A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

SYSTEMATIC ABSORPTION

Another feature, which frequently complicated these settlements, was the question of the conquests—the ganancias or creix—the gains made during married life, in which both spouses had an equal share. The laws of Toro, in 1505, provide that neither husband nor wife could forfeit claim to half the ganancias for the crime of the other, even if the crime were heresy, and the ganancia is defined to be the whole increase during wedlock until the decree of confiscation, no matter when the crime was committed—a rule which remained in force.[981] The complexity introduced by these various interests in the settlement of confiscations is illustrated in the case of Diego López, a merchant of Zamora, reconciled in the auto de fe of Valladolid, in June, 1520. He kept no books and the number of debits and credits rendered his affairs exceedingly complicated; moreover the paternal estate had never been divided between him and his brothers, while his wife put in claims for her dowry and share of the ganancias. In this perplexity the only solution was a compromise, which was reached by the wife and brothers agreeing to pay four hundred and fifty thousand maravedís in instalments, giving adequate security.[982] The Valencia court of confiscations, however, invented a method of evading the wifely claim to the accretions for, in 1532, when Angela Pérez, widow of Luis Gilabert, burnt for heresy, demanded her dowry of three thousand sueldos and the creix, the court ordered the receiver to pay the dowry but refused the creix on the ground that the date of his committing heresy showed that he could not lawfully make any gains.[983]

The exemption from confiscation of those who came in under Edicts of Grace, confessed and were reconciled, gave rise to an impressive illustration of the passionate greed aroused among all classes by the legalized spoliation of the New Christians and the corollary that they had no rights. Prelates and chapters of churches, abbots and priors of convents, rectors of hospitals and pious institutions and other ecclesiastics and laymen, who had mortgaged their properties to the heretics or had sold ground-rents to them or otherwise hypothecated them, repudiated their engagements and would render no satisfaction, whereby, we are told, many were deterred from seeking reconciliation. A more practical objection was that those who were thus despoiled were hindered in paying the heavy fines laid upon them by the inquisitors. Ferdinand and Isabella therefore applied to Innocent VIII for a remedy which he furnished, in 1486, by a brief in which, after reciting the above, he granted to those thus reconciled the mortgages and censos and other liens which they held on properties, forbidding the debtors from claiming release and pronouncing invalid any judgements which they might obtain.[984]

While thus the Spanish Inquisition, in some respects, dealt more liberally than its medieval predecessor with the unfortunates subjected to its operations, it was ruthlessly systematic in its absorption of everything that was not covered by the above exceptions. It was in vain that, in 1486, Innocent VIII—probably induced by the gold of the Conversos—represented to the sovereigns that, as the confiscations had been conceded to them, it would stimulate the penitents to be firm in the faith if their property was restored to those who were reconciled.[985] It was much more profitable for greed to disguise itself as zeal for religion, as when, in 1533, at the Córtes of Monzon, Valencia petitioned that an exemption from confiscation granted to the forcibly converted Moriscos should be extended to their children, and the Suprema replied that confiscation was the penalty most dreaded and that which most deterred from heresy; as for relying on the terror of burning as a preventive, the fact was that the Church received to reconciliation all who repented and, if they were not punished with confiscation, they would enjoy immunity.[986] In the same spirit, Bishop Simancas argued that it was for the public benefit that the children of heretics should be beggared and therefore the old laws which allowed Catholic children to inherit had justly been abrogated.[987]

This heartless remark indicates that, by the middle of the sixteenth century, there was no compassion for the helpless offspring, but at first there was some responsibility felt for them, possibly through a reminiscence of the old laws. The Instructions of 1484 provide that, when the children of those condemned to the stake or to perpetual prison are under age and unmarried, they were to be given to respectable Catholics or to religious, to be brought up in the faith, and a record of such cases was to be kept, for it was the intention of the sovereigns that, if they proved to be good Christians, they should have alms, especially the girls, to enable them to marry or to enter religion.[988] There is no trace of any systematic attempt to carry out this humane provision, but when cases of special hardship were called to Ferdinand’s attention, he occasionally was moved to make liberal concessions. When, however, in 1486, the inquisitors of Saragossa asked for authority to grant relief to some poor culprits, not very guilty, who were encumbered with daughters likely to be forced to evil courses, the canny monarch evidently distrusted this sudden access of benevolence and, while approving the kindliness of the suggestion, he said that he was better acquainted than they with the people of Saragossa and less likely to be deceived, so they could send him the names of the parties, their properties and the number of their daughters, when he would determine what should be done.[989] It was evidently a question only of kindly impulses; there was no obligation, moral or legal and, as the wants of the Holy Office grew more urgent in the shrinkage of the stream of confiscations, inquisitors like Simancas argued that the service of God required the sacrifice of the innocents.

SYSTEMATIC ABSORPTION

In practice, everything on which the officials could lay their hands under any pretext was swept remorselessly into the fisc. Even the bedding and clothes of those led out to execution at the autos de fe were seized, as appears from occasional donations of them to officials.[990] When, in 1495, Charles VIII occupied Naples, it became a place of refuge for fugitives from Spain, but the pious skippers of the vessels carrying them not infrequently served God by stripping their defenceless passengers and carrying home the spoils. This was an invasion of the rights of the crown which vindicated itself by sending to Biscay and Guipúzcoa Anton Sánchez de Aguirre to search for the jewels and merchandise thus taken from heretics and sell them for the benefit of the fisc.[991] In 1513, when Jayme de Marrana, scrivener of the court of Segorbe, was condemned, all his subordinates were called upon to surrender the fees which they had received during his term of office.[992] A dying man could not make even a pious bequest if his natural heir was a heretic, for when, in 1514, Nicholas de Medina, a merchant of Seville returning from France, died at Bayonne in the Hôpital du Saint-Esprit and bequeathed to it a bill of exchange for a hundred and twenty-six ducats, the procurator of the hospital came to Seville to collect it. Villacis, the receiver there, promptly sequestrated it on the ground that Medina’s heir, Rodrigo de Córdova, had been condemned for heresy and, although the Suprema finally released it, this was done as an act of charity to the hospital.[993] The same rule applied when there was heresy in the ascendants. Juan Francisco Vitalis, a native of Majorca, was settled in Rome as a merchant. He desired to trade with Spain but feared to do so, for his father and grandfather had been condemned for heresy and any merchandise or funds that he might send would be liable to confiscation as constructively derived from them. He therefore, in 1511, applied for a safe-conduct for his goods which Ferdinand issued, exempting them from seizure by the Inquisition; it was good however, only during the royal pleasure and for six months after its withdrawal should be notified to Vitalis or be publicly proclaimed in Valencia.[994]

Heresy shed around it an infection which contaminated everything with which it came in contact. Not only was a ship carrying heretics forfeited but also its cargo. In 1501, Vicencio de Landera, a merchant of Gaeta, shipped some cotton by a Biscayan vessel for Alicante. On her arrival the receiver seized the cargo because she carried two persons condemned by the Inquisition, but the Bishop of Gaeta, head chaplain to Ferdinand’s sister the Queen of Naples, brought influence to bear, and the king ordered Landera to be paid the proceeds of his cotton.[995] Apparently the other owners of the cargo had no redress. Ferdinand was more obdurate, in 1511, when a ship and its cargo were condemned in Seville for carrying heretics. This included a quantity of pepper belonging to a Portuguese merchant named Juan Francisco. King Manoel interposed to protect his subject, when Ferdinand replied that he had ordered justice done but that the Inquisition had represented that Francisco had bought the pepper from King Manoel and had paid for it with bills of exchange drawn by heretics, and thus with heretic money, which was held to forfeit the pepper.[996]

ALIENATIONS INVALIDATED

This policy was not merely transient. In 1634 the Inquisition seized the goods and credits of Portuguese merchants, residents of Holland, Hamburg and France, trading with Spain. Agents had been sent abroad to secure evidence of their Judaism; they naturally sought to defend their property and presented certificates of their orthodoxy; the affair dragged on and, in 1636, Doctor Juan de Gosa presented an elaborate opinion in justification of this, proving that the property must be confiscated, although the owners were not Spaniards, nor domiciled in Spain, nor had committed heresy in Spain. His argument was based on the principle of the canon law that the heretic had no rights and that any Catholic could seize and despoil him; heresy is a crime all-pervading and not limited to the spot where it is committed for it is an injury to the whole Christian Republic. No evidence was required, for it was notorious that the Portuguese absented themselves in order to indulge their heretical proclivities and that they frequented the synagogues in Amsterdam and elsewhere. The Inquisition was to hold the property and, for greater justification, to summon by edict the owners to appear and defend it within a fixed term, or it could appoint defenders to act for them, but in no case was it to raise the sequestration or surrender the property.[997] It is superfluous to point out the effect of all this on Spanish commerce.