The queen commissioned D. Diego Alphonso de Solis, Bishop of Cadiz, Diego de Merlo, and Alphonso de Hojida, prior of the convent of Dominicans, to observe the effects produced by gentle means, and give a faithful account of them. Their reports were such as might be expected from the situation of affairs; and the Dominican fathers, the nuncio, and even the king, desired that the measures preferred by Isabella should be declared insufficient.
The events of this year proved how displeasing the institution was to the Castilians. In the beginning of the year 1480, the Cortes assembled at Toledo. It was occupied in providing means to prevent the evil which the communication of the Jews with Christians might produce: the ancient regulations were renewed; and among others, those which obliged unbaptized Jews to wear some distinguishing mark, and to inhabit separate quarters, to which they were compelled to retire before night: they were also prohibited from exercising the professions of physicians, surgeons, merchants, barbers, and innkeepers; yet the Cortes had no intention either of approving or demanding that the Inquisition should be established in the kingdom.
The consent of the queen was obtained; and while the two sovereigns were at Medina del Campo, on the 17th of November, 1480, they named as the first inquisitors Michael Morillo and John de San Martin, both Dominicans, as adviser and accessor of these two monks, Doctor John Ruiz de Medina, a counsellor of the queen's; and as (procurator-fiscal) attorney, John Lopez del Barco, the queen's chaplain.
On the 9th of October an order was sent by the king and queen to all the governors of provinces to furnish the inquisitors and their suite with everything they might require in their journey to Seville; an extraordinary circumstance in that time, and which proves the influence which the Dominicans had already acquired. Their privileges were the same as those granted in 1223 by the Emperor Frederic. The Castilians were so far from being pleased at the introduction of the Inquisition, that the inquisitors, on their arrival at Seville, found it impossible to collect the small number of persons necessary to the performance of their functions, although they shewed their commission; and the Council of Spain was obliged to issue another order, that the prefect and other authorities of Seville, and the diocese of Cadiz, should assist the inquisitors in their installation; this order was also interpreted in such a manner that it was only executed in those towns which belonged to the queen. The New Christians then immediately emigrated into the states of the Duke de Medina Sidonia, the Marquis of Cadiz, the Count D'Arcos, and other nobles; and the new tribunal declared that their heresy was proved by their emigration.
The inquisitors established their tribunal in the Dominican convent of St. Paul, at Seville; and on the 2nd of January, 1481, they issued their first edict, which commanded the Marquis of Cadiz, the Count D'Arcos, and all grandees of Spain, to seize the persons of the emigrants within fifteen days; and to send them under an escort to Seville, and sequestrate their property, on pain of excommunication, besides the other punishments to which they would be liable as favourers of heresy. The number of prisoners was soon so considerable, that the convent assigned to the inquisitors was not sufficiently large to contain them, and the tribunal was removed to the Castle de Triana, situated near Seville.
The inquisitors soon published a second edict, named the Edict of Grace, to engage those who had apostatized to surrender themselves voluntarily: it promised that if they came with true repentance, their property should not be confiscated, and they should receive absolution; but if, on the contrary, they suffered the time of grace to elapse, or were denounced by others, they would be prosecuted with all the severity of the tribunal. Several suffered themselves to be persuaded; but the inquisitors only granted them absolution when they had declared upon oath the names, condition, and place of dwelling, of all the apostates whom they knew or had heard spoken of. They were also obliged to keep these revelations secret; and by these means a great number of New Christians fell into the hands of the inquisitors. When the period of grace was passed, a new edict was published, which commanded all persons to denounce those who had embraced the Judaic heresy, on pain of mortal sin and excommunication. The consequence of this edict was, that an heretic was only informed that he was accused, at the moment when he was arrested and dragged to the dungeons of the Inquisition.
The same fate awaited the converted Jew, who might have acquired certain habits in his infancy, which, though not contrary to Christianity, might be represented as certain signs of apostacy. The inquisitors mentioned in their edict several cases where accusation was commanded. The following cases are so equivocal, that altogether they would scarcely form a simple presumption in the present time. A convert was considered as relapsed into heresy, if he kept the sabbath out of respect to the law which he had abandoned; this was sufficiently proved if he wore better linen and garments on that day than those which he commonly used, or had not a fire in his house from the preceding evening; if he took the suet and fat from the animals which were intended for his food, and washed the blood from it; if he examined the blade of the knife before he killed the animals, and covered the blood with earth; if he blessed the table after the manner of the Jews; if he has drunk of the wine named caser, (a word derived from caxer, which means lawful,) and which is prepared by Jews; if he pronounces the bahara, or benediction, when he takes the vessel of wine into his hands, and pronounces certain words before he gives it to another person; if he eats of an animal killed by Jews; if he has recited the Psalms of David without repeating the Gloria Patri at the end; if he gives his son a Hebrew name chosen among those used by the Jews; if he plunges him seven days after his birth into a basin containing water, gold, silver, seed-pearl, wheat, barley, and other substances, pronouncing at the same time certain words, according to the custom of the Jews; if he draws the horoscope of his children at their birth; if he performs the ruaya, a ceremony which consists in inviting his relations and friends to a repast the day before he undertakes a journey; if he turned his face to the wall at the time of his death, or has been placed in that posture before he expired; if he has washed, or caused to be washed, in hot water the body of a dead person, and interred him in a new shroud, with hose, shirt, and a mantle, and placed a piece of money in his mouth; if he has uttered a discourse in praise of the dead, or recited melancholy verses; if he has emptied the pitchers and other vessels of water in the house of the dead person, or in those of his neighbours, according to the custom of the Jews; if he sits behind the door of the deceased as a sign of grief, or eats fish and olives instead of meat, to honour his memory; if he remains in his house one year after the death of any one, to prove his grief. All these articles show the artifice used by the inquisitors in order to prove to Isabella that a great number of Judaic heretics existed in the dioceses of Cadiz and Seville. These measures, so well adapted to multiply victims, could not fail in their effect, and the tribunal soon began its cruel executions. On the 6th of January, 1481, six persons were burnt, seventeen on the 26th of March following, and a still greater number a month after; on the 4th of November, the same year, two hundred and ninety-eight New Christians had suffered the punishment of burning, and seventy-nine were condemned to the horrors of perpetual imprisonment in the town of Seville alone. In other parts of the province and in the diocese of Cadiz, two thousand of these unfortunate creatures were burnt; according to Mariana, a still greater number were burnt in effigy, and one thousand seven hundred suffered different canonical punishments.
The great number of persons condemned to be burnt, obliged the prefect of Seville to construct a scaffold of stone in a field near the town, name Tablada; it was called Quemadero, and still exists. Four statues, of plaster, were erected on it, and bore the name of the Four Prophets; the condemned persons were enclosed alive in these figures, and perished by a slow and horrible death[3].
The dread which these executions inspired in the New Christians caused a great number to emigrate to France, Portugal, and even to Africa. Many of those who had been condemned for contumacy had fled to Rome, and demanded justice of the Pope against their judges. The sovereign pontiff wrote on the 29th of January to Ferdinand and Isabella, and complained that the inquisitors did not follow the rule of right in declaring those to be heretics who were not guilty. His Holiness added that he would have pronounced their deprivation but from respect to the royal decree which had instituted them in their office, but he revoked the authorization which he had given. On the 11th of the following month the Pope despatched a new brief, in which, without mentioning the first, he says, the general of the Dominicans, Alphonso de St. Cebriant, having proved to him the necessity of increasing the number of inquisitors, he had appointed to that office Alphonso de St. Cebriant, and seven monks of his order. It was at this time that Queen Isabella requested the Pope to give the Inquisition a permanent form which should be satisfactory to all parties; she required that the judgments passed in Spain should be definitive and without appeal to Rome, and complained at the same time that many persons accused her of being influenced in all that she did for the tribunal by a desire to seize the wealth of the condemned.
When Sixtus IV. received this letter he had just learnt that his bulls had met with some resistance in Sicily from the viceroy and other magistrates, and artfully took advantage of Isabella's request to confirm his authority in that kingdom. He replied to the queen, and praised her zeal for the Inquisition; appeased her scruples of conscience in regard to the confiscations; and assured her that he would have complied with all her demands, if the cardinals, and those charged with the administration of affairs, had not found insurmountable difficulties in so doing. He exhorted her to maintain the Inquisition in her states, and above all to take proper measures that the apostolical bulls should be received and executed in Sicily.