It is evident that thus far the episcopal jurisdiction over heresy was not superseded by the inquisitorial, but that both worked in harmony and, between the two, it may be questioned whether the Milanese gained much in escaping the Spanish Inquisition. As the Roman organization perfected itself throughout Northern Italy, Milan naturally was a centre of activity, as a sort of bulwark against the influence of Switzerland. The troubles arising from the inevitable commercial intercourse with the heretics, and the capitulations which provided for the residence of traders on each side, continued to be a source of perpetual anxiety and vigilance. Then the transit of merchandise had to be watched; everything destined for Milan had to be opened and searched for heretic literature, but packages in transmission were allowed to pass through, relying upon examination at the points of destination. Correspondence by mail was also the subject of much solicitude. In 1588 the Congregation of the Inquisition was excited by the news that the heretic Cantons proposed to establish in the Valtelline a school for instruction in their doctrines, whereupon it wrote urgent letters and threatened to cut off all intercourse if the project was not abandoned. In the same year it wrote to the Milanese inquisitor favoring warmly the plan of rewarding those who would capture and deliver to the tribunal heretic preachers and promising to pay for “this holy and pious work” according to the importance of the victims kidnapped, but it uttered a warning that this had better not be attempted in the Grisons, for fear of reprisals that would ruin the Catholic churches and monasteries there. In 1593 the tribunal was reminded that, while the capitulations permitted the residence of heretic merchants from the Grisons and Switzerland, the privilege was confined to them and all others must be prosecuted and punished. As for Milanese who desire to go to Switzerland, returning home several times a year, they are to be watched, and licences are not to be given to reside in places where they cannot have access to Catholic priests. Then, in 1597, there was fresh excitement over an edict of the Three Leagues, prohibiting the residence in the Valtelline of foreign priests and friars. In 1599 the zeal of the Milanese tribunal seems to have provoked reclamations on the part of the Swiss, for the inquisitor was ordered not to molest the heretic merchants but to observe the capitulations strictly. This was doubtless part of an outburst of persecution for, in 1600, orders were given to seize and retain the children of the heretics who had fled to Switzerland.[256]
It is evident that the Milanese tribunal had ample work in protecting the faith from hostile invasion. Its activity continued under the Spanish Hapsburgs until, in 1707, the genius of Prince Eugene won Lombardy for Austria, as an incident in the War of the Spanish Succession. It still existed on sufferance until the eighteenth century was well advanced. In 1771 Maria Theresa foreshadowed the end by ordering that no future vacancies should be filled and by suppressing the affiliated Order of the Crocesignati, whose property was assigned to the support of orphanages. This was followed by a decree of March 9, 1775, declaring that the existence of such an independent jurisdiction was incompatible with the supremacy and good order of the State, wherefore it was abolished and, as the inquisitors and their vicars should die, their salaries should be applied to the orphanages.[257] Thus passed away the oldest surviving Inquisition, which may be said to date from 1232, when we find Fra Alberico commissioned as Inquisitor of Lombardy.
CHAPTER V.
THE CANARIES.[258]
In 1402 Jean de Bethencourt, an adventurer from Normandy, discovered or rediscovered the Canaries and made himself master of the islands of Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Gomera and Hierro. After various changes of ownership, they fell to the crown of Castile, and Isabella undertook the conquest of the remainder of the group, the Grand Canary, Tenerife and la Palma. The sturdy resistance of the native Guanches rendered the enterprise an arduous one, consuming eighteen years, and it was not until 1496 that it was finally accomplished. That Columbus, on his first voyage, took his departure from Gomera indicates the importance assumed by the Canaries in the development of trade with the New World and this, conjoined with their productiveness, as they became settled and cultivated, rendered them a centre of commerce frequented by the ships of all maritime nations, as well as an object of buccaneering raids, in an age when trade and piracy were sometimes indistinguishable. Their proximity to Morocco and the Guinea coast moreover exposed them to attacks from the Moors and gave them an opportunity of accumulating Moorish and negro slaves, whom the piety of the age sought to convert into Christians by the water of baptism. In various ways, therefore, there came to be abundant material for inquisitorial activity, although the Judaizing New Christians, who furnished the Spanish tribunals with their principal business, appear to have been singularly few.
There was no haste in extending the Spanish Inquisition to the Canaries. As early as 1406 a bishopric had been founded in Lanzarote, subsequently transferred to Las Palmas in the Grand Canary, which was regarded as the capital of the group. If the successive bishops, who, with more or less regularity, filled the see, exercised their episcopal jurisdiction over heresy, their labors have left no trace. It is not until the time of Diego de Muros, who was consecrated in 1496, that we have any evidence of such action. That stirring prelate, who held a diocesan synod in 1497, announced, April 25, 1499, that, as inquisitor by his ordinary authority, he would have inquest made in some of the islands into heresy and Judaism and other crimes against the faith. What was the result, we have no means of knowing except a confession made, on May 22d, by Isabel Ramírez, of having taught a superstitious prayer which was regarded as sorcery. It is probable that Bishop Muros was warned that he was invading the jurisdiction of the Holy Office, for he sent the papers in the case to the tribunal of Seville.[259] It is noteworthy that, after the establishment of the Canary tribunal, the bishops and their provisors long continued to use the title of “ordinary” inquisitor, to which no exception seems to have been taken, although elsewhere it was contested and forbidden. The latest occasion of its employment with which I have met occurs in 1672.[260]
It was not until 1505 that the Suprema bethought itself of establishing a tribunal in the Canaries, when Inquisitor-general Deza appointed as inquisitor Bartolomé López Tribaldos. The first entry in his register is dated Tuesday, October 28, 1505, and the earliest record that we have of his activity is in 1507, when there were two reconciliations, one of Juan de Ler, a Portuguese, for Judaism, and the other of Ana Rodríguez, a native, for sorceries, whose sanbenitos were duly hung in the cathedral.[261] What were the exact powers conferred on Tribaldos we have no means of knowing, but they must have been exceedingly limited, and for a long time the tribunal continued to be in close dependence on that of Seville. When, about 1520, Martin Ximenes, fiscal of the Seville tribunal, came to Las Palmas in the combined capacity of precentor of the Cathedral, provisor and inquisitor, he left as his deputy fiscal in Seville Doctor Fernando de Zamora, thus not abandoning that office. Even as late as 1548 we chance to have the record of a consulta de fe held by the Seville tribunal, January 13th, to decide on certain informations and cases sent to it by the Canary inquisitor Padilla. In the affair of Juan Alonso, a Morisco, it was ordered that he should be arrested and tried, when the result was to be reported for action. In that of Juan Fernández, he was to be summoned and examined as to his blasphemy and then be penanced at the discretion of Padilla and the Ordinary. Leonor de Lera was to be arrested and tried and the result be submitted. The case of Diego Martínez had apparently been concluded under Padilla, for the Seville consulta sentenced him to twelve years of galley service.[262] Thus every act, from the preliminary arrest to the final decision, was regulated from Seville. To render the position still more anomalous we hear of an inquisidor ordinario, Alonso Vivas, Prior of the cathedral, commissioned, in October, 1523, to try cases of faith throughout the Grand Canary as he had already done in Telde and Agüimes.[263]
Irregular and imperfect as may have been the organization of the tribunal, it yet managed to accomplish some convictions. In 1510 there was held an auto de fe in which there were three reconciliations for Judaism and one, of a Moorish slave, for reincidence in Mahometan error, while a fifth culprit was penanced for Judaism.[264] Then in 1513 occurred the first relaxation, that of Alonso Fátima, a native Morisco, who had fled to Barbary. This was always deemed sufficient evidence of relapse to former errors, and he was duly burned in effigy. It was probably also to 1516 that may be attributed the first relaxation in person—that of Juan de Xeres of Seville, for Judaism. It shows that the tribunal was indifferently equipped that, when he was sentenced to torture, the physician whose presence was obligatory on such occasions, Doctor Juan Meneses de Gallegas, was required personally to administer it. It was exceedingly severe, extending to eleven jars of water; the accused was unable to endure it; he confessed his faith, was sentenced to relaxation as a relapsed and for fictitious confession, and was executed on Wednesday, June 4th.[265]
Martin Ximenes seems to have performed his duties with commendable energy. He commenced by making an alphabetical register of all the parties denounced under his predecessor, comprising 139 individuals, besides various groups, such as “the Confesos and Moriscos of Lanzarote,” “other Confesos, their kindred,” “certain persons of Hierro” etc., which indicate how slovenly had been the procedure.[266] He made a visitation of Tenerife and la Palma, from which he returned with ample store of fresh denunciations.[267] May 29, 1524, all the dignitaries, civil and ecclesiastical, and all the people were assembled in the church of Santa Ana, where an edict was read commanding them to render aid and favor to the Inquisition, and an oath to that effect was administered. There was also an Edict of Grace, promising relief from confiscation to all who would come forward and confess as to themselves and others; also an Edict of Faith requiring denunciation of errors and specifying the various kinds of blasphemies and sorceries and the distinctive Jewish and Moorish rites; and finally an edict reciting that the Conversos were emigrating and forbidding their leaving the islands and all ship-masters from carrying away suspected persons without licence from him, under the penalties of fautorship and of forfeiting their vessels.[268]
The terror inspired by the activity of Ximenes may be estimated from a single instance. On May 21st, Ynes de Tarifa came before him to confess that when, a couple of months before, she had heard of the burning in Seville of her son-in-law Alonso Hernández and of his brother Francisco, she recalled that after meals Alonso used to read to Francisco out of a book in an unknown tongue and, if she had erred in not denouncing this to the Seville tribunal, she begged to be treated mercifully.[269] The publication of the edicts throughout the islands brought in an abundant store of denunciations, the record for eight months, from September 13, 1524, to May 15, 1526, amounting to 167. They were nearly all of petty sorceries by women, in sickness or love affairs, but with an occasional blasphemy or suspicion of Judaism, and persons of station were not exempted, for the list comprises the Adelantado Don Pedro de Lugo and his wife Elvira Diaz, the Dean Juan de Alarcon, the Prior Alonso Bivas and others of position. The adelantado, in fact, was dead, but the accusation against his memory is sufficiently significant of the prevailing temper to be worth relating. The Bachiller Diego de Funes came forward, by command of his confessor, to state that when Diego de San Martin was holding for ransom a Judío de señal (one obliged to wear a distinctive mark) who had been caught on his way to Portugal, the captive was starving to death because he could not eat meat slaughtered by Christians: de Lugo charitably gave him a sheep to kill according to his rites and even himself ate some of the mutton. These petty cases kept Ximenes busy and he despatched them with promptness; the punishments as a rule were not severe—in one or two cases scourging or vergüenza, but mostly small fines, exile and occasionally spiritual penances.[270]
There were, however, cases in which the faith demanded more exemplary vindication. The island of Grand Canary, from 1523 to 1532, was ravaged with pestilence creating great misery. Among other causes of divine wrath the people included the secret apostasy of the Portuguese New Christians and of the Moorish slaves, and demanded severe measures for its repression. It may have been with an idea of placating God that Ximenes, on February 24, 1526, celebrated the first auto publico general de fe with great solemnity, in which all the nobles of the island assisted as familiars. The occasion was impressive, for there were seven Judaizers relaxed in person and burnt, there were ten reconciliations, of which five were of Moorish baptized slaves, four were for Judaism and one of a Genoese heretic, in addition to which there were two blasphemers penanced.[271]