A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

As the functions of the tribunals thus gradually shrank to mere ministerial duties, the appellate jurisdiction lodged in the inquisitor-general and absorbed by the Suprema, of which we heard so much in earlier times, became less and less important. The bull of Leo X, in 1516, prescribes that appeals shall be heard by the inquisitor-general in conjunction with the Suprema and that, pending the decision, the case shall be suspended.[491] This indicates that appeals were suspensive, although subsequently the Inquisition eluded this by arguing, as in the matter of Villanueva, that they were merely devolutionary—that is, that sentences, in spite of them, were to be promptly executed, thus practically rendering them useless.[492]

At this period the relations between the Council and the inquisitor-general as to appellate jurisdiction do not appear to be definitely settled. In 1520, Antonio de la Bastida appealed about his wife’s dowry from the judge of confiscations of Calahorra, and the decision in his favor was rendered by the Suprema “in consultation with the very reverend father, the Cardinal of Tortosa (Adrian),” and, as the crown was concerned, it was confirmed by Charles V.[493] In two cases, however, in 1527 and 1528, in which, on appeal, Cardinal Manrique remitted or mitigated sentences, the letters were issued in his name and without signature by the members of the Council.[494] During Manrique’s disgrace, the Suprema apparently acted independently for, in a letter of December 9, 1535, to the Valencia tribunal, alluding to the cases on appeal pending before it, it promises to adjudicate them as speedily as possible.[495] That, by this time, at least its concurrence had become essential would appear from the modification, on appeal by Juan Gómez from a sentence imposed by the Valencia tribunal, when the letter was signed both by Inquisitor-general Tavera and the members of the Council.[496] When, as we have seen, the secular courts endeavored to entertain appeals in cases of confiscation and matters not strictly of faith, Prince Philip’s cédula of March 10, 1553 emphatically declared that appellate jurisdiction was vested solely in the Suprema, which held faculties for that purpose from the Holy See and from the crown.[497]

CONTROL OVER DETAILS

This would seem to dispose of any claim that appellate jurisdiction was a special attribute of the inquisitor-general, and this is confirmed by a case, in 1552, in which Angelica Vidama appealed from the sentence of the Valencia tribunal condemning the memory and fame of her deceased mother Beatriz Vidama. On March 8th, Inquisitor-general Valdés and the members of the Council with some assessors declared that, after examining the matter in several sessions their opinion was that the sentence should be revoked. Then, on March 12th, in the presence of Valdés, the Council adopted a sentence restoring her and her posterity to honor and good fame and releasing the confiscation of her estate. The sentence is not signed by Valdés but only by three members of the Council, which indicates that his signature was unnecessary.[498] When he was held simply to have a vote, like every other member, he could claim no special authority as to appeals and, with the gradual intervention of the Suprema in all the acts of the tribunals, appeals themselves became obsolete.

From a comparatively early period the control assumed by the Suprema over the provincial tribunals was absolute. Already, in 1533, it tersely informed them that what it ordered and what it forbade must be obeyed to the letter; this it repeated in 1556 and, in 1568, it took occasion to tell them that it was not to be answered, nor were inquisitors to offer excuses when they were rebuked.[499] This control was not confined to their judicial proceedings but extended to every detail of their affairs. Even Ferdinand, with his minute watchfulness over the management of the tribunals, gave to the inquisitors a certain latitude as to expenses and instructed his receivers that they were to honor the requisitions of the inquisitors for outlays on messengers, lodgings, work on houses, prisons, stagings, etc.[500] The Suprema permitted no such liberty of action; it required to be consulted in advance and roundly scolded tribunals which incurred expenses on their own responsibility.[501] In 1569 a general order specified in minute detail the trifling matters of daily necessity for which they could make disbursements; for everything else reference must first be made to the Suprema.[502] This continued to the end and its correspondence is filled with instructions as to petty outlays of all kinds, and largely with regard to repairs of the houses and other properties belonging to the Inquisition. If Valencia, in 1647, wanted a clock in the audience-chamber, it had to apply for permission to purchase one and, in 1650, the Suprema ordered its price to be allowed in the receiver’s accounts. In 1665 it ordered the fiscal of Barcelona to be lodged in the palace of the Inquisition and gave minute instructions how the apartments were to be redistributed so as to accommodate him.[503] It is scarce necessary to add that the determination of salaries, which had originally been lodged in the hands of the inquisitor-general, had passed absolutely under the control of the Suprema.

Among the perquisites of the officials was that they were furnished with mourning on occasions of public mourning, and a carta acordada of January 20, 1578 ordered that, when this was to be given, a detailed statement must be made out in advance of the persons entitled to it, how much there would be required, what kind of cloth and at what price. On the death of Philip II, in 1598, two persons in Valencia complained that they had been omitted in the distribution, whereupon it wrote to the tribunal for information, on receipt of which it ordered that one of them should be gratified.[504] So, in 1665, on the death of Philip IV, Dr. Paladio Juncar, one of the physicians of the tribunal of Barcelona, asked for an allowance such as had been given to his colleague Dr. Maruch, whereupon the Suprema called for a report as to the cost of the mourning given to Dr. Maruch and whether it was customary to give it to two physicians. A similar petition from Juan Carbonell, one of the advocates for poor prisoners, led to another demand for information and the result was that the Suprema refused them both.[505]

This close watchfulness did not diminish with time. In 1816, when returning the papers of a case to the tribunal of Madrid, a reprimand was administered because in one place there was a blank of half a page which might have been utilized for a certain record. So, in 1817, Seville was rebuked for the number of blank pages in the processes sent, causing not only a useless waste of paper but an increase of postage; six months later Seville sent the sumaria of Miguel Villavicencio, in which the Suprema counted fourteen blank pages, whereupon it referred to its previous instructions and commanded the tribunal to tell the secretaries that they must obey orders, else they would be not only charged with the excess of postage but would be severely punished.[506]

CONTROL OVER FINANCES

The development of this absolute authority was largely aided by the complete control over the finances of the tribunals claimed and exercised by the inquisitor-general or the Suprema or concurrently by both. This, after the death of Ferdinand, practically passed into their hands, except when Charles, in his early years, made grants to his courtiers from the confiscations. All that was gathered in by the labors of the provincial inquisitors was treated as a common fund at the sole discretion of the central power. Most of the tribunals, as we shall see, held investments, partially adequate to their support, in addition to their current gains, but even these were held subject to the Suprema. In 1517, orders were sent to the farmers of the revenue to pay to the receiver-general of the Suprema, instead of to the tribunals, the juros, or assignments on the taxes, held by the latter. Of these the holdings of the Seville tribunal amounted to 500,000 maravedís per annum—100,000 on the tithe of oil, 200,000 on the alcavala of oil and 200,000 on the alcavala of the shambles. Córdova suffered less from this, for that tribunal held only 103,000 maravedís of income—63,000 on the alcavala of meal, 16,000 on that of wine and 24,000 on that of fruit.[507] But it was not only on the investments but also on the current earnings of the tribunals that the Suprema laid its hand. Its salary list was considerable, it had no settled source of income and the royal policy was that the Inquisition must pay its own way besides having a surplus for the treasury. In 1515, while the Suprema of Castile was yet separate from that of Aragon, its pay-roll aggregated 750,000 maravedís, with 340,000 additional for ayudas de costa, or in all 1,090,000, without counting Inquisitor-general Ximenes who seems to have disdained the emoluments of his office. This large sum, the receiver of Seville, Pedro de Villacis, was required to defray in 1515, while, in 1516, the demand fell upon Guillastegui, receiver of Toledo; in 1517 the salaries were paid by Seville and the ayuda de costa by Toledo and, in 1518, by Valencia.[508] The burden was apportioned among them according to their luck. In addition to this were the innumerable orders to pay the salaries and expenses of the tribunals, which were sometimes issued in the name of Cardinal Adrian and sometimes in that of the Suprema.

It would seem that the receivers of the tribunals, who were practically treasurers, occasionally hesitated in honoring these calls for, in 1520, Charles V issued cédulas to all the receivers of Castile and Aragon to pay whatever the inquisitor-general and Suprema should order.[509] The theory that the funds belonged to the crown in no way limited the control of the inquisitor-general and Suprema and this, during the disgrace of Manrique, naturally passed into the hands of the Council. Under his successor, Tavera, orders were sometimes drawn in his name and countersigned by the members of the Council and sometimes all reference to him was omitted. There seems not to have been any settled rule until, about 1704, the victory of the Council over Mendoza was emphasized by an instruction that no order for the payment of money, given by the inquisitor-general, was to be recognized unless countersigned by the members.[510]