A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

Coincident with this diminution of material for persecution, there seems to have been a disposition to resort to milder methods, attributable perhaps to an expectation that Judaism would ere long disappear. In 1567, Pius V, at the request of Philip II, empowered Inquisitor-general Espinosa, for three years, to have the Judaizing New Christians of Murcia and Alcaraz absolved, either publicly or privately, with a salutary and benignant, but not pecuniary, penance; clerics, however, were not to be habilitated to obtain orders or benefices.[675] There is a story that Dom João Soares, Bishop of Coimbra, after the Council of Trent, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, in the course of which, at Cyprus, he met many Spanish and Portuguese refugees, from whom he gathered information which he communicated to the tribunal of Llerena, resulting in the detection of many Judaizers in Extremadura.[676] They were treated like those of Murcia, for Philip, in 1573, obtained from Gregory XIII a brief similar to that of 1567, for the benefit of the Judaizers of the district of Llerena, except that the faculty was limited to one year.[677] Even greater privileges were granted, in a brief obtained by Philip, in 1597, to the Judaizers of Ecija and its district, for not only were they to be absolved like those of Murcia, but all prisoners under trial were to enjoy the benefit of the pardon, with no note of infamy on themselves or their descendants, and this time of grace was to endure for four years.[678] These may not have been the only instances of such favors, and they indicate a tendency towards an entire change of policy. That there was hopefulness that the Inquisition was accomplishing its work is seen in a careful state paper drawn up for the Suprema, in 1595, by a distinguished prelate, Juan Bautista Pérez, Bishop of Segorbe, who felt justified in assuming that the baptized Jews remaining in Spain, after the expulsion of 1492, had now become good Christians, except one here and there, and that their Law was forgotten.[679]

INQUISITION OF PORTUGAL

In this the good bishop was careful to limit his praise to the descendants of those who had been baptized a century before, three full generations having passed under the chastening hands of the Holy Office. He evidently was aware that a new factor had been injected into the religious problem—a factor which was to give the Inquisition occupation for nearly a century and a half more. This was due to the conquest of Portugal by Philip II, in 1580. Although the union of the two kingdoms was merely dynastic, and their separate organizations were preserved, the facility of intercourse which followed led to a large emigration of New Christians from the poorer to the richer land. They had not been exposed as long as their Spanish brethren to inquisitorial rigor and, for the most part, they were crypto-Jews. The fresh justification which they afforded for the activity of the Inquisition, after the suppression of spasmodic Protestantism and the expulsion of the Moriscos, and the part which they played in Spanish Judaism seem to require a brief review of the curious history of the early Portuguese Inquisition. It also affords an insight into the relations between the New Christians and the Holy See, and thus throws a reflected light on the struggles of Ferdinand and Charles V with the curia.[680]

We have seen (Vol. I, pp. 137, 140) the reception by João II of the multitudes who flocked to Portugal at the time of the expulsion and their kindly treatment by King Manoel at his accession in 1495. In contracting marriage, however, with Isabella, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the condition was imposed on him of expelling all refugees who had been condemned by the Spanish Inquisition and, under this impulsion, seconded by his confessor the Frade Jorje Vogado, he issued a general edict of expulsion, excepting children under fourteen, who were torn from their parents—a measure which caused the most deplorable distress, many of the Jews slaying their offspring rather than surrender them to be brought up as Christians. By various devices the departure of the exiled was delayed, until after the time when they incurred the alternative of slavery, and thus they were coerced to accept baptism. To temper this, Manoel granted, May 30, 1497, that for twenty years they should be exempt from persecution; that subsequently all accusations of Judaism should be brought within twenty days of the acts charged; that the trial should be conducted under ordinary secular procedure, and that confiscations should enure to the heirs. Moreover, he promised never to legislate for them as a distinct race.[681]

This latter pledge was soon broken, by edicts of April 21 and 22, 1499, forbidding them to leave the kingdom without royal permission and prohibiting the purchase from them of lands or bills of exchange. Popular aversion increased and culminated in the awful Lisbon massacre of 1506. This wrought a revulsion of feeling; in 1507 the restrictive laws of 1499 were repealed; the New Christians were allowed freely to trade and to come and go; they were in all things assimilated to the natives, and were entitled to the common law of the land. In 1512 the twenty years’ exemption was extended to 1534, and although, in 1515, Dom Manoel applied to Leo X for the introduction of the Inquisition, on the request being delayed the matter was dropped and was not revived. Until Manoel’s death, in 1521, the New Christians thus enjoyed toleration and flourished accordingly. They grew rich and prosperous, they intermarried with the noblest houses, and they largely entered the Church. Externally their religious observance was unimpeachable, and Portugal naturally became a haven of refuge for Spanish Conversos, nor is it likely that the restrictions on such immigration, enacted in 1503, were rigidly observed.[682]

INQUISITION OF PORTUGAL

His successor, Dom João III, a youth of 20, was a fanatic of narrow mind and limited intelligence, but the influence of Manoel’s counsellors, who continued in the direction of affairs, procured, between 1522 and 1524, the confirmation of the privileges granted by the late king. Ecclesiastical pressure and popular prejudice, however, made themselves felt and, in 1524, a secret inquest brought the testimony of parish priests that the New Christians were suspected of being Christians only in name.[683] Then João’s marriage, in 1525, with Catalina, sister of Charles V—the only Portuguese queen admitted to a seat in the Council of State—brought a powerful influence to bear; the growing strength of these tendencies gradually overcame considerations of plighted faith and, early in 1531, Dr. Brás Neto, the ambassador at Rome, was instructed to procure secretly from Clement VII briefs establishing in Portugal an Inquisition on the Spanish model. We have seen in Spain the objections of the Holy See to the royal control of the institution and to the abandonment of all share in the confiscations, and these probably explain the delays which postponed, until December 17th, the issue of a brief conferring on the royal nominee, Frade Diogo da Silva, the requisite faculties as inquisitor-general. This was followed, January 13, 1532 by one ordering him to assume the office; the two reached Lisbon in February, but it seems to have been feared that their publication would lead to an immediate exodus of the New Christians, and they were kept secret until laws could be framed reviving, with additional rigor, the edicts of 1499, prohibiting, for three years, departure from the kingdom, the sale of real estate and the negotiation of bills of exchange. These were issued June 14th, after which there was a pause, explicable only by the lavish employment of money in both Lisbon and Rome. The New Christians evidently had obtained knowledge of the threatened measure; much of the active capital of the kingdom was in their hands, and the danger called for energetic work and sacrifice. A fitting emissary to Rome was found in Duarte da Paz, a Converso of no ordinary ability, energy and audacity; the king was entrusting him with a mission beyond the borders, under cover of which he made his way to the papal court, where for ten years he continued to act as agent for his fellows. Then, in September, there came Marco della Rovere, Bishop of Sinigaglia, sent as nuncio on this special business, who was speedily bought by the New Christians, and they probably won over by the same means the Frade Diogo da Silva, who complicated matters irretrievably by refusing to accept the office of inquisitor-general. Duarte da Paz also was not idle, and the confusion became inextricable when, by a brief of October 17th, Clement VII suspended temporarily the one of the previous December, and prohibited not only da Silva but all bishops from proceeding inquisitorially against the New Christians.[684]

As we have seen in Spain, the curia recognized that here was a numerous and wealthy class of heretics, to whom it could sell protection and then abandon them, until their fears or their sufferings should produce a new harvest. This speculation in human agony was all the more undisguised and lucrative that Portugal was a comparatively feeble kingdom, which could be treated with much less ceremony than Spain, and João III a man of wholly different type from Ferdinand or Charles V, while his invincible determination to have an Inquisition in his realm prolonged the struggle and rendered especially productive the game of inclining to either side by turns. This was so self-evident that João almost openly reproached Clement VII with it, and the committee of Cardinals entrusted with the conduct of the affair rejoined that inquisitors were ministers of Satan and inquisitorial procedure a denial of justice.[685]

João’s reproaches were justified when Clement, by a brief of April 7, 1533, granted what was virtually a pardon for all past offences, without disability to hold office in Church or State, while those defamed for heresy could justify themselves before the nuncio—a function which he turned to account for, when recalled in 1536, he was said to have carried with him to Rome some thirty thousand crowns. João threw obstacles in the way of the execution of this brief, which called forth from Clement, in July and October, strenuous orders for its enforcement, followed by another of December 18th suspending it. It became the subject of active negotiation and Cardinal Pucci or Santiquatro, the “protector” of Portugal, suggested that it might be modified and, in the guise of fines, some twenty or thirty thousand ducats be extorted from the New Christians, to be divided with the pope. In transmitting this proposal, Henrique de Meneses, the Portuguese ambassador, added that nothing could be done in the curia without money, for this was all they wanted, and that Clement was dissatisfied with João because he had received nothing from him. Clement, however, who was rapidly approaching his end, on July 26th, ordered the nuncio to overcome by excommunication all opposition to the pardon and forbade all prosecution for past heresies, moved to this, as Santiquatro told Paul III, by his confessor, who insisted that, as he had received the money of the New Christians, he was bound to protect them.[686]

INQUISITION OF PORTUGAL