Volume 1 / Book 1 — CHAPTER IV. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INQUISITION. (continued 2)

SECRETARY CALCENA

As early as 1501 there is evidence of hostility between Lucero and the Córdovan authorities. When the receiver of confiscations, accompanied by Diego de Barrionuevo, scrivener of sequestrations, was holding a public auction of confiscated property, the alguazil mayor of the city, Gonzalo de Mayorga, ordered the town-crier, Juan Sánchez, who was crying the auction, to come with him in order to make certain proclamations. The scrivener interposed and refused to let Sánchez go; hot words passed in which Mayorga insulted the Inquisition and finally struck the scrivener with his wand of office, after which the alcalde mayor of the city, Diego Rúiz de Zarate, carried him off to prison. The inviolability of the officials of the Inquisition was vindicated by a royal sentence of September 6th, in which Mayorga, in addition to the arbitrary penance to be imposed on him by Lucero, was deprived of his office for life, was disabled from filling any public position whatever, and was banished perpetually from Córdova and its district, which he was to leave within eight days after notification. Zarate was more mercifully treated and escaped with six months’ suspension from office.[529] This severity to civic officials of high position was a warning to all men that Lucero was not to be trifled with.

The unwavering support that he received from Ferdinand is largely explicable by the complicity of Juan Róiz de Calcena, a corrupt and mercenary official whom we shall frequently meet hereafter. He was Ferdinand’s secretary in inquisitorial affairs, conducting all his correspondence in such matters, and was also secretary to the Suprema, and thus was able in great degree to control his master’s action, rendering his participation in the villainies on foot essential to their success. How these were worked is displayed in a single case which happens to be described in a memorial from the city of Córdova to Queen Juana. The Archdeacon of Castro, Juan Muñoz, was a youth of seventeen, the son of an Old Christian mother and a Converso hidalgo. His benefice was worth 300,000 maravedís a year and he was a fair subject of spoliation, for which a plot was organized in 1505. His parents were involved in his ruin, all three were arrested and convicted and he was penanced so as to disable him from holding preferment. The spoils were divided between Cardinal Bernardino Carvajal, for whom bulls had been procured in advance, Morales the royal treasurer, Lucero and Calcena. The governor and chapter of Córdova gave the archdeaconry to Diego Vello, chaplain of the bishop, but the Holy See conveniently refused confirmation and bestowed it on Morales; Lucero obtained a canonry in Seville and some benefices in Cuenca, while Calcena received property estimated at 4,000,000 maravedís—doubtless an exaggerated figure representing the aggregate of his gains from complicity throughout Lucero’s career.[530]

It was probably in 1501 that the combination was formed which emboldened Lucero to extend his operations, arresting and condemning nobles and gentlemen and church dignitaries, many of them Old Christians of unblemished reputation and limpios de sangre. It was easy, by abuse and threats, or by torture if necessary, to procure from the accused whatever evidence was necessary to convict, not only themselves but whomsoever it was desired to ruin. A great fear fell upon the whole population, for no one could tell where the next blow might fall, as the circle of denunciation spread through all ranks. Apologists from that time to this have endeavored to extenuate these proceedings by suggesting that those compromised endeavored to secure allies by inculpating in their confessions men of rank and influence, but in view of Lucero’s methods and the extent of his operations such an explanation is wholly inadequate to overthrow the damning mass of evidence against him.[531]

LUCERO’S REIGN OF TERROR

His views expanded beyond the narrow bounds of Córdova, and he horrified the land by gathering evidence of a vast conspiracy, ramifying throughout Spain, for the purpose of subverting Christianity and replacing it with Judaism, which required for its suppression the most comprehensive and pitiless measures. In memorials to Queen Juana the authorities, ecclesiastic and secular, of Córdova described how he had certain of his prisoners assiduously instructed in Jewish prayers and rites so that they could be accurate in the testimony which, by menaces or torture, he forced them to bear against Old Christians of undoubted orthodoxy. In this way he proved that there were twenty-five profetissas who were engaged in traversing the land to convert it to Judaism, although many of those designated had never in their lives been outside of the city gates. Accompanying them were fifty distinguished personages, including ecclesiastics and preachers of note.[532] Of course, these stories lost nothing in passing from mouth to mouth, and it was popularly said that some of these prophetesses, in their unholy errand, travelled as drunken Bacchantes and others were transported on goats by the powers of hell.[533] A single instance, which happens to have reached us, illustrates the savage thoroughness with which he protected the faith from this assault. A certain Bachiller Membreque was convicted as an apostate Judaizer who had disseminated his doctrines by preaching. Lists were gathered from witnesses of those who had attended his sermons and these, to the number of a hundred and seven, were burnt alive in a single auto de fe.[534] The inquisitorial prisons were filled with the unfortunates under accusation, as many as four hundred being thus incarcerated, and large numbers were carried to Toro where, at the time, Inquisitor-general Deza resided with the Suprema.

The reign of terror thus established was by no means confined to Córdova. Its effects are energetically described by the Capitan Gonzalo de Avora, in a letter of July 16, 1507, to the royal secretary Almazan. After premising that he had represented to Ferdinand, with that monarch’s assent, that there were three things requisite for the good of the kingdom—to conduct the Inquisition righteously without weakening it, to wage war with the Moors, and to relieve the burdens of the people—he proceeds to contrast this with what had been done. “As for the Inquisition,” he says, “the method adopted was to place so much confidence in the Archbishop of Seville (Deza) and in Lucero and Juan de la Fuente that they were able to defame the whole kingdom, to destroy, without God or justice, a great part of it, slaying and robbing and violating maids and wives to the great dishonor of the Christian religion.... As for what concerns myself I repeat what I have already written to you, that the damages which the wicked officials of the Inquisition have wrought in my land are so many and so great that no reasonable person on hearing of them would not grieve.”[535] When a horde of rapacious officials, clothed in virtual inviolability, was let loose upon a defenceless population, such violence and rapine were inevitable incidents, and the motive of this was explained, by the Bishop of Córdova and all the authorities of the city, in a petition to the pope, to be the greed of the inquisitors for the confiscations which they habitually embezzled.[536]

It was probably in 1505, after the death of Isabella, November 16, 1504, that the people of Córdova first ventured to complain to Deza. He offered to send the Archdeacon Torquemada who, with representatives of the chapter and the magistrates, should make an impartial investigation, but when the city accepted the proposition he withdrew it. A deputation consisting of three church dignitaries was then sent to him asking for the arrest and prosecution of Lucero. He replied that if they would draw up accusations in legal form he would act as would best tend to God’s service, and, if necessary, would appoint judges to whom they could not object.[537] This was a manifest evasion, for the evidence was under the seal of the Inquisition and Deza alone could order an investigation. Apparently realizing that it was useless to appeal to Ferdinand, whose ears were closed by Calcena, their next recourse was to Isabella’s daughter and successor, Queen Juana, then in Flanders with her husband Philip of Austria. Philip was eager to exercise an act of sovereignty in the kingdom, which Ferdinand was governing in the name of his daughter and, on September 30, 1505, a cédula bearing the signatures of Philip and Juana was addressed to Deza, alleging their desire to be present and participate in the action of the Inquisition and meanwhile suspending it until their approaching arrival in Castile, under penalty of banishment and seizure of temporalities for disobedience, at the same time protesting that their desire was to favor and not to injure the Holy Office. Although a circular letter to all the grandees announced this resolution and commanded them to enforce it, no attention was paid to it. Don Diego de Guevara, Philip’s envoy, in fact wrote to him the following June that his action had produced a bad impression, for the people were hostile to the Conversos and there was talk of massacres like that of Lisbon.[538]

ARCHBISHOP TALAVERA

The next step of the opponents of Lucero was to recuse Deza as judge and to interject an appeal to the Holy See, leading to an active contest in Rome between Ferdinand and his son-in-law. A letter of the former, April 22, 1506, to Juan de Loaysa, agent of the Inquisition in Rome, described the attempt as an audacious and indecent effort to destroy the Inquisition which was more necessary than ever. Loaysa was told that he could render no greater service to God and to the king than by defeating it; minute instructions were given as to the influences that he must bring to bear, and he was reminded that Holy Writ permits the use of craft and cunning to perform the work of God. The extreme anxiety betrayed in the letter indicates that there was much more involved than the mere defence of Lucero and Deza; it was with Philip and Juana that he was wrestling and the stake was the crown of Castile. On the other hand, Philip, doubtless won by the gold of the Conversos, had fairly espoused their cause and was laboring to obtain for them a favorable decision from the pope. His ambassador, Philibert of Utrecht, under date of June 28th, reported that he had urged Julius II not to reject the appeal of the Marranos but the politic pontiff replied that he must reserve his decision until Ferdinand and Philip had met.[539]

Undeterred by the mutterings of the rising storm, Lucero about this time saw in Isabella’s death a chance to strike at a higher quarry than he had hitherto ventured to aim at. The Geronimite Hernando de Talavera had won her affectionate veneration as her confessor and, on the conquest of Granada, in 1492, she had made him archbishop of the province founded there. He had a Jewish strain in his blood, as was the case in so many Spanish families; he was in his eightieth year, he was reverenced as the pattern and exemplar of all Christian virtues and he devoted himself unsparingly to the welfare of his flock, spending his revenues in charity and seeking by persuasion and example to win over to the faith his Moorish subjects. Yet he was not without enemies, for he had been the active agent in the reclamation by Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1480, of royal revenues to the amount of thirty millions of maravedís, alienated by Henry IV to purchase the submission of rebellious nobles and, although a quarter of a century had passed, it is said that the vengeful spirit thus aroused was still eager to encompass his ruin.[540]

Whatever may have been Lucero’s motive, inquisitorial methods afforded abundant facilities for its accomplishment. He selected a woman whom he had tortured on the charge of being a Jewish prophetess and maintaining a synagogue in her house. He threatened her with further torture unless she should testify to what she had seen in a room in Talavera’s palace and on her replying that she did not know, he instructed her that an assembly was held, divided into three classes; in the first was the archbishop, with the bishops of Almería, Jaen and others; in the second, the dean and the provisor of Granada, the treasurer, the alcaide and other officials; in the third the prophetesses, the sister and nieces of Talavera, Doña María de Peñalosa and others. They agreed to traverse the kingdom, preaching and prophesying the advent of Elias and the Messiah, in concert with the prophets who were in the house of Fernan Alvárez of Toledo, where they were crowned with golden crowns.[541] All this was duly sworn to by the witness, as dictated to her by the fiscal, and formed a basis for the prosecution of Talavera and his family, doubtless supported by ample corroborative evidence, readily obtainable in the same manner. The occurrence of the name of the Bishop of Jaen suggests a further political intrigue; he was Alfonso Suárez de Fuentelsaz, the former colleague of Deza as inquisitor-general and was no doubt known as inclining to the Flemish party, as he subsequently accepted from Philip the presidency of the Royal Council.

PHILIP AND JUANA

Impenetrable secrecy was one of the most cherished principles of inquisitorial procedure, but Lucero probably desired to prepare the public for the impending blow and whispers concerning it began to circulate. Peter Martyr of Anghiera, who was attached to the royal court, wrote on January 3, 1506, to the Count of Tendilla, Governor of Granada, that Lucero, by means of witnesses under torture, had succeeded in imputing Judaism to the archbishop and his whole family and household; as there was no one more holy than Talavera, he found it difficult to believe that any one could be found to fabricate such a charge.[542] The attack commenced by arresting, in the most public and offensive manner, Talavera’s nephew, the dean and the officials of his church, during divine service and in his presence, evidently with the purpose of discrediting him. The arrest followed of his sister, his nieces and his servants, and we can readily conceive the means by which even his kindred were compelled to give evidence incriminating him, as we gather from a letter of Ferdinand, June 9, 1506, to his ambassador at Rome, Francisco de Rojas, in which he says that the testimony against Talavera is that of his sisters and kindred and servants.[543] Before he could be arrested and prosecuted, however, special authorization from the Holy See was requisite, for, by a decree of Boniface VIII, inquisitors had no direct jurisdiction over bishops. For this, Ferdinand’s intervention was necessary and, after some hesitation, he consented to make the application. The inculpatory evidence given by Talavera’s family was sent to Rome; Francisco de Rojas procured the papal commission for his trial and forwarded it, June 3, 1506.[544]

Before it was despatched, however, Ferdinand’s position had changed with the arrival in Spain of his daughter Juana, now Queen of Castile, and her husband Philip of Austria. Eager to throw off Ferdinand’s iron rule and to win the favor of the new sovereigns, most of the nobles had flocked to them and with them the Conversos, who hoped to secure a modification in the rigor of the Inquisition. They had been aroused by the sufferings of their brethren in Córdova, whose cause was their own, and they were becoming an element not to be disregarded in the political situation; they had already secured a hearing in the Roman curia, always ready, as we shall see hereafter, to welcome appellants with money and to sacrifice them after payment received; they had obtained from Julius II commissions transferring from the Inquisition cognizance of certain cases—commissions which Ferdinand repeatedly asked the pope to withdraw and doubtless with success, as they do not appear in the course of events; they had even approached Ferdinand himself, while in Valladolid, with an offer of a hundred thousand ducats if he would suspend the Inquisition until the arrival of Juana and Philip. This offer, he says in a letter of June 9, 1506, to Rojas, he spurned, but we may perhaps doubt his disinterestedness when he adds that, as Philip has disembarked and is unfamiliar with Spanish affairs, he had secretly ordered Deza to suspend the operations of all the tribunals—the motive of which evidently was to create the belief that Philip was responsible for it. As for Talavera, he adds, as it would greatly scandalize the new converts of Granada, if they thought there were errors of faith in him whom they regarded as so good a Christian, he had concluded to let the matter rest for the present and would subsequently send instructions.[545] He evidently had no belief in Lucero’s fabricated evidence, a fact to be borne in mind when we consider his attitude in the ultimate developments of the affair. This despatch, of course, reached Rojas too late to prevent the issuing of the commission to try Talavera, but it explains why that document was suppressed when it arrived. Deza denied receiving it; it disappeared and Talavera, in his letter of January 23, 1507, to Ferdinand, manifests much anxiety to know what had become of it, evidently dreading that it would be opportunely found when wanted.

THE INQUISITION SUCCUMBS

By the agreement of Villafáfila, June 27, 1506, Ferdinand bound himself to abandon Castile to Philip and Juana; he departed for Aragon and busied himself with preparations for a voyage to Naples, whither he set sail September 4th. Philip assumed the government and disembarrassed himself of his wife by shutting her up as unfit to share in the cares of royalty. He was amenable to the golden arguments of the Conversos and doubtless had not forgotten the contempt with which had been treated his order of the previous year to suspend the Inquisition. He therefore naturally was in no haste to revive its functions. Ferdinand’s secretary Almazan writes to Rojas, July 1st, that the king and the grandees have imprisoned Juana and no one is allowed to see her; he has in vain sought to get some prelates to carry letters from her to her father, but no one ventures to do so; the grandees have done this to partition among themselves the royal power, the Conversos to free themselves from the Inquisition, which is now extinct.[546]

The people of Córdova made haste to take advantage of the situation. They sent a powerful appeal to Philip and Juana, stating that their previous complaints had been intercepted through Deza’s influence and accusing Lucero of the most arbitrary iniquities.[547] They asked that all the inquisitorial officials at Córdova and Toro should be removed and the whole affair be committed to the Bishop of Leon. Philip referred the matter to the Comendador mayor, Garcilasso de la Vega and to Andrea di Borgo, ambassador of Maximilian I, two laymen, to the great scandal, we are told, of all ecclesiastics.[548] The Conversos were triumphant and the Inquisition succumbed completely. The Suprema, including Deza himself, hastened to disclaim all responsibility for Lucero’s misdeeds in a letter addressed to the chapter of Córdova, in which it said that the accusations brought against him seemed incredible, for even highwaymen, when robbing their victims, spare their lives, while here not only the property but the lives of the victims were taken and the honor of their descendants to the tenth generation. But, after hearing the narrative of the Master of Toro there could no longer be doubt and to tolerate it would be to approve it. Therefore, the chapter was instructed to continue to prevent these iniquities, and their majesties would be asked to apply a remedy and to punish their authors.[549] The remedy applied was to compel Deza to subdelegate irrevocably to Diego Ramírez de Guzman, Bishop of Catania and member of the Council of State, power to supersede Lucero and revise his acts, which was confirmed by a papal brief placing in Guzman’s hands all the papers and prisoners in Córdova, Toro and Valladolid.[550] Lucero endeavored to anticipate this by burning all his prisoners so as to get them out of the way, but after the auto de fe was announced there came orders from the sovereigns which fortunately prevented the holocaust.[551]

The relief of the sufferers seemed assured, but the situation was radically changed by the sudden death of Philip, September 25, 1506, for although Juana was treated nominally as queen, she exercised no authority. Deza promptly revoked Guzman’s commission, of which the papal confirmation seems not to have been received; he took possession of the prisoners at Toro and sent the Archdeacon of Torquemada to Córdova to do the same, but Francisco Osorio, the representative of Guzman, refused to obey. The people of Córdova were in despair. It was in vain that they sent delegations to Deza and petitioned the queen to save them. Deza was immovable and the queen refused to act in this as in everything else. The chapter, every member of which was an Old Christian, proud of his limpieza, assembled on October 16th to consider the situation. Some of the most prominent dignitaries of the Church had already been arrested by Lucero and had been treated by him as Jewish dogs; he had asserted that all the rest, and most of the nobles and gentlemen of the city and of other places, were apostates who had converted their houses into synagogues; in view of the impending peril, it was unanimously resolved to defend themselves, while the citizens at large declared that they would sacrifice life and property rather than to submit longer to such insupportable tyranny.[552]

PERSECUTION RENEWED

If the eclipse of the royal authority had enabled Deza to restore Lucero to power it also afforded opportunity for forcible resistance. The grandees of Castile were striving to recover the independence enjoyed under Henry IV, and a condition of anarchy was approaching rapidly. The two great nobles of Córdova, the Count of Cabra, Lord of Baena and the Marquis of Priego, Lord of Aguilar and nephew of the Great Captain, were nothing loath to listen to the entreaties of the citizens, especially as the marquis had been summoned by Lucero to appear for trial. Meetings were held in which formal accusations of Lucero and his promotor fiscal, Juan de Arriola, were laid before Padre Fray Francisco de Cuesta, comendador of the convent of la Merced, who seems to have assumed the leadership of the movement. He pronounced judgement, ordering Lucero and the fiscal to be arrested and their property to be confiscated. Under the lead of Cabra and Priego the citizens arose to execute the judgement. On November 9th they broke into the alcázar, where the Inquisition held its seat, they seized the fiscal and some of the subordinates and liberated the prisoners, whose recital of their wrongs excited still more the popular indignation, but no blood was shed and Lucero saved himself by flight.[553] The whole proceeding appears to have been orderly: a commission of ecclesiastics and laymen was appointed, to which the kinsmen and friends of the prisoners gave security that they should be forthcoming for trial as soon as there should be a king in the land to administer justice. This engagement was duly kept and their temporary liberation under bail was justified on the ground that many of them had been incarcerated for six or seven years and that all were in danger of perishing by starvation, for they were penniless, their property having been confiscated and Deza having ordered the receiver of confiscations not to provide for them.[554]

When the news of this uprising reached Deza he promptly, November 18th, commissioned his nephew, Pedro Juárez de Deza, Archbishop-elect of the Indies, to prosecute and punish all concerned, while by his orders the tribunal of Toledo intercepted and threw into prison Doctor Alonso de Toro, sent by the city to present its case to the queen. Other envoys, however, bore instructions to ask for the removal of Deza and the prosecution of Lucero and his officials, coupled with the intimation that steps had been taken to convoke all the cities of Andalusia and Castile to devise measures of protection against the intolerable tyranny of the Inquisition.[555] This plan seems to have been abandoned but, early in January, 1507, the Bishop of Córdova, Juan de Daza, in conjunction with the clerical and secular authorities, sent a solemn appeal to the pope, asking him to appoint Archbishop Ximenes and the Bishop of Catania or of Málaga, with full power to investigate and to act, and this they accompanied, January 10th, with a petition to Ferdinand, who was still in Naples, to support their request to the pope.[556] Deza, however, continued to command Ferdinand’s unwavering support and the result was seen in the prompt and uncompromising action of Julius II. He wrote to Deza that the Jews, pretending to be Christians, who had dared to rise against the Inquisition, must be exterminated root and branch; no labor was to be spared to suppress this pestilence before it should spread, to hunt up all who had participated in it and to exercise the utmost severity in punishing them, without appeal, for their crimes.[557]

Thus stimulated and encouraged, Lucero resumed his activity and the liberated prisoners were surrendered to him. Peter Martyr writes from the court, March 7, 1507, to Archbishop Talavera, that his sister and his nephew the Dean of Granada, Francisco Herrera—who had doubtless been released in the rising of November 9th—had been thrown in prison in Córdova. Talavera himself, moreover, was put on trial before the papal nuncio, Giovanni Ruffo, and assessors duly commissioned by the pope, showing that Ferdinand’s scruples as to scandalizing the people of Granada had vanished in the fierce resolve to vindicate Lucero and that the missing papal brief had been duly found. Peter Martyr describes his earnest efforts to convince the judges of Talavera’s holy life and spotless character, to which they replied that all this might be true but their business was to ascertain the secrets of his heart.[558] By the time the evidence was sent to Rome, however, his conviction was no longer desired; the testimony was pronounced to be worthless and Pascual de la Fuente, Bishop of Burgos, who was in attendance on the curia, was an earnest witness in his favor.[559] The papal sentence was acquittal and this apparently carried with it the exoneration of his kindred—but it came too late. On May 21st Peter Martyr exultingly writes to him that the dean and his sister with their mother and the rest of his innocent household had been set free, but already he had gone to a higher tribunal. On Ascension-day (May 13th) he had walked, bareheaded and barefooted, in the procession through the streets of Granada, when a violent fever set in and carried him off the next day. He had accumulated no treasure, having spent all his revenues on the poor; he left no provision for his family and the Bishop of Málaga charitably gave to his sister a house in Granada to shelter her old age. His reputation for sanctity is seen in the accounts which at once were circulated, with universal credence of the miracles wrought by him in curing the sick.[560]

POLITICAL INTRIGUES

The reaction in favor of the Inquisition, led by Ferdinand and Julius II, had evidently been short-lived, for the political situation dominated everything and king and pope found it advisable to yield. Juana was keeping herself secluded with the corpse of her husband and was refusing to govern. The rival factions of the two grandfathers of Charles V, Maximilian I and Ferdinand, each striving for the regency during his minority, were both desirous of the support of the Conversos and thus the question of the Córdovan prisoners attained national importance as one on which all parties took sides. Ximenes, the Duke of Alva and the Constable of Castile, the heads of Ferdinand’s party, held a conference at Cavia and listened to the complaints against Deza, for which they promised to find a remedy. The friends of the prisoners, however, seemed more inclined towards the faction of Maximilian; they offered money to defray the expenses of troops to be sent to Spain to resist Ferdinand’s return and it was currently rumored that four thousand men were gathered in a Flemish port ready to embark. It is not easy to penetrate the secret intrigues culminating in the settlement which gave the regency to Ferdinand, but Ximenes, who represented him, took advantage of the situation, with his usual skill, to further his own ambition, which was to gain the cardinal’s hat and Deza’s position as inquisitor-general.[561] For the former of these Ferdinand had made application as early as November 8, 1505, and had repeated the request October 30, 1506; it was granted in secret consistory, January 4, 1507, and was published May 17th.[562] For the latter, the complaints of the Conversos afforded substantial reasons; we have seen that Córdova had petitioned the pope to commission Ximenes as its judge and his appointment would help to pacify the troubles. Ferdinand at length recognized that Deza’s sacrifice was inevitable, and the way was made easy for him, as he was allowed to resign. On May 18th Ferdinand writes to Ximenes from Naples that he had received Deza’s resignation and had taken the necessary steps to secure for him the succession; he has two requests to make—that he shall foster piety and religion by appointing only the best men and that he shall exercise the utmost care that nothing shall be allowed to impair Deza’s dignity.[563] The commission as inquisitor-general was duly issued on June 5, 1507.

LUCERO’S VICTIMS RELEASED

The hatred excited by Lucero had been too wide-spread and the friends of the prisoners were too powerful to be satisfied with the mere substitution of Ximenes for Deza, and there was evidently an understanding that the matter was not to be dropped. As early as May 1st, Peter Martyr writes that it is reported that the imprisoned witnesses, corrupted by Lucero, are to be released and that he will expiate with due punishment his unprecedented crimes.[564] Some such promise was probably necessary for the pacification of the land, but the delay in its performance is significant of protection at the fountain-head of justice. It assumed at first the shape of an action brought by the chapter and city of Córdova before the pope, charging Lucero with the evil wrought by his suborning some witnesses and compelling others by punishment to testify that the plaintiffs were heretics. Julius II commissioned Fray Francisco de Mayorga as apostolic judge to try the case, and, on October 17, 1507, he decreed that Lucero be imprisoned and held to answer at law. Nothing further was done, however, and the impatient citizens addressed a memorial to Queen Juana, asking her to send some one to inform himself about it and report to her.[565] The action of the apostolic judge seems to have been regarded as a mere formality; the months passed away and it was not until May 18, 1508, that the Suprema took independent cognizance of the matter, when Ximenes and his colleagues, except Aguirre, all voted that Lucero should be arrested.[566] Peter Martyr intimates more than once that numbers of the Suprema were suspected of complicity with Lucero and assures us that the Council did not act without thorough investigation of numerous witnesses and interminable masses of documents, revealing an incredible accumulation of impossible and fantastic accusations contrived to bring infamy on all Spain.[567]

It was apparently the first time that an inquisitor had been thus publicly put on trial for official malfeasance and the opportunity was improved to render the spectacle a solemn one, fitted not only to satisfy the national interest felt in the case but to magnify the office of the accused by the scale of the machinery employed to deal with him. Lucero was carried in chains to Burgos, where the court was in residence, and was confined in the castle under strict guard. Ximenes assembled a Congregacion Católica, composed of twenty-one members besides himself, including a large portion of the Royal Council, the Inquisitor-general of Aragon and other inquisitors, several bishops and various other dignitaries—in short, an imposing representation of the piety and learning of the land.[568] After numerous sessions, presided over by Ximenes, sentence was rendered July 9, 1508, and was published August 1st, at Valladolid, whither the court had removed, in presence of Ferdinand and his magnates and a great concourse assembled to lend solemnity to this restoration of the honor of Castile and Andalusia, which had been so deeply compromised by the pretended revelations extorted by Lucero. This weighty verdict declared that there were no grounds for the asserted existence of synagogues, the preaching of sermons and the assemblies of missionaries of Judaism or for the prosecution of those accused. The witnesses—or rather prisoners—were discharged and everything relating to these fictitious crimes was ordered to be expunged from the records. To complete the vindication of the memory of the victims, Ferdinand ordered the rebuilding of the houses which had been torn down under the provisions of the canon law requiring the destruction of the conventicles of heresy.[569] By implication, the acquittal of the prisoners convicted Lucero, but all this was merely preliminary to his trial.

REACTION—ESCAPE OF LUCERO

Ferdinand’s hand had been forced; he had been obliged to yield to public opinion, but his resolve was inflexible to undo as far as he could the results reached by Ximenes. In October he visited Córdova, where he rewarded some officials of the tribunal by grants out of the confiscated estates, which should have been restored when the proceedings were annulled. It is true that the judge of confiscations, Licenciado Simancas, was suspended, but in November, 1509, he was ordered to resume his functions and to act as he had formerly done. We happen to know that, in 1513, the house of the unfortunate Bachiller Membreque was still in possession of the Inquisition. There was no relief for those who had suffered. When the new inquisitor, Diego López de Cortegano, Archdeacon of Seville, revoked Lucero’s sentence on the Licenciado Daza, who had been penanced and his property confiscated, the purchasers who had bought it complained to Ferdinand and he expressed his wrath by promptly dismissing the inquisitor and ordering all the papers in the case to be sent to the Suprema for review and action. The vacancy thus created was not easy to fill, for when, in September, 1509, Ferdinand offered the place to Alonso de Mariana he declined, saying that it would kill him, but he agreed to take the tribunal of Toledo, and it was not until February, 1510, that the Licenciado Mondragon was transferred from Valladolid to take Cortegano’s place. In fact, the interests involved in the confiscations were too many and too powerful for the victims to obtain justice. Martin Alonso Conchina had been condemned by Lucero to reconciliation and confiscation; when the pressure was removed he revoked his confession as having been extorted by threats and fear, whereupon the confiscated property was placed in sequestration awaiting the result. Unluckily for him one of the items, a ground-rent of 9000 mrs. a year had been given, in April, 1506, to the unprincipled secretary Calcena, with the result that one of the new inquisitors, Andrés Sánchez de Torquemada, promptly arrested Conchina, tried him again, convicted him and sentenced him to perpetual imprisonment, so that the confiscation held good and the ground-rent, with all arrears, was confirmed to Calcena by a royal cédula of December 23, 1509. There seems to have still been some obstacle to this reaction in the episcopal Ordinary, Francisco de Simancas, Archdeacon of Córdova for, in February, 1510, Ferdinand wrote to the bishop that, without letting it be known that the order came from the king, he must be replaced with some one zealous for the furtherance of justice and, a month later, this command was peremptorily repeated. It is true that the extravagant wickedness of Lucero was scarce to be dreaded, but, with a tribunal reconstructed under such auspices, the people of Córdova could not hope for justice tempered with mercy and its productive activity is evidenced by the large drafts made, in 1510, on its receiver of confiscations. We may assume that Ximenes looked on this with disfavor for, in a letter to Ferdinand, after his return from the expedition to Oran in 1509, he supplicates that the decision of the Congregation be maintained for he has never infringed it and never intends to do so.[570]

As for the author of the evil, Lucero himself, he was sent in chains to Burgos with some of his accomplices. Ximenes, as inquisitor-general, had full power, as we have seen, to dismiss and punish them but, for some occult reason, a papal commission for their trial was applied for. This caused delay under which Ferdinand chafed, for he wrote, September 30, 1509, to his ambassador complaining that it caused great inconvenience and ordering him to urge the pope to issue it at once so that it could be sent by the first courier.[571] When it came, it empowered the Suprema to try the case and Ferdinand, who warmly espoused Lucero’s cause, expressed his feelings unequivocally in a letter of April 7, 1510—“the prisoners say that they have been long in prison and those who informed against them have gone to Portugal or other parts, and others have been burnt or penanced as heretics, showing clearly that they testified falsely, and they supplicate me to provide that their trial be by inquisitorial and not by accusatorial process, so that they shall not be exposed to greater infamy than hitherto by dead or perjured witnesses, especially as the law provides that the trial be summary and directed only to reach the truth. There is great compassion for their long imprisonment and suffering, wherefore I beg and charge you to look well into the matter and treat it conscientiously and with diligence for its speedy termination, with which I shall be well pleased.”[572]

INQUISITORIAL METHODS

In spite of this urgency the trial dragged on, much delay being caused by the difficulty of finding an advocate willing to undertake Lucero’s defence. The Suprema selected the Bachiller de la Torre, but he declined to serve and Ferdinand, on May 16th, expressed his fear that no one would assume the duty. July 19th he writes that Lucero complains that he still has no counsel and he suggests that, if none of the lawyers of the royal court can be trusted, Doctor Juan de Orduña of Valladolid be called in and his fees be paid by the Inquisition. The suggestion was adopted and, on August 20th, Ferdinand wrote personally to Orduña ordering him to take charge of the defence and see that Lucero suffered no wrong, and at, the same time, he wrote to the University of Valladolid to give Orduña the requisite leave of absence. Under this royal pressure, and considering that the adverse witnesses had been largely burnt or frightened into flight, it is perhaps rather creditable to the Suprema that it ventured to dismiss Lucero, without inflicting further punishment on him. He retired to the Seville canonry, which he had acquired by the ruin of the Archdeacon of Castro, and there he ended his days in peace. In 1514, Ferdinand manifested his undiminished sympathy by a gift of 15,000 mrs. to Juan Carrasco, the former portero of the tribunal of Córdova, to indemnify him for losses and sufferings which he claimed to have endured in the rising of 1506.[573] Yet before we utterly condemn him for his share in this nefarious business we should make allowance for the influence of Lucero’s accomplice, his secretary Calcena, who was always at hand to poison his mind and draft his letters. To the same malign obsession may doubtless also be attributed an order of Charles V, in 1519, requiring the Córdovan authorities to bestow the first vacant scrivenership on Diego Marino, who had been Lucero’s notary.[574]

That Lucero was an exceptional monster may well be admitted, but when such wickedness could be safely perpetrated for years and only be exposed and ended through the accidental intervention of Philip and Juana, it may safely be assumed that the temptations of secrecy and irresponsibility rendered frightful abuses, if not universal at least frequent. The brief reign of Philip led other sorely vexed communities to appeal to the sovereigns for relief, and some of their memorials have been preserved. One from Jaen relates that the tribunal of that city procured from Lucero a useful witness whom for five years he had kept in the prison of Córdova to swear to what was wanted. His name was Diego de Algeciras and, if the petitioners are to be believed, he was, in addition to being a perjurer, a drunkard, a gambler, a forger and a clipper of coins. This worthy was brought to Jaen and performed his functions so satisfactorily that the wealthiest Conversos were soon imprisoned. Two hundred wretches crowded the filthy gaol and it was requisite to forbid the rest of the Conversos from leaving the city without a license. With Diego’s assistance and the free use of torture, on both accused and witnesses, it was not difficult to obtain whatever evidence was desired. The notary of the tribunal, Antonio de Barcena, was especially successful in this. On one occasion he locked a young girl of fifteen in a room, stripped her naked and scourged her until she consented to bear testimony against her mother. A prisoner was carried in a chair to the auto de fe with his feet burnt to the bone; he and his wife were burnt alive and then two of their slaves were imprisoned and forced to give such evidence as was necessary to justify the execution. The cells in which the unfortunates were confined in heavy chains were narrow, dark, humid, filthy and overrun with vermin, while their sequestrated property was squandered by the officials, so that they nearly starved in prison while their helpless children starved outside. Granting that there may be exaggeration in this, the solid substratum of truth is clear from the fact that the petitioners only asked that the tribunal be placed under the control of the Bishop of Jaen—that bishop being Alfonso Suárez de Fuentelsaz, one of Torquemada’s inquisitors, who had risen to be a colleague of Deza. He had not been a merciful judge, as many of his sentences attest, yet the miserable Conversos of Jaen were ready to fly to him for relief.[575]

INQUISITORIAL METHODS

A memorial from Arjona, a considerable town near Jaen, illustrates a different phase of the subject. It relates that a certain Alvaro de Escalera of that place conspired with other evil men to report to the inquisitors of Jaen that there were numerous heretics in Arjona, so that when confiscations came to be sold they could buy the property cheap. In due time an inquisitor came with the notary Barcena. No Term of Grace was given, but the Edict of Faith was published, frightening the inhabitants with its fulminations unless they testified against their neighbors. Then a Dominican preached a fiery sermon to the effect that all Conversos were really Jews, whom it was the duty of Christians to destroy. The inquisitors then sent for the slaves of the Conversos, promising them liberty if they would testify against their masters and assuring them of secrecy. The notary followed by traversing the town with Escalera and his friends, proclaiming that there was a fine of ten reales on all who would not come forward with testimony, and the exaction of the fine from a number had a quickening influence on the memories of others. Then a house to house canvass was made for evidence; the women were told that it was impossible that they should not know the Jewish tendencies of their neighbors; they could give what evidence they pleased for their names would not be divulged; they were not obliged to prove it, for the accused had to disprove it. Those who would not talk were threatened that they would be carried to Jaen and made to accuse their neighbors, and, in fact, a number were taken and compelled to give evidence in prison. Then the inquisitors departed with the accumulated testimony; there was peace in Arjona for three months and the Conversos recovered from their fright. Suddenly one night there arrived the notary, the receiver and some officials; they quietly aroused the regidores and alcaldes and made them collect a force of armed men who were stationed to guard the walls and gates. When morning came the work of arresting the suspects was commenced; their property was sequestrated, their houses locked and their children were turned into the street, while the officials carried off their prisoners, who were thrust into the already crowded gaol of Jaen. The confiscations were auctioned off and those who had plotted the raid had ample opportunity of speculating in bargains.[576]

Still other methods are detailed in a memorial from Llerena, the seat of one of the older tribunals with jurisdiction over Extremadura. It stated that for many years the Inquisition there had found little or nothing to do, until there came a new judge, the Licenciado Bravo. He was a native of Fregenal, a town of the province, where he had bitter law-suits and active enmities; he had had two months’ training under Lucero at Córdova and he came armed with ample evidence gathered there. On his arrival, without waiting for formalities or further testimony, he made a large number of arrests and sent to Badajoz where he seized forty more and brought them to Llerena. They were mostly men of wealth whose fortunes were attractive objects of spoliation, and Bravo took care of his kindred by appointing them to positions in which they could appropriate much of the sequestrated property. The treatment of the prisoners was most brutal, and when his colleague, Inquisitor Villart, who was not wholly devoid of compassion, was overheard remonstrating with him and saying that the death of the captives would be on their souls, Bravo told him to hold his peace, for he who had placed him there desired that they should all die off, one by one. The petitioners were quite willing to be remitted to the tribunal of Seville or to have judges who would punish the guilty and discharge the innocent, but they earnestly begged, by the Passion of Christ, that they should not be left to the mercy of Inquisitor-general Deza. Orders, they said, had been given to him to mitigate in some degree the sufferings of the people of Jaen, which he suppressed and replaced with instructions to execute justice. What this meant we may gather from a last despairing appeal, by the friends of the prisoners of Jaen, to Queen Juana; a junta of lawyers, they said, had been assembled, a scaffold of immense proportions was under construction; their only hope was in her and they entreated her to order that no auto de fe be held until impartial persons should ascertain the truth as to the miserable captives.[577] Juana was in no condition to respond to this agonized prayer, and we may safely assume that greed and cruelty claimed their victims. These glimpses into the methods of the tribunals elucidate the statements of the Capitan Avora as to the desolation spread over the land by the Inquisition.

It would seem that these fearful abuses were creating a general feeling of hostility to the institution and its officials, for Ferdinand deemed it necessary to issue a proclamation, January 19, 1510, calling upon all officials, gentlemen and good citizens to furnish inquisitors and their subordinates with lodgings and supplies at current prices and not to maltreat or assail them, under penalty of 50,000 maravedís and punishment at the royal discretion. A month later, February 22d, we find him writing to the constable of Castile that inquisitors are to visit the districts of Burgos and Calahorra, and he asks the constable to give orders that they may not be impeded. Somewhat similar instructions he gave in March to the provisor and corregidor of Cuenca, when the inquisitors of Cartagena were preparing to visit that portion of their district, as though these special interpositions of the royal power were requisite to ensure their comfort and safety in the discharge of their regular duties. Even these were sometimes ineffectual as was experienced, in 1515, by the inquisitor Paradinas of Cartagena, who, while riding on his mule in the streets of Murcia, was set upon, stabbed and would have been killed but for assistance, while the assassins escaped, calling forth from Ferdinand the most emphatic orders for their arrest and trial.[578]

XIMENES ATTEMPTS REFORM

Yet, however rudely the Inquisition may have been shaken, it was too firmly rooted in the convictions of the period and too energetically supported by Ferdinand to be either destroyed or essentially reformed. When he died, January 23, 1516, his testament, executed the day previous, laid strenuous injunctions on his grandson and successor Charles V—“As all other virtues are nothing without faith, by which and in which we are saved, we command the said illustrious prince, our grandson, to be always zealous in defending and exalting the Catholic faith and that he aid, defend and favor the Church of God and labor, with all his strength, to destroy and extirpate heresy from our kingdoms and lordships, selecting and appointing throughout them ministers, God-fearing and of good conscience, who will conduct the Inquisition justly and properly, for the service of God and the exaltation of the Catholic faith, and who will also have great zeal for the destruction of the sect of Mahomet.”[579]

With his death, during the absence of his successor, the governing power was lodged in the hands of Inquisitor-general Ximenes. From the papal brief of August 18, 1509, alluded to above (p. 178), we may infer that he had already endeavored to effect a partial reform, by dismissing some of the more obnoxious inquisitors, and he now made use of his authority to strike at those who had hitherto been beyond his reach. Aguirre was one of these and another was the mercenary Calcena, concerning whom he wrote to Charles, December, 1516, that it was necessary that they should in future have nothing to do with the Inquisition in view of their foul excesses. Another removal, of which we chance to have cognizance, was that of Juan Ortiz de Zarate, the secretary of the Suprema. Whatever were the failings of the inflexible Ximenes, pecuniary corruption was abhorrent to him and, during the short term of his supremacy in Castile, we may feel assured that he showed no mercy to those who sought to coin into money the blood of the Conversos.[580] With his death, however, came a speedy return to the bad old ways. Adrian of Utrecht, though well-intentioned, was weak and confiding. When appointed Inquisitor-general of Aragon, he had made Calcena, February 12, 1517, secretary of that Suprema and, after the death of Ximenes we find Calcena acting, in 1518, as royal secretary of the reunited Inquisition, a position which he shared with Ugo de Urries, Lord of Ayerbe, another appointee of Adrian’s, who long retained that position under Charles V. Aguirre had the same good fortune, having been appointed by Adrian to membership in the Suprema of Aragon and resuming his position in the reunited Inquisition after the death of Ximenes. His name occurs as signed to documents as late as 1546, when he seems to be the senior member.[581]

Ferdinand’s dying exhortation to his grandson was needed. Charles V, a youth of seventeen, was as clay in the hands of the potter, surrounded by grasping Flemish favorites, whose sole object, as far as concerned Spain, was to sell their influence to the highest bidder. During the interval before his coming to take possession of his new dominions, he fluctuated in accordance with the pressure which happened momentarily to be strongest. The Spaniards who came to his court gave fearful accounts of the Inquisition, which they said was ruining Spain, and we are told that his counsellors were mostly Conversos who had obtained their positions by purchase.[582] In his prologue to his subsequent abortive project of reform, Charles says that while in Flanders he received many complaints about the Inquisition, which he submitted to famous men of learning and to colleges and universities, and his proposed action was in accordance with their advice.[583] Ximenes was alive to the danger and it was doubtless by his impulsion that the Council of Castile wrote to Charles that the peace of the kingdom and the maintenance of his authority depended on his support of the Inquisition.[584] A more adroit manœuvre was the advantage which he took of the death, June 1, 1516, of Bishop Mercader, Inquisitor-general of Aragon. It would probably not have been difficult for him to have reunited the Inquisitions of the two crowns under his own headship, but he took the more politic course of urging Charles to nominate his old tutor, Adrian of Utrecht, then in Spain, as his representative, and to secure for him the succession to Mercader’s see of Tortosa. Charles willingly followed the advice; July 30th he replied that in accordance with it he had written to Rome for the commission; November 14th Pope Leo commissioned Adrian as Inquisitor-general of Aragon, and we shall see hereafter how complete was the ascendancy which he exercised over Charles in favor of the Holy Office.[585]

COMPLAINTS OF THE CORTES

Meanwhile Charles continued to vacillate. At one time he proposed to banish from his court all those of Jewish blood, and sent a list of names in cypher with instructions to report their genealogies, to which the Suprema of Aragon replied, October 27, 1516, with part of the information, promising to furnish the rest and expressing great gratification at his promises of aid and support in all things.[586] Then there came a rumor that he proposed to abolish the suppression of the names of witnesses, which was one of the crowning atrocities of inquisitorial procedure. For this there must have been some foundation for, March 11, 1517, Ximenes sent to his secretary Ayala a commission as procurator of the Inquisition at Charles’s court, with full power to resist any attempt to restrict or impede it, and he followed this, March 17th, with a letter to Charles, more vigorous than courtly, telling him that such a measure would be the destruction of the Inquisition and would cover his name with infamy; Ferdinand and Isabella, when in straits for money during the war with Granada, had refused 1,200,000 ducats for such a concession, and Ferdinand had subsequently rejected an offer of 400,000.[587]

OFFERS OF THE NEW CHRISTIANS

It can readily be imagined that, in spite of the character of Ximenes, the death of Ferdinand and the uncertainty as to the views of the distant sovereign had sensibly diminished the awe felt for the Inquisition. There is an indication of this in a complaint made by the Suprema, in September, 1517, that, when it moved with the court from place to place, the alcaldes of the palace refused to furnish mules and wagons to transport its books and papers and personnel, or, at most, only did so after all the other departments of the government had been supplied.[588] There is significance also in a tumult occurring in Orihuela, in 1517, when the inquisitors of Cartagena made a visitation there, obliging the Licenciado Salvatierra to invoke the royal intervention.[589] The Conversos, though decimated and impoverished, still had money and influence and the abuses which Ximenes had not been able to eradicate still excited hostility. When Charles, after his arrival in Spain, in September, 1517, held his first Córtes at Valladolid in 1518, the deputies petitioned him to take such order that justice should be done by the Inquisition, so that the wicked alone should be punished and the innocent not suffer; that the canons and the common law should be observed; that the inquisitors should be of gentle blood, of good conscience and repute and of the age required by law, and, finally, that episcopal Ordinaries should be judges in conformity with justice.[590] Although drawn in general terms this formal complaint indicates that the people felt the Holy Office to be an engine of oppression, for the furtherance of the private ends of the officials, to the disregard of law and justice. Charles made reply that he would consult learned and saintly men, with whose advice he would so provide that injustice should cease and meanwhile he would receive memorials as to abuses and projects of reform. The deputies made haste to give him ample information as to the tribulations of his subjects and the injury resulting to his dominions, and the outcome of the consultations of his advisers was a series of instructions to the officials of the Inquisition which, if carried into effect, would have deprived the Holy Office of much of its efficiency for persecution as well as of its capacity for injustice. Peter Martyr tells us that the New Christians, to procure this, gave to the high chancellor, Jean le Sauvage, who was a thoroughly corrupt man, ten thousand ducats in hand, with a promise of ten thousand more when it should go into effect, but that, fortunately for the Inquisition, he fell sick towards the end of May and died early in July.[591] The Instructions had been finally engrossed and lacked only the signatures; they were drawn in the names of Charles and Juana and were addressed not only to the officials of the Inquisition but to those of the state and secular justice, but nothing more was heard of them, for the new chancellor, Mercurino di Gattinara, was a man of different stamp, and Charles as yet was swayed by the influences surrounding him. The elaborate project is therefore of no interest except as an acknowledgement, in its provisions for procedure, of the iniquity of the inquisitorial process as we shall see it hereafter, and, in its prohibitory clauses, that existing abuses exaggerated in every way the capacity for evil of the system as practised. Thus it prohibited that the salaries of the inquisitors should be dependent on the confiscations and fines which they pronounced, or that grants should be made to them from confiscated property or benefices of those whom they condemned, or that sequestrated property should be granted away before the condemnation of its owners; that inquisitors and officials abusing their positions should be merely transferred to other places instead of being duly punished; that those who complained of the tribunals should be arrested and maltreated; that those who appealed to the Suprema should be maltreated; that inquisitors should give information to those seeking grants as to the property of prisoners still under trial; that prisoners under trial should be debarred from hearing mass and receiving the sacraments; that those condemned to perpetual prison should be allowed to die of starvation.[592] The general tenor of these provisions indicate clearly what a tremendous stimulus to persecution and injustice was confiscation as a punishment of heresy, how the whole business of the Inquisition was degraded from its ostensible purpose of purifying the faith into a vile system of spoliation, and how those engaged in it were inevitably vitiated by the tempting opportunity of filthy gains.

Although Charles, on the death of his chancellor, dropped the proposed reform, he seems to have recognized the existence of these evils. When his Inquisitor-general, Cardinal Adrian, was elevated to the papacy in 1522, he sent from Flanders his chamberlain La Chaulx to congratulate him before he should leave Spain, and among the envoy’s instructions was the suggestion that he should be careful in his appointments and provide proper means to prevent the Inquisition from punishing the innocent and its officials from thinking more about the property of the condemned than the salvation of their souls—a pious wish but perfectly futile so long as the methods of the institution were unchanged, and its expenses were to be met and its officials enriched by fines and confiscations.[593]

OFFERS OF THE NEW CHRISTIANS

The sufferers had long recognized this and offers had more than once been vainly made to Ferdinand to compound for the royal right of confiscation—offers of which we know no details. With the failure of the comprehensive scheme of reform, this plan was revived and, before Charles left Spain, May 21, 1520, to assume the title of King of the Romans, a formal proposition was made to him to the effect that if justice should be secured in the Inquisition, by appointing judges free from suspicion who should observe the law, so that the innocent might live secure and the wicked be punished and the papal ordinances be obeyed, there were persons who would dare to serve him as follows. Considering that greed is the parent of all evils; that it is the law of the Partidas that the property of those having Catholic children should not be confiscated[594] and further that the royal treasury derived very little profit from the confiscations, as they were all consumed in the salaries and costs of the judges and receivers who enriched themselves, his Majesty could well benefit himself by a composition and sale of all his rights therein, for himself and his descendants for ever, obtaining from the pope a bull prohibiting confiscations and pecuniary penances and fines. If this were done the parties pledged themselves to provide rents sufficient, with those that Ferdinand had assigned towards that purpose, to defray all the salaries and costs of the Inquisition, on a basis to be defined by Charles. Moreover, they would pay him four hundred thousand ducats—one hundred thousand before his departure and the balance in three equal annual payments at the fair of Antwerp in May. Or, if he preferred not to do this in perpetuity, he could limit the term, for which two hundred thousand ducats would be paid, in similar four instalments. For the collection of the sum to meet these engagements there must be letters and provisions such as the Catholic king gave for the compositions of Andalusia, and it must be committed in Castile to the Archbishop of Toledo (Cardinal de Croy), and in Aragon to the Archbishop of Saragossa (Alfonso de Aragon) from whose decisions there was to be no appeal. But to furnish the necessary personal security for the fulfilment of this offer, it was significantly added that it would be necessary for the king and Cardinal Adrian to give safe-conducts to the parties, protecting them from prosecution by the Inquisition and these must be issued in the current month of October so that there might be time to raise the money.[595] It is scarce necessary to say that this proposition was unsuccessful. Charles was under the influence of Cardinal Adrian and Adrian was controlled by his colleagues. It was asking too much of inquisitors that they should agree to allow themselves to be restricted to the impartial administration of the cruel laws against heresy, to be content with salaries and forego the opportunities of peculation. It was also in vain that the Córtes of Coruña, in 1520, repeated the request of those of Valladolid for a reform in procedure.[596] Charles sailed for Flanders leaving his subjects exposed to all the evils under which they had groaned so long. There were still occasional ebullitions of resistance for, in 1520, when the tribunal of Cuenca arrested the deputy corregidor it gave rise to serious troubles and Inquisitor Mariano of Toledo was despatched thither with his servants and familiars to restore peace, a task which occupied him for five months.[597]

A still further project for mitigating the rigors of the Inquisition was laid before Charles in 1520, apparently after his arrival in Flanders. This proposed no payment, but suggested that the expenses should be defrayed by the crown, which should wholly withdraw the confiscations from the control of the inquisitors. With this were connected various reforms in procedure—revealing the names of witnesses, allowing the accused to select his advocate and to see his friends and family in presence of the gaoler, the punishment of false witness by the talio, the support of wife and children during the trial from the sequestrated property and some others.[598] There would seem also, about 1522, to have been a further offer to Charles of seven hundred thousand ducats for the abandonment of confiscation, but it does not appear what conditions accompanied it.[599] It was all useless. The grasp of the Inquisition on Spain was too firm and its routine too well established for modification.

In the revolt of the Comunidades, which followed the departure of Charles, the affairs of the Inquisition had no participation. Some ten years later, however, in 1531, the tribunal of Toledo came upon traces of an attempt to turn the popular movement to account in removing one of the atrocities of inquisitorial procedure. The treasurer, Alfonso Gutiérrez, is said to have spent in Rome some twelve thousand ducats in procuring a papal brief which removed the seal of secrecy from prisons and witnesses. He endeavored to secure for his scheme the favor of Juan de Padilla, the popular leader, by a loan of eight hundred ducats on the pledge of a gold chain, but Padilla, while accepting the loan, prudently refused to jeopardize his cause by arousing inquisitorial hostility.[600]

What Gutiérrez failed to obtain was sought for again from Charles V in 1526. About this time commenced the efforts to subject the Moriscos of Granada to the Holy Office and apparently in preparation for this Granada was separated from Córdova and was favored with a tribunal of its own, transferred thither from Jaen. The frightened inhabitants made haste to petition Charles to do away with the secrecy which was so peculiarly provocative of abuses. They pointed out that a judge, if licentiously disposed, had ample opportunity to work his will with the maidens and wives brought before him as prisoners and even with those merely summoned to appear, whose terror betrayed that they would dare to offer no resistance. In the same way the notaries and other subordinates, who were frequently unmarried men, had every advantage with the wives and daughters of the prisoners, eagerly seeking to obtain some news of the accused, immured incomunicado in the secret prison, from which no word could escape, and ready, in their despairing anxiety, to make any sacrifice to learn his fate. Or, if the officials preferred, they could sell information for money and all this was so generally understood that these positions were sought by evil-minded men in order to gratify their propensities. Bad as was this, still worse was the suppression of the witnesses’ names in procuring the conviction of the innocent while facilitating the escape of the guilty. The memorial assumes, what was practically the fact, that the only defence of the accused lay in guessing the names of the adverse witnesses and discrediting and disabling them for mortal enmity, and it pointed out how, in diverse ways, this facilitated miscarriage of justice. It did not confine itself to argument, however, but added that the little kingdom of Granada would pay fifty thousand ducats for the removal of secrecy from the procedure and prisons of the Inquisition, and that a very large sum could be thus obtained from the other provinces of Spain.[601] The only possible answer to the reasoning of the memorial was that the faith would suffer by any change, but this always sufficed and the Inquisition continued to shroud its acts in the impenetrable darkness which served to cover up iniquity and give ample scope for injustice.

NAVARRE

When Charles had returned to Spain and again held the Córtes at Valladolid, in 1523, they repeated the petitions of 1518 and 1520, adding that nothing had been done. They further suggested that inquisitors should be paid salaries by the king and not draw their pay from the proceeds of their functions, and that false witnesses should be punished in accordance with the Laws of Toro. This shows that the old abuses were felt as acutely as ever, but Charles merely replied that he had asked the pope to commission as inquisitor-general the Archbishop of Seville, Manrique, whom he had especially charged to see that justice was properly administered. Again, in 1525, the Córtes of Toledo complained of the excesses of the inquisitors and the disorders committed by the familiars and asked that the secular judges might be empowered to restrain abuses, but they obtained only a vague promise that, if abuses existed, he would have them corrected.[602] It required no little courage for deputies to arraign the Inquisition publicly in the Córtes, and it is not surprising that the hardihood to do so disappeared with the recognition of the fruitlessness of remonstrance.

Thus all efforts proved futile to mitigate or ameliorate inquisitorial methods, and the Holy Office, in its existing form, was firmly established in Castile for three centuries momentous to the Spanish people.

NAVARRE.

When Ferdinand, in 1512, made the easy conquest of Navarre he presumably no longer had hope of issue by his Queen Germaine, to whom he could leave the kingdoms of his crown of Aragon. To avoid, therefore, for the new territory the limitations on sovereignty imposed by the Aragonese fueros, in the Córtes of Burgos, in 1515, he caused Navarre to be incorporated with the crown of Castile.[603] Its Inquisition thus finally became Castilian, although at first it was scarce more than a branch of that of Saragossa.

When the Castilian invaders under the Duke of Alva occupied Pampeluna they found there the Dominican friar, Antonio de Maya, armed with a commission as inquisitor, issued by his provincial and confirmed by the pope. The office had doubtless been a sinecure under the House of Albret, but the transfer of the land to the Catholic king gave promise of its future usefulness, for the little kingdom had served as an asylum for refugees from the rest of Spain. The good fraile lost no time in obtaining from Alva permission to exercise his office and in despatching an envoy to Ferdinand at Logroño to secure the royal confirmation and suggest the necessity of appointing a staff of salaried officials. Besides, the episcopal vicar-general of Pampeluna was seeking to exercise the office, and the king was asked to order him not to interfere. Ferdinand, with his usual caution, wrote on September 30, 1512, to the Duke of Alva, as captain-general, and to the Bishop of Majorca as governor, expressing his earnest desire to forward the good work and desiring information as to the character of Maya; meanwhile, if the inquisitors of Saragossa sent to claim fugitives, they were to be promptly surrendered.

NAVARRE

No further action was taken for a year, during which Fray Maya did what he could in the absence of assistance. At length a royal letter of September 26, 1513, to the Marquis of Comares, lieutenant and captain-general, announced that Inquisitor-general Mercader had appointed as inquisitors Francisco González de Fresneda, one of the inquisitors of Saragossa, and Fray Antonio de Maya, to whom the customary oath of obedience was to be taken; the only other official designated was Jaime Julian, as escribano de secuestras, with a salary of 2500 sueldos. Further delays, however, occurred and, on December 21st, the king wrote to Fresneda to lose no time in going to Pampeluna with his officials, where he would find Maya awaiting him. On the 24th a proclamation announced that Leo X had ordered the continuance of the Inquisition in all the kingdoms of Spain and especially in that of Navarre, wherefore in order that dread of loss of property might not deter those conscious of guilt from coming forward and confessing, the king granted release from confiscation to all who would confess and apply for reconciliation within the Term of Grace of thirty days which the inquisitors would announce. As a preparation for those who should disregard this mercy, already, on the 22d, Martin Adrian had been commissioned to the important office of receiver of the confiscations which were expected to supply the funds for the machinery of persecution and, on January 1, 1514, he was empowered to pay himself a salary of 6000 sueldos and one of 3000 to Fray Maya. As nothing is said about the salaries of the other officials, they presumably were carried on the pay-roll of the tribunal of Saragossa. The process of manning the new Inquisition was conducted with great deliberation. It was not until July 13, 1514, that receiver Adrian was informed that Bishop Mercader had appointed Juan de Villena as fiscal, or prosecuting officer, to whom a salary of 2500 sueldos was to be paid. The close connection of the tribunal of Pampeluna with that of Aragon is seen in the fact that Adrian was also notary of the Inquisition of Calatayud and continued in service there for which he received his accustomed salary. Juan de Miades, also, the alguazil of Saragossa, was put in charge of the prison at Pampeluna, for which he was allowed an additional salary of 500 sueldos, until, October 15, 1515, Bernardino del Campo, of Saragossa, was appointed gaoler at Pampeluna with a salary of 500 sueldos. We also hear of Miguel Daoyz, notary del secreto of Saragossa acting for the Inquisition of Pampeluna. This may partly be attributable to Ferdinand’s policy, as expressed, March 23, 1514, in a letter to the Marquis of Comares, that the officials must not be Navarrese, for he had elsewhere experienced the disadvantage of employing natives. More urgent, however, was the pressure of economy, for the Pampeluna Inquisition had apparently little to do; Navarre had never had a population of Moors and Jews comparable to that of the southern kingdoms and the refugees there doubtless hastened their departure as soon as the shadow of the Inquisition spread over the land, although one of the earliest orders of Ferdinand to Comares, December 21, 1513, had been to place guards secretly at all ports and passes to prevent their escape. How little material existed for the Holy Office is manifested by the fact that the confiscations did not pay the very moderate expenses and in May, 1515, it was necessary to transfer from Valencia two hundred ducats to enable Martin Adrian to meet the necessary charges. In September, 1514, we find the inquisitors making a visitation of their district and, in the following month, Fray Maya returned to the seclusion of his convent, but of the actual work of the tribunal we hear little. It is true that a letter of the Suprema, October 11, 1516, respecting the collection of a penance of 300 ducats imposed on Miguel de Sant Jaime shows that occasionally a lucrative prize was secured, but chances of this kind must have been few for, in 1521, Cardinal Adrian, in view of the necessities of the tribunal, ruthlessly cut down the salaries of all the officials. Its authority cannot have been well assured for, in 1518, the Viceroy, Duke of Najera, expresses doubts whether a sentence of sanbenitos, pronounced on Rodrigo de Osca and his wife, of Pampeluna, can be enforced, in view of their numerous kindred, to which the Suprema replies by instructing him to see that nothing is allowed to impede it. Little as it had to do, the business of the tribunal was delayed by its imperfect organization. In 1519 eight citizens of Pampeluna complained to the Suprema that, for trifling causes, their fathers and mothers, wives and brothers, were in the prison of the Inquisition, where three of them had died and the rest were sick. They had been detained for seven or eight months, although their cases were finished, awaiting consultores from Saragossa to vote on them, wherefore the petitioners asked that decisions be reached without further delay and that, when discharged, the prisoners should not be ruined by pecuniary penances greater than their substance, as had occurred on previous occasions. The Suprema, January 12, 1519, forwarded this petition to the inquisitors with instructions that, within fifteen days, one of them should bring to Saragossa all the cases concluded, to be duly voted on, while the remainder were to be finished as soon as possible and within fifteen days thereafter to be similarly brought to Saragossa for decision. As in this letter the Council describes itself as entrusted with the business of the Inquisition in all the kingdoms and lordships of the crown of Aragon and Navarre, it shows that the latter still remained subject to the section of the Suprema pertaining to Aragon.

NAVARRE

While the tribunal of Pampeluna was thus of little service for its ostensible objects, it was turned to account politically in the perturbations which followed the death of Ferdinand, January 23, 1516. Jean d’Albret, supported by France, naturally made an effort to recover his dominions, but his ineffective siege of Saint-Jean-Pied-du-Port, and the defeat and capture of the Marshal of Navarre at Roncesvalles, speedily put an end to the invasion. It was important for the Spanish government to ascertain the extent to which assistance had been pledged to him by his former subjects. The Inquisition was unpopular among them and would undoubtedly have been overthrown had d’Albret succeeded, so that an investigation into those concerned in the movement could come within an elastic definition of its functions, while its methods fitted it admirably to obtain the information desired. Accordingly a cédula of April 21, 1516, instructed the inquisitors to spare no effort, in every way, to discover the names of those engaged in the affair and to obtain all the information they could about the whole matter. This probably did not increase the popularity of the Holy Office and the French invasion of 1521 offered an opportunity, which was not neglected, of expressing in action the hostility of the people. After the expulsion of the enemy, reprisals were in order which Cardinal Adrian committed to the Precentor of Tudela. Apparently he was not sufficiently vigorous in the work for, in 1523, we find the Suprema stimulating him to greater activity.[604]

Spanish domination being thus assured, the Navarrese tribunal became useful chiefly as a precaution to prevent the subject kingdom from continuing to be an asylum for heretics. It had been shifted from Pampeluna to Estella and thence to Tudela, where, in 1518, the Suprema instructs the inquisitors to find a suitable building, in order to relieve the monastery of San Francisco in which the tribunal was temporarily lodged. Some years later there was talk of returning it to Pampeluna, but finally it was recognized as having a district inadequate to its support, while the monarchy felt itself strong enough to disregard the old boundaries of nationality. At some time prior to 1540, Calahorra, with a portion of Old Castile, was detached from the enormous district of Valladolid and was made the seat of a tribunal of which the jurisdiction extended over Navarre and Biscay. About 1570 this was transferred to Logroño, on the boundary between Old Castile and Navarre, and there it remained, as we shall have occasion to see, until the dissolution of the Holy Office.[605]