A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CHURCH

In fact, the secular power could be dispensed with altogether. The Venetian Signory was not always as prompt as it should be in suppressing heresy so, to avoid delays and embarrassing questions, the papal nuncio there, with his fiscal, auditor and other officials, had faculties to condemn to mutilation and death all heretics without incurring irregularity or other ecclesiastical penalties, notwithstanding all canons and decretals to the contrary. Such provisions were issued in 1547 by Paul III and in 1550 by Julius III and were doubtless customary.[540] Peña reduces this to a general principle for, without referring to special papal faculties, he asserts that the intervention of the secular judge is unessential and that, if he is not accessible, the tribunal can condemn the heretic to death; if accessible he must execute the sentence if he wishes to escape the heavy penalties of fautorship and impeding the Inquisition.[541]

There was little danger of such reluctance on the part of secular officials in Spain, where the oath exacted of them by the Inquisition obliged them to execute whatever sentences the tribunal might require.[542] In fact, the only indication I have met with, of possible hesitation involving punishment, occurs in a mandate, September 5, 1725, to the Toledo tribunal, directing that, in autos de fe, the first sentences read should be those of relaxation—thus reversing the usual order—so that the convicts might be delivered at once to the royal judge, without permitting delay in the execution of the sentences, under any pretext, since the tribunal had complete jurisdiction to compel him, by censures and other penalties, to its exact performance.[543]

The Inquisition regarded the sentence of the magistrate as a mere perfunctory formality. The doctors had pointed out conclusively that heresy was a crime over which he had no jurisdiction, and if he were to assert it he would render illusory the sentence of the bishop or inquisitor.[544] Consequently, in preparation for an auto de fe, the tribunal, in advance, gave to the secular authorities a list of the condemnations so that the sentences might be drawn up and the wood, the stake and the garrotes be prepared for immediate execution.[545] It is true that thrift induced a certain amount of equivocation when, in 1579, the royal alguaziles of Saragossa claimed payment from the confiscations for their services and for the cost of the wood, and Philip II emphatically rejected the demand as unexampled, adding that the inquisitors could not order such payment without irregularity, and that the executions were in virtue of the sentences of the secular judges and not of the inquisitors.[546] This, however, was the merest quibble. In autos generales, the magistrates were asked to be present to receive the convicts and “execute on them the penalties imposed by the canon law of the kingdom.” In autos particulares, held in churches which must not be polluted by judgements of blood, the Suprema pointed out, in a consulta of April 7, 1690, that the secular judges could wait at a designated place, when it sufficed that a notary informed them in writing that “N. has been declared a heretic by sentence of the Holy Office,” simultaneously delivering the convict, when they must accept this assertion, and without delay execute the sentence, unless they wish the Holy Office to prosecute them as fautors of heretics and impeders of its free jurisdiction. At the same time the judges are to continue as usual to pronounce the formal sentence.[547]

Still, the estilo of the Inquisition required the ghastly comedy of asking mercy. In the official formula of the sentence the clause announcing relaxation to the civil magistrate proceeds “whom we ask and charge most affectionately to treat him benignantly and mercifully.” In sentences of the absent and dead, where the effigy alone was abandoned to the secular arm, there is no prayer for mercy, as there was no effusion of blood to create irregularity.[548] In the rigid formalism of inquisitorial procedure, after the Suprema had established its minute control, it is safe to assume that this official formula was universally followed.

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CHURCH

All this affords ample proof that the avoidance of irregularity was the only motive that actuated the Inquisition in this matter, but if further evidence is required it is furnished by the fact that still greater scruple existed in the exercise of the temporal jurisdiction acquired by the Spanish Holy Office over all matters concerning its officials, because such cases were not provided for in the commissions of the inquisitors-general, from which were delegated the powers of the tribunals. In 1514 the question arose when Micer Castillo, assessor in the Saragossa tribunal, was murdered, and two of his assassins, Joan Uguet and Pere Gasco, were tried and convicted. The inquisitors dared not deliver them to the secular arm for execution, and various devices were discussed, but the matter was settled by procuring from Leo X his motu proprio Cum sicut accepimus, January 28, 1515, in which he granted faculties to the inquisitors to arrest, try and deliver for punishment to the secular authorities, any one who had struck, mutilated or slain an official of the Inquisition, even if it entailed effusion of blood or mutilation or death, without incurring any note of irregularity.[549] Under this the tribunals acted when such cases arose, notably in Granada, about 1545, when seven persons were thus relaxed—six Moriscos and an Old Christian—who, while in prison, killed the alcaide and his assistant and who were hanged before burning.[550]

In time the cardinals of the Roman Inquisition were beset with similar scruples and, to relieve their consciences, Pius V, October 9, 1567, granted a decree empowering them to participate in sentences of blood without incurring irregularity.[551] This applied only to Italy, but it was otherwise with the terrible bull Si de protegendis, April 1, 1569, commanding the delivery to the secular arm, for the punishment due to high treason, of any one maltreating or even threatening an official of the Inquisition or destroying or altering its records. This was ordered to be published throughout the world; the Spanish Inquisition claimed the benefit of it, and had a Castilian version of it published every year. It made no illusion to irregularity, tacitly assuming that none was incurred and it was often cited in Spain to that effect.[552] Still, when in 1579, the Toledo tribunal desired the death-penalty for Francisco de la Bastida, for personating an official of the Inquisition, and there was no secular law to that effect, a special brief was obtained from Gregory XIII empowering it to find him guilty of death and deliver him to the secular arm for execution without incurring irregularity.[553]

There seems to have arisen a fresh sense of insecurity about 1605. The brief of Leo X was well-nigh forgotten; some tribunals had copies of it, but most of them had not, and the bull Si de protegendis did not specifically meet cases that arose. Application was therefore made to Paul V to extend to Spain the 1567 decree of Pius V, which he granted by a brief of November 29, 1605, repeated in 1607. In this he bestowed the fullest powers, not only on inquisitors but on all their officials, in all cases whether of faith or not, coming within their competence, to participate in sentences of torture, mutilation, or death without incurring irregularity.[554] This would appear ample enough to remove all possible scruples and yet subsequently contingencies occasionally arose which excited debate, or called for papal intervention to quiet sensitive consciences.[555]

In the work of exterminating heresy, the rules which governed the Spanish Inquisition were more merciless than those framed by its predecessor. At first, in the medieval tribunals, it was only the pertinacious and impenitent heretic who was consigned to the stake; he who recanted and professed conversion, even at the last moment, was admitted to reconciliation. Then gradually, as it was found that these enforced conversions were frequently insincere, relapse was regarded as proof of impenitence and pertinacity and was subjected irremissibly to the death-penalty, and this included those who had abjured for vehement suspicion. The treatment is exemplified in the case of Fray Bonato, the head of a little body of Spiritual Franciscans in Catalonia. He was pertinacious until the flames had roasted him one side, when his resolution gave way; he professed conversion and was rescued, but some years later he was found to be still cherishing his heresies and, in 1335, he was burnt alive.[556]