A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

COMPOSITIONS

It illustrates the independence of the kingdoms of the crown of Aragon that, when the tax-collectors of Valencia levied taxes and imposts on confiscated property and its sale, Charles V was obliged to appeal to the Holy See for its prevention. Clement VII obligingly granted a bull, July 7, 1525, forbidding this under pain of excommunication and a fine of a thousand ducats to the papal camera; the inquisitor-general was named as conservator and judge to enforce it by censures and interdict and invocation of the secular arm, which doubtless put an end to the practice.[1040]

As the operations of the Inquisition developed, an additional source of gain was found in speculating upon the terror pervading the New Christian communities. Whether the idea originated in their mercantile instincts, or in the desire of the sovereigns for prompt realization, cannot be determined, but it was in essence a kind of rude and imperfect insurance against certain contingencies of confiscation, for which those in danger were willing to pay a heavy premium. As early as September 6, 1482, in a letter of Ferdinand to Luis Cabanilles, Governor of Valencia, there occurs an allusion to an arrangement of this kind, made with the Conversos of that city, under which apparently they had agreed to pay a certain sum in lieu of the confiscations and had appointed assessors to apportion the share of each individual. Some of those thus assessed refused to pay, and Ferdinand ordered them to be coerced by imprisonment.[1041] What were the exact terms of this we have no means of knowing but, on June 6, 1488, he made another bargain with the Valencia Conversos, who were reconciled under an Edict of Grace, by which they paid him for exemption from confiscation—apparently rather a fresh impost, for this reconciliation substituted fines for confiscation. Then, April 6, 1491, he confirmed this and, for a further payment of five thousand ducats, he added exemption for heretical acts subsequently committed, if they did not amount to relapse, and for imperfect confessions made under the Edict of Grace—for, as we shall see hereafter, such confessions were frequently a source of danger arising from trifling omissions, construed by the inquisitors as rendering them fictitious and entailing relaxation. It is an indelible disgrace to Ferdinand that, in these compositions, he did not keep faith with those whose money he took. In 1499, the Suprema took exception to this arrangement, probably in consequence of complaints that it was violated by the seizure and sale of properties comprehended under it. Then Ferdinand declared that it had not been his intention to relieve from confiscation those whose confessions had been imperfect, whereupon the Suprema ordered the inquisitors and receiver to prosecute and confiscate the property of all such penitents in spite of the agreement. Even the hardened receiver Aliaga seems to have hesitated to obey these orders, for Ferdinand was obliged to write to him, September 27th, that they were to be executed notwithstanding the privilege and its confirmation.[1042]

The hardships inflicted on the innocent by this breach of faith are illustrated in a petition presented, in 1519, to Charles V by Juan and Beatriz Guimera, children of Bernat and Violante Guimera who, after the composition of 1488, had been condemned for imperfect confession and their property confiscated. Juan and Beatriz, with other children in the same position, appealed to Ferdinand who, under the provision of April 6, 1491, ordered the receiver to restore all such property. They received and enjoyed possession for twelve years, after which, under the orders of 1499 the inquisitors took it from them. From this they appealed, but were too poor to follow it up, and the Suprema declared the appeal abandoned. Now they prayed Charles for the restoration of their property and showed that, after the execution of their parents, they had paid all the instalments remaining of the composition. In view of this, Charles, as a special grace and in the exercise of the royal clemency, ordered—not that the property of which they had been robbed should be restored—but that the receiver should repay them what the inquisitors might find that they had paid of the composition after the death of their parents, without deducting therefrom the claim of the fisc for the income of the property during their twelve years’ possession.[1043]

COMPOSITIONS

Even worse, if possible, was Ferdinand’s course in a composition made, September 10, 1495, with the heirs and successors of all who in Aragon had died up to that time and whose memories had been or might in future be condemned. For the sum of five thousand ducats he abandoned, to those who contributed, all the confiscations of their inheritances and also the inheritances of those who refused to contribute, to be distributed among them in proportion to their contributions. Inferentially this was confirmed when, in 1499, in view of trouble with the receiver, at the prayer of the contributors, he appointed Vicent de Bordalva administrator of the property, to claim and hold it and distribute it to the owners. After seven years had passed, in 1502, he was seized with qualms of conscience at thus violating the canon law which incapacitated the children of heretics as inheritors. It is true that he might have assumed the property and then made a free gift of it, as was frequently done in special cases, but his scruples were too delicate for such a subterfuge. By letters of December 13, 1502, to the inquisitors and assessor, he ordered the seizure and confiscation of all the property thus devolved and the return to the contributors, in all cases where they were sufferers, of the moneys which they had paid—thus retaining the contributions of those who had not profited by the composition. This breach of faith made an immense sensation in Saragossa and even his son, the archbishop, ventured to remonstrate, when he replied sanctimoniously that he was acting by the advice of learned and God-fearing men, who had demonstrated to him that he could not, with a clear conscience and without peril to his soul, grant a privilege contrary to the canon law; the sufferers must have patience, for it was in accordance with the canons of holy Mother Church which were obligatory on him.[1044]

The inquisitors and receiver were not over-nice in utilizing their opportunity and complaints speedily came pouring in that, besides the inheritances, they seized all the property belonging to the heirs, including their acquisitions and the dowries of their wives, and that moreover they did not repay the contributions. Thus, before the month of December, 1502, was out, the brothers Buendia appealed to him; they had paid fifteen thousand sueldos to the composition and now the receiver had seized what they had inherited from their father; much of this they had sold; they had acquired other properties by their labor, they had inherited from their mother, who was an Old Christian, and had received dowries with their wives, all of which was included in the seizure. Ferdinand merely reported this to the inquisitor, with a vague order to do justice so as not to afford grounds for complaint. It is easy to conceive the confusion of titles, the multiplicity of suits and the amount of misery resulting from this arbitrary abrogation of a contract. Resistance was prolonged, but it was unavailing, for Ferdinand held good and repeated his peremptory orders, January 4 and March 8, 1503, July 8 and November 7, 1504 and October 7, 1508.[1045] It would appear, moreover, that many of the contributors who suffered never obtained a return of their money, for this formed the subject of one of the articles of the Aragonese Concordia of 1512, confirmed in the 1516 bull of Leo X, providing that whoever had joined in a composition for the property of the dead and had paid his money, if the deceased was subsequently convicted and the fisc seized his inheritance, he should recover from the estate what he had paid, provided the payment had not been made out of the effects of the deceased.[1046] It was thus admitted that the contracts were no bar to the Inquisition.

There were various forms of these compositions, insuring against the different risks and disabilities to which the property of the Conversos was exposed, but they all had this in common that the contributor threw his money into a pool from which his chance of deriving advantage was in the highest degree problematical. It is therefore a striking evidence of the desperation to which the New Christians were reduced that they were eager to grasp at these forlorn chances and to pour their money into the ever-gaping royal treasury, while Ferdinand, in spite of his conscientious scruples, was always ready to speculate on their despair. It is impossible now to say how many compositions were made, from first to last, but they probably covered nearly the whole of Spain, at one time or another. We have seen that there was one in Córdova, prior to 1500, which was highly profitable to the inquisitor who managed it and another of uncertain date in Andalusia (Vol. I, pp. 190, 220); there was one in Orihuela in 1492 and a second in Valencia in 1498 and, in 1515, there were others in the Biscayan provinces and in Cuenca. Occasionally, moreover, inquisitors were authorized to enter into such bargains with individuals, as in Majorca in 1498 and in Catalonia in 1512.[1047]

COMPOSITIONS

A specimen of these individual compositions is revealed to us in an investigation made in 1487, by Doctor Alfonso Ramírez, juez de los bienes of Toledo, into the accounts of Juan de Urría, the late receiver, who was reported to have defrauded the fisc of more than a million and a half maravedís. Pedro de Toledo had fled to Portugal, to escape trial, and his wife, Isabel Díaz, arranged with Urría for a royal letter of security and pardon for him, his property and his paternal inheritance, for which the price agreed upon was half a million maravedís, in addition to which Urría was promised a hundred florins for his services. Pedro returned and paid for the letter, when Isabel gave Urría thirteen gold cruzados and fourteen pieces of cloth, which he sold and claimed that he was five hundred maravedís short.[1048] This was productive but still more so was one, in 1514, by which Francisco Sánchez of Talavera ransomed the estate of his deceased father for a million maravedís.[1049]