On the other hand judges were guided and supported by the most minute instructions. "It is the high and peculiar privilege of the tribunal that its officers are not required to act with formality; they need observe no strict forensic rules and therefore the omission of what ordinary justice might exact does not invalidate its actions, provided only that nothing essential to the proof be wanting." The first essential of justice, as we understand it, was ignored. An accused person arraigned for heresy was expected to incriminate himself, to furnish all necessary particulars for conviction. Testimony could be received from persons of any class or character. "They might be excommunicate, infamous, actual accomplices, or previously convicted of any crime." The evidence of Jews and infidels might be taken also, even in a question of heretical doctrine. Wife, children, relatives, servants, might depose against a heretic. "A brother may declare against a brother and a son against a father." The witnesses met with no mercy. If any one did not say all he could, or seemed reluctant to speak, the examiners occasionally ruled that torture should be applied.
CHAPTER II
PERSECUTION OF JEWS AND MOORS
Increased persecution of the Jews—Accusations made against them—Ferdinand introduces the modern Inquisition into the Kingdom of Aragon in 1484—Fray Gaspar Juglar and Pedro Arbués appointed Inquisitors—Assassination of Pedro Arbués—Punishment of his murderers—Increased opposition against the Holy Office—Arrest of the Infante Don Jaime for sheltering a heretic—Expulsion of the Jews from Spain—Appeal to the King to revoke this edict—Ferdinand inclined to yield, but Torquemada over-rules him—Sufferings of the Jews on the journey—Death of Torquemada—Hernando de Talavera appointed archbishop of Granada—His success with the Moors—Don Diego Deza new Inquisitor-General—Succeeded by Ximenes de Cisneros—His character and life—Appointed Primate of all Spain—His severity with the Moors—University of Alcalá founded by Ximenes—Accession of Charles V—Persecution of Moors—Expulsion.
The fires of the modern Inquisition, it was said, had been lighted exclusively for the Jews. The fiery zeal of Torquemada and his coadjutors was first directed against the Spanish children of Israel. The Jews constantly offered themselves to be harassed and despoiled. They were always fair game for avaricious greed. The inquisitors availed themselves of both lines of attack. Jewish wealth steadily increased as their financial operations and their industrial activities extended and flourished. When the Catholic Kings embarked upon the conquest of Granada, the Jews found the sinews of war; Jewish victuallers purveyed rations to the armies in the field; Jewish brokers advanced the cash needed for the payments of troops; Jewish armourers repaired the weapons used and furnished new tools and warlike implements.
At the same time the passions of the populace were more and more inflamed against the Jews by the dissemination of scandalous stories of their blasphemous proceedings. It was seriously asserted by certain monks that some Jews had stolen a consecrated wafer with the intention of working it into a paste with the warm blood of a newly killed Christian child and so produce a deadly poison to be administered to the hated chief inquisitor. Another report was to the effect that crumbs from the holy wafer had been detected between the leaves of a Hebrew prayer book in a synagogue. One witness declared that this substance emitted a bright effulgence which gave clear proof of its sanctity and betrayed the act of sacrilege committed. Other tales were circulated of the diabolical practices of these wicked Jewish heretics.
Ferdinand in 1484 proceeded to give the modern Inquisition to the Kingdom of Aragon, where the "ancient" had once existed but had lost much of its rigour. It was a comparatively free country and the Holy Office had become little more than an ordinary ecclesiastical court. But King Ferdinand was resolved to reëstablish it on the wider basis it had assumed in Castile and imposed it upon his people by a royal order which directed all constituted authorities to support it in carrying out its new extended functions. A Dominican monk, Fray Gaspar Juglar, and a canon of the church, Pedro Arbués, were appointed by Torquemada to be inquisitors for the diocese of Saragossa. The new institution was most distasteful to the Aragonese, a hardy and independent people. Among the higher orders were numbers of Jewish descent, filling important offices and likely to come under the ban of the Inquisition. The result was a deputation to the pope and another to the king representing the general repugnance of the Aragonese to the institution and praying that its action might be suspended. Neither pope nor king would listen to the appeal and the Holy Office began its work. Two autos da fé were celebrated in Saragossa, the capital, in 1484, when two men were executed.
Horror and consternation seized the Conversos and a fierce desire for reprisals developed. They were resolved to intimidate their oppressors by some appalling act of retaliation and a plot was hatched to make away with one of the inquisitors. The conspirators included many of the principal "New Christians," some of whom were persons of note in the district. A considerable sum was subscribed to meet expenses and pay the assassins. Pedro Arbués was marked down for destruction but, conscious of his danger, continually managed to evade his enemies. He wore always a coat of mail beneath his robes when he attended mass in the Cathedral, and every avenue by which he could be approached in his house was also carefully guarded.