,  483,  489 

to  keep  writings,  iii,  489 

to  convents  for  prohibited  books,  iii, 
503 

to  sell  new  books,  iii,  508 

to  read  prohibited  books,  iii,  521,  524 
575 

to  hunt,  iv,  383 
Lifige,  mystic  nuns  of,  iv,  2 
Life-imprisonment  for  penitents,  iii,  151 
Lights  forbidden  to  prisoners,  ii,  519 
Liguori,  St.  Alphonso,   on  sorcery,  iv, 

205 
Lima,  audacity  of  tribunal  of,  i,  317 

quarrel  with  Abp.  Barroeta,  ii,  17 

contributions  from,  ii,  201 

sale  of  offices,  ii,  215 

case  of  sorcerer,  iv,  201 

officials  deprived  of  fuera,  iv,  389 
Limitation  of  impurity  of  blood,  ii,  297, 

306 
Limpieza  as  qualification,  ii,  251 

use  of  records  as  to,  ii,  259,  261 

early  traces,  ii,  285 

development  of  mania^  ii,  290 

its  general  adoption,  li,  292 

method  of  verification  ii,  295,  301 

investigation  of  officials,  ii,  296 

difficulty  of  its  proof,  ii,  300 

motives  for  proving,  ii,  305 

its  influence,  i,  357;  ii,  309 

stimulates  dread  of  Inqn.,  ii,  310 

under  Restoration,  ii,  311 

stimulates  false-witness,  ii,  559 

struggle  over  saribenitos,  iii,  167 

applied  to  Moriscos,  iii,  379 
Limpo,  Balthazar,  Bp.  of  Porto,  iii,  253 
Linen,  change  of,  ii,  566;  iii,  232 
Lippomano,  Luigi,  nuncio,  iii,  245,  246, 

247,  248,  249 
Lisbon,  massacre  of  1506,  i,  140 
Lists  of  familiars,  i,  440,  467;  ii,  274,  277 
Literature,  discouragement  of,  iii,  549; 

iv,  528 
Litigation,  fees  from,  ii,  279 
Llerena,  New  Christians  punished,  i,  153 
tribunal  established,  i,  171,  549 


INDEX 


687 


Llerena,  its  abuses,  i,  213,  382;  ii,  499, 
526,  529;  iii,  4  5,  48 

claims  exemption  from  taxation,   i, 
380 

receipts  from  penances,  ii,  397 

carrying  effigies  in  auto,  iii,  226 

alumbrados  of,  iv,  21,  23 
Llorente    on    licences    for   prohibited 
books,  iii,  524 

his  statistics,  iv,  517,  524 
Llotger,  Fray  Juan,  inquisitor,  i,  94 
Loan  from  Inqn.  to  king,  i,  334 
Loazes,  Fern,  de,  i,  286, 287, 467 ;  ii,  491 ; 

iii,  350 
Loberos,  iv,  200 

Locksmith  reckoned  an  official,  ii,  211 
Lodgement,  free  for  officials,  i,  395;  ii, 

206,  208 
Logan,  Robert,  his  corpse  tried,  iii,  81 
Logrono,  its  tribunal,  i,  227,  549 

corregidor  punished,  ij  432 

trouble  over  coaches,  i,  531 

trouble  over  shambles,  i,  532 

hatred  of  Inqn.,  i,  538 

required  to  aid  Suprema,  ii,  193 

abuse  of  fines  and  penances,  ii,  397 

its  finances,  ii,  436,  444 

troubles  in  visitas  de  navios,  iii,  516 

auto  of  1610,  iii,  219;  iv,  225 

witchcraft,  iv,  224,  228 

its  reconstruction,  iv,  426 
Lombay,  Marquis  of,  at  Saragossa,  iv, 

265 
Longas,  Juan  de,  case  of,  iv,  76 
Lopez,  Padre  Luis,  S.  J.,  ii,  24 
Lopez,  Maria  de  los  Dolores,  iv,  89 
Lopez,  Abp.  of  Valencia,  his  junta  de 

fe,  iv,  460 
Lords,  feudal,  obtain  share  of  confis- 
cations, ii,  319 

of  Moriscos  obstruct  their  conversion, 
iii,  369 
Lorenzana,  Inq.-genl.,  his  dismissal,  i, 

321;  iv,  393 
Louis  IX,  his  treatment  of  Jews,  i,  83 
Louis  XIV,  his  anger  at  Giudice,  i,  316 

persecutes  F6nelon,  iv,  65 
Louis  XVIII  counsels  moderation,  iv, 

450 
Louvain,  Indexes  of,  iii,  485 

Jansenism  in,  iv,  287 
Love-letters  in  confessional,  iv,  112 
Loyola,  Ignatius,  his  persecution,  iv,  14 

on  mysticism,  iv,  17 
Lucas  of  Tuy  on  Jews,  i,  87 
Lucena,  Petronila  de,  case  of,  iii.  111; 

iv,  13 
Lucero,  his  career  at  Cordova,  i,  189 

attacks  Hernando  de  Talavera,  i,  197 

his  trial  ordered,  i,  200 

his  retirement,  i,  210 


Lucero,  his  use  of  perjury,  ii,  555 

Lucius  III  permits  no  exemption,  ii,  30 
prescribes  confiscation,  ii,  316 

Luctuosa,  iv,  496 

Luis  de  Granada  on  good  works,  iv,  3 
his  works  prohibited,  iii,  530;  iv,  17 
endorses  Marfa  de   la  Visitaeion,  iv, 

.  ^^ 
Luis  de  Leon,  sacraments  denied  to,  ii, 
520 

his  patrones  ieologos,  iii,  52;  iv,  154 

seeks  to  recuse  judges,  iii,  58 

his  first  trial,  iv,  149 

his  second  trial,  iv,  159 
Luisa  de  Carrion,  case  of,  iv,  36 
Luminarias,  ii,  195 
Luna,  Alvaro  de,  favors  Jews,  i,  121 

asks  for  Inqn.,  i,  147 
Luther's  books,  seizure  of,  iii,  413,  421 
Lutheran  revolt,  its  influence,  iii,  412; 

iv,  4 
Lutherans  invited  to  conversion,  iii,  422 
Lutheranism,  zeal  for  its  suppression, 
iii,  413 

factitious,  iii,  426,  453,  458 

statistics  of,  iii,  426,  455,  461 


IvrACANAZ,     MELCHOR     DE,     his 
■^"-     career,  i,  315 

his  defence  of  Inqn.,  i,  319 

his  confiscated  estate,  ii,  370,  455 

oh  number  of  officials,  iv,  486 

on  growth  of  Church,  iv,  492 
Machiavelli  on  Ferdinand,  i,  21 

on  Jewish  expulsion,  i,  143 
Madrid,  fuero  of,  in  1202,  i,  61_ 

enforcement  of  police  rules,  i,  366 

tribunal  of,  i,  545,  550 
rebuked,  ii,  186 

cost  of  prisoners,  ii,  532 

auto  of  1632,  i,  353;  iii,  130,  147,  150, 
212,  214,  220,  228 

auto  of  1680,  iii,  136,  139,  212,  218, 
225,  228 

insurrection  of  May  2,  iv,  399 

conflict  with  royal  guard,  iv,  443 

relaxations  in,  iv,  523 
Maestra  de  Espiriiu,  iv,  86 
Maestre  racional,  ii,  446 
Magdalena  de  la  Cruz,  iii,  94;  iv,  82 
Magic,  its  prevalence  among  Moors,  iv, 

180 
Magicians  persecuted  by  Ramiro  I,  iv, 

179 
Magistral  canonries,  ii,  421 
Magistrates,  their  oaths,  i,  352 

their  function  in  relaxation,  iii,  186 
Maimonides  flies  from  Spain,  i,  51 
Maintenance  of  prisoners,  ii,  500,  528, 

531 


688 


INDEX 


Maistre,  Joseph  de,  on  the  Inqn.,  iv,  248 

Majestas,  prosecution  of  the  dead  for, 
iii,  81 

Majorca,  massacre  in  1391,  i,  109 
oppressive  legislation,  i,  117 
its  tribunal,  i,  266 
composition  in,  i,  267 
Time  of  Mercy,  ii,  461 
military  service  of  familiars,  i,  413 
right  to  hold  office,  i,  415,  418 
extension  of  jurisdiction,  i,  431 
its  temporal  jurisdiction,  i,  484 
conflicts  with   spiritual  jurisdiction, 

i,  498 
tribunal  humiliated,  i,  504 
conflicts  with  Military  Orders,  i,  506 
appeals  referred  to  bp.,  ii,  112 
canons  appeal  to  Rome,  ii,  158 
required  to  aid  Logrofio,  ii,  193 
inordinate  number  of  officials,  ii,  211 
finances  of  tribunal,  ii,  437,  441 
reconciliations  in,  iii,  148,  149 
sanbenitos  in  churches,  iii,  172 
fines  on  the  reconciled,  iii,  207 
autos  of  1679  and  1691,  iii,  225,  306; 

iv  526 
confiscations  of  1679,  i,  335,  iii,  306; 

iv,  512 
Judaism  extinguished,  iii,  307 
position  of  New  Christians,  ii,  312; 

iii,  305 
Lutheranism  in,  iii,  413 
seizure  of  Dutch  vessel,  iii,  467 
attempt  to  seize  French  vessel,  iii,  471 
visitas  de  navios,  iii,  512 
unnatural  crime  not  subject  to  Inqn., 

iv,  364 
condition  of  tribunal  in  1830,  iv,  458 
operations  of  its  tribunal,  iv,  522 

Mala  doctrina,  iv,  118,  121 

Mdlaga,  quarrel  over  canonry,  i,  342, 348 

Malfeasance  in  office  f orf eits  /wero,  i,  444 

Malignity,  gratification  of,  ii,  100 

Mallani,  Abp.,  case  of,  ii,  87 

Maltreatment  of  inquisitors  forbidden, 
i,  214,  367 

Malversation,  ii,  365,  438,  451 

Mancha  of  impurity  of  blood,  ii,  297 

Mancuerda,  iii,  20 

Mandates  to  spiritual  judges,  i,  494 

Manices,  Moriscos  of,  iii,  345 

Manicheism  survives  in  Masonry,  iv,  298 

Manifestacion,  i,  451 

obtained  by  Villanueva,  ii,  145 
claimed  by  Ant.  P6rez,  iv,  157,  259 
in  export  of  horses,  iv,  280 

Manifesto  of  C6rtes  of  Cddiz,  iv,  413 

Manjarre,  Bp.   case  of,  i,  500;  ii,  87 

Manoel  (King;,  his  treatment  of  Jews, 
i,  140,  191;  iii,  227,  319 


Manozca,  Juan  de,  i,  477;  iii,  122 
Manrique,  Alfonso,  prints  tne  Instruc- 
tions, i,  181 

his  disgrace,  i,  304 

converts  Moors  of  Badajoz,  iii,  326 

dealings  with  Moriscos,  iii,  328,  349, 
376 

favors  Erasmus,  iii,  414 

puts  sorcery  in  Edict  of  Faith,  iv,  184 
Manrique,    Geronimo,    instructions   to 

him,  i,  299 
Manrique,  Inigo,  i,  178;  ii,  108 
Mantetas  y  insinias,  iii,  169 
Manuales,  ii,  195 
Manufactures,  burden  on,  iv,  479 
Manumission   of   baptized   children   of 

slaves,  i,  325 
Maragatos,  i,  58 
Maravedi,  value  of,  i,  560 
Marc,  value  of,  i,  560 
Marcen,  Ant.,  Jesuit  Provincial,  ii,  34 
Marchena,  Abate,  iv,  401 
Maria  de  Agreda,  i,  461 ;  iv,  39 
Marfa  Ana  of  Austria  and  Nithard,  i, 

310,  501 
Marfa    Anna    of    Neuburg    persecutes 

Froilan  Dfaz,  ii,  172 
Marfa  de  la  Visitacion,  case  of,  iv,  83 
Mariana,  Padre,  on  influence  of  Inqn.,  ii, 
91;  iv,  515 

licensed  to  read  prohibited  books,  iii, 
522 

his  essays  suppressed,  iii,  542 

his  prosecution,  iv,  273 

translates  his  history,  iv,  529 
Marin,  Vidal,  tries  to  reduce  offices,  ii, 
216 

Us  Index,  iii,  495 
Marina,  Francisco  M.,  on  the  tithe,  iv, 

495 
Market-place  of  Valencia,  i,  365 
Markets,  privileges  of  the,  i,  533 
Marranos,  i.  111,  146 

Spaniards  all  called,  ii,  309 
also  Portuguese,   iii,   283 
Marrania,  dispensation  for,  ii,  402 
Marriage  of  New  Christians,  i,  120 

of  descendants  of  penitents,  iii,  178 

of  Moriscos,  iii,  380 

better  than  celibacy,  iv,  144 

in  Orders,  iv,  336 
Martignac,  de,  on  Femando's  rule,iv,433 
Martin  de  Aries  on  the  Sabbat,  iv,  210 
Martin  V  confirms  oppression  of  Jews, 

i,  119 
Martinez,  Ferran,  provokes  massacre, 
i,  103 

as  founder  of  Inqn.,  i,  111 
Martinez   Juana,  case  of,  iv,  201 
Martini,  his  version  of  the  Bible,  iii,  530 


INDEX 


589 


Martyr  Peter,  on  Lucero,  i,  198 

pleads  for  Hern,  de  Talavera,  i,  204 

on  greed  of  Flemings,  ii,  381 

on  danger  from  pirates,  iii,  384 
Martyrdom,  definition  of,  iii,  195 

of  negativos,  ii,  586;  iii,  198 
Martyrs,   Christian  Morisco,  iii,  409 

fictitious,  cult  of,  iv,  357 
Mary  of  Hungary  suspected,  iii,  423 
Marzilla,  Juan  Garc^s,  at  Teruel,  i,  249 
Masonry,  iv,  298 
Maslis,  use  of,  by  torturers,  iii,  17 
Masquo,  Luis,  opposes  Inqn.,  i,  232 
Mass,  priests  required  to  celebrate,  i,  10 

bowing  to  bishop  in,  i,  361 

accidents  in  celebration,  ii,  10 

denied  to  prisoners,  ii,  520 

hearing,  as  penance,  iii,  132 

burlesque,  iv,  355 
Massacres  of  Jews  in  Middle  Ages,  i,  83 

in  1210,  i,  88 

in  Navarre,  i,  100 

caused  by  Black  Death,  i,  101 

in  1366,  i,  102 

in  1391,  i,  106 

in  Granada,  iii,  322,  338 
Matamoros,  Manuel,  persecuted,  iv,  469 
Matafiorida,  Marquis  of,  iv,  422,  443 
Material  heresy,  ii,  4 
Matheo,  Cath.,  case  of,  iv,  223,  537 
Matheu,  Joan,  his  defalcation,  ii,  454 
Matilla,  Pedro,  royal  confessor,  ii,  169 
Matrimony,  episcopal   authority   over, 

iv,  321 
Matter  of  faith,  i,  357,  406 
Mattos,  Vicente  da  Costa,  his  book,  iii, 

272 
Maximilian  I  seeks  regency  of  Castile,  i, 

205 
Maximum,  law  of,  i,  393 
Maya,  Antonio  de,  Inqr.  of  Navarre,  i, 

224 
Mayans  y  Siscar,  Gregorio,  his  library, 
iii,  503 

on  aversion  for  industry,  iv,  485 
Mayorazgos,  iv,  443 
Mayr,  Don  his  fate,  i,  116 
Meat,  tradmg  in,  i,  389,  392 

eating,  on  fast  days,  ii,  11 

for  prisoners,  ii,  525,  527 

of  dead  animals,  ii,  566 

soaking  before  cooking,  ii,  567 

butchering  of,  for  Moriscos,  iii,  381 
Mechanics  as  officials,  i,  442;  ii,  249 

ineligible  as  famiUars,  ii,  280 
Medellin,  Countess  of,  i,  6 
Media  aflata,  tax  of,  i,  377,  531 
Medicine,  astrology  necessary  in,  iv,  192 
Medina,  Bart,  de,  iv,  151,  158,  510 
Medina,  Miguel  de,  case  of,  i,  372;  iii,  420 


Medina  del  Campo,  New  Christians  in, 
i,  151 

Concordia  of.  i,  153 

tribunal  of,  i,  550;  ii,  210 
Medina  Sidonia,  Duke  of,  protects  his 
contador,  ii,  105 

resists  assessments,  ii,  360 
Meditatio  cordis,  bull,  iii,  255 
Meditation,  iv,  2,  17,  52 
Medrano,  Antonio  de,  case  of,  iv,  9 
Melgares  Marin    his  statistics,  iv,  518 
Melo,  Luys  de,  his  Verdades  Catholicas, 

iii,  268,  274,  277,  278 
Members  of  Suprema,  how  chosen,  i,  322 

of  C6rtes  threatened,  i,  452 
prosecuted,  i,  468 
Membreque,  Bachiler,  case  of,  i,  195, 

208 
Memoria  de  diversos  autos,  i,  592 
Memorial  of  1623,  on  tax-exemption, 
i,  381 

on  abusive  jurisdiction,  i,  495 

character  of  officials,  i,  536 

disabilities  of  descendants,  iii,  177 

insubordination  of  officials,  ii,  225 

disorder  of  records,  ii,  258 

suits  of  creditors,  ii,  331 

frauds  in  confiscation,  ii,  363 

financial  mismanagement,   ii,   438 

losses  through  receivers,  ii,  448,  454 
Men,  soliciting  of,  iv,  127 
M^ndez,  Fernando,  iv,  29,  33 
Mendieta,  his  summons  to  appear,  ii, 

311 
Mendoza,  Card,  de,  his  career,  i,  9 

his  zeal  for  the  faith,  i,_155,  157 

grants  rehabilitations,  ii,  402 

on  convents,  iv,  490 
Mendoza,  Inq.-genl.,  his  appointment, 
ii,  172 

asserts  control  of  Suprema  ii,  173 

his  resignation,  i,  314;  ii,  178 
Mendizabal,  Pedro,  case  of,  iv,  114 
Menghini,  his  book  condemned,  iv,  60 
Menudos,  perquisite  of,  i,  532 
Mercader,    Mateo,    episcopal    inqr.,   i, 
230 

quarrels  with  Gualbes,  i,  237 

dismissed  by  Ferdinand,  i,  240 
Mercader,  Inq.-genl.,  his  Instructions, 

i,  273,  465;  ii,  432,  450 
Mercenaries,  heretic,  iii,  475 
Merchandise  of  foreign  Jews  seized,  ii, 

338 
Merchants,  English,  arrested,  ni,  468 
Mercy  of  Inqn.,  its  fallacy,  ii,  311 

adjuration  for,  iii,  184,  185,  188 

tendency  towards,  iii,  99 

none  for  relapse,  iii,  202 
Merida  objects  to  Inqn.,  i,  187 


590 


INDEX 


Meritos,    sentences  with   and  without, 

iii,  93 
Merola,  Nicolas,  inqr.  of  Majorca,  i,  26G 
Mesa,  Gil  de,  iv,  257,  259,  262,  263,  271 
Meschudanim,  i,  146 
Mesengui's  Catechism,  i,  320;  iii,  540 
Messengers,  expense  of,  ii,  179 
Mesta,  the,  iv,  309,  481 
Mexia,  Agustin  de,  sent  to  Valencia,  iii, 

393 
Mexia,  Inqr.,  suspended,  1,  530 
Mexico,  Edict  of  Faith  in,  ii,  92 

contributions  from,  ii,  201 

inspection  of,  ii,  230 

prison  provided,  iii,  154 

cases  of  sorcery,  iv,  195,  201 
Mezquita,  Miguel,  case  of,  iii,  419 
Middle  Ages,  condition  of  Jews  in,  i,  81 

rates  of  interest,  i,  97 
Midwives  forbidden  to  attend  Jev/esses, 
i,  81 

Christian,   required,   iii,   332 
Mier  y  Campillo,  the  last  inq.-genl.,  iv, 

425 
Migu^lez,  M.  F.,  his  book  on  Jansenism, 

iv,  288,  292 
Milan,  pestilence  of  1630,  iv,  243 
Military  jurisdiction,  conflicts  with,  i, 
504 

Orders  absorbed  by  the  crown,  i,  34 ; 
iv,  370 
limpieza  in,  ii,  298 

ser\'ice  due  by  Moors,  i,  63 
of  Jews,  i,  85 
as  penance,  iii,  134 
compounded,  i,  334 
exemption  from,  i,  412 
Millones,  i,  377 ;  iv,  487 
Minims  exclude  New  Christians,  ii,  290 
Mints,  private,  under  Henry  IV,  i,  7 
Minuarte,  receiver,  his  defalcation,  ii, 

454 
Miollis,  Madame,  iv,  94 
Miramamolin,  i,  49 
Miraval,  Martin  de,  his  report  on  Inqn., 

i,  317 
Miscegenation  punished,  i,  64 
Misfortunes  ascribed  to  witchcraft,  iv, 

215,  233 
Mislata,  penances  levied  on,  ii,  396 
Missionary  work,  Protestant,  iii,  421, 

425,   449 
Mistirn  Ciudad  of  Marfa  de  Agreda,  iv, 

40 
Mitigation  of  penalties,  iv,  432 
Mitres  for  penitents,  iii,  215 
Mo^a  de  Herrera,  la,  i,  186;  iv,  520 
Mock-marriage,  prosecution  for,  iv,  3S2 
Moderation  inculcated  by  Ferdinand,  i, 

297 


Modification  of  sentences,  iii,  97 
Molina,  Juan,  quarrel  over,  iii,  494 
Molinism,  its  persecution  in  Spain,  iv, 
68 

Bp.  Toro  of  Oviedo,  ii   88;  iv,  72 

abuse  of  the  term,  iv,  78 
Molinistas  alumbrados,  iv,  71 
Molinists  burned  in  Palermo,  iv,  62 
Molinos,  Miguel  de,  iv,  49 

his  sentence,  iv,  59 

circulated  in  Spain,  iv,  68 
Monarchy,  absolutism  of  Spanish,  iv, 

473 
Mond^jar,  Capt.-Genl.,  iii,  333,  335,  338 
Mondonedo,  Dean  of,  his  appeal,  ii,  109 
Moneda  de  molino,  i,  664 
Money,  its  export  prohibited,  i,  12 
Money-chest,  the,  li,  231 
Monfies,  iii,  334 
Monitions,  the  three,  iii,  38 
Monroy,  Maria  de,  i,  5 
Monserrat,  Mosen,  case  of,  iii,  453 
Montalvo,  Alfonso  Diaz  de,  i,  27,  127 
MontaUeses,  their  limpieza  inferred,  ii, 

297 
Montano,  Arias,  his  books  seized,  iii,  499 

his  Biblia  Regia,  iv,  159 
Montblanch  governed  by  Inqn.,  iv,  516 
Montemayor,  Fran,  de,  case  of,  ii,  467 
Montesa,  Jayme,  burnt,  i,  607 
Montesa,   order  of,   incorporated  with 

crown,  iv,  370 
Monthly  reports  required,  ii,  183 
Montijo,  Count  of,  his  Masonry,  iv,  302, 

305 
Montoya,  Isabel  de,  case  of,  iii,  98;  iv, 

195 
Moors,  toleration  under,  i,  45 

not  objects  of  hatred,  i,  52 

trade  with^  forbidden,  i,  55 

as  slaves,  i,  57 

fheir  laws,  i,  65 

forbidden  to  practise  medicine,  i,  74 

intimacy  with,  forbidden,  i,  76 

segregation  ordered,  i,  77 

their  citizenship,  i,  84 

of  Serra,  treatment  of,  i,  187 

enforced  baptism  by  Inqn.,  i,  294 

favored  by  Charles  le  Mauvals,  iii, 
317 

terms  of  capitulation  of  Granada,  iii, 
318 

forcible  conversion  in  Granada,  iii, 
320 
in  Castile,  iii,  324 

Ferdinand's  pledges  to  Aragon,  iii, 
343 

voluntary  conversions,  iii,  344 

conversion  by  Germanfa,  iii,  346 

Christian  friendliness,  iii,  347 


INDEX 


691 


Moors,  conversion  attempted,  iii,  348 
treatment  of  those  baptized,  iii,  351 
their  baptism  ordered,  iii,  352 
their  expulsion  ordered,  iii,  354 
their  wholesale  baptism,  iii,  355 
fruitless  resistance,  iii,  356 
their  importance  in  Aragon,  iii,  356 
their  corsairs,  iii,  383 
their  magic,  iv,  180 

M.orabatin,  i,  565 

Morals,  no  jurisdiction  over,  iv,  375 
gradually  assumed,  iv,  376 
indifference  to,  iv,  509 
not  involved  in  solicitation,  iv,  109, 

115 
of  inqrs.,  watch  over,  ii,  237 

Mordaza,  ii,  512;  iii,  139 

Morerias,  i,  64,  77 

Morillo,  Miguel  de,  the  first  inquisitor, 
i,  160 
his  quarrels  with  Torquemada,  i,  177 

Moriscos,   arbitrary  arrests  forbidden, 
ii,  185 
as  familiars,  ii,  294,  295 
fines  replace  confiscation,  ii,  395;  iii, 

361 
effects  of  expulsion,  ii,  436;  iii,  410 
shun  Edicts  of  Grace,  ii,  462 
their  cases  not  calificado,  ii,  488 
preliminary  consulta  de  fe,  ii,  489 
not  witnesses  for  defence,  ii,  539 
punished  for  overcoming  torture,  iii, 

suspicion  always  vehement,  iii,   123 
exempt  from  penalties  of  relapse,  iii, 

203 
forcible  conversion  in  Granada,   iii, 

320 
promised  relief  from  Inqn.,  iii,  323 
disarmament,  iii,  323,  332,  378 
forcible  conversion  in  Castile,  iii,  324 
attempts  at  instruction,  iii,  326 
Edicts  of  Grace,  iii,  328 
evidence  against  them,  iii,  329 
persecution,  iii,  330 
condition  in  Granada,  iii,  331 
offer  to  Charles  V,  i,  122 
rebellion  of  1568,  iii,  338 
deportation  from  Granada,  iii,  339 
restrictions  on  the  exiles,  iii,  340 
their  prosperity,  iii,  341 
position  in  Aragon,  iii,  342 
their  forcible  conversion,  iii,  354 
of  Valencia,  their  persecution,  iii,  347, 

362 
no  attempt  to  instruct  them,  iii,  358 
their  confiscations,  iii,  359 
an  intermediate  faith,  iii,  364 
attempts  to  convert  them,  iii,  366, 

372 


Moriscos,  intervals   of   immunity,    iii, 
373 
their  miserable  condition,  iii,  375 
emigration  forbidden,  iii,  378 
their  marriages,  iii,  380 
baptism  of  children,  iii,  380 
their  discontent,  iii,  382 
connection  with  corsairs,  iii,  384 
plots  with  foreign  powers,  iii,  385 
plans  for  getting  rid  of  them,  iii,  388 
expulsion  decided  on,  iii,  392 

commenced  in  Valencia,  iii,  395 
number  expelled,  iii,  397,  399,  400, 

402,  403,  406 
final  rooting  out,  iii,  403 
Christians  expelled,  iii,  403,  409 
in  Granada  in  1728,  iii,  406 
fate  of  the  exiles,  iii,  407 
their  confiscations,  iii,  409 

Morocco,  bishopric  of,  i,  49 
fate  of  exiles  there,  i,  139 

Moras,  cosas  de,  disappear,  iii,  405 

Mortmain,  lands  in,  i,  375;  iv,  488,  492 

Moses,  Rabbi,  his  conversion,  i,  114 

Mosque  in  Cartagena  in  1769,  iii,  406 

Mosques  converted  into  churches,  iii, 
347 
use  made  of  their  property,  iii,  366 

Motin  de  la  Granja,  iv,  469 

Motril,  visitas  de  navios,  iii,  315 

Motu  proprio  form  of  commissions,  i, 
303 

Mourning  furnished  to  officials,  i,  362; 
ii,  190 

Moya,  his  Opusculum,  iv,  511 

Mozdrahes,  i,  45 

Mudejares,  i,  57;  iii,  317 
their  status,  i,  60 
assert  their  rights,  i,  61 
become  denationalized,  i,  65 
revenues  derived  from,  i,  66 
badges  imposed  on,  i,  68 
their  forced  conversion,  iii,  324,  353 
their  value  to  Aragon,  iii,  356 
their  descendants  expelled,  iii,  403 
punish  sorcery,  iv,  182 

Mugeres  varoniUs,  i,  6 

Muladies,  i,  49 

Mule-tracks,  iv,  480 

Mules  forbidden  in  coaches,  i,  530 

Muley  Cidan,  iii,  387 

Multiplication  of  tribunals,  ii,  205 
of  convents,  iv,  490 
of  officials,  ii,  212,  265,  270,  271 

Munebrega,  Bp.,  his  severity,  iii,  442 

Municipal  laws  abrogated,  i,  288 

self-government  abolished,  iv,  454 
Munoz,  Candido,  his  tract,  iii,  198 

Munoz  de  Castilblanque,  case  of,  i,  489, 
506 


592 


INDEX 


Mufioz  Torrero,  jv,  404,  409,  413,  423 
Munster,  treaty  of,  iii,  467 
Murcia,  its  isolation,  i,  7 

separation  ol  races  in,  i,  64 

its  tribunal,  i,  171,  550;  ii,  593 
case  of  Froilan  Diaz,  ii,  173,  174 

military  service  of  familiars,  i,  412 

milder  measures  for  Judaism,  iii,  235 

Morisco  expulsion,  iii,  398,  404 
Murder  rite,  Jewish,  in  Partidas,  i,  90 

case  of  el  Santo  Nino,  i,  133 
Murder  of  witnesses,  ii,  551 
Murga,  Sor  Lorenza,  iv,  87 
Murner,  Thomas,  his  utterances,  iii,  412 
Musicians,  ill-treatment  of,  i,  366 
Mussulman  legislation,  i,  65 
Mutton,  removing  fat  from,  ii,  567 
Muzquiz,    Archbp.    persecutes   the    la 
Cuesta,  iv,  296 

his  plot  against  Godoy,  iv,  393 
Mysticism,  hypnotism  in,  iv,  2 

its  dangers,  iv,  3 

confused  with  Protestantism,  iv,  4, 
13 

sexual  aberrations,  iv,  9,  23,  25,  31, 
34 

errors  ascribed  to,  iv,  24 

its  practices  condemned,  iv,  28 

in  Italy,  iv,  42 

condemned  bv  the  Holy  See,  iv,  59, 
66 

Molinism  persecuted,  iv,  68 

harmless,  punished,  iv,  77 

delusion,  iv,  79 

in  solicitation,  iv,  118 
Mystics  of  Seville,  case  of,  iv,  31 


"W'ACHMANIDES,  his  disputation,  i, 

Nails,  staining  of,  as  evidence,  ii,  566 
Ndjera,  Duke  of,  his  complaints,  i,  537 
Names  of  witnesses  suppressed,  ii,  548; 
iii,  53 
offers  for  their  revelation,  i,  217, 
221,  222 
Nano,  Agostino,  on  limpieza,  ii,  310 

poUtical  use  of  Inqn.,  iv,  273 
Naples,  fate  of  exiled  Jews  there,  i,  141 

ayudas  de  casta  for,  ii,  254 
Napoleon,  his  invasion  of  Spain,  iv,  399 

suppresses  Inqn.,  ii,  445;  iv,  401 
Nassi,  Jewish,  i,  87 
Natives  not  to  be  employed  in  tribunals 
i,  225 

asked  for  as  inqrs.,  i,  509 
Naturalism,  iv,  308 
Navarre  adopts  the  Hermandad,  i,  32 

rates  of  interest  in,  i,  98 

destruction  of  Jews  in,  i,  100 


Navarre  receives  exiled  Jews,  i,  138, 141 
incorporated  with  Castile,  i,  223 
its  tribunal,  i,  224,  551 
obtains  Castile  Concordia,  i,  438 
witch-crazes  in,  iv,  214,  219,  222,  225, 

228 
Royal  Council  of,  on  witchcraft,  iv, 

216 
court  of,  on  witchcraft,  iv,  222,  228, 

234 
revolt  in  1820,  iv,  435 
Navarrete  on  limpieza,  ii,  310;  iii,  380 
on  a>version  for  industry,  iv,  485 
on  wealth  of  Church,  iv,  493 
Navarrez,  Marquis  of,  bis  limpieza,  ii, 

301 
Navy,  Inqn.  of,  i,  541 

Venetian  estimate  of,  iii,  142 
Nebrija,  his  prosecution,  iv,  529 
Necromancers  condemned,  iv,  183 
Neglect  of  duty,  ii,  226;  iv,  388 
Negativo,  ii.  585 
torture  of,  iii,  12 
relaxation  for,  iii,  198;  iv,  227 
in  Portugal,  iii,  286 
Nepotism  in  appointments,  ii,  219 
Nevers,  Count  of,  rebuked,  i,  82 
New  Christians,  i,  111;  ii,  298 
career  opened  to,  i,  113 
their  rapid  advancement,  i,  120 
increasing  hatred,  i,  125,  150 
sufferings  in  Toledo,  i,  126,  128 
persecution  in  Andalusia,  i,  129 
conversion  doubted,  i,  145,  151 
attack  Alvar  de  Luna,  i,  147 
Commission  to  investigate  them,  i,  156 
of  Seville  propose  resistance,  i,  162 
Jews  required  to  denounce  them,  i, 

168 
forbidden  to  emigrate,  i,  183,  246; 

iii,  271,  303,  323 
in  Bugia  to  be  seized,  i,  185 
their  political  importance,  i,  199,  205 
offers  to  Charles  V,  i,  217,  219,  221, 

222;  ii,  368 
bribe  Jean  le  Sauvage,  i,  218 
conspire  to  kill  Arbu6s,  i,  249 
their  fate  in  Aragon,  i,  259 
dealings  with,  prohibited,  i,  271 
refugees  in  Rome,  ii,  114 
disabilities,  i,  126;  ii,  284,  285,  287, 

288,  290 
dread  inspired  by  them,  ii,  292.;  iii, 

291 
persistence  under  confiscation,  ii,  315 
avoid  Edicts  of  Grace,  ii,  461 
not  witnesses  for  defence,  ii,  539 
seek  publication  of  witnesses,  ii,  549 
no  attempt  to  instruct,  iii,  231 
struggle  in  Rome,  iii,  288 


INDEX 


593 


New  Christians,  their  services  to  Spain, 
iii,  572 
condition  in  Majorca,  ii,  312;  iii,  305 
in  Portugal,  their  wealth,  iii,  268 
their  numbers,  iii,  283 
their  complaints,  iii.  286 
efforts  to  expel  them,  iii,  276 
Newfoundland,     deportation     to,     for 

Moriscos,  iii,  389 
New  Granada,  case  of  bigamy  in,  iv,  323 
Nicholas  III  on  truces  with  Moors,  i,  70 
Nicholas  IV  seelcs  to  convert  Jews,  i,  92 

on  permanence  of  inqrs.,  ii,  161 
Nicholas  V,  his  oppressive  decree,  i,  119 
asserts  privileges  of  converts,  i,  127 
grants  Inquisition  for  Castile,  i,  147; 

ii,  41,  103 
subjects  unnatural  crime  to  Inqn.,  iv, 
362 
Nicholas  de  Rupella  on  the  Talmud,  i, 

114 
Niederbronn,  the  Ecstatic  of,  iv,  93 
Nieva,  Countess  of,  her  complaint,  i,  537 
Night,  weapons  forbidden  at,  i,  404,  408 
Nithard,  Inq.-genl.,  his  career,  i   310 
his  quarrel  with  church  of  Majorca, 

i,  500 
claims  jurisdiction  over  bps.,  ii,  87 
his  influence,  iv,  498 
Noailles,  Card.,  condemns  mysticism,  iv, 

64 
Nobility,  its  Jewish  blood,  i,  120;  ii,  298 

not  forfeited  by  work,  iv,  487 
Nobles,  asylum  in  lands  of,  i,  161,  241, 
421 
as  familiars,  i,  443,  454;  ii,  281 
their  feudal  rights  undermined,  i,  537 
punished  by  Inqn.,  ii,  29 
greater  severity  towards,  iii,  100 
serve  as  alguazil  mayor,  ii,  246 
Noffre  Calatayut,  his  violario,  ii,  343 
Non-fulfilment  of  sentence,  iii,  102 
Non-residence,  dispensation  for,  i,  303, 

307;  ii,  416 
Noris,  Card.,  quarrel  over  his  books,  iv, 

284,  289 
Notariat,  price  of,  ii,  214 
Notaries,  ii,  243 

of  Valencia,  case  of,  i,  242 
prosecuted  for  serving  papal  briefs, 

ii,  117,  119,  149 
of  commissioHers,  ii,  270 
fees  in  limpieza  cases,  ii,  302 
Notario  del  secreto,  ii,  231 
de  hs  secuestros,  ii,  244,  392,  496 
de  lo  civil,  ii,  250 
de  agotaciones,  iii,  137 
Notoriety  supersedes  proof,  iii,  88 
Nuevas  Poblaciones,  iv,  309 
Number  of  Jews  in  1474,  i,  125 

VOL.    IV 


Number  of  expelled  Jews,  i,  142 

of  expelled  Moriscos,  iii,  406 

of  officials  in  1746,  ii,  216 

of  calificadores,  ii,  265 

of  commissioners,  ii,  270,  271 

of  familiars,  see  Familiars 

of  exempt  classes,  iv,  478 

of  clergy,  iv,  489,  492,  493 

of  convents,  iv,  490 
Nuncio,  the,  ii,  246 

Nuncio,  papal,  liis  jurisdiction,  i,  314; 
iii,  533 

empowered  to  inflict  death,  iii,   186 

objection  to,  in  Portugal,  iii,  244 

the  False,  iii,  243 
Nuns,  tlieir  confession  of  heresy,  ii,  22 

their  dowries  seized,  ii,  333 

epidemics  of  possession,  iv,  352 
NjTnphomania,  case  of,  iii,  62 


OATH  of  allegiance  in  Aragon,  i,  229 
taken  to  inqr.,  i,  182,  243,  245,  352 

royal,  at  autos,  i,  353;  iii,  268 

required  of  people,  i,  353;  iii,  218 

of  inqrs.  in  Catalonia,  i,  467,  470 

of  secrecy  of  accuser  and  witnesses, 
ii,  473,  539 
of  officials,  ii,  472 

of  penitents  to  pay  costs,  ii,  534 

of  accused,  iii,  37 

of  advocates,  iii,  43,  47 

of  curadnr,  iii,  51 
Oaths  of  heretics  not  received,  iii,  467 
Obedeceryno  cumplir,  i,  327;  ii,  150;  iv, 

415 
Obedience  to  Inqn.,  i,  188,  351,  617 
Obedience  better  than  the  sacrament, 

iv,  35 
Obligations  of  heretics  invalid,  ii,  325, 

331 
Obsequies,  quarrels  over,  i-,  362 

of  Fernando  VII,  iv,  466 
Observances,  Jewish,  i,  146;  ii,  565 
forgotten,  iii,  301 

religious,   necessity  of,  ii,  567 

among  mystics,  iv,  3,  8,  28,  50 
Obsession  causes  solicitation,  iv,  72,  74 
Obstructions  to  defence,  iii,  64 
Ocafia,  contemplative  fraile  of,  iv,  7 
Occult  heresy,  ii,  4 

arts,  iv,  179 
Ocoultation  of  property,  ii,  322 
Ochavo,  value  of,  i,  566 
Octroi,  exemption  from,  i,  384,  389 
O'Donnell,  Count  of  la  Bisbal,  iv,  434, 

435 
Offences  specified  in  Edict  of  Faith,  ii, 
93 

statistics  of,  iii,  551 
38 


594 


INDEX 


Offences  exempt  from  torture,  iii,  8 
Offers  made  to  Ferdinand,  i,  217 

to  Charles  V,  i,  217,  219,  221,  222; 
ii,  368 
Office,  public,  right  to  hold,  i,  415,  419 

onerous,  refusal  of,  i,  420 
Offices  forbidden  to  Jews,  i,  73 
Jews  indispensable,  i,  99 
Conversos  disabled  from,  i,  126;  ii, 
285 
removal  of  disabilities,  ii,  407 
confiscation  of,  1,  192,  581 
sale  of,  ii,  212 
life-tenure  of,  ii,  218 
hereditary  transmission  of,  ii,  219 
transfer  of,  ii,  221 
held  without  pay,  ii,  223 
become  undesirable,  iv,  388 
Officials  forbidden  to  trade,  i,  270,  534, 
535 
their  privileges,  i,  265,  270,  307,  376, 
377,  379,  412,  465;  ii,  415,  417,  418, 
419 
their  right  to  the  juero,  i,  429,  522 
their  servants  and  slaves,  i,  369 
their  character,  i,  536 
their  perquisites,  ii,  190,  252 
of  Suprema,  their  fees,  ii,  200 
to  lodge  in  one  house,  ii,  207 
houses  furnished  to  them,  ii,  208 
their  salaries,  ii,  251 
their  number,  i,  468,  516;  ii,  209,  210, 

211,  212,  215,  216 
leniency  shown  to  them,  ii,  223 
punished  only  by  Suprema,  ii,  225 
they  retain  records,  ii,  257 
unsalaried,  ii,  263 
organized  in  confraternity,  ii,  282 
Order  of  Knighthood  for,  ii,  283 
limpieza  requisite,  ii,  294,  296 
collusion  with  informers,  ii,  324 
their  penury,  ii,  443,  444 
sworn  to  secrecy,  ii,  472 
must  be  present  at  autos,  iii,  214 
personation  of,  iv,  344 
their  deterioration,  iv,  388 
of  Portuguese  Inqn.,  iii,  262 
public,  take  oath  to  Inqn.,  i,  182,  352 
Ointment,  demonic,  of  witches,  iv,  208, 

214,  229,  231 
Olavide,  Pablo,  case  of,  iv,  308 
Old   and   New   Christians,    distinction 

recognized,  ii,  288 
Old  Christians,  definition  of,  ii,  288,  298 
forfeit  limpieza,  ii,  300 
involved  in  confiscations,  ii,  346 
_  only  witnesses  for  defence,  ii,  540 
their  descendants  disabled,  iii,  177 
Old  Inquisition,  its  organization,  i,  172 
Oliva,  his  letters  to  Molinos,  iv,  51 


Olivares,  his  despair  over  confficts  of 
jurisdiction,  i,  489 
proposes  admission  of  Jews,  iii,  292 
suffers  from  revelations,  iv,  39 
his  prosecution,  iv,  274 
OUigoyen,   Fray,   induces  massacre,   i 

100 
Olmo,  del,  family  of,  ii,  221 
Opinion  in  cases  of  limpieza,  ii,  300 

pohtical,  punished,  iv,  276 
Opposition  to  Inqn.,  i,  232,  239,  245, 
260,  268,  439,  452,  465 
to  grant  of  canonries,  ii,  417 
Oran,  tribunal  of,  i,  551 
Orden  de  Procesar,  ii,  475 
Ordenamiento  of  Alcald  on  usury,  i,  98 

de  Dona  Catalina,  i,  116,  123 
Ordenanzas  Reahs,  i,  27 

oppression  of  Jews  in,  i,  124 
Ord!er  of  Knighthood  for  officials,  ii,  283 
of  S.  Maria  de  la  Espada  Blanca,  i, 
507 
Orders,  holy,  forbidden  to  descendants 
of  penitents,  iii,  176 
marriage  in,  iv,  336 
minor,  abuses  of,  i,  17 ;  iv,  497 
Orders,  Military,  absorbed  by  crown, 
i,  34;  iv,  370 
competencias  with,  i,  505 
Orders,    Religious,    their    reform    pro- 
posed, i,  317 
represented  in  Suprema,  i,  323 
subjected  to  Inqn.,  ii,  36 
pay  cost  of  imprisoned  frailes,  ii,  533 
suppressed  in  1820-3,  iv,  439 
growth  of,  iv,  490,  492 
Ordinaries,  their  jurisdiction,  ii,  6,  10 
effort  to  exclude  them,  ii,  12,  14 
negligence  as  to  concurrence,  ii,  15 
appointment  as  inqrs.,  ii,  16 
their  concurrence  omitted,  ii,  18 
Organization  of  Jews  in  Spain,  i,  86 
of  Inquisition,  i,  172 
of  tribunals,  i,  231,  244;  ii,  208,  593 
Orihuela,  tribunal  of,  i,  551 
composition  for,  ii,  356 
slaughtering  of  cattle  in,  iii,  382 
Ortiz,  Bias,  his  negligence  as  to  con- 
currence, ii,  15 
punishes  solicitation,  iv,  97 
made  inqr.  of  Valencia,  i,  384 
Ortiz,  Francisco,  his  temerity,  i,  372 
Ortiz,  Francisco,  case  of,  iv,  11 
Orts,  Juan,  inqr.  of  Aragon,  i,  230,  239 
Ostentation  of  Jews,  i,  96 

in  dowries,  ii,  333 
Ostrogoths,  their  tolerance,  i,  38,  39 
Osuna,  tribunal  of,  i,  551 
Osuna,  Francisco  de,  on  prayer,  iv,  3 
on  scholastic  theology,  i\^,  5 


INDEX 


695 


Osuna,  disciple  of  Francisca  Hernandez, 
iv,  9 

escapes  correction,  iv,  17 
Otadm,  Dr.,  his  advice  to  Pliilip  II,  iii 

334  i'     >     , 

Otrosi,  demand  for  torture  in,  iii,  42 
Ottoboni,  Card.,  persecutes  Pelagini,  iv, 
46 

attacks  Molinos,  iv,  54 
See  Alexander  VIII. 
Outlaws,  safe-conducts  for,  i,  444 
Outlawry  of  heretics,  iii,  388 
Oven,  royal,  of  Aljaferla,  i,  391 
Overcoming  torture,  iii,  30 
Oviedo,  Gonzalo  Fern,  de,  on  heresy, 

ii,  2 
Ownersliip  of  documents,  ii,  220 


pACHECO,  Inq.-genl.,  punishes    Bp. 
-•-      of  Murcia,  i,  420 

his  conflict  with  Seville,  i,  489 
prosecutes  Granada  judges,  i,  487 
has  but  one  vote  in  Suprema,  ii,  168 
banishes   Englishmen,    iii,   466,    572 
condemns  mysticism,  iv,  30 
Pacheco,   Pedro,   his  grant   from   sale 
of  offices,  ii,  215 
his  disgrace,  ii,  438 
Pact  with  demon,  iv,  185,  188,  195,  205 
Padilla,  Inqr.,  suspended,  i,  .530 
Padilla,  Juan  de,  keeps  clear  of  Inqn., 

i,  221 
Padua,  faculty  of,  on  defence  of  accused, 

iii,  56 
Paging  of  records  of  trials,  ii,  259 
Palafox,   Bishop,  his  portrait  borrado, 

iii,  498 
Palencia,   Bp.   of,   his  appellate  juris- 
diction, ii,  110 
Palermo,  iniquity  of  tribunal,  ii,  121 
Pallavicini,  Card.,  on  persecution,  iv,500 
Palm  of  victory  for  acquittal,  i;i,  108 
Palma,  massacre  in  1391,  i,  109 
number  of  officials  in,  ii,  212 
autos  of  1679  and  1691,  iii,  225,  306; 
iv,  526 
Pampeluna,  tribunal  of,  i,  552 
relations  with  Saragossa,  i,  225 
political  utility,  i,  226 
Pan  asegurado,  i,  388 
Pan  cotazo,  i,  594 
Paniagua,  I).  Pedro,  case  of,  i,  514 
PaUos  de  la  verguema,  iii,  17 
Papacy,  popular  disrespect  for,  i,  11 
export  of  money  to,  i,  12 
approves  of  Torqueniada,  i,  174 
Paper,  writing,  for  prisoners,  ii,  517 
Papers,  all,  returned  to  tribunal,  ii,  474 
detailed  inventory  of,  ii,  497 


Paradinas,  inqr.,  stabbed,  i,  214 
Pdramo  on  treatment  of  Jews,  i,  36 
his  eulogy  of  Inqn.,  ii,  483 
on  acquittal,  iii,  108 
on  Protestants,  iii,  432 
on  mystics  of  Llerena,  iv,  24 
his  abuse  of  women,  iv,  121 
Pardon  of  1004,  iii,  268 
of  1627  and  1630,  iii,  273 
purchase  of,  iii,  363 
Paredes,  Fray  Manuel  de,  his  mysticism, 

iv,  71 
Pareja  tried  for  solicitation,  iv,  98 
Pariahs  created  by  limpieza,  ii,  310 
Paris,  Council  of  1212,  on  midwives,  i,  81 
Parish  churches,  sanhenitos  hung  in,  iii, 

166 
Parque  Castrillo,  Duke  of,  prosecuted 

iv,  430 
Parra,  Juan  Adan  de  la,  iii,  271,  291 
Participation  in  Sabbat,  iv,  232,  243, 

245 
Partidas  on  trade  with  Moors,  i,  56 
on  slavery,  i,  57 

restrictions  on  Jews,  i,  69,  74,  89 
on  confiscation,  iii,  316 
on  magic,  iv,  180,  182 
law  on  heresy  revived,  iv,  411 
law  as  to  succession,  iv,  462 
Parvitas  materiw,  none  in  solicitation, 
iv,  110,  112 
none  in  sorcery,  iv,  196 
Pascual  of  Aragon,  his  inqr.-generalship, 

i,  310 
Passes  for  free  goods,  i,  376,  384 
Passo  Honroso,  the,  i,  5 
Passover  bread,  eating  of,  ii,  566 
Pastoralis  officii,  bull,  i,  275, 432;  iv,  317, 

329 
Pastrana,  Judaizers  of,  ii,  494;  iii,  300 

mystics  of,  iv,  7 
Paternoy,  Sancho  de,  i,  249,  257 
Patiuo,  his  services,  iv,  486 
Patrocinio,  Sor,  career  of,  iv,  92 
Patronage,  papal,  resisted,  i,  12 

granted  to  sovereigns,  ii,  416;  iv,  291 
royal,  of  canonries,  ii,  429 
of  inquisitors,  ii,  280 
Patrones  tcSlogos,  iii,  51 ;  iv,  154 
Paul  III  exempts  regulars  from  Inqn., 
ii,  32 
confirms  sale  of  pardons,  ii,  107 
Roman  Inqn.  not  to  interfeie  with 

Spanish,  ii,  127 
on  exclusion  of  New  Christians,  ii,  289, 

291 
relieves  Moriscos  from  confiscation 

ii,  395 
his  dispensations,  ii,  406 
limits  duration  of  torture,  iii,  22 


596 


INDEX 


Paiol  III  relieves  from  irregularity,  iii, 
186 
his  dealings  with  Portugal,  iii,  241-58 
creates  da  Silva  cardinal,  iii,  244 
abandons  him,  iii,  253 
invites  Jews  to  Italy,  iii,  254 
suspends  Inqn.  as  to  Moriscos,  iii,  373 
aids  Magdalina  de  la  Cruz,  iv,  82 

Paul  IV  threatens  Melchor  Cano,  ii,  51 
subjects  regulars  to  Inqn.,  ii,  33 
his  brief  of  January  7,  1559,  ii,  61 
on  exclusion  of  Conversos,  ii,  290 
claims  benefices  of  heretics,  ii,  319 
grants  canonries  to  Inqn.,  ii,  425 
orders   torture    to    discover   accom- 
plices, iii,  11 
heresies  treated  as  relapse,  iii,  201 
prosecutes  Jews,  iii,  254 
suppression  of  witnesses'  names,  iii, 

258 
his  bull  against  Q.  Elizabeth,  iii,  436 
his  Index,  iii,  486 

requires  confessors  to  enforce  it,  iii, 
490 
withdrawn    licences    for    prohibited 

books,  iii,  521 
subjects  solicitation  to  Inqn.,  iv,  99 
decrees    relaxation    for    personating 
priesthood,  iv,  340 

Paul  V  confirms  subjection  of  regulars, 
ii,  36 
profession  of  faith  of  inqrs.,  ii,  420 
exempts  from  irregularity,  iii,   189 
empowers  Inqn.  to  issue  licences,  iii, 

522 
on  solicitation,  iv,  100 

Payment  for  discovering  property,  ii, 
323 

Pay-roll,  Ferdinand  seeks  to  reduce  it, 
ii,  209 
of  Suprema,  ii,  191,  196,  202 

Paz,  Diogo  da,  iii,  239 

Peace,  internal,  preserved  by  Inqn.,  iv, 
507 

Peace  and  truce,  treaties  of,  i,  441 

Peasants  can  prove  limpieza,  ii,  308 
condition  of,  iv,  478 
church  burdens  on,  iv,  495 

Pecheros,  i,  375 

familiars  to  be,  ii,  281 

Peculations  of  inq.-genl.,  i,  190 
in  confiscation,  ii,  363,  365 

Peculium  of  frailes,  ii,  495,  504 

Pedrapa,  his  instructions  for  commis- 
sioners, ii,  302 

Pedro  II  (Aragon)  persecutes  Walden- 
ses,  iii,  183 

Pedro  III  (Aragon)  summons  his  Moors 
to  arms,  i,  63 
protects  Jews,  i,  93 


Pedro   the    Cruel,    his   struggles   with 
nobles,  i,  3 

employs  Moorish  troops,  i,  54 

favors  Jews,  i,  101 
Pedro  de  Madrid,  delator,  ii,  323 
Pedro  Sanchez,  Joan  de,  burnt,  i,  596 
Pedro  de  Valencia  on  witchcraft,  iv,  229, 

247 
Peldez,  Anton,  his  deposition,  ii,   105 
Pelagini,  iv,  46 

their  successors,  iv,  61 
Peliag  the  Jew,  i,  51 
Pellegrini  di  San  Rocco,  iv,  47 
Pena,  Francisco,  his  edition  of  Eymer- 
ich,  ii,  476 

justification  of  secrecy,  ii,  474 

on  insane  convicts,  ii,  59,  60 

on  death  sentences,  iii,  186 

on  conversion  after  sentence,  iii,  193 
Pena,  Pedro,  condemned  for  Molinism, 

iv,  59 
Penalosa,  Benito  de,  on  limpieza,  ii,  309 

on  the  peasantry,  iv,  478 

on  education,  iv,  529 
Penalties,  see  Punishments 
Penas,  Benito,  case  of,  ii,  494 
Penas  extraordinarias,  iii,  101 
Penas  y  penitencias,  i,  337;  ii,  389 
Penance  is  punishment,  ii,  389,  569 

destroys  limpieza,  ii,  296,  299,  304, 
307,  310,  311 

its  performance  enforced,  iii,  101 

abridgement  of,  iii,  161 

with  suspension,  iii,  109 

spiritual,  iii,  131 
Penances,  pecuniary,  i,  337;  ii,  389 

Inqn.  obtains  them,  i,  339 

applied  to  tribunals,  ii,  393 

productiveness,  ii,  397 

proportioned  to  need  of  tribunal,  ii, 
396;  iv,  219 

replace  confiscation,   ii,   394 

limited  in  Valencia,  ii,  395 

reconciliation  a  prerequisite,  ii,  396 

excessive,  i,  226 
Penca,  iii,  135 
Penitence,  sacrament  of,  in  solicitation, 

iv,  109 
Penitents  of  Inqn.,  ii,  389 

penalties  imposed  on,  i,  169-70 

entitled  to  fuero,  i,  433;  iii,  150,  153 

maintenance  of,  i,  567 

costs  collected  from,  ii,  533 

their  pictures  in  churches,  iii,  171 

disabilities  of,  iii,  173 

hardships  of  descendants,  iii,  177 

stripping  an.d  flagellating,  iv,  117 
Penitential  prison,  iii,  150 
Penitentiary,  papal,  its  absolutions,  ii, 
104 


INDEX 


597 


Penitentiary,  its  pardons  for  crime,  ii. 
107 
taxes  ol',  ii,  402 

Penn,  George,  case  of,  iii,  468 

Pensions  granted  on  offices,  ii,  222 
in  jubilation,  ii,  224 
on  canonries,  ii,  428,  429 

Penury  of  royal  treasury,  ii,  373 
of  officials,  ii,  443,  444 

People,  oath  required  of,  i,  353 

Pepper  bought  with  heretic  money,  ii 
338 

Perales,  contract  of,  i,  19 

PiSrez,  Alonso,  his  visitation  of  Barce- 
lona, i,  528 

P6rez,  Antonio,  case  of,  iv,  254 
burnt  in  effigy,  iv,  268 
pensioned  by  Henry  IV,  iv,  271 

Eostmortem  absolution,  iv,  272 
is  blasphemy,  Iv,  332 
his  writings  suppressed,  iii,  542 

Perez  de  Pineda,  Juan,  iii,  427,  428,  445 

Performance  of  sentences,  iii,  101 

Perjury  in  cases  of  limpieza,  ii,  304 
of  witnesses,  ii,  554,  556 
detected  in  ratification,  ii,  547 
in  secular  courts,  ii,  554;  iv,  379 

Pernambuco,  its  capture,  iii,  279,  282 

Perpignan,  placed  under  interdict.,  i,187 
tribunal  of,  i,  552 
auto  de  fe  in,  i,  264 
violation  of  Concordia,  i,  272 
magistrates  penanced,  i,  285 
arrest  of  officials,  i,  469 
sequestrated  houses  in,  ii,  498 

Perquisites  of  officials,  ii,  190 
of  Suprema,  ii,  195 

Persecution,  conscientious,  ii,  1 ;  iv,  525 
financial  element  in,  ii,  315,  357;  iv, 
527 

Personas  honestas,  ii,  249 

Personation  of  officials,  iv,  344 
punishment,  iii,  189;  iv,  345 
frequency,  iv,  348 

Personation  of  priesthood,  iv,  339 
relaxation  for,  iv,  340,  342 
doubt  as  to  jurisdiction,  iv,  341 
penalties  in  Spain,  iii,  207;  iv,  341 
confessions  heard  by  laymen,  iv,  344 

Personnel  of  tribunals,  ii,  209,  232 
efforts  for  reduction,  ii,  211 
of  Inqn.  in  1746,  ii,  597 

Pertinacity  entails  relaxation,  ii,  585; 
iii,  195 

Peseta,  value  of,  i,  661,  565 

Peso  ensayado,  i,  562 
de  oro,  i,  560 
de  plata,  i,  562 

Petition,  Inqn.  must  be  addressed  by 
i,  356 


Peiosiris,  iv,  195 
Petrucci,  Card.,  iv,  52,  55,  60 
Pharmacopoeia  of  Schoderius,  iii,  507 
Phelippeaux,  agent  of  Bossuet,  iv,  66 
Philip  Augustus  banishes  Jews,  i,  83 
Philip  I  appealed  to  by  C6rdo-\'a,  i,  190 
admits  papal  appellate  power,  ii,  116 
grants  from  confiscations,  ii,  376 
his  death,  i,  201 
Philip  II  makes  no  appointments,  i,  299 
his  control  of  Suprema,  i,  322 
reclaims  confiscations,  i,  331 
enforces  jurisdiction  of  Inqn.,  i,  341, 

343,  437;  ii,  352 
on  official  oaths,  i,  352 
regulates  tax-exemption,  i,  376 
billeting  of  troops,  i,  397 
forbids  concealed  weapons,  i,  402 
on  right  to  hold  office,  i,  416 
at  Cortes  of  Monzon  in  1564,  i,  442 
evades  complaints  of  Cortes,  i,  485 
suppresses  Order  of  Santa  Maria  de 

la  Espada  blanca,  i,  508 
revives  tribunal  of  Galicia,  i,  547 
demands  a  forced  loan,  ii,  46 
case  of  Carranza,  ii,  50,  57,  62,  64,  69, 

70,  73,  77,  79,  81,  86 
impedes  appeals  to  Rome,  ii,  129, 130, 

131 
defines  personnel  of  tribunals,  ii,  210 
objects  to  transfer  of  offices,  ii,  221 
requires  inqrs.  to  be  clerics,  ii,  235 
couples  inqr.  and  fiscal,  ii,  242 
on  nobles  as  familiars,  ii,  281 
on  limpieza,  ii,  291,  295,  306 
restrains  commutations,  ii,  413 
obtains  canonries  for  Inqn.,  ii,  425 
on  denunciation  of  accomplices,   ii, 

462;  iii,  373 
on  importance  of  secrecy,  ii,  476 
wants  penitents  for  galleys,  iii,  142 
galleys  for  bigamy  and  blasphemy, 

iv,  316,  331 
on  sanbenitos  in  churches,  iii,  169 
on  expenses  of  execution,  iii,  187 
on  windows  overlooking  autos,  iii,  21 3 
autos  celebrated  for,  iii,  227 
at  Valladolid  auto,  iii,  441 
milder  measures  for  Judaism,  iii,  235 
his  conquest  of  Portugal,  iii,  265 
forbids  expatriation,  iii,  271 
his  financial  exhaustion,  iii,  337 
debasement  of  coinage,  i,  562 ;  iv,  482 
maintains  commutation  of  confisca- 
tion, iii;  361 
dealings  with  Moriscos,  iii,  334,  339, 

367,  371,  379,  381,  388 
urges  action  against  Protestants,  iii, 

435,  448 
prohibits  education  abroad,  iii,  449 


598 


INDEX 


Philip   II,    his   savage   censorship,    iii, 

488 
renews  law  against  sorcery,  iv,  190 
political  use  of  Inqn.,  iv,  250 
prosecutes  Jeanne  d'Albret,  iv,  253 
case  of  Ant.  P^rez,  iv,  254,  255,  262, 

265,  267,  269 
on  unnatural  crime,  iv,  364 
results  of  his  reign,  iv,  474 
his  intolerance,  iv,  499 
quarrel  at  his  obsequies,  i,  362 
Philip  III  makes  appointments,  i,  300 
forces  resignations,  i,  306 
adds  member  to  Suprema,  i,  323 
asks  assent  of  Suprema,  i,  326 
reclaims  confiscations,  i,  331 
on  royal  jurisdiction  of  Inqn.,  i,  343, 

510 
prohibits   discharge   of   fire-arms,    i, 

408 
duplicity  with  Catalonia,  i,  471 
on  appeals  to  Rome,  i,  494,  496;  ii, 

131 
case  of  provisor  of  Cordova,  i,  496 
subjects  Military  Orders  to  Inqn.,  i, 

505 
forbids  refusal  of  competencias,  i,  522 
denies  episcopal  cognizance  of  heresy, 

ii,  8 
favors  transfer  of  offices,  ii,  221 
inqrs.  must  be  lawyers,  ii,  235 
exaggerates  limpieza,  ii,  311 
restrains  grants  of  canonries,  ii,  420 
sells  pardon  to  Judaizers,  iii,  267 
sells  right  to  emigrate,  iii,  271 
refuses  to  banish  Converses,  iii,  275 
seeks  to  convert  Moriscos,  iii,  372 
his  fear  of  Moriscos,  iii,  387 
his  edict  of  exjDulsion,  iii,  394 
dissipates  Morisco  confiscations,  iii, 

409 
makes  treaty  with  England,  iii,  463 
prohibits  the  Annals  of  Baronius,  iii, 

534 
asserts  independence  of  Roman  cen- 
sorship, iii,  535 
pardons  Ant.  Perez's  family,  iv,  270 
his  la^ashness,  iv,  475 
debases  the  coinage,  iv,  482 
subjection  to  his  confessor,  iv,  498 
his  piety,  iv,  500 
Philip    IV,    appointments    and    resig- 
nations, i,  301,  307,  309,  323,  324 
his  demands  on  Inqn.,  i,  332 
claims  portion  of  fines,   i,   340;    ii, 

399 
struggles  against  bureaucracy,  i,  346, 

616 
on  royal  jurisdiction  of  Inqn.   i   343, 

344 


Philip  IV  withdraws  exemptions  from 

billets,  i,  398 
on  bearing  arms,  i,  402,  408,  410 
on  military  service  of  familiars,  i,  413 
on  right  to  hold  office,  i,  418 
on  right  of  asylum,  i,  423 
crimes  under  coinage  laws,  i,  438 
protects  Valencia  familiars,  i,  448 
evades  reform  in  1626,  i,  455,  473 
yields  to  C6rtes  of  1646,  i,  459,  619 
deprecates  quarrels,  i,  475 
maintains   Catalonian    pri\'ileges,    i, 

479 
orders  Concordias  enforced,  i,  480 
his  subservience  to  Pacheco,  i    487, 

489,  490 
avoids  quarrel  with  Majorca,  i,  499 
regulates  sequestration,  ii,  496 
urged  to  check  abuses,  i,  510 
orders   excommunications  raised,   i, 

523 
on  competencias,  i,  522,  524 
favors  the  Logrono  tribunal,  i,  531 
on  quarrels  with  bishops,  i,  620 
contests  appeals  to  Rome,  ii,  132 
case  of  Villanueva,  ii,  138,  140,  148, 

154,  157 
proposes  a  governor  for  Suprema,  ii, 

165 
asks  for  expenses  of  Suprema,  ii,  195 
tries  to  diminish  officials,  ii,  211 
resorts  to  sale  of  offices,  ii,  212 
his  prodigality,  ii,  215;  iv,  476 
attempts  to  reform  limpieza,  ii,  300, 

307 
yields  to  chapter  of  Cordova,  ii,  422 
proposes  discharge  of  prisoners,  iii, 

155 
refuses  Cromwell's  demands,  iii,  469; 

iv,  501 
confirms  censorship  law,  iii,  489 
asks  licence  to  read  prohibited  books, 

iii,  523 
favors  the  Jesuits,  iii,  532;  iv,  380 
asserts  independence  of  Roman  cen- 
sorship, iii,  535 
defends  the  regalistas,  iii,  537 
influenced  by  visions,  iv,  39 
his  horoscope,  iv,  194 
competencia  over  bigamy,  iv,  320 
punishes  blasphemy,  iv,  333 
urges  the  Immaculate  Conception,  iv, 

359 
his  disastrous  reign,  iv,  475 
debases  the  coinage,  iv,  482 
subservience  to  Inqn.,  iv,  501 
his  immorality,  iv,  510 
Philip  V,  his  struggle  with  Giudice,  i,  314 
efforts  to  reform  Inqn.,  i,  317,  336; 

ii,  202,  223,  560 


INDEX 


699 


Philip  V  orders  a  Jesuit  member  of 
Suprema,  i,  323 
asserts  authority  ot  Suprema,  i,  325 ; 

ii,  177 
reclaims  confiscations,  i,  336 
enforces  obedience,  i,  348 
taxes  salaries,  i,  383 ;  ii,  440 
limits  exemptions  from  billets,  i,  399 
prohibits  pistols,  i,  402 
admits  right  to  bear  arms,  i,  411 
restricts  temporal  jurisdiction,  i,  515 
seeks  to  hasten  competencias,  i,  525 
prohibits  appeals  to  Rome,  ii,   159 
appoints  Vidal  Marin,  ii,  178 
on  false-witness,  ii,  560 
refuses  honor  of  an  auto,  iii,  229 
use  made  of  Inqn.,  iv,  275 
persecutes  Masonry,  iv,  301 
curbs  the  Inqn.,  iv,  386 
stimulates  culture,  iv,  387 
his  zeal  for  the  faith,  iv,  387 
changes  law  of  succession,  iv,  463 
on  growth  of  Church,  iv,  492 
eulogizes  Inqn.,  iv,  501 
Philippe  le  Bel  expels  Jews,  i,  83 
Philippines,  exile  to,  iii,  128 
Philosophism^  iv,  307 
Philtres,  punishment  for,  iv,  203 
Physician  of  Inqn.,  ii,  190,  248 
Physicians,  Moorish,  i,  66 

Jewish  and  Moorish,  forbidden,  i,  73 
accused  of  slaying  Christians,  i,  74; 
ii,  292 
Pichon,  Yu9af ,  his  murder,  i,  103 
Pictures,  censorship  of,  ii,  400;  iii,  547 
Pico  della  Mirandola  on  Jewish  expul- 
sion, i,  143 
Pie  de  amigo,  ii,  512;  iii,  135 
Pietro  Paolo  di  S.  Giovanni,  iv,  61 
Pilgrimage  as  penance,  iii,  131 
Pimiento,  Fr.  Joseph  Diaz,  case  of,  iii, 

182,  205 
Pimp,  confessor  serving  as,  iv.  111 
Pious  gifts  from  confiscations,  ii,  371 

uses,  penances  applied  to,  ii,  393,  410 
Pistoja,  council  of,  iv,  286,  293,  295 
Pistols,  prohibition  of,  i,  402 
Pius    II    exempts    Franciscans    from 

Inqn.,  ii,  30 
Pius  IV  subjects  regulars  to  Inqn.,  ii, 
33 
action  in  trial  of  Carranza,  ii,  70,  74, 

75,  76 
condemns  statute  of  limpieza,  ii,  293 
gifts  to  him,  iii,  252 
grants     suppression      of     witnesses' 

names,  iii,  258 
urges  compulsion  of  Moriscos,  iii,  334 
his  Index,  iii,  492 
subjects  solicitation  to  Inqn,,  iv,  99 


Pius  IV  subjects    unnatural   crime  to 

Inqn.  of  Portugal,  iv,  365 
Pius  V  forces  Vald^s  to  icsign,  i,  305 
his  bull  Si  de  protegendis,  i,  368 
his  protection  asked  by  Catalonia,  i, 

470 
authorizes  Inqn.  of  navy,  i,  541 
issues  jubilee  indulgence,  ii,  25 
action  in  Carranza's  case,  ii,  77,  79,  80 
invalidates  acquittals,   ii,   137,   142; 

iii,  107 
seeks  to  limit  limpieza,  ii,  306 
renews  quinquennial  indult,  ii,  420 
confirms  suppression  of  canonries,  ii, 

427 
orders  torture  to  discover  accomplices 

iii,  11 
exempts  from  irregularity,  iii,  189 
confiscation  in  Portugal,  iii,  260 
his  intolerance,  iv,  500 
Pius  VI  approves  of  Italian  Bible,  iii, 
530 
beatifies  Giov.  Gius.  della  Croce,  iv, 

67 
dispensation  to  Beata  Clara,  iv,  91 
condemns  council  of  Pistoja,  iv,  286 
Pius  VII  renews  quinquennial  indult, 
ii,  423 
suppresses  torture,  iii,  35 
reforms  procedure  of  Inqn.,  iii,  92 
denounces  Masonry,  iv,  303 
breaks  with  the  Liberal  Government, 

iv,  441 
supports  the  Regency  of  Catalonia, 
iv,  444 
Pius  VIII  grants  appeals  from  juntas 

de  fe,  iv,  462 
Pius  IX  blesses  Sor  Patrocinio,  iv,  93 
Pla,  Joseph,  Inqr.  of  Catalonia,  i,  479, 

480 
Place   and  time   suppressed  in   publi- 
cation, iii,  54 
Plaintiff  must  seek  court  of  defendant,  i, 

430,  466 
Plasencia,  wealth  of  see,  ii,  154 ;  iv,  494 
Plata  nacional  and  provincial,  i,  562 
Plata,  salaries  partly  paid  in,  ii,  197 
Plate  of  officials,  seizure  of,  i,  333 
Plaza,  Fray  Fernando  de  la,  i,  152 
Plea  for  mercy,  iii,  184,  185,  188 
Pleas  in  abatement,  iii,  58,  63 
Plomos  del  Sacromonte,  iv,  357 
Plots,  Morisoo,  iii,  385 

against  Fernando  VII,  iv,  434 
Pluralism  of  officials,  ii,  418 
Poblet,  royal  tomb  in,  ii,  374 
Pole,  Cardinal,  his  books  examined,  iii, 

508 
Police  power  during  autos,  iii,  213 
rules  disregarded,  i,  365 


600 


INDEX 


Politics,  Inqn.  not  an  instrument  for 
absolutism,  i,  291;  iii,  249 

occasional  service,  iii,  251 

case  of  Ant.  P6rez,  iii,  253 
he  is  prosecuted  for  blasphemy,  iii, 
258 

obstruction  of  royal  policy,  iii,  267 

occasional  cases,  iii,  273 

subservient  to  the  Bourbons,  iii,  275 

export  of  horses,  iii,  278 

use  of  impostors,  iv,  84,  92 

political  propositions,  iv,  177 
Poll-tax  on  Jews  and  Moors,  i,  85,  86, 

125 
Pollution  of  churches,  iv,  130 
Polygamy  tolerated,  i,  87 
Pombal,  his  reforms,  iii,  310 

denies  existence  of  sorcery,  iv,  202 
Ponce  de  la  Fuente,  Constantino,  iii, 

427,  429,  445 
Ponce  de  Leon,  Juan,  case  of,  iii,  176, 

201,  427,  429,  443 
Ponce  de   Leon,  Martin,  inq.-genl.,  i, 

178;  ii,  257 
Pontificals  prohibited,  iii,  531 
Poore,   Richard,   punishes   solicitation, 

iv,  97 
Popes,  claim  of  patronage  resisted,  i,  12 

their  jurisdiction  supreme,  ii,  160 

dispense  for  marriage  in  Orders,  iv, 
337 
Population  of  Spain,  iv,  476,  487 
Pork,  avoidance  of,  iii,  232 
PoTtero,  the,  ii,  246 

de  camara,  ii,  247 
Portocarrero,    Inq.-genl.,    his    resigna- 
tion, i,  306 

on  age  of  inqrs.,  ii,  236 
Portocarrero,  Juan  D.,  on  royal  juris- 
diction, i,  344,  345 

defends  mystics,  iv,  31 

becomes  Bp.  of  Guadix,  iv,  37 
Portraits  of  penitents  in  churches,  iii, 

171 
Portugal,  oppression  of  Jews,  i,  117,  140 

New  Christians  fly  to,  i,  165 

extradition  with  Castile,  i,  191,  253; 
iii,  278 

effect  of  its  conquest,  iii,  237,  266 

emigration  to  Castile,  iii,  277 

infection  of  blood,  iii,  283 

offers  for  relief,  iii,  283,  286 

injury  to  commerce,  iii,  288 

treaty  of  1668,  iii,  303 

equality  of  New  Christians,  iii,  310 

Jesuit  mystics,  iv,  22 

sohcitation,  iv,  100 

sorcery,  iv,  202 

unnatural  crime,  iv,  365 
See  also  Inqn.  of  Portugal. 


Portuguese  refugees  in  Italy,  iii,  254 

regarded  as  Jews,  iii,  270,  283,  296 

emigration  to  France,  iii,  271 

forbidden  to  emigrate,  iii,  271,  303 

vigilantly  tracked,  iii,  297 

Moors  invited  to  Spain,  iii,  319 
Possadas,  Fray  Fran,  de,  on  Molinism, 

iv,  70 
Possession,  demoniacal,  iv,  348 
Postage  oppressive  in  1815,  iv,  428 
Post-office,  influence  of,  ii,  179 
Potro,  iii,  19 

Poza,  Juan  Bautista,  iii,  57,  536 
Pozo,  Juan  del,  opposes  grants,  ii,  382 
Pozzo  di  Borgo  sent  to  Madrid,  iv,  451 
Practice,  ii,  457 
Practices,  Jewish  and  Moslem,  i,  146; 

ii,  565 
Prado  y  Cuesta  revokes  all  licences,  iii, 
524 

his  Index,  iii,  495;  iv,  289 
Pragmatica  del  Exequatur,  iii,  540 
Pragmdticas,  violation  of,  i,  438 

of  1501,  ii,  401,  404,  406 
Prat,  Juan,  i,  276,  277,  281,  282 
Prayer-test,  ii,  568 
Prayer  at  opening  of  sessions,  iv,  523, 

546 
Prayer,  mental,  iv,  1,  2,  6,  28,  30 

forbidden,  iv,  46 

practised  by  Pelagini,  iv,  47 

taught  by  Molinos,  iv,  50,  52 
by  Beccarellisti,  iv,  61 
by  S.  Franpois  de  Sales,  iv,  62 
by  Madame  Guyon,  iv,  63 
by  Giov.  Gius.  della  Croce,  iv,  68 
by  Toro  of  Oviedo,  iv,  74 
Prayers,  Jewish,  i,  150 

used  as  charms,  iv,  188 
Preachers  at  autos,  iii,  216 
Preaching  authorized  for  conversion,  i, 
91 

absurd,  iv,  168 

censorship  of,  iv,  173 
Prebends,  see  Canonries 
Precautions  in  solicitation,  iv,  119 
Precedence,  contests  over,  i,  359;  iii,  214 
Precepts,  inobservance  of,  ii,  11 
Predestination,  debate  over,  iv,  284 
Pre-eminence  of  Inqn..  i,  351 
Pregnancy  in  prison,  ii,  524 

torture  in,  iii,  15 
Prelates,  their  character,  i,  8;  iv,  497 
Preliminaries  of  torture,  iii,  4 
Premium  on  precious  metals,  i,  438, 563; 

iv,  482 
Preparation  of  Index,  iii,  493 
Prescription  of  time,  i,  270;  ii,  327,  328 
President  of  Suprema,  ii,  164 
Presidios,  iii,  144 


INDEX 


601 


Press,  freedom  of,  iv,  404 

Price  of  papal  absolutions,  ii,  104 

of  offices,  ii,  214 
Priesthood,  immunity  of  i,  428 

personation  of,  iv,  339 
Priests,  marriage  of,  iv,  336 

must  absolve  tor  heresy,  ii,  21 
Prince-bishops,  their  judges,  iii,  184 
Printers,  foreign,  prosecuted,  iii,  457 
Printing,  decline  of,  iv,  530 

regulation  of,  iii,  489 

office,  sequestration  of,  ii,  501 
Prison,  the  secret,  ii,  230,  507 

only  for  heresy,  i,  444 

infamy  caused  by,  i,  485,  510,  512 

clerics  not  confined  in,  iii,  180 

expenses  paid  by  alguazil,  ii,  210,  245 

abuses  in,  i,  222;  ii,  526 

inspection  of,  ii,  509,  524,  525 

humane  regulations,  ii,  524,  525 

laxity  of  discipline,  ii,  518,  520 

sickness  in,  ii,  522 

escape  from,  ii,  513 

deaths  in,  ii,  522;  iii,  285 
Prisoners,  kept  incomunicado,  ii,  493, 515 

their  existence  concealed,  ii,  473 

their  maintenance,  i,  567;  ii,  500,  528, 
532 

expenses  thrown  on  them,  ii,  494, 
530,  533 

allowance  fixed  by  inqrs.,  ii,  531 

their  rations,  ii,  524,  525,  527 

cook  their  own  food,  ii,  519 

clothes  supplied  to,  ii,  528 

female,  ii,  523,  525,  526 
pregnant,  ii,  524 

kept  in  ignorance  of  sentence,  iii,  94 

borrowing  of,  i,  481 

denied  sacraments,  ii,  520 
Prisons,  perpetual  or  penitential,  iii,  151 

construction  ordered,  i,  567 

gradually  provided,  iii,  152,  154 

their  inspection,  iii,  153 

their  discipline,  iii,  152,  154,  156 

escape  from,  iii,  156 

meaning  of  perpetual,  iii,  159 

irremissible,  ii,  411;  iii,  160 

substitutes  for,  iii,  152 

become  obsolete,  iii,  158 

prisoners  not  to  be  supported,  iii,  153 
their  mode  of  livelihood,  iii,  155 
Prisons,  episcopal,  harshness  of,  ii,  509 
Prisons,  character  in  Portugal,  iii,  284 
Priuli,  Lorenzo,  on  Umpieza,  ii,  309 
Privileges,   Jewish,  withdrawn,  i,   117 

of  Majorca,  i,  266 

in  the  markets,  i,  533 

of  Inqn.,  oath  to  uphold,  i,  352 

of  officials,  i,  375 
in  Portugal,  iii,  262 


Probabilism,  iv,  510 

Procedure,  secular,  in  Castile,  ii,  467 
of  Inqn.,  kept  secret,  ii,  475 
uniformity  attained  in,  iii,  37 
delays  in,  iii,  76 
in  trials  of  the  dead,  iii,  83 

of  the  absent,  iii,  83 
in  cases  of  propositions,  iv,  142 
in  unnatural  crime,  iv,  363 
amelioration  of,  iv,  392 

Process,  the  inquisitorial,  ii,  465 

Processions  of  penitents,  i,  169 
of  the  gi'een  cross,  iii,  216 

Proclamation  on  arrival  of  inqr.,  i,  617 
of  autos,  iii,  214 

Procurador  del  fisco,  ii,  250 

Procurators  allowed  to  accused,  iii,  43 
denied  to  accused,  iii,  49 
for  the  absent  and  dead,  iii,  50 

Procuress,  penitent  serving  as,  iv.  111 

Prodigality  with  confiscations,  ii,  373, 
376;  iii,  409 
of  Philip  IV,  ii,  215 

Profession  of  faith  by  inqrs.,  ii,  420 

Professions  forbidden  to  Jews,  i,  117 
to  penitents,  iii,  173 

Profits  of  temporal  jurisdiction,  i,  462, 
468,  508 
of  multiplying  offices,  ii,  212 
of  confiscation,  ii,  367 
of  penances  and  fines,  ii,  397,  398 
of  dispensations,  ii,  403 
of  persecution,  ii,  315;  iv,  527 

Progress,  intellectual,  impeded,  iii,  549; 
iv,  148,  528 

Prohibition  to  collect  taxes,  i,  380 

Promotor  fiscal,  see  Fiscal 

Proofs,  character  of,  iii,  232 
required  for  arrest,  ii,  490 
required  for  torture,  iii,  9 
in  trials  of  the  dead,  iii,  84 

Property,  accused  examined  as  to,  ii, 
321 
its  concealment,  ii,  322 
alienated,  is  confiscated,  ii,  339 
faculties  to  purchase,  ii,  346 
wasted  in  confiseation,  ii,  364,  370 
sequestrated  is  sacred,  ii,  497 
in  hands  of  third  parties,  ii,  503 
of  Inqn.,  escheated,  iv,  412,  437 
restored  in  1814,  iv,  427,  540 

Prophetess  of  Herrera,  i,  186;  iv,  520 

Propinas  of  Suprema,  ii,  195 

Propositions,  iv,  138 
definitions,  iv,  139 
ever-present  danger,  iv,  140 
abusive  punishments,  iv,  141 
rules  for  procedure,  iv,  142 
marriage  better  than  celibacy,  iv,  144 
fornication  not  sinful,  iv,  145 


602 


INDEX 


Propositions,  influence  on  intellectual 
development,  iv,  148 

case  of  Luis  de  Leon,  iv,  149 
his  second  trial,  iv,  159 

case  of  Francisco  Sanchez,  iv,  162 

case  of  Joseph  de  Sigiienza,  iv,  168 

theological  trivialities,  iv,  171 

errors  in  preaching,  iv,   173 

proportion  of  business,  iv,  176 

intention  in,  ii,  577 
Proprietorship  in  offices,  ii,  219 
Proscription  of  Liberals,  iv,  433,  448, 
450,  452 

its  effects,  iv,  453 
Prosecution  in  absentia,  ii,  466,  467 
Prosecutor,  public,  ii,  466,  479 
Proselytism  forbidden,  i,  87 

ascribed  to  Jews,  iii,  293 
Protection  of  officials,  i,  242,  368 

of  witnesses,  ii,  549 
Protest  attached  to  confessions,  ii,  574 
Protestantism,  iii,  411 

no  danger  to  Spain,  iii,  448 

its  disappearance,  iii,  457,  461 

foreign,  its  exclusion,  iii,  472 

converts  from,  iii,  476 

confused  with  Mysticism,  iv,  4,  13 

modem  propagandism,  iv,  471 

statistics  of,  iv,  525 

its  intolerance,  iv,  532 
Protestants,  special  severity  for,  iii,  200 

successfully  excluded,  iii,  472,  473 

persecute  witches,  iv,  246 
Proveedor,  ii,  249 

Providas,  bull,  against  Masonry,  iv,  300 
Provision  for  families  of  prisoners,  ii, 

499 
Provisions,  seizure  of,  i,  392 

detention  of,  for  inqrs.,  i,  534 
Pro^dsors,  prosecution  of,  i,  495;  ii,  9 
Publication  of  Edict  of  Faith,  ii,  94 

of  evidence,  ii,  552;  iii,  53 
Public  funds,   investments  in,  ii,  439, 
444 

heresy,  ii,  4 

office,  right  to  hold,  i,  415,  419 
Puente,  Luis  de  la,  iv,  18 
Pupio  Fidei,  the,  i,  114 
Puigblanch,  his  Inquisicion   sin  Mas- 
cara, iv,  405 

attacks  Villanueva,  iv,  442 
Pulgar,  Hern,  de,  his  statistics,  iv,  518 
Pulpit,  censorship  of,  iv,  173 
Punishment  is  penance,  ii,  389,  569 

under  Edict  of  Grace,  i,  169 

corporal,  sentences  of,  ii,  184 

reduced  by  Suprema,  ii,  187 
indelible  stigma  of,  ii,  299 
commutation  of,  ii,  402,  408 
after  overcoming  torture,  iii,  31 


Punishment  at  discretion  of  inqrs.,  iii, 
93 

multiple,  iii,  101 

enforcement  of,  iii,  101,  104 

with  acquittal,  iii,  107 

with  suspension,  iii,  110 

minor,  iii,  121 

accompanying  abjuration,  iii,  125 

unusual,   iii,   132 

harsher,  iii,  135 

for  using  papal  briefs,  ii,  110,  117 

for  concealing  property,  ii,  321 

for  false-witness,  ii,  554,  656,  561 

for  disobeying  censorship,  iii,  525 

of  mystics,  iv,  35 

of  impostors,  iv,  86,  88 

of  solicitation,  iv,  97, 101, 119, 126 

for  propositions,  iv,  141 

of  sorcery,  iv,  197 

of  witchcraft,  iv,  218,  224,  240 

of  bigamy,  iv,  316,  318,  321 

of  blasphemy,  iv,  328,  331,  334 

of  marriage  in  Orders,  iv,  336,  337, 
338 

of  personating  priesthood,  iv,  343 

of  personating  officials,  iv,  345 

of  insults  to  images,  iv,  353 

of  unnatural  crime,  iv,  361,  365,  367 

mitigation  in  1815,  iv,  432 

statistics  of,  iii,  553 
Purchase  of  papal  letters,  ii,  118,  121 

of  pardon,  iii,  267,  363 
Purging  evidence,  iii,  7,  30 
Purification,  iv,  408,  425 
Purveyance  and  pre-emption,  i,  393 
Purveyors  not  to  take  provisions  by 

force,  i,  533 
Pyrenees,  peace  of,  iii,  471 
Pyx,  theft  of,  in  Portugal,  iii,  284 


QUALIFICATIONS  of  inquisitors,  i, 
158,  237;  ii,  233 
of  familiars,  ii,  275,  279 
of  officials,  ii,  250 
limpieza  indispensable,  ii,  296 
of  witnesses,  ii,  536,  539 
Quarantine  broken  by  inqr.,  i,  264 
work  by  Inqn.,  iv,  381 
on  ideas,  iii,  505 
Quarrels  of  Torquemada  and  inquisi- 
tors, i,  177 
over  precedence,  1,  360;  iii,  214 
with  secular  courts,  i,  434,  439,  452, 

469,  481,  486,  492 
of  bishops  and  inqrs.,  i,  497,  620 
between  the  Regular  Orders,  ii,  38 
over  house  in  Valladolid,  ii,  208 
over  revenues  of  canonries,  ii,  430 
Quartering  of  troops,  i,  394 


INDEX 


603 


Quarters,  free,  i,  395 
Quarto  and  guartillo,  i,  562 
Queipo,  Bp.,  tried  by  Inqn.,  ii,  88 
Quemadero  of  Seville,  i,  164 

procession  to,  iii,  219 

special,  for  unnatural  crime,  iv,  368 
Queral,  D.  Pedro  de,  his  grievances,  i, 

537 
Quer6taro,  demoniacs  in,  iv,  350 
Question  prealahle  or  definitive,  iii,  11 
Questions  referred  to  Suprema,  ii,  163 

not  put  during  torture,  iii,  18 

leading,  forbidden,  iii,  71 
Quevedo,  Bp.  of  Orense,  iv,  401,  404, 

407,  417 
Quicksilver  mines,  service  in,  iii,  145 
Quietism,  iv,  4,  8,  9,  18 

in  Edict  of  Faith,  iv,  18,  24 

condemned,  iv,  28 

taught  by  Molinos,  iv,  49 

its  errors,  iv,  55 

of  Beccarellisti,  iv,  61 

of  S.  Franyois  de  Sales,  iv,  62 

limited  by  Fdnelon,  iv,  65 

of  Giov.  Gius.  della  Croce,  iv,  68 

of  Tore  of  Oviedo,  iv,  72,  535 
Quietists,  designs  attributed  to,  iv,  53 
Quinisext  Council  on  Jews,  i,  39 
Quinones,  Suero  de,  i,  6 
Quinquennial  indults,  ii,  416,  422,  423 
Quintanilla  reTives  Hermandad,  i,  30 
Quinto,  Javier  de,  on  oath  of  allegiance, 

i,  229 
Quiroga,  Inq.-genl.,  honors  Carranza's 
memory,  ii,  85 

his  prosecution  threatened,  ii,  130 

enforces  secrecy,  ii,  472 

his  Index,  iii,  493,  528 

protects  Luis  de  Leon,  iv,  157,  161 

his  gifts  to  Phihp  II,  iv,  494 
Quiroga,  Marfa  (see  Patrocinio),  iv,  92 
Quito,  la  Azucena  de,  iv,  39 

omission  of  Edict  of  Faith  in,  ii,  98 


EABAGO,  PADRE,  defies  the  Holy 
See,  iv,  290 
decries  culture,  iv,  530 
Race,  antagonism  of,  i,  121,  126 
Rack,  the,  iii,  21 

Raga,   Martin  de  la,   escapes  assassi- 
nation, i,  250 
Ram,  Mateo,  L  251,  257,  604 
Ramirez   of   Guatemala    organizes   an 

Inqn.,  ii,  8 
Ramfrez  de  Haro,  Bp.,  iii,  373 
Ramiro  I  persecutes  sorcerers,  iv,  179 
Ramon  Martin,  his  Pugio  Fidei,  i,  114 
Ramoneda,  Estevan,  case  of,  iv,  129 
Ranke  on  political  use  of  Inqn.,  iv,  248 


Ransoms,   commutations  used  for,  ii, 

411 
Rapica,  Mateo  de,  his  persecution,  i,  146 
Rates  of  interest,  i,  97 
Ratification  of  evidence,  ii,  544,  546; 
iv,  106 

of  confession  in  torture,  iii,  7 
Ratio  of  gold  and  silver,  i,  560 
Rations  for  prisoners,  ii,  519,  525,  531 
Razors,  censorship  of,  iii,  546 
Reaction  in  favor  of  Jews,  i,  121 

ten  years  of,  iv,  450 
Reading  of  edicts  in  churches,  i,  359 
Real,  value  of,  i,  561 
Real  Compafiia  Maritima,  ii,  444 
Real,  Dr.,  on  unnatural  crime,  iv,  365 
Real  estate,  insecurity  of  titles,  ii,  327, 

339,  346 
Rebeldia,  or  contumacy,  ii,  467;  iii,  83 
Rebukes  of  tribunals  by  Suprema,  ii, 

183,  186 
Becabdores,  i,  98 

Receipt  given  for  dower,  ii,  599 
Receiver  of  fines  and  penances,  ii,  391 
Receiver-general,  his  duties,  ii,  366 

of  penances,  ii,  392 
Receivers  of  confiscations,  ii,  250 

sent  to  Seville  in  1480,  ii,  315 

honor  .requisitions  of  Suprema,  ii,  191 

districts  assigned  to,  ii,  206 

become  officers  of  Inqn.,  i,  328 

powers  and  duties,  ii,  342,  445 

pay  maintenance  of  prisoners,  fi,  529 

their  accounts,  i,  294;  ii,  365,  446, 
447,  600 

deposits  in  coffer,  ii,  450,  452 

defalcations  habitual,  ii,  451 

obstruct  grants  from  confiscations,  ii, 
382 
Receivership,  price  of,  ii,  214 
Recemund,  Bishop,  his  embassy,  i,  47 
Reception  of  inqrs.  in  visitations/ ii,  239 
Reclamation  of  sequestrated  property, 

ii,  497 
Reclusion  in  convents,  iii,  180 
Recojimiento,  iv,  6 
Reconciliados,  spoliation  of,  ii,  335 

their   Christian  slaves  liberated     ii, 
340 

forbidden  to  trade  with  Indies,  ii,  357 
Reconciliation,  private,  i,  296 

as  punishment,  iii,  146 

infers  confiscation,  ii,  320;  iu,  149 

of  the  dead,  iii,  85 

after  relaxation,  iii,  90 

ceremony  of,  iii,  147 

sanbenito  prescribed  for,  iii,  162 

during  auto  de  fe,  iii,  191 

in  relapse,  iii,  206 

in  witchcraft,  iv,  213,  228,  230 
Reconquest,  toleration  during,  i,  52 


604 


INDEX 


Records  of  the  Inquisition,  i,  159 

their  development,  ii,  255 

retained  by  officials,  ii,  257,  258 

their  arrangement,  ii,  259 

intercommunication  of,  ii,  260 

final  perfection,  ii,  261 

why  never  bound,  ii,  474 

of  familiars,  ii,  274 
Rectories  for  Moriscos,  iii,  367 
Rectors,  their  character,  iii,  367,  368 
Recurso  de  fuerza,  i,  341,  428;  iii,  533 
Recusation  of  judges,  ii,  69,  143,  467; 

iii,  57 
Redemption  of  captives,  ii,  411 

of  punishment,  ii,  408 
Reform,  Charles  V's  project  of,  i,  218 

project  of,  in  1623,  i,  381 
efforts  of  Philip  V,  i,  317,  336;  ii, 
202,  223,  560 
Reformation,  the,  its  influence,  iii,  412 

clerical  celibacy  in,  iv,  337 
Reformisias  antiguos  espanohs,  iii,  427 
Refreshments  at  bull-fights,  ii,  198 
Refuge  in  lands  of  nobles,  i,  241 
Refugees  in  Rome,  ii,  114 

in  Guienne  to  be  seized,  iii,  278 

despoilment  of,  ii,  337 
Refusal  of  onerous  offices,  i,  420 
Regalias  defended  by  Inqn.,  iii,  535 

assailed  by  Inqn.,  iii,  540 

control  the  Inqn.,  iv,  390 
Regalistas,  quarrel  over,  iii,  533 
Regency  of  Maria  Ana  of  Austria,  i,  310 

during  War  of  Liberation,  iv,  403, 416, 
419,  422 

of  Catalonia,  iv,  443 

of  1823,  iv,  443 

of  Cristina,  iv,  456 
Reggio,  Alessandro,  attacks  Molinos  iv, 

52 
Regimento  of  Portuguese  Inqn.,  iii,  262, 

310 
Registers,  ii,  256 
Register  of  Valencia,  iv,  458 
of  confiscations,  i,  581 

of  familiars,  i,  467;  ii,  274 

of  solicitations,  iv,  135 
Registration  of  foreigners,  iii,  472 
Regla,  Juan  de,  his  prosecution,  iii,  420 
Regulars,  subjected  to  Inqn.,  ii  29,  36; 
iv,  100 

solicitation  by,  iv,  135 

quarrels  between,  ii,  38;  iv,  380 
Regulations  of  cdrceles  secretas,  ii,  519 

for  foreign  heretics,  iii,  464,  473,  475 
Rehabilitations,  ii,  402 
composition  for,  ii,  358 
profits  of,  ii,  403,  408 
papal  and  royal,  ii,  404,  406 
Reina,  Cassiodoro  de,  iii,  428,  447 
Rejaule,  Dr.  Juan,  case  of,  i,  405 


Relapse,  definition  of,  iii,  202 

after  abjuration  de  vehementi,  iii,  124 

after  reconciliation,  iii,  148 

for  non-performance  of  sentence,  iii, 
102,  173 

relaxation  for,  iii,  125,  190,  202,  204 

reconciliation  in,  iii,  206 

in  inferential  heresy,  iii,  207 

in  solicitation,  iv,  129 
Relapsed  admitted  to  mercy,  i,  267 
Relator,  ii,  194 
Relaxation,  iii,  183 

for  impenitence,  iii,  190,  195 

for  denial,  ii,  585;  iii,  198 

for  diminucio,  iii,  199 

for  revocation,  ii,  582 

for  relapse,  iii,  125,  190,  202,  204 

for  infraction  of  sentence,  iii,  101,  173 

sentences  of,  submitted  to  Suprema, 
ii,  181 
in  churches,  iii,  224 
have  precedence,  iii,  187 
magistrates  informed  in  advance, 
iii,  187 

after  confession,  iii,  190 

without  burning,  iii,  192 

not  for  solicitation,  iv,  128,  129 

in  witchcraft,  iv,  214,  218,  227 

in  unnatural  crime,  iv,  367,  368 

becomes  obsolete,  iii,  208 

statistics,  iii,  562;  iv,  517 
Relaxation  of  discipline,  ii,  225 
Relaxed,  efforts  to  convert  the,  iii,  196 
Religion  subservient  to  politics,  i,  50 . 

character  of,  iv,  502 
Remedies  for  witchcraft,  iv,  213 
Remittance,  colonial,  seized,  i,  333 
Removal  of  records  forbidden,  ii,  257 
Remy,  Nich.,  on  witches,  iv,  246 
Rentes  Provinciahs,  iv,  487 
Rents  collected  through  Inqn.,  i,  270 
Renewal  of  commissions,  ii,  162 
Repartimiento  of  1284,  i,  86 

of  1474,  i,  125 
Repentance,  feigned,  relaxation  for,  iii, 

191 
Repetition  of  torture,  iii,  18,  28 
Reports  required  from  tribunals,  ii,  183 

of  visitations,  ii,  238 

financial,  ii,  448 

of  torture,  iii,  24 
Representation  in  C6rtes,  i,  2 

of  the  Persians,  iv,  421 
Reprimand,  iii,  109,  112,  113,  121;  iv, 

334 
Repudiation  of  debts  to  reconciliados, 

ii,  335 
Requesens,  Juan  de,  case  of,  i,  537 
Reserve  engendered  by  Inqn.,  ii,  91 ;  iv, 

515 
Residence,  episcopal,  required,  i,  306 


INDEX 


605 


Residence,  dispensation  from,  ii,  415 

royal,  exile  from,  iii,  126 
Resignations  in  favor  of  descendants, 
ii,  220 

of  inqrs.-genl.,  i,  304,  613 
Resistance,  absence  of,  in  Castile,  i,  185 

in  kingdoms  of  Aragon,  i,  239,  245, 
261 

to  grant  of  canonries,  ii,  416 

to  visUas  de  navios,  iii,  513 
Respect,  enforcement  of,  i,  366,  370 

diminution  of,  iv,  392,  431 
Responsibility,  age  of,  ii,  3 

absence  of,  ii,  478 

for  confiscation,  ii,  317 

for  burning,  iii,  183 

of  secrestador,  ii,  502 
Restoration  of  Fernando  VII,  iv,  420 

revival  of  Inqn.,  iv,  424 

finances  of  Inqn.,  iv,  426,  540 
its  moderation,  i,  521;  iv,  430 

limpieza  under,  ii,  311 

consorship  under,  iii,  544 

political  use  of  Inqn.,  iv,  277 

disappearance  of  Jansenism,  iv,  297 

Masonry,  iv,  304 
Retraction,  formula  of,  iv,  173 
Retrenchment  under  Restoration,   iv, 

428 
Retribution  for  intolerance,  iv,  533 
Revelations  of  demons,  ii,  134 

doubtful  source  of,  iv,  4 
Revenue  of  Castile,  i,  8;  iv,  487 

derived  from  Jews  and  Moors,  i,  66, 
85,  110 

farming  of,  i,  98 
of  canonries,  ii,  430 

of  Inqn.,  ii,  440,  608 ;  iv,  460 
Revisores  de  libros,  iii,  487,  501 

in  custom-houses,  iii,  509 
Revocante,  ii,  582 

in  Valencia,  ii,  584;  iii,  129 

punishment  of,  iii,  10,  28,  29,  200 

in  witchcraft,  iv,  232,  235 
Revocation  of  letters  of  absolution,  ii, 

591 
Revolts  in  1820-3,  iv,  443 
Revolution,  French,   influence   of,   iii, 
509;  iv,  390 

of  1820,  iv,  434 
its  failure,  iv,  442 
Ribas  Altas,  Maestre,  story  of,  i,  132 
Ribas  Altas,  Aldonza,  burnt,  i,  610 
Ribbons,  sacrilegious,  iii,  546 
Ribera,  Abp.,  his  edict  of  faith,  ii,  8 

dealings  with  Moriscos,  iii,  342,  361, 
368,  372,  382,  389,  393,  409 

protests  against  English  treaty,  iii, 
465 

favors  mysticism,  iv,  20 
Ricaldini,  Agostino,  iv,  47 


Ricasoli,  Pandolfo,  iv,  43 

Ricci,  Giovanni,  nuncio,  iii,  249,  251 

Ricci,  Scipione  de',  iv,  286 

Rico,  Medina,  as  inspector,  ii,  230 

Ricosomes,  their  allegiance,  i,  1 

Riego,  Rafael  de,  his  rising,  iv,  434 

Riesoo,  Francisco,  iv,  398,  401,  404,  408, 

409 
Rigorism  of  Jansenists,  iv,  285 
Rios,  Amador  de  los,  his  statistics,  iv, 

518 
Ripaut,  Archange,  combats  mysticism, 

IV,  63 
Ripoll,  Cayetano,  case  of,  iv,  401 
Rites,  Judaic,  their  importance,  i,  145 

their  obsolescence,  iii,  300 
Roa,  Juan  de,  his  book  condemned,  iii, 

534 
Roads,  lack  of,  iv,  480 
Roales,  Francisco,  attacks  Jesuits,  iv, 

380 
Eobert  the  Pious  bums  heretics,  iii,  183 
Robinson  Crusoe  prohibited,  iii,  497 
Robles,  Bart.,  his  importations,  iii,  512 

his  book-shop  examined,  iii,  488 
Rocaberti,    Inq.-genl.,    instructions  to 
him,  i,  301 

his  dispensation,  i,  313 

on  strife  betv/een  regular  Orders,  ii, 
39 

investigates  bewitchment,  ii,  170 
Rodriguez,  Miguel,  on  Catalonia,  i,  474 
Rodrigo,  Fran.  J.  G.,  his  statistics,  iv, 

517 
Rodrigo  of  Toledo,  his  intolerance,  i,  59 

appoints  Jews  to  office,  i,  99 
Roda,  Manuel  de,  suspected,  iv,  310 
Roig,  Martin,  cost  of  proving  his  lim- 
pieza, ii,  302 
Rojas,  Bp.  Crist6bal  de,  favors  mvstics, 

iv,  20 
Rojas,  Domingo  de,  ii,  53;  iii,  430,  431, 

442 
Rojas,  Juan  de,  his  work  on  practice, 
ii,  476 

on  Concordia  of  1568,  i,  446 

on  ratification,  ii,  547 

on  concurrent  witnesses,  ii,  563 

on  imperfect  confession,  ii,  575 

on  consuHa  de  fe,  iii,  73 

on  suicide  in  prison,  iii,  197 

on  propositions,  iv,  142 
RoUe,  Richard,  the  mystic,  iv,  2 
Remain,  G.,  on  Inqn.,  iv,  248 
Roman  law,  confiscation  in,  ii,  316 

Inqn.,  see  Inqn.  of  Rome 
Rome,  its  patronage  resisted,  i,  12 

appeals  to,  i,  494,  496;  ii,  103 
concerning  canonries,  ii,  422 

assists  Mallorquin  clergv,  i,  498,  502, 
603,  504 


606 


INDEX 


Rome,  use  ot  Edict  of  Faith,  ii,  97 
converse  refugees,  ii,  114 
citations  to,  ii,  118 
struggle  over  dispensations,  ii,  405, 

406 
grants  Inqn.  to  Portugal,  iii,  239 
reserves  right  to  issue  licences,  iii,  522 
allows  vernacular  Bible,  iii,  529 
Masonry  condemned,  iv,  229 
condemns  the  Plomos  del  Sacromonte, 

iv,  358 
payments  withdrawn  from,  iv,  441 

Romero,  Alonso,  case  of,  iv,  171 

Romuald  ot  Freiburg  accuses  Olavide, 
iv,  309 

Romualdo  burnt  for  Molinism,  iv,  62 

Rosary  as  penance,  iii,  132 

Rosellon,  New  Christians,  in,  i,  146 
abandoned  to  France,  i,  479 

Rossi,  Margarita,  iv,  48 

Rovere,  Marco  della,  iii,  239,  241 ,  243 

Royal  Council,  struggles  with  the  Inqn., 
■  i,  487,  491 

permits  service  ot  papal  brief,  ii,  128 
grants  licences  to  print,  iii,  483,  489 
consulta  ot,  1619,  iv,  478,  490 

Royal  jurisdiction  ot  Inqn.,  i,  343,  614 

Royalist  Volunteers,  iv,  448 

Royalists,  ultra,  risings  ot,  iv,  456 

Royz,  Juan,  ii,  253,  374,  375 

Ruet,  Francisco,  his  persecution,  iv,  469 

Rules  of  Inquisition,  i,  181,  571-80 
for  examinations,  iii,  70 

Ruyz  Padron,  iv,  413,  423 


qAAVEDRA,  the  False  Nuncio,  iii,  243 

^     Sabbat,  the,  of  witchcraft,  iv,  207, 
214,  217,  227,  229 
debate  as  to  realit}',  iv,  209,  231 
evidence  as  to  participants,  iv,  232, 
243,  245 

Sabbath,  Jewish,  held  inviolate,  i,  87 
its  observance,  iii,  232,  300 

Saco  bendito,  iii,  162 

Sacrament,  trampling  on,  iv,  355 
sacrilege  by  Jews,  i,  116 

Sacraments,  importance  of,  iv,  339 
vitiated  by  heretics,  ii,  2 
denied  to  prisoners,  ii,  520 
denied  to  negativos,  iii,  198 
denied  to  witches,  iv,  232,  237 

Sacramentum  Poenitentia:,  bull,  iv,  112 

Sacromonte,   fictitious  martvrs  of,  iv, 
358 

Saddlers,  Morisoo,  wanted  in  C6rdova, 
iii,  399 

Saez,  Victor  Damien,  iv,  449 

Safe-conducts  issued  by  inqrs.,  i,  270 
to  outlaws  limited,  i,  444 

Sailors,  foreign,  prosecuted,  iii,  446,  462 


Saints,  uncanonized,  iv,  355 

St.  Victor,  Richard  of,  on  trances,  iv,  4 

St.  John,  Knights  of,  seek  papal  brief, 
i,  500 

Sola,  autos  held  in,  iii,  221 

Sala  de  media  aflata,  i,  378 

Salamanca,    Council     of,     on     Jewish 
physicians,  i,  74 
in  1565,  on  heretics,  ii,  55 

Salamanca,  Univ.  of,  Conversos  barred 
from,  ii,  287 
professors  prosecuted,  iv,  150 
astrology  suppressed,  iv,  193 
its  Jansenism,  iv,  293 

Salaries,  division  of,  ii,  220,  222 
in  Valencia,  in  1482,  i,  231 
in  Saragossa,  in  1484,  i,  244 
of  fiscal  and  notaries,  ii,  241 
paid  by  the  king,  i,  291,  294 

his  assent  required  for,  i,  330 
Ferdinand's  complaint,  i,  568;  ii,  209 
taxed  by  Philip  V,  i,  383 
fixed  by  inq.-genl.,  ii,  163 
controlled  by  Suprema,  ii,  189 
ot  president  of  Suprema,  ii,  165 
ot  Suprema,  ii,  196,  202 
their  inadequacy,  ii,  217,  251 ;  iv,  388 
dependent  on  confiscations,  ii,  349, 

371,  393 
have  preference  over  grants,  ii,  380 
not  relieved  by  benefices,  ii,  418 

Salas,  Ramon  de,  case  of,  iv,  313 

Salazar,  Count  of,  expels  Moriscos,  iii, 
399,  403,  404 

Salazar,  de  Soto,  his  visitation,  i,  369, 
442,  468,  529;  ii,  181 
its  cost,  ii,  228 

Salazar  Frias  on  witchcraft,  iv,  225, 227, 
230 

Sale  of  papal  absolutions,  ii,  104 
ot  offices,  ii,  213 
ot  dispensations,  ii,  402,  408 
of  property  by  penitents,  i,  243 
by  heretics,  ii,  325,  339 
of  books  to  be  reported,  iii,  501 

Salgado  de  Somoza,  his  books  condem- 
ned, iii,  535 

Salic  law,  question  of,  iv,  462 

Salidas,  iii,  226 

Sahgnac  on  invasion  of  Spain,  iii,  388 

Salt,  trading  in,  by  Inqn.,  i,  391 

privilege  of  Valencia  tribunal,  i,  394 

Salucio,  Agustin,  on  limpieza,  ii,  306 

Saludadores,  iv,  180 

Salvatierra,  Bp.  of  Segorbe,  on  Moriscos, 
iii,  341,  345,  389 

Salvation  the  object  of  Inqn.,  ii,  482, 
569;  iii,  196 
torture  as  means  of,  iii,  11 

Samaniego,  Felipe,  case  of,  iv,  311 

Samuel  ha  Levi  ot  Granada,  i,  51 


INDEX 


607 


Samuel  of  Morocco  assails  Jews,  i,  113 
Sanbenito,  ii,  401 ;  iii,  162 

its  severity,  ii,  409;  iv,  527 

cost  of  dispensation  for,  ii,  402 

offer  to  Ferdinand,  i,  280 

de  dos  aspas,  de  media  asva,  iii,  125, 
163 

its  duration,  iii,  163 

worn  in  auto,  iii,  209 

discarding  it,  iii,  103,  156,  164 

of  assassins  of  Arbu^s,  i,  258 

hung  in  churches,  iii,  165 
becomes  obsolescent,  iii,  170 
Sdnchez,  Francisco,  case  of,  iv,  162 
Sdnchez,  Juan,  iii,  429,  431,  442 
Sdnchez,  Juan,  on  solicitation,  iv,  114 
Sdnchez,    Tomds,    on    consultation    of 

demons,  ii,  170 
Sancho  I  aided  by  Moors,  i,  53 
Sancho  IV,  his  rebellion,  i,  3 

Hermandades  under,  i,  29 

limits  Jewish  privileges,  i,  95 
Sancho,  Francisco,  labors  on  Index,  iii, 

487,493   . 
Sancho  de  Ciudad,  trial  of,  iii,  87 
Sanctity  or  heresy,  iv,  16 
Sanctuary  afforded  by  Inqn.,  i,  421 
Sanctus  Diabolus,  iv,  332 
Sandoval,  Index  of,  iii,  495 

instructions  to  him,  i,  300 
San  Hermengildo,  college  of,  its  bank- 
ruptcy, iv,  381 
Sanity,  investigation  into,  iii,  60 
San  Martin,  Juan  de,  the  first  inquisitor, 
i,  160 

quarrels  with  Torquemada,  i,  177 
San  Miguel,  Evaristo,  iv,  403,  441,  445 
San  Placido,  case  of  convent  of,  ii,  134, 

137,  138,  157 
San  Roman,  Francisco  de,  iii,  423 
San  Sebastian,  appeals  to  Charles  V,  i, 
33 

foreigners  in,  iii,  461 

import  of  books,  iii,  517 
Santaffi,  Francisco  de,  i,  257,  601 
Santaf6,  Geronimo  de,  i,  115,  117 
Santa  Hcrmandad,  la,  i,  29 
Santa    Maria    de    la    Espada    Blanca, 

Order  of,  i,  507 
Santa  Maria,  Pablo  de,  i,  114 
Santander,  witch-craze  in,  iv,  223 
Santangel,  Luis  de,  penanced,  i,  259 
Sant  Feliu,  Juan,  case  of,  i,  431 
Santiago,  college  of,  in  Huesca,  i,  456 
Santiago,  tribunal  of,  i,  552 

its  finances,  ii,  441 

visitas  de  navios,  iii,  315 

chapter  of,  appeals  to  Rome,  ii,  422 
Santiguada,  ii,  568 
Santigueadores,  iv,  233 
Santis,  Don  Martin,  his  murder,  i,  446 


Santo  Nino  de  la  Guardia,  i,  134 
confrontation  in  case  of,  ii,  553 
Santos,  Inqr.,  and  Fray  Vinegas,  i,  371 
Santos,  Fray  Manuel,  case  of,  iii,  456 
Santos,  Francisco,  on  indolence,  iv,  495 
on  profanation  of  churches,  iv,  503 
Sanz,  Mari,  an  alumbrado,  iv,  23,  24 
Saracens,  their  toleration,  i,  45 

aided  by  Christians,  i,  49,  52 
Saragossa,  dispute  over  its  archbishop- 
ric, i,  13 
expulsion  of  Jews,  i,  132 
Cortes  of,  1518,  i,  275 
quarrels  with  tribunal,  i,  389 
massacre  of  French  troops,  i,  396 
its  composition  violated,  ii,  355 
revolt  in  1820,  iv,  435 
Saragossa,  its  tribunal,  i,  244,  552 
its  activity,  i,  255,  592 
rebuked  by  Ferdinand,  i,  187 
its  relations  with  Navarre,  i,  225 
quarrel  over  precedence,  i,  360 
its  temporalities  seized,  i,  452 
its  finances,  i,  463;  ii,  209,  437,  441 
its  contribution  to  Suprema,  ii,  192 
frauds  of  receivers,  ii,  451 
musicians  illtreated,  i,  366 
is  visitor  of  College  of  Santiago,  i,  456 
Cortes  of  1646,  i,  458 
military  service  of  officials,  i,  413 
persecution  of  Moriscos,  iii,  358 
case  of  Ant.  P&ez,  iv,  259 
auto  of  Oct.  20,  1591,  iv,  268 
trade  in  horses,  iv,  280 
operations  of  Inqn.,  iv,  521 
Sardinia,    bishops    deprived    of    juris- 
diction, ii,  6 
appeals  to  Rome,  ii,  129 
no  ayudas  de  casta,  ii,  254 
visitas  de  navios,  iii,  512 
solicitation,  iv,  123 
reform  of  Franciscans,  iv,  252 
competencia  on  bigamy,  iv,  320 
Sarmiento,  Inqr.,  i,  529;  iv,  218 
Satisfying  the  evidence,  ii,  575 
Saynetes,  censorship  of,  iii,  547 
Scaglia,  Card.,  on  mysticism,  iv,  42 
on  personating  priesthood,  iv,  340 
on  possession,  iv,  352 
Scandal  more  dreaded  than  crime,  i, 

368;  iv,  119,  130,  137 
Scaviella,  people  of,  their  complaint,  ii, 

347 
Schafer,  Dr.  Ernst,    his   statistics,  iii, 

426,  455;  iv,  525 
Schism  threatened  in  Villanueva's  case, 

ii,  152 
Schoderius,  his  Pharmacopoeia,  iii,  507 
Schools  for  Moriscos,  iii,  336 
Scio  de  San  Miguel,  his  Bible,  iii,  530 
Scotland,  trials  of  dead,  iii,  81 


608 


INDEX 


Scotland,  witchcraft,  iv,  247 
Scourging,  iii,  135 

execution  of  sentence,  iii,  219 

for  propositions,  iv,  142 

for  sorcery,  iv,  187 

for  bigamy,  iv,  321 

for  blasphemy,  iv,  334 

remitted  by  Suprema,  ii,  187 

its  gradual  disuse,  iii,  137 
Scriptures,  vernacular,  iii,  527 
Scrivenerships,  confiscation  of,   i,  192, 

581 
Scrutinium  Scripturarwm,  i,  114 
Sea-coast,  prohibition  to  approach,  iii, 
■    127 

Sea-ports,  commissioners  of,  ii,  271 
Seal  of  Confession  in  heresy,  ii,  24 

violation  of,  iv,  31 

jurisdiction  asked  for,  iv,  377 
not  granted,  iv,  378 
Sebastian,    Dom,   on   confiscation,   iii, 
260 

forbids  emigration,  iii,  271 
Secrecy  of  Inqn.,  ii,  470 

early  proceedings  public,  ii,  471 

gradual  development,  ii,  472 

effort  for  its  removal,  i,  221 

complaints,  i,  222 

in  secular  cases,  i,  509 

creates  irresponsibility,  ii,  181 

in  limpieza,  ii,  302 

as  to  procedure,  ii,  475 

enforced  on  all  parties,  ii,  473;  iii,  37 

estimate  placed  on  it,  ii,  476,  607 
Secrestador,  li,  501 
Secretaries,  ii,  243 

their  salary,  ii,  244 

fees  in  limpieza,  ii,  302 
Secretario  de  las  causas  civiles,  ii,  250 
Secreto,  the,  ii,  230,  471 
Secular  arm,  delivery  to,  iii,  185,  219, 

225 
Secular  business,  its  predominance,  i, 

468 
Secular  clergy,  solicitation  by,  iv,  135 
Secular  courts  their  procedure,  ii,  467 

use  of  torture  in,  iii,  3 
Seduction  of  female  prisoners,  ii,  523 
Segneri,  Paolo,  attacks  Molinos,  iv,  52 
Segorbe,  conversion  of  Moriscos,  iii,  369 
Segovia,  Juderfa  established  in,  i,  78 

Jews  accused  of  outrage,  i,  116 

tribunal  of,  i,  166,  552 

false-witness  in,  ii,  555 
Segregation  of  races,  i,  64,  .68,  72,  77 

follows  arrest,  ii,  493 

of  prisoners,  ii,  515 
Seguro  de  Tordesillas,  i,  4 
Seizure  of  provisions,  i,  393 
Selection  of  episcopal  delegates,  ii,  17 
Selemoh  Ha-Levi,  i,  114 


Self-denunciation,  ii,  571 
confiscation  in,  ii,  320 
in  relapse,  iii,  203 
in  solicitation,  iv,  130 
in  witchcraft,  iv,  236 
Self-government  of  Inqn.,  i,  343 ;  K,  477 
Selles,  Fray  Vicente,  case  of,  iv,  70 
Seflal  for  Jews  and  Moors,  i,  68,  115 
Senior,  Abraham,  i,  131,  138 
Sensuality  as  mortification,  iv,  34,  42, 
43 
of  Uluminism,  iv,  57,  74 
Sentence,  the,  iii,  93 

execution  of,  ministerial,  i,  354;  iii, 

185 
enforcement  of,  iii,  101 
includes  confiscation,  ii,  318 
confirmed  by  Suprema,  ii,  184 
of  torture,  iii,  5 
on  the  dead,  form  of,  iii,  85 
when  revealed  to  culprits,  iii,  94 
delayed  to  prevent  appeals,  iii,  95 
modification  of,  iii,  97 
mitigated  by  Suprema,  ii,  187 
torture  not  alluded  to,  iii,  32 
multiplex,  iii,  101 
of  acquittal,  iii,  105,  107 
of  suspension,  iii,  109 
of  burning,  iii,  185,  219,  225 
of  compurgation,  iii,  113 
of  ahiio  y  cdrcel,  iii,  164 
discretional,  forbidden,  iii,  160 
confession  prior  to,  iii,  191 
conversion  after,  iii,  193 
Sentences,  reading  of,  at  autos,  iii,  217 
box  for,  iii,  215 

con  meritos,  their  influence,  iv,  510 
Sentencia  Estatuto,  i,  126;  ii,  285 
Sentencia  de  diligendas,  ii,  342 
Seo  de  Urgel,  massacre  at,  iv,  443 
Separation  of  races,  i,  64,  68,  72,  77 
Sepiilveda,  persecution  of  Jews  in,  ii,  42 
Sequere  me,  mystics  so  called,  iv,  45 
Sequestration,  ii,  485 

reports  required  of,  ii,  183 
damage  caused  by,  i,  236;  ii,  331 
its  importance,  ii,  495 
its  procedure,  ii,  496 
reclamation  of  others'  property,  ii, 

497 
consumed  by  expenses,  ii,  500,  530 
its  limitations,  ii,  503 
in  trials  of  the  dead,  iii,  84 
in  cases  of  suspension,  iii,  109 
abolished  in  Portugal,  iii,  282 
Sequestrations,  notary  of,  ii,  244 

appropriated,  i,  333;  ii,  498 
Serfdom,  predial,  of  Moriscos,  iii,  377 
Sermo,  the,  iii,  209 

Sermon  of  Abp.  of  Cranganor,  iii,  302 
Sermons,  absurd,  i,  10;  iv,  168 


INDEX 


609 


Serra,  arrest  of  its  people,  i,  187;  iii,  343 
Serra,  Fray  N.,  his  sermon,  iv,  175 
Servants,  their  wages  paid,  ii,  329,  330, 
332 
not  witnesses  for  defence,  ii,  539 
of  officials,  i,  270,  369,  429,  432,  440, 
443,  444 
Service,  gratuitous,  liability  for,  ii,  218 

military,  exemption  from,  i,  412 
Serviles,  iv,  443 

Seso,  Carlos  de,  iii,  429,  431,  442 
Settlement  of  competencias,  i,  524 
Settlements  in  expulsion  of  Jews,  i,  136, 

569 
Severity  shown  to  nobles,  iii,  100 
Seville  pacified  by  Isabella,  i,  24 
Jewish  aljama  founded,  i,  89 
massacre  in  1391,  i,  106 
synod  of,  in  1478,  i,  157 
council  of,  in  1512,  on  bigamy,  iv,  318 
on  instruction  of  Moriscos,  iii,  327 
on  blasphemy,  iv,  329 
on  the  clergy,  iv,  496 
character  of  clergy,  iv,  497 
Audiencia  of,  its  injustice,  ii,  468 
first  Inqn.  organized  in,  i,  160 
first  auto  de  fe,  i,  163 
number  of  burnings,  i,  165 
assembly  of  inquisitors,  i,  181 
quarrels  in  funerals,  i,  362 
right  of  asylum,  i,  422 
conflict  with  tribunal,  i,  488 
trouble  in  fish-market,  i,  534 
funds  taken  by  Suprema,  ii,  191 
Hermandad  de  S.  Pedro  Martir,  ii,  282 
the  great  composition,  ii,  357 
protest  in  C6rtes  of  Burgos,  ii,  360 
poverty  of  tribunal,  ii,  363 
receipts  from  penances,  ii,  397 
abuses  in  prison,  ii,  526 
false  witnesses  punished,  ii,  561 
auto  of  1604  stopped,  iii,  268 
influx  of  Jews,  iii,  314 
Protestants  of,  iii,  427,  442 
autos  of  Protestants,  iii,  443,  445,  447 
persecution  of  mystics,  iv,  29 
unnatural  crime,  iv,  362 
restores  the  Inqn.,  iv,  424 
operations  of  Inqn.  in,  iv,  519 
Sexual  relations,  propositions  concern- 
ing, iv,  146 
in  mysticism,  iv,  9,  23,  25,  31,  35, 
42,  43,  56,  57,  61,  70,  74 
Sforza,  Card.,  his  promises,  iii,  350 
Shambles,  Moorish,  i,  62;  iii,  381 
Ships,  seizure  of,  i,  184;  ii,  338,  497 

visitation  of,  iii,  505,  510,  520 
Sicily,  Edict  of  Faith  in,  ii,  92 

financial  disorders,  ii,  194,  366,  451, 

452 
grants  postponed  to  salaries,  ii,  381 

vol..  IV 


Sicily,  proposed  endowment,  ii,  433 
galley  service,  iii,  140 
sanbenitos,  iii,  164,  165 
treatment  of  English  sailors,  iii,  463 
unnatural  crime,  iv,  364 

Sickness  in  prison,  ii,  521,  522 

Si  de  protegendis,  bull,  i,  368;  iii,  189; 
iv,  261,  269,  297 

Signo,  ii,  568 

Sigiienza,  Joseph  de,  case  of,  iv,  168 

Sigiienza,  quarrel  over  bishopric  of,  i,  13 
its  tribunal,  i,  552 

Silence,  enforced,  ii,  473;  iv,  515 

Siliceo,  Abp. ,  his  statute  of  limpieza,  ii, 
290 

Silva,  Diego  Rodriguez,  iii,  90,  299 

Silva,  Diogo  da,  iii,  239,  241,  242 

Silva,  Miguel  da,  iii,  244,  246,  253,  257 

Silver  coinage,  i,  561 
scarcity  of,  iv,  482,  484 

Simancas,  Bishop,  his  works,  ii,  476 
as  judge  of  Carranza,  ii,  71,  80 
on  episcopal  duties,  ii,  7 
on  licences  to  absolve,  ii,  21 
on  confiscations  of  clerics,  ii,  318 
on  prescription  of  time,  ii,  328 
on  begganng  children,  ii,  336 
on  purchase-money,  ii,  339 
on  duty  of  denunciation,  ii,  485 
on  kindred  as  witnesses,  ii,  537 
on  ratification,  ii,  547 
on  imperfect  confession,  ii,  575 
on  confession  in  tortiJre,  ii,  581 
on  denial  of  guilt,  ii,  585 
on  methods  of  defence,  iii,  56 
on  consuUa  de  je,  iii,  73 
on  returning  absentee,  iii,  89 
on  evasion  of  sentence,  iii,  102 
on  compurgation,  iii,  117 
on  duration  of  prison,  iii,  159 
on  recantation  at  brasero,  iii,  192 
on  martyrdom,  iii,  195 
on  suicide  in  prison,  iii,  197 
on  relapse,  iii,  202,  203 
he  prosecutes  mystics,  iv,  20 
on  pact  with  demon,  iv,  186 
on  astrology,  iv,  192 
on  the  Sabbat,  iv,  220 
on  heresy  in  bigamy,  iv,  319 
on  personation  of  officials,  iv,  346 
on  usury,  iv,  374 

Simon,  Francisco,  his  sanctity,  iv,  356 

Simony  not  subject  to  Inqn.,  iv,  372 

Single  witnesses,  ii,  562 

Sisa  del  corte,  i,  379 

Sisebut  converts  Jews,  i,  41 

Sixtus    IV    claims   episcopal    appoint- 
ment, i,  14 
on  Jewish  segregation,  i,  124 
orders  legatine  Inqn.,  i,  154 
his  bull  for  Inqn.,  i,  158 
39 


610 


INDEX 


Sixtus  IV  appoints  additional  inqrs.,  i, 
166 
assents  to  organization,  i,  173 
praises  Torquemada,  i,  174 
revives  Inqn.  of  Aragon,  i,  230 
asserts  appointing  power,  i,  232 
bull  of  April  18,  1484,  i,  233,  587 
appoints  Torquemada  for  Aragon,  i, 

236 
dismisses  Gualbes,  i,  237 
insists  on  episcopal  concurrence,  ii,  11 
on  Franciscan  and  Dominican  inqrs., 

ii,  30 
plays  fast  and  loose  with  Conversos, 

ii,  106-9 
on  requisites  for  inqrs.,  ii,  233 
grants  appointments  to  benefices,  ii, 

415 
on  doctoral  and  magistral  canonries, 

ii,  421 
originates  censorshij),  iii,  480 
Sixtus  V  protects  Spanish  Jesuits,  ii,  35 
grants  jurisdiction  over  bps.,  ii,  87 
on  Morisco  marriages,  iii,  381 
on  magic  and  divination,  iv,  189 
Slaughtering,  mode  of,  ii,  566 
Slaves,  Moorish,  i,  57;  iii,  325 
Jewish,  banished,  i,  142 
manumission  of  baptized  children  of, 

i,  325 
Christian,  of  heretics,  ii,  339 
of  officials  inviolable,  i,  369 
witnesses  against  masters,  ii,  537 

not  for  defence,  ii,  539 
substitutes  for  the  galleys,  ii,  412 
Morisco,  baptized,  iii,  405 
Slave-girls,  grants  of,  ii,  377 
Smuggling,  facilities  for,  i,  385 
of  books,  iii,  510 
prevalence  of,  iv,  480 
Snuff-box,  censorship  of,  iii,  547 
Sobanos,  Diego,  his  prosecution,  ii,  61 
Sodomy,  iv,  361 

Soldiers,  foreign  heretic,  iii,  475 
Soler  on  Mallorquin  New  Christians,  ii, 

314 
Solicitante  y  pagelante,  iv,  118 
Soliciiantes,  registers  of,  ii,  261 

their  cases  not  calificado,  ii,  488 
Solicitation,  iv,  95 

subjects  regulars  to  Inqn.,  ii,  33 
is  merely  obsession,  iv,  72 
in  Molinism,  iv,  75,  77 
in  spiritual  courts,  iv,  97,  469 
subjected  to  Inqn.,  iv,  99 
definition,  iv,  100,  110,  112 
punishment,  iv,  101,  119,  126 
denunciation  required,  iv,  101,  106 
is  a  technical  offence,  iv,  101,   108, 

114 
morals  not  involved,  iv,  109,  115 


Solicitation,  bps.  assert  jurisdiction,  iv, 
102 

devices  to  elude  prosecution,  iv,  103 

in  Edict  of  Faith,  iv,  105 

passive,  iv.  111 

absolution  bj'  solicitor,  iv,  113 

not  a  reserved  case,  iv,  114 

procedure,  iv,  119 

two  denunciations  required,  iv,  120, 
123 

light  suspicion  of  heresy,  iv,  121,  126 

examination  of  accusers,  iv,  122 

communication    between    tribunals, 
iv,  125 

special  registers  kept,  iv,  126 

self-denunciation,  iv,  130 

statistics,  iv,  133 
Solorzano,  his  book  condemned,  iii,  537 
Sonnets,  prosecutions  for,  iv,  430 
Son  must  denounce  father,  ii,  485 

succeeds  to  father's  office,  ii,  220,  221 
Sons-in-law,  offices  descend  to,  ii,  221 
Sorano,  Miguel,  case  of,  iii,  208 
Sorbonne  condemns  the  Mistica  Ciu- 

dad,  iv,  40 
Sorcery,  iv,  179 

persecuted  by  Ramiro  I,  iv,  179 

taught  by  the  Moors,  iv,  180 

medieval  treatment,  iv,  181 

question  of  jurisdiction,  i,  271 ;  iv,  183 
of  heresy,  iv,  184 

pact  with  demon,  iv,  185 

in  commission  of  inq.-genl.,  iv,  189 

astrology  suppressed,  iv,  192 

procedure,  iv,  195 

punishment,  iv,  197 

persistent  belief,  iv,  203 

number  of  cases,  iv,  204 

case  of  Carlos  II,  ii,  171 

attributed  to  Jesuits,  iv,  20 
Sorell,  Pedro,  his  frauds,  ii,  452 
Soriana,  Anastasia,  case  of,  iv,  220 
Sotomayor,  Duke  of,  prosecuted,  iv,  430 
Sotomayor,  Inq.-genl.,  his  resignation, 
i,  301,  309,  613 

his  pensions,  ii,  132 

his  Index,  iii,  495,  529 

persecutes  Dominicans,  iv,  380 
Sovereigns,  their  duty  as  to  heresy,  ii,  1 
Sovereignty  of  the  nation  asserted,  iv, 

406 
Spain,  its  relations  to  the  Church,  i,  11 

Jews  excluded,  i,  141;  iii,  292,  311 

no  danger  from  Protestantism,  iii,  448 

the  home  of  magic,  iv,  180 

its  vicissitudes,  iv,  472 

its  exhaustion,  iii,  337;  iv,  474 
misery  in  17th  century,  iv,  475 
its  natural  advantages,  iv,  477 
burdens  of  taxation,  iv,  478 
lack  of  roads,  iv,  480 


INDEX 


611 


Spain,  the  Mesta,  iv,  481 

despoblados  and  baldios,  iv,  482 
vitiation  of  coinage,  iv,  482 
aversion  for  labor,  iv,  483 
recovery  under  Bourbons,  iv,  486 
retrogression  under  Carlos  IV,  iv,  487 
growtli  of  population,  iv,  487 
influence  of  clericalism,  iv,  488,  498 
character  of  clergy,  iv,  496 
sensitiveness  as  to  religion,  iv,  502 
character  of  religion,  iv,  502 
results  of  intolerance,  iv,  504 
influence   of   Inqn.    on   the   popular 

character,  iv,  507,  515 
modem  indifferentism,  iv,  509 
immorality,  iv,  510 
virtual  anarchy,  iv,  511 
Inqn.  independent,  iv,  513 
its  predominance,  iv,  516 
statistics  of  its  operations,  iv,  517 
intellectual   isolation,   iii,   411,   505; 
iv,  530 

Spallacino,   Domenico,   burnt  for  per- 
sonating priesthood,  iv,  340 

Spies  on  foreigners,  iii,  467 
domestic,  iv,  138 

Spiritual  courts,  conflicts  of  jurisdiction, 
i,  15,  493 
limits  of  jurisdiction,  i,  15,  497 
their  procedure,  ii,  469,  470 
on  solicitation,  iv,  97 

Spiritual  penance,  iii,  131 

Spiritual  power,  its  supremacy,  ii,  160 

Spoliation  in  compositions,  ii,  354,  355, 
361 

Spoils  of  refugees  seized,  ii,  337 

Staging  at  autos  de  fe,  iii,  212 

Stake,  the,  iii,  183 

Standard  of  fineness,  i,  560 

Standard  of  Inqn.,  iii,  215 

Starvation  of  prisoners,  iii,  1 53 

Statistics  of  burnings,  iv,  517 
of  torture,  iii,  33 

of  offences  and  penalties,  iii,  551 
of  Protestantism,  iii,  426, 455,  461,  525 
of  solicitation,  iv,  133 

Statuce  duplicatce,  iii,  215 

Statute  of  limpieza,  ii,  290 

Stephen  VI  on  Jews,  i,  81 

Steward  of  tribunal,  ii,  249 

Stigmata,  the,  iv,  31,  85,  86,  92,  94 

Stone-throwing  at  penitents,  iii,  136 

Stone-masons    exclude    Converses,    ii, 
285 

Strangulation  before  burning,  i,   263; 
iii,  192-4 

Strappado,  iii,  19 

Strauch,  Bp.  of  Vich,  his  murder,  iv,  441 

Stripping  for  torture,  iii,  17 
Sudrez,  Dr.,  insults  the  Inqn.,  iv,  431 
Subsidio,  iv,  494 


Substitutes  for  confessional,  iv,  96 

for  officials,  ii,  222 
Subvention  to  Suprema,  ii,  441 
Succession,  law  of,  contest  over,  iv,  463 
Sueldo,  value  of,  i,  565 

barcelonense,  i,  565 
Sugar  perquisite  of  Suprema,  ii,  195 
Suicide  in  prison,  ii,  522;  iii,  85,  95,  197 
Suitors  seek  jurisdiction  of  Inqn.,  iv, 

379 
Suits,  civil,  trial  of,  i,  270 
Sumaria,  ii,  486 

submitted  to  Suprema,  ii,  185 
submitted  to  censors,  ii,  263 
Summis  dcsiderantes,  bull,  iv,  207 
Summons  to  spiritual  judges,  i,  494 
Sumptuary  disabilities,  ii,  401,  403,  407; 

iii,  173,  174,  179 
Sumptuary  laws  against  Jews,  i,  95 
Sundays,  autos  celebrated  on,  iii,  212 

observance  of,  iv,  502 
Supereminence  of  Inqn.,  i,  351 
Super  illius  specula,  bull,  iv,  181,  184 
Support  of  family  of  prisoner,  ii,  500 
Suprema,  the,  founded,  i,  173 
number  of  members,  i,  322 
at  first  merely  consultative,  ii,  162 
references  to  it  discouraged,  ii,  180 
its  appellate  jurisdiction,  i,  341,  356, 

437;  ii,  187,  188;  iii,  95 
growth  of  its  power,  ii,  163,  298 
resents  interference,  ii,  278 
becomes  head  of  Inqn.,  ii,  166 
acts  without  inq.-genl.,  ii,  167 
its  struggle  with  Inq.-genl.  Mendoza, 

ii,  173 
its  authority  assured  by  Philip  V,  ii, 

177 
its  routine  of  voting,  ii,  168,  178 
its  control  over  tribunals,  ii,  179,  189 
development  of  its  supervision,  ii,  181 
routine  in  deciding  cases,  ii,  182 
its  scrutiny  of  reports,  ii,  183 
supervises  arrests,  ii,  184,  490 
fixes  rations  of  prisoners,  ii,  531 
controls  sentences,  ii,  184,  186 
its  labors,  ii,  203 
its  delays,  iii,  80 
punishes  officials,  ii,  225 
it  orders  suspensions,  iii,  112 
controls  the  Holding  of  autos,  iii,  211 
insists  on  secrecy,  ii,  476,  607 
controls  finances,  ii,  190 
supported  by  tribunals,  ii,  192 
audits  accounts  of  tribunals,  ii,  193 
its  income  and  outlay,  ii,  201,  440; 

iv,  228 
its  pay-roll,  ii,  191,  194,  196 
increase  of  its  wealth,  ii,  369 
its  control  of  confiscations,  i,  329 
of  fines  and  penances,  i,  339;  ii,  398 


612 


INDEX 


Suprema,  its  control  of  commutations, 
ii,  409 
absorbs  the  levy  on  the  clergy,  ii,  434 
fees  of  its  officials,  ii,  200 
its  pluralist  officials,  ii,  418 
its  liberality,  ii,  252 
refreshments  at  bull-fights,  ii,  198 
negligent  book-keeping,  ii,  449 
appointing  power,  i,  299,  301,  323, 

324 
its  relations  with  crown,  i,  322 
countersigns  royal  c6dulas,  i,  291 
assents  to  royal  decrees,  i,  325 
evades  royal  decrees,  i,  327 
its  royal  jurisdiction,  i,  345,  346,  513 
struggle  with  Cortes  of  1646,  i,  459 
its  appeal  in  1677,  i,  463 
argues  away  Concordias,  i,  472,  474 
complains  of  competencias,  i,  491 
admits  excesses  of  tribunals,  i,  488, 

497 
prohibits  abuses  in  1705,  i,  536 
seeks  to  restrain  familiars,  ii,  275 
defends  Valencia  familiars,  i,  447,  449 
denies  right  of  asylum,  i,  422,  423 
forbids  degrees  to  Conversos,  ii,  287 
action  in  witchcraft,  iv,  216,  225 

in  bigamy  cases,  iv,  319 
letter  on  Madrid  insurrection,  iv,  400 
visited  by  Fernando  VII,  iv,  431 
Supremacy  of  Inqn.,  i,  341,  357 
Suppression  of  adverse  memorials,  iii, 
532,  539 
of  the  Valencia  Concordia,  i,  445 
of  canonries,  ii,  426 
of  libros  verdes,  ii,  307 
of  witnesses'  names,  ii,  548;  iii,  53 
permissory  at  first,  ii,  549 
becomes  the  rule,  ii,  550 
its  effect,  ii,  552;  iii,  64,  66 
importance  attached  to  it,  ii,  551 
offers  for  its  abandonment,  i,  217, 

221,  222;  ii,  550 
in  Portugal,  iii,  257 
Surgeon  of  Inqn.,  ii,  249 
Surgery  forbidden  to  clerics,  iii,  184 
Suspects,  lists  of,  iv,  452 
Suspension  of  trials,  iii,  108 
forbidden  in  trials  of  the  dead,  iii,  84 
releases  sequestration,  ii,  501 
of  witch  cases,  iv,  238 
Suspensive  appeals,  ii,  187 
Suspicion,  classification  of,  iii,  123 
vehement,  relapse  in,  iii,  203 
extinguished  by  death,  iii,  85 
galley  service  for,  iii,  142 
engendered  by  Inqn.,  ii,  91,  100 
Sylva,  Diego  de,  on  Kmpieza,  ii,  299 
Synagogues,  existing  ones  permitted,  i, 
38,  81 
houses  used  as,  iii,  129 


rpABOADA,  FELIPE  SOBRINO,  his 

persecution,   iv,  402 
Taboada,  Inq.-genl.,  does  not  serve,  i, 

316 
Tachas,  iii,  63 

Tails  attributed  to  Jews,  iii,  291 
Talaru,  his  fruitless  efforts,  iv,  451 
Talavera,    Hernando    de,    his    Jewish 
blood,  i,  120 
accused  by  Lucero,  i,  197,  204 
his  missionary  labors,  iii,  319 
Talio,  the,  for  false  witness,  ii,  556,  558, 

559 
Taor,  iii,  329 
Tarascas,  iv,  503 
Tarazona,  tribunal  of,  i,  553 

Bp.  of,  delegates  his  powers,  ii,  13 
Cortes  of,  accept  Torquemada,  i,  238 
on  export  of  horses,  iv,  281 
of  1592,  iv,  269 
Tardy  confession,  ii,  580 
Tariffs  rendered  uniform,  iv,  486 
Taronji  on  Mallorquin  New  Christians, 

ii,  314 
Tarragona,   council  of,   on  badges  for 
Jews,  i,  69 
on  Moorish  obser\'ances,  i,  71 
on  friendship  with  Jews,  i,  75 
on  jurisdiction  over  heresy,  ii,  8 
tribunal  of,  i,  478,  553 
punished  for  enforcing  quarantine,  i, 
264 
Tassa  of  grain,  iv,  479 
Tatti  mammillari,  iv,  110 
Tavera,  his  grants  of  ayuda  de  costa, 
ii,  254 
tries  to  exclude  Conversos,  ii,  290 
Tavern  of  Saragossa  tribunal,  i,  389 
Tavira,  Bp.,  on  solicitation,  iv,  136 
Tax  on  confiscations,  ii,  352 

on  accretion  of  church-property,  iv, 
489 
Taxation,  exemption  from,  i,  270,  376, 
379,  380 
burdens  of,  iv,  478 
Tax-collectors,  Jews  as,  i,  95,  98,  99 
Tax-roll  of  Benedict  XII,  iv,  340 
Taxes  of  Jews  and  Moors,  i,  85,  125 

of  Penitentiary  on  Marrania,  ii,  402 
Teachers,  penitents  forbidden  to  be,  iii, 

176 
Tello,  Diego,  on  the  Sabbat,  iv,  240 
Temporal  jurisdiction,  independence  of, 
i,  490 
its  profits,  i,  462,  468,  508;  ii,  398 
its  evils,  i,  510,  513 
limited,  i,  465,  515 
Temporalities,  seizure  of,  i,  469 
Tenants  ejected  by  tribunals,  ii,  207 
Tenderness  for  official   delinquents,   i, 
369;  ii,  451,  454 


INDEX 


613 


Tendilla,  Count,  rescues  Ximenes,  iii, 
320 

Teresa,  St.,  her  persecutions,  iv,  16 

Teresa  de  Silva,  abbess  of  San  Placido, 
ii,  134,  137 

Term  of  Grace,  ii,  320,  457 

Terror  of  imprisonment,  ii,  511 
of  Inqn.,  iv,  514 

Tertullian  on  mystics,  iv,  1 

Teruel,  expulsion  of  Jews,  i,  132,  159 
resistance  to  Inqn.,  i,  247 
its  tribunal,  i,  553 
belongs  to  Valencia,  i,  444 
public  bath  of,  iii,  336 
conversion  of  Moors  of,  iii,  345 

Testa  ferrea,  iv,  505 

Testimony  presented  by  fiscal,  ii,  491 
in  cases  of  Umpieza,  ii,  300 
See  also  Evidence. 

Tetuan,   Christian  Moriscos  martyred, 
iii,  409 

Theatre,  censorship  of,  iii,  547 

Theodoric  tolerates  Jews,  i,  38 

Theodosius  II,  his  laws  on  Jews,  i,  38 

Theology,  dangers  of,  iv,  150 
trivialities  of,  iv,  171 
mystic,  superior  to  scholastic,  iv,  5 

Threat  of  torture,  iii,  6 

for  non-performance  of  penance,  iii, 
104 

Threatening  of  witnesses,  ii,  552 

Tigrekan,  iv,  420 

Time  of  Grace,  ii,  320,  457 

Time  of  Mercy,  ii,  461 

Time  of  making  confession,  ii,  580 

Time  and  place  suppressed  in  publi- 
cation, iii,  54 

Tithes  paid  by  Jews,  i,  86 

and  fir.st-fruits  of  Moriscos,  iii,  376 
insecurity  of,  ii,  327,  339,  346 
reduced  one-half,  iv,  440 
burden  of,  iv,  480,  495 

Titulados,  1,  376 
definition  of,  i,  491 

Titulo  de  juhilacion,  ii,  225 

Tizon  de  la  ndbleza,  ii,  298 

Tobacco,  use  of,  in  churches,  iv,  504 

Tobacco  revenue,  frauds  on,  i,  425,  438 

TocM,  iii,  19 

Toledo,  Councils  of,  on  Jews,  i,  40 
on  heretic  kings,  i,  340 
Muladies  dominant,  i,  49 
Moorish  slaughter-house,  i,  62 
its  chapter  persecutes  Jews,  i,  94,  99 
massacres  of  Jews,  i,  88,  102,  108, 113 
riots  with  Converses,  i,  126,  127 
exclusion  of  Converses,  ii,  287,  290 
its  Huguenot  colony,  iii,  450 
its  convents,  iv,  490 
income  of  its  Church,  iv,  493 
episcopal  inquisitor  in,  i,  167 


Toledo,  tribunal  founded,  i,  168,  553 

it  defies  Rome,  ii,  123 

its  activity,  i,  169;  iii,  81 

its  butcher-shop,  i,  392 

case  of  butcher,  i,  491 

case  of  D.  Pedro  Paniagua,  i,  514 

venality  of  its  officials,  ii,  306 

amount  of  fines,  ii,  399 

amount  of  rehabilitations,  ii,  403 

financial  mismanagement,  ii,  438 

its  humanity,  iii,  99 

acquittals,  iii,  107,  112 

its  prison,  iii,  154,  155 

sanhenilos  hung,  iii,  167 

diminished  activity,  iii,  226;  iv,  388 

statistics  of,  iii,  551 ;  iv,  520,  523 

solicitation,  iv,  135 

witch  cases,  iv,  223 

Masonry,  iv,  302 

bigamy,  iv,  318 
Toleration,  Moorish,  i,  45 

during  the  Reconquest,  i,  52 

in  Middle  Ages,  i,  84,  87 

prior  to  Reformation,  iii,  481 

replaced  by  fanaticism,  iv,  499 

vicissitudes  in  19th  century,  iii,  315; 
iv,  469 
Toletus,  Card.,  on  coerced  baptism,  iii, 
349 

on  the  Sabbat,  iv,  220 
Tom^s  Admiral  of  Castile,  ii,  169,  172, 

176,  178 
Tomds    of    Vilanova,   St.,   on   clerical 
immunity,  i,  428 ;  iv,  498 

on  Moriscos,  iii,  374 

on  disarmament,  iii,  378 
Tongue  cut  out  for  blasphemy,  iv,  328 
Tonsure,  abuses  of,  i,  17,  428 
Toro,  victory  at,  in  1476,  i,  19 

laws  of,  on  ganancias,  ii,  334 
on  false  witness,  ii,  556 
Toro,  Bp.  of  Oviedo,  case  of,  ii,  88;  iv, 

72 
Toros,  perquisites  of,  ii,  197,  198 
Torpezas,  iv,  109 

Torpor,  intellectual,  of  Spain,  iv,  528 
Torquemada,  Card.,  on  the  Sabbat,  iv, 

210 
Torquemada,   Tomds    de,   made    Inq.- 
genl.,  i,  173 

for  kingdoms  of  Aragon,  i,  236,  263 

his  Jewish  blood,  i,  120 

urges  expulsion  of  Jews,  i,  132,  135 

his  edict  on  the  expulsion,  i,  137 

urges  Inquisition,  i,   157 

his  character,  i,  174 

his  quarrels  with  inqrs.,  i  177 

his  death  and  sanctity,  i,  179 

his  Instructions,  i,  181,  571,  576 

fixes  age  of  discretion,  ii,  3 

his  appellate  power,  ii,  6 


614 


INDEX 


Torquemada    seeks    jurisdiction    over 
bps.,  ii,  41 
opposes  papal  briefs,  ii,  110 
defines  the  tribunal,  ii,  209 
qualifications  of  inqrs.,  ii,  234 
excludes  Conversos,  ii,  286 
stops  Ferdinand's  grants,  ii,  374 
on  prosecution  of  the  dead,  iii,  82 
orders  the  sanhenito,  iii,  162 
on  disabilities  of  children,  iii,  174 
Torralba,  Gaspar,  case  of,  iii,  68 
Torreblanca  on  pact  with  demon,  iv,  188 
on  punishment  of  sorcery,  iv,  198 
on  witchcraft,  iv,  239 
Torrejonoillos,  P.,  his  Centinela,  iii,  290 
Torres-Padmota,  NicolAs  de,  ii,  170,  173 
Torricella,  his  Consultas  Morales,  iv,  511 
Torrubia,  his  book  against  Masonry,  iv, 

301 
Tortosa,  Council  of,  on  Moorish  observ- 
ances, i,  71 
tribunal  of,  i,  554 
belongs  to  Valencia,  i,  444 
opposition  to  Inqn.,  i,  476,  478 
episcopal  edict  of  faith,  ii,  8 
sanbenitos  in  churches,  iii,  170 
jurisdiction  over  sorcery,  iv,  191 
Torture,  iii,  1 

preliminaries  of,  iii,  4 
conditions  required,  iii,  6 
one  witness  justifies,  ii,  562 
to  purge  imperfect  confession,  ii,  575 
on  intention,  ii,  576  _ 
as  test  of  insanity,  iii,  61 
at  discretion  of  judge,  iii,  10,  22 
of  witnesses,  iii,  11 
no  pri^^leged  exemptions,  iii,  13 
stopped  at  order  of  physician,  iii,  16 
varieties  of,  iii,  18 
frequently  overcome,  iii,  23,  30 
reports  of,  iii,  24 
confession  under,  ii,  581 
must  be  ratified,  iii,  27 
repetition  for  revocation,  iii,  28 
not  alluded  to  in  sentence,  iii,  32 
statistics  of,  iii,  33 
its  suppression,  iii,  34 
not  used  in  sorcery,  iv,  195 
used  in  witch-trials,  iv,  223,  232,  245 
in  unnatural  crime,  iv,  367 
Torturer,  difficulty  of  finding,  i,  568 
gaoler  serves  as,  ii,  248 
official,  iii,  16 
his  fees,  iii,  17,  32 
bribery  of,  iii,  32 
Tostado,  Alfonso,  on  the  Sabbat,  iv,  209 
Tovar,  Bernardino  de,  iii,  416;  iv,  9 
Trade  with  Moors,  i,  55 
with  Jews,  i,  117,  122,  123 
forbidden  to  officials,  i,  270,  466,  534 
frauds  and  offences  in,  i,  443 


Trade  carried  on  by  Inqn.,  i,  389 

with  Indies  by  Conversos,  ii,  357 

burdens  on,  iii,  511;  iv,  479 
Traders  not  to  be  made  familiars,  i,  535 

ruined  by  sequestration,  ii,  501 
Trades  forbidden  to  Jews,  i,  117 

to  penitents^  iii,  173 
Trampa  and  trampazo,  iii,  20 
Transactions  prior  to  1479,  ii,  326 
Transit  of  Conversos  through  Spain,  iii, 

271,  278,  303 
Transfers  of  offices,  ii,  212,  221 
Transmission,  hereditary,  of  offices,  ii, 

219 
Transportation  of  Conversos  forbidden, 

i,  184 
Trashumantes,  iv,  481 
Travelling  expenses  reimbursed,  ii,  254 

privileges  of  officials,  i,  395;  ii,  206, 
208 
Treason,  trials  for,  by  Inqn.,  iv,  275 
Treasure-seeking,  iv,  196,  204 
Treasurer  of  tribunal,  ii,  250 
Treaties  as  to  foreign  heretics,  iii,  463- 

70 
Trejo,  Bp.  of  Murcia,  prosecuted,  i,  420 
Trent,  C.  of,  on  occult  heresy,  ii,  19 

favors  Carranza,  ii,  73 

on  non-residence,  ii,  419 

on  celibacy,  iv,  144,  337 

on  the  Vulgate,  iv,  151 

on  number  of  clergy,  iv,  492 
Tres  ados  positivos,  ii,  307 
Trial,  the,  iii,  36 

conclusion  of,  iii,  53 

delays,  iii,  75 

of  absent  and  dead,  iii,  80 

cost  paid  by  prisoner,  ii,  533 
Trials,  records  of,  ii,  259 
Triana,  castle  of,  i,  162;  ii,  207 

inscription  on,  iv,  519 
Tribunal,  the,  ii,  205 

its  organization,  i,  231,  244;  ii,  208 

its  buildings,  ii,  230 

its  cost,  i,  478,  479 

its  personnel,  ii,  210,  232 
Tribunals,  list  of,  i,  541 

establishment  of,  i,  166 

multiplication  of,  ii,  205,  206 

controlled  by  Suprema,  ii,  179,  189 
resist  its  encroachments,  ii,  180 

reports  required  from,  ii,  183 

become  mere  agencies,  ii,  185,  186 

funds  controlled  by  Suprema,  ii,  191 

made  to  aid  each  other,  ii,  193 

their  intercommunication,  ii,  260 
evasions  respecting  familiars,  ii,  276 

compile  genealogies,  ii,  288 
expenses  met  by  penances,  ii,  394 
subventions  to  Suprema,  ii,  441 
Tridentine  Index,  iii,  492,  528 


INDEX 


615 


Trincheras,  iv,  303 
Triple  Alianza,  la,  iv,  408 
Trivial  prosecutions,  ii,  99;  iv,  141 
Troops,  foreign  heretic,  iii,  475 
Troppau,  Congress  of,  iv,  444 
Tnixillo,  clerical  immunity  in,  i,  17 
Tudela,  tribunal  of,  i,  227,  554 
Tudela  penanced  for  harboring  assas- 
sins, i,  254,  567,  610 

Moors  of,  iii,  317 
Tumult  of  Lackeys,  iv,  390,  399 
Turixi,  Vicente,  his  fate,  iii,  398 
Turkey,  refugee  Jews  in,  i,  141 

Morisco  plots  with,  iii,  385 
Tyrol,  stigmata  in,  iv,  94 
Tzevi,  Zabathia,  the  false  Messiah,  iii, 

303 


TTBEDA,  slaughter  of,  i,  59 

Uceda,  Diego  de,  case  of,  iv,  139 
Ucles,  battle  of,  Jews  in,  i,  85 
Ugolino,  Giov.,  his  mission,  iii,  255 
Uliff,  his  advice,  i,  133 
TJltramontanism,  struggle  with,  iv,  292 

its  triumph,  iv,  295 
Umbilicarii,  iv,  2 
Unanimity,  see  Discordia 
Uncanonized  saints,  iv,  355 

jurisdiction  over,  conferred  by  Urban 
VIII,  iv,  357 

fictitious  martyrs  of  Granada,  iv,  357 
Uniformitv  of  procedure,  iii,  37 
Union  with  God,  iv,  2,  8,  28,  63,  72, 

74 
Unity  of  faith,  importance  of,  ii,  1 

results  of,  iv,  477,  505,  534 
Universi  Dominici  Gregw,  bull,  iv,  101, 

102 
Universities,  limpieza    required  by,  ii, 
298,  313 

attack  the  Jesuits,  iii,  532 

number  of,  iv,  485 
University  of  Paris  on  pact  with  demon, 

iv,  185 
Unnatural  crime,  iv,  361 

in  Spain,  iv,  362 

jurisdiction,  only  in  Aragon,  iv,  363 

procedure  secular,  iv,  363,  366 

m  Sicily  and  Portugal,  iv,  365 

punishment,  iv,  367 

leniency  to  clerics,  iv,  368 

frequency,  iv,  371 
Unsalaried  officials,  ii,  263 

seek  exemption,  i,  377,  382 

jurisdiction  over,  i,  429 

office-holders,  ii,  223 
Urban  IV  invalidates  laws,  i,  365 
Urban  V  denounces  Pedro  the  Cruel, 
i,  102 

reserves  cases  of  heresy,  ii,  19 


Urban  VIII  protects  Mallorquin  clergy, 
i,  499 

objects  to  fines,  ii,  400 

revives  brief  of  Sixtus  IV,  ii,  421 

commutes  relapse,  iii,  261 

annuls  all  licences,  iii,  523 

condemns  the  regalistas,  iii,  537 

on  solicitation,  iv,  101 

on  divination,  iv,  244 

on  uncanonized  saints,  iv,  357 

on  reform  of  religious  Orders,  iv,  491 

on  tobacco  in  churches,  iv,  504 
Urgel,  witchcraft  in,  iv,  211 
Urquijo,  Mariano  Luis  de,  iii,  504,  iv, 

396 
Urrea,  Bp.  Miguel  de,  a  magician,  iv, 

180 
Ursins,  Princesse  des,  i,  317;  ii,  176 
Ursule  de  la  Croix,  case  of,  iii,  203 
Usury,  i,  95,  98;  iv,  371 

exorbitant  in  Middle  Ages,  i,  97 

is  heresy,  iv,  372 

struggle  over  it,  i,  271,  285;  iv,  373 

jurisdiction  abandoned,  iv,  374 
Utensilio,  i,  399 
Utility,  general,  iv,  378 
Utrecht,  treaty  of,  iii,  468,  470 


"yA(M,,   Licenciado,   his  visitation   of 
'       Barcelona,  i,  529 
Vacancies  occurring  in  Rome,  ii,  429 
Vacillation  in  confession,  ii,  582 
Val  del  Aguar,  Moriscos  massacred  at, 

iii,  398 
Val  de  Ricote,  Moriscos  expelled,  iii,  404 
Valcamonica,  mystics  of,  iv,  46 
Valdelamar,  Alonso  de,  case  of,  iv,  97 
Valdfe,  Inq.-genl.,  his  Instructions,  i, 
182 
condemns  a  book  of  Talavera,  i,  204 
forbids  billeting  troops,  i,  396 
on  bandits  as  familiars,  i,  453 
limits  Valencia  familiars,  ii,  276 
his  provisor  as  inqr.,  ii,  16 
in  danger  of  disgrace,  ii,  46 
resolves  to  prosecute  Carranza,  ii,  48 
obtains  power  from  Paul  IV,  ii,  61 
wins  over  Philip,  ii,  63 
urges  rupture  with  Rome,  ii,  78 
enforces  limpieza,  ii,  293 
forbids  prosecution  for  perjury,  ii,  304 
obtains  canonries  for  Inqn.,  ii,  425 
exploits  discovery  of  Protestantism, 

iii,  432,  433,  435 
his  letter  of  Sep.  9,  1558,  iii,  566 
his  Index,  iii,  486 
his  views  on  witchcraft,  iv,  212 
on  clergy  of  Seville,  iv,  497 
his  enforced  resignation,  i,  305;  ii,  79 
Vald^s,  Juan  de,  his  heresies,  ii,  53 


616 


INDEX 


Vald^s,  Juan  de,  on  mysticism,  iv,  14 
Valenpay,  treaty  of,  iv,  419 
Valencia,    Council   of,   orders   segrega- 
tion, i,  77 
massacre  of  1391,  i,  108,  111 
complaints  of  confiscation,  i,  236 
fiiero  as  to  confiscations,  iii,  359 
they  revert  to  feudal  lord,  ii,  395 
public  supply  of  wheat,  i,  388  _ 
military  service  of  familiars,  i,  412 
factional  strife,  i,  449 
chapter  appeals  to  Rome,  ii,  132 
limits  on  torture,  iii,  2 
sanbenitos  in  cathedral,  iii,  168,  170, 

171 
conversion  of  Moors,  iii,  345,  353 
treatment  of  baptized  Moors,  iii,  351 
expulsion  of  Moors  decreed,  iii,  354 
number  of  Moriscos,  iii,  355 
their  disarmament,  iii,  378 
their  expulsion,  iii,  393 
number  of  Frenchmen,  iii,  457 
but  two  Protestants  in,  iii,  472 
adoration  of  Francisco  Simon,  iv,  356 
rejoicings  over  Immaculate  Concep- 
tion, iv,  360 
its  junta  de  fe,  iv,  460 
Valencia,  tribunal  of,  its  treatment  of 
Serra,  i,  187 
salaries  in  1482,  i,  231  » 

opposition  to  Inqn.,  i,  232,  239,  242 
Torquemada  appointed  for,  i,  236 
resistance  suppressed,  i,  240 
oath  to  tribunal,  i,  352 
quarrel  over  precedence,  i,  360 

over  market-place,  i,  365 
taxation  of  officials,  i,  379 
importation  of  wheat,  i,  385 
its  salt-privilege,  i,  394 
billeting  of  troops,  i,  399,  401 
right  to  bear  arms,  i,  402 
complaint  of  familiars,  i,  407 
right  of  asylum,  i,  422,  423 
extension  of  jurisdiction,  i,  431 
collection  of  debts,  i,  434 
struggles  over  the  fuero,  i,  439 
Concordias,  i,  440,  443 
character  of  familiars,  i,  447 
refusal  of  competencias,  i,  516 
number  of  Edict  of  Faith,  ii,  97 
discourtesy  punished,  ii,  132 
commissioners  required,  ii,  268 
number  of  familiars,  ii,  276 
nobles  as  familiars,  ii,  281 
court  of  confiscations,  ii,  330 
composition  for  confiscation,  ii,  353 
cost  of  tribunal,  ii,  210 
its  productiveness,  ii,  367 
saved  from  bankruptcy,  ii,  375 
struggle  over  confiscation,  iii,  360 
confiscation  commuted,  ii,  395 


Valencia,  fines  on  familiars,  ii,  398 

its  finances,  ii',  435,.  436,  439,  441,  443 

composition  for  imperfect  confession, 
ii,  460 

cost  of  prisoners,  ii,  533 

revocation  of  confessions,  ii,  584;  iii, 
129 

the  perpetual  j)rison,  iii,  153, 155,  158 

trials  for  Judaism,  iii,  235 

two  Jews  arrive  there,  iii,  293 

foreign  Jews,  iii,  313 

persecution  of  Moriscos,  iii,  358 

suspension  as  to  Moriscos,  iii,  373 

visitas  de  navios,  iii,  519 

uimatural  crime,  iv,  362,  363,  371 

tribunal  supports  Napoleon,  iv,  400, 
539 

its  resources  in  1814,  iv,  428 

its  register,  iv,  458 

statistics  of  trials,  iii,  561 ;  iv,  522 
Valenzuela,  Fernando  de,  iv,  476 
Valera,  Cipriano  de,  iii,  427,  447 
Valero,  Rodrigo  de,  case  of,  iii,  424 
Valladares,  Inq.-genl.,  i,  313 

yields  to  Mallorquin  Church,  i,  503 

on  quarrels  of  regular  Orders,  ii,  39 

on  exile  of  New  Christians,  iii,  304 

tries  to  reduce  officials,  ii,  215 
Valladolid,  Council  of,  on  Jews,  i,  73,  74 

child-murder  at,  i,  149 

chapter  of,  appeals  to  Rome,  ii,  160 

Univ.  of,  enforces  limpieza,  ii,  287 , 
Valladolid,  its  tribunal,  i,  171,  554 

royal  oath  at  auto,  i,  353 

Carranza's  imprisonment,  ii,  66 

omission  of  Edict  of  Faith,  ii,  98 

quarrel  over  house,  ii,  206 

list  of  officials,  ii,  210 

Protestants  of,  iii,  429 

auto  of  May  21,  1559,  iii,  130,  437 
of  Oct.  8,  1559,  iii,  441 

case  of  Luisa  de  Carrion,  iv,  37 
of  Luis  de  Leon,  iv,  148 

resumes  in  1816,  iv,  429 

statistics,  iv,  522 
Van  Halen,  Juan  de,  his  Memoirs,  iv, 

306 
Vara  of  alguazil,  sale  of,  ii,  213 
Vargas,  Alonso,  iv,  263,  264 
Varieties  of  torture,  iii,  18 
Vario,  ii,  582 

Vassalage  of  Moriscos,  iii,  342,  377 
Vatable  Bible,  the,  iv,  151 
Vedrefla,  Miguel,  his  appeal  to  Rome, 

ii,  120 
Vega,  Juan  de  la,  case  of,  iv,  76 
Velada,  Marquis  of,  on  Moriscos,  iii,  390 
ViSlez,  Archbp.,  iv,  297,  409,  410,  413, 

441 
Velez,  los,  Marquis  of,  on  familiars,  i, 

446 


INDEX 


617 


Vellon  coinage,  i,  562;  ii,  197;  iv,  482 
Venality  of  the  curia,  ii,  104;  iii,  252 
Veneration,  diminution  of,  iv,  391 
Venice,  licences  to  trade  with  Moslems, 
i,  56 

galley-service  in,  iii,  142 

powers  of  nuncio  in,  iii,  186 

Portuguese  refugees  in,  iii,  254 

writings  in  its  favor  suppressed,  iii, 
542 
Vera,  Lope  de,  case  of,  iii,  294 
Vergara,  Juan  de,  case  of,  iii,  416 
Verguenza,  iii,  138,  219 
Verona  decree  admits  no  exemptions, 
ii,  30 

Congress  of,  iv,  444 
Vibero,  Leonor  de,  iii,  130,  430,  437 
Vicalvero,  tax-exemption  in,  i,  382 
Vicente  Ferrer,  St.,  i,  112,  116 
Vicente,  Gregorio  de,  case  of,  iv,  312 
Viceroys,  circular  letter  to,  i,  354 

visits  not  to  be  paid  to,  i,  357 

precedence  claimed  over,  i,  358 

of  Majorca,  i,  268;  iv,  512 
Vich,  Pablo,  Bp.  of,  his  contumacy,  iv, 

457 
Vicissitudes  of  Spain,  iv,  472 
Vidal  Marin,  Inq.-genl.,  i,  302,  314 

exhorted  by  Clernent  XI,  ii,  178 

his  Index,  iii,  495 
Vidau  Durango,  i,  251,  596 
Vieira,  Ant.,  S.  J.,  opposes  confiscation, 
iii,  282 

champions  New  Christians,  iii,  284 
Vienne.Council  of,  in  1312,  its  influence, 
i,  71 

its  rules,  ii,  5 

condemns  Begghards,  iv,  2 

on  usury,  iv,  372 
Vientres,  perquisite  of,  i,  532 
Villacis,  Pedro  de,  prosecuted,  i,  294 

manages  composition  of  Seville,   ii, 
358 

opposes  waste  of  confiscations,  ii,  383 
Villahermosa,  Duke  of,  iv,  261,  264, 265, 

266 
Villalba,  Fran,  de,  prosecuted,  iii,  420 
Villalpando,  Juan  de,  case  of,  iv,  34 
Villanueva,  Geronimo,  case  of,  ii,  133 

his  sentence,  ii,  142 

appeals  to  Rome,  ii,  145 

his  death,  ii,  156 

struggle  over  the  papers,  ii,  157 

effect  of  his  sentence,  ii,  311 
Villanueva,  Lorenzo,  on  suppression  of 
Bible,  iii,  529 

his  reply  to  Gr^goire,  iv,  398 

his  speech  against  Inqn.,  iv,  413 

his  imprisonment,  iv,  423 

sent  as  envoy  to  Rome,  iv,  441 
Villar,  Count  of,  excommunicated,  i,  368 


Villaroja,  Eusebio,  case  of,  iv,  77 

Villela,  holy  bell  of,  i,  251 

Villena,  Marquis  of,  a  mystic,  iv,  8 

Vinculaciones,  iv,  443 

Vinegas,  Fray  Diego,  case  of,  i,  371 

Vintras,  Pierre-Michel,  iv,  94 

Violant,  Queen,  on  massacre  at  Palma, 

i,  109 
Violario,  ii,  343 
Violation  of  compositions,  ii,  354 

of  secrecy,  ii,  476 
Virgin,  denial  of  her  virginity,  iii,  201 

Immaculate  Conception,  iv,  175,  359 

irreverence  to  images,  iv,  352,  354 
Viru^s,  Alonso  de,  ii,  127;  iii,  418 
Visions,  doubtful  source  of,  iv,  4 
Visitas  de  navios,  iii,  311,  314,  474,  510, 

519;  iv,  432 
Visitador,  ii,  227 
Visitations  of  tribunals,  i,  369,  442,  468, 

528;  ii,  181,  227 
Visitation  of  districts,  ii,  238 

Edicts  of  Faith  in,  ii,  97 

repugnance  for,  ii,  240 

renewal  of  sanbenitos,  iii,  169 
Visits  of  inqrs.  regulated,  i,  357 
Viv6s,  Juan  Luis,  on  enforced  silence, 

iv,  515 
Vocandorum,  libros,  ii,  260 
Vote,  the  last,  of  Suprema,  iv,  542 
Voting  in  consulta  de  fe,  iii,  73,  75 

in  Suprema,  ii,  168,  178 
Voto  de  Santiago,  iv,  413 
Vicelta  de  trampa,  iii,  20 
Vulgate,  authority  of  the,  iv,  151 


WAFERS,  consecrated,  insults  to,  iv, 
355 
Wager  of  law,  iii,  113 
Wages  of  servants  paid,  ii,  329,  330,  332 
Wamba  banishes  the  Jews,  i,  43 
War,  munitions  of,  their  export,  iv,  281 

of  Succession,  Inqn.  in,  iv,  275 
War-ships  subjected  to  visits,  iii,  512 
Washing  as  evidence,  ii,  566 
Waste  of  confiscations,  ii,  364 
Water  torture,  iii,  19 
Wax  perquisite  of  Suprema,  ii,  195 
Wealth  a  source  of  danger,  ii,  385 
fines  proportioned  to,  ii,  396 
of  Church,  iv,  488,  493,  495 
of  Portuguese  New  Christians,  iii,  268 
Weapons,  prohibited,  i,  402,  404 
Wergild  of  Jews  and  Moors,  i,  61 
Wheat,  importation  of,  i,  385 

requisition  of,  i,  393 
Wheel  of  Beda,  iv,  195 
Widow  holds  office  as  dowry,  ii,  221 

of  officials  and  familiars,  i,  444,  445 
Wife,  dowry  of  Catholic,  ii,  325 


618 


INDEX 


Wife,  as  witness  against  husband,  ii,  537 
of  officials,  qualifications  of,  ii,  251, 
296 
Windows,  overlooking,  closed,  ii,  472 

overlooking  autos,  lii,  213 
Wine,  trouble  over,  in  Saragossa,  i,  389 
Wisigothic  laws  on  Jews,  i,  40 

on  sorcery,  iv,  179 
Wisigoths,  conversion  of,  i,  39 
Witchcraft,  cases  referred  to  Suprema, 
ii,  180 
character  and  causes,  iv,  206 
development,  iv,  207 
the  Sabbat,  iv,  208 
congregation  of  1526,  iv,  212 
caution  ordered,  iv,  216 
enlightened  instructions,  iv,  219 
zeal  restrained,  iv,  221 
Logrono  auto  of  1610,  iv,  225 
Salazar's  report,  iv,  231 
instructions  of  1614,  iv,  235 
treated  as  illusion,  iv,  238 
cases  become  rare,  iv,  241 
in  Roman  Inqn.,  iv,  242 
treatment  throughout  Europe,  iv,  246 
Witch-crazes,  their  cause,  iy,  234 
Witches  reputed  as  insane,  iii,  58 
Witiza  favors  Jews,  i,  44  _ 
Witnesses  in  mixed  suits,  i,  72 
their  perjury,  i,  223;  ii,  554 
against  familiars,  i,  447 
clerical,  episcopal  licence  for,  i,  491 
protection  of,  i,  368;  ii,  542,  549,  551 
familiars  as,  i,  492 
as  to  limpieza,  ii,  301 
their  examination,  ii,  466,  479,  541 
sworn  to  secrecy,  ii,  473 
in  secular  law,  ii,  535 
presumed  to  be  legal,  ii,  536 
for  the  defence,  ii,  539;  iii,  67 
compelled  to  testify,  ii,  540 
suppression  of  their  names,  iii,  53,  64, 
66,  548;  iv,  106 
offers  respecting,  i,  217,  221,  222; 

ii,  550 
in  Portugal,  iii,  242,  257 
number  required,  ii,  561,  562 
de  visu  and  de  oidas,  ii,  564, 
single,  suffices  for  torture,  iii,  9 
torture  of,  iii,  11 
disabled  for  enmity,  iii,  64,  68 
in  solicitation,  iv,  120,  123 
enmity  disregarded,  iv,  156 
can  revoke  in  witchcraft,  iv,  235 
not  to  be  investigated,  iv,  261 
Women  exempt  from  galleys,  iii,  140 
service  in  hospitals  as  penance,  iii,  145 
prisoners,  ii,  523,  525,  526 
stripped  for  torture,  iii,  17 
monkish  abuse  of,  iv,  120 
burning  of,  in  England,  iv,  526 


Wood,  indulgence  for  contributing,  iii, 

184 
Work,  hours  of,  not  observed,  ii,  226 
Workmen  entitled  to  fuero,  i,  434 
Works,  external,  rejected  by  mystics, 

iy,  3,  8,  28,  50 
Writing  materials  for  prisoners,  ii,  517 
Writings,  licence  to  keep,  iii,  489 


VAVIER,  ST.  FRANCIS,  urges  colo- 

-^     nial  Inqn.,  iii,  260 

Xavierr,  Cardinal,  on  Morisco  expulsion, 
iii,  392 

Xea,  Moriscos  of,  prosecuted,  iii,  375 

Xelder,  Juan,  arrested  by  impostor,  iv, 
346 

Xeres,  battle  of,  i,  44 

complaint  of  arrest  at,  i,  185 

tribunal  of,  i,  555 

claims  on  fugitive  heretics,  ii,  329 

Ximenes,  Catalina,  case  of,  ii,  347 

Ximenes,  Cardinal,  his  purchase  of  pre- 
ferment, i,  13 
Inq.-genl.,  of  Castile,  i,  180,  205 
power  of  dismissal  confirmed,  i,  178 
attempts  reform,  i,  215 
his  alnondiga  at  Toledo,  i,  388 
appoints  president  of  Suprema,  ii,  164 
restrains  familiars,  ii,  274 
no  discrimination  against  Conversos, 

ii,  287 
claims  share  of  confiscations,  ii,  320 
his  financial  reforms,  ii,  366 
checks  grants  from  confiscations,  ii, 

380 
abolishes  receivers  of  penances,  ii,  391 
reserves  commutations,  ii,  409 
reforms  office  of  receiver,  ii,  446 
on  suppression  of  witnesses'  names,  ii, 

550 
allows  prisoners  to  live  at  home,  iii, 

152 
prison  must  be  perpetual,  iii,  159 
forbids  discretional  sentences,  iii,  160 
defines  the  sanbenito,  iii,  163 
his  conversion  of  Granada,  iii,  320 
orders  instruction  of  Moriscos,  iii,  327 
on  seduction  of  female  prisoners,  ii, 

523 
favors  the  Beata  de  Piedrahita,  iv,  7 
fate  of  his  MSS.,  iv,  630 
Ximenez  de  Reynoso  on  Moriscos,  iii, 

389 
Ximeno,  Crist6bal,  case  of,  iv,  116 
Xorguina,  iv,  210 


YANEZ,  ALVAR,  case  of,  i,  25 
-*-      Yantar,  i,  395 
Youth  as  a  defence,  iii,  58 


INDEX 


619 


Youth  liable  to  confiscation,  ii,  321 
to  torture,  iii,  14 
to  scourging,  iii,  137 
to  reconciliation,  iii,  150,  206 
to  prison,  iii,  161 
to  disabilities,  iii,  174 


2ACHARIE,  JACQUES,  case  of,  iii, 

Zafar  y  Ribera,  case  of,  ii,  579 

Zafra,  Francisco  de,  case  of,  iii,  427,  444 

Zahori,  iv,  187,  196 

Zala,  iii,  329 

Zalaca,  Jews  in  battle  of,  i,  85 

Zamarra,  iii,  163 

Zambras  and  leilas,  iii,  329,  335 

Zamora,  Council  of,  on  Jews,  i,  69,  72 

struggle  over  canonry,  ii,  417 
Zapata,   Inq.-genl.,   his  resignation,  i, 
309 

Concordia  of,  i,  474 

Index  of,  iii,  495 
Zapata,  Garcia  de,  case  of,  ii,  2 
Zapata,  Melchor,  his  jubilation,  ii,  225 


Zaportas,  Salomon  and  Bale,  iii,  293 

Zaraguelles,  iii,  17 

Zarza,  compaflia  de  la,  iii,  216,  219,  228 

Zayas,  Josef  de,  his  prosecution,  iv,  429 

Zelatores  fidei  as  witnesses,  ii,  540 

Zofras,  iii,  376 

Zumarraga,  Juan  de,  persecutes  witches, 
iv,  215 

Zuiiiga,  Juan  de,  seizes  Jean  de  Berri, 
ii,  130 

Zuiiiga,  Inq.-genl.,  his  death,  i,  306 

Zurita,  Ger6ninio,  on  papal  jurisdiction, 
ii,  131 
as  auditor  of  Suprema,  ii,  194 
reclaims  early  records,  ii,  258 
audits  Sicilian  accounts,  ii,  367 
accounts  of  fines  and  penances,  ii,  392 
his  petition,  ii,  194,  592 
his  statistics  as  to  Seville,  iv,  519 

Zurita,  Dr.,  his  reception  at  Castellon, 
ii,  239 
tenderness  shown  to  him,  i,  369,  530 
his  arrests  of  Frenchmen,  iii,  458 

Zurbano,  president  of  Suprema,  ii,  164 

Zvjrra  de  rueda,  iii,  181 


A  History  of  the 
Inquisition  of  the  Middle  Ages 

BY 

HENRY  C.  LEA,  LL.D. 

Author  of  "A  History  of  the  Inquisition  of  Spain,"  etc. 
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Inquisition  of  the  Middle  Ages,'  by  Henry  Charles  Lea." — Frankfurter 
Zeitung,  January  10,  1906. 


History  of  the  United  States 

From  the  Compromise  of  1850  to  the  Restoration  of  Home 
Rule  at  the  South  in  1877 

BY 

JAMES  FORD  RHODES,  LL.D. 

Member  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society 

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Englishman  in  the  achievements  of  England,  he  is  scrupulously  just  in 
treating  of  her  political  activity.  .  .  .  Indeed,  besides  a  full  account  of 
English  politics  and  intellectual  life,  we  have  a  practically  complete  history 
of  European  affairs  during  the  same  period." — The  New  York  Times. 


The  Cambridge  Modern  History 

Planned  by  the  late  LORD  ACTON,  LL.D.,  Regius  Professor  of 
Modem  History  in  the  University  of  Cambridge. 

Edited  by  A.  W.  WARD,  Litt.D.,  G.  W.  PROTHERO,  Litt.D., 
and  STANLEY  LEATHES,  M.A. 

To  be  complete  in  twelve  royal  8vo.  volumes,  each  $4.00,  net 
(carriage  extra),  issued  at  the  rate  of  two  volumes  a  year. 

I.    THE  RENAISSANCE.  Ready.  VII.  THE  UNITED  STATES.  Ready. 

II.   THE  REFORMATION.  Ready.        VIII.  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 

III.  THE  WARS  OF  RELIGION.  Ready. 

Ready.  IX.  NAPOLEON.  Ready. 

IV.  THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  X.  RESTORATION    AND    REAC- 

Ready.  TION. 

V.  BOURBONS  AND  STUARTS.  XI.  THE  GROWTH  OF  NATION- 

VI.  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ALITIES. 

XII.  THE  LATEST  AGE. 

PRESS  COMMENT  ON  THE  fTORK  ^S  ISSUED : 
"  The  most  full,  comprehensive  and  scientific  history  of  modern  times  in  the  English 
language,  or  in  any  language." — The  Evening  Post,  New  York. 

"  There  can  be  no  question  about  the  great  value  of  the  work — in  fact,  it  is  invalu- 
able to  every  historical  student." — The  Public  Ledger,  Philadelphia. 

"A  work  of  great  value.  It  may  justly  claim  to  have  no  rival  in  English." — The 
Atlantic  Monthly,  Boston. 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

64-66  FIFTH  AVENUE  NEW  YORK