X. POLITICAL ACTIVITY…

X. POLITICAL ACTIVITY

[Sidenote: DEVELOPMENT OF ABSOLUTISM]

Joseph de Maistre, in his profound ignorance of the Inquisition, started the theory that it was a mere political agency.[537] 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 disgrace 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.[538] 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 corps was virtually composed of state officials[539]--forgetting that their authority consisted of apostolical faculties, delegated by the popes and exercised 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 effort at impartiality and without investigation of the facts.[540] 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 responsibility. They rightly represent it as an ecclesiastical tribunal which discharged the duty of preserving the religious purity for which it was created.[541]

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 monarchism 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 Ferdinand'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 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.[542] Even when Acuña, Bishop of Zamora, was prosecuted, as we have seen, the Inquisition was not charged with the work, as Ranke mistakenly asserts. The revolt arose from the coercive measures applied by Charles to the Córtes 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 opposition 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 Inquisition 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 expressly that Philip uttered it in reference to the turbulence of the Huguenots.[543] 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 Gerónimo 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.[544]

[Sidenote: IRREGULAR FUNCTIONS]

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 Pérez 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 Pérez 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 Lérida as to the necessity of certain repairs to the castle.[545] 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 got the public authorities to protect them, he instructed the inquisitors 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 Ocaña, 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 concerning 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.[546]

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 Cæsar 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 Cæsar 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.[547] 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.

[Sidenote: ANTONIO PEREZ]

There was evidently a purpose to use the Inquisition against the revolt of the Germanía of Valencia, when a brief of October 11, 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 Agermanados was killed in a tumult, March 3, 1522, a mysterious individual, known as el Encubierto, and variously described as a hermit from Castile and as a Jew from Gibraltar, presented himself as the avenger of Peris and became the spiritual chief of those who kept up the revolt in Játiva 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 Játiva, 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.[548] 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.[549] 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 Inquisition in a matter of State was in the case of Antonio Pérez. Its dramatic character attracted the attention of all Europe; the mystery underlying it has never been completely dispelled, and its resultant effect upon the institutions of Aragon invests it with an importance justifying examination in some detail.

Antonio Pérez was the brilliant and able favorite of Philip II, who in 1571 succeeded his patron, Ruy Gómez, 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 countrymen.[550] 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 Philip 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 Pérez, who had a devoted wife in Juana Coello, became enamoured of her mature charms and a slave to her imperious will.

[Sidenote: ANTONIO PEREZ]

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 rugged and uncourtly, and the vigor of his representations increased the royal ill-humor. Pérez had for some time been secretly fanning the king's suspicions of his half-brother's designs, even to the point, it is said, of mistranslating cypher despatches. He represented 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 Pérez to procure his death. If Pérez 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 assassinated him in the street on the night of March 31, 1578, and were rewarded with commissions in the army of Italy.

Suspicion fell on Pérez, whose fellow-secretary and bitter enemy, Mateo Vázquez, reported the rumors to the king. The princess in her wrath threatened that Vázquez 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 instrument, 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 Pérez and the princess, he at length was willing to sacrifice his secretary as an escape from a situation that was becoming impossible. 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 Pérez 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.

Pérez, meanwhile, had undergone various vicissitudes of imprisonment, more or less harsh. In May, 1582, Philip ordered an investigation into the different branches of administration, directed principally against Pérez. 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 maravedís, of which 7,371,098 went to the fisc and the balance to the heirs of Ruy Gómez, 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 compromised in the affair, but now that Pérez was thoroughly disgraced, if the documents proving his own complicity could be secured, Pérez 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 Pérez, 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.

In the summer of 1585, Philip permitted the Escobedo kindred to commence the prosecution. Antonio Enríquez, the page of Pérez, who had arranged the assassination, gave full testimony, but the conteste, or corroboration by another witness was lacking. 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. Philip's rancor, however, had deepened with time, and the prosecution was continued. Pérez 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 descent, 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 assuming superiority over all the local officials; the Count of Sástago, then viceroy, resisted his pretensions and was removed and replaced by Andrés Ximeno, Bishop of Teruel, a timid and irresolute 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, peculiarly favorable to Pérez, 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.

[Sidenote: ANTONIO PEREZ]

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 himself 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 manifestacion which secured for him the jurisdiction of the Justicia. Alonso Celdran, lieutenant of the governor, rushed to Calatayud and, after some difficulty, forcibly removed Pérez 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 Pérez 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 cárcel 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 Pérez 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 institutions 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 Pérez 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 Pérez 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 Pérez 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 Pérez and convey him to Castile.

Pérez had already drawn up a memorial replying to the charges, in which he observed considerable reticence. Now he threw off all reserve and prepared another, fortified with documents exposing 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 Pérez 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 Pérez 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 inquisitio 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 Pérez, 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 Béarn. A safer base of operations, however, was devised by Almenara, who won over by bribery an old servant, Diego Bustamente and a teacher named Juan de Basante in whom Pérez had the fullest confidence. In explosions of despairing wrath, they said, he had uttered expressions 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.

[Sidenote: ANTONIO PEREZ]

Inquisitor Medrano put the testimony in proper shape and forwarded 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 Pérez 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 tribunal 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 Pérez to the alguazil of the tribunal. He was put in a coach and driven to the Aljafería, a short distance beyond the gates, where the Inquisition had its seat.

Two servants of Pérez 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 conducted 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 Aljafería and demanded the restoration of Pérez and of his friend Francisco Majorini, who had been included in the prosecution and surrender. Don Pedro de Sesé 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 Archbishop Bobadilla wrote three notes, in increasing desperation--his palace and that of the Justicia would be burnt that night if Pérez 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 Pérez'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. Pérez 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 directions, 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 enlarged 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.

[Sidenote: ANTONIO PEREZ]

Work to this end was commenced at once in Madrid. Anton de Almunia, who had testified against Pérez, 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 deposition; the investigation widened; all the refugees from Aragon and enemies of Pérez 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 kingdom, the jurados of Saragossa and the gentlemen who favored Pérez, 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 preparation 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 persons were called upon to aid it, not only in the matter of Pérez 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 excommunication 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.

Pérez and his friends meanwhile were busy in provoking excitement by addresses and pasquinades in prose and verse, stigmatizing 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; Pérez must be returned to the tribunal before anything else could have attention. 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 Pérez 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 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 Pérez 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 arquebusiers, 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 Aljafería were patrolled by cavalry, and death was threatened for the slightest disturbance. Complicated formalities were observed when the mandate for the delivery of Pérez and Majorini was presented to the court of the Justicia by Lanceman de Sola, secretary of the tribunal. Under guard of arquebusiers a procession was formed of officials and dignitaries, who on reaching the market-place bestowed themselves in the overlooking windows. The prison was entered, Pérez and Majorini were produced, shackles were placed on them and they were formally surrendered 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.

[Sidenote: ANTONIO PEREZ]

The friends of Pérez had not been idle. The gentlemen who still adhered to him had brought their retainers to the city; propagandism 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 governor's horse was shot and he escaped to a house which was promptly 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 Pérez 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.

Pérez mounted a horse and, accompanied by Gil de Mesa and Francisco de Ayerbe, with a couple of servitors, fled to the mountains, 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 kingdom to arms to resist the contrafuero. He did so with a proclamation, 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 musketeers; Bielsa, Puertolas and Gistain furnished two hundred men who turned back after reaching Barbastro. There were disturbances at Teruel which only resulted in the punishment subsequently inflicted on the leaders. The other towns united in a letter to the Justicia, declaring Philip to be the defender of the fueros and those who resisted him to be the violators, and the same 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 discouragement and the gates were locked to prevent desertions, but all who could left the city. The leaders, however were too deeply compromised 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 Villahermosa 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 November 12th, presented himself before the Aljafería, 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.

[Sidenote: ANTONIO PEREZ]

Pérez 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 of Vargas, he took the road to Sallent, 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 Pérez.

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 preserving 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 Córtes 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 commands. 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 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 unexpected 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 insecurity 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 symbolizing 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 Salazar, who fully realized the work expected of them. They filled the prisons of the Aljafería with men of all classes, who had taken part in obstructing the action of the Holy Office, though they subsequently, under orders from Philip, delivered to Vargas certain of their prisoners who were marked for execution for offences outside of inquisitorial jurisdiction.

[Sidenote: ANTONIO PEREZ]

Satisfied with the impression thus made, Philip now took measures to calm the agitation. He withdrew the special commission of the Governor of Aragon and promised to the accused a regular trial by an impartial Aragonese judge. Then, on January 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 applied 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 tranquilizing policy 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 satisfaction 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.

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 Saragossa had recently voted the arrest of a hundred and seventy-six persons; it had already seventy-four in its prisons, and it contemplated 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 allusion, 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 disturbances of September 24, 1591, and the rest were penanced, mostly by exile from Aragon, although some were sent to the galleys, among whom was Manuel Don Lope. The procession at the auto was closed with the effigy of Pérez, 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 all his actions had been directed to that end and to destroy the Inquisition, as he was a descendant of Jews and great-grandson of Aubon Pérez, 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.

[Sidenote: ANTONIO PEREZ]

On the day of the auto Philip was at Rioja, on his way to Tarazona, where the Córtes which had been called had been sitting and had nearly finished its labors. As the Inquisition had still withheld 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 procrastinating, 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 asking that the propriety of issuing the pardon should be discussed, 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 application 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 specified 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 Saragossa with orders for its publication, which was done with great solemnity, November 23d, when more than five hundred penitents presented themselves.

Meanwhile the Córtes 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 Córtes, 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 executions 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 Córtes accepted the presidency of Archbishop Bobadilla, and modified the immemorial rule requiring unanimity in each of the four brazos or chambers. The way being thus cleared, and still further smoothed by a lavish distribution 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 limitations on the royal power which had so long been the peculiar boast of the kingdom. The changes were too numerous for recapitulation 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.

[Sidenote: ANTONIO PEREZ]

When, early in December, Philip at Tarazona held the solio in which he confirmed the acts of the Córtes, 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 pasquinades 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 languished 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 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 Pérez 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 Aljafería 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 audacious pretensions diminished greatly the popular respect due to the Holy Office.[551] Their remonstrances were unheeded until, in 1626, Philip IV, as a special favor transferred the garrison to Jaca.

Pérez and his friends had succeeded in reaching Béarn, 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 experiment, 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 Béarnese, 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 Pérez, Francisco de Ayerbe and Diego de Heredia. Vargas liberated the Béarnese, but the refugees were sent to Saragossa, where they expiated their treason on the scaffold.

In spite of this misadventure, Pérez was warmly welcomed and was pensioned by Henry IV, as a personage of importance, a statesman 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 terminated in misery, November 3, 1611, when he manifested every sign of fervent Catholicism. 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 recommending 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 Pérez, 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.[552]

[Sidenote: OCCASIONAL CASES]

Thus in this, the most prominent instance of inquisitorial political 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 resolutely 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 subjects and to punish them with the secrecy and severity of its procedure, 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.[553] This was a not unnatural conclusion to draw from a case of this nature, but the royal power, by this time, was too securely intrenched 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 Bartolomé Pérez to a severe reprimand, a fine of ten thousand maravedís and a year's exile for saying that obedience to the king came before that due to the pope and to the Church.[554] 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 especially 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 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 proceeding 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.[555]

It is true that, when the Barcelona tribunal was battling to maintain its pretensions against the Córtes of Catalonia, it represented, 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.[556]

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.[557] The secrecy of the Inquisition and its methods of procedure rendered it a peculiarly favorable instrumentality 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.

[Sidenote: THE WAR OF SUCCESSION]

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 Philip 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, fidelity to the king, who thus had the benefit of a well-distributed army of missionaries in every quarter of the land.[558] 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 notwithstanding 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 sacrament 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 excommunication and other discretional penalties.[559]

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 Burgos, 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 María de Palacio of Logroño 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 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.[560] 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 Apostólico 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 disturbance 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.[561]

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.[562]

[Sidenote: UNDER THE RESTORATION]

Thus, as its original functions declined, a new career was opened. We have seen how its censorship was utilized to prevent the incursion 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 propagation of the dangerous doctrines of popular liberty, and any expression of sympathy with events beyond the Pyrenees was sufficient to justify prosecution. As early as 1790, Jacques 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 utterances in sympathy with occurrences in France and, at the same time, his secretary, Don Josef del Borque, was undergoing a similar experience in the Logroño tribunal.[563] War carried on in such fashion could not fail to be disastrous.

This prostitution of an ecclesiastical tribunal to temporal purposes was one of the reasons given by the Córtes of Cádiz 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.[564] 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.[565] 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 Holy Office 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, instructions were sent to the tribunals of Murcia, Córdova, Saragossa and Barcelona, all of which responded with promises of the utmost activity and of watchfulness over reactionaries.[566] So, in 1818 the Logroño tribunal reported that its commissioner at Hernani (Guipúzcoa) reported that he had heard a person utter the proposition "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 England and his relations with the refugees there--all of which must be done with the utmost caution and speed and the results be reported.[567]

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.[568]

* * * * *

Besides these direct political services, the Inquisition was sometimes 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.

[Sidenote: EXPORTATION OF HORSES]

From a very early period this was regarded with great jealousy. From the twelfth century onward, the Córtes 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 Isabella in 1499.[569] Aragon, which lay between Castile and France, suffered from this embargo. The Córtes of Monzon, in 1528, petitioned Charles V for the pardon of certain citizens who had 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 Córtes 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.[570] 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 notoriously 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.[571] There was as yet no ingenious attribution of suspicion of heresy to this contraband trade and, when in 1564, the Córtes of Monzon prohibited the exportation of horses and mares from Aragon, the only reason alleged was their scarcity in the kingdom.[572] 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 coena Domini.[573] The south of France, and especially the contiguous territory of Béarn, had become interpenetrated with heresy and a colorable pretext was afforded of invoking the aid of the Inquisition to suppress the contraband traffic.

[Sidenote: EXPORTATION OF HORSES]

This was first confided, in 1573, to the tribunal of Saragossa, by a commission empowering it to act in the premises. It accordingly inserted in the Edict of Faith a clause requiring the denunciation 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 Béarn was inhabited 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 Béarn, 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 Béarn; it was sent, with a secretary, to all the principal fairs where horses were sold, to be published in the church, 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 Béarn, or else would present himself with his horses before the inquisitors 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 Béarnais, 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 Béarnais, he was seized with his horses and prosecuted, as being included in the Edict. Spaniards found with horses going towards France or Béarn, 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 prosecuted; 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 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 assertion 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.[574]

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, Béarn 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.[575] 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 Córtes 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 Béarn and France, with the addition that it could be punished with the death-penalty.[576]

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 Béarn, that alone sufficed.[577] 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 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 fe, 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 public office for both the culprit and his descendants.[578]

Oddly enough, in the case of Antonio Pérez 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 Frenchman for three hundred and sixty libras 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.[579] 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 tribunal 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 November 11, 1667, the Suprema again asked for them in order to decide the case of Bonguero.[580] 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.

[Sidenote: COINAGE]

A still more eccentric invocation of the terror felt for the Inquisition, 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--punishments 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. Sanguinary laws were enacted to counteract this temptation, and the offence was punishable, 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 fautor 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 Catholics, for the sake of gain, the jurisdiction belonged exclusively to the king and as such he granted it cumulatively 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.[581]

* * * * *

If, as we have seen, the Inquisition was not a political 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.

XI. JANSENISM

Jansenism is a convenient term wherewith to stigmatize as heresy whatever is displeasing to Ultramontanism, whether in Church or State, and it served as a pretext for the continued existence of the Inquisition, after the older aberrations were exterminated. As a concrete heresy, however, it defies accurate theological 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 Council 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. Cornelis 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.[582]

[Sidenote: NATURE OF THE HERESY]

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 OEcumenica, were accused, before publication, of Baianism and Jansenism; the MSS. 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 important congregations, including that of the Inquisition, in which he served with distinction, until his death in 1704.[583]

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 Probabilism, 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 subreptitious, to assert the supremacy of general councils, and to exalt the independence and privileges of the Gallican 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 Probabilism, Jesuitism and Ultramontanism was stigmatized as a Jansenist. Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon, who had persecuted the original Jansenists, were of the sect, because of their enforcement of the royal prerogative; Bossuet was suspected of Jansenism for his defence of the Declaration of the Gallican 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 González, 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 fidei, 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.

[Sidenote: STRUGGLE IN FLANDERS]

Spain paid little attention to the theological controversy over Jansen, though his works and those of his followers were duly condemned by the Inquisition.[584] It is a curious illustration of this indifference that when the great bibliographer, Nicolás 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 unbelievers, 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.[585] 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, 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 suppressed it, by a decree of September 13, 1650.[586] This did not cool the ardor of the Flemish followers of Jansen and, in 1656, Alexander 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.[587]

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 subject 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 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 González 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 supplicating, 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 suppressed by the Spanish Inquisition, in a decree of September 28, 1698, as insulting to the authorities, secular and ecclesiastical, of Flanders.[588]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: QUARREL OVER CARDINAL NORIS]

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, while virulent attacks on him by Jesuits, in both Latin and the vernacular, were allowed free circulation.[589] The culmination came when the Jesuit Padre Rábago, confessor of Fernando VI, controlled the weak and irresolute inquisitor-general Pérez 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 regalías.

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 Bibliothèque 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.[590]

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 without 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 throughout 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 Rábago 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 Rábago, 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 regalías 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 become doubly embroiled by a papal decree of September 24th condemning Colonia's Bibliothèque Janseniste, thus putting on the Roman Index a considerable section of the Spanish. In a letter to the Spanish agent in Rome, Rábago 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 humiliating to his Holiness 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 Italian, and the next day he wrote cheerfully to Rábago that he thought it would end the affair; the pope was displeased but, knowing his character, this need cause no alarm.

[Sidenote: QUARREL OVER CARDINAL NORIS]

Benedict seems to have passed over in dignified silence this 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 skilfully induced Benedict to drop the matter, while with equal skill and unlimited 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 Rábago, 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 submitted to Bonifaz who, in December, presented a consulta, dwelling 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 reposed 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 Jansenism. 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.[591]

This may be assumed as the last struggle over what were conceived to be the doctrinal errors of Jansenism, and subsequent persecution was directed against it as the opponent of Ultramontanism and Jesuitism, and as the supporter of the royal prerogative. 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.[592] The Concordat of 1753, which concentrated patronage in the crown, could only strengthen this dependence of the clergy, while the second half of the eighteenth century witnessed an ominous tendency throughout Europe to throw off subjection to Rome. The celebrated work of "Febronius,"[593] in 1763, boldly attacked the papal autocracy, and encouraged the assertion of the regalías; 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.

[Sidenote: ITS DEVELOPMENT]

Fray Miguélez 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 regalías and persecutor of Ultramontanism--in other words, that it was Jansenist--and that it was used in an attempt to lay the foundations in Spain of a schismatic Church like that of Utrecht.[594] This was not the case, but as Jansenism was now merely a doctrinal misnomer for a principle, partly political and partly disciplinary, the Inquisition had a narrow and difficult path to tread. Carlos III was fully convinced of the extent of the regalías; he was involved in 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 Ultramontanism 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 condemned, the Inquisition was compelled prudently to close its eyes.[595] 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.[596] When the bull Auctorem fidei, condemning, in 1794, the errors of the synod, reached Spain the Council of Castile reported against its admission.[597] The University of Salamanca was regarded as a Jansenist hot-bed. Jovellanos 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.[598] 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.[599] Naturally episcopal vacancies were filled with bishops of the same persuasion and one of them, Joseph Clíment 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 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.[600]

The Inquisition, in fact, could not but be opposed to Jansenism, for one of the objects of the Jansenistic movement was the restoration 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.[601] 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 Guipúzcoa 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.[602]

[Sidenote: REACTION]

The elimination of the Jesuits was a triumph for so-called Jansenism. 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 modern science.[603] 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 Théologie de Lyon, a book condemned in Rome for its Gallican principles--a denunciation which was duly followed by the prosecution of one of the professors, a Dominican named Pier.[604]

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 public 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.[605] 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.[606]

The charge was one easy to bring, and the intelligent classes in Spain were kept in a state of unrest and apprehension. An illustrative case was that of two brothers, Gerónimo 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 María 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 Gerónimo 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 inquisitors. 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 jurisdiction for which it would be difficult to find a precedent. By royal decrees of May 7, 1806, he ordered that the Valladolid inquisitors should be in no way prejudiced by their removal but should be capable of promotion. Gerónimo was restored to his dignity in the church of Avila, with ceremonies galling to his adversaries; he was to receive all the arrears of his prebend; his trial and imprisonment were not to inflict any disability 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 Gerónimo. 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--Carmelites, Benedictines, 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.[607]

[Sidenote: DISAPPEARANCE]

Archbishop Muzquiz did not wholly escape. Gerónimo's defence placed him in the position of a calumniator and, in his efforts at extrication, he accused the inquisitors of Valladolid 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 thousand 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.[608]

* * * * *

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 stigmatized as Jansenists, so those Spaniards who submitted to the "intrusive" government of Joseph Bonapart were classed as Jansenists, and so were their most active antagonists, the liberal members of the Córtes of Cadiz.[609] 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 Vélez, 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 followers promulgated the greatest errors against the Church and its discipline.[610]

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-enthusiastic 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 extravagant; 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 Abbé 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.[611] There are zealous Spanish Masons who assure us that the Comunidades of Castile and the Germanía 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.[612]

[Sidenote: PROHIBITED BY ROME]

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 organization based on toleration, benevolence and good-fellowship. Its 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 Cádiz. These were primarily for the benefit of English residents, although doubtless 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 represented the matter to Clement XII, who sent to Florence an inquisitor; he made a number of arrests, but the parties were set at liberty by the new Grand-duke, Francis of Lorraine, who declared himself the patron of the Order and participated in the organization of several lodges.[613] 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.[614] 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-penalty was a matter for the secular authorities and in Florence these were not under control. Indeed, when the Inquisition offered pardon for self-denunciation, and a hundred crowns for information, and made several arrests, the Grand-duke interposed and liberated the prisoners.[615] 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.[616] He was accordingly imprisoned 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 relief 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 all Catholic princes to enforce the decrees of the Holy See.[617] When thus, without provocation, Rome declared war to the knife against the new organization, it naturally became hostile to Rome, and when its membership was forbidden to the faithful, it was necessarily confined to those who were either indifferent or antagonistic to the Roman faith.

[Sidenote: PERSECUTION]

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 denunciations, 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 portals, thus giving an effective advertisement to the new institution by conveying a knowledge of its existence to a population thus far happily ignorant.[618]

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.[619] There was thus established a cumulative jurisdiction which continued, for State autocracy and Church autocracy were alike jealous of a secret organization of unknown strength which, in troublous times, might become dangerous. Fernando VI manifested this by a pragmática of July 2, 1751, in which he forbade the formation of lodges under pain of the royal indignation and punishment at the royal discretion; all 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.[620] 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.[621]

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 employees to join the Order, he was reckoned as a dogmatizer.[622] 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 tribunal 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, condemned 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 suddenly, 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.[623] This probably ended the case.

[Sidenote: POLITICAL ACTIVITY]

Free-Masonry was growing and extending itself throughout influential circles. In 1760 the Gran Logia española was organized and independence of London was established; in 1780 this was changed to a Grand Orient, symbolical Masonry being subordinated to the Scottish Rite. In this we are told that such men as Aranda, Campomanes, Rodríguez, 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 Carlos III were mostly Masons and that to them was attributable the energetic action against Jesuitism and Ultramontanism.[624] 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 Obscurantism of the Inquisition.

A disturbing element was furnished by Cagliostro who, in his two visits to Spain, founded the lodge España, 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 foolish republican conspiracy of 1796, known as the conspiracy of San Blas, 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 intercession 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.[625]

In the troubled times that followed, the revolutionary section of Masonry naturally developed, at the expense of the conservative. 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 disturbances 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 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. Apparently the result was inconsiderable for, on February 10th, the term was extended until Pentecost (May 14th) and inviolable secrecy was promised.[626] 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 September 14, 1814, twenty-five arrests had been made for suspicion of membership.[627]

[Sidenote: UNDER THE RESTORATION]

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 in quarrels, but still there was jealous susceptibility and self-assertion. As early as 1815 this showed itself in the prosecution of Diego Dilicado, parish priest of San Jorje in Coruña, because he had reported the existence there of a lodge to the public authorities and not to the Inquisition.[628] 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.[629] The Madrid tribunal, May 8, 1817, sentenced Albert Leclerc, a Frenchman, for Free-Masonry; he had already been tried and convicted 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 exercises 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 sentence of banishment. So, in July 1817, the Santiago tribunal collected evidence against Manuel Llorente, sergeant of Grenadiers, and the Suprema directed that, as soon as the secular trial was finished, he was to be imprisoned again and tried by the tribunal.[630]

For this punctiliousness there was the excuse that the papal decrees rendered Masonry an ecclesiastical crime involving excommunication, 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 Catalá, 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.[631]

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.[632] 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 Restoration, 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 Cádiz, 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 Ocaña, 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 Inquisition and to liberate the Count of Montijo, grand master of the Masonic organizations, who lay in the secret prison.[633]

We shall have occasion hereafter to see the ruinous part played by Free-Masonry, and its offshoot the Comuneros, during 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.[634]

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 dangerous, 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, confiscation, ten years of prison and three years of exile from Toledo, Madrid and Renedo.[635] 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.[636] The Abbé Clément 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 incredulity, united with all the externals of devotion, even under the oppression of habitual dread of the severity of the Inquisition.[637] 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, Campomanes, 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 conspicuous to serve as warnings. Such a case was that of Dr. Luis Castellanos, health-officer of the port of Cádiz--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 subsequently he confessed and begged for mercy. On June 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 Celi, the Count of Torrejon and innumerable other distinguished personages, at which Castellanos 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.[638]

[Sidenote: PABLO OLAVIDE]

Contemporary with this was a case of more far-reaching influence. 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 ruins. 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 fortunes. He was remarkably intelligent, 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 correspondence. Aranda, who secretly sympathized 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 baldios, 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 interfered 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 Poblaciones, as they were called, were established in various places. A contract was made to bring six thousand German and Swiss Catholics and establish them on the southern slope of the Sierra Morena, along the main road from Madrid to Cádiz--a wild and rugged country, the haunt of highway robbers. Campomanes drew up the plan, under which establishments of the religious Orders were absolutely prohibited; the settlers 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 presented 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 and good works to avert calamities, forbidding the ringing of bells in tempests, wanting corpses buried in cemeteries 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.

[Sidenote: PABLO OLAVIDE]

It shows the decadence of the Inquisition that the royal permission to prosecute was sought and obtained. Olavide was summoned 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 confessed 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 huge number of spectators. It was held, November 24, 1778, in the audience-chamber, after inviting--invitations equivalent to commands--Campomanes and numerous prominent nobles, statesmen and others who had been connected 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 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 tremendous severity so overcame him that he fell senseless to the floor. A distant convent at Gerona was selected for his confinement; 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, ó Historía de un Filósofo disengañado," 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.[639]

The Inquisition had not miscalculated the salutary influence of the example. Don Felipe Samaniego, Archdeacon of Pampeluna, 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 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 implicated was so great that the tribunal was content to let the cases remain in suspense.[640]

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 mathematics and author of a series of text-books long in use, for a niece 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 deprived him of the care of his neice, his house was charitably assigned to him as a prison, with various spiritual penances.[641] A more suggestive case was that of Doctor Gregorio de Vicente, professor of philosophy in the University of Valladolid, for certain theses in which were discovered twenty propositions savoring of "naturalism," and for a sermon in which he argued that true religion 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 uncle who was an inquisitor of Santiago, whose influence induced the Valladolid 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.[642]

[Sidenote: CONSERVATISM AND PROGRESS]

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 irreconcileably, but it appears that the prosecution was the result of private 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 condemned. This invasion of inquisitorial jurisdiction led to resistance on the part of Inquisitor-general Lorenzana, which caused Queen María 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.[643]

This case illustrates the struggle on foot between the forces of conservatism and progress, in which the Inquisition, as the protagonist of the former, was not always successful. The propagators of the new ideas were difficult to silence. Even under Carlos III, we are told that in 1785-6 there appeared in Saragossa essays scandalizing to the faithful, for they sought to establish that celibacy is prejudicial to the State, that vows of religion should be postponed to the age of 24, that the Church had customs detrimental to the State and that its abuses and superstitions should be suppressed. Apparently the Inquisition took no steps to vindicate the faith, and when Fray Diego de Cádiz, 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.[644] 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 and enlightenment, in turns repressed the Inquisition and gave it free rein. A prominent personage of the time was the Count Francisco Cabarrús, 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 devotions which pervert reason, destroy virtue and cause heathendom to ridicule Christianity.[645] For much less than this many a man, like Olavide, had suffered bitterly but, in 1795, Cabarrús 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.

[Sidenote: CONSERVATISM AND PROGRESS]

The feelings of the orthodox towards these innovators are comprehensively expressed by Fray Francisco Alvarado, the leading champion of conservatism against the Córtes of 1810. "These philosophers" he says, "have come to disrupt our union, to disturb 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."[646] Virulent as is this objurgation, it is but the natural expression of the passions excited by the struggle in progress, which each side felt to be a combat to the death. A moderated philosophism, as we shall see, triumphed in the Córtes 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 recognizing it, from the first, as its most dangerous enemy--the embodiment of the modern spirit, destined, for better or worse, finally to supplant medievalism.

XIV. BIGAMY

From an early period the Church assumed jurisdiction over marriage, derived from the function of the priest for its due celebration, 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 invalid, 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, under 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 Córtes of Briviesca, in 1387, added branding in the face.[647] In 1532, the Córtes of Segovia petitioned to have it made a capital offence, which Charles V refused, but added half confiscation and, in 1548, the Córtes of Valladolid substituted the galleys, the term for which Philip II, in 1566, defined as ten years, with public vergüenza.[648]

[Sidenote: RESISTANCE IN CATALONIA]

Thus there was ample provision for the trial and punishment 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 marriage 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 Aragon. 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 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.[649] 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.[650] 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.[651]

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 insertion of a provision "unless they believe erroneously as to the sacrament of matrimony or are suspect in the faith."[652] 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.[653] Leo X, when, in 1516, confirming the Concordia of 1512, in the bull Pastoralis officii, was careful to make the same reservation,[654] but in this, as in everything else ostensibly gained by the Concordia, the subjects of the crown of Aragon found themselves deceived and when the Córtes, about 1530, complained that the inquisitors assumed jurisdiction over bigamy, the curt answer was that they observed the provisions of the law.[655]

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 Bardaxí betrothed himself by words de præsenti 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 Bardaxí had previously been married to Doña 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.[656] The result is unknown, but Bardaxí was at least exposed to the terrors of an inquisitorial trial on a vague assertion of an indiscretion committed thirty-six years before.

[Sidenote: INFERENTIAL HERESY]

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 maravedís 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.[657] Still, there was no special reclamation on the subject by the Córtes 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,[658] but all this was academical rather than practical. In 1537, Dr. Giron de Loaysa, in his inspection of Toledo, reported that he had found everywhere many bigamists; they were so numerous that the inquisitors prosecuted them without distinction as to belief, and he suggested that special orders should be accordingly issued as the offence was so evil and so frequent.[659] 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 custom 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.[660] Thus it became settled, and otherwise the Inquisition would have been obliged to abandon its jurisdiction, 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.[661]

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 institution and adopting the error of the heretics against the prohibition of polygamy."[662] With the same view he was always required to abjure for suspicion of heresy, in the earlier time de vehementi, but later de levi.[663] 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.[664] Still, when the jurisdiction once was acquired, it was asserted to be exclusive and was defended with customary aggressiveness. The civil magistrates were unwilling to surrender their immemorial cognizance of the crime, and assumed that it was mixti fori, leading to frequent 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 inquisitors 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 lifted; the Suprema replied that it had commanded 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.[665]

[Sidenote: PENALTIES]

The time-honored episcopal jurisdiction over bigamy was treated with similar imperiousness. In 1650 the Suprema ordered the Valencia 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.[666] Yet, notwithstanding this, 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 examination as to his belief in the sacrament and then, after making him abjure and imposing appropriate penance, return him to the secular court.[667] 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.[668]

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.[669] 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 vergüenza. The heaviest punishment was that of the Bachiller Cristóbal 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 which he was banished for life, with a threat of perpetual galleys in case of infraction.[670]

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.[671] 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.[672] 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 illustrated 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.[673]

[Sidenote: JURISDICTION DISPUTED]

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 Valladolid 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 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 establishing 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.[674]

* * * * *

As the eighteenth century advanced, the inquisitorial claim to exclusive jurisdiction was called in question. In the New Granadan case of Alberto Maldonado, of Santafé de Bogotá, the alcalde resisted the interference of the Inquisition with his prosecution 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 consulta, March 18th, but to no purpose. The decree was enclosed to all viceroys in a royal cédula, commanding that, in no case, should a competencia be admitted, for no custom could prevail against the regalías, 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.[675]

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 Croix, February 26, 1767.[676] 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 exclusively 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 contravention of the decree.[677]

This was a bitter rebuke, sullenly resented by the Inquisition. There were many pending cases in the tribunals and they forthwith 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 fe, 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.[678]

[Sidenote: JURISDICTION DIVIDED]

Although this conceded only the power of trying without convicting, it was an entering wedge, which the Suprema lost no time in turning to advantage, by stimulating denunciations 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."[679] 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 convicted and made to appear in an auto particular, with the insignia 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 appearance of being merely the execution of a sentence by the tribunal.[680]

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 solicitation, 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 cédula is uneffaced and it ought to be called in and suppressed.[681]

This appeal led to a royal declaration of September 6, 1777, to the effect that the cédula 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 jurisdictions; 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 coöperate, by each imposing the penalties belonging to it and delivering the culprit from one to another in order that his offences might be verified.[682] This subdivision of a crime into three was too clumsily scientific to be reduced to practice. In appearance it 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 temporal 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.[683]

[Sidenote: NUMBER OF CASES]

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 jurisdiction, 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 tribunal 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 recommendation to mercy, in view of his long imprisonment, his confession and the hopes entertained of his amendment.[684] 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.[685]

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.[686] 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 Inquisition 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.[687]

[Sidenote: MUST BE HERETICAL]

The Spanish Inquisition, at its inception, thus found itself possessed of jurisdiction and, in Aragon at least, where the institution had the tradition of centuries, there was no hesitation in exercising it, immediately after the reorganization. In the Saragossa 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 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.[688] This warning was all the more needed, as the secular courts were not ready to abandon their jurisdiction, for a pragmática of Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1502, provides lashes, prison and other penalties for blasphemies so evidently heretical as descreo de Dios (I disbelieve in God).[689] 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.[690]

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 Córtes of Monzon, in 1510. In the Concordia of 1512 it was provided that they should not have cognizance 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.[691] 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.[692] As we have seen in bigamy, however, no attention was paid to this and, among the grievances of the Córtes 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.[693]

These troubles were by no means confined to Aragon. In Castile a royal pragmática of 1515 recites a supplication to the king asking that inquisitors should not have cognizance of blasphemy, 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.[694] This ambiguous utterance naturally produced no effect and, in 1534, the Córtes 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 pragmática of 1515.[695]

It is easy to appreciate the feelings underlying these remonstrances, 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 life, were the prosecutions 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 sure 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.

[Sidenote: DEFINITION DIFFICULT]

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, 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 delimitation 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 inclined 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 legislation, such as "Mal grado aya Dios" (May it spite God), "Pese á Dios" (May God regret) "Reniego á 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.[696] 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.[697] 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 conditional, being merely explosions of wrath or disappointment, a decision which it repeated in 1547; it had already, in 1535, construed the Instructions of 1500 as implying that sudden ejaculations 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 á 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.[698]

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 Pérez, 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 Pérez 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 Señora" or "descreo de Dios" were heretical. 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.[699] It will readily be seen how elusive were the questions arising from the variegated ingenuity of blasphemers, and what scope there was for the indulgence of temperamental idiosyncracies among inquisitors.

[Sidenote: CUMULATIVE JURISDICTION]

In the region so full of doubt, where there were three claimants 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.[700] In his anxiety to suppress blasphemy, Philip IV in 1639 assembled a junta to consider whether the jurisdiction of the Inquisition 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.[701]

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 threatening 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 inquisitors learned that it was ten years old, and that he had already been punished by the episcopal Ordinary, they wisely suspended the case.[702]

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 abjuration 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.[703] 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 abjuration, 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.[704] A later writer, however, holds that such heretical blasphemies as "reniego de Dios," "descreo de Dios" and the like are punishable with vergüenza or a hundred lashes.[705]

[Sidenote: NUMBER OF CASES]

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 Pérez 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.[706] This wise moderation did not exclude severity, when the case seemed to demand it. In 1669, Antonio del Hero, for heretical blasphemy "en grado superlativo" 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.[707]

* * * * *

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.