A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

CHAPTER II.
THE TRIBUNAL.

DURING the active career of the Inquisition, it was the local tribunal which represented it to the people. The inquisitor-general and Suprema were distant and held no direct relations with the community. It was otherwise with the inquisitors, at whose bidding any one, however high-placed, could be thrown into the secret prison, to emerge with an ineffaceable mark of infamy, while his property, to the minutest item, was sequestrated and tied up, perhaps for years, and, if not confiscated, was largely consumed in expenses. Men wielding such power, and virtually irresponsible, shed terror around them as they walked abroad and, as we have seen, their habitual use of their position was not such as to allay these apprehensions. They were the visible agents of the Holy Office, the embodiment of its mysterious and all-embracing authority, empowered to summon to their aid the whole resources of the State and answerable only to their chief. The tribunal, in which they sat in judgement on the lives and fortunes of all whom they might call before them, could only be regarded with universal dread, for no one knew at what moment an unguarded utterance, or the denunciation of some enemy, might bring him before it.

The delimitation of the land into districts, each subject to its own tribunal, was naturally a work of time. In the early period, when there were Converso suspects everywhere, it mattered little where an Inquisition was set up, for it could find abundant occupation in any place and, when the field was temporarily exhausted, it could transfer itself elsewhere in search of a fresh harvest. Ferdinand, in his instructions to the inquisitors of Saragossa, in 1485, tells them that wherever in Aragon they think that an Inquisition is necessary, they are to notify Torquemada, who will send inquisitors there.[544] Thus we hear of tribunals in Aragon at Teruel, Jaca, Tarazona, Barbastro and Calatayud; there was one, partly Aragonese and partly Catalan—Lérida and Huesca, which was not divided between Saragossa and Barcelona until 1532. In Catalonia there were tribunals at Perpignan and Balaguer, and, in Castile, others more or less permanent, at Medina del Campo, Avila, Guadalupe, Osuna, Jaen, Xeres, Alcaraz, Plasencia, Burgos, Durango, Leon and doubtless many other places.[545] Even as late as 1501, a royal cédula announces that Deza is about to send inquisitors with their officials to various bishoprics to provide them with tribunals and all receivers were instructed to pay them such sums as he might designate.[546] Under such conditions there could be no very precise boundaries of jurisdiction, for it mattered little who burnt a Judaizing New Christian, but it was otherwise with the confiscations which required to be garnered by those responsible and authorized by the king, and the first strict definitions of districts would seem to have arisen in commissioning receivers. Thus, in 1498, the receiver of Saragossa is qualified for the sees of Saragossa and Tarazona; he of Valencia for those of Valencia, Tortosa, Segorbe and Teruel, while we hear of one for Huesca, Gerona and Urgel, apparently distinct from Barcelona.[547]

EXPROPRIATION OF HOUSES

For a considerable time, moreover, the tribunals, to a certain extent, were ambulatory, travelling around with their whole corps of officials and empowered to take possession of such buildings as they might require, wherever they saw fit to establish themselves for a time, while the receivers were instructed not to require of them an account of their travelling expenses. The regulations for such an itinerant court may be gathered from a cédula of May 17, 1517, addressed to all the officials and inhabitants of Leon and the bishoprics of Plasencia, Coria, Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo, instructing them to give free lodgement, but not in inns, to the inquisitors and their officials and to charge them only current prices for food. Where they settle for a time and set up their court, they are to rent lodgings in houses where they can have the use of one door and the owner of another, while suitable provision must be had for an audience-chamber and a secret prison; the rent is to be determined by appraisers mutually selected but, if the stay is less than a year, rent will be payable only for the time of occupancy. There is to be no opposition or maltreatment, but they are to have all aid and favor under penalty of ten thousand maravedís.[548] The power thus conferred of temporary expropriation was not always exercised considerately. In 1514, Hernando Sánchez of Llerena complained to Ferdinand that, seven years before, the inquisitors had taken his house, compelling him to build another, and this they were now about to seize; Ferdinand compassionated him and prohibited them from doing so. It was otherwise when the tribunal, in 1516, was transferred to Plasencia. The corregidor reported that the most suitable house was that of the dean who was residing in Rome and had rented it; when he was told to turn out the tenant and install the tribunal, the rent, as usual, to be determined by two valuers.[549] Even the episcopal dignity had to give way to the exigencies of the Inquisition. The Bishop of Cuenca was president of the audiencia of Toro and, during his absence, his palace was occupied by the tribunal. In 1519 he was about to return and gave it notice to quit, when Charles V wrote to him that, if he was going to Cuenca, he could find other buildings for his residence; the Inquisition had spent much money on the prisons and must not be disturbed—nor was this the only similar case.[550] Yet existing rights were sometimes respected. When, in Seville, the castle of Triana was assigned to the tribunal, the Count-duke of San Lucar was its hereditary alcaide; he ceded his position in exchange for the hereditary office of alguazil mayor of the tribunal and, in 1706, this office was still enjoyed by his descendants, the Marquises of Leganes, to whom it was reckoned to be worth 150,000 maravedís a year. A similar bargain was made with the Marquis del Carpio, who was hereditary alcaide of the royal alcázar of Córdova, when it was occupied by the tribunal of that city and, in 1706, the marquis of the period was drawing an income of 100,000 maravedís from it. In both cases the incumbents provided deputies at their own expense.[551]

In the original economical simplicity of the institution, Torquemada, in 1485, ordered that all the officials should lodge in one house, but, as the personnel of the tribunals waxed larger and self-indulgence increased, this rule became obsolete and houses were furnished to the subordinates, the rents of which, under instructions from Cardinal Manrique, about 1525, were defrayed from the fines and penances levied on culprits.[552] This became the general rule, although there are some instances of its inobservance and of individual officials complaining of adverse discrimination in not being thus favored.[553] In thus providing houses for its employees the Inquisition claimed the right of eminent domain and vindicated it after the usual arbitrary fashion, when it encountered resistance, as occurred in Valladolid in 1612. The secretary of the tribunal wanted a house which was occupied by an official of the chancellery, or high court of justice for Old Castile and Leon. The tribunal incontinently ejected him and installed its secretary, who in turn was ousted by the offended court. The judges were promptly excommunicated and the court rejoined by fining the parish priests for publishing the censures; arrests were made on both sides; the court imposed fines on the inquisitors who replied by threats of further anathemas. The chronicler fails to inform us of the outcome but, under Philip III, there can be little doubt of the final triumph of the tribunal.[554]

The cédula of 1517 was repeated in another of February 8, 1543 and remained as a permanent regulation. In 1645 a formula shows that, whenever any official travelled on the business of a tribunal, he was furnished with a letter embodying the cédula of 1543 and commanding, in the customary imperious style, that he be furnished with free lodging, and beds and provisions at current rates, under pain of excommunication and a fine of a hundred thousand maravedís.[555]

NUMBER OF OFFICIALS

The organization of the tribunal at first was exceedingly simple. We have seen how, in 1481, in Seville, two Dominican friars, with a legal assessor to guide them, and a fiscal as prosecuting officer, did such active work that they speedily required two receivers of confiscations to gather in the products of their industry. There must doubtless have been subordinates to attend to the clerical duties, to serve citations and to take charge of prisoners, but the tribunal was manned on the most economical basis and there was no time wasted. After four years’ experience, Torquemada defined a tribunal as consisting of two inquisitors, an assessor, an alguazil and a fiscal, with such notaries and other minor officials as might be necessary; they were to receive salaries and no fees were to be charged under pain of dismissal, and no inquisitor was to use an official as a household servant.[556] In this no account was taken of the force necessary to secure and handle the confiscations, for these were the concern of the sovereigns and as yet their management was distinct from the prosecution of heretics. It constituted an intricate business, involving innumerable questions arising from claims of every description, which at first were settled in the secular courts, not always to Ferdinand’s satisfaction. He grew intensely anxious to bring them within the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, declaring that if they were decided according to the law of the land he would never get justice.[557] For awhile these duties were therefore thrown upon the inquisitors; in 1499, in the tribunal of Burgos and Palencia, Rodrigo de Cargüello is styled inquisitor and judge of confiscations at a salary of 75,000 while his colleague, Alonso de Torres, receives only 60,000.[558] Eventually, as we shall see, a subsidiary court for this purpose was established in each tribunal under a juez de bienes, or judge of confiscations.

Ferdinand was thriftily resolved that the profits of persecution should be protected against the growth of expenses and he struggled, though in vain, against the expansion of the pay-roll. Writing to Torquemada, July 22, 1486, he protests against the efforts of the inquisitors to multiply salaried positions—the torturer, the scriveners, the deputy alguaziles—the alguazil should supply the latter and also pay the portero; the pay-roll is already excessive and the inquisitors demand so many salaries that they must be carefully watched.[559]