A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

In 1526 Charles V was in Granada, where, in the name of the Moriscos, three descendants of the old Moorish kings, Fernando Vinegas, Miguel de Aragon and Diego López Benexara, appealed to him for protection against the ill-treatment by the priests, the judges, the alguaziles and other officials, whereupon he appointed a commission to investigate and report. Fray Antonio de Guevara, shortly to be Bishop of Guadix, was one of the commissioners and, in a letter to a friend, he describes the Moriscos as offering so much that required correction that it had better be done in secret, rather than by public punishment; they had been so ill-taught, and the magistrates had so winked at their errors, that remedying it for the future would be enough without disturbing the past.[900] This shows the spirit in which the commission performed its work; the incriminated priests and officials had turned the tables on their accusers, who were now defendants. The report of the commission confirmed the complaints of ill-usage, but stated that among the Moriscos there were not to be found more than seven true Christians. This was submitted to a junta, presided over by Inquisitor-general Manrique, and the result was an edict known as that of 1526. It granted no relief from oppression, but concerned itself with the apostasy of the Moriscos, which it sought to cure, not by instructing them, but by rendering their condition still more intolerable. In violation of promises, the Inquisition of Jaen was transferred to Granada. Amnesty for past offences was granted, and a term of grace was provided for those confessing voluntarily, after which the laws against heresy were to be rigorously enforced, although for some years fines were substituted for confiscation and time was allowed in which the penitents could earn them.[901]

GRANADA

This was supplemented with a series of most vexatious regulations, prohibiting the use of Arabic and of Moorish garments and of baths; Christian midwives were to be present at all births; disarmament was enforced by a rigid inspection of licences; the doors of Moriscos were to be kept open on feast-days, Fridays, Saturdays and during weddings, to prevent the use of Moorish ceremonies; schools to train children in Castilian were to be established at Granada, Guadix and Almería: no Moorish names were to be used and Moriscos were not to keep gacis or unbaptized Moors, whether free or slave.[902] This naturally caused great agitation; the Moriscos held a general assembly and raised eighty thousand ducats to be offered to Charles for a withdrawal of the edict. His advisers were doubtless propitiated and, before leaving Granada, he suspended it during his pleasure and permitted the carrying of a sword and dagger in the towns and of a lance in the open country. A special tax, known as farda, probably dates from about this period, under which the use of Moorish garments and language was permitted and, in 1563, we chance to learn that this amounted to twenty thousand ducats per annum.[903]

It would seem that, for awhile, the Inquisition troubled the Moriscos but little for, in its first general auto, held in 1529, out of eighty-nine culprits, while there were seventy-eight for Judaism there were but three for Mahometanism, and one of these was in effigy.[904] Still it provoked disquiet and, in 1532, Captain-general Mondéjar suggested to Charles its suspension, since it had done nothing and could find nothing against the Moriscos. This was unfortunate, for it stimulated the tribunal to greater activity against them, leading to numerous offers on their part to Charles and, after his abdication, to Philip II, of liberal payments for relief. Charles’s necessities prompted him to listen to these propositions, but the Inquisition managed to prevent their success, while Philip of course turned a deaf ear to them. Even Inquisitor-general Valdés, in 1558, during his disfavor at court, seems to have taken a hand in these negotiations, for we find him promising a subsidio of a hundred thousand ducats from the Moriscos of Granada.[905]

The condition of the Moriscos was steadily growing worse, and the situation in Granada was becoming dangerously explosive. The Inquisition was more active than ever; all the old oppressions by the priests and judicial officers continued unchecked, and a new source of intense irritation was the progressive spoliation of their lands by “judges of boundaries” who, in the name of the king, deprived them of properties inherited or purchased—in short, they were gente sin lengua y sin fabor—friendless and defenceless.[906] Then, in 1563, an old order to present to the captain-general all licences to bear arms was revived under a penalty of six years of galleys.[907] In 1565 a fresh source of trouble was created by extending the royal jurisdiction over the lands of the nobles, in which many Moriscos, who in years past had committed crimes, had sought asylum. Eager for fees, the notaries and justices searched the records and made arrests, until there was scarce a Morisco who did not live in daily fear. Many took to the mountains, joining the bands of monfíes, or outlaws, and committing outrages, while the measures taken for their suppression only increased the disorder.[908]

The condition of Granada was one which required firmness and conciliation, but infatuation prevailed in Philip’s court, and the occasion was seized to aggravate irritation beyond endurance. Guerrero, Archbishop of Granada, in returning from Trent in 1563, had tarried in Rome, where he lamented to Pius IV that his flock was Christian only in name. Pius sent by him an urgent message to Philip, reinforced by orders to his nuncio, the Bishop of Rossano, to the same purport. Guerrero, on reaching home, assembled a provincial council in 1565, in which he endeavored to restrain the oppression of the Moriscos by the ecclesiastics, but his chapter appealed from the conciliar decrees and the effort was nugatory. He had more success in inducing the bishops to join in urging upon the king the adoption of measures to prevent the Moriscos from concealing their apostasy, and he wrote to Philip, begging him to purify the land from this filthy sect; it could readily, he said, be found who were really Christians by prohibiting the things through which their rites were kept from view.[909]

GRANADA

Philip referred Guerrero’s memorial to a junta presided over by Diego de Espinosa, recently made President of Castile and soon to be inquisitor-general. It reported that, presuming the Moriscos to be Christians by baptism, they must be compelled to be so in fact, to which end they must be required to abandon the language, garments and customs of Moors, by reviving the edict of 1526, and this was solemnly charged upon the royal conscience. Philip thereupon consulted privately Dr. Otadui, professor of theology at Salamanca, and shortly to be Bishop of Avila, who, in his reply, told the king that, if any of the lords of the Moriscos should cite the old Castilian proverb “The more Moors the more profit” he should remember an older and truer one, “The fewer enemies the better” and combine the two into “The more dead Moors the better, for there will be fewer enemies”—advice which, we are told, greatly pleased the monarch, in place of opening his eyes to the policy which was converting his subjects into his enemies.[910]

A pragmática was speedily framed, embodying the most irritating features of the edict of 1526, and Pedro de Deza, a member of the Suprema and of Espinosa’s junta, was appointed president of the chancellery of Granada and sent there, May 4, 1566, under orders to publish and enforce it without listening to remonstrances. It illustrates Philip’s method of government that Captain-general Mondéjar, although at the court, was not even apprised of the measure, until an order was conveyed to him through Espinosa to return to Granada and be present at the publication. He was captain-general by inheritance, being grandson to the Tendilla placed there at the conquest; he had lived in Granada from his boyhood, he had been captain-general for thirty years and was thoroughly familiar with the situation. He represented that Granada was destitute of troops and of munitions, and he begged either that the measure be suspended or that he be furnished with forces to suppress the revolt that he foresaw to be inevitable. It was in vain; Espinosa curtly told him to go to his post and mind his own business and, although the Council of War supported him, he was given only three hundred men to guard the coast, where he was ordered to reside during certain months and to visit frequently.[911]

Deza reached Granada, May 25, 1566, where he at once assembled his court and had the pragmática printed to be in readiness for publication on January 1, 1567, the anniversary of the surrender of the city, as though to create additional exasperation. Its provisions were sufficiently exasperating in themselves. After three years the use of Arabic was absolutely prohibited, in speech and writing; so were Moorish garments after one year for silken and two years for woollen; house doors were to be kept open on Friday afternoons, feast-days and marriage celebrations; zambras and leilas, though not contrary to religion, were forbidden on Fridays and feast-days; the use of henna for staining was to be abandoned; Moorish names were not to be used; all artificial baths, public and private, were to be destroyed, and no one in future was to use them.[912] Provisions for instructing the Moriscos in the faith were conspicuous by their absence.