In 1567 the Pope expedited a brief in favour of the Morescoes of Valencia, but those of Grenada revolted, and elected for their king Don Ferdinand Valor, a descendant of their former sovereigns of the dynasty of Abenhumeyas. This rebellion continued for some time; and Philip II. endeavoured to quell it by issuing edicts of pardon even for those crimes which came under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. An amnesty was granted to the Moors on condition that they came to solicit it, and many took advantage of the permission. To prevent emigration, the king remitted the penalty of confiscation, but the inquisitors, by means of the impenetrable secrecy which they always preserved, rendered the benevolent intentions of the sovereign of no avail. They did not publish the briefs of indulgence granted by the Court of Rome, knowing that a great number of the relapsed would take advantage of them; these people, not being aware of their privileges, were condemned and burnt. These examples of cruelty increased the hatred of the Moors for this sanguinary tribunal, and were the cause of many seditions, which, in 1609, led to the entire expulsion of the Moors, to the number of a million souls; so that in the space of an hundred and thirty-nine years the Inquisition deprived the kingdom of Spain of three millions of inhabitants, Jews, Morescoes, and Moors.
CHAPTER XIII.
OF THE PROHIBITION OF BOOKS AND OTHER ARTICLES.
THE opinions of Luther, Carolstadt, Zuingle, Œcolampadius, Melancthon, Muncer, and Calvin, were first promulgated during the ministry of Don Alphonso Manrique, the fifth inquisitor-general. These reformers were called Protestants after the imperial diet at Spire, in 1529.
Leo the Xth had already condemned the opinions of Luther as heretical, which induced Manrique to enact severe punishments for those who should openly maintain or write in favour of them.
In 1490 several Hebrew bibles and books written by Jews were burnt at Seville; at Salamanca more than six thousand volumes of magic and sorcery were committed to the flames. In 1502 Ferdinand and Isabella appointed the presidents of the Chanceries of Valladolid and Ciudad Real, the Archbishops of Seville, Toledo, Grenada, the Bishops of Burgos, Salamanca, and Zamora, to decide on all affairs relating to the examination, censure, printing, introduction, or sale of books. In 1521 the Pope wrote to the governors of the provinces of Castile during the absence of Charles V., recommending them to prevent the introduction of the works of Luther into the kingdom; and Cardinal Adrian, in the same year, ordered the inquisitors to seize all books of that nature: this order was repeated in 1523.
In 1530 the Supreme Council wrote to the inquisitors during the absence of Cardinal Manrique, on the necessity of executing the measures which had been ordained; adding, that information had been received that the writings of Luther had been introduced into the Kingdom under fictitious titles, or as works entirely composed by Catholics authors; and in order to repress this intolerable abuse, they were commanded to visit all public libraries for those books, and to add to the edict of denunciation, a particular article, to oblige all Catholics to denounce any person who might read or keep them in their houses. In 1535 Cardinal Manrique addressed an order to the inquisitors, and another in the same year prohibiting the universities of the kingdom from explaining, reading, or even selling the Colloquies of Erasmus. In 1528 he anathematised some other works of the same author, although he had defended him in 1527, in an assembly which met to examine his writings.
Erasmus was considered in Spain as a supporter of the Catholic faith against the doctrine of Luther, and his enemies were only a few scholastic theologians, who were not acquainted with the Greek and Hebrew tongues. The Spanish theologians who wrote against him were, Diego Lopez de Zuñiga, Sancho de Carranza, professor of theology in the university of Alcala de Henarés, Brother Louis de Carjaval, a Franciscan, Edward Lee, the English ambassador, and Pedro Vittoria, a theologian of Salamanca.
After this first attack, in the Lent of the year 1527, two monks denounced several propositions in the works of Erasmus, as heretical. Alphonso Manrique (although he was then the friend of Erasmus) was obliged to submit these propositions to the examination of qualifiers; but he appointed the most learned men of the kingdom to that office.
This assembly of doctors lasted two months, when the plague, which then desolated some parts of the kingdom, obliged them to separate, before they had decided on the judgment to be pronounced; it appears from several letters written by Erasmus about that time that he hoped it would be favourable to him.[4]
But the Supreme Council qualified his Colloquies, his Eulogy of Folly, and his Paraphrase, and prohibited them from being read. In later times, this prohibition was extended to several other books of the same author, and the Inquisition recommended in its edicts that the works of Erasmus should be read with caution.