A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

LUTHERANISM

All these were cases of good Catholics, whose prosecution is attributable to a hyperæsthesia of orthodoxy. As regards the real Protestantism, there was necessarily a double duty, one with respect to its literature and the other to its professors. The former will be discussed in the next chapter and it suffices here to point out that although there was as yet no organized censorship of the press, the possession or reading of any of Luther’s books was forbidden, under pain of excommunication, in 1520, by Leo X, in the bull Exsurge Domine, and this was extended to the works of all his followers in the recension of the bull in Cœna Domini by Adrian VI.[1126] We have seen the flurry produced, in 1521, by the dread of the introduction of this literature into Spain, and it would appear that there was a demand for it, or that the German heretics were endeavoring to create one for, in 1524, we hear that a ship from Holland for Valencia, captured by the French and recaptured, was brought into San Sebastian, when two casks of Lutheran books were found in her cargo, which were publicly burnt. Some eight months later, three Venetian galeasses brought large quantities of similar books to a port in Granada, where the corregidor seized and burnt them and imprisoned the captains and crews.[1127] As yet, however, there seems to have been no definite penalty, save the papal censures, for possessing this forbidden literature. We have seen Juan de Vergara simply surrendering what he had; in 1527 we chance to find a commission, issued by the Suprema, to absolve a fraile from the excommunication thus incurred and, in 1528, a similar one for the benefit of the Licenciado Fray Diego de Astudillo.[1128]

As regards heretics in person, the relations of Spain with the Netherlands and Germany, at this period, were too intimate for it to escape their intrusion. The earliest case I have met occurred in 1524, when a German named Blay Esteve was condemned by the tribunal of Valencia.[1129] Again the same tribunal, in 1528, tried Cornelis, a painter of Ghent, for saying that Luther was not a heretic and for denying the existence of purgatory, the utility of masses, confession etc. He had not the spirit of martyrdom but pleaded intoxication and that he had abandoned in Spain the errors which he had entertained in Flanders; he was sentenced to reconciliation and perpetual prison and, in the papers of the trial, there is an allusion to the prosecution of Jacob Torres, apparently another Lutheran. Valencia, in 1529, had another case in the person of Melchor de Württemberg, who came there by way of Naples. He preached in the streets, saying that he had searched the world in vain for a true follower of Christ, and he predicted that in three years the world would be drowned in blood. He was probably an Anabaptist and, when on trial, he admitted that he had visited Martin Luther to learn whether the Lutheran sect possessed the truth. The tribunal referred the case to the Suprema, which replied that, if he held any Lutheran errors, justice should be done; if not, the case was trifling and a hundred lashes would suffice. The papers are imperfect and we can only gather that he denied Lutheranism and escaped with the scourging.[1130]

PERSECUTION ORGANIZED

Cases of this kind were doubtless occurring in the various tribunals, but it was some time as yet before systematic action was taken by the Inquisition. Clement VII addressed a brief, May 8, 1526, to the Observantine Franciscans, empowering them to receive all Lutherans desiring to return to the Church, who were to be reincorporated on accepting salutary penance, and to be absolved and relieved from all the penalties decreed by Leo X and by others.[1131] This was evidently designed for temporary effect in Germany and, although sent to Spain, it was too subversive of the exclusive jurisdiction of the Inquisition to be observed there. The earliest action of the Suprema to protect Spain from the dissemination of the new heresies would seem to be a letter, in 1527, to the provisor of Lugo and to the Dominican provincial and Franciscan guardian there, about the heretics arriving at the Galician ports, and ordering them to enquire after Lutheran books, which they were required to seize.[1132] Coruña was one of the chief ports of commerce with the northern seas, thus calling for special watchfulness, and, though a tribunal had recently been provided for Galicia, apparently on this account, it seems not to have been in working order. Still the heretics continued to come, and the Suprema issued, April 27, 1531, a carta acordada instructing the tribunals to publish special Edicts of Faith requiring the denunciation of persons suspected of holding Lutheran opinions.[1133] Apparently the time had arrived when some definite position with regard to the growing danger had to be taken; there seems to have been doubt felt as to the authority of the Inquisition to deal with it, and as to the policy to be observed towards these heretics, for a brief was procured, July 15th of the same year, from Clement VII empowering Manrique and his deputies to proceed against the followers of Martin Luther, their fautors and defenders, and a clause to this effect continued subsequently to be included in the commissions of the inquisitor-general. The brief moreover extended Manrique’s personal jurisdiction, for this heresy, over archbishops and bishops, although these were not to be arrested and imprisoned; impenitents were to be relaxed, in accordance with the canons, while those who sought reconciliation were to be admitted, with due punishment, and could even be dispensed for irregularity and be relieved of all disabilities and note of infamy.[1134] There was evidently as yet a disposition to treat these new heretics with special tenderness.

For some time as yet the labors of the Inquisition, in the suppression of Lutheranism, were confined to foreigners, the most conspicuous of whom was Hugo de Celso, a learned Burgundian doctor of both laws and author of a serviceable Reportorio de las Leyes, which saw the light at Valladolid in 1538 and again at Alcalá in 1540. In 1532 he seems to have been prosecuted without conviction at Toledo, but fell again under suspicion and was finally burnt in 1551.[1135] It is true that Queen Mary of Hungary, sister of Charles V, did not escape suspicion,[1136] but the earliest undoubted heretic recorded of Spanish blood would seem to be Francisco de San Roman of Burgos. Engaged, while still a young man, in business in the Netherlands, his affairs took him to Bremen, where he was converted and became so ardent a proselyte that, after various adventures, he undertook to convert Charles V at Ratisbon. Persisting in the attempt, he was sent in chains to Spain and, as he refused to recant, there was nothing to do with him save to give him the fiery death that he courted—the first of the few Spanish martyrs to Protestantism. Carranza attended him at the stake and urged him to submit to the Church, but the ferocious crowd pierced him with their swords—a not infrequent occurrence at the autos de fe. We have no dates, but an allusion to Charles’s expedition to Tunis would seem to place his career about 1540.[1137]

Nearly at the same time there appeared another, who was classed as a Lutheran, although he seems to have worked out his heresies independently. All that we know of Rodrigo de Valero rests on the unreliable testimony of González de Montes, who describes him as a wealthy youth of Lebrija, near Seville, suddenly converted from the vanities of the world to an assiduous study of Scripture and the conviction that he was a new apostle of Christ. His special heresies are not recorded, but they led to his trial by the Seville tribunal, which confiscated his property and discharged him as insane. He continued his apostolate and, on a second trial, he was condemned to perpetual prison and sanbenito. Here, in the obligatory Sunday attendance at mass, he contradicted the priest until, to silence him, he was recluded in a convent at San Lucar de Barrameda, where he lay until his death.[1138]

MODERATION

Valero was not without importance, for he was the perverter of Juan Gil, or Doctor Egidio, the founder of the little Protestant community of Seville which came, as we shall see, to an untimely end. Egidio was magistral canon of the cathedral and a man of the highest consideration for learning and eloquence; indeed, he was nominated by Charles V to the see of Tortosa, which was vacant from 1548 to 1553. On his post-mortem trial, in 1559, evidence showed that, as early as 1542, he had preached to the nuns of Santa Clara on the uselessness of external works, denying the suffrages of the saints, and stigmatizing image-worship as idolatry.[1139] A letter of Charles to Valdés, from Brussels, January 25, 1550, shows that Egidio was then on trial in Seville; Charles ordered Valdés to investigate the case personally in Seville and consult him before concluding it, all of which must be done speedily for that church (Tortosa) must be provided with a prelate.[1140]

Charles’s solicitude shows that the matter was regarded as important. Egidio, in fact, was the centre of a little band of Lutherans whom the Inquisition was eagerly tracking. The Suprema wrote, July 30, 1550, to Valdés at Seville, urging him to expedite the case, and adding that it had written to Charles about the arrest of those in Paris and Flanders implicated with Dr. Egidio, and about Dr. Zapata who had delivered Lutheran books to Antonio de Guzman.[1141] Yet when Egidio’s trial ended, August 21, 1552, he was treated with singular moderation. He was obliged publicly to abjure as heretical ten propositions which he admitted to have uttered, subjecting himself to the penalty of relapse for reincidence. Eight more propositions he recanted as false and erroneous, and seven he explained in a Catholic sense—all of these being more or less Lutheran. He was sentenced to a year’s confinement in the castle of Triana and never to leave Spain; for a year after release he was not to celebrate mass and for ten years he was suspended from preaching, confessing and partaking in disputations.[1142] Death in 1556 saved him from a harsher fate, although, as we shall see, his bones were exhumed and burnt in 1560.