I terminate, by this account of Doctor Torralba, the history of the administration of Cardinal Don Alphonso Manrique, Archbishop of Seville, who died in that city on the 28th of September, 1538, with the reputation of being a friend and benefactor to the poor. His charity and some other qualities worthy of his birth have gained him a place among the illustrious men of his age. He had several natural children before he entered into orders: Don Jerome Manrique is cited as having been most worthy of his father; he successively attained the dignities of Provincial Inquisitor, Counsellor of the Supreme, Bishop of Carthagena and Avila, president of the Chancery of Valladolid, and, lastly, Inquisitor-general.
At the death of Don Alphonso Manrique, there were nineteen provincial tribunals; they were established at Seville, Cordova, Toledo, Valladolid, Murcia, Calahorra, Estremadura, Saragossa, Valencia, Barcelona, Majorca, in the Canaries, at Cuença, in Navarre, Grenada, Sicily, Sardinia, in Tierra Firma, and the isles of the American Ocean. The Inquisition of Jaen had been united to that of Grenada.
The Inquisition had afterwards three tribunals in America, at Mexico, Lima, and Carthagena. In the Indies they had been decreed but not organized.
By omitting the tribunals of America, Sardinia, and Sicily, we shall find that there were fifteen in Spain, which respectively burnt, annually, about ten individuals in person, five in effigy, and subjected fifty to different penances: so that in all Spain one hundred and fifty persons were burnt every year; sixty-five in effigy, and seven hundred and fifty suffered different canonical penances, which, multiplied by the fifteen years of the administration of Manrique, shows that two thousand two hundred and fifty individuals were burnt, one thousand one hundred and twenty-five in effigy, and eleven thousand two hundred and fifty condemned to penances; in all, fourteen thousand, six hundred and twenty-five condemnations. This number scarcely deserves to be mentioned in comparison with those of preceding times; but still it appears enormous, particularly if the excessive abuse of the secret proceedings is considered.
CHAPTER XVI.
OF THE TRIAL OF THE FALSE NUNCIO OF PORTUGAL, AND OTHER IMPORTANT EVENTS DURING THE TIME OF CARDINAL TABERA, SIXTH INQUISITOR-GENERAL.
Quarrels of the Inquisition with the Court of Rome.
Charles V. appointed Cardinal Don Juan Pardo de Tabera, Archbishop of Toledo, to succeed Cardinal Manrique, in the office of inquisitor-general; his bulls of institution were expedited in September 1539, and a month after he entered upon his office, so that the Supreme Council governed the Inquisition for the space of one year.
It was under the inquisitor Tabera, that the congregation of the holy office was founded at Rome, on the 1st of April, 1543. It gave the title and privilege of inquisitors-general of the faith, for all the Christian world, to several cardinals; two of the number were Spaniards, Don Juan Alvarez de Toledo, Bishop of Burgos, a son of the Duke of Alva, and Don Thomas Badia, cardinal-priest of the title of St. Silvestre, and master of the sacred palace. These two cardinals were of the order of St. Dominic.
This new creation alarmed the Inquisition of Spain for its supremacy; but the Pope formally declared that it was not his intention to alter anything that had been established, and the institution of the inquisitors-general would not interfere with the privileges of the other inquisitors. Yet the general Inquisition attempted several times to give laws to that of Spain, particularly in the prohibition of some writings which had been proscribed at Rome. The inquisitors-general wrote to those of Spain, to register the censure of the theologians, because they were to be looked upon as the most learned of the Catholic church, and because their opinion was supported by the confirmation of the supreme head of the church, whom the cardinals asserted to be infallible when he acted (as in this case) as sovereign pontiff. He approved and commanded the decrees of the congregation of cardinals, to be received and executed with submission.
These pretensions of the Court of Rome did not inspire the inquisitors of Spain with any awe; they have always defended their privileges with so much vigour, that they often refused to execute the apostolical briefs, when they were contrary to the decisions they had made conjointly with the Supreme Council. We find examples of this resistance under Urban VIII., in the condemnation of the works of the Jesuit, John Baptist Poza, which had been pronounced at Rome; and under Benedict XIV., when the inquisitor-general, Don Francis Perezdel Prado, Bishop of Teruel, refused to enter upon the prohibitory index the works of Cardinal Noris, in opposition to the request, and even the formal demand, of that great Pope.