Volume 1 / Book 2 — CHAPTER III. PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. (continued 2)

Thus Catalan pertinacity triumphed. When, in 1667, Pedro Momparler, familiar at Alconer, asked permission to resign, in order to accept the office of bayle, and his request was referred to the Suprema, it replied that it should be denied on account of the evil influence of his example, but it added that if he should renounce his familiarship before the royal justice for the term of his office, the inquisitors should pretend ignorance.[1026]

RIGHT TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE

In Majorca, frequent alterations of the law show that it was subject to active debate and that preponderance shifted from one side to the other. In 1637 it was decided that none of those connected with the Inquisition could hold public office; then, in 1643, they were allowed to do so, in positions where they had not to vote or to give counsel; again, in 1660, the prohibition was made absolute; then, in 1662, royal letters of January 11th and March 4th removed the prohibition, provided they would previously renounce all claim to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. These letters afford a remarkable illustration of the vacillation of the monarch and of the extent to which bureaucracy had crippled his autocracy—only this time it was the Council of Aragon which imitated the methods of the Suprema. The latter body was dissatisfied with the arrangement and addressed to the king a consulta, April 5, 1663, asking its suspension and that a junta of the two councils should be called to consider the subject. Philip promptly acceded and, on April 10th, ordered the Council of Aragon to write to that effect to the viceroy. The command was not obeyed and, on September 19th, the Suprema asked him to remedy the omission, whereupon he asked the council to state its reasons and, on its doing so, he again ordered it, October 3d, to execute his decree of April 10th. It was still recalcitrant and, on March 19, 1664, the Suprema represented the delay to the king who the next day called upon the council to render an exact account of what it had done, replied that in conformity with his commands it had written on October 3, 1663, copy of which it enclosed. This proved to be merely copies of the letters of 1662 which had given rise to the debate, showing that it had deliberately nullified his orders. In view of all this the Suprema, July 24, 1664, asked the king to insist on literal compliance and that a copy of the despatch of the Council of Aragon to the viceroy should be furnished to it. This proved to be merely a duplicate of that of October 13, 1663, with the date altered to April 6, 1664. Then the Suprema again asked the king peremptorily to order exact obedience and he replied that he had done so. Meanwhile the Viceroy and the inquisitor of Majorca had been playing at cross-purposes in consequence of the contradictory despatches received by each.[1027] Such a method of carrying on an organized government seems incredible and, trivial as was the question at issue, a case such as this throws light on one of the causes of Spanish decadence. The question itself, after all this trouble, apparently remained unsettled, for, in 1673, there was a competencia over Gabriel Berga, a knight of Santiago and a familiar, when the tribunal contended that he could not renounce its jurisdiction.[1028]

It would be superfluous to follow out in detail the vicissitudes of this matter in the other provinces of Spain, where it gave abundant occasion for quarrels conducted with customary vehemence. It seems to have settled itself into the rule that officials and familiars were eligible to public office but that, during their terms of service, they were not entitled to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. Such, we are told in 1632, was the practice in Castile, Aragon and Valencia.[1029] Yet still there were disputes for, about the middle of the seventeenth century, a formula is given for use when a familiar is prevented from taking office. This sets forth at much length that, if familiars are refused office, no one will take the position, which will inflict great detriment on the faith; it cites the royal cédulas, it sets aside opposing arguments by showing that for all malfeasance in office the familiar will be subject to the royal jurisdiction and finally it orders his immediate induction in his post under penalty of excommunication and of five hundred ducats; no further notice will be given and all further action will be published in the halls of the Inquisition, which will be full legal notice to all parties concerned.[1030] I have met with no further legislation on the subject and presumably some arrangement of this kind was in force to the end.

It was highly inconsistent but, at the same time, thoroughly in keeping with the spirit of the Inquisition in its dealings with the public, that while it vindicated so energetically the right of its officials to hold honorable and lucrative posts, it claimed for them the privilege to refuse to serve in those which were onerous. In the municipalities there were a certain number of these latter, entailing unremunerative labor and responsibility which no one could refuse to accept when his name was drawn from the bolsa. The officials claimed to be insaculated for the desirable positions but not for the undesirable ones. That such a claim could be made and sustained is a forcible illustration of the power of the Inquisition.

RIGHT TO REFUSE OFFICE

There is no allusion to this in the earlier Concordias and no specific grant that I have been able to find. It seems to have been merely a gratuitous assumption on the part of the Inquisition, asserted with its customary persistence. A noteworthy case growing out of it occurred, in 1622, in the town of Lorca (Murcia) where a familiar refused to serve in the office of collector of the alcavala, or tax on sales, and was imprisoned for contumacy. The inquisitors of Murcia demanded his liberation and excommunicated the alcalde mayor for refusing to obey. This failing, they prepared to arrest him and called upon the corregidor of Murcia, Pedro de Porres, for assistance. On his refusal they excommunicated him and then laid an interdict on the city of Murcia. The citizens appealed to their bishop, Fray Antonio Trejo, who remonstrated with the tribunal and, finding this unavailing, issued an edict declaring the interdict invalid. Bishops were not subject to inquisitorial jurisdiction, even for heresy, without special papal faculties, but the inquisitor-general, Andres Pacheco, was the most audacious and inexorable assertor of inquisitorial omnipotence and he did not hesitate to condemn the episcopal edict, to publish the condemnation in all the churches, to fine the bishop in eight thousand ducats and to summon him, under pain of four thousand more, to appear within twenty days and answer to the action brought against him by the fiscal as an impeder of the Inquisition. The bishop and chapter sent the dean and a canon to represent them, but, without a hearing, they were thrown incomunicado into the secret prison, excommunicated and the censure published in all the churches. The inquisitors imprisoned the parish priest of Santa Catalina for disregarding the interdict and the whole ecclesiastical body of Murcia became involved. Finally, through the intervention of the king and the pope, the bishop was absolved, but the Inquisition reaped a rich harvest of fines. Those of the bishop, dean and some of the canons were kept by the Suprema, while the local tribunal, in addition to inflicting terms of exile, of from one to eight years, secured from José Lucas, the episcopal secretary, a thousand ducats, from Alonso Pedriñan, the fiscal, eight hundred and, from thirteen other priests and dignitaries of the church, sums ranging from fifty to one hundred and fifty—in all, an aggregate of 3272 ducats.[1031]

A claim enforced so relentlessly was dangerous to dispute and even the Aragonese Concordia of 1646, which registered a triumph over the Holy Office, admitted the right of salaried officials and familiars to decline onerous offices.[1032] In time, however, there seems to have come a slight modification of the claim. About 1750 we have the formula of a mandate, issued at the instance of a familiar, forbidding, under pain of excommunication and of two hundred ducats, the authorities of a town from including him among those liable to serve in any of the minor offices, nor in any of the more important ones until every other inhabitant has served his turn.[1033]

It is not difficult to understand the origin of the claim that the buildings of the Inquisition and the houses of its officials were sanctuaries into which the officers of justice could not penetrate without special permission. The asylum afforded to criminals in churches was an old established practice throughout Europe to which Spain was no exception. Even as late as 1737 the papal sanction was deemed necessary to except from this certain crimes, such as murder, highway robbery and high treason.[1034] Asylum was also afforded by the feudal rights which debarred royal officers of justice from intruding on lands of nobles, and the withdrawal of this right in Granada is cited as one of the causes of the agitation leading to the rebellion of 1568.[1035] In Aragon this was developed so far that a law of Jaime I, in the Córtes of Huesca in 1247, which still continued in force, gave to the houses of infanzones, or gentlemen, the same right of asylum as that possessed by churches.[1036]

It is therefore somewhat remarkable that the claim of affording asylum was not made at the outset by the Inquisition, especially in view of the importance attached to the secrecy which shrouded all its operations. Yet, until the middle of the sixteenth century, such claims when made were authoritatively repudiated. Inquisitor-general Tavera writes, September 3, 1540, a sharp letter to the inquisitors of Seville saying that he is informed that recently certain murderers had been received and protected in the castle of Triana, occupied by the tribunal, and that the officers of the royal justice had not been allowed to search for them; the punishment of delinquents should be in no way impeded and no occasion be given for complaint; the gates of the castle must be kept shut so that criminals cannot take refuge there.[1037] So, in 1546, among instructions from the Suprema to the tribunal of Granada, is an order that no criminals or debtors shall find refuge in the Inquisition, nor be allowed to sleep there nor between the gates; the janitor must eject them and, if they will not go, report it to the inquisitors for proper action.[1038] This shows that the abuse was commencing but that it was disapproved and the same is seen in the Valencia Concordia of 1554, which says that, as the Inquisition has no privileges as an asylum, it cannot protect those who take refuge there.[1039]

RIGHT OF ASYLUM

Evidently the local tribunals were claiming a right which the central authority disallowed; they were moreover claiming it not only for the building of the Inquisition but for the houses of officials and familiars. Among the malfeasances of the Barcelona tribunal, reported in 1567 by de Soto Salazar, were cases of this kind. When the bayle of Perpignan sought to arrest some culprits they were sheltered by Pedro de Roca, a familiar, in his house and he resisted the bayle who came with a posse to arrest them; Roca accused the bayle and his men for this; they were imprisoned for a long while by the Barcelona inquisitors and were condemned to fines and exile. So when the bayle of Sens, with a posse, broke into the house of Vicente Valele, who was merely a temporary commissioner, to arrest some culprits who had taken refuge there, he accused them and they were all imprisoned.[1040]

The rapidity with which the abuse developed in Valencia is manifested by a comparison of the Concordias of 1554 and 1568. The former, as we have seen, admits that the Inquisition could offer no asylum, while the latter is obliged to forbid the lower officials and familiars from putting the arms of the Inquisition on their houses; all such must be removed and their houses shall not have immunity from the officers of justice—evidently the officials found profit in harboring thieves and murderers and the tribunal supported them.[1041] In Barcelona a sort of compromise was reached by which, on application to the tribunal, one of its ministers was sent with the officers of justice to enter houses of officials where criminals had taken refuge, but the Córtes of 1599 complained that this delay afforded time for escape and, in the abortive Concordia enacted there, a clause provided that this should not be necessary and that, in case of resistance, houses could be entered. It shows how slow was the Suprema to assert a right of asylum that, in its protest to Clement VIII, it accepts this article on the ground that the Inquisition never has impeded the pursuit and arrest of malefactors.[1042] In time, however, it overcame these scruples and, in 1632, it issued repeated orders that the officers of justice should not be allowed to enter the houses of officials. Philip IV countermanded this, but the Suprema presented a consulta saying that there was no objection when the pursuit was flagrante delicto; prisoners, however, were frequently confined in the houses of officials and an unlimited right of entry might be abused to obtain communication with them in violation of the all-important secrecy of the Holy Office. As usual, the vacillating monarch yielded and, in 1634, issued a decree restricting the right of search to cases of hot pursuit.[1043]

It is remarkable that the Aragonese Concordia of 1646, imposed by the Córtes on Philip, which in so many ways restricted the privileges of the Inquisition, recognized this doubtful one in the fullest manner. As the ministers, it says, of so holy an office should enjoy certain honors and pre-eminence, it orders that they, including familiars, shall have as to their houses the same privileges as caballeros and hijosdalgo—which, as we have seen, included the right of asylum.[1044] As regards the buildings of the Inquisition itself, a scandalous case occurring in 1638 shows how far it had travelled since Tavera rebuked the tribunal of Seville. In Majorca the Count of Ayamano, at the head of a band of assassins, committed the sacrilege of escalading the walls of a convent for the purpose of murdering his wife who had sought refuge there. Philip ordered every effort made to arrest him and his accomplices, but he escaped to Barcelona with eight of them and all found asylum in the Inquisition, in the apartments of his uncle, the Inquisitor Cotoner. It affords a curious insight into the conditions of the period to see that this created a situation impenetrable to the highest authorities of the land. Philip called a junta of two members each of the Suprema and Council of Aragon to devise how the criminals could be captured without scandal or quarrel with the Inquisition. The result of their deliberations seems to be a letter from the Suprema to Cotoner telling him that, if he wanted to help his nephew, it should be outside and not inside of the Inquisition, in order to avoid the troubles ensuing on an attempt of the royal officers to remove him. The imperturbable Cotoner was not to be scared by this gentle warning and a fortnight later the Suprema enclosed to him a royal decree telling him that he would see the untoward results of sheltering his nephew. As complete satisfaction was demanded he was ordered to report in full all details, including his motives in harboring one who was put to the ban, especially when the latter was not a familiar.[1045] Unfortunately we do not know how the affair ended, but when the Suprema, in place of dismissing Cotoner, inquired as to his motives, we may assume that the asylum offered by the Inquisition saved the forfeit life of the criminal by some compromise.

RIGHT OF ASYLUM

The immunity of the houses of officials became generally recognized, with the proviso that permission of search would be granted by inquisitors if special application was made to them, when they preserved their jurisdiction by sending one of their people to accompany the officers of justice. An exception which proved the rule however was made in favor of the administrators of the tax on tobacco, to whom general letters were given empowering them to search the houses of officials for contraband tobacco. Even this was argued away by the Suprema in 1728, when it asserted that semi-proof in advance was necessary to justify search and full proof to give jurisdiction.[1046]

It is evident from the above that the Holy Office, with its claims for special privileges and exemptions and its methods for enforcing their recognition, was a very disturbing factor in the body politic. Yet the greatest source of conflict lay in the exclusive jurisdiction which it sought to establish over all who were connected with it, not only between themselves but between them and the rest of the community. This engrossed so large a portion of its activity and was the cause of such perpetually recurring trouble that its consideration requires a chapter to itself.