A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

Charles recognized this injustice and his responsibility for it, but he dared not raise a conflict with the nobles, and he sought to shield himself behind the awful authority of the Inquisition. He therefore procured from Clement VII, July 15, 1531, a remarkable brief reciting that, when the Saracens were converted, the barons and knights, in compensation for the loss inflicted on them, were empowered to exact from their vassals the tithes and first-fruits, but they have not only enjoyed these new imposts but have continued to extort the personal services and açofras[1014] and other demands of the ante-conversion period. Thus the converts, unable to endure these accumulated burdens, allege them as justifying their retaining their old customs and disregarding the Christian feasts and ceremonies. As Charles had asked him for a remedy, and as he knew nothing of the matter, he committed it to Manrique with power to hear complaints and render justice, enforcing his decisions with censures.[1015] The rôle of protector of the Moriscos was novel for the Inquisition and Manrique kept the brief until January, 1534, when, in sending Fray Antonio de Calcena and Antonio Ramírez de Haro as commissioners to organize the Morisco churches, he informed them that the king ordered the Concordia to be enforced; the New Christians were in all things to be treated like the Old; they were to investigate secretly and report whether this was the case.[1016] Apparently the Inquisition shrank from the unaccustomed task; there is no trace of its intervention in behalf of the oppressed Moriscos, and its only prosecutions of the nobles were for favoring their vassals against its persecution. As for the Córtes, their sole efforts were directed to increase the burdens of the vassals and, in case of their condemnation, to profit by the confiscations.

Thus they were mercilessly pillaged. Besides the division of the crops, of which one-third or one-half went to the lord, and besides the tithes and first-fruits, there were innumerable imposts of all kinds and forced loans or benevolences. In 1561, one of the numerous consultas on the Morisco question alludes to the hardship of forcing them to live like Christians and pay like Moors. The king, it added, ought to relieve them from these unjust impositions, but it would throw the whole kingdom into confusion and impede the work of conversion, so the commissioners ought to see how it could be brought about that they should pay no more than the Christians. This continued to the end. In 1608, Padre Antonio Sobrino, S. J., argued that one of the chief obstacles to conversion was the tyranny of the lords and, in addition to the exactions in money and kind, he alludes to the forced labors imposed on them, on meagre wages and still more meagre food, or frequently with no wages.[1017] In fact, they were virtually taillables et corvéables à miséricorde, and their oppression was tempered only by the ever-present apprehension of rebellion and, in the coast districts, by the facilities of escape to Africa. Even their ecclesiastical persecutors were almost moved to pity by the hopeless misery of their lot, but we are told that there was no compassion felt for this, as it was generally deemed advisable to keep them impoverished and in subjection.[1018]

The control of the lords over their vassals was further safe-guarded by a pragmática of Charles V, in 1541, forbidding the Moriscos of Valencia, under pain of death and confiscation, from changing either domicile or lord, and any one accepting them as vassals, without special royal licence, was fined five hundred florins, or was scourged in default of the money. Granadan and Castilian Moriscos were threatened with death for entering Valencia and this, in 1545, was extended to those of Aragon. This ferocious legislation was repeated in 1563 and 1586.[1019]

Akin to this was the suicidal policy of forbidding the emigration of those who were recognized as dangerous domestic enemies. This, as we have seen, was begun by Ferdinand and Isabella and was rigidly persisted in—partly, no doubt, from a pious scruple of allowing the baptized to apostatize in Barbary, and partly to protect the lords from the loss of their vassals. In time this was enforced in Aragon by the Inquisition, which published edicts to that effect, including the guidance over the mountains of emigrants by Christians. In the auto of June 6, 1585, the tribunal punished two who were seeking to leave the country and two who served as guides, with scourging and the galleys for three men and scourging and imprisonment for a woman.[1020] Not only was this a grievous hardship, by depriving the oppressed of all hope of relief, but it was a fatal error for, if the discontented had been allowed to expatriate themselves, the remainder could have commanded better treatment, and the Morisco question which, for half a century, distracted Spanish statesmanship, might have settled itself without the desperate expedient of expulsion.

Disarmament was another precaution entailing a grievance which was keenly felt. We have seen it in Granada, and that in Valencia it was a prudent preliminary to enforced baptism in 1525. In the Concordia of 1528, the Moriscos asked that their arms be restored to them, and were told that they would be treated as Old Christians. This promise, like the rest, was broken. The pragmática of 1541, among its other restrictions, included that of bearing arms. This was not enforced and, in 1545, orders were sent to carry it into effect, but the methods suggested show that it was regarded as a dangerous business, and the purpose was abandoned. In 1552, St. Thomas of Vilanova urged that it should be done, and so did Inquisitor Miranda in 1561. Finally, in 1563, the work was done by a sudden simultaneous action of the lords, when the inventories compiled show that, in 16,377 Morisco houses, there were seized 14,930 swords, 3,454 cross-bows and a long list of other weapons, indicating how industriously the Moriscos had provided themselves.[1021]

DISARMAMENT—LIMPIEZA

In Aragon, the matter was confided to the Inquisition. The tribunal of Saragossa issued a decree, November 4, 1559, forbidding the Moriscos from carrying arms, but the nobles appealed to the Suprema and procured its indefinite suspension.[1022] The question was revived, in 1590, but a quarrel with the archbishop on a point of precedence delayed its consideration, and then the troubles of Antonio Pérez distracted attention. Finally, in 1593, Philip II ordered the disarmament, the execution of which was entrusted to the tribunal. Two inquisitors traversed the land and collected 7,076 swords, 3,783 arquebuses, 489 cross-bows, 1,356 pikes, lances and halberds and large numbers of other weapons. Knives were permitted, but these increased in size until they became formidable; after two or three officials of the Inquisition had been killed with them when making arrests, a royal edict of 1603 limited them to a third of an ell in length and required them to be pointless.[1023] The result of these precautions was seen when the edict of expulsion was enforced and the desperate wretches who essayed a hopeless resistance were slaughtered.

The growth of the absurd cult of limpieza brought another hardship of no little moment. At first there was a disposition to exempt Moriscos from its exclusiveness. When, in 1565, Philip II was trying conciliation he ordered that leading and influential Moriscos should be appointed as familiars, and we have seen that Inquisitor Miranda gave commissions to the brothers Abenamir. Paul IV forbade admission to holy orders to the descendants of Jews to the fourth generation and, in 1573, Gregory XIII extended this to the Moriscos, but the Córtes of Monzon, in 1564, had decreed that those trained in the Morisco college of Valencia should be allowed to hold benefices and the cure of souls among their people, and we are told that it graduated some good priests and preachers and doctors of theology.[1024] Yet in time the exclusion became general, and throughout Spain no distinction was made between descendants of Jews and Mudéjares. In a land where a career in office, secular or ecclesiastical, was the ambition of every man who had a smattering of education, this barrier condemned to obscurity able men who naturally devoted their energies to stimulating disaffection and provoking revolt. Navarrete, as we have seen, even thinks that the necessity of the expulsion would have been averted but for this; that the Moriscos could have been Christianized, if they had had the opportunity to identify themselves with the nation and to share in its public life, in place of being driven to desperation and to hatred of religion by the indelible stigma imposed upon them.[1025]