An episode of this case is worth recounting in some detail, not only as illustrating inquisitorial methods but as a rare instance of a victim obtaining a measure of satisfaction. Doctor Juan de la Camara, a canon of the cathedral, was a man of noble birth, proud of his unblemished limpieza, and his appointment as visitador of the see of Guadalajara indicates the estimation in which he was held by his superiors. Unfortunately he was a friend and correspondent of Palafox. When, in 1646, a bitter libel was circulated against the latter, one of the judges of the Audiencia, Alonso González de Villalba, was included in it. Palafox endured the attack in silence and endeavored to make Villalba follow his example, but the latter was so incensed that he wrote a reply in which he handled roughly the inquisitor Mañozca. He showed it to his neighbor Camara, who returned it without comment and said nothing about it except to Don Antonio Urrutía de Vergara, to whom he mentioned it in order that he might tell the archbishop, and to a Doña Catalina de Diosdado, to whom he merely said that he had seen two scandalous papers and that, if the author confessed to him, he would not absolve him.
There was a chance that among his papers something might be found to compromise Palafox, so an order of arrest with sequestration of property was made out, February 7, 1647. At eight o’clock in the morning Camara was roused from his bed and taken in his own carriage to the secret prison, where he was confined in a cell of which the window had been blocked up, so that the single candle to which he was restricted was his only light by day and night. Here he was kept incomunicado for twenty days. After the tenth day, however, on which he was examined, the obstructions were removed from the window and, after the twentieth, his brother, Fray Diego, and some other friends were permitted to see him on obtaining a special licence for each visit. Meanwhile his papers had been carried off to the tribunal, without being inventoried as required by the Instructions; on the day after his arrest his household effects were inventoried and placed in the hands of the receiver, Juan González de Castro, as depository, but they were not removed from the house and no care was taken to ensure their safety.
At nightfall of March 15th he was taken back to his house and told that it was henceforth to be his prison, under pain of excommunication and a thousand ducats. On April 1st his prison was enlarged to the city, under the same penalties, and he was enabled to resume his duties at the cathedral. Of course the immurement in the secret prison, with sequestration of property, of so prominent an ecclesiastic, caused a general sensation; it was at the height of the prosecution of the Judaizers and the inevitable conclusion was that they had implicated him, so that a stain was cast upon his honor which no subsequent exculpation could wholly efface. His papers were withheld from him; his house had been richly furnished, with abundance of silver plate and linen, much of which had disappeared, and he seems to have deplored especially the loss of eighteen ounces of amber. His trial remained unconcluded and his repeated applications for a decision and for the restoration of missing property were filed away without action. His only hope of escape from prolonged and intolerable suspense lay in appealing to the Suprema. The inquisitors had already sought to prejudice it against him for, in a letter of May 20th, they spoke of the incredible efforts and diabolical means employed to intimidate them from the performance of their duty in the matter of Palafox; Camara was an accomplice of Villalba in publishing the libel; he had perjured himself in his confessions and might be assumed to be the author of the worst passages in it. In spite of this the Suprema, by a decree of September 28, 1647, ordered his release, on the security of his oath, and the sequestration of his property to be removed.
Camara succeeded in secretly obtaining from the king an order, November 16, 1647, permitting him to go to Spain, but he was impoverished and sent his brother, Fray Diego, to act for him. The mission occupied Diego for several years, but he finally procured from the Suprema a commission to the Inquisitor Higuera to try the case promptly for, during all this time, it had been held suspended over Camara’s head. This was presented, February 15, 1650, and, on the following July 12th, Higuera, who was at odds with Mañozca, rendered a sentence acquitting him and restoring him to his previous good fame, so that his arrest should work no prejudice to him or to his kindred and their descendants; also that the chapter should pay him all the accrued fruits of his prebend and that his papers and property should be returned to him. From this Camara appealed to the Suprema, which confirmed it, July 7, 1651; then the fiscal of the Suprema appealed and it was again confirmed, July 31st. The whole prosecution was thus stamped as being malicious and groundless, but nevertheless Camara in vain endeavored to regain possession of his papers and of his missing effects.
Archbishop Mañozca died in 1653; the affair of Palafox had created no little scandal in Spain and, in 1654, a new visitador, Pedro de Medina Rico, was sent out with instructions especially to investigate it. Camara promptly set forth his grievances, in September, in a complaint against Estrada and Higuera—for apparently Mañozca, as the subject of the libel, had not sat in the trial. On December 1st he made his formal charges in a criminal action against them, laying his damages at 12,000 pesos, which he claimed to be the amount which the affair had cost him in losses and expenses. It was a bold undertaking and probably unexampled, and he found it impossible to secure the necessary legal assistance for, on January 20, 1655, he represented that none of the procurators of the Audiencia would serve him, wherefore he prayed for an order on Juan de Escobar to appear for him. It was granted and enforced with a penalty of fifty pesos, under pressure of which Escobar took charge of the case. In the same way his witnesses refused to appear until he procured orders on them, with censures for disobedience. The action went slowly on through its various stages; the inquisitors made no effort to justify what they had done and confined their defence to alleging that the affair was a cosa juzgada, which could not be reopened, and to interjecting appeals to the Suprema at every adverse interlocutory decree. It was not until May 31, 1656, that Medina Rico pronounced sentence to the effect that Camara had proved his case completely and that Estrada and Higuera had alleged nothing to palliate their grave offence, the punishment of which he reserved for future decision. As to what affected the interest of the plaintiff, he condemned them jointly and severally to pay him two thousand pesos. The receiver, or depository, was ordered to restore to him everything shown in the inventory and, if it appeared that articles were not deposited with him, the inquisitors must make them good under penalty of a thousand pesos. From this the inquisitors appealed and, after protracted argument, Rico suspended the order to pay the two thousand pesos until the Suprema should decide the appeal, but that the rest of the sentence should be executed without awaiting its action. Then followed a long and confused litigation with the executor of the receiver de Castro, who had been dead for many years and his estate distributed. The documents preserved end with November 14, 1657, at which time they were made up for transmission to the Suprema and what was its final decision cannot be told.[506] It is evident that Camara obtained little compensation for his sufferings, but at least he had the satisfaction of seeing his persecutors punished, although inadequately, for official offenders were always treated tenderly by the Inquisition. Medina Rico, as the result of his visitation, formulated hundreds of charges against them, collectively and individually, and rendered sentence, May 17, 1662, in the audience-chamber, where all the officials were assembled. Estrada was condemned to severe reprimand, to a fine of 1500 pesos and to four years’ suspension, though, as he had died October 26, 1661, the penalty fell only on his heirs. Higuera was sentenced to a fine of a hundred pesos and two years’ suspension, which he endured until May 16, 1664. Mañozca was visited more heavily with a fine of 1300 pesos and nine years of suspension.[507] This he could afford to disregard for, in the autumn of 1661, he had been provided with the bishopric of Santiago de Cuba whence, in 1666, he was transferred to that of Guatemala and finally, in 1675, he obtained the wealthy see of Puebla, from which he had driven Palafox. Retributive justice, however, at last overtook him, for he died before he could take possession.[508] Such were the men who largely filled the tribunals and episcopates of the Colonies.
Among the privileges claimed by the Inquisition was exemption from military service. This was strictly limited by the Concordia of 1633. Officials holding commissions from the inquisitor-general were exempted from appearing in the general musters, but familiars were not, unless actually on duty for the tribunal and, if the enemy was in sight, all were liable to service, save those necessary to guard the papers and records of the tribunal, to whom certificates were to be given. As might be expected, however, little respect was paid to these provisions. In 1685, the alcalde of Puebla called a muster of the citizens to march to the succor of Campeachy. Hipolito del Castillo, alguazil and familiar, claimed exemption, to which he was clearly not entitled. The alcalde threatened to send him on a mule to Campeachy and in effect threw him into prison, placed his head in the pillory and made him pay a fine of 120 pesos. The commissioner at Puebla defended Castillo and, on appeal to the Inquisition, it ordered the money to be returned. Again, in 1718, when eight companies of merchants were formed in Puebla, by order of the viceroy, to make the rounds of the city and drive out malefactors, Martínez de Castro, a familiar and trader, was enrolled; he protested and appealed to the Inquisition, which ordered his discharge, in which the authorities immediately acquiesced.[509]
The inquisitorial function of censorship was by no means neglected. Even before the establishment of the tribunal, it was felt necessary to guard the faithful from the infection of heretical books and, in 1561, Inquisitor-general Valdés sent to Archbishop Montufar a commission empowering him to examine the book-shops for that purpose.[510] This conveyed no censorial power, but Páramo proudly asserts that, almost at the inception of the Holy Office, calificadores were appointed who exercised a most vigilant supervision over all books introduced into the colony, even over those which had passed the examination of the Suprema itself, and who occasionally had the satisfaction of showing that books widely circulated in Spain required expurgation. In fact, a letter of the Suprema respecting the Index then in preparation shows that, as early as 1573, censures of books were received from Mexico. The position of calificador, like that of inquisitor, seems to have been a stepping-stone to the bishop’s chair, for the first one was Domingo de Salazar, promoted, in 1581, to the archiepiscopate of the Philippines; the second was Bartolomé de Ledesma, who in 1581 became Bishop of Oaxaca, and the third was Pedro de Ribera, who in 1594 was elected Bishop of Panama, but died on the road to take possession.[511] Apparently the office was one not always easy to fill. In a letter of September 1, 1655, the tribunal informed the Suprema that it was in need of correctors of books and calificadores and it sent the genealogy of Padre Juan Hortiz, Rector of the Jesuit College, as a fit person, though he had not studied theology; the tribunal of Logroño thereupon reported favorably as to his limpieza and, on November 11, 1659, after four years of delay, the commission for him was sent.[512] It will be seen from all this that the Mexican Inquisition exercised an independent function of censorship; the earliest printing-press in the New World was established in the city of Mexico and its products were supervised by the tribunal, which condemned them, when necessary, without awaiting a reference to distant Spain. Prohibitory edicts, moreover, emanating from the home censorship, were duly published from every parish pulpit between the Caribbean and the Pacific.[513]
As was the case in Spain, censorship was not confined to literature but extended to works of art which might offend sensitiveness either of modesty or of veneration. The degree to which this might interfere with affairs of daily life depended upon the discretion of the tribunal, as was instanced by an edict of March 2, 1600. This prohibited all crosses, heads of Christ, the Virgin and the saints and scenes from sacred history carved or engraved or painted or embroidered on furniture, bed-clothing, napery, utensils of all kinds, or other places where these sacred symbols might be exposed to disrespect, and everything of the kind was to be surrendered for the erasure of the images. As Spanish piety had luxuriated in the use of such emblems wherever possible, this raised a cloud of questions, which Fray Diego Múñoz, commissioner at Mechoacan, endeavored to settle in instructions issued to his delegate at Querétaro. Thus branding-irons for cattle and horses, that had a cross on them, were to be surrendered; as for beasts already so branded, the marks were to be erased where possible. Men tattooed with crosses or the name of Jesus were to efface them within fifteen days. Thimbles so adorned, if of gold or silver, were to be returned after filing off the symbols. Moulds for pastry with sacred heads were allowable, because the pastry was eaten and not treated with indecency, and it was the same with tapestries and wall-hangings. That the opportunities afforded by this decree were not neglected is indicated in a complaint to the tribunal from Juan Rodríguez of Querétaro, who relates that Fray Francisco de Parra, Guardian of the Franciscan convent, under orders from Múñoz, had seized and carried off to the convent a bedstead of gilt wood, costing 500 pesos, because it had some carved heads, which were not of Christ or angels; also counterpanes, pillows, curtains, towels, etc., because they had crosses or the word Jesus embroidered on them, and finger-rings with five stones set as a cross. Others had suffered in the same way, and Rodríguez prayed for the restoration of the articles.[514]
Incident to the censorship was the visita de navíos, or search of all vessels on their arrival, regarded as an indispensable duty to prevent the importation of forbidden books and the immigration of suspected heretics and Judaizers, as well as to ascertain whether, during the voyage, any one on board had committed acts subjecting him to inquisitorial jurisdiction. As in Spain, this performance inevitably led to friction with the secular authorities of the sea-ports. As early as 1584 there is a prosecution of Hernando de Moxica, alcalde mayor, and of Diego de Yepes, regidor of Vera Cruz, for impeding the commissioner in this work and speaking disrespectfully of it, resulting in a fine of five hundred pieces each, with excommunication until they should withdraw their opposition.[515] Of course it was difficult to control the officials of the tribunal in the matter of fees and to keep the peace between them and the royal representatives as to questions of precedence, points which the Concordia of 1633 endeavored to regulate by fixing the fee at four pesos, of which two accrued to the commissioner and one each to the alguazil and notary, an amount never to be exceeded, no matter how many assistants might be employed, while existing orders were to be strictly observed as to their concurrence with the royal officials.[516] Of course it was not easy for the Inquisition to maintain supervision over so extended a coast. In a consulta of February 15, 1620, the Suprema informed Philip III that there had recently been printed in Holland large numbers of Spanish Bibles to be sent to the colonies and, as the Inquisition was unable to prevent their introduction unaided, the king was asked to instruct the royal officials to exercise greater vigilance. To this he assented and the request was renewed, June 28, 1629. It was probably to meet this that, in 1633, an agreement between the Suprema and the Council of Indies permitted the appointment of an alguazil in Yucatan to aid in searching the ships arriving at the ports.[517]
With the advent of the Bourbon dynasty, there occurs, in Mexico as in Spain, a disposition on the part of the secular authorities to restrain the overbearing petulance and audacity of the Holy Office. It is true that the tribunal obtained a victory in 1712, in a quarrel with the Royal Audiencia which had prosecuted its notary, and it was so overjoyed that it hastened to communicate the fact to the tribunal of Lima so that it might serve as a precedent. It related how the royal cédula of 1640, repeated in 1667 and 1701, had been strictly observed, when the senior judge came to the competencia and occupied the lowest seat and the decision was that the notary was entitled to the fuero of the Holy Office.[518] Though competencias thus commenced to reappear they did not always end so satisfactorily. In 1722, Joseph Freire de Somorostro, commissioner in Zacatapan, was fined 500 pesos and suspended for six years from his functions as an advocate by the royal court, for an offence against its authority. He appealed to the tribunal which, in its customary threatening methods, demanded that the papers in the case be delivered to it within fifteen days, but they were withheld. It succeeded better in the case of Alonso Diaz de la Vega, alguazil of Goamantla who, in 1723, was concerned with his son in a quarrel, in which a man was killed. They were arrested and prosecuted, but the tribunal interfered vigorously, obtained possession of both father and son, gave notice that prosecutors must present themselves within eight days and, as none appeared, discharged the accused—thus affording convincing proof of the advantage of the fuero to criminals. It showed, however, a juster sense of the limitations of its jurisdiction in another case of the same year which illustrates the tendency of its officials to obstruct the secular authorities. The Castellan of Vera Cruz complained to the viceroy of the commissioner, Gregorio de Salinas, who had assisted the mutineers of the fleet in demanding their pay and had defended the asylum of the convent of San Francisco, in which they had taken refuge. The viceroy forwarded the statement to the tribunal, which forthwith ordered the commissioner to desist; the Inquisition had nothing to do with the matter; if he had assembled the officials of the Inquisition with their badges and had taken them to the convent to defend its right of asylum, he had done very wrong and must instruct each of them, before a notary, to keep aloof and he must, in the same way, withdraw the delegated power given to the superior of the convent. It does not appear however that the peccant commissioner was punished in any way for this inexcusable prostitution of the authority of the Holy Office. Another case, in the same year, illustrates the multifarious ways in which these petty local officials abused the mysterious attributes with which they were invested. Valdés la Vandera, commissioner of Valle de Santa Barbara, claimed fees for all interments to which he was invited, even when he did not wear surplice and cap as ordered by the Constitucion Sinodal and, not content with this, charged double fees; he also demanded that, in the assemblies of Corpus, San Pedro and other feasts of obligation, he should have the highest place, in virtue of being commissioner. The clergy complained to the tribunal, which condemned his pretensions and ordered him to desist.[519]