Deza was at the head of the Inquisition eight years. If the calculation of his victims is formed after the inscription at Seville, we shall find that 38,440 persons were punished during that time, of whom 2592 were burnt in person, 896 in effigy, and 34,952 condemned to different penances. Among this crowd of persons who were persecuted by the Inquisition, there were many distinguished by their birth, their learning, their fortunes, and their offices. The sanguinary inquisitor, Lucero, made the venerable Don Ferdinand de Talavera, first Archbishop of Grenada, the object of a shameful persecution. He became jealous of the reputation for sanctity and charity which this prelate had acquired, and raised doubts of his faith, by reminding Isabella, that he had opposed the establishment of the Inquisition in 1478, and the following years; and by publishing that, although his father was noble, and of the illustrious family of Contreras, yet he was of Jewish origin by the mother's side. The inquisitor concluded from these circumstances that he could commence a secret instruction against the holy prelate. Deza commissioned the Archbishop of Toledo, Ximenez de Cisneros, to receive the preparatory informations on the faith of the Archbishop of Grenada; Cisneros informed the Pope of the commission which he had received, and the pontiff commanded his apostolical nuncio, the Bishop of Bristol, to take the affair under his direction, and prohibited Deza and the Inquisitors from pursuing it. The Pope, in a Council of Cardinals and Bishops, acquitted the Archbishop of Grenada, who died in 1507, some months after this judgment, after three years of the greatest anxiety, as the inquisitor Lucero had caused many of his relations to be arrested, although they were all innocent.
The persecution suffered by the learned Antonio Lebrija was not less cruel. He had been tutor to Isabella, and was honoured by the friendship and protection of Ximenez de Cisneros: he was well acquainted with the Greek and Hebrew, and discovered and corrected in the Latin text of the Vulgate some errors which had been committed by the transcribers before the invention of printing. He was accused by some scholastic theologians; his papers were seized, and after being treated with the greatest cruelty, he had the grief of seeing the suspicion of heresy established against him, and was obliged to live in that species of disgrace until he could write his apology under the protection of Ximenez de Cisneros.
The inhumanity of the inquisitor Lucero had still more serious consequences: as he declared almost all the accused persons guilty of concealment, and condemned them as false penitents, some persons added imaginary circumstances to their confessions, and declared that synagogues were held in different houses in Cordova, Grenada, and other towns; they added, that even monks and nuns attended at them, and went in procession from all parts of Castile; they also affirmed that many Spanish families of Old Christians, whom they named, assisted at the Jewish feasts. In consequence of these declarations, Lucero arrested such an immense number of persons, that Cordova was on the point of revolting against the Inquisition. The municipality, the bishop, the chapter of the cathedral, and all the nobility sent deputies to the inquisitor-general, to demand that Lucero should be recalled. Deza refused to listen to their claim, until the cruelties of which Lucero was accused were proved. Lucero had then the audacity to note down as favourers of Judaism, knights, ladies, canons, monks, nuns, and respectable persons of every class.
At this period, 1506, Philip I. ascended the throne of Castile; the Bishop of Cordova informed him of what was passing, and the relations of the prisoners demanded that they should be tried by another tribunal. Philip commanded Deza to retire to his archbishopric of Seville, and to invest Don Diego Ramirez de Guzman, Bishop of Catania, with the powers of inquisitor-general; at the same time all the papers relative to this affair were submitted to the Supreme Council of Castile. Ramirez de Guzman suspended Lucero, and the other inquisitors of Cordova, from their functions. The affair would have terminated happily, but for the death of the king in the same year.
Deza was no sooner informed of that event than he again resumed his office of inquisitor-general, and annulled all that had been done during his retirement. Ferdinand V. resumed the government of the kingdom, as father of Queen Joanna, widow of Philip I., as her mind was disordered. Some time elapsed, however, before he began to reign, as he was at Naples at the time of the death of the King of Spain. At this period, all the inhabitants of Cordova, and some members of the Council of Castile, declared against Deza, and published that he was of the race of Marranos, that is, a descendant of the Jews.
The Marquis de Priego excited the Cordovans to a revolt; they forced the prisons of the holy office, and liberated an immense number of prisoners. They seized the persons of the procurator-fiscal, one of the notaries, and several other officers of the tribunal; Priego would also have arrested Lucero, but he escaped by means of an excellent mule. These events alarmed the inquisitor-general to such a degree, that he resigned his office, and retired to his diocese with the greatest precaution. This proceeding restored tranquillity in Cordova, but did not terminate the trials.
When the Regent of Spain arrived in that kingdom, he named Don Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros inquisitor-general for the crown of Castile, and Don Juan Enguera, Bishop of Vic, for that of Aragon. The Pope expedited their bulls in 1507, and made Cisneros a cardinal.
Ximenez de Cisneros began to exercise his new employment on the 1st October, when the conspiracy against the holy office had become almost general, on account of the events at Cordova, of which the Council of Castile took cognizance. All its members who had been of the party of Philip I. signalized themselves by their hatred against the Inquisition. This aversion made Ximenez de Cisneros feel the necessity of conducting himself with extreme caution, that he might not give occasion for a general convocation of the Cortes, which would have deprived him of the high office of governor of the kingdom, which he then possessed.
The events at Cordova forced a great number of persons to appeal to Rome. The Pope appointed two prelates to examine the trials, and made Cardinal Cisneros judge of appeals, with the power of bringing all the trials begun by the apostolical commissioners before him.
The cardinal immediately suspended the inquisitor Lucero, and sent him prisoner to Burgos; he also imprisoned all those witnesses who were suspected of having made false depositions, because some of the charges were so absurd that no one could believe them. The examination of the trials made the cardinal perceive, that an affair which implicated some of the most illustrious families of Spain could not be treated with too much delicacy:—he therefore obtained the king's permission to form a junta, which he named the Catholic Congregation: it was composed of twenty-two respectable persons, namely, the inquisitor-general (who was the president); the inquisitor-general of Aragon; the Bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo; those of Calahorra and Barcelona; the mitred abbot of the Benedictines at Valladolid; the president of the Council of Castile, and eight of its members; the vice-chancellor and the president of the Chancery of Aragon; two counsellors of the Supreme; two provincial inquisitors, and an auditor of the Chancery of Valladolid.