A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

This cumbrous scheme never had vitality, and the Restoration of 1814 restored to the Inquisition its jurisdiction over the press. As soon as it could spare time, during the labor of reconstruction, it addressed itself to the suppression of the revolutionary literature of the previous six years. A carta acordada of October 25, 1814, ordered the tribunals, as speedily as possible, to notify the Suprema of all objectionable books, pamphlets and papers that had been written or printed in their districts, with all details as to authorship and place of publication. From this was compiled a list of a hundred and eighty-three prohibited publications, including thirty-five journals, but an edict of July 22, 1815, described this as incomplete; the faithful were referred to the rules of the Index as defining whatever had been omitted, and all such were to be surrendered within six days, under the traditional penalty of excommunication and two hundred ducats; all the old regulations and Indexes were declared to be in force and, on August 3d, each tribunal was ordered to suppress all objectionable matter printed within its district.[1461]

POLITICALLY EMPLOYED

The correspondence of the Suprema, at this period, shows minute and constant watchfulness over the press, and a large part of the labors of the Inquisition, during its brief resuscitation, was devoted to censorship, mostly of a political character. The Constitutionalist refugees, who had fled from the vengeance of the reaction, were busy, with such slender means as they could command, in propagating their ideas, as the Protestant refugees had been in the sixteenth century, and there was the same anxious vigilance to counteract their efforts, while the danger was greater, for a large part of the population was known to secretly share their views. Thus, in 1818, circulars were received in Madrid, announcing the appearance in London of a weekly entitled El Español Constitucional. Immediately the Royal Council sent out orders to the judicial and military authorities to seize all copies, and the Juez de Imprentas did the same to his subordinates, all of which resulted in finding enough of the circulars to show that they had been widely distributed. Then the aid of the Inquisition was invoked and, on August 3d, the Suprema ordered the tribunals not only to seize all copies but to arrest everybody concerned. Then, on September 13th, the king reported that the wicked refugees in London, who had been, through lack of funds, obliged to abandon the project, had recently obtained contributions and had resumed it, wherefore fresh diligence was enjoined. Two days later the Suprema forwarded this to the tribunals, with orders to exert themselves in seizing the circulars and periodical and also the accomplices in the so-called conspiracy. Again, on November 4th, the Suprema called renewed attention to its former letters and enclosed a royal order stating that the London ambassador reported the appearance of the second number of the journal, and insisting on every precaution to prevent its circulation in Spain. There is no trace, however, of any copy of the mysterious periodical being captured by the Inquisition, or of the arrest of any one concerned. Simultaneously with this, on November 5th, the Suprema transmitted another royal order stating that letters intercepted in the mails contained prospectuses of a periodical entitled “Gabinete de Curiosidades politicas y literarias de España y Indias,” to be issued in London by Gallardo, former librarian of the Córtes. The Suprema consequently issued instructions enjoining the utmost vigilance in seizing the prospectus and copies of the periodical.[1462] The happy faculty of confusing the spiritual and the temporal, so valuable to the medieval Church, had evidently not been lost to the Spanish monarchy.

Although in general the Inquisition carefully abstained from intrusion in the field of morals, yet in censorship it undertook to guard the public from that which might contaminate virtue as well as from what affected faith. This was justified by the rules of the Tridentine Index as well as of that of Clement VIII, in 1596, where lascivious books and illustrations were to be prohibited or expurgated.[1463] Literature however largely escaped, at least until the later period. The Celestina of Francisco de Rojas, of which more than thirty editions were printed in the sixteenth century, its popularity leading to its use as a schoolbook notwithstanding its somewhat crude indecency, escaped attention, until the Index of 1640 ordered the expurgation of about fifty lines, and it was not prohibited until that of 1790.[1464]

Art attracted earlier attention, especially when its employment in sacred subjects lacked dignity, however stimulating it might be to the piety of the unlettered public. The first allusion I have met to this function of the Inquisition occurs in 1568, when Inquisitor Moral, in reporting his visitation of San Sebastian, mentions penancing Gracia de Caldiere for possessing a pintura deshonesta, whereupon the Suprema told him that he should have sent the picture to it—apparently, as a matter of censorship, it reserved the decision to itself.[1465] The next is a carta acordada of 1571, ordering the suppression of some figures on linen of the Crucifixion and the Trinity, in which the calificadores had discovered symbols of Lutheran doctrines, and a series of twelve wood cuts of the Passion, with an epitome on the backs in Latin and French.[1466] This is emphasized in the Expurgatory Index of Quiroga, in 1583, of which the twelfth rule is directed against all representations of sacred persons or objects which savor of irrision or irreverence.[1467] Spanish piety, in fact, occasionally manifested itself in somewhat grotesque form, as in certain images on linen of the Christ-child, in military uniforms, the suppression of which was ordered in 1619.[1468] In 1649, the Suprema was scandalized at the great irreverence and diabolical indecency, with a savor of sacrilege, of ribbons which were called “bowels of angels” or “hearts or entrails of apostles,” and, under the customary penalties, it forbade asking for, buying or selling ribbons with such names. A few weeks later it prohibited all razors or knives on the handles of which were engraved images of Christ, the Virgin, the saints or the instruments of the Passion; all found in the shops were to be seized, and the commissioners at the ports were to see that none were imported.[1469]

MORALS AND ART

After the more serious work of the Inquisition was accomplished, in the elimination of Judaism, Protestantism and Islam, its energies were more actively employed in this direction. In 1787 we find the Valencia tribunal prosecuting Francisca Lazaro for indecent songs. In 1803 the Caprichos of Goya, the leading artist of the period, wounded inquisitorial sensibilities; he was summoned and his prosecution was commenced, but he was saved by the intervention of Carlos IV. Two of the last acts of the Valencia tribunal in 1820 were proceedings against the “Rime e Prose del Doctor Tomaso Crudeli,” which it pronounced to be obscene and impious, and the condemnation of a book called Il Zibaldone, for lascivious propositions. The theatre also became subject to inquisitorial censorship. In 1817 a tragedy entitled “La Obstinacion de un Padre” was presented on the Valencian stage, October 9th and 10th; it seems to have excited disapproval and, on the 13th, the MS. was presented to the tribunal for its censure. In Madrid, the Suprema acted as a preliminary censor; in 1815 we find it ordering the local tribunal to examine the opera “El hombre de mal genio y buen corazon,” and the comedy “El no de las niñas” and, on the report that the fiscal had no objection to their representation, it gave its assent. So, in 1819, the Suprema returns to the Seville tribunal its calificacion of four saynetes, or farces, with orders to put it into more intelligible shape, to vote on it and return it for final decision.[1470]

Works of art, however, were the principal objects of inquisitorial Puritanism. In 1793, the Valencia tribunal formed a process concerning a certain snuff-box with a scandalous picture, supposed to be in possession of Don Jacinto de Castro, governor of the sala del crimen. Solicitude for the public morals was so acute that, October 2, 1815, the Suprema approved a decree of the Madrid tribunal, ordering all the hairdressers of the city to remove from their windows, or alter to decency, the wax busts which they exhibited as specimens of their art—apparently because they made too exuberant a display of their charms. Artists and dealers in pictures were held to a strict accountability. But a week before the last case, the Suprema had considered a prosecution by the Seville tribunal of Juan Rodríguez and Domingo Alvarez of Cádiz, the former for painting and the latter for exhibiting in his shop a picture called Diana, provocative by its posture and nudity. They were ordered to appear before the commissioner of Cádiz, who should reprimand and absolve them from the excommunication incurred, and warn them that a repetition of the offence would be visited with the penalties provided by Regla XI of the Expurgatorio—banishment and five hundred ducats fine. Six months later, Pasqual Franchini for two pinturas obscenas was fined a hundred ducats and, as he was ordered to be set at liberty, it is evident that he had been imprisoned; he pleaded poverty and his fine was kindly reduced. Three months later, Santiago Schmidt and his son Josef were sentenced, by the Madrid tribunal, for selling to the Prussian ambassador an indecent picture for eight thousand reales; for this they were fined two thousand reales, which the Suprema benignantly reduced to fifty ducats.[1471]

Doubtless in this case ambassadorial privilege saved the purchaser from prosecution, for the possession of objects regarded as immoral was calidad de oficio, and the records are full of cases against those who owned snuff-boxes, watches, packs of cards etc., with indecent figures or inscriptions, as well as of pictures, engravings and books with plates that offended the modesty of the censors. No doubt much of what was condemned was thoroughly vicious and disreputable, but the resultant purification scarce compensated for the invasion of private life and the stimulus to the detestable habit of espionage and denunciation, through which alone such matters could come to the knowledge of the tribunals. Much good art, moreover, was undoubtedly sacrificed by ignorant censors, for the objects thus condemned were destroyed. In 1805 at Valencia a painting on copper of the Adultery of Venus was thus ordered to be effaced, and when this was done the sheet of copper was delivered to the alcalde del crimen, to be restored to the owner. Akin to this was the tearing out of objectionable plates from books, which happens to be mentioned, in 1819, in the case of Don Luis Monfort, a captain of artillery.[1472]