Book 2 Chapter 4, Part 8 of History of the Inquisition of Spain, Vol. 1. It was not the secular court alone that had these perpetual conflicts with the Inquisition. Like Ishmael, its hand was against every man, and every man's hand was against it. But in fact, this was to a great extent the case between all the different jurisdictions among which the various classes of society were parceled out by their several privileges and exemptions. Next to the royal courts ranked the spiritual courts. In the numbers and complexity of debatable questions with the Inquisition. With these there were two sources of contention, for they not only claimed by prescriptive right, exclusive jurisdiction in all temporal matters over all who wore the tauntshore, but there was a broad field for discussion in the somewhat hazy delimitation of spiritual offenses justiciable by one or the other. The latter subject will engage our attention hereafter. At present we are concerned only with the questions arising from the personnel of the Holy Office. Notoriously lax, as were the Episcopal Courts, with offenders of the cloth, the Inquisition had the reputation of still greater indulgence with those who were under its protection. Clerics who were also officials therefore preferred its tribunals, giving rise to a frequent quarrels in which the Inquisitors treated their clerical opponents as remorselessly as they did the secular officials and judges. The Episcopal Ordinaries, Provisors and Vickers Generals contended that they had, except in cases of faith, exclusive jurisdiction over all clerics, that the temporal jurisdiction of the Inquisition was a royal grant which could not supersede the canon law and that the papal commissions only gave faculties for punishing official malfeasance. To this unanswerable argument the Inquisitors paid little heed and the Prelates were worse off than the Judges, for these at least had the Councils of Castile or Aragon to struggle for them, but the Councils admitted that they had no standing in ecclesiastical quarrels. The natural recourse of the Prelates for protection was to Rome, but this was a subject of intense jealousy, traditional in the Spanish monarchy, and Philip III in a Cédula of January 21, 1611, addressed to all the Prelates of his dominions, told them that they must appeal only to the Suprema and forbade them to carry on any case to the Holy See. There could thus be no competencia, the conflicts between the two jurisdictions were one-sided and were conducted by the tribunals with the same overbearing arrogance as that displayed toward the secular magistrates. The first summons on the provisor, or vicar general, inhibited him under pain of excommunication and a heavy fine from further action, ordering him within twenty-four hours to remit the case to the Inquisition and to discharge the prisoner under bail to present himself before the tribunal, while the notary was required to surrender all the papers. If this was not obeyed it was followed by another commanding obedience within six hours in default of which all benefits priests were required under similar penalties to publish the provisor and notary as excommunicates and to place their names on the list as such. A circular letter was also addressed to all priests, chaplains and sacrestants of the district to admonish all persons within six hours and under pain of excommunication to avoid the provisor and notary, to make no pleadings before him, to hold no communication with them and not to furnish them with bread or wine, fish or flesh, while a public edict to the same effect was issued to all the people. In case of continued objuracy these measures were promptly followed by an edict to all the clergy, ordering them to anathematize the provisor and notary with tolling bells and extinguished candles proclaiming them a cursed of God and his saints.  Let them be comprehended in the sentences of Sodom and Gomorrah and of Dathan and Abiram whom the earth swallowed for disobedience and may all the curses of Psalm, Deus, Laudam, Miam light on them." But this did not suffice within twenty-four hours an interdict followed tolling bells and performing divine service in low tone with locked doors until otherwise ordered. In cases failed the last step was a cessatio adivinis or a cessation of church services in the city where the offenders lived in order to coerce them with popular clamor. It was difficult for either lay or clergy officials to contend with opponents who wielded such weapons as these. The irresponsible exercise of such powers inevitably led to their abuse. In the Concordia of 1568 it is highly suggestive to find a clause forbidding inquisitors to issue as they have been accustomed to familiars and officials, general inhibitions protecting them from the ecclesiastical courts. Such inhibitions are to be special and issued only in each case as it may occur. Equally significant is another which says that in no case belonging to the law to the provisor shall the inquisitor intervene against his will. The strained relations resulting between the ecclesiastical body and the Holy Office are alluded to in the Project of Reform presented to the Suprema in 1623 which says that the clergy commissioners and their notaries bring about many conflicts with the ecclesiastical judges and, as there are no Concordias, the inquisitors are want to arrogate to themselves greater jurisdiction than belongs to them, which causes much murmuring and resentment of the prelates and clergy. The writer piously wishes that this could be avoided, but he evidently has no remedy to propose. A conflict caused by one of these local notaries in 1609 amply justified the murmurs of the prelates. The priest of Cabra, who occupied the almost nominal position of local notary, was a notorious incestuous concubinarian who had not for eight years celebrated mass or recited prayers. The provisor of Cordova commenced a prosecution and threw him into the Episcopal Jail when he claimed the Fuedo of the Inquisition. The provisor had been on friendly terms with the three inquisitors and sought an amicable settlement of the matter when, by a trick, they obtained possession of the papers and inhibited him from further proceedings. He appealed to the Suprema and was excommunicated. Four times the Suprema ordered the inquisitors to abandon the case and remove the censure, but they persistently disobeyed. All the officials of the Episcopal Court were ordered to hold no communication with him, which threw the whole business of the diocese into confusion, for the bishop was absent and the provisor was his representative. The culprit escaped from the Episcopal Jail and was harbored by the tribunal. Passion was becoming acute. A band of familiars and officials broke into the Episcopal Palace and endeavored to carry off the provisor, but he was rescued by the cannons in a dilapidated condition and took to his bed. Then the inquisitors pronounced the magic word, a matter of faith which brought to their aid the corregidor and municipal authorities, who came with a troop of soldiers and carried him off to his bed to the sound of drums and trumpets. He was taken to the Inquisition and confined for two months in a small cell, tried without opportunity for defense and sentence to forfeit his office of provisor, to four years of vanishment and other penalties and copies of the sentence were circulated throughout the city. The bishop had sought to come to his rescue by excommunicating the inquisitors. They disregarded the censures, threatened to prosecute him if he did not remove them and did prosecute some of the cannons as conspiring against the inquisition because they had been elected by the chapter to aid the bishop in defending the provisor. Such a sentence against a church dignitary of high rank required confirmation by the Suprema, which must have been given for appeal was made to Philip III. He rendered some satisfaction by dismissing and vanishing all secular officials who had been concerned in the arrest and wounding of the provisor by the inquisitors whose mere tools they had been were left undisturbed. Yet it was impossible that an affair which had aroused the attention of all Spain should pass without an attempt to prevent the recurrence of such scandals. There had been a threat, and possibly more than a threat, to appeal to Rome in defense of the bishop and clergy of Córdoba, which led to the Sedula of January 21, 1611, alluded to above, restricting their recourse to the Suprema. Enurging this, the Suprema, in a consulta of November 15, 1610, admitted that these troubles arose from the aggressions of the tribunals and their unnecessary multiplication of nominal officials. It had recently issued three cartas acordadas on the subject and had written to all the bishops, asking reports of such excess so as to remedy them. Philip in reply authorized the Suprema to draft such a Sedula, as it desired, but ordered it to be so framed as not to encourage the inquisitors who were every day intervening in matters beyond their competence for the purpose of extending their jurisdiction. It was this that gave rise to these troubles, nor would they cease till the cause was removed. Thus it was admitted on all hands that the fault lay with the tribunals, yet the wrong committed by that of Córdoba remained unredressed and unpunished. Philip permitted himself, in spite of his better judgment, to be persuaded to cut off all recourse to the court of last resort in Rome, and some nominal relief must be offered to the oppressed, churches, and prelates. The memorial from Córdoba had concluded with a prayer for some law to prevent these discords and to maintain the episcopal jurisdiction over the clergy, as the king had promised in a letter transmitted through the Council of Castile. The promise was kept after a fashion, though not until after a delay which shows how prolonged was the resistance encouraged. In a carta acordada of November 28, 1612, the tribunals were informed that, in order that the ministers of the Inquisition may not sin through confidence of impunity, and to prevent the conflicts which disturbed the peace, the Suprema has resolved that in the cases of unsalaried clerical officials, the episcopal ordinaries shall have exclusive jurisdiction over offenses relating to clerical duties and offices, to simony and spiritual matters, while inquisitors shall have communicative jurisdiction with the ordinaries, depending on priority of action in public and scandalous offenses, such as incontinence, usury, gambling, and the like. This remained in force, nominally at least, until the last, but the illusion to the perpetual troubles arising from this source in the project presented to the Suprema in 1623 shows how futile it was in curbing the aggressions of the tribunals. Throughout Peninsular Spain the episcopal jurisdiction was thus left defenseless to the encroachments of the Inquisition, but the Church of Mallorca was fortunate in obtaining the protection of Rome, leading to a series of conflicts, waged on less unequal terms, which are worth consideration as revealing a peculiar phase in these affairs. There was a long-standing quarrel between the Cathedral Canons and the Inquisition. In 1600, one of the former, Pérez and Seignat, assisted in the escape of a man who had wounded a familiar, whereupon the inquisitor, Francisco de Esquiney, threw him in prison and made him give bail in three hundred do-cuts. In 1605, another canon, Francisco Sanceloni, had a verbal artication with Bernando Luis Cotoner, advocate of prisoners, for which Esquiney imprisoned him, tried him and condemned him in the costs with this past incarceration as a punishment. The Indignant Canons addressed a strong demonstration to the Suprema. They had an old privilege confirmed by the Council of Trent that they could be arrested only by the ordinary sitting in judgment with two of their number. In matters of faith, they admitted subjection to the Holy Office, but they claimed exemption in civil and criminal cases. The number of familiars and officials, and their petulance arising from the protection of the tribunal, rendered it impossible to be always incurring the expense and dangers of appeals to Rome for the preservation of their privileges. This was ineffective and, in the course of another outbreak in 1630, there was a correspondence between the Congregation of the Roman Inquisition and the Nuncio at the Madrid, respecting an appeal from the Canons. In this, the Nuncio reported that he had applied to Inquisitor General Zapata, who promised to instruct the Inquisitor not to molest the Canons. If he did so, he was disobeyed as usual, and in 1636, a canon named Domenge was involved in a civil suit before the tribunal, resulting in a judgment against him of five thousand reales, the execution of which he resisted by force. This brought on him a prosecution, in spite of protests, interjected by the bishop and chapter, which was carried on appeal to the Suprema, where he was condemned in seven hundred reales which he paid. Meanwhile, notwithstanding the cellula of 1611, the bishop and chapter had appealed to Rome for a brief declaration that the Canons were subject to the Inquisition only in matters of faith. The question was exhaustively discussed, in the Congregation of the Holy Office, with Luis de los Infantes, the Roman agent of the Inquisition. The conclusion reached was that the Mallorca Tribunal had no jurisdiction over the Canons' save in matters of faith, and this was duly embodied in the brief Cunsecu Dilecti, March 31, 1642, which is preserved in the Balarium. It names the bishop and dean or treasurer as executors, with power to inflict censures and to invoke, if necessary, the aid of the secular arm. It was received in Mallorca with general rejoicing. It was printed and circulated, and a syndicate was formed by the clergy to obtain, without regard to expense, a similar one for the whole ecclesiastical body, an effort which was successful in the following September. The brief was duly served on the Inquisitor, who refused to recognize it as not having been transmitted through the Suprema. Besides, he asserted that it was surreptitious and obreptitious as having been granted without a hearing of the other side, and moreover it was in derogation of the bull si de protegendis. In a consulta of December 11, the Suprema represented energetically, to Philip IV, the manner in which his predecessors had compelled the surrender of papal letters adverse to the Inquisition. It asked him to have the present one suppressed, and to instruct the prelates that all cases of difference must be referred to it, that no recourse he had to Rome under the penalties decreed by Ferdinand, that the Viceroy of Mallorca be required to compel the chapter to desist, and that the ambassador to Rome be instructed to obtain the revocation of the obnoxious letters. Unluckily for the Suprema the times were unpropecious. Mallorca was too near to rebellious Carolonia, for the imperious methods of the Holy Office to be judicious. Philip replied that the revival of Ferdinand's laws would cause trouble, and the remedy sought must be practicable. The Inquisitor of Mallorca had been guilty of gross excesses, and must be ordered to exercise moderation, and he suggested a junta of members of the Suprema and Council of Aragon to devise a concordia. Whether such compromise was reached does not appear. If it was, subsequent events show that it was not observed by either side, and no reference to it occurs. The papal briefs were maintained, and ten years later, after the collapse of the Catalan Rebellion, instructions of April 23, 1652, to an ambassador departing for Rome, order him to labor for their revocation. Their evil example was contagious. The Knights of St. John in Mallorca were seeking to obtain a similar favour through the Maltese ambassador, which must be resisted in every way, for it would be followed by all of the other orders. The Suprema continued to treat the papal briefs as surreptitious, and in 1658 Arce Irenoso enjoyed a momentary triumph in a contest by summoning the Vicar General to Madrid and forcing him to come. Under the feebler government of the Queen Regent, his successor Nithard was not so fortunate, in a fierce quarrel which involved the whole island in confusion and embroiled the rival departments of the government. On May 9, 1667, on a feast day in the Church of San Francisco, Don Jorge de Meto struck his son-in-law, Don José Vallejo, with a crutch, causing infusion of blood and thus polluting the church. Both gentlemen were familiars. The inquisitor, before noon-day, ordered the arrest of both in the afternoon Bishop Manjare sided de Meto to appear for sacrilege and violation of the church. The rival jurisdictions locked horns and proceeded to extremities. The viceroy and audiencia, with the bulk of the community, sided with the bishop. But disturbances were commencing and they repeatedly urged postponement of action until the government could be heard from, but the inquisitor refused. The bishop published him as excommunicate, anathematized him, and caused a psalm of maladdiction to be repeatedly sung against him, but the inquisitor continued to celebrate mass, exhibited himself conspicuously in public, forbade the bishop entrance into his own church and threatened to suspend his sacerdotal functions. On August 29 the bishop assembled a synod where arrangements were made to send an envoy to Rome to prosecute the case, with a printed statement of all the proceedings, a copy of which was furnished to the Council of Aragon. In Madrid, Neithard imperiously summoned the bishop to appear before him and plead his case. Under the canon law the inquisition had no jurisdiction over bishops, without a special delegation of papal faculties, and Manhare was justified in declaring the summon null and void. Although an ecclesiastical question the Council of Aragon had no direct competence, still as the piece of Mallorca was seriously threatened and the viceroy was involved it took a hand in the matter and thus were presented the gravest questions with regard to the relations of the inquisition with the Episcopate, with the Holy Sea, and with the secular authorities. Secured in the blind obedience of the Queen, Neithard adopted the most aggressive attitude, and the Queen submissively did whatever he required, for he assured her that the case was the most serious that had arisen since the foundation of the inquisition and that, on its rightful decision, depended the preservation or extension not alone of the Mallorca tribunal but of all of those under the crown of Aragon. To emphasize this, he summoned the bishop to appear before him, personally or by procurator, within a term designated, in default of which he would be prosecuted in Contumacia. To this the Queen, in October, added her commands to the Council of Aragon, as the preservation of the Catholic faith required the maintenance of the authority of the inquisition, the Council was ordered to write to the bishop to comply with the summons and to the viceroy to assist the tribunal if necessary. The bishop was not appealed to Rome, and if he had done so the letters must be intercepted and placed in her hands. The Council of Aragon did not obey. It held the matter until January 21, 1668, when it presented a consulta warning the Queen of the consequences of her action and pointing out that the Pope was the sole judge of bishops in important cases, as were provincial synods in trivial matters. Nithard, however, was superior to the Council of Trent, and the Suprema commenced a criminal prosecution of Bishop Manhare, while on February 5 an answer was prepared for the Council of Aragon, couched in a tone of bitterness and scarcely veiled contempt, which showed how fierce were the passions at work. The Queen was assured that her actions were in accordance with all previous royal provisions, and she was asked to order the Council of Aragon to obey and not to interfere hereafter with ecclesiastical controversies. Before this missive was delivered, however, news came from Mallorca that the culprit de Meto had withdrawn his appeal to the tribunal and had applied for absolution to the bishop, who considered the whole matter as settled. This was a staggering blow from which it took Nithard a month to recover. But finally he sent the consulta of February 5 with a post script of March 12, arguing that the subject cannot impair his judge's jurisdiction by accepting another and consequently that the situation was unaltered. The Queen, of course, adopted this view and repeated her orders. But again the Council disobeyed her and presented March 18 a consulta adjuring her in solemn terms to reflect calmly, for she was making the inquisitor general a judge of all the bishops in her dominions, not only as to conflicts of jurisdiction, but also as to criminal accusations, without his holding faculties from the Pope, while at the same time she was forbidding appeals to the Holy See, which was the only proper judge. She was warned that it was impossible to exaggerate the importance of the questions at issue, and she was implored before making so momentous a decision to consult the Councils of Castile, Italy, and the Indies, for the interest of the whole monarchy were involved as well as the supreme power of the Pope. To this her reply was merely a repetition of her former orders and a demand for a duplicate of the letters of the Council to the Viceroy. For the third time it disobeyed her, and sent none, and there are intimations that it was engaged in arousing the whole Spanish Episcopate to a sense of the impending danger. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 1, by Henry Charles Lee. Book 2, Chapter 4, Conflicting Jurisdictions, Part 9. Then the affair suddenly assumed another face. On March 7, the Queen had written to her ambassador in Rome to procure the abstention of the Pope from the matter. But on that very day, the Congregation of the Inquisition, with approval of the Pope, had pronounced invalid the censures fominated by the Inquisitor. It was late in May before this was communicated to the Queen by the Nuncio, who said that the Pope had recognized the gravity of the assault by an Inquisitor on the Episcopal dignity and the magnitude of the ensuing scandal, and had caused the whole subject to be carefully considered by the Congregation with the above result. The Pope had felt deeply not only the indignity offered to the Episcopal office, but also that the fiscal of the Inquisition had applied to the Queen to summon the bishop before it solely on the ground of his having appealed to the Holy See. In the name of the Pope, the Nuncio therefore asked the Queen to order Inquisitors not to proceed against bishops and to reject the application of the fiscal. Even this did not shake the determination of Nithard to reduce the Episcopate to subjection. A long and argumentative consulta was presented to the Queen, proving that the papal decision was syrup-tissues and therefore invalid, and that anyhow the decrees of the Roman Inquisition had no currency in Spain. The all prohibitions of appeals to Rome were invoked, and the Queen was told that one of the most precious jewels of the Spanish crown was at stake, for unless the regalias were preserved, the Inquisition must disappear, the linguines would be unpunished, religion would suffer, and, with the loss of its unity, there would no longer be obedience to the throne. The Queen was therefore urged to stand firm. The prosecution of the bishop must not be suspended, and the Council of Aragon must be forced to obey the royal commands. Nithard was ready to risk an open breach with the Holy See in his audacious ambition to render the Inquisition supreme in the Spanish Church. How far the Queen would have suffered herself to be carried in the execution of his plans cannot be told, as the documents fail us here. His career, however, was drawing to a close. In February 1669, he was driven from Spain amid universal execration, yet the prosecution of Bishop Manhare was not abandoned, for the Inquisition was not accustomed openly to admit defeat. It dragged until his death, December 26, 1670, when it was quietly dropped. Practically, the intervention of Rome gave the victory to the Malochins, of which they took advantage. In 1671, there arose another quarrel over a fine, incurred by a canon who was also a consulter of the tribunal. Both sides exchanged excommunications, and Inquisitor General Valladares, profiting by his predecessor's experience, showed moderation. On the plea that it was a matter of government rather than of jurisdiction, the Suprema ordered the tribunal to abandon the case, and remove the censures imposed on the canons. But the latter were not content with this, and procured from the Roman Holy Office a decree declaring invalid censures of the Inquisitors, and valid those of the executors of the brief. The Council of Aragon communicated this to the Queen, who submissively signed a letter, January 25, 1672, to the Chapter expressing her confidence that in its use they would pay fitting attention to the peace and advantage of the Church. The Inquisition was not accustomed to defeat, and it chafed under this, as was shown when, in 1690, a quarrel arose because a priest of Minorca, named Juan Bruels, used insulting words to the Commissioner, Rafael Pons. For this, he was prosecuted, and the case threw all the islands into confusion. The Visoroi, the Odensha, and the clergy all united against the Inquisition. The Ordinary of Minorca, as executor of the brief of 1642, forcibly released Bruels, forbade the Inquisitor to proceed, and, on his disobeying, excommunicated him. About this time, the Malorkin Tribunal had claims to consideration arising from its vigorous proceedings against Judaizers and the larger Sultan confiscations. The Supremia espoused its cause with the usual energy, and, in repeated consultas to Carlos III, denounced the papal briefs as surreptitious and invalid, full of defects and nullities. The Feeble King issued repeated commands for the prosecution of Bruels and the surrender of the briefs, but no one paid attention to them. The Malorkin clergy procured from the Congregation of the Inquisition, a decree validating the censures pronounced by the Ordinary, in annulling those of the Inquisitor. The Pope confirmed this, but subsequently suspended it at the earnest solicitation of the Spanish Ambassador, at the same time ordering his Nuncio to make the King understand that the Congregation had supreme power to decide all questions of jurisdiction. The Affair did not result to the satisfaction of the Inquisition, for the last we hear of it is a bitter complaint by the Supremia, March 11, 1693, of the Contumaceous Malorkins and the miserable condition to which they had reduced the Inquisition. In Minorka, the clergy and their dependents were so hostile that pawns could not find a church in which to celebrate mass, while the officials were shunned as excommunicated heretics. Another jurisdiction with which there were occasional quarrels was that of the army, for soldiers were exempt from the secular courts. In such competencies settlements were made by Ahunta of two members, each of the Supremia and the Council of War, with final reference to the King in case of disagreement. I have happened to meet with but few cases of this, and they seem never to have attained the importance of those with the secular and ecclesiastical courts. One occurred in 1629, arising from disputes with the garrison that had occupied Alhaferia since the troubles of 1591. A somewhat curious case was that of Don Fernando Antonio Herrera Calderón of Santander, who was Alguazil and familiar and who were signed in 1641 from his military company, although warned that by so doing during hostilities he would be tried by the Council of War. It naturally cleaned him and the Supremia endeavored to protect him. It would seem that, towards the end of the 18th century, the exemption of the military was causing special troubles. For a royal sedula of February 9, 1793 declares that, to put an end to them, in future the military judges shall have exclusive cognizance of all cases, civil and criminal, in which soldiers are defendants, except inheritances, and that no tribunal or judge of any kind shall form a competencia concerning them under any pretext. There was yet another independent jurisdiction with which the inquisition occasionally came into collision. In Spain, the military orders formed so important a body that among the state councils there was one of orders which had exclusive jurisdiction over their members. It will be recalled that one of Vardinán's most efficient measures to ensure the peace of the kingdom was to obtain the perpetual administration of those of Santiago, Calatrava and Alcántara, while the queen assumed that of Montesa. Yet he was not disposed to favor the claims of exemption in temporal matters from the jurisdiction of the inquisition. A latter of September 15, 1515, to the tribunal of Haen, says that certain confiscations involve property held by knights of the three orders who may claim exemption and refuse to plead before the judge of confiscations. If so, they are not to be listened to and, if necessary, are to be prosecuted with the full rigor of the law. In civil and criminal matters, the members of the orders asserted exemption from the jurisdiction of the inquisition, leading to disputes more or less acrimonious. In 1609, at Córdoba, Don Diego de Argote, a knight of Santiago, with level pistol, prevented the arrest of one of his servants by officials of the tribunal. A competency resulted which, when carried up to Philip III, was decided by him in favor of the Council of Orders. To this, the Suprema replied in a consulta, for telling the entire destruction of the inquisition in case the decision was allowed to stand, and so worked on Philip that he reversed his decree and allowed the Suprema to prosecute the culprit. The complication caused by these class privileges is illustrated in the case alluded to above, occurring in 1648 at Cuenca of Muñoz de Castelblanque for the murder of the priest Jacinto. He was a knight of Calatrava, which led to an additional competency when the junta could not agree and the king had to decide. In their contests with the orders, the tribunals were apt to exhibit the same unscrupulous spirit as in those with other contestants. In Mallorca, Dr. Ramon Zureda, canon, chancellor, and judge of competencias, was likewise conservator of the military orders. In 1657, he complained that, in conflicts of jurisdiction, the inquisitor would not form competencias with him in order that the papers might take the regular course of transmission for settlement by the Suprema and Council of Orders. The king and queen, therefore, as administrators of the orders, instructed him in such case to send to the inquisitor three successive messages and report them and their replies to the council. If, in spite of this, the tribunal continued to prosecute the case, he was to proceed against the inquisitor and the visoroy was to render him proper support. The inquisitor ingeniously evaded this in the case of Gaspar Puigdor Filio, a knight of Santiago, in 1661, by refusing to receive any messages, saying that he received them only from the visoroy. Zureda's report of this was left unnoticed and the inquisitor adapted the same device in 1662, in the case of Francisco de Veil, a knight of Montesa, prosecutor for wounding a familiar who had drawn a sword upon him. He refused to receive messages and proceeded to sequestrate various property, including his crops and cattle. To save them from destruction, the visoroy interposed and the council of orders appealed to the queen, as administrator of the order, to take some action that should enable such questions to be settled peaceably, but apparently without result. As though they exempted classes for not numerous and troublesome enough, there was a project in 1574 of adding another which, if carried into effect, would have altered the destiny of Spain by subjecting it eventually to the inquisition and reducing the nominal monarch to the position of a Roa Fenyon under a mayor of the palace. It is a most impressive illustration of the spirit of the age that such a project should have been formulated that it received enthusiastic support and that the sovereign so jealous of his prerogative as Philip II should have even allowed it to be debated, much less have let it assume a menacing shape and have given it serious consideration. A military order was to be established under the name of Santa Maria de la Espada Blanca with a white sword as a symbol like the red sword of Santiago. At its head was to be the inquisitor general to whom all members were to swear allegiance and whose orders in peace and war all were to obey. To him likewise they were to was sign their property receiving back at his hands what was necessary for their support and after death their widows were to be pensioned by him. They were to be exempt from all jurisdiction save his which was to be delegated to priors appointed in all the provinces. Those tensible object was the defense of the faith and of Spain for which they were at any time liable to be called to the field or to serve in garrison under the orders of the inquisitor general. Thus the inquisition was to be furnished with an organized force sworn to blind obedience and released from all other obligations. The only requisite for membership was limpieza or purity of blood free from all taint of Judaic or murish contamination or descent from those who had been sentenced for heresy. At this period limpieza was becoming a popular mania the cost of proving it through four generations was considerable and there was strong temptation in the promise that the expenses of all applicants would be defrayed from the common fund. The project may seem to us too wild to merit a thought but it responded so perfectly to the temper of the time that it was enthusiastically adapted by the provinces of Castile, León, Piscay, Navarre, Aragon, Valencia, Catalonia, Asturias and Galicia. Procurators from these provinces submitted it to Philip for his approval and were supported by representatives of 48 noble houses and of the archiepiscopal seas of Toledo, Santiago, Seville, Saragosa, Valencia, Tarragona and Granada. It was debated earnestly and at much length but the argument of Pedro Venegas de Córdoba decided its fate. He pointed out the troubles which were already arising on the subject of limpieza causing jealousies, hatreds and contentions to be increased enormously if the population was thus to be divided into two classes. Also the fact that the royal courts would have left to their jurisdiction only the new Christians while the old Christians would have their special judges and if the comparatively few existing familiars cost such all-pervading troubles what the effect would be of increasing without limit the number of the exempt. On the one hand, the ambitious enablement among the new Christians being thus cast out would foment disaffection and disturbance. On the other, if the old military orders had been a source of danger to the monarchy what would be the effect of creating a new one united and vastly more numerous and subject as vassals to an inquisitor general whose power was already so great and who would control the property and have jurisdiction over all members while in case of rebellion the frontiers and strongholds would be in his hands. This reasoning was unanswerable. Philip ordered all papers connected with the project to be surrendered. He imposed perpetual silence on its advocates and wrote to the ecclesiastical and secular bodies to abandon it for justice and protection would never be lacking. We shall probably do know injustice to the inquisition in attributing to the prophets accruing from the exercise of its temporal jurisdiction the ruthless vigor with which the tribunals sought to vindicate and extend it. The remarks of the visitor Cervantes with regard to Barcelona in 1561 indicate how lucrative it could be made and how welcome was the addition of fees and fines to the somewhat bigger salaries of the officials. This explains the reckless violence which became habitual in the conduct of quarrels because this not only was an assurance to the parties concerned as to the vigor with which they were defended but it also served to discourage the secular authorities from resisting encroachments. It also explains the multiplication of the unsalaryed officials such as familiars, commissioners and their notaries, assessors, deputies, etc. which no laws or concordias or regulations could restrain. For each one was a possible source of profit to the tribunal and a probable cause of disturbance in his viscignage through the comfortable assurance of immunity from the law. The natural result of this was that unprofitable business was neglected for profitable and the suppression of heresy was postponed to the trial of civil and criminal cases which yielded fees. We have seen how Cervantes reported that in Barcelona they seemed to be the real duty of the tribunal and that there was nothing else to be attended to. His animate versions produced no amendment and in 1567 the Soto Salazar repeated the complaint. This continued unchecked. The project of reform presented to the Suprema in 1623 expresses the wish that other tribunals would follow the example of Saragosa where one of the inquisitors was delegated every four months to conduct this business so that prisoners on trial for heresy could have their cases dispatched and not be kept languishing interminably in prison which, as we shall see, was one of the sorest abuses inflicted on them. This pious wish was fruitless and the records of the inquisition for the following century show how large a portion of its activity was devoted to these cases and to the competencies incessantly springing from them. One feature which aggravated the oppression in these matters especially in civil suits was not only the favoritism which inevitably inclined the tribunal to the side of its own people but the fact that the inquisitors were usually strangers unfamiliar with the local laws and customs peculiar to each province which they presumed to interpret and enforce. This justified the frequent demands that inquisitors should be natives demands which received no attention for the appointing power thought only of their qualifications as judges of the faith while to the mass of the population their duties in disrespect were of small account in comparison with their activity in their temporal jurisdiction. Another well-grounded source of complaint was that the inquisitorial habits of secrecy could not be wholly overcome. The parties and their counsel were not allowed to be present as in the royal courts. Witnesses were examined by the inquisitor on lists of interrogatories furnished to him and there was no cross-examination. Written arguments were presented to him which he handed to the other side for reply and the procedure in both civil and criminal cases was assimilated as nearly as might be to the secret trials for heresy which was the inquisitorial ideal of the dispensation of justice. The cases were decided by the inquisitors in session together on a majority vote. In the 16th century there was no appeal to the Suprema even when the vote was not unanimous but in 1645 a writer assumes that either side could appeal. We have seen how tenaciously the kingdoms of Paragon struggled against the evils of the system. Castile felt them equally but it had not the same institutions and could only remonstrate. The courtes of Madrid in 1607, 1608 represented that those of 1579 and 1586 had petitioned for the reform of the abuses arising from the temporal jurisdiction of the inquisition to the great injury of the kingdom that Philip II had promised relief but had died without granting it and therefore the request was now repeated in view of the increasing evils. Especially was attention called to the cruelty of imprisoning ordinary offenders for the people could not distinguish and imagined all prisoners to be heretics thus entailing infamy upon them and disqualifying them for marriage therefore it was asked that they be confined in the public jails. Philip III promised to do what was proper and of course did nothing. The courtes of 1611 repeated the petition with similar lack of result. The Council of Castile, the highest tribunal in the land in a consulta of 1631 represented forcibly the existing evils especially the prodigal use of censures under which Corridores and other magistrates lay under excommunication for months together while individuals were impoverished by the long delays in settling competencias. It urged the remedy of permitting appeals to the Council por via de fuerza in cases not of faith and these it repeated in 1634, 1669 and 1682. More outspoken was a memorial presented in 1648 to Philip by a member of the Council on the abuses of the criminal jurisdiction those in civil cases being treated in a separate paper. The writer alludes to having repeatedly made the same representations orally and in writing he dwells upon the interminable delays and other obstacles which impede justice and discourage sufferers from seeking it. The resultant immunity creates audacious criminals. The number of familiars and of soldiers who never serve in the field has increased so greatly that nothing is seen but crimes and the offenders are unpunished. Everywhere men of the most dissolute type and the largest fortunes seek appointment so as to enjoy immunity. The royal revenues are defrauded and prohibited goods are imported while no Correjidor or Alcalde dares to curb them for they are at once excommunicated by the inquisitors even to casting interdicts over whole communities. Those who suffer remain without redress so that those who are able are led to take it into their own hands for they can get it nowhere else. Justice is trampled underfoot. There is no Algoazil who dares to make an arrest or scrivener to draw up papers so many have been slain or wounded for so doing and the death of an Algoazil is held at naught as though the officers of justice were common enemies. If the king would re-establish the jurisdiction of the royal courts there would be an end to the excommunications with which the inquisitors defend their delinquents as though they were vessels of the temple. The time of the council and of the king would not be consumed by this perpetual competencies and the plagues would cease wherewith God afflicts these kingdoms for the injustice, the violence and the dissolute life of the people. These warnings and remonstrances fell on deaf ears. The Suprema was skilled to work upon the piety of the king and to promise him relief from perils if he would placate God by increasing the privileges of the Inquisition, the very existence of which depended upon its ability to protect its familiars from the law and from the universal hatred in which they were held. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Algy Pug, Perth, Western Australia. History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 1 by Henry Charles Lay. Book 2, Chapter 4, Conflicting Jurisdictions, Part 10 After the fall of Inquisitor General Nithard there was a bustling attempt to check the enormous evils admitted to exist. In 1677, Carlos II deprecated the abuses common, both in excess of charges and enforcing his pious subjects to submit by censures which deprived him of the consolations of religion. He declared excommunication to be illegal in matters connected exclusively with laymen and temporal possessions and forbade its employment, a command which he addressed to the Suprema in 1678 with directions to enforce it and which repeated in 1691 but without effect. Then a more comprehensive effort was made to affect a radical reform. In 1696, Carlos was induced to assemble what was known as the junta mania, consisting of two members each of the councils of state, of Aragon, of Castile, of Italy, of Indies, and of Orders. The decree creating it recites the disturbance and the interference with justice, the continual collisions and competencies between the Inquisition and the courts over question of jurisdiction and privileges, and a necessity of establishing some fixed principles and rules to avert these troubles for the future and to preserve the holy office in the love and reverence of the people without its interfering in matters foreign to its venerable purpose. The junta was to meet at least once a week, and it was furnished with materials from the records of all the councils through which it obtained a thorough insight into the evils to be remedied. These labors resulted in a memorial known as the Consulta Mania, drawn up by Dr. Joseph de la Desma of the Council of Castile. It constituted a terrible indictment of the abuse by the Inquisition of the temporal jurisdiction bestowed on it by the sovereigns with ample proof of flagrant cases and incidents. Then followed a consideration of possible remedies of which the most indispensable was to declared to be the prohibition of censures, which were so formidable that no one could resist them. Persons arrested for offences not of faith should be confined in the royal prisons to save them from the indelible disgrace of the secret prison. The Recurso de Fuerza should be admitted when excommunication was used in temporal cases. The Fuerro should be withdrawn from the servants and commensals of officials whose insolence gave occasion to arrests and censures causing dissensions that scandalized the whole kingdom. It was admitted that familias now gave little trouble, save in Mallorca where there was no concordia, but the saluted officials were the source of infinite contention and they should be put on the footing of familias. A grievance of the greatest magnitude was the interminable delay in the settlement of competent seers during which prisoners languished in confinement and excommunicates could not obtain absolution. This could be averted if the concordias and royal orders were enforced. As all attempts to curb the inquisition had proved useless, and in spite of them had continually increased its abuses, the ultimate remedy of depriving it wholly of the royal jurisdiction might be found necessary, but meanwhile these Mallorca measures might be tried in hope of relief. These proposed remedies will be seen were moderate enough and in no way limited the inquisition in its ostensible functions as a preserver of the faith. This was the most formidable assault that the inquisition had experienced, coming as it did from the combined forces of all the other organizations of the state under the auspices of the king, but it was easily averted. Llorente tells us that inquisitor general Roccaberti, working through the royal confessor Freiland Diaz, who was ex-officio, a member of the Suprema, and also Roccaberti's subject in the Dominican order, succeeded in inducing Carlos to consign the consulter to the limbo in which reposed so many previous memorials. The manner in which this was affected was simple enough. In 1726, Don Santiago Agustin Rial drew up for Philip V, a report on the creation and organization of the state councils, in which he states that the consulter was submitted to the council of Castile for its action. This was delayed by the illness of the governor of the council. When he returned to duty, the matter was forgotten, and the consulter disappeared so completely that when Philip V called for it in 1701, no copy could be found in the archives, as appeared from certificate furnished by the archivist. This narrow escape did not teach moderation. In 1702, the Valencia Tribunal refused even to join in a competent thea over a case in which it entertained a suit brought to collect the interest on a censor by the widow of an Aguazil mare as guardian of her children. It was in vain that the regent of the Audienthea pointed out that under the concordia of 1568, the widow of an official only enjoyed the foiello as defendant and not as plaintiff, and that the children had no claim whatever, and cited precedents that had been so decided. The tribunal was stubborn and would not even admit that the question could be carried up to the Supremer and Council of Aragon for decision. It was not long after this, however, that the Supremer was obliged to admit that reforms in the methods of the Holy Office were essential. In its Carter Aquodata of June 27, 1705, is embodied the rebuke of the recklessness with which the tribunals undertook the defence of their officials, resulting in the universal complaints of the abuse of its jurisdiction. So that it was popularly said that everything was made a caso de inquitizion to the disrepute of its officials and their families. Therefore, unless the jurisdiction was indisputable, the Supremer must be consulted before assuming the defence. Amicable adjustments must also always be sought, and friendly relations be maintained with the royal officials, thus avoiding competencies which ordinarily arose from passionate conflicts over trifles. These were wise admonitions to which, as usual, scant attention was paid, but in time the tribunals were made to recognise the change that had come in with the Bourbons. There was a highly illustrative case in 1720 at Toledo, where Don Pedro Panagua, contador or auditor of the tribunal, received in October 20 sacks of cocoa from Cadiz. In intricate details of the Spanish system of internal imposts, it would be impossible now to say whether he had observed the formalities requisite in the transmission of merchandise. But the local authorities assumed that there was a violation of law and also an infraction of quarantine imposed in August owing to an epidemic in Marseille. The Corregidor was prompt. At 2 a.m. of the day following the arrival of the cocoa, he shirts Panigua's country house, and at 9 a.m. his townhouse, and sequestrated the cocoa. The inquisitors responded by imprisoning the civic guards who had been employed. A fortnight later, another visit paid to Panigua's house showed that five sacks of the sequestrated article had been removed, whereupon he was confined in the royal prison. The inquisitors proceeded against the Corregidor and Alcalde Mayor with censures, and aggravated them so energetically that in 24 hours they had an interdict and a cessatio adivinas in four parishes of the city. These act of demonstrations, however suited to the 17th century, were out of place in the 18th. As soon as news of them reached Madrid, hurried orders were dispatched by the supremo to remove the interdict, absolve the officials, and release the guards. And when the formal report came from the tribunal, the orders were repeated, with the addition that the senior inquisitor should start for Madrid within 24 hours. Prior to receiving this, the inquisitors had written to inquisitor General Camargo, lamenting his abandonment of them, and that his honour inflicted on the tribunal. They blushed to be accomplices in his ruin, and they tended their resignations. The answer to this was sent in the senior inquisitor of Madrid to take charge of the tribunal, with orders to the two remaining inquisitors to remain in Madrid, but on learning that they had obeyed the first orders, they were allowed to remain in Toledo. How strong had been the pressure exerted on the suprema to produce this action, may be inferred from a protest in which, a month later, it poured forth to Philip V its bitterness of soul. The Corregidor had violated the privileges and immunities of the inquisition. The inquisitors had been perfectly justified in their action, although too speedy in aggravating dissentions. They had been humiliated, while the Corregidor and his underlings were boasting of their triumph over the inquisition, and of depriving it of the rights granted by the Popes and the kings of Spain. The suprema therefore asked that the senior inquisitor be allowed to return to Toledo, that Panagua be released by the hands of the inquisitors, that his coca be restored, and that the Corregidor and Alcalde may be duly punished. This accomplished nothing, and two months later it again appealed to the king for the release of Panagua and the restoration of the senior inquisitor, but this time it professed zeal to see that in future the tribunals should practice more moderation. The lesson was a hard one, but had a still harder one in 1734, when Philip decided that a soured official should be tried by the ordinary courts. Step by step, the old-time privileges were being curtailed. Soon after the accession of Fernando VI, some trouble rose at Lorena over the taxation of familiars. It seems to have been aggravated in the usual manner, and when it reached the king, it was of a character that induced him to issue a decree, October 5, 1747, by which the Council of Castile was given jurisdiction over the officials of the inquisition. This called forth a heated remonstrance, dated November 1, which must have proceeded from the inquisitor general Plado y Cuesta, for no other subject would have dared thus to address his sovereign. The writer tells him that the decree is unworthy of his name and his faith, nor is it well that the world should see him, in the first year of his reign, discharge such a thunderbolt against the holy office, such as that it never received since its foundation, leaving it prostrated by the shock. He affirms before God, and would wish to write it with his blood, that the service of Jesus Christ and the prosperity of the king and his kingdoms required that the decree be returned to the royal hands, without a copy being allowed to remain. Although this decree was not effective as to the soured officials, the inquisition was falling upon evil days. It no longer inspired the old-time awe. It was no longer striving to extend its prerogatives, but was fighting a losing battle to maintain them. A writer about this period deploys its decadence. Its commissioners and familiars serve without pay, and the only reward for their labours and the cost of making their proofs of limpiezza is the exemptions of pure honour granted by the kings. But now, scarce one of these is observed, and no fit person seek the positions, although they are much needed, for they are not a tenth part of those allowed by the concordias. There is probably some truth in this, for inquisitor General Prado E. Cuesta, in appointing at the request of the Tribunal Valencia, Frey Vicente Latorea's calificador, or censor, asks why, when there are so many learned canons and professors in Valencia, who formerly were eager in seeking the position, it had now fallen so greatly in estimation. It was difficult for the inquisition to reconcile itself to the tendencies of the age, and several cases about this time, in which the Tribunal Valencia refused even to admit competencies, asserting that its combined ecclesiastical arid royal jurisdictions rendered it the sole judge of all that concerned its officials, show that the old spirit still lingered and found expression whenever it dared. Carlos III, however, was even more assertive of the royal prerogative than his brother Fernando. We have seen his orders of 1763 concerning municipal and police regulations, which include the prohibitions of carrying concealed weapons and exporting money, in all of which familiars were wholly removed from the jurisdiction of the inquisition, and in 1775, a competencia in Cordova caused him emphatically to order the inviolable observance of this decree. All this led to the change in the commissions of familiars as regards carrying arms, which was brought about in 1777 by the authorities of Aquila La Rial and Seville, refusing to register commissions issued by the Tribunals of Toledo and Seville, because they were not in accordance with the new regulations. In place, as of old, of blustering and coercing the magistrates, the Supremia collected from all the Tribunals the formulas employed by them and framed a new one, phrased in a very different spirit and in accordance with the royal edicts. That the endless quarrels, which we have been considering, ought to be settled in an amlicable manner was so self-evident that, from an early period, persistent efforts had been made to accomplish it, resulting in their competencia so frequently alluded to above. Originally, it would seem that there was no established procedure and that the inquisition settled for itself, all questions arising with the magistrates. After the first opposition had been broken down, these were not numerous, until the attribution of Fuerro to the officials and the enormous multiplication of familiars and other unsurried officers gave occasion for collisions with the courts. The earliest attempt that I have met to prove a method of settlement is a Thedula issued about 1535 by the Empress Regent in the absence of Charles V, ordering that when there was a dispute about jurisdiction, the President and judges of the royal court should meet the inquisitors and arrange matters harmoniously so that it should not be known that there had been a difference between them. It was in conformity with this that, in 1542, Rehoekin de Tuenes was tried in Barcelona for the murder of Juan Bayer, a familiar. The inquisitor, Miguel Puig, held a conference with the Regent and judges the royal chancellery prior to the arrest and the custody the accused was settled without difficulty. It was impossible, however, to preserve peace between classes mutually jealous and we have seen the troubles which Prince Philip endeavored to settle by the Thedula of May 15th, 1545. This favoured the royal jurisdiction and produced complaints from the Supreme as when, in 1548, it represented to Charles V that in Granada the judges had made the Thedula a pretext to intervene in the business of the tribunal whenever one made a complaint requiring the inquisitors to interrupt their work and come to the Audiencia where they were ordered not to proceed and if this were disobeyed the judges raised a great disturbance. All this would cease if the old royal restored that any one feeling aggrieved must appeal to the Supremer where he would get justice. Prince Philip Thedula of 1553 settled this as far as concerned matters of faith but neither it nor the Castilian Concordia of the same year could prevent disputes over the immunities of the officials and familiars which the inquisition was persistently endeavouring to extend. The Concordia however endeavored to provide for the settlement of these by the process described above which became technically known as competencia. It is remarkable that in the Valencia Concordia of 1554 there is no such provision but in that of 1568 for the Aragonese Kingdoms it appears in the slightly different form that the Regent of the Audiencia and the senior Inquisitor should consult and endeavour to come to some agreement. If they could not do so the Regent was to send his side of the case to the Council of Aragon and the Inquisitor his to the Supremer when the King would arrange how the matter should be decided. The two formulas were combined in practice and remained the established method of settling conflicts of jurisdiction. This should have produced peace but we have seen that it only gave occasion for fresh subjects of discord. The Inquisitors were rest of under any restraint on their arbitrary methods and already in 1560 a Carta Accorata of November 14th warns them that they are not to proceed with censures against the judges when the latter offer competencies but are to send the papers to the Supremer and await the result under a penalty of 20 ducats for every infraction of the rule. The Inquisitors however avoided competent seers as far as they could and when obliged to concede them the opportunity was taken of humiliating the royal judges and make them feel the inferiority in a manner most galling to men so tenacious of the respect due to position and so insistent on courtesy. When De Sorte Salazar reports the Inquisitors of Bartholona that when they had occasioned to notify the Lieutenant of the King or Regent of the Audientheir they sent a message to summon him and then kept him waiting in the antechamber and at some times they called the judges before them and scolded them without cause. We can readily appreciate the intensity of their hatred thus excited. So when the Inquisition established its formula for competencies they were seduously framed to be as arrogantly insulting as possible. The first mandate inhibits peremptorily the judge from action and in orders him to remit the case of the tribunal within 24 hours. If an arrest had been made the prisoner is to be discharged on bail to present himself before the Inquisitors and any property seized or sequestrated is to be released. If the secular judge has any reason to allege to the contrary he is to present himself in person or by procurator to the tribunal which will render justice and all this is under wholly obedience and the threat of major excommunication and a heavy fine. If there are any papers in the case the scrivener is ordered to surrender them and the accuser or plaintiff is to appear within a time specified and receive justice in default of which the case will be heard without him and without further notice. Then if a reply is made to this alleging reasons for not obeying a second mandate is issued pronouncing them insufficient nor in the first one to be obeyed within a specified time under the above penalties. If the judge then proposes the competencia a mandate is sent to him reciting the previous ones and saying that to avoid troubling the higher powers he is ordered to surrender all papers and suspend all action or the excommunication and fine will be enforced on his person and property. The next mandate accepts the competencia states that the tribunal is ready to forward its papers and orders the judges to send their side within 12 days adding a threat of excommunication and fine if any additional testimony be taken in the case. All this is phrased in the most mandatory fashion as of a superior addressing a subordinate and all these missives are ordered to be returned to the tribunal if after a competencia was formed the familiar or official accepted the jurisdiction of the secular court he was deprived of his commission. As we have frequently seen there was no hesitation at any stage of the proceedings to excommunicate the judges to anathematize them and to lay it interdict on the city followed by Ciccio a Divinas. In addition to the gratification of thus humiliating the magistrates there was also in this traculence the object of rendering the process so offensive as to make them shrink from resisting the encroachments of the inquisition. When this failed the tribunal had abundant sources of annoyance in raising interminable questions of precedence and formalities which were sometimes fought so bitterly and long as to virtually to supersede the original case. The points that could be raised were endless. In 1602 the count of Benavente then Vice-Royer Valencia issued letters ordering a conference over the arrest of Geronimo Falcon. The tribunal surrendered him admitting that the case did not pertain to it but demanded that the Vice-Royer and chancelory should cancel the letters on their records and on refusal it excommunicated the regent. The matter was carried up to the Supremer and Council of Aragon when the king decided that the letters must be expunged and it was done in the presence of Secretary of the Inquisition. The same humiliation had been inflicted on the Count's father when he was Vice-Royer and also on the Duke of Sagorbe. This arrogance continued until Carlos III in his decree of 1775 informed the Inquisition that the royal jurisdiction which had exercised was on precisely the same level as that of his judges and magistrates. There must be entire equality between them. All threats of communication and fines must be abandoned. There must be free interchange of papers, mutual courtesy, and no assumption of superiority. It was difficult for the tribunals to abandon the formulas which flattered their vanity and the second command was necessary, issued in 1783 on the occasion of a prolonged conflict of the Valencia Tribunal with the Alcalde of Constantina. This finally produced obedience and the Supremer transmitted the royal order to Valencia with instructions for its observance. End of Book 2 Chapter 4 Part 10 Recording by L. G. Pug. Book 2 Chapter 4 Part 11 of History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 1 This is LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 1 by Henry Charles Lee. Book 2 Chapter 4 Conflicting Jurisdictions, Part 11 While this doubtless diminished the exasperation of these conflicts, it did not check their frequency. They continued to be a constant source of trouble and it was from a desire to diminish this as well to extend its authority that the Supremer in 1806 forbade the tribunals from instituting them without submitting the case to it and receiving its approval. When, under the restoration, the Inquisition was revived in 1814, the officials naturally claimed the Fuero, active and passive, civil and criminal, and Fernando VII, in the decision of a case carried up to him from Seville, announced February 15, 1815, in no uncertain tones that they should be protected in its enjoyment, but the cases appear to be rare and the aggressive spirit had disappeared. When, in Seville, the creditors of Francisco de Paula Esquivol complained of him to the tribunal in place of defending him, it promptly dismissed him June 27, 1815, an action which was confirmed by the Supremer. Even more significant was a case in 1816 when in Seville Lorenzo Ayon abused a priest while celebrating mass and endeavored to seize the sacrament and the secular authorities arrested and proceeded to try him. In such a case there could be no question as to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, but there was no disturbance, and when the tribunal claimed his transfer to the secret prison, the Supremer interposed and ordered that he should be allowed to remain in the public jail, a detainer being lodged to prevent his discharge during his trial, a concession to the royal jurisdiction which would have petrified Pacheco or Arcei Renoso. There was the same disposition to avoid coming to extremes with the spiritual courts. In 1816 the provisor of the Sea of Tui prosecuted Joseph Metzger for impious, execrable, and sacrilegious blasphemies. The tribunal of Santiago applied, in a courteous note, to the provisor for the papers and received a reply without signature. This the Supremer directed it to return and explained that there was no desire to invade the Episcopal jurisdiction, but as the blasphemous propositions and acts of Metzger might be heretical, of which the Inquisition had exclusive cognizance, it must insist on seeing the evidence to extract what appertained to it after which the papers would be returned. It seems to have obtained the evidence for, on October 15th, 1817, it voted to imprison Metzger as soon as his trial by the provisor should be ended, but the Supremer instructed it not to wait for this, as the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was privileged. There was one peculiarly irritating feature in the position of the Inquisition in these quarrels, which exacerbated them greatly and often neutralized all efforts to maintain harmony. The power which it irrigated to itself of refusing to form competencias on the ground that its rights were too clear to admit of debate. Thus it held that the salaried and titular officers, with their families and servants, were so wholly beyond all secular jurisdiction that it refused to entertain any proceedings in contest of their claims. It was in vain that Philip III, by a royal letter of 1615, declared that if inquisitors refused a conference on the ground that the matter was too clear to justify it, the regent of the chancellory should form a competencia and forward the papers as usual. It was equally useless for Philip IV to decree in 1630 that when a contention was started by either party, the other must entertain it, no matter how clear it might be, under pain for a first offense of five hundred ducats, and for a second of suspension during the royal pleasure. To ensure the imposition of the fine, each council was to give the other faculties for its collection from offenders. But when the Supremo forwarded this decree to the tribunals, with orders for its strict observance, it added significantly that it did not apply to cases of salaried and titular officials, though no such exception was made in the decree. It knew that Philip would never summon courage to enforce his law, and it was right. When, in 1633, the Council of Aragon endeavored to collect such a fine, the Supremo interposed, asserting that it could only be done by consent of both councils, which was in effect to invalidate the law, and Philip himself violated it in 1634, when Augustine Vidal, messenger of the Tribunal of Valencia, was arrested by the royal court for the murder of Juan Alonso Martinez, a knight of Santiago and Bailea Valicante. The tribunal demanded him and refused a competencia when Philip weekly ordered him to be surrendered, for this time and without prejudice to my royal jurisdiction. The inquisition carried its point. Philip, by decisions of 1645 and 1658, admitted that there could be no competencias in the case of salaried officials, and the Suprema enforced these decisions by a carta acordada of August 7th, 1662, pointing out that they must not be entertained where such officials were concerned. At the same time, the tribunals were warned to exercise moderation and not to employ censures without consulting it, unless delay was inadmissible. Even Philip, however, had to intervene against the consequences of his own acts in 1664, when the porterro of the Tribunal of Logroño killed in his house a priest, apparently through jealousy. The Alcalde mayor prosecuted the murderer and arrested his wife. The tribunal excommunicated the Alcalde and cast an interdict on the town. The Council of Aragon formed a competencia and claimed that during it the censures should be raised according to custom, but the Suprema refused on the ground that there could be no competencia. Philip was appealed to and ordered the censures raised for the unanswerable reason that as judges under excommunication could not hold their courts, if it were allowed thus to paralyse all judicial business, it would have arbitrary control over all cases and frustrate all legal remedies. This decision was disregarded. It seems extraordinary that any community would endure for centuries the indefinite stoppage of the administration of justice constantly occurring through the reckless abuse of the power of excommunication, as when in 1672 we find the queen regent applying to the inquisitor general to know how she is to answer the complaints of the town of Logroño at the prolonged suspension of the powers of the corregidor who lay under excommunication, seeing that there is no conclusion of the competencia which has been so long pending. The inquisition evidently aggravated as far as it could the public distress as a means of establishing its claims. In an effort to limit the abuse of refusing competencias there was a junta formed in 1679 from the Suprema and Council of State with the assistance of some theologians. This admitted that there could be no competencia in the cases of salaried officials except when they held public office and were prosecuted for malfeasance. But it laid down the rule that when the Suprema refused a competencia the Council of State could appeal to the king who could appoint a junta to decide this secondary question. Unlimited time was allowed to the Suprema to state its reasons for refusal and during a competencia the accused was to be liberated on bail and all censures were to be raised. This removed some of the hardships but the Suprema seems to have sought to evade it by sullenly refusing to form the junta with the royal councils. For another decree of Carlos II ordered it to attend when summoned so that these affairs might be settled. It was in vain that in 1730 the Council of Castile urged that competencias be admitted in all cases for Philip V decided that the agreement of 1679 should stand. Probably not much was gained in the latest attempt to settle these perennial quarrels by Carlos IV in 1804 who ordered that when a conflict arose between a royal court and a tribunal in a matter not of faith concerning an official the court should refer the case to the governor of the royal council and the tribunal to the Suprema. These should then select an examiner who was to report to the secretaria de gracia e justicia for the royal decision. The evils of the system were admitted on all hands but it was so vicious in principle that remedies were impossible. The customary juntas of two members each from the Suprema and the Council of Castile or of Aragon was at best a clumsy device onerous on the councils and usually leading only to procrastination. To systematize it in 1625 a permanent junta grande de competencias was formed of two members from each council whose duty it should be to dispatch all cases and rules for it were framed in April 1626 but it was short-lived. In 1634 Philip IV ordered the formation of a junta of two members each of the Suprema and Council of Castile to formulate a plan of relief but on June 9th of that year the Suprema reported that it had never been able to accomplish a meeting of the junta. Then in 1657 the junta grande was resuscitated and we meet with an illusion to it in 1659 but it appears to have been abandoned soon afterwards. Ingenuity was at fault to alleviate the evils inseparable from the permanent antagonism between the rival jurisdictions. Of these evils the one most keenly felt was the interminable delay in the settlement of cases. The councils from which the members were drawn were crowded with their more legitimate business. There was rarely a court in the junta. The matter would be argued without exception of agreement. Each side would be obstinate. Perhaps the case would be referred to the king or years would pass before a settlement would be reached. Perhaps indeed it would be silently dropped without a decision especially when a decision might be undesirable because one or both sides feared a troublesome precedent. Meanwhile the case remained petrified in the condition existing at the time the competency was formed. Until the so-called concordia of 1679 permitted the release of prisoners on bail if anyone had been arrested he remained in prison perhaps to die there as sometimes occurred. In 1638 the Inquisition complained of this when its officers happened to be the prisoners for competencias were always slow of settlement and the work of the tribunals was crippled for lack of their ministers while their poverty precluded their giving adequate salaries to substitutes. It was not until 1721 that a remedy for this procrastination was sought by Philip V in a decree reciting the long delays and frequency of cases remaining undecided by reason of a deadlock in the junta wherefore in future when a junta was formed he was to be notified in order that he might appoint a fifth member thus assuring a majority. It does not seem however that this accomplished its purpose and when Carlos III consolidated the cumbers framework of government by instituting the junta de estado composed of the ministers of the several departments Florida Blanca enumerates among the benefits of crewing the expediting of cases of competencia and avoiding the interminable delays caused by the etiquette of the tribunals and the intrigues of the parties concerned. I have dwelt thus in detail on this subject not only because it absorbed so large a portion of the activity of the Inquisition but because of its importance in relations between the Holy Office and the other institutions of Spain and in explaining the detestation which the Inquisition excited. If the people regarded it as a whole with awe and veneration as the bulwark of the Catholic faith their hatred was nonetheless for its members and the perpetual struggle against the tremendous odds of its power supported by the unflinching favor of the Habsburgs bears equal testimony to the tenacity of the Spanish character and to the magnitude of the evils with which the Inquisition afflicted the nation. End of Book 2 Chapter 4 Part 11 Recording by Margaret Espayet, Orlando, Florida Book 2 Chapter 5 Part 1 of History of the Inquisition of Spain Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org History of the Inquisition of Spain Volume 1 by Henry Charles Lee Book 2 Chapter 5 C Part 1 The preceding chapters illustrate some of the causes that provoked popular hatred of the Inquisition but these were by no means all. It enjoyed, as we have said, enthusiastic support in the exercise of its appropriate functions in defending the faith, but apart from this it had infinite ways of exciting hostility. This was the inevitable result of entrusting irresponsible power to men for the most part overbearing and arrogant who owed obedience only to the Suprema and who early learned that while it might disapprove of their acts it always supported them against complaints and while it might administer rebuke in secret it hesitated long before it would compromise the asserted infallibility of the Holy Office by a dismissal or any other public demonstration. There was no other power to call them to account and they could rely upon its indulgence. This indulgence they extended to their subordinates over whom indeed they had not the power of removal and the consequence was that the whole body thoroughly earned the detestation of the people by the abuse of their privileges, creating irritation which was nonetheless exasperating because its causes might be trivial. The situation finds expression in a Carta Acordada of October 12th, 1561 in which the Suprema begs the Tribunals for the love of God to inflict no wrong or oppression for, since they are accused when they do right, what is to be expected when they give just grounds of complaint. Whether just or not grounds of complaint were never lacking. The power of the Inquisitor had practically scarce any bounds but his own discretion and the temptation to its abuse was irresistible to the kind of men who mostly filled the position. In the memorial of Yerena to Philip and Juana in 1506 complaint is made that the officials seized all the houses that they wanted and in one case when some young orphan girls did not vacate as quickly as ordered they fastened up the street door and the occupants were obliged to make an opening in order to leave it. The same spirit was shown to parties not quite so defenseless in 1642 when its exhibition in Córdoba nearly provoked a disastrous tumult. There was a vacant house which Juan de Rivera, one of the Inquisitors, talked of renting but he went to Murcia without taking it. On his return he found it had been leased to a son of Don Pedro de Cardenas, one of the 24s or town councillors. He sent for Cardenas and asked whether he knew that he had engaged the house. Cardenas professed ignorance, adding that if he had not moved his family into it he would abandon it. Rivera ordered him to leave it and on his refusal the Tribunal took up the quarrel by serving on him a notice to quit. As he did not obey it cited him to appear and forced him to give security. His kinsmen and friends rallied round him and promised to sustain him by force. The matter became town talk and the Tribunal felt its honour engaged to sustain its commands by violence. It assembled the two companies of soldiers which it kept in the Alcazar while the Caballeros armed themselves and guarded the house. The Corregidor appealed to the Tribunal not to drench the city in blood by posing the poor civic militia to the swords of the gentlemen and it consented to carry the matter to the king. The Council of Castile ordered that the tenant be maintained in possession while the Suprema instructed the Tribunal not to yield a jot but to eject him by whatever means it could. What was the outcome does not appear but the case illustrates the extent to which the Inquisition magnified its powers and the determination with which it employed them. It was impossible to prevent these lawless abuses. The Suprema might scold and threaten but as it rarely punished and always protected the offenders its restraining efforts amounted to little. The visitadores or inspectors duly reported disorders and instructions would be issued to reform them but to these the Inquisitors paid little respect. There is no reason to suppose that the Barcelona Tribunal was worse than any other and a series of reports of visitations there gives us an insight into the evils inflicted on the people. In 1544 Dr. Alonso Pérez sent in a report in consequence of which the Suprema roundly rebuked all the subordinates except the judge of confiscations. All but two were defamed for improper relations with women, all accepted presence, all made extra and illegal charges, all neglected their duties and most of them quarreled with each other. The Fiscal was especially objectionable for his improper conduct of prosecutions and for appropriating articles belonging to the Tribunal. He refused to pay his debts. He arrested a candle-maker for not furnishing candles as promptly as he demanded. When a certain party bought some sheep from a peasant and was dissatisfied with his bargain the Fiscal cited the peasant, asserted that the purchase money was his and forced the peasant to take back the sheep and return the money. Yet the Suprema was too tender of the honour of the Holy Office to dismiss a single one of the peasant officials. It ordered them to be severely reprimanded, a few debts to be paid and presents to be returned and uttered some vague threats of what it would do if they continued in their evil courses. The natural result of this indulgence appears in the next visitation by the Licenciado Baca in 1549. The same abuses were flourishing with the addition that the inquisitor Diego de Sarmiento had accepted the position of the commissioner of the Cruzada indulgence and had appointed as its preachers and collectors the commissioners and familiars of the Tribunal to the great oppression and vexation of the people whose dread of the Holy Office prevented complaints. Sarmiento was dismissed in 1550, but in 1552 he was reappointed to Barcelona. The fiscal and notary who were specially inculpated were suspended for six months and the jailer for ill treatment of prisoners was mulked in one month's wages. In 1561 another visitation was made by inquisitor Gaspar Cervantes whose report was exceedingly severe on the disorders of the Tribunal and drew from the Suprema an energetic demand for their reform. This produced no amendment. The Tribunal went on undisturbed until the complaints of the Cortes of 1564 led to another and more searching investigation by de Soto Salazar in 1566. There were not only abuses of all kinds in the trials of heresy but numerous cases in which as the Suprema told them they had no jurisdiction. Apparently they were ready to put their unlimited powers at the disposal of all comers and imprisoned, fined, and punished in the most arbitrary manner gathering fees, commissions, and doubtless bribes and selling injustice to all who wanted it while the dread of their censures prevented opposition or remonstrance. In these cases which were not of faith the accused were often seized in the churches where they had sought asylum and the repeated instances in which the Suprema orders their names stricken from the records points to one of the most cruel results of this reckless abuse of jurisdiction for it inflicted on the sufferer his kindred and posterity and infamy unendurable to the Spaniard of the period. The long and detailed missive which the Suprema addressed to the tribunal as the result of Salazar's report gives a most vivid inside view of the abuses naturally springing from unrestrained autocracy which by the absolute and impenetrable secrecy of its operations was relieved from all responsibility to its victims or to public opinion. The Suprema takes every official in turn from inquisitors down to messengers specifies their misdeeds and scores them mercilessly showing that the whole organization was solely intent on making dishonest gains on magnifying its privileges and on tyrannizing over the community while the defense of the faith was the baldest pretext for the gratification of greed and evil passions yet all this was practically regarded as quite compatible with the duties of the Inquisition. The three inquisitors Padilla, Surita, and Mejia were suspended for three years and were then sent to repeat their misdeeds elsewhere and the two former were in addition fined ten ducats apiece that an institution possessing these powers and exercising them in such fashion should be regarded with terror and detestation was inevitable. We shall see hereafter how it shrouded all its acts in viable secrecy and how it rightly regarded this as one of the most important factors of its influence and we can understand the mysterious dread which this inspired while at the same time it released the Inquisitor and his subordinates from the wholesome restraint of publicity. The smothered hostility thus excited was always ready for an explosion when opportunity offered to gratify it. In the desire to stimulate the breeding of horses a royal pragmatica in 1628 prohibited the use of mules for coaches. The inquisitors of Logronio in the full confidence that no one would venture to interfere with them persisted in driving with mules and when the corregidor Don Francisco Bassan remonstrated and threatened to seize a coach they told him it would be his ruin. He did not venture but in 1633 he procured from the Council of Castile and ordered that no coaches should be used in Logronio under pretext that they damaged certain shops projecting on the principal street. The Fiscal of the Tribunal undertook to meet this by asserting that it had a special privilege from the King concerning coaches but when Bassan promised to obey it was not forthcoming. The Suprema took up the quarrel and represented to fill up the force the hardship inflicted on the inquisitors too old and feeble for the saddle the compassionate King endorsed on the consulta the customary formula of approval I have so ordered. The Suprema then applied to the Council of Castile for a corresponding order and several communications passed without result. Another consulta was presented to the King who endorsed it I have so ordered again but the Council of Castile was still evasive. Then the Logronio authorities offered to the Bishop of Calaora permission to use coaches and intimated to the inquisitors that if they would apply for a license it would be given. The Suprema forbade them thus to recognize the local magistracy as they had royal authority whereupon they resumed the use of their coaches. The Alguacil of the Corregidor arrested one of their coachmen and they excommunicated the Corregidor. The King December 9th, 1633 ordered him to be absolved to which on December 30th the Suprema replied that he would be absolved if he made application. The Council of Castile presented to the King a consulta arguing that ecclesiastics and inquisitors alike owed obedience to the laws and that the Corregidor had acted with great moderation. February 5th, 1634 the King inquired what had been done with the Corregidor but it was not until December 16th that the Suprema condescended to reply complaining bitterly of the slight put upon the inquisition when the whole safety of the monarchy depended upon its labors. Finally on February 15th, 1635 the Council of Castile sent to the Suprema a license for the use of coaches in Locronio at the same time intimating that its tax of media annata had not been paid. In the course of the quarrel the Council presented a very forcible consulta to the King which exhibits the light in which the inquisition was regarded by the highest authorities of the state. It represented that everywhere the inquisitors and their officials under color of privileges that they did not possess were causing grave disorders. They were vexing and molesting the Corregidors and other ministers of the King, oppressing them with violent methods and frightening them with threats of punishment in order to deter them from defending the royal jurisdiction. Thus crimes remained unpunished, justice became a mockery, and the King's vassals were afflicted with what they were made to suffer in their honor, their lives, their fortunes and their consciences. Trivial quarrels such as this developed until they distracted the attention of the King and his advisors were constantly breaking out and bear testimony to the antagonistic spirit which was all pervading. A long-standing cause of dissension in Locronio may be taken as a type of what was occurring in many other places. Local officials there, as elsewhere, had a perquisite in the public carniceria, or shambles, of dividing among themselves the Bientres or Menudos, the chitlins of the beasts slaughtered. It was not unnatural that the inquisitors and their subordinates should seek to share in this, but the claim was grudgingly admitted as it diminished the portions of the town officers, and it led to bickerings. In 1572 Locronio complained to the Suprema that, while it was willing to give each inquisitor the Menudo of a sheep every week, the inferior officials down to the messengers claimed the same, and when there was not enough to go round they caused the slaughter of additional sheep in order to get their perquisite. As the population was poor, living mostly on cow-beef and meat would not keep in hot weather, this caused much waste, wherefore the town begged that during the four hot months the inferior officials should be content with what the town officers received, and during the other eight months it would endeavor to give them more. To this the Suprema graciously assented, but in 1577 there was another outbreak, to quiet which the Suprema ordered the enforcement of the agreement. In 1584 trouble arose again, and still more in 1593, and in 1601 it reached a point at which the tribunal summoned all the staff of the carniceria, and scolded them roundly, giving rise to great excitement. Then in 1620 there was a worse outbreak than ever, owing to the refusal of the rejidor to give one of the inquisitors two pairs of sheep-stones asked for on the plea that he had guests to breakfast. The angry inquisitor, thus deprived of his breakfast relish, induced the tribunal to summon the rejidor before it, and severely reprimand him, thus not only inflicting a grave stigma on him, but insulting the town, of which it complained loudly to the Suprema. It is easy to understand how trifles of the kind kept up a perpetual irritation, of which only the exacerbations appear in the records. The privileges of the markets, in fact, were a source of endless troubles. It was recognized that both secular and ecclesiastical officials were entitled to the first choice and to be served first. Those of the inquisition claimed the same privilege, not only in cities where there was a tribunal, but also where the scattered commissioners and notaries resided. That this was frequently resisted is shown by the formula of mandate to be used in such cases, addressed to the rejidor or alcaldes, setting forth that the rights in this respect of the aggrieved party had not been respected and that in future he should have the first and best, after the secular and ecclesiastical officials had been served, of all provisions that he required at current prices and this under penalty of twenty thousand maravedes, besides punishment to the full rigor of the law. It does not appear that there really was any legislation entitling the inquisition to this privilege, but in the frequent troubles arising from its assertion the inquisitors acted with their customary truculence. A writer in 1609 who deprecates these quarrels suggests as a cure that the king issue a decree that the representatives of the inquisition shall have preference in purchasing and, at the same time, he tells of a case in Toledo where a rejidor who told the steward of the tribunal to take as many eggs as he wanted, but no more, was arrested and prosecuted, and of another in Cordoba where an hidalgo who had bought a shad and refused to give it up to an acquaintance of a servant of an inquisitor was punished with two hundred lashes and sent to the galleys. In 1608 the Suprema issued an injunction that purveyors of inquisitors should take nothing by force, the significance of which lies rather in the indication of existing abuses than in its promise of their removal. The claim of preference was pushed so far that in Seville in 1705 there arose a serious trouble because the servant of an inquisitor detained boatloads of fish coming to market in order to make his selection, and it required a royal cedula of March 26, 1705, forbidding inquisitors to detain fish or other provisions on the way, or to designate by banderillas the pieces selected for themselves. When we considered the character of the slaves and servants thus clothed with authority to insult and browbeat whomesoever they chose in the exercise of such functions, we can conceive the wrath and indignation stored up against their masters in the thousands of cases where fear prevented an explosion. It is true that the Suprema issued instructions that all purveyors should behave themselves modestly and give no ground of offense, and that no one should be summoned or imprisoned for matters arising out of provisions, but as usual these orders were disregarded. Insolence would naturally elicit a hasty rejoinder which, as reported by the servant to his master, would imply disrespect towards the Holy Office, and severe punishment would be justified on that account.