Bernardin de Tobar is less known, but Peter Martyr d'Angleria mentions him among the learned men of the sixteenth century, and John Louis Vives, a learned man of that age, says, in writing to Erasmus: "We live in a difficult time; it is dangerous either to speak or be silent; Vergara, his brother Bernardin de Tobar, and several other learned men, have been arrested in Spain[7]."
Among this number was one of whom Vives could not give a particular account. I speak of Alphonso Virues, a Benedictine, born at Olmedo, and one of the best theologians of his time. He had a profound knowledge of the oriental languages, and had composed several works. He was a member of the commission which judged the works of Erasmus in 1527, and preacher to Charles V., who listened to his discourses with so much pleasure that he took him to Germany, and on his return to Spain would not hear any other person. These distinctions excited the envy of the monks, and they would have succeeded in their endeavours to ruin him, but for the firmness and constancy of the emperor in protecting him.
Virues was suspected of being favourable to the opinions of Luther, and thrown into the secret prisons of the holy office at Seville. The emperor, who knew him well, both from his sermons, and the intercourse which took place during their travels in Germany, felt this blow acutely, and not doubting that Virues was the victim of an intrigue which the inquisitor-general ought to have prevented, he exiled Manrique, who was obliged to retire to his archbishopric of Seville, where he died in 1538. Not content with this, Charles commanded the Supreme Council to address an ordinance to all the tribunals of the Inquisition, importing, that in case of a preliminary instruction sufficiently serious to cause the arrest of a monk, the decree of imprisonment should be delayed, and that the inquisitors should send an entire and faithful copy of the commencement of the proceedings to the Supreme Council, and wait for the orders which would be sent them after the examination of the writings.
The unfortunate Virues, nevertheless, suffered all the horrors of a secret imprisonment for four years. During this period, as he writes to Charles V., "he was scarcely allowed to breathe, or to occupy himself with anything but charges, replies, testimonies, defences, libels, means, acts (nomina quæ et ipso pœne timendo sono ... words which cannot be heard without terrors), or with heresies, blasphemies, errors, anathemas, schisms, and other monsters, which, with labour that may be compared to those of Hercules, I have at last conquered with the aid of Jesus Christ, so that I am now justified through your majesty's protection[8]."
One of the means employed by Virues for his defence, was to demand that the tribunal should pay attention to the points of doctrine which he had established, and prepared to attack Melancthon and other Lutherans before the diet of Ratisbon; but this demand did not gain the object which he had in view, which was a complete absolution, because his enemies had denounced propositions advanced in public. Although he proved that they were extremely Catholic, when examined with the text, yet he could not prevent them from incurring the theological censure in the form given by the denunciation: he was obliged to submit to an abjuration of all heresies, particularly that of Luther and his adherents. The definitive sentence was pronounced in 1537: he was declared to be suspected of professing the errors of Luther, and condemned to be absolved from the censures ad cautelam; to be confined in a monastery for two years, and prohibited from preaching the word of God for two years after his release.
The emperor, when informed of these transactions, complained to the Pope, who, in 1538, addressed a brief to Virues, which contained a dispensation from the different penances to which he had been condemned: it also re-instated him in his office of preacher; and declared, that what had passed could not exclude him from any office, not even from episcopacy.
It is surprising that the affair of Virues, and many others, did not make Charles V. perceive the nature of the Inquisition, and that he still continued to protect that institution. However, the trial of his preacher, and several other crosses which he experienced about that time, were the reasons why he deprived the holy office of the royal jurisdiction in 1535, and it was not restored until the year 1545. This favour for Virues was so constant, that he soon after presented him to the Pope for the bishopric of the Canaries; but the Pope refused him, alleging that the suspicions raised against the purity of his faith rendered him improper to be invested with the dignity of a bishop, although the bull had declared him to be eligible. The emperor insisted, and the Pope at length yielded to his pressing solicitations. Virues was made Bishop of the Canaries in 1540.
In 1527 the Inquisition of Valladolid was occupied by an affair, of which it is necessary to give an account, that the compassion and indulgence which the inquisitors always professed in their acts, and other forms of justice, may be justly appreciated.
One Diego Vallejo, of the village of Palacios de Meneses, in the diocese of Palencia, having been arrested for blasphemy by the Inquisition, declared, among other things, that two months before, on the 24th of April, 1526, two physicians, named Alphonso Garcia and Juan de Salas, were disputing on the subject of medicine, before him and Ferdinand Ramirez, his son-in-law: the first maintained his opinion on the authority of certain writers; Salas affirmed that these writers were deceived; Garcia replied that his opinion was proved by the text of the evangelists, which caused Salas to say that they had lied as well as the others. Ferdinand Ramirez (who had also been arrested upon suspicion of Judaism) was examined the same day; his deposition was the same as that of Vallejo, but he added, that Salas returned to his house some hours after, and in speaking of what had passed, said, "What folly I have asserted!" When the tribunal had finished the affair of Ramirez and Vallejo, they arrested Juan de Salas.
The inquisitors (without the concurrence of the diocesan, without consultors or qualifiers, and without communicating with the Supreme Council) decreed the arrest of Juan de Salas on the 14th of February, 1527, as if the declarations of Ramirez and Vallejo had been sufficient. The audiences of admonition were granted, and the depositions were communicated without the names of the persons or place. He replied that the circumstances were not correctly stated. The other physician was then called, who declared, that in conversing with Salas on the evangelists, he heard him say, that some of them had lied. He was asked if any one had reproached Salas for this expression; Garcia replied, that an hour after he had advised him to give himself up to the Inquisition, and that he had promised to do so. The inquisitor then asked if he was inimical to the accused; the witness replied in the negative. On the 16th of April the ratification of Ramirez and Garcia took place. On the 6th of May the prisoner presented two requisitions or means of defence: in the first he protested against all that had been said contrary to his declaration, and pointed out the differences in the depositions of the witnesses; the second was an interrogatory in thirteen questions, two of which tended to prove his orthodoxy, and the others to justify the motives of the challenge which he had presented against certain persons who had been called upon to depose in his trial. This piece contains, in the margin, the witnesses to be consulted for each question. It will be seen that the prisoner took advantage of the laws of the holy office in his defence; but the inquisitors, instead of conforming to their own regulations, erased the names of several persons designated in the list of the accused witnesses on his side, and would not hear them. Nevertheless, the facts mentioned in the interrogatory were proved by fourteen witnesses, and on the 25th of May the fiscal gave his conclusions.