A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

It was not only in Toledo that the capacity of the Conversos was filling the minds of the faithful with direful apprehensions of their ultimate triumph over their oppressors. While Siliceo was at work, the Inquisition was endeavoring to enforce the brief by which, in 1525, Clement VII had excluded them from the Observantine Franciscans. To the Suprema its fiscal represented that the unbridled licence of frailes of Jewish descent had prevailed to such an extent that they were elected as general and provincial ministers, guardians, vicars, procurators, visitors and other officials, to the oppression of the Old Christians of the Order, who were thus excluded from office, causing daily scandals and threatening worse. Valdés consequently ordered the brief to be published anew and observed everywhere under heavy penalties. Thereupon the General of the Order, Andreas de Insula, was incensed and, on the assumption that this had been instigated by Old Christian frailes, threatened to punish them severely. The Suprema therefore appealed to Julius III, reciting all this and pointing out the crafty and unscrupulous ways in which that unquiet race disturbed the peace of all bodies to which it found entrance, forming factions and aspiring to rule, with the object of ruining the Old Christians, thus opening the way to a return to Judaism and the destruction of Christianity. Julius responded favorably, in a brief of September 21, 1550, instructing Valdés to summon the General Andreas and all concerned to obey the decree of Clement, and granting him full powers to decide summarily the prosecutions proposed with a view to protect the Old Christians from molestation, using for the purpose whatever censures might be necessary.[852] It shows how indomitable were the Conversos that confirmatory briefs had to be procured from Gregory XIII and Sixtus V.[853] Yet again the Holy See manifested its inconsistency for, when the chapter of Seville, in 1565, petitioned Pius IV to confirm a statute of limpieza, he refused and condemned the Spanish practice as contrary to law and as upsetting the churches. Cardinal Pacheco defended it and described the evils wrought by the Jews, when Pius turned fiercely on him, saying that he would do as he thought best and that the Spaniards all tried to be popes.[854]

When those who had the slightest taint of Jewish or Moorish blood were thus regarded as not only implacable enemies of the Christian faith, but as gifted with pre-eminent intelligence and craft, it became impossible for the Inquisition to consider them as fitted for its service. One would have expected it to take the initiative and the only subject of surprise is that it should have been so late in adopting for itself the rule which it was enforcing on other bodies. Discrimination may have been exercised in special cases but, till the middle of the sixteenth century, there is no trace of any systematic adoption of limpieza as a test. A carta acordada of July 20, 1543 and a decree of Prince Philip in 1545, respecting the numbers and character of familiars, are silent as to this as a qualification.[855] The first allusion to it that I have met occurs in a commission issued to Francisco Romeo as scrivener of confiscations in Saragossa, signed April 16, 1546, by the inquisitor-general, but not countersigned by members of the Suprema until July 9th, “after the inquisitors of Aragon had ascertained the limpieza of the said Francisco Romeo.”[856] A step forward is seen in the instructions issued by the Suprema, October 10th of this same year, in which it ordered that no familiar be received until it is ascertained that he is an Old Christian.[857] Still this was rejected as a general principle for, when the Córtes of Monzon, in 1547, complained that Moriscos were appointed as familiars, the answer of the Suprema was a formal declaration that the Inquisition regarded as capable of holding office all who had been baptized and who lived as Christians, except heretics or apostates or fautors of heretics.[858]

ADOPTED BY INQUISITION

This vacillation continued. A number of appointments subsequent to that of Romeo have no allusion to limpieza until 1549, when, on April 8th, Valdés enquires of the inquisitors of Barcelona whether Gerónimo de Torribos, candidate for the receivership, possesses the qualifications of limpieza and habits required in officials, and whether there is anything connected with his wife to prevent his appointment. So, on April 8th, when Moya de Contreras, inquisitor of Saragossa, proposed to employ commissioners of the Cruzada, Valdés emphatically negatived the suggestion, giving, among other reasons, the fact that the officials of the Cruzada were not “tan limpios de sangre.” Yet, in an order of October 8th of the same year to the tribunal of Cuenca, remodelling its familiars, there is no allusion to the necessity of limpieza.[859]

This uncertainty continued yet for a while, of which further instances could be cited, but a decisive step seemed to be taken when Philip, in instructions of March 10, 1553, concerning the Concordia of Castile, prescribed that all familiars must be Old Christians and yet a carta acordada of March 20th on the same subject makes no allusion to such a condition.[860] The tribunals appear to have been somewhat slack in conforming their patronage to the new regulation. December 23, 1560, the Suprema felt it necessary to order that all familiars must be married men and limpios.[861] When the inquisitor-general made an appointment and required the inquisitors to certify to the limpieza of the nominee, they would do so, as appears from the commission of Bernaldo Mancipi, as assistant notary of sequestrations in Barcelona in 1561, but in this same year Inspector Cervantes reported that they paid no attention to it in their appointments of commissioners, consultores and familiars, a negligence which continued for, in 1568, the Suprema was obliged to rebuke them for it.[862] This is scarce surprising when Philip II himself, in 1565, had issued a series of conciliatory instructions regarding the Moriscos of Valencia, in which he ordered that their leading men should be made familiars.[863]

Thus far there does not seem to have been any definite system adopted as to verifying limpieza. The statute of Toledo required aspirants to furnish genealogies and deposit money for expenses and this was probably the common plan. In 1557 we are told of Beltran Ybañez de Arzamendi, appointed alguazil in the tribunal of Sardinia, that the examination of his paternal genealogy was made in Valencia and of his maternal in Calahorra, the birth-places of his respective parents,[864] but doubtless much of this was perfunctory. It was evidently felt that the highest authority must be invoked to prescribe a settled system and Philip II was called upon for this. In 1562 he accordingly issued a decree in which, according to custom, antiquity was claimed for innovation, for it recited that, since the Inquisition had been founded in Castile and Aragon, all inquisitors and officials appointed by the inquisitor-general had been required to furnish genealogies to prove that there was no trace of descent from Jews or Moors, or from those condemned or penanced by the Inquisition. The king therefore ordered that all appointees, in tribunals of the kingdoms of the crown of Aragon and of Navarre, and of Logroño, should furnish satisfactory proofs of limpieza, even though they might hold canonries or churches or be members of Orders which required limpieza. Moreover married men were obliged to furnish proofs of the limpieza of their wives and those already in office were to be dismissed if there was defect of limpieza in the wife. These rules were to be embodied in the Instructions and were to be inviolably observed.[865] Undoubtedly a similar order was issued for Castile and the utterance is important as embodying the first absolute demand for proofs of limpieza and as marking the extravagant extension of the rule to wives.

This royal cédula was interpreted as applicable to existing incumbents, and investigations as to their genealogies were set on foot, with the intention of weeding out at least the familiars who were not limpios. Several efforts had already been made to this effect after the Castile Concordia of 1553, without apparent result, and it was now undertaken again with instructions that, if any were found to be Conversos, they were to be dismissed without assigning a reason.[866] It was a work ungrateful both to the investigators and investigated and dragged along in the most perfunctory fashion. Cartas acordadas in 1567 and 1575 called for lists of those who had been investigated and those who had not and, when it came to taking action, the habitual tenderness manifested toward officials was displayed in orders issued in 1572 and again in 1582 that if any officials, commissioners or familiars, were found lacking in the requisite qualifications, they were to be reported to the Suprema without dismissing them.[867]

LIMITATIONS DISREGARDED

As a matter of course the test was applied to all new appointments and no one was admitted to office in any capacity in the Inquisition who was not free from the mancha of Jewish or Moorish blood or of ancestral punishment. Even for temporary employment, limpieza was essential. In his visitation of the Canaries, in 1574, the Inspector Bravo de Zayas brought an accusation, against the Inquisitor Ortiz de Funes, of appointing officials without preliminary investigation, the cases being two emergency appointments to fill temporary vacancies, and the appointees being montañeses, or highlanders from the northern provinces of Spain, where purity of blood was presumable—to say nothing of the fact that an investigation would probably have consumed a year or two.[868] Yet this was but the natural expression of the infatuation which had taken possession of Spain. In 1595, Philip II, in his instructions to Manrique de Lara, lays especial stress on the importance of limpieza. Investigation as to this and as to habits must be made with the utmost rigor and no dispensations must be granted. No examinations are to be made before the party is selected, because otherwise, if he is not appointed owing to other reasons, it may be ascribed to a mancha and thus undeserved infamy be cast upon an entire kindred.[869] Strangely enough, however, the inquisitor-general himself was never required to furnish proofs of purity of blood.[870]