A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

Meanwhile, on November 3d, Charles enclosed the papal brief to the inquisitors, with instructions to enforce it without delay. At the same time he notified the authorities, secular and ecclesiastical, that it invalidated all the fueros, privileges and constitutions to which he had sworn; that he had instructed the Inquisition to enforce it, and that the local magistrates, under pain of ten thousand florins, must execute whatever the inquisitors might decree.[965] Having thus made the Moors understand the fate in store for them, on November 25th he issued a general decree of expulsion. All those of Valencia were to be out of Spain by December 31st, and those of Catalonia and Aragon by January 31, 1526. As in 1502, there was no exemption promised for conversion, but similarly the obstacles thrown in the way of expatriation showed the real intent of the edict. The Valencians were ordered to register and obtain passports at Sieteaguas, on the Cuenca frontier, and then plod their weary way to Coruña, where they were to embark, under pain of confiscation and slavery, while the nobles were threatened with a fine of five thousand ducats for each one whom they might retain. At the same time was published a papal brief ordering, under pain of excommunication, all Christians to aid in enforcing the imperial decrees, and all Moors to listen without replying to the teachings of the Gospel. Still another edict, which ordered that all Moors must be baptized by December 8th, or be prepared to leave the country, showed by implication that conversion would relieve from exile. Then the Inquisition gave notice that it was prepared to act, and it published tremendous censures, with a penalty of a thousand florins, against all failing to aid it against those who obstinately resisted the sweetness of the gospel and the benignant plans of the emperor.[966]

When the alfaquíes reported the failure of their mission, the great bulk of the Valencian Moors submitted to baptism. Fray Antonio de Guevara, who was foremost in the work, boasts that he baptized twenty thousand families, but the Moriscos subsequently asserted that this wholesale conversion was accomplished by corraling them in pens and scattering water over them, when some would seek to hide themselves and others would shout “No water has touched me!” They endured it, they said, because their alfaquíes assured them that deceit was permissible, and that they need not believe the religion which they were compelled to profess.[967] Many hid themselves; some took refuge in Benaguacil which surrendered, March 27th, after a five weeks’ siege, but the Sierra de Espadan was the scene of a more formidable revolt, which was not subdued until September 19th, with considerable slaughter. Others again betook themselves to the Sierra de Bernia, to Guadalete and Confridas, but these mostly succeeded in escaping to Africa. Thus was Valencia converted and pacified; the Moriscos, we as may now call them, were disarmed, the pulpits of their alfaquíes were torn down, their Korans were burnt, and orders were given to instruct them competently in the faith—orders, as we shall see, perpetually reissued and never executed.[968]

VALENCIA

In Aragon, before the edicts, premonitions of the future had aroused much agitation. The Moors ceased to labor in the fields and shops, causing great anxiety as to impending famine. The Diputados were called upon to act and, while preparing to send envoys to Charles, they gave to the Count of Ribagorza, who chanced to be at the court, a memorial addressed to him. This appealed to the solemn oaths taken by him and Ferdinand; it represented that the whole industry and prosperity of the land rested upon the Moors, who raised the harvests and produced the manufactures, while the incomes of churches and convents, of benefices and the gentry, of widows and orphans, were derived from their censos or loans. They were practically the slaves of their feudal lords, to whom they were obedient, and they had never been known to pervert a Christian or cause scandal; they lived at a distance from the coast, so that they could hold no intercourse with Barbary, and the law punished by enslavement all attempts to leave the kingdom; their expulsion would cause ruin while, if converted, they would be enfranchised and enabled to go abroad. As they had ceased to sow their lands, immediate relief of their fears was necessary to avert a famine. Ribagorza’s influence procured a brief delay, but Charles’s practical reply was a proclamation, published in Saragossa December 22d, forbidding any Moor to leave the kingdom, prohibiting all purchases of property from them, closing their mosques and abolishing their public shambles.[969] This increased the alarm, and risings occurred in some places, followed by others after the publication of the edict of expulsion, but they were not serious. The date of expulsion was postponed until March 15, 1526, and, as it approached, there were other risings, but they were readily suppressed; the Moors were disarmed and, as a whole, they submitted to baptism.[970]

The whole Morisco population was now at the mercy of the Inquisition, but every consideration, both of policy and of charity, dictated a tolerant exercise of power, until they could be instructed and won over to their new faith. This the Suprema recognized by ordering that they should be treated with great moderation.[971] Possibly this may explain the absence of trials for heresy by the Valencia tribunal in 1525 and 1527, but, in the intermediate and subsequent years, there is no abatement in its activity, which was not only in disobedience of the commands of the Suprema, but a direct violation of the Concordia, agreed to January 6, 1526, although not published until 1528.

This Concordia was the result of the labors of the alfaquíes sent to the court in 1525. It was granted with the consent of Inquisitor-general Manrique; it was solemnly confirmed by Charles in the Córtes of Monzon, in 1528, when it was declared to comprehend all the kingdoms of the crown of Aragon, but when it was published by the Bayle-general of Valencia, under orders from Charles, Manrique rebuked him for so doing. Its main provisions are worth reciting if only to show the questions arising and as an instance of the faithlessness habitually shown to the Moriscos, for scarce one of the articles favorable to them was observed.

It set forth that the new converts could not at once abandon the Moorish ceremonies, which they observed rather through habit than with intention, and that prosecution by the Inquisition would be their total destruction, wherefore the Inquisition should not proceed against them for forty years, as had been granted to the Moors of Granada. As for their garments, they might wear out those existing, but new ones must be made in the Christian fashion. As most of the men and all the women could speak only Arabic, they could use it for ten years, during which time they must learn Castilian or Valencian. New cemeteries were to be consecrated for them, near the mosques now converted into churches. Dispensations were to be granted by the legate or the pope for all existing marriages and betrothals within the prohibited degrees, but future ones must conform to the canons. To the request that their arms should be restored to them, the answer was that they should be treated like other Christians. To the argument that they could not pay the old tributes and imposts, if they were forbidden to work on feast-days, nor was it reasonable that they should be prevented from changing domicile, the equivocal reply was that they should be treated like other Christians, but without prejudice to third parties. There was also permission to continue as corporations the old Morerías in royal territory. All this Charles guaranteed for himself and for Prince Philip, and ordered its strict observance by all officials, from the highest to the lowest, under pain of the royal wrath and a fine of three thousand ducats.[972]

VALENCIA

The Inquisition, however, was a law unto itself and was bound by no compacts. In a few months after the promulgation of the Concordia, the Suprema published everywhere a declaration that it referred only to trivial customs and did not condone the use of Moorish rites and ceremonies, and that those who performed them or lapsed from the faith were to be duly prosecuted, to all of which it stated that the emperor acceded.[973] When, therefore, the Aragonese nobles, in 1529, presented remonstrances to Charles and to Manrique, the latter replied that it was their salvation and not their injury that was sought, and that he hoped that God might lay his hands upon them, so that all would eventuate well.[974] The hand of God, as laid upon them through the Inquisition, was not merciful for, in 1531, the Valencia tribunal had fifty-eight trials for heresy, with some thirty-seven burnings in person, most of whom presumably were Moriscos. Saragossa was somewhat milder for, in 1530, it reported that in the last auto it had reconciled a number of Moriscos, commuting confiscation and prison into fines and, in some cases, to scourging; that the fines had been assigned to a cleric who should instruct the penitents, but the receiver had refused to surrender the money, whereupon the Suprema suggested a separate collection of fines and their payment to instructors.[975] Thus the Inquisition went imperturbably on its way and, when the Córtes of the three kingdoms complained that it was notorious that there had been no attempt to instruct the Moriscos, or to provide churches for them, and that it was a great abuse to prosecute them as heretics, Cardinal Manrique unctuously replied that they had been treated with all moderation and benignity and that, for the future, provision would be made, with the assent of the emperor, as best comported with the service of God and the salvation of their souls.[976]

Even more defiantly self-willed was the conduct of the Inquisition with regard to confiscations. We have seen that these were the property of the crown and that, when the Inquisition was allowed to retain the proceeds, it was a concession dependent upon the will of the sovereign. Yet it sturdily set aside the laws of the land and the commands of the emperor, and persisted in confiscating the property of its penitents. The earliest fuero of Valencia, granted by Jaime I after the conquest, provided that, in capital cases of heresy and treason, allodial lands and personal property should accrue to the king, while feudal lands and those held under rent-charge or other service, should revert to the lord. The new Inquisition disregarded this and, in 1488, the Córtes of Orihuela demanded its observance, to which Ferdinand assented. Still the Inquisition persisted and he agreed to the demands of the Córtes of 1510, that he should compound for all lands thus illegally obtained. This was equally fruitless and, in 1533, the Córtes of Monzon repeated the complaint; it was the lords and churches that suffered by the confiscations inflicted on their vassals, and some compromise should be reached as to past infractions of the fuero. To this the answer was equivocal; there was no confiscation and, please God, with the efforts on foot for the instruction of the converts, there would be no necessity for it in the future but, if there should be, provision would be made to protect the lords, and meanwhile a commission could decide as to what would be just for the past.[977]