Inquisitors are to make oath never to be alone with a prisoner, and neither an inquisitor nor any officer of the court shall hold two offices or receive two salaries. Lastly, in any district where the Inquisition’s tribunal is established, the inquisitors must pay for their own lodgings, and must never receive any hospitality from conversos.[266]
We have seen Torquemada’s efforts strained to obtain the fullest possible control over subjects of inquisitorial jurisdiction in Spain, and to establish himself the sole arbiter in matters concerning heresies there committed. And we have seen his frequent conflicts with Rome in consequence of what he accounted undue interference on the part of the Holy See in affairs which he considered purely within his own province. Despite repeated protests which had resulted in the annulment of absolutions granted by the Apostolic Court, the Holy See had ever continued to receive those who fled thither from Spain in quest of a reconciliation that was procurable in Rome upon terms far easier than were accorded by Torquemada’s delegates.
Never, however, had the fugitives to Rome been so numerous as they were now in the reign of Alexander VI. Never before had so many Judaizers—who were liable, if discovered in Spain, to perpetual prison or the fire—sought at the hands of the Pontiff the absolution which, subject to penitence and penance, the Holy Father was willing and ready to accord them.
On July 29, 1498, an Auto de Fé was held in Rome in the vast square before St. Peter’s, when 180 Spanish Judaizers came to be reconciled to the Church.[267]
It is worth while to take a glance at this, and to mark the difference between the Act of Faith in the very heart of Christendom, and the spectacles provided under the same title by Spanish bigotry and fanaticism.
There were present the Governor of Rome, Juan de Cartagena, the Spanish Orator at the Vatican, the Apostolic auditors, and the Master of the Sacred Palace, whilst the Pope himself surveyed the scene from the balcony above the steps of St. Peter’s.
The penitents received the sanbenitos, which were put on over their ordinary garments, and arrayed in these they entered St. Peter’s. There all were assembled and reconciled, whereafter they were taken in procession to the Church of Santa Maria della Minerva. In this temple they put off their sanbenitos, and each one withdrew to his home without further bearing the insignia of shame and infamy.[268]
The view taken by Torquemada of a Pope who so little understood what the former considered to be the duties of Christ’s earthly Vicar is to be gathered from the attitude of the Sovereigns in the matter of these reconciliations, and their protests—protests which, beyond doubt, would be inspired by the Grand Inquisitor.
Alexander advised the Sovereigns in reply—by a brief of October 5—that in according these absolutions one of the pains imposed upon the penanced was that they must never return to Spain without the special sanction of the Catholic Sovereigns.[269]