A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

Not content with thus depriving the episcopate of its immemorial jurisdiction over heresy, inquisitors sought to obtain cognizance of a class of cases clearly belonging to the spiritual courts, on the ground of inferential heresy—bigamy, disregard of church observances, infractions of discipline and the like. In 1536 the tribunal of Valencia created much excitement by including in its Edict of Faith a number of matters of the kind but, on complaint from the vicar-general, the Suprema ordered the omission of everything not in the old edicts.[28] The attempts continued and, in 1552, a decision was required from the Suprema that eating pork on Saturdays was not a case for the Inquisition,[29] and the Concordia of 1568 contains a clause prohibiting inquisitors from entertaining cases belonging to the Ordinaries.

EPISCOPAL CONCURRENCE

In a carta acordada of November 23, 1612, the Suprema made an attempt to define the boundaries of the rival jurisdictions, in which it allowed to the spiritual courts exclusive jurisdiction only over ecclesiastics in matters touching their duties as pastors, the ministry of the Church, simony and cases relating to Orders, benefices and spiritual affairs, while it admitted cumulative jurisdiction in usury, gambling and incontinence.[30] Restricted as were these admissions, the Suprema itself did not observe them. In 1637, Sebastian de los Rios, cura of Tombrio de Arriba, who met with one or two accidents in handling the sacrament and feared accusation, by his enemies, of irreverence, denounced himself to the provisor of Astorga and was fined in four thousand maravedís. In spite of this he was prosecuted, in 1640, by the tribunal of Valladolid; he vainly pleaded his previous trial; the Suprema assumed its invalidity in ordering his incarceration in the secret prison, where he died.[31] This process of encroachment continued and towards the end, when there was little real heresy to occupy its energies, its records are full of cases which, even under its own definitions, belonged unquestionably to the spiritual courts—inobservance of ecclesiastical precepts of all kinds, irregularities in the celebration of mass, taking communion after eating, eating flesh on fast days, working and inattendance at mass on feast days and other miscellaneous business, wholly foreign to its original functions.[32] It does not argue favorably for the Spanish episcopate that they seem to have welcomed this relief from their duties and strenuously resisted the abolition of the Inquisition in 1813, which restored to them, under limitations, their original functions. After the Restoration, the Archbishop of Seville, in 1818, gathered evidence to show that the cura of San Marcos had not confessed for many years and then, in place of punishing him, handed the papers over to the tribunal. This was probably fortunate for the peccant priest, as the Suprema ordered that nothing should be done except to keep him under surveillance and that the archbishop should be warmly thanked and assured that the necessary steps had been taken.[33]

There was one formality preserved which recognized the episcopal jurisdiction over heresy. We have seen that, in the Clementines, the concurrence of both bishop and inquisitor was requisite in ordering severe detentive incarceration, in sentencing to torture and in the final sentence. No allusion was made to this in the bull of Sixtus IV authorizing the appointment of inquisitors for Castile. No allusion, in fact, was necessary, as it had been for nearly two centuries a matter of course in inquisitorial procedure, but the earliest inquisitors took no count of it and Sixtus, in his brief of February 11, 1482, called forth by complaints of their cruelty, insisted on the concurrence of episcopal officials in all judgements.[34] Ferdinand was indisposed to anything that threatened interference with the autonomy of the Inquisition and his experience in Valencia with the representatives of Rodrigo Borgia, the absent archbishop, showed him how this episcopal right could be exercised to obstruct proceedings and compel division of the spoils. He doubtless represented to Sixtus that there were many of Jewish blood among the bishops and their officials, whom it would not be safe to trust, for Sixtus, with Borgia behind him, met such objection with a brief of May 25, 1483, addressed to all the Spanish archbishops. In this he ordered them to warn any of their suffragans of Jewish extraction not to meddle with the business of the Inquisition but to appoint an Old Christian, approved by the archbishop, who should have exclusive powers over all such matters. In case this was not done the archbishop was to make the appointment for each diocese and the appointee was to be wholly independent of the bishop.[35] Then a question arose whether Torquemada’s appellate jurisdiction, as inquisitor-general, could override judgements in which bishops participated, but this was settled in Torquemada’s favor by a brief of Innocent VIII, September 25, 1487, thus completely subordinating episcopal to inquisitorial jurisdiction.[36]

Ferdinand was not satisfied, but he had to acquiesce and adopt the device of the bishops delegating one of the inquisitors as their representative—an expedient for which precedents can be found in the early Inquisition of Languedoc. That this soon became common is indicated in the Instructions of 1484, which warns the inquisitor holding the commission that he is not to deem himself superior to his colleagues.[37] Another plan was to require the bishops to issue a commission as vicar-general to whomsoever the inquisitors might designate, as Ferdinand ordered the bishops of Aragon to do, in a letter of January 27, 1484. The individual thus selected became an official of the tribunal and was borne on its pay-roll for a salary to be paid out of the confiscations for which he might vote. Of this we have examples in Martin Navarro thus serving at Teruel, in 1486, on a yearly stipend of two thousand sueldos and in Martin Garcia, included as vicar-general at a salary of three thousand sueldos, in the Saragossa pay-roll of the same year.[38]

EPISCOPAL CONCURRENCE

It is possible that the bishops grew restive under this absorption of their powers and that they remonstrated with the Holy See for, in 1494, when Alexander VI issued commissions to the four new inquisitors-general there appeared a new condition requiring them to exercise their functions in conjunction with the Ordinaries of the sees or their vicars or officials, or other persons deputized by the Ordinaries.[39] Ferdinand, however, was not accustomed to brook opposition to his will. The most efficient and economical expedient was the episcopal delegation to an inquisitor and this he enforced by whatever pressure was necessary. Thus when, in 1498, the Bishop of Tarazona demurred to do this, Ferdinand, in a letter of November 21st, brushed aside his reasons and imperatively ordered the delegation to be sent at once. Still the bishop recalcitrated and Ferdinand wrote, January 4, 1499, that he must do so at once; no excuse would be admitted and nothing would change his determined purpose, but it was not until March that he learned the bishop’s submission. In this same year, 1499, he broke down, in similar rude fashion, the resistance of two other bishops and when, in 1501, the Archbishop of Tarragona notified the tribunal of Barcelona not to hear, without his participation, certain cases committed to them on appeal, Ferdinand expressed his indignant surprise; the archbishop must remove the obstruction at once and not await a second command.[40]

Ferdinand’s resolve was to render episcopal concurrence a mere perfunctory form and, when bishops presumed to act or their vicars-general were distasteful to him, there are various cases which attest his imperious methods of dealing with them. He had some trouble, on this account, with his son, Alfonso Archbishop of Saragossa, who, in 1511, obtained the perpetual administratorship of Valencia and who persisted in retaining as his delegate the vicar-general of Valencia, Micer Soler, against the commands of his father, so that in 1512 and again in 1513, there was delay in the celebration of autos de fe, greatly to Ferdinand’s annoyance.[41] These occasional obstructions explain why, as he wrote November 27, 1512, he endeavored to reduce it to a rule that the Ordinary should confer his powers on the inquisitors and should not be allowed to see the cases.[42]

The people did not view the matter in the same light and regarded the participation of the bishop or his representative as some guarantee against the arbitrary proceedings of the inquisitors. Among the complaints of the prisoners of Jaen, in 1506, to Philip and Juana, is one reciting that the inquisitors act independently of the episcopal provisor and communicate nothing to him, so as to be able to work their wicked will without interference.[43] Similarly the Córtes of Monzon, in 1512, included among the abuses requiring redress the royal letters concerning episcopal concurrence, the delegation of powers to inquisitors and other methods by which the participation of the bishops was evaded, and when Leo X, in 1516, confirmed the Concordia, he ordered that the Ordinaries should resume their functions.[44] It was the same in Castile, where, as we have seen (Vol. I, p. 217) one of the petitions of the Córtes of Valladolid, in 1518, was that the episcopal Ordinaries should take part in the judgements.

EPISCOPAL CONCURRENCE