A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

We can scarce wonder that owners were negligent, as a remedy for which a carta acordada of October 5, 1712, ordered the tribunals to state in their edicts that the expurgations were on record there, and all owners were to send their books to have the offending passages blotted out by persons deputed for the purpose.[1323] Then, in 1790, the owner was again permitted to do it on condition of presenting the book within two months to show that it had been done, but, as the Indice Ultimo gave no indication of the expurgations required, it was left for the owner to discover them.[1324] No matter what plan was adopted, expurgation rendered the ownership of books a source of anxiety and trouble, and exercised a deterrent influence on the diffusion of culture, for there was no class of literature, whether fiction, poetry, history, devotion, statecraft, law or science, as well as theology, in which some lynx-eyed critic could not discover a phrase or sentiment which called for revision. Edicts were continually being issued prescribing the expurgation of individual books, sometimes thirty or forty years after their publication, and frequently on the most trivial grounds, and the lover of literature or science had to be constantly on the watch to escape the penalties of neglect.

The process of expurgation was the application with a brush of a coat of printing ink to the peccant word or passage, so as to render it perfectly illegible. When the Mexican tribunal took a notion to condemn all engraved portraits of the saintly Juan de Palafox, Bishop of Puebla, the face was thus daubed over with ink so as to render the features indistinguishable. When, in a book, the length of the offending passage made this too troublesome, the ruder process was adopted of tearing out the pages, regardless of the innocent matter thus removed and destroying the connection of the parts thus sundered.[1325] Literature was of small account to the butchers of books.

EXPURGATION OF BOOKS AND LIBRARIES

Booksellers and book-buyers were subjected to constant investigation conducted in the rudest manner, the influence of which could not fail to be most depressing. The examination of book-shops and public and private libraries, which we have seen attempted as early as 1530 and resolutely prosecuted in 1559, was a settled policy and was pushed with especial vigor after the issue of every new Index, but it was not limited to those times. The correspondence of the Suprema is full of letters and instructions showing the unremitting vigilance with which the work was carried on. In 1600 the tribunals of Valencia, Barcelona and Murcia were ordered to send to the Suprema the books of the Constable of Castile—a work of some duration for, in 1602, there is still a box of them on the way. Then the Seville tribunal was instructed to examine the books of Fray Diego Davila and forward those which Montoya had indicated. Then the Murcia tribunal was told to send to Doctor Montoya the books of Don Juan de Hoces. In 1602 the books of the confessor to the queen were ordered to be sent to the Suprema. All these were private collectors, whose tastes or zeal for learning subjected them to these vexations and humiliations, to the unlimited detention of their cherished books, to loss from carelessness or pilfering and to the irreparable damage of artistic bindings. The mere possession of books rendered the owner an object of suspicion and investigation. If this was the case with private collectors of all ranks, we can readily appreciate the endless troubles and ruinous prosecutions to which booksellers were exposed. In this same year 1600, the Suprema advised the Toledo tribunal that Doctor Juan Martínez had been examining the book-shops of Madrid, resulting in the statement enclosed, as to which it was to do justice—the customary formula in prosecutions.[1326]

This is merely an indication of the continuous warfare waged against culture and learning, from which no one was safe. In 1627 a decree commanded booksellers, under penalty of forty ducats and excommunication, to report all prohibited books and those requiring expurgation, which they might meet in private libraries.[1327] In 1618, the Seville tribunal was ordered to seize all the Hebrew books that had belonged to Arias Montano.[1328] Even the royal library of the Escorial was subjected to the most humiliating regulations. When the Index of 1612 appeared, the Geronimite Prior of San Lorenzo petitioned the Suprema, stating the wish of the king that the prohibited books should not be removed or expurgated, as it was distinct from the convent library, and the only keys to it were held by him and the chief librarian. Thereupon the inquisitor-general sent Fray Francisco de Jesus to examine and report the arrangements of the library, after which, on November 12, 1613, it decreed as follows. All books which are literary and not religious or offensive, by authors of the first class (those of whom all the works were condemned), are to be separated, marked and have a prefatory note that the author is condemned, but permission is given for them to remain where they can be read by the prior, the chief librarian and the professors of the college. All books by such authors, treating of religion and cognate matters, such as chronologies, sacred histories and histories of the popes, seeing that the king does not wish them removed, shall be stored in a separate room, always locked as in an archive, and no one shall read them save the prior and chief librarian, by special licence of the inquisitor-general and Suprema: there shall be two keys (locks) one kept by the chief librarian and the other by the Suprema, and two lists shall be made of them, one kept in the locked room and the other by the Suprema. With these shall also be placed two MSS. by heresiarchs from the MS. department. Rabbinical books and Bibles in Romance can remain, but shall be put in a separate case and be marked as prohibited, but they can be read as hitherto, by the prior, chief librarian and professors. The fraile in charge of the pharmacy of the convent, but he alone, can read books on medicine by authors of the first class, for distillation of quintessences and other matters of importance.[1329] A quarantine against the deadliest infection could scarce have been more carefully devised.

EXPURGATION OF BOOKS AND LIBRARIES

There was a slight relaxation in this when, in 1616, Inquisitor-general Sandoval was at the Escorial and extended to all the professors of the college the privilege of reading books of the first class on religion. After the Zapata Index of 1632 appeared, the question again came up and Inquisitor-general Sotomayor confirmed the arrangement of 1613.[1330] On the publication of his Index, in 1640, the frailes of San Lorenzo petitioned the Suprema that the library, as belonging to the king, should not be expurgated under the new Index. To this the Suprema replied in a consulta to the king, November 16, 1641, arguing that, as the library was the greatest in the world and belonged to the king, it was especially important that it should set the example of containing nothing contrary to Catholic doctrine. Still, there might be a secluded place, in which all books by heretic writers and of evil doctrine could be set aside, and the key of it be kept by the inquisitor-general, on condition that the library should furnish to the Suprema whatever books it might need.[1331] There can be little doubt that some such arrangement was reached.

The vigilant supervision over book-shops and libraries was unrelaxing, and the depressing influence which it exercised on the book-trade and on culture in general can be estimated from the regulations accompanying the Index of Vidal Marin, in 1707. The tribunals were authorized to appoint an unlimited number of Revisores de Libros, empowered, at such times as suited them, to examine the public libraries and auctions and book-shops. The revisor was to require from booksellers inventories of stock and to see that these were complete; he was to order sent to his house or to that of another revisor, all prohibited books and those requiring examination, and report the result to the tribunal; he was to expurgate and certify with his signature all books requiring expurgation. He was to report all omissions or contraventions by booksellers of the rules of the Index, and for this his inspections must be frequent. He was to familiarize himself with these inventories and also with those which the booksellers were obliged to render to the tribunal at the beginning of each year, with details of all sales made during the year, so that he should become thoroughly informed and the booksellers be deterred from committing their customary frauds. All this was to be done at the expense of the owners of the books or, in the case of public libraries, of the town. As this was expected to produce much dissatisfaction, any “licentious” talk against the Index was to be reported for due punishment.[1332]

The expected dissatisfaction was not lacking. The powers granted to the revisors gave so large an opportunity for oppression and extortion that the position was eagerly sought. Commissions were recklessly multiplied, until the number of these literary spies and blackmailers aroused general complaint. Nor was this a mere temporary abuse, for a letter of the Suprema, October 5, 1712, calls attention to the excessive number of appointees and the evils thence arising, for the palliation of which it proposed to issue an edict.[1333]

This inspection of public and private libraries and of book-shops continued till the suppression of the Inquisition. We find, June 25, 1817, the Seville tribunal sending to that of Madrid a list of books belonging to Juan Gualberto González, royal fiscal in the Council of Indies and, on August 18th, the fiscal sends to an unnamed tribunal the translation for which it had asked of a list of books belonging to the Marquis of Narros, the linguistic attainments of the inspectors having apparently been insufficient. In the financial distress of the Inquisition, the work seems now to be performed by officials of the tribunals, doubtless eager to do anything that would bring in fees, for, in 1819, we have the report of the secretary of the Valencia tribunal that, in the inspection of the book-shop of Pedro Juan Mallen, he had found a sermon in Italian, which he seized as suspicious and which was duly submitted to calificadores.[1334]