A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

GRANT OF CANONRIES

In the end, of course, it made little difference, but a more shameless mockery of justice can scarce be conceived than that which made the tribunal, which was to profit by the suppression, the judge in its own case. The process may be followed in the voluminous proceedings attending the seizure of a prebend in the collegiate church of Belmonte—a town of some importance in the diocese of Cuenca. In 1559 it fell vacant by the death of Gregorio Osorio and was filled by the appointment of Francisco García del Espinar, at the instance of the Duke of Escalona, who seems to have had the collation. Valdés ordered its seizure and the matter took the form of a suit between the fiscal of the tribunal of Cuenca on the one side and, on the other, the duke, Espinar and the prior and chapter of Belmonte, with the Cuenca tribunal as judge, by virtue of a commission from Valdés. The judicial farce ended, October 8, 1560, by the inquisitors gravely reciting that they had heard the case and duly considered it with the assistance of persons of conscience and learning, and had found judgement in favor of the fiscal, suppressing the prebend and ordering all the income to be turned over to the receiver of the tribunal, including what had accrued since the death of Osorio. It is a striking illustration of the perversion of the sense of justice, induced by the inquisitorial process, that they were unconscious of the grotesqueness of such a performance, which was rounded out with a long and detailed enumeration of the penalties of disobedience—first a fine of two thousand ducats and then all the steps of excommunication, anathema and cursing with bell, book and candle and interdict on the town of Belmonte. This formidable sentence was served, October 15th, on each member of the chapter, and a notarial act was taken of the service. Resistance was felt to be useless. On the 16th the chapter met and adopted a formal act of obedience, stating that it was through fear of the penalties threatened; the suppression of the prebend was ordered to be entered on the capitular records, with the addition that, as the sentence gave no instructions as to the services or masses dependent upon it, or as to the payment of the accrued revenues received by Espinar, the necessary action would be taken subsequently.[1260]

While thus summarily enforcing the papal grant, the Inquisition prudently respected papal infractions of it. Advantage was taken of the papal claim to all benefices falling vacant while their possessors were in Rome—doubtless a costly proceeding, but better than forfeiture. Thus Gaspar Escudero promptly went to Rome and resigned his canonry of Calahorra in the hands of the pope, and his brother Rafael obtained bulls for it—probably subject to a pension. Similarly Diego de Ortega went through the same form and Francisco de Vellasañe secured the bulls. The inquisitors claimed them as vacancies, but there was risk in contesting the papal prerogative; Valdés decided, July 6 and 8, 1559, in both cases, that the vacancies had occurred in Rome and that the bulls were good. We meet, in 1560, with several similar cases, in Córdova, Alcalá de Henares and Tudela, where, after proceedings more or less vigorous, the papal action was respected.[1261] Another device to save something from the wreck was to obtain papal grants of pensions. Thus January 29, 1560, Andrés Martin presented bulls entitling him to a pension of thirty ducats on a canonry of Calahorra vacated by the death of his brother and it was ordered to be paid. It was the same with a pension of fifty ducats, on a suppressed canonry of Cuenca, for which bulls were obtained by Juan Rodríguez and Pedro Vara.[1262]

Respect at first was also shown to canonries under royal patronage. In Logroño the inquisitors seized one in the church of S. María la Redonda, but it proved to be a patrimonial one and was released.[1263] In time, however, this respect for the crown was surmounted, as we have seen in the century-long contention over the canonries of Antequera, Malaga and the Canaries.[1264]

It was necessary to systematize the new business thus thrown upon the tribunals and, in August 1560, agents were appointed in the inquisitorial districts to keep watch over vacancies occurring and to take the necessary action. They also made the collections and rendered accounts; but, as the income was largely payable in kind, the disposal of which was a matter of judgement, they were to make no sales without consulting the Suprema nor payments without its orders.[1265] This arrangement was soon found unsatisfactory. The variable character of the revenues, chiefly based on tithes and dependent on harvests and markets, afforded abundant opportunity for malversation; it seemed best to come to some understanding with the chapters and, after much investigation into details, the policy was adopted of farming out the prebends to them. In 1565 and 1566 we find numerous arrangements made of this kind. This too proved short-lived and, in 1567, it was determined to farm them out to the best bidders. Finally, in 1570, regulations were adopted for putting them up at auction, thus insuring full competition and preventing collusion and, in 1586, the returns were required to be placed in the coffers with three keys—a system which seems to have continued to the end.[1266]

INCOME FROM CANONRIES

There were many intricate questions affording prolific causes of quarrel to keep alive the hostility between the chapters and the Inquisition, engendered by the seizure; there were frequent appeals to Rome, which appear rarely to have benefited the appellant, and the Inquisition eventually was left in assured possession of its acquisitions. Yet the friction was constant, as was inevitable when the relations were so close between parties who disliked and distrusted each other. Thus, in 1665, we find the Suprema rebuking the Barcelona tribunal for requiring a chapter to exhibit its books to show what were the allotments made to the resident canons; the information, it said, could be obtained in a less offensive way. Again, about the same time, when the tribunal ordered the farmer of the revenues of the prebend of Guisana to investigate whether the chapter was defrauding it, the Suprema wrote that, as no increase of revenue could be thus obtained, it would be more prudent to keep quiet, especially if the farmer was a beneficed member of the church; it would be better to order the commissioner at Agramont to examine the books of the chapter, because the fifty libras paid by the farmer, when compared with the two hundred distributed to the canons, was too small. To this the tribunal replied that it had long been exposed to frauds and suppression of the value of fruits by some of the chapters; as for that of Guisana, it would be useless to examine the books, as the contador would be the first of the conspirators.[1267]

Petty quarrels such as these are significant of much that was going on everywhere and of the chronic condition of enmity between the tribunals and the chapters. The former doubtless received considerably less than their dues and the latter, regarding themselves as despoiled, felt justified in withholding from the spoiler whatever they could, per fas et nefas. Yet, however much the revenues may have suffered in this way, the prebends constituted, as we shall see hereafter, three-eighths of the resources of the tribunals, reaching, in 1731, to nearly six hundred thousand reales a year and enabling them to prolong their existence during the later period, when the confiscations and fines and rehabilitations had ceased to furnish available means of support. But for the brilliant stroke by which Valdés secured them, in 1559, it may be doubted whether the Inquisition would not have proved so heavy a burden that Carlos III would have allowed it to perish of inanition.