A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4

by Henry Charles Lea

COMMENCEMENT OF PERSECUTION

Medieval Spain had been little troubled with mystic extravagance. Eymerich who, in his Directorium Inquisitorum, gives an exhaustive account of heresies existing towards the close of the fourteenth century, makes no allusion to such errors, except in his denunciation of his special object of hatred Raymond Lully, to whom he attributes some vagaries of mystic illuminism, and the Repertorium Inquisitorum of 1494 is equally silent.[24] Spiritual exaltation, however, accompanied the development of the fanaticism stimulated by the establishment of the Inquisition and its persecution of Jews and Moors. Osuna, in 1527, alludes to a holy man who for fifty years had devoted himself to recojimiento, or the abstraction of mental prayer, and already, in 1498, Francisco de Villalobos complains of the Aluminados or Illuminati, derived from Italy, of whom there were many in Spain, and who should be reduced to reason by scourging, cold, hunger and prison.[25] This indicates that mysticism was obtaining a foothold and its spread was facilitated by the beatas, women adopting a religious life without entering an Order, or at most simply as Tertiaries, living usually on alms and often regarded as possessing spiritual gifts and prophetic powers. The first of the class to obtain prominence was known as the Beata de Piedrahita. A career such as hers was common enough subsequently, as we shall see, and the discussion which she aroused shows that as yet she was a novel phenomenon. The daughter of a fanatic peasant, she had been carefully trained in mystic exercises and was wholly given up to contemplative abstraction, in which she enjoyed the most intimate relations with God, in whose arms she was dissolved in love. Sometimes she asserted that Christ was with her, sometimes that she was Christ himself or the bride of Christ; often she held conversations with the Virgin in which she spoke for both. As her reputation spread, her visions and revelations won for her the character of a prophetess. Many denounced them as superstitious and demanded her suppression, but Ximenes who, as inquisitor-general, had jurisdiction in the matter, argued that she was inspired with divine wisdom and Ferdinand, who visited her, expressed his belief in her inspiration. In 1510 the matter was referred to the Holy See, and Julius II appointed his nuncio, Giovanni Ruffo, and the Bishops of Burgos and Vich, as commissioners to examine her and to suppress the scandal if it proved to be only female levity. Peter Martyr, to whom we are indebted for the account, was unable to ascertain their decision but, as they discharged her without reproof, it may be assumed that their report was favorable, for it could scarce have been otherwise with such supporters as Ferdinand and Ximenes.[26] Such success naturally stimulated imitation and was the foreshadowing of wide-spread delusion and imposture.

In this case there appears no trace of carnality, but it is the distinguishing feature of another soon afterwards, reported in 1512 to Ximenes by Fray Antonio de Pastrana, of a contemplative fraile of Ocaña “illuminated with the darkness of Satan.” To him God had revealed that he should engender on a holy woman a prophet who should reform the world. He was a spiritual man, not given to women and, in his simplicity, he had written to Madre Juana de la Cruz, apparently inviting her coöperation in the good work. Fray Antonio, who was custodian of the Province of Castile, imprisoned the alumbrado and subjected him to treatment so active that he speedily admitted his error.[27]

Guadalajara and Pastrana were becoming centres of a group of mystics who attracted the attention of the Inquisition about 1521, when it commenced gathering testimony about them. The earliest disseminator of the doctrine appears to have been a sempstress named Isabel de la Cruz, noted for her ability in the exposition of Scripture, who commenced about 1512 and was a leader until superseded by Francisca Hernández, of whom more hereafter. The Seraphic Order of St. Francis naturally furnished many initiates, whose names are included among the fifty or sixty forming the group. The Franciscan Guardian of Escalona, Fray Juan de Olmillos, had ecstasies when receiving the sacrament and when preaching, in which he talked and acted extravagantly. When removed to Madrid, this attracted crowds to watch his contortions and he was generally regarded as a saint; he was promoted to the provincialate of Castile and died in 1529. The Marquis of Villena, at Escalona, was inclined to mysticism, induced perhaps by Fray Francisco de Ocaña, who was stationed there and had prophetic visions of the reform of the Church. Villena, in 1523, employed as lay-preacher Pedro Ruiz de Alcaraz, one of the most prominent of the Guadalajara mystics, who seems to have converted all the members of the household. The name of Alcaraz appears frequently in the trials of the group; he was a married layman, uneducated but possessing remarkable familiarity with Scripture and skilled in its exposition, and he was an earnest missionary of mysticism. When sufficient evidence against him was accumulated, he was arrested February 26, 1524, and imprisoned by the Toledo tribunal. The formal accusation, presented October 31st, indicates that the mysticism, of at least some of the accused, embraced Quietism or Dejamiento to the full extent, with its consequent assumption of impeccability, no matter what might be the acts of the devotee, that mental prayer was the sole observance necessary, that all the prescriptions of the Church—confession, indulgences, works of charity and piety—were useless, and that the conjugal act was Union with God. There was also the denial of transubstantiation and of the existence of hell, which may probably be left out of account as foreign to the recognized tenets of mysticism. The latter, in fact, was presumably an exaggeration of an utterance of Alcaraz, who said that it was the ignorant and children who were afraid of hell, for the advanced served the Lord, not from servile fear but from fear of offending Him whom they loved, and moreover that God was not to be prayed to for anything—principles subsequently approved in S. François de Sales and condemned in Fénelon. There was no spirit of martyrdom in Alcaraz, and the severe torture to which he was exposed would seem a superfluity. He confessed his errors, professed conversion and begged for mercy. His sentence, July 22, 1529, recited that he had incurred relaxation but through clemency was admitted to reconciliation with confiscation, irremissible prison and scourging in Toledo, Guadalajara, Escalona and Pastrana, where he had disseminated his errors. This severity indicates the inquisitorial estimate of the magnitude of the evil to be suppressed but, after ten years, on February 20, 1539, the Suprema liberated him, with the restriction of not leaving Toledo and the imposition of certain spiritual exercises.[28]

FRANCISCA HERNANDEZ

In the ensuing trials, pursued with customary inquisitorial thoroughness, the question of sexual aberrations constantly obtrudes itself and offers no little complexity. That the majority of the Spanish mystics were thoroughly pure in heart there can be no doubt, but spiritual exaltation, shared by the two sexes, had the ever-present risk that it might insensibly become carnal, when those who fancied themselves to be advancing in the path of perfection might suddenly find that the flesh had deceived the spirit. This was an experience as old as mysticism itself, and the eloquent warning which St. Bonaventura addressed to his brethren shows, by the vividness of its details, that he must have witnessed more than one such fall from grace.[29] The danger was all the greater in the extreme mysticism known as Illuminism, with its doctrines of internal light, of Dejamiento, or abandonment to impulses assumed to come from God, and of the impeccability of the advanced adept, combined with the test of continence. Unquestionably there were cases in which these aberrations were honestly entertained; there were numerous others in which they were assumed for purposes of seduction, nor can we always, from the evidence before us, pronounce a confident judgement.

Of the trials which have seen the light several centre around the curious personality of Francisca Hernández, who succeeded Isabel de la Cruz as the leader of the mystic disciples. She seems to have possessed powers of fascination, collecting around her devotees of the most diverse character. We have seen how she entangled Bernardino de Tovar and how his brother, Juan de Vergara, became involved with the Inquisition, after detaching him from her. Francisco de Osuna, the earliest Spanish writer on mysticism and the teacher of Santa Teresa, was one of her disciples and so was Francisco Ortiz, a Franciscan of the utmost purity of heart. A devotee of a different stamp was Antonio de Medrano, cura of Navarrete, who had made her acquaintance in 1516 when a student at Salamanca. She was attractive and penniless but, through a long career, she always managed to live in comfort at the expense of her admirers. Though she claimed to be a bride of Christ, she practised no austerities; she was fastidious in her diet and slept in a soft bed, which she had no scruple in sharing with her male devotees. This required funds and she and Medrano persuaded an unlucky youth named Calero to sell his patrimony and devote the proceeds to support the circle of Alumbrados whom she gathered around her. The episcopal authorities commenced investigations, ending with a sentence of banishment on Medrano, when the pair betook themselves to Valladolid, whither Tovar followed them, and where the Inquisition commenced proceedings in 1519; it was as yet not aroused to dealing harshly with these eccentric forms of devotion, and it merely forbade him and Tovar from further converse with Francisca; this they eluded, the tribunal insisted and Medrano went to his cure at Navarrete. She was kept under surveillance, but her reputation for holiness was such that Cardinal Adrian, after his election to the papacy, in 1522, ordered his secretary Carmona to ask her prayers for him and for the whole Church.

FRANCISCA HERNANDEZ

In 1525 the Inquisition again arrested her; she was accused of suspicious relations with men and, when discharged, was obliged to swear that she would permit no indecent familiarities. Meanwhile Medrano, at Navarrete continued his career as an Alumbrado, holding conversations with the Holy Ghost and declaring himself to be impeccable. In 1526 the Logroño tribunal arrested him and, after nearly eighteen months, he was discharged June 4, 1527, with the lenient sentence of abjuration de levi and such spiritual penance as might be assigned to him. This escape emboldened him to greater extravagance and to renewed devotion to Francisca, leading to another prosecution, in 1530, by the Toledo tribunal. There was evidence of highly indecent character as to their relations, but he stoutly denied it, asserting that he was so favored by God that all the evil women in the world and all the devils in hell could not move him to carnal sin—a grace which came to him after he knew Francisca; he could lie in bed with a woman without feeling desire and it gave him grace to do so with Francisca and to fondle and embrace her, which she enjoyed; he believed her to be free from both mortal and venial sin, and he held her to be a greater saint than any in heaven except Our Lady. Under torture, however, he confessed whatever was wanted—that when he told people that she could not sin, because she was illuminated by the Holy Ghost, it was to spread her reputation and gain money for them both; that he was jealous of all her other disciples, among whom he named Valderrama, Diego de Villareal, Muñoz, Cabrera, Gumiel, Ortiz and Sayavedra and his brother, showing that she had a numerous following. He admitted teaching that male and female devotees could embrace each other naked, for it was not clothes but intention that counted. By this time the Inquisition was dealing harshly with these aberrations, and his sentence, April 21, 1532, excused him from relaxation as an incorrigible heretic because he was only a hypocritical swindler whose object was to raise money for a life of pleasure; he was to retract his propositions in an auto de fe, to abjure de vehementi and to be recluded for life in a monastery, with two years’ suspension from his sacerdotal functions, and was to hold no further communication with Francisca, under pain of impenitent relapse, but he was not deprived of his cure of Navarrete. In 1537 the Duke of Nájera interceded for his release, with what result the records fail to inform us.[30]