A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

Various causes delayed the publication of the edict until 1599, after Philip III had succeeded to the throne. Great preparations were made for it as for a final experiment; rectors, preachers and commissioners were sent through the land, under detailed instructions from Ribera, who told them that the work was difficult but not impossible; Ribera’s fund was drawn upon for the colleges; the barons were to found schools for the instruction of young children, and a hermandad was organized to place girls in convents or in the families of Old Christians.[1004] The edict was duly published in Valencia, August 22, 1599; its term was for only one year, but it was extended to eighteen months. Philip III eagerly awaited the result, which was conveyed to him in a report of August 22, 1601, by the tribunal. During the eighteen months of the edict, the inquisitors said, only thirteen persons had come forward to take advantage of it and these had made such fictitious confessions, and had so protected their accomplices, that they deserved condemnation rather than absolution; some of them, indeed, had already been denounced to the Inquisition, so that they had evidently been impelled by fear rather than by the desire of conversion. The inquisitors went on to describe the Moriscos as Moors who would always be Moors and, if the Inquisition did not convert them, it at least compelled them to sin with less publicity and thus diminished their evil example.[1005] This failure may be regarded as virtually deciding the fate of the Moriscos. Archbishop Ribera emphasized it in two strong memorials addressed to Philip III, and expulsion came to be recognized as the only solution of the situation, although the vacillation and irresolution of the court postponed for some years the execution of the measure.

VALENCIA

A glance at the tables in the Appendix will show how little influence the successive Edicts of Grace had on the operations of the Inquisition, which reaped its harvests irrespective of them. Yet those tables reveal that, between 1540 and 1563, there were periods during which the tribunal was idle, at least as to cases of heresy. These intervals represent some remarkable efforts to try the effect of moderation, which, although neutralized by lack of coöperative work in winning over the converts, merit examination as measures without example in the career of the Spanish Holy Office.

The nobles of Valencia complained forcibly of the disquiet caused among their vassals by the operations of the Inquisition, and the Córtes petitioned that thirty or forty years might be allowed for their instruction during which they should be exempt from prosecution. Charles assembled a junta of prelates and theologians, which suggested various plans of moderation and conciliation, from among which he selected that of granting a term of grace for past offences, allowing them to confess sacramentally to confessors, and that a period should be provided for their instruction, during which the Inquisition should not prosecute them. This period was liberally fixed at twenty-six years, with the warning that, as they should use or abuse it, it would be extended or shortened. We have seen the failure to provide them with churches and instructors, and it is scarce surprising that they commenced to live openly as Moors, saying that, as they had thirty years in which to do as they pleased, they would take full advantage of it.[1006] This could not be permitted, and the effort to convert by toleration came to a speedy end. The tribunal which had no cases in 1541, 1542 and 1543 resumed operations and had 79, 37 and 49 in 1544, 1545 and 1546—a portion of which, however were undoubtedly the Judaizers prosecuted for revoking confessions (Vol. II, p. 584).

Then, in 1547, came a reversion to a milder policy. A brief dated August 2, 1546, was obtained from Paul III, of so liberal a character that it virtually superseded the Inquisition, by granting faculties to appoint confessors with full power to absolve in utroque foro—both sacramentally and judicially—even those who had been condemned by the Inquisition, and to relieve them and their descendants from all disabilities.[1007] Unfortunately the faculty to appoint confessors was conferred on Antonio Ramírez de Haro, who had for some years been acting as “apostolic commissioner” in Valencia, with extensive powers over everything relating to the Moriscos, but he had, in 1545, left Valencia, on a summons, as Bishop of Segovia, to attend the Council of Trent—from which summons he succeeded in getting himself excused—and had not subdelegated his authority. According to the Archbishop St. Thomas of Vilanova, this made little difference, because the brief was ineffective, inasmuch as it required abjuration de vehementi, entailing relaxation for relapse, to which none of the converts would expose themselves. He, therefore, suggested that more extensive faculties should be obtained, to absolve and pardon without legal forms, seeing that these people had been forcibly converted, that they had never been instructed, and that their intercourse with Barbary indisposed them to Christianity.[1008]

What followed is strikingly illustrative of the procrastination and neglect that rendered Spanish administration so ineffective. The commission of the Bishop of Segovia superseded both the inquisitorial and the episcopal jurisdiction, and his absence left everything in confusion. Archbishop Thomas wrote, April 12, 1547, to Prince Philip that, since the bishop had gone, the Moriscos had daily become bolder in performing their Moorish ceremonies, as there was no one to restrain them; the bishop had left no one to represent him, and no time should be lost in getting him to subdelegate some one who could come at once. Promises were made that a person should shortly be sent, but the habitual mañana postponed it indefinitely. On November 10th, the archbishop again represented the complete liberty enjoyed by the Conversos, with no one empowered to correct them, but his representations were neglected and, in 1551 and 1552, he was still calling for some one authorized to keep the Moriscos in order. Even when, in 1551, the Bishop of Segovia, who still retained his commission, appointed the Inquisitor Gregorio de Miranda as a delegated commissioner, he granted him no inquisitorial power, and the Valencia Moriscos remained, for ten years longer, free from persecution.[1009]

OPPRESSION

This anomalous condition explains why the tables show only a few cases in 1547, 1548 and 1549, and then an entire cessation up to and including 1562, the former being probably the unfinished work of previous years. In 1561, Paul IV empowered Valdés to grant faculties to the Archbishop of Valencia and his Ordinary to reconcile secretly the New Christians: in those cases which could be judicially proved, the confessions were to be made before a notary and delivered to the tribunal, where they remained of record against both the penitent and his accomplices, while in cases that could not be proved, the penances were to be purely spiritual.[1010] This fresh experiment indicates a revival of interest in the Morisco question, to be necessarily followed by a return to the old methods. In 1562, accordingly, the tribunal began to act in Teruel, where the town of Xea had the reputation of an asylum for malefactors; it was exclusively Morisco, no Old Christian being permitted to reside there. Finally, all restrictions were removed and, in 1563, the Inquisition was vigorously at work, with sixty-two cases, and held two autos, in which appeared nine cases from Xea.[1011] After that there was no further interference with its functions, and it continued to the end to contribute its share to rendering Christianity odious. What Archbishop Ayala thought of its influence in this direction is indicated by his offer, in 1564, to undertake the instruction of the Moriscos at his own expense, but only on condition that the Inquisition should have nothing to do with them, except in cases of open and defiant sin.[1012]

Even without the aggravation of the Inquisition, the condition of the Moriscos was deplorable. They had been promised, in return for baptism, that they should have all the privileges of Christians, but this, like all other pledges, was made only to be broken. Enforced conversion had added to their burdens and had brought no compensatory relief—they were Christians as regards duties and responsibilities, but they remained Moors in respect to liabilities and inequality before the law. In 1525 the syndics of the aljamas pointed out that, in order to enjoy their religion, they had been subjected by their lords to many imposts and servitudes which they could not render as Christians, for they would not be allowed to work on Sundays and feast-days, wherefore they asked to be taxed only as Christians. To this it was replied, in the Concordia of 1528, that they should be treated as Christians and that, to avoid injury to parties, investigation should be made to prevent injustice. Their lords, however, did not admit this and, in the same year, the Córtes of Valencia declared that they retained all their rights over their vassals, who were forbidden to change their domiciles.[1013] The lords accepted the tithes and the first-fruits as a compensation, but merely added these fresh burdens on their vassals, who were powerless to resist.

EXACTIONS