A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

March 9, 1634, the Suprema issued a decree which it printed and sent to all superiors with instructions to publish and make it known. This recited the evils arising from the discord and rivalry between the Orders, scandalous to the Christian people and dangerous as arising from the difference in the manners and customs of the various organizations. To bring about peace and concord the inquisitor-general proposed to assemble a council of the superiors of all the Orders and meanwhile rigorous proceedings were threatened against all who should provoke or foment these discords. Any religious who, by writing or words or in sermons or lectures, should insult another Order, or any of its members, would incur major excommunication and be recluded in a convent in another district, for a time proportioned to the gravity of the offence and moreover be incapable of holding any position in the Holy Office. Superiors were charged to expurgate all offensive expressions in books written by their subjects, before according the necessary licence to print or, if they had not authority to do this, they must refer the objectionable matter to the Suprema, and this was binding on those deputed to examine the MSS. The decree closed with a threat of rigorous punishment for all contravention of its provisions.[116]

QUARRELS BETWEEN THE ORDERS

Whether the council indicated was ever assembled or whether any offender was ever punished under this decree does not appear, but any effect which it may have produced was transient. The old passions and hatreds remained as vehement as ever and the controversy over the claims of the Carmelites to have been founded by Elijah furnished fresh material for acrimonious debate. In spite of this failure, the Inquisition maintained its claim to intervene and Inquisitor-general Valladares, June 24, 1688, issued another edict, incorporating that of 1634 and deploring that the old quarrels had become more virulent than ever. It was doubtful, he said, whether the previous utterances had been communicated to the Orders outside of Madrid, so a copy was ordered to be sent to every convent in Spain, with orders to be posted in a conspicuous place and the threat that it would be rigidly enforced. The belligerent ebullitions of the holy men were as little checked by this as by its predecessor and Inquisitor-general Rocaberti, October 19, 1698, took a further step by an edict in which he reprinted the previous ones and sent it to the tribunals with orders to publish it in all towns and have it posted on all church doors, thus taking the public into confidence and proclaiming to it not only the disreputable conduct of the frailes but the powerlessness of the Inquisition to reduce them to order and decency.[117] In fact, the Inquisition eradicated Judaism, it virtually expelled the Moriscos, it preserved Spain from the missionary zeal of Protestantism, but it failed ignominiously when it undertook to restrain the expression of aversion and contempt mutually entertained by Dominican and Franciscan, Jesuit and Carmelite.

CHAPTER III.
BISHOPS.

THERE was, in Spain, but one class over which the Inquisition had no jurisdiction. Boniface VIII, at the close of the thirteenth century, had decreed that, when a bishop was suspect of heresy, the inquisitor could not prosecute. The most that he could do was to gather evidence and send it to the Holy See, which reserved to itself judgement on the episcopal Order.[118] This was embodied in the canon law and remained in force, although of course the pope could delegate his power or could enlarge inquisitorial commissions, as when, in 1451, Nicholas V responded to the request of Juan II and included bishops among those subjected to the inquisitors whom he appointed.[119] During the middle ages the question was one of scarce more than academic interest, but in Spain, where the conversos had attained so many lofty positions in the Church and where all of Jewish blood were regarded with suspicion, it might at any moment become of practical importance.[120] The influence and power of the Inquisition would manifestly be increased if it should be granted faculties to prosecute bishops and Torquemada seems to have applied for this, in 1487, intimating that there were suspects among the bishops. Innocent VIII, however, was not disposed to subject the whole episcopate of Spain to the Holy Office and replied, September 25th, reciting the decree of Boniface and telling him to examine carefully all the evidence collected by the inquisitors and, if in it he found what incriminated prelates or showed that they were defamed or suspected of heresy, he should send it in legal shape and carefully sealed to Rome, where it would be duly weighed and proper action be taken.[121]

THE ACCUSED SENT TO ROME

If Torquemada failed in obtaining the desired jurisdiction over the Spanish episcopate, he could at least strike terror by accusing some of them to the Holy See, where their condemnation would be followed by that of their ancestors and large confiscations would result. Two of those of Jewish blood, Dávila of Segovia and Aranda of Calahorra, were selected for attack. In the existing popular temper it could not have been difficult to collect evidence that they were regarded as suspect and were defamed for heresy. Presumably this was sent to Rome and the matter was regarded as of sufficient moment to induce the despatch of Antoniotto Pallavicini, then Bishop of Tournay, as a special nuncio to confer with Torquemada.[122] He returned to Rome with evidence deemed sufficient to justify their summons thither. In 1490, Dávila went to Rome, in his eightieth year. Since 1461 he had been Bishop of Segovia and, in spite of Jewish descent, his family was one of the most influential in Castile, intermarried with its noblest blood.[123] He had given ample proof of pitiless orthodoxy, in 1468, when, at Sepúlveda, the rabbi, Solomon Pico and the leaders of the synagogue were accused of crucifying a Christian boy during Holy Week. Bishop Dávila promptly arrested sixteen of those most deeply implicated, of whom seven were burnt and the rest were hanged, except a boy who begged to be baptized—although this did not satisfy the pious Sepúlvedans, who slew some of the remaining Jews and drove the rest away.[124] He had given cause of offence, however, for, when the Inquisition was introduced in Segovia, he drove the inquisitors from his diocese and remonstrated boldly with the sovereigns and, when this proved fruitless, it was in evidence that he dug up at night, from the cemetery of the convent of la Merced, the bones of his ancestors and concealed them, in order to destroy the proof of their interment in the Jewish fashion.[125] In Rome he seems to have found favor with Alexander VI who, in 1494, sent him to Naples in company with his nephew, the Cardinal of Monreale. His case was protracted and he died in Rome, October 28, 1497; the result is not positively known, but it must have been favorable as otherwise his pious legacies would have been fruitless and Colmenares, the historian of Segovia, would not have dared to call him one of the most useful prelates that the see had enjoyed, nor would Galindez de Carvajal have said that his errand to Rome was merely to defend the bones of his father.[126]

Pedro de Aranda of Calahorra was a man of equal mark who, in 1482, acquired the high position of President of the Council of Castile. His father, Gonzalo Alonso, had been baptized with the famous Pablo de Santa María and had been ennobled. The Valladolid tribunal prosecuted his memory, with the result of a discordia, or disagreement, and the bishop went to Rome in 1493, where he gained papal favor and procured a brief transferring the case to the Bishop of Córdova and the Benedictine Prior of Valladolid. He remained in Rome, when Alexander VI, in 1494, sent him to Venice as ambassador and subsequently made him Master of the Sacred Palace. Since 1488, however, Torquemada had been collecting evidence against him. It was sent to Rome and, on the night of April 21, 1498, he was ordered to keep his room in the palace as a prison; on the 26th he was brought before the pope and had a hearing, after which he was taken to other rooms and kept under guard until September. Meanwhile Alexander seized his property and Sanuto intimates that his real crime was his abundance of ready money, while Burchard tells us that he was accused of heresy and marrania and that he had many enemies. Three bishops of the curia were commissioned as his judges; they heard many witnesses presented by the fiscal and a hundred and one by the accused, but all of these testified against him. The points against him were that he said the Mosaic Law had one principle, the Christian three; in praying he said Gloria Patri, omitting Filio et Spiritui Sancto; he celebrated mass after eating; he ate meat on Good Friday and other prohibited days; he declared that indulgences were useless and had been invented by the Fathers for gain; that there was neither hell nor purgatory but only paradise, and much more of the same nature. On November 16th the judges laid the evidence before the pope in secret consistory when, by the advice of the cardinals, Aranda was deposed and degraded from Orders; he was confined in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo, where he was given a good room and he died there, apparently in 1500.[127]