The History of the Inquisition of Spain from the Time of its Establishment to the Reign of Ferdinand VII.

by Juan Antonio Llorente

In 1598, the Inquisitors of Seville went to the metropolitan church, with the president and members of the royal court of justice, to attend the funeral of Philip II.; they pretended that they ought to precede the judges, who resisted, and the inquisitors excommunicated them in the church. The king's attorney protested against this act, and the scandalous scene which ensued may be easily conceived. The judges repairing to the place where they held their sessions, declared that the inquisitors had used violence in proceeding against the law, and passed a decree commanding the inquisitors to take off the excommunication. The inquisitors did not obey the order, and the judges repeated it, with the threat of depriving them of all civil rights, and condemning them to banishment and confiscation. Philip III. disapproved of the conduct of the inquisitors, commanded them to take off the excommunication and repair to Madrid, where they were confined to the city. In the December following, the king issued a decree, importing that the inquisitors should only take precedence in the ceremony of the auto-da-fé. The inquisitor-general Portocarrero was deprived of his office, and banished to his bishopric of Cuença.

In 1622 the town of Lorca, which was within the jurisdiction of the Inquisition of Murcia, appointed a familiar of the holy office to be the collector of a tax upon the sale of goods called Alcabala. The man refused the employment, but his representations were not admitted, upon which the inquisitors excommunicated the judge of Lorca, and required the assistance of Don Pedro Porres, the corregidor of Murcia, to take him to their prisons. On his refusal, they excommunicated him also, and decreed that divine service should cease in all the churches of Murcia. This measure threw the inhabitants into the greatest consternation, and they entreated their bishop, Don Antonio Trejo, to interpose his authority. This prelate remonstrated with the inquisitors; but not succeeding, in order to tranquillize the people, he published a mandate, announcing that he was not obliged to submit to the interdict, or to the order for the cessation of divine service. Don Andres Pacheco, the inquisitor-general, condemned the mandate, and ordered this measure to be proclaimed in all the churches of Murcia. At the same time he imposed a penalty of eight thousand ducats on the bishop, and cited him to appear within twenty days at Madrid, to answer the complaint preferred against him, by the fiscal of the Supreme Council, on pain of another penalty of four thousand ducats. The bishop and the chapter of his cathedral sent the dean and a canon to Madrid as his deputies. The inquisitor-general excommunicated them, without hearing their defence, and threw them into separate prisons, and at the same time caused this excommunication to be announced in all the pulpits of Madrid. The inquisitors also excommunicated the Curé of St. Catherine, who refused to submit to this interdict without an order from his bishop. The king and the Pope were at last obliged to interfere, they re-established the bishop in his rights; but this act of justice did not destroy the cause of the evil which was complained of.

In the same year, the Inquisitors of Toledo excommunicated the sub-prefect of that city, who had seized and sentenced a butcher as a thief, and convicted him of having sold bad meat with false weights: the inquisitors pretended that the culprit came under their jurisdiction, because he furnished the holy office with meat, and they accordingly required that the prisoners and the writings of the trial should be given up to them. Their demand was refused, because the offence was committed in the exercise of a public profession. The inquisitors then published the excommunication in all the churches of Toledo; they imprisoned the usher and the porter of the sub-prefect for having obeyed their master, and they remained in prison several days; they were then subject to the punishment of having their beards and hair shaven, which was at that time considered infamous, and to appear in the chamber of audience without their shoes and girdles; they were examined on their genealogy, to discover if they were descended from the Moors or Jews; they were made to repeat the catechism as if they were heretics, and were then condemned to perpetual banishment; the inquisitors even refused to give them a certificate, to show that they had not been condemned for heresy. The compassion excited by the fate of these unfortunate men was so general, that the people rose against the Inquisition; but some persons of high rank, and who were devoted to the public good, succeeded in appeasing the tumult. The king being informed of what had passed by the Council of Castile, appointed an extraordinary commission of eleven members selected from his councils; they passed several resolutions against the inquisitors, which had only the effect of correcting the present disorder, without entirely destroying the evil.

In the following year, the Inquisitors of Grenada excommunicated Don Louis Gudiel de Peralta, and Don Mathias Gonzalez; the first a member of the royal civil court, and the other the king's procurator in the same court. They condemned as heretical two works of these excellent jurisconsults, in which they defended the rights of the royal jurisdiction in all cases of competence. The Council of Castile respectfully remonstrated with the king, and showed that the inquisitors acted in opposition to Instructions to the holy office of 1485, which directed them to consult the king in affairs of this nature. In order to remedy this abuse, a committee was appointed in 1625, to decide upon all difficulties which might arise on this subject. This committee did not exist long, but it was re-established in 1657.

In 1530, the Inquisitors of Valladolid behaved with still greater insolence. The bishop of that city (who was at the same time president of the royal chancery) was to officiate pontifically in a solemn mass. The inquisitors chose that day to publish the edict of denunciations; and asserting that their power as inquisitors was superior to that of the bishop, they attempted to take away the canopy which was raised when the prelate officiated. The canons resisted, and the inquisitors sent some of their officers to the church, who arrested Don Alonso Niño the chanter, and Don Francis Milan a canon; they carried them away in their canonical robes, and deposited them in that dress in the prisons of the holy office. The Council of Castile made a representation to the king on this event, which was the origin of the convention of the following year, known as that of Cardinal Zapata. Several resolutions were passed, and it was decided that censures should only be employed in cases of emergency; but this had little effect on the inquisitors. Much more would have been done, if the king had taken the advice of the Council of Castile, which (after giving an account of evils arising from the system of the inquisitors) recommended, that he should allow the other tribunals to proceed against them for abuse of power. This advice was addressed to the king by his councils, in the consultations of the year 1634, 1669, 1682, 1696, 1761, and in several others, when the Inquisition of Spain prohibited works in which the privileges of the crown were defended, particularly that of Don Joseph de Mur, president of the royal court at Majorca. It was printed in that island in 1615, and called, Allegations in favour of the King, on the Conflicts for Jurisdiction which have arisen between the Royal Court of Justice and the Tribunal of the Inquisition of Majorca.

In 1634, another contest took place on the subject of competency, concerning certain taxes which had been received from an inhabitant of Vicalboro, near Madrid. The inquisitors of Toledo excommunicated a judge of the royal court, and of the king's court, and committed the greatest excesses against the authority of the Council of Castile, which, impressed with a sense of its dignity, as the Supreme Senate of the nation, commanded the Dean-inquisitor of Toledo to repair to Madrid, to answer in person the charges brought against him, and threatened, in case he refused, to deprive him of his property and temporal rights. It also condemned a priest, the secretary of the holy office, to banishment and confiscation, and ordered the Inquisitor of Madrid to give up the prisoners and the writings of the trial to the chamber of judges of the court. The council made an address to the king, requesting him to forbid the inquisitors the use of censures, and to deliver his people from the oppression under which they suffered. The king merely renewed the prohibition of employing excommunication without an absolute necessity, and decreed that it should never be employed against judges without a particular permission. This ordinance shows the neglect or contempt into which the Convention of Cardinal Zapata had fallen, only three years after it had been established.

In 1640 the Inquisitors of Valladolid had another contest with the bishop, who complained to the king, representing that the permission granted by royal council to print or publish, without suppressing what those authors who depend on the Inquisition write on the privileges of that tribunal, would have the most fatal consequences. This assertion was proved in 1641. Some disputes arose on the subject of competency, between the Inquisition and the Chancery of Valladolid; the Council of Castile was obliged to consult the king several times during the course of the affair, and in one of its memorials stated, that the jurisdiction which the inquisitors exercise in the name of the king is temporal, secular, and precarious, and cannot be defended by the use of censures. The members of the Council of the Inquisition in which Don Antonio de Sotomayor the inquisitor-general presided, carried their presumption so far as to convoke an assembly of ignorant scholastic theologians, all chosen from the monks, to qualify the proposition advanced by the Council of Castile. These qualifiers, eager to display their penetration, divided it into three parts.

"First part. The jurisdiction which the inquisitors exercise in the name of the king is temporal and secular.—QUALIFICATION. This proposition is probable, if considered on the fairest side."

"Second part. The said jurisdiction is precarious.—QUALIFICATION. This proposition is false, improbable, and contrary to the welfare of his majesty."

"Third part. Ecclesiastical censures cannot be employed to defend the said jurisdiction.—QUALIFICATION. This proposition is audacious, and approaching to heresy."