A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

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When a vessel cast anchor, before it could break cargo, it was visited by the representatives of various jurisdictions—health, war and customs. Subsequently health and war were combined, under the name of almirantazgo and there was added a visit from the commissioner of the Inquisition, with his notary and alguazil. As these officials were unsalaried, they claimed to be paid for their time and for the expense of a carriage and boat, by fees exacted of the vessel. Then, after inspecting the crew and passengers and examining any books belonging to them, a guard was stationed to prevent the surreptitious landing of books. When the cargo was discharged, the commissioner opened and inspected every package and, if it was a bale of books, of course each one had to be compared with the Index. For all this additional fees were charged, constituting a tax, not alone on the book-trade but on commerce in general, deeply resented by all the commercial interests, nor was the opposition lessened by the arbitrary methods habitual with all the officials of the Inquisition. Complaints of abuses became loud and numerous from all the sea-ports while, on the other hand, the frequent reports of heretical machinations led to constant exhortations from the Suprema for increased vigilance.

Some feeble attempts were made to check abuses. In 1602 there was a prohibition that visiting officials should require to have meals served, should place guards, or insist on having salutes fired; in 1606 it was forbidden for commissioners to take with them notaries or familiars who were merchants, and who thus learned the nature of the cargo and had opportunities to buy or to sell; but no attention was paid to these reforms.[1358] Then, in 1607, a royal cédula provided that commissioners should levy no fees for visiting ships, and this was repeated in 1610, but these commands were disobeyed on the plea that they passed through the Council of Castile and not through the Suprema, wherefore, as the latter said, the commissioners were bound to obey them but not to execute them.[1359]

The royal attention was finally called to the injurious effect of the system on Spanish commerce and, in January, 1632, a cédula was sent to the corregidores of the sea-ports, in which the king stated that he had been informed that the continual vexations inflicted on those who came to trade at Spanish ports, arising from the abuses practised by the numerous officials visiting their ships at their arrival and departure, had not only been the cause of the decline of commerce but of its total destruction, for every vessel was visited by so many jurisdictions that the extortions and impositions were great and had much increased of late. He was therefore obliged to enquire what proper methods could be adopted to encourage trade on the part of both natives and foreigners, without abolishing the necessary visits and precautions. There followed a list of searching questions as to the number of visits, officials, fees, methods, etc., with a request for suggestions. Although directed nominally to the abuses of all the jurisdictions, the Inquisition evidently was especially aimed at, for copies of the cédula were sent by the Suprema to all the tribunals of the crown of Castile.[1360]

A junta was assembled to frame a reform on the basis of the information thus obtained. It sat until the end of 1633 but, if it reached any conclusions, they left no trace on legislation or practice. The only paper laid before it that I have met is a complaint from Don Pedro de Barreda, customs inspector of Guipuzcoa, of the excesses committed by officials of the Inquisition, under pretext of visiting the vessels coming to the ports of his district.[1361] The probability is that, as so frequently the case in Spanish administration, the junta did nothing but submit to the king long consultas representing the conflicting views of the individual members, and that the king by that time had lost his interest in the matter and cast them aside without reading.

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As was inevitable, the aggressiveness of the officials led to frequent quarrels. In 1616 there was one in Sardinia, in which the inquisitor excommunicated the Governor of Sasser, when the viceroy retaliated with a decree banishing the inquisitor. It was published with trumpet and cymbals and so frightened the inquisitorial people that the consultors did not dare to assemble and the familiars took to the mountains. The affair was referred to the Council of Aragon and the Suprema, which effected a truce by annulling the acts on both sides.[1362] That the junta of 1633 brought no harmony is seen in a similar outbreak arising from the same cause in 1634, between the viceroy of Majorca and the tribunal, which had to be carried up to the king.[1363] In 1635, the royal secretary addressed the Suprema, stating that a squadron was being organized for service on the coast of Guipuzcoa and that, to avoid the extortions and vexations of the commissioner at San Sebastian, the king desired that the head chaplain of the squadron should be appointed as commissioner, so that he could perform the duty of visiting the ships and prizes when they entered port. To this the Suprema returned an emphatic protest; such visits were essential and not to be omitted; the cause of complaint was not the extortions of the commissioners but their zealous discharge of their duties. As there is no endorsement on this consulta, the king apparently did not press the matter.[1364]

Perhaps the bitterest struggle was that carried on by Bilbao for more than a hundred years. As one of the busiest ports of Spain, it naturally recalcitrated against the burdens laid upon its trade. The system had scarce been fairly organized when, in 1560, complaints already came to the Suprema of extortionate and illegal fees. Bartolomé de Robles, a bookseller of Alcalá, represented that he had imported through Bilbao forty bales of books, which were forwarded in one lot by ten muleteers; they had all been duly examined and sealed, the commissioner charging one real for each seal and then, in place of giving one certificate for the lot, he made out forty certificates at four reales apiece. The Suprema forwarded this to the tribunal of Calahorra (Logroño), with a table of fees, commanding that all exorbitant charges should be returned to it for distribution to the parties aggrieved.[1365] It was not alone the booksellers, but merchants in general, who suffered from the opening of their packages and the fees charged on each, and the shipmasters exposed to the extortions attendant upon the visits. The mercantile community of Bilbao was well organized, having a Casa de Contratacion to regulate commerce, with a Fiel or executive officer, a Prior and Consuls. They made their grievances heard and a compromise was reached with the tribunal, in 1561, which was not observed; it was the same with another agreement made in 1567 and yet another in 1576, under which all fees were abolished. To enforce this the Contratacion brought suit, resulting in an agreement in 1577, confirmed by the Suprema, by which the commissioner received fifty ducats a year in lieu of all fees, except two reales on each package of books, the examination of which was admitted to be laborious.[1366] Trouble soon recommenced; in spite of repeated exhortation to moderation by the Suprema, fees were levied on every package and cask of merchandise. The royal cédula of 1607 abolishing fees was published February 18th, but received no attention and, in 1609, Bilbao sent a strong remonstrance to the king, to which the Logroño tribunal replied, asserting it to be false; the labor was great; it always had been and must be paid by fees, which were always the subject of contention, especially at Bilbao where there were a prior and consuls to defend the merchants.[1367] Then came the royal cédula of 1610, again abolishing fees, which received no more attention than the previous one.

In February, 1612, the Suprema wrote to Logroño that great complaints continued to come to the king, especially from Bilbao, and it suggested that an increase in the fifty ducats might be obtained in lieu of fees. Acting on this, a formal agreement was signed in July and confirmed by the Suprema, raising the annual payment to two thousand reales, the two reales on book packages being retained. It is not likely that this was observed by the commissioner for, in 1616, at the request of the merchants and shipmasters, a return was made to the fee system and a definite scale was agreed upon. This scale, however, did not long content the commissioner for, in 1631, the complaints reaching the Suprema led it to make an investigation, in which its fiscal admitted that the excessive fees and vexations were leading shipmasters to abandon those ports, especially Bilbao; the fees exacted were fifty per cent. greater than the agreed scale; vessels bringing fish were compelled in addition to give so many fish out of each barrel, and the delays were damaging. At the same time the existing commissioner, Pedro de Villareal, was highly commended. He had merely accepted conditions as he found them established by his predecessors; his term of service extended from 1625 to 1662 and was subsequently looked back upon as a halcyon time of peace.[1368]

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