A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4

by Henry Charles Lea

This perpetual intrusion into all manner of affairs, irrespective of heresy rather increased towards the last. In 1788, Antonio López was prosecuted in Valencia for selling rosaries with bones made of clay as relics. In 1789, Andrés Joáñez, a coachman, for a conversation on a superstitious subject. In 1791, the Carmelite Fray Bonifacio de San Pablo, for attempting to print a satirical paper; Josef de la Rosa, in Cordova, for carrying a consecrated wafer in a relic-bag; Vicente Felerit, in Valencia, for a “vain observance.” In 1795, Don Miguel Catalá, fiscal in Buñol and Josef Sánchez Masquifa, a scrivener, were prosecuted for using, in drafting testaments, the words “diversos atributos,” when alluding to the Trinity. In 1799, Juan Rodríguez, a priest in Santiago, for assisting and performing ceremonies in a mock-marriage. In 1808, Josef Várquez de la Torre, a scrivener of Valencia, for drawing a deed of separation between spouses. In 1818, in Valencia, Vicente Maicas, priest of Cedrillos, for not wanting his parishioners to die in the Franciscan habit.[850] As all these cases presuppose denunciation, they illustrate the popular estimate of the all-embracing powers of the Inquisition and the espionage under which every Spaniard lived.

In fact, there was scarce anything in which the Inquisition did not feel itself authorized to intervene. The latitude with which inquisitors construed their own powers is manifest in their assuming to issue licences to hunt in prohibited places, sometimes for their own benefit and sometimes for that of others. This was an abuse which the Suprema strove to correct by forbidding it in 1527, but it was so persistent that the prohibition had to be repeated in 1530 and again in 1566.[851]

As the Inquisition was supreme within its jurisdiction and claimed the right to define the extent of its powers, there was no one to call it to account for their arbitrary exercise. If any other body in the State felt that its rights were invaded, the only recourse was to the sovereign and we have seen how, under the Hapsburgs, the crown, with scarce an exception, decided in its favor.

BOOK IX.
CONCLUSION.

CHAPTER I.
DECADENCE AND EXTINCTION.

THE Inquisition may be said to have reached its apogee under Philip IV. We have had ample opportunity to see how that pious monarch yielded to its aggressiveness, until it became a virtually independent organization within the State, obeying the royal mandates or not, as best suited its convenience, and engaged in almost perpetual controversies with the other branches of the government, while the king, with rare exceptions, submitted to its exigencies. It is true that, in his financial distress, he compelled the restitution of a small part of the confiscations and that he asserted the royal prerogative of making and unmaking inquisitors-general and of appointing members of the Suprema but, when once he had exercised the power, his appointees acted in independence. It would not be easy to imagine a more complete assertion of irresponsible authority than the sudden arrest of Villanueva—of a leading minister in the absence of the sovereign, at a time of the utmost confusion, when nothing would have been risked by delay, save perhaps that the sovereign might have refused assent. Yet not only did Philip condone this but he threw himself into the persecution of his favorite with such ardor that he could scarce restrain himself from risking a rupture with the Holy See in defence of the Holy Office. Under the disastrous regency of Maria Ana of Austria and the reign of Carlos II, the royal authority almost disappeared and, although this gave such men as Nithard and Valladares opportunity to assert still further the independence of the Inquisition, it also enabled Don John of Austria to banish Nithard and the other governmental departments to emulate its disregard of the royal authority. There was an omen of the future when they united, in 1696, in the Junta Magna, to protest against the encroachments of the Inquisition and to demand its withdrawal into its proper limits, although by dextrous management the attempt was baffled.

The Bourbons.

With the advent of the Bourbon dynasty a new element entered into the political organization of Spain. The absolutism of Louis XIV had embraced the Church as well as the State, and the Gallican theories as to the power of the Holy See were encouraged in order to assure the headship of the crown. It was inevitable that Philip V and his French advisers should entertain very different views as to the relations between the king and the Inquisition from those which had been current for a century. Even at the height of the War of Succession, we have seen how Philip, in the affair of Froilan Díaz, intervened as master and regulated the relations between the inquisitor-general and the Suprema, how he undertook to reform the Inquisition and how, in many ways he curbed its audacity. But for a court intrigue, working through Philip’s uxoriousness, Macanaz might have succeeded in his project of rendering the Inquisition wholly subordinate to the crown, and though the vindictiveness of the Holy Office inflicted on him life-long punishment for the attempt, this did not prevent the continued assertion of the royal supremacy, as we have had occasion to see in repeated instances and in many different directions.