A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4

by Henry Charles Lea

JURISDICTION DIVIDED

Although this conceded only the power of trying without convicting, it was an entering wedge, which the Suprema lost no time in turning to advantage, by stimulating denunciations and making the people believe that it still held jurisdiction. In the Edict of Faith for 1772, therefore, bigamy was included, with the cautious formula “so that the Holy Office may prevent the offences against God committed in this crime.”[679] The royal decree was sent around to the tribunals, with instructions that, when denunciations were received, care was to be taken to see that the accused was not on trial elsewhere. In that case he was to be regularly tried and convicted and made to appear in an auto particular, with the insignia of bigamy and double-knotted halter indicating scourging; he was to be made to abjure and be remanded to prison for two or three weeks of penance and then be handed over to the secular court, so that his subsequent punishment might have the appearance of being merely the execution of a sentence by the tribunal.[680]

While these devices doubtless had the effect designed, the offensive decree of 1770 remained in force and was a standing humiliation which the Suprema strove earnestly to remove. In 1777 it presented a memorial representing that the decree was printed and sold and published in the journals, causing infinite prejudice to religion and giving immense impulse to profligacy and infidelity. It debarred the Inquisition from acting in any cases save those of heresy and apostasy, and even in these it could make no arrests unless guilt was conclusively proved. Since that year, it says, how many have abandoned themselves to solicitation, sorcery and other crimes, believing themselves secure from the Inquisition! How many have allowed themselves to utter propositions impious or heretical, believing that, even when denounced, they could not be arrested until their offences were fully proved—a thing which could rarely or never happen! It is in vain that the Inquisition publishes its yearly Edict of Faith; the impression produced by the cédula is uneffaced and it ought to be called in and suppressed.[681]

This appeal led to a royal declaration of September 6, 1777, to the effect that the cédula of 1770 did not impede the jurisdiction of the Inquisition in cases of which cognizance was reserved to it. As to bigamy, the offence was partitioned between three jurisdictions; the deceit of the woman and the injury of offspring were subjected to the secular courts; the validity or invalidity of the marriage, to the episcopal courts; and heresy as to the sacrament, when it existed, to the Inquisition. The three jurisdictions should coöperate, by each imposing the penalties belonging to it and delivering the culprit from one to another in order that his offences might be verified.[682] This subdivision of a crime into three was too clumsily scientific to be reduced to practice. In appearance it only defined the existing method, but in a shape which enabled the Inquisition to encroach on the secular jurisdiction. As early as 1781, we find that the bigamist, after trial, was handed over to the royal court with a certificate designating him not merely as a convict but expressing the punishment of exile and presidio, thus showing that the tribunal presumed to sentence him to temporal as well as to spiritual penance. In 1791 a case indicates that it even went further, for the Toledo tribunal held an auto particular for Gabriel Delgado, in which his sentence was read, prescribing not only abjuration de levi and spiritual penance, but exile for eight years from Toledo, Madrid and royal residences. The only difference between this and the practice of a century earlier, was a clause that his person was to be delivered to the secular justice.[683]

NUMBER OF CASES

Under the Restoration the Inquisition assumed full jurisdiction over bigamy; the tribunal sentenced the culprit as of old, usually to scourging and presidio or exile, and the Suprema, in confirming the sentence, ordered the scourging omitted on some pretext. Nothing was said about handing the culprit over to the secular courts. They might, if they saw fit, exercise cumulative jurisdiction, and entertain cases that came to them, but, after they rendered judgement, the Inquisition tried the culprits over again and modified the sentence at its pleasure, either to increase or diminish the penalties. Thus, in 1818, the Granada criminal court sentenced Eusebio Reulin to six years of presidio of which one was to be in Africa. Then the tribunal took hold of him, adding spiritual penances and perpetual exile from certain places, and increasing the presidio to ten years, but, when this went for confirmation to the Suprema, it cut down the exile to eight years and the presidio to two. The sentence of the criminal court was treated with the utmost contempt. An exception to this seems to have been made when the army was concerned. In 1817, Eladio de Aragon was tried by the Madrid tribunal and convicted of having three wives; his sentence comprised only abjuration and spiritual penances, after the performance of which he was to be handed over to the captain-general with a copy of his sentence and a recommendation to mercy, in view of his long imprisonment, his confession and the hopes entertained of his amendment.[684] Evidently, in dealing with the army, the Inquisition felt constrained to obey the laws.

Bigamy formed a portion by no means inconsiderable of the current business of the Inquisition. In the Toledo record, from 1575 to 1610, the number of cases is fifty-four, ranking next to those of Moriscos. In the same tribunal, from 1648 to 1794, there were sixty-two cases, being next in number to solicitation. In the sixty-four autos held in Spain from 1721 to 1727, there were thirty-four cases, the only crimes exceeding this being Judaism and sorcery. In the later period, owing doubtless to the interference of the secular jurisdiction and the decadence of the Inquisition, the number falls off, the total in all tribunals from 1780 to 1820 being one hundred and five.[685]

CHAPTER XV.
BLASPHEMY.

BLASPHEMY is a somewhat elastic term but, for our purpose, it may, in a general way, be defined as imprecation derogatory or insulting to the Divinity. Punished with lapidation under the Levitical law, it was, during the Middle Ages, the subject of infinite legislation, both on the part of secular and ecclesiastical lawgivers, and savage punishments, such as boring the tongue with a hot wire, were frequently imposed. Enrique IV, in 1462, prescribed cutting out the tongue, together with scourging or banishment and, in 1476, Ferdinand and Isabella confirmed this.[686] Jurisdiction over blasphemy was cumulative, belonging both to the secular and spiritual courts, and was also within the cognizance of the Old Inquisition, provided it was heretical, but the distinction between non-heretical and heretical was not easy. Eymerich tells us that imprecations reviling God or the Virgin, or expressing ingratitude to him, are simple blasphemy with which the Inquisition has no concern; to give it cognizance there must be a denial of some article of faith, and the repetition of this definition by the Repertorium in 1494 shows that this continued to be accepted as the rule in practice.[687]