Chapter III: Privileges and Exemptions (1)

Before the Revolution introduced the theory of equality, class privileges were the rule. The public burdens were eluded by those best able to bear them and were accumulated on the toilers. The mortmain lands held by the Church were exempt from both taxation and military service and, though Philip V, in the Concordat of 1737, obtained the privilege of taxing such as might subsequently be acquired, the repeated decrees for its enforcement show the impossibility of enforcing it.[908] The complete immunity of ecclesiastics from taxation was emphatically asserted by Boniface VIII in the bull _Clericis laicos_ and, although this was revoked by the Council of Vienne in 1312, care was taken to enunciate the principle as still in vigor.[909] Yet in the kingdoms of Aragon they were subject to all imposts on sales, to import and export dues and other local taxation and, when resistance was offered to this, Charles V procured from Adrian VI, in 1522, and from Clement VII, in 1524, briefs confirming their liability.[910] _Hidalguia_, or gentle blood, conferred a multiplicity of privileges, including exemption from taxation, royal and local, with certain exceptions that were largely evaded, and the _labrador_--the peasant or commoner--was distinctively known as a _pechero_ or tax-payer.[911] That in such a social order the Inquisition should seek for its members all the exemptions that it could grasp was too natural to excite surprise, though it might occasionally provoke resistance.

As regards freedom from taxation, the subject is complicated by questions concerning royal and local imposts, by the varying customs in the different provinces, and by the distinction between the active officials of the tribunals, known as _titulados y asalaridos_, and the more numerous unsalaried ones, who were only called upon occasionally for service, such as familiars, commissioners, notaries, consultors and censors. Their rights were loosely defined and were subject to perpetual variation by conflicting decisions in the contests that were constantly occurring with the secular authorities, provoked by habitual antagonism and the frequent imposition of new taxes, raising new questions. Ferdinand wrote sharply, April 13, 1504, to the town-council of Barcelona, when it attempted to subject the officials of the tribunal to the burdens borne by other citizens, in violation of the pre-eminences and exemptions of the Holy Office, and he warned them to desist, in view of the judicial measures that would be taken. Yet, in 1508, we find him writing still more sharply to that tribunal, scolding it because it had taken from the house of the alguazil of the Bailía a female slave and, without waiting for formal judgement, had sold her without paying the royal impost of twenty per cent., a disregard of the regalías not permitted to them. They had also issued an order on the custom-house to pass free of duty certain articles for an inquisitor, which was against all rule for, even if the goods were needed for the support of the officials, it was a matter for the farmers of the revenue to decide, and the issuing of such passes would be fruitful of fraud and loss.[912]

[Sidenote: _TAXATION_]

These instances indicate the uncertainties of the questions that were constantly arising in the intricate system--or lack of system--of Spanish taxation. To follow the subject in detail would be an endless and unprofitable task. I have collected a considerable number of more or less contradictory decisions of this early period, but the only deductions to be drawn from them are the indefiniteness of the exemption and the earnestness of the effort made to extend it by the Inquisition. The matter evidently was one in which there were no recognized rules and, in 1568, Philip II undertook to regulate it, at least in so far as concerned royal taxation. He defined for each tribunal the officials who were to be exempted from all taxes, excise and assessments, and forbade their exaction under pain of fifty thousand maravedís and punishment at the royal discretion, but this exemption was granted only during his good pleasure, so that he retained full control and admitted no privilege as inherent in the Inquisition. His enumeration moreover comprised only the _titulados y asalariados_, holding commissions from the Suprema and in constant service, and omitted the familiars and others who greatly exceeded them in numbers.[913]

This attempt at settlement left the matter still undefined and provocative of endless strife. It said nothing as to local taxes; these and the royal taxes were often indistinguishable, or so combined that they could not be separated; the unsalaried officials were not specifically declared to be taxable and were always striving for exemption, and when, in the growing needs of the monarchy, new taxes were imposed, there came ever fresh struggles conducted with the customary violence of the Inquisition. May 10, 1632, the Royal Council earnestly represented to Philip IV that it had already laid before him certain excesses of the inquisitors of Cuenca to which he had not seen fit to reply. Now the corregidor of Cuenca has reported other excesses requiring immediate remedy, for they have issued an order, under pain of excommunication and other penalties, that the collector of the excise on wine, imposed for the pay of the troops, shall not collect it of the salaried officials of the tribunal although they are laymen and subject to it. They pretended that they were not liable to the alcavala (tax on sales) but they were defeated in the suit on this before the Council of Hacienda. And if this is permitted all the other tribunals will attempt the same, and with their exemption will come that of their servants and kindred and connections of all kinds, with frauds and concealment as usual, resulting in increase of charge to other vassals and damage to the treasury, for it seems as though the sole object of the inquisitors is to diminish the royal patrimony.[914] Similar troubles attended the levying of the _servicio de millones_, an exceedingly unpopular impost on wine, meat, vinegar and other necessaries.[915]

[Sidenote: _TAXATION_]

When, in 1631, the tax of _media añata_, or half a year's salary levied on appointees to office, was imposed there was a discussion as to whether it was applicable to the Inquisition. This was settled in the affirmative and the Suprema made no objection, for its collection was taken from the _Sala de Media Añata_ and was given to Gabriel Ortiz de Sotomayor, appointed by Inquisitor-general Zapata and when he, in the course of a few years, became Bishop of Badajoz, the business was intrusted to the inquisitor-general himself. For awhile the payments were made with some regularity, but, in 1650, an investigation showed that for a long while it had been quietly allowed to drop and, as it was in the hands of the inquisitor-general, there were no means of enforcing an accounting. For a year Arce y Reynoso eluded the efforts of the Sala de Media Añata to obtain information and finally, May 17, 1651, the king ordered him peremptorily to pay his own media añata (due since 1643), to make the other officials do so and to furnish the required information to the Sala. On receiving this he said there were difficulties in making ecclesiastics like inquisitors pay, but he would consult the Suprema and reply in July. July passed away and the Sala again applied to him, when he replied that, as concerned the familiars and other secular officials, orders had already been given and collections made, but as to clerics there were scruples about which he would advise with the king. He failed to do so and in October the king was urged to repeat his demand for immediate payment. The outcome of the affair was that ecclesiastics were exempted and laymen had to pay, while familiars, who had no salaries, were assessed nine ducats--so Arce y Reynoso succeeded in eluding his tax. Collection, moreover, from the laymen was not easy and, January 28, 1654, the Suprema issued general instructions to deduct it without exception from the salaries. This only transferred the indebtedness from the individuals to the receivers or treasurers of the tribunals, who seem to have been equally slow to pay and, in 1655, an inquisitor in each tribunal of Castile and the colonies was designated to collect the money from the treasurer and remit it at once.[916] It is safe to assume that the receipts were trivial and the whole business affords an illustration of the methods by which the revenues of Spain were frittered away before reaching the treasury. Whether productive or not, however, the media añata remained until the end a permanent charge upon the lay officials. In Valencia, in 1790, it had for ten years amounted to an annual average of ten libras.[917]

With regard to local taxation, contests were renewed at every new impost with varying success, and a single case will elucidate the character of these struggles. In 1645 the Córtes of Valencia agreed to furnish for six years twelve hundred men to garrison Tortosa, reserving the right to impose whatever duties or excise might be necessary to defray the expense. In order that the clergy might be included the assent of Archbishop Aliaga was sought, which he granted with difficulty and only on condition that, within eight months, a confirmatory papal brief should be obtained, which was duly accomplished. To meet the charge an excise, known as the _sisa del corte_ was levied on all goods cut for garments. The tribunal refused to submit to this and pointed to its contributions to a loan of twenty thousand ducats made by the Inquisition to the king in 1642, and to its payment since 1643 of five per cent. of the salaries for the maintenance of certain mounted men. The city yielded for a while and then a compromise was made; the ecclesiastics at the time were paying eighteen deniers on the libra (7-1/2 per cent.) while the officials of the tribunal were to be taxed only six deniers (2-1/2 per cent.). To maintain their principle of exemption, however, for some years they had their garments made in the name of other ecclesiastics and paid the eighteen deniers, but in 1659 they grew tired of this and paid the six deniers for themselves, first registering a protest that it was without prejudice to their privileges and exemptions. This continued until 1668, when suddenly, on June 19th, the fiscal of the tribunal summoned the collectors of the _sisa del corte_ to pass freely, within twenty-four hours, the cloth cut for the garments of Benito Sanguino, the alcalde mayor, under pain of five hundred ducats. On the 21st the syndics of the city and the collectors interjected an appeal to the king, in spite of which the next day the mandate was repeated, this time giving twelve hours for obedience and adding excommunication to the fine. Another appeal was interposed and the regent of the Audiencia applied for a _competencia_, or orderly method of settling disputes, as provided in the Concordia, but notwithstanding this the next day the excommunications were published and the names of the collectors were affixed to the doors of the cathedral as under the anathema of the Church.[918] The final outcome is of little moment; the interest of the affair lies in its illustration of the persistence of the Inquisition and the violence of its methods.

In this respect the case is not exceptional. The formularies of the Inquisition contained a full assortment of arbitrary mandates which it employed, in place of seeking the legal courses prescribed in the Concordias, by which the king and the Córtes sought to preserve the peace. One of these, drawn in the name of the tribunal of Llerena, addressed to the governor and magistrates, recites that complaint has been made of the imposition on officials and familiars of a new octroi on meat and proceeds to assert that, by immemorial custom and royal cédulas, the commissioned officials are exempted from paying any taxes, excise, imposts and assessments, whether royal or local or otherwise; the magistrates are commanded within two hours to desist from the attempt, under pain of major excommunication and a fine of a hundred thousand maravedís for the governor or his deputy and of fifty thousand for subordinates, with the threat, in case of disobedience, of prosecution with the full rigor of law. Moreover the secretary or notary of the city is ordered within the two hours to bring to the tribunal and surrender all papers concerning the assessment on the officials, under pain of excommunication and ten thousand maravedís.[919] Such were the peremptory commands habitually employed, the arrogance of which rendered them especially galling.

[Sidenote: _TAXATION_]

Not only were these fulminations ready for use when the case occurred, but there were formulas drawn up in advance to prevent any attempted infraction of the privileges claimed by the officials. Thus this same collection has one addressed to the corregidor and magistrates of a town where a fair is to be held, reciting that an official of the tribunal proposes to send thither a certain number of cattle bearing his brand, which he swears to be of his own raising and, as he is exempt from paying alcavala, tolls, ferriages, royal servicio and all other assessments and dues and, as he fears that there may be an attempt to impose them, therefore all officials and collectors are ordered, under pain of major excommunication and two hundred ducats, to abstain from all such attempts, with threats of further punishment in case of disobedience.[920] The enormous advantage which the official thus possessed is plain, as well as the door which it opened to fraud. That the claim was groundless appears by a memorial presented to the Suprema in 1623, in response to a call by Inquisitor-general Pacheco on his colleagues for suggestions as to the better government and improvement of the Inquisition--a remarkable paper to which reference will frequently be made hereafter. On this point it states that, in some tribunals, the officials are exempted from paying the alcavala on the products of their estates, while in others they are not. In some, a portion of the officials have dexterously secured exemption, while others have been compelled to pay, by judicial decision, as there is no basis for such claims. If there is no right or privilege of exemption, it is not seen how the officials can conscientiously escape payment, or how the inquisitors can defend them in evading it, besides the numerous suits thence arising which occupy the time of the tribunals. To cure this it is suggested that the king grant exemptions to all, for there are not more than two or three in each tribunal to be thus benefited.[921] This suggestion was not adopted, but the claim was persisted in with its perpetual exasperation and multiplicity of litigation.

The large numbers of the unsalaried officials, especially the familiars, rendered the question of their exemption of considerably greater importance. They had no claim to it, but they were persistently endeavoring to establish the right and for the most part they were supported by the tribunals in the customary arbitrary fashion. In the futile Concordia of Catalonia in 1599, it was provided that levies and executions for all taxes and imposts could be made on familiars and commissioners by the ordinary officers of justice. In the memorial to Clement VIII asking for the disallowance of this Concordia, the Suprema proved learnedly, by a series of canons from the fourth Council of Lateran down, that the cruce-signati (whom it claimed to correspond with the modern familiars) were exempt. It even had the audacity to cite the Concordia of 1514, which in reality denied their exemption, and it assumed with equal untruth that this was the universal custom in Spain.[922] Yet, in a consulta of December 30, 1633, the Suprema tacitly excluded the unsalaried officials when it argued that there were not, exclusive of ecclesiastics, more than two hundred officials in Spain entitled to the exemption.[923]

[Sidenote: _TAXATION_]

Still, the Inquisition fought the battle for the unsalaried officials with as much vigor as for the salaried. In 1634 the levying of a few reales on a familiar of Vicalvero, on the occasion of the voyage to Barcelona of the Infante Fernando, was resisted with such violence by the tribunal of Toledo, that finally the king had to intervene, resulting in the banishment and deprival of temporalities of a clerical official and the summoning to court of the senior inquisitor.[924] In 1636, Philip IV, to meet the extravagant outlays on the palace of Buen Retiro, levied a special tax on all the towns of the district of Madrid. In Vallecas the quota was assessed on the inhabitants, among whom was a familiar who refused to pay, when the local alcaldes levied upon his property. He appealed to the Suprema which referred the matter to the tribunal of Toledo and it arrested the alcaldes and condemned them in heavy penalties. Then the Alcaldes de Casa y Corte, the highest criminal court, intervened and arrested the familiar, whereupon the Suprema twice sent to the _Sala de los Alcaldes_, declaring them to be excommunicated, but the bearer of the censure was refused audience. On this the Suprema, with the assent of the Council of Castile, sent a cleric to arrest the alcaldes and convey them out of the kingdom, and on March 12th, in all the churches of Madrid, they were published as excommunicate and subject to all the penalties of the bull _in Coena Domini_.[925] What was the outcome of this the chronicler fails to inform us, but the Council of Castile took a different view of the question when, in 1639, one of its members, Don Antonio Valdés, who had been sent to Extremadura as commissioner to raise troops, was publicly excommunicated by the tribunal of Llerena because, in assessing contributions for that purpose, he had not exempted its officials and familiars. The Council thereupon appealed to Philip, who ordered the decree expunged from the records and that a copy of the royal order should be posted in the secretariate of the tribunal.[926]

Yet it was about this time that the claim in behalf of unsalaried officials seems to have been abandoned, for, in 1636, 1643 and 1644 the Suprema issued repeated injunctions that in the existing distress the royal imposts and taxes must be paid. In 1646 it ordered the tribunal of Valencia not to defend two familiars in resisting payment and in the same year the Córtes of Aragon gained a victory which subjected them to all local charges.[927]

With the advent of the Bourbons the salaried officials found a change in this as in so much else. In the financial exigencies of the War of Succession they were subjected to repeated levies. Philip V called upon them for five per cent. of their salaries and then for ten per cent. to which they were forced to submit. In 1712 a general tax was laid of a doubloon per hearth, which was assessed in each community according to the wealth of the individual. There were no exemptions and appeals were heard only by the provincial superintendents of the revenue. The sole concession obtained by the Suprema was that, where officials of the Inquisition were concerned, the local tribunal could name an assessor to sit with the superintendent and it warned the tribunals that any interference with the collection would be repressed with the utmost severity.[928] Salaries, however, were held to be subject only to demands from the crown for, when Saragossa in 1727 endeavored to include them in an assessment for local taxation, Philip, in response to an appeal from the Suprema, decided that those of the Inquisition, in common with other tribunals, should be exempt, but that real and personal property, including trade, belonging to officials, should be held liable to the tax.[929]

Towards the close of the eighteenth century various documents show that all ideas of resistance and all pleas of exemption had been abandoned. The Holy Office submitted to ordinary and extraordinary exactions and the Suprema warned the tribunals that the assessments were wholly in the hands of the royal officers and that it had no cognizance of the matter. The calls were frequent and heavy, as when, in 1794, four per cent. was levied on all salaries of over eight hundred ducats, and three months later a demand was made of one-third of the fruits of all benefices and prebends, which was meekly submitted to and statements were obediently rendered.[930] Under the Restoration, the Inquisition was less tractable. In 1818 an incometax was levied and was imposed on all salaries, including those of the Suprema, which at once prepared for resistance. There seems to have been a prolonged struggle with a successful result for, on November 17th, it issued a circular enclosing a royal order which conceded exemption.[931]

* * * * *

The exemption from taxation, which included import and export dues or merchandise and provisions required for officials and prisoners, led to the claim of other privileges and to not a few abuses. It was not confined to sea-ports and frontier towns, for the jealous particularism of the kingdoms, dynastically united, kept up their antagonistic policy towards each other and intercourse between them was subjected to regulations similar to those of foreign trade. The exemption from these, as well as from the octroi duties of the towns, was a most important privilege, capable of being turned to account in many ways besides diminishing the expenses of the officials.

[Sidenote: _CUSTOMS DUTIES_]

We have seen that Ferdinand, in 1508, prohibited the issue of orders to pass goods free, but nevertheless it continued. When, in 1540, Blas Ortiz went to take possession of his office as inquisitor of Valencia, the Suprema furnished him with a pass addressed to all customs officials permitting him to cross the frontiers with three horses and four pack-mules; he could be required to swear that what he carried was his private property and was not for sale, but all further interference was hidden under pain of excommunication and a hundred ducats.[932] It was not only on such occasions, however, that the customhouses were thus eluded. Before the introduction of regular posts, the constant communications between the tribunals and with the Suprema were carried by couriers or by muleteers, and the mysterious secrecy which shrouded all the operations of the Holy Office furnished an excuse for preventing any risk that these sacred packages should be examined. All bearers of letters therefore, even when they had loaded mules, were furnished with passes forbidding, under excommunication and fine, any unpacking or investigation of what they carried.[933] The facilities thus offered for contraband trade are obvious and their value can only be appreciated through a knowledge of the elaborate system of import and export duties and prohibitions of import and export which characterize the policy of the period.[934] Complaints were fruitless, for when the Council of Hacienda issued letters against certain familiars in the Canaries, detected in importing prohibited goods, Philip II, February 11, 1593, ordered the letters to be recalled and that no more should be issued.[935]

There were few things concerning which there was more jealousy than the transfer of grain from one Spanish kingdom to another, and when it was permitted there were duties, either import or export or perhaps both. Deficient harvests, in one province or another, were not infrequent and the tribunals were constantly seeking special relief by obtaining permits to violate the laws, or by violating the laws without permits. Many instances of this could be cited, but it will suffice to recount the experience of the Valencia tribunal in endeavoring to obtain wheat from Aragon. For this it had special facilities, for the Aragonese districts of Teruel and Albarracin were subject to it, but, on the other hand, Aragon was especially firm in prohibiting the exportation of wheat. In 1522 the tribunal undertook to bring some wheat from Aragon and threatened the frontier officials with excommunication if they should interfere. In spite of this they detained it, when the inquisitor published the censures and imprisoned a guard whom he caught, whereupon the Aragonese Diputados remonstrated, saying that if the emperor or pope wanted wheat from Aragon he applied for licence, and begging the inquisitor to keep within his jurisdiction and release the guard. Then an accommodation was reached and the tribunal was permitted to bring in thirty cahizes (about one hundred bushels), on condition of removing any excommunication that might exist, but it repudiated its side of the agreement and summoned the officials to appear and receive penance. This exhausted the patience of the Diputados; they ordered the wheat to be stopped or, if it had gone forward to be followed and captured with the mules bearing it; the inquisitor might do what he pleased, but they would employ all the forces of the kingdom and enforce respect for the laws. The position in which the inquisitor had placed himself was so untenable that the inquisitor-general issued an order forbidding tribunals to take anything out of Aragon in violation of the prohibitions.[936]

[Sidenote: _IMPORTATION OF WHEAT_]

The effect of this rebuff was evanescent. The tribunal persisted and by false pretences established a claim which, in 1591, the Suprema warned it to use with moderation as the Council of Aragon was making complaint. As usual no attention was paid to this and, in 1597, Philip II was compelled to interfere because the tribunal was issuing to excess letters authorizing the export of wheat from Teruel--an abuse which was doubtless abundantly profitable.[937] If this brought any amendment it was transient. On June 16, 1606, the Diputados represented to the tribunal that they were bound by their oaths of office, under pain of excommunication, to enforce the laws prohibiting the export of wheat; that, in spite of these laws, large quantities were carried to Valencia, to the destruction and total ruin of the land, by individuals armed with licences issued by the tribunal, wherefore they prayed that no more licences be issued. No attention was paid to this and on January 8, 1607, they wrote again, stating that the abuse was increasing and that they must appeal to the king and the Suprema for its suppression. This brought an answer to the effect that the tribunal was more moderate than it had previously been and would continue to be so as it would find convenient, without prejudice to the rights conceded to it by the royal cédulas and, as it was occupied in the service of God, it could reasonably exercise those rights. The asserted rights under which it had so long nullified the laws of Aragon were a conscious fraud for, when it complained to the Suprema of the interference of the Diputados with its immemorial privilege and enclosed the royal cédula conferring it, the Suprema pointed out that this referred only to Castile and not to Aragon; the complaints of the Diputados had been listened to and all that could be done was to invoke the good offices of the Saragossa tribunal to obtain permission to get fifteen hundred bushels per annum. The Saragossa inquisitors willingly lent their aid, but in vain. They wrote, June 6, 1608, that they had brought to bear all their influence on the Diputados who declared that the _fuero_ prohibiting the export of grain was too strict for them to violate it. A correspondence ensued with the Suprema which ordered the tribunal, February 8, 1610, to abstain, as previously ordered, but if, in any year, there should be special necessity, it might report the quantity required when instructions would be given. This imposed silence on it until 1618, when another attempt was made to overcome the obstinacy of the Diputados; it had abstained, the tribunal said, for some years from issuing licences, in consequence of the great abuses and excesses of those to whom they were granted, but now the sterility of the land causes great inconveniences and it asks that the fruits of its prebends in Aragon and its rents be invested in wheat allowed to be exported. The Diputados however wisely refused to open the door; the law to which they had sworn imposed heavy penalties for its infraction and they were compelled to refuse. This was probably effectual, as far as concerned Aragon, for we happen to find the tribunal, in 1631, obtaining from the king licence to import two hundred and fifty bushels from Castile.[938]

IMPORTATION OF WHEAT

[Sidenote: _EVASION OF OCTROI DUTIES_]

This narrative is instructive in more ways than one. The pretence of necessity in the service of God was as fraudulent as the claims put forward. The whole business was purely speculative and the licences were doubtless sold to the highest bidder through all these years. The Valencian tribunal was at no time in need of wheat from Aragon or Castile, for it had ample privileges at home for all its wants and it was working these local privileges for a profit to some one. Among other public-spirited acts of Ximenes was the founding, in 1512, of an _alhondiga_, or public granary, in Toledo so that, as we are told in 1569, in times of scarcity the citizens could procure supplies at moderate prices.[939] It was probably owing to this that other cities, including Valencia, formed establishments of the kind, monopolizing the traffic in wheat, to which the citizens resorted day by day for their provision. When a loss occurred in the business, from a surplus over the demand or from spoiling of the grain, it was assessed upon the citizens, under the name of _pan asegurado_, but, in 1530, the magistrates relieved the officials of the tribunal from sharing this burden and the exemption is enumerated, in 1707, as still among its privileges.[940] Another privilege, which it shared with the viceroy and the archbishop, was that the baker who served it was the second one allowed every morning to enter the granary and select a sack of wheat (_trigo fuerte_) of five and a half bushels and every week a _cahiz_ (3-1/2 bushels) of _trigo candeal_, without payment save a small tax known as _murs y valls_--evidently for the maintenance of the city defences. This he baked and distributed the bread among the officials and to the prison, in allotted portions, and what was over he sold--showing that the tribunal not only got its wheat gratuitously but more than it needed, to somebody's profit. The amount must have been considerable, for the bakers complained of the unfair competition of the favored baker and, in 1609, the city endeavored to put an end to the abuse, but without success. The matter slumbered until 1627, when the city obtained a royal cédula abolishing the privilege of taking the wheat, but obedience to this was refused because it had been issued without preliminary notice to the other side and without a junta or conference between the Suprema and the Council of Aragon. Then the city ordered the baker no longer to go to the granary for wheat and the aggrieved Suprema complained loudly to the king, urging him to consider the services to God and the tonsure of the inquisitors and not to allow these holy labors to be interrupted by the necessity of going personally to the granary. To this Philip replied by ordering the fueros to be observed, which was virtually a confirmation of his cédula, but this seems to have been similarly disregarded, for, in 1628 we find the city again endeavoring to put an end to the collateral abuse of the sale of the surplus bread and the tribunal busily engaged in gathering testimony to prove that this had publicly been the custom from time immemorial. In proving this, however, it also proved unconsciously how fraudulent had been the claim that it had been in need of wheat from Aragon.[941]

This commercial development of the Inquisition led it to utilize its exemption from taxation and octroi duties by opening shops for the necessaries of life, causing violent quarrels with the cities whose revenues were impaired and whose laws were ostentatiously disregarded. Among a number of cases of this in the records, a series of occurrences in Saragossa will illustrate this phase of the activity of the Holy Office. A large part of the local revenues of the city was derived from a monopoly of wine, meal and provisions and no citizen was allowed to bring these articles within the gates. The Aljafería, occupied by the tribunal, was situated a few hundred feet beyond the walls; the inquisitors assumed that they were not bound by the municipal regulations; they introduced what they pleased into the town and the authorities complained that they maintained in the Aljafería a public meat-market, a tavern and a shop where citizens could purchase freely to the infinite damage of the public revenues. The Córtes of 1626 demanded that affairs should be reduced to what they had been prior to the troubles of 1591, when the Aljafería was garrisoned with soldiers, giving rise to profitable trade, but the Suprema prevented the royal confirmation of the acts of the Córtes and the matter was left open. This led to troubles which came to a head, September 21, 1626, when a load of wine for the tribunal on entering the city was seized under the law by the guard and taken to the house of one of the jurados or town-councillors. At once the inquisitors issued letters demanding its release under pain of excommunication and a thousand ducats. The jurados lost no time in forming the _competencia_, which, in accordance with the existing Concordia, was the method provided for deciding such contests, but the inquisitors refused to join in it, asserting that there could be no competencia, as it was a matter of faith and impeding the Inquisition in the exercise of its functions. They arrested and imprisoned one of the guards, notwithstanding that he had letters of _manifestacion_ from the court of the Justicia of Aragon--a species of habeas corpus of the highest privilege in Aragon, which was traditionally venerated as the palladium of popular liberty--and the next day they seized three more who were likewise _manifestados_. The incensed magistrates applied to the Justicia and to the Diputados, to release by force the prisoners from the Aljafería and there was prospect of serious disorder. The Governor of Aragon, however succeeded in getting himself accepted as umpire by both sides and temporarily quieted them by the compromise that the wagon, mules and wine should be delivered to him, that the prisoners should be surrendered through him to the city and that the comminatory letters should be withdrawn, all this being without prejudice to either party. He wrote earnestly to the king, pointing out the imminent danger of an outbreak and the necessity of a decision that should avert such perils for the future; if the assumption that such questions were matters of faith were admitted, the inquisitors could refuse all competencias, which would annul the Concordia and destroy the royal jurisdiction. The city also addressed him, saying that the inquisitors had refused to abstain from further action pending his decision and if these pretensions were admitted they would be unable to pay him the servicio which had been granted.[942]

[Sidenote: _SALT AND BAKE-OVEN_]

This resulted in a compromise, agreed upon between the Suprema and the Council of Aragon, under which the city obligated itself to supply the tribunal with meat, wine and ice. It was impossible however to compel the Inquisition to observe compacts. Fresh complaints arose, the nature of which is indicated by a decree of Philip IV, June 17, 1630, requiring the Suprema to order the inquisitors to keep to the agreement and not to sell any portion of the provisions furnished and further to stop the trade carried on in some little houses in the Aljafería where the municipal supervisors could not inspect them. This resulted in a fresh agreement of December 7, 1631, under which the city bought for three thousand crowns the _casa de penitencia_, or prison for penitents, and engaged to maintain in it shops to the sale of meat and ice to the inhabitants of the Aljafería at the prices current in the town.[943]

Probably this quieted the matter, but before long the irrepressible inquisitors started another disturbance. The salt-works of Remolinos and el Castellon belonged to the royal patrimony and were farmed out under condition that no other salt should be sold or used in Saragossa and some other places under heavy fines. To enforce this there were commissioners empowered to investigate all suspected places, even churches not being exempt. In 1640 a party in the city was found to be selling salt and confessed that he obtained it from the gardener of the Aljafería. The commissioner, Baltasar Peralta, went there with a scrivener and in the gardener's cottage they found two sacks, one empty, the other nearly full of salt, with a half-peck measure. They announced the penalty to the gardener's wife and proceeded to enforce it in the customary manner by seizing pledges--in the present case, three horses. The inquisitor, who had doubtless been sent for, came as they were leading the horses away, forced the surrender of the horses and salt and told them that they should deem themselves lucky if they were not thrown in prison. Thereupon the royal advocate-fiscal of Aragon, Adrian de Sada, reported the case to the king, adding that it was learned that the coachman of one of the inquisitors was selling salt from the salt-works of Sobradiel. He pointed out that, if the servants of the Inquisition could sell salt freely and the royal officials be deterred by threats from investigation, the revenue would be seriously impaired, for no one would venture to farm the salt-works, and he asked for instructions before resorting to proceedings which might disturb the public peace, as had happened on previous occasions. The matter was referred to the Council of Aragon, which advised the king to issue imperative commands that the inquisitors should not obstruct the detection and punishment of frauds, for their cognizance in no way pertained to the Holy Office.[944]

The Saragossa tribunal had a still more prolonged and bitter dispute with the city over the bake-oven of the Aljafería. This belonged to the crown and, at some time prior to 1630, Philip IV made it over to the tribunal which was pleading poverty. Its use of the privilege soon brought it into conflict with the city, but a complicated arrangement respecting it was included in the agreement of December 7, 1631, requiring the baker to purchase at least seventy bushels of wheat per month from the public granary, with certain restrictions as to the places whence he could procure further supplies. In 1649 we chance to learn that the oven was farmed out for six thousand reales per annum and in 1663, a lively conflict arose because the tribunal had granted a lease which was not subject to the restrictions of 1631. Then again, in 1690, the trouble broke out afresh, each side accusing the other of violating the agreement. All the authorities, from the king and viceroy down, were invoked to settle it; there were fears of violence but, May 1, 1691, the tribunal reported to the Suprema that a compromise had been reached on satisfactory terms.[945]

The independent spirit of Aragon caused it to suffer less from the mercantile enterprises of the Inquisition than the more submissive temper of Castile. In 1623 there was a flagrant case in Toledo, arising from a butcher-shop established by the tribunal in violation of the municipal laws. Its violent methods triumphed and Don Luis de Paredes, an alcalde de corte, sent thither to settle the matter, was disgraced for attempting to restrain it. This called forth an energetic protest from the Council of Castile, which boldly told the king that he should not shut his eyes to the fact that the inquisitors were extending their privileges to matters beyond their competence, with such prejudice to the public weal that they were making themselves superior to the laws, to the government and to the royal power, trampling on the judges, seizing the original documents, forcing them to revoke their righteous acts, arresting their officials and treating them as heretics because they discharged their duty.[946]

[Sidenote: _SEIZURE OF PROVISIONS_]

In procuring provisions, whether for consumption or sale, besides the freedom from local imposts, the Inquisition had the further advantage of employing coercive methods on unwilling vendors and of disregarding local regulations and prohibitions. As early as 1533 the Aragonese, at the Córtes of Monzon, took the alarm and petitioned that the statutes of the towns, when short of bread-stuffs and provisions, should be binding on officials of the Inquisition, to which the emperor's reply was the equivocating one customary when evading confirmation.[947] The significance of this is manifested by a _carta acordada_ of 1540, authorizing the tribunals to get wheat in the villages for their officials and prisoners and, if the local magistrates interfere, to coerce them with excommunication. Yet inquisitorial zeal in using this permission sometimes overstepped the bounds and, in this same year, the Suprema had occasion to rebuke a tribunal which had issued orders to furnish it with wheat under pain of a hundred lashes, for it was told that, in rendering such extra-judicial sentences, it was exceeding its jurisdiction.[948] How bravely the Suprema itself overcame all such scruples was manifest when laws of maximum prices, and the heavy discount on the legal-tender spurious vellon coinage, rendered holders of goods unwilling to part with them at the legal rates. It issued, February 14, 1626, to its alcalde, Pedro de Salazar, an order to go to any places in the vicinage and embargo sheep and whatever else he deemed necessary, sufficient for the maintenance of the households of the inquisitor-general and of the members and officials, paying therefore at the rates fixed by law, to effect which he was empowered to call for aid on all royal justices, who were required to furnish all necessary aid under penalty of major excommunication _latæ sententiæ_ and five hundred ducats. So again, on April 11, 1630, Salazar was ordered to go anywhere in the kingdom and seize six bushels of wheat, in baked bread, for the same households, paying for it at the established price, and all officials, secular, ecclesiastical and inquisitorial, were required to assist him under the same penalties.[949] This was an organized raid on all the bakeries of Madrid, and Salazar was more scrupulous than the average official of the time if he did not turn an honest penny by taking bread on his own account at the legal rate and selling it at the current one.[950]

The tribunal of Valencia enjoyed another privilege in the important matter of salt, the royal monopoly of which rendered it so costly to the ordinary consumer. Every year the tribunal issued an order to the farmers of the salt-works, commanding them, under pain of excommunication and fifty ducats, to deliver to the receiver of confiscations twelve cahizes (about forty-two bushels) of refined salt, at the price of eight reales the cahiz, and the custom-house officials were summoned, under the same penalties, to let it pass without detention or trouble for the service of God. The salt was duly apportioned among the officials at this trivial price, each inquisitor getting four bushels down to the messengers who received two-thirds of a bushel, and even _jubilado_ officials had their portion. When or how this originated is unknown; in 1644 it seems established as of old date and it continued until 1710, when the new dynasty brought it to a sudden conclusion. The Council of Hacienda reported it to the king, as though it were a novelty just discovered, pointing out that the eight reales were less than the cost of transport from the works to the magazines; that the manufacture was a monopoly of the regalías and the price charged was in no respect a tax or impost, but was regulated by the necessities of the national defence; that no other tribunal in Spain, secular or ecclesiastic, made such a demand, while the publication of censures against royal officials was dangerous in those calamitous times. This aroused Philip, who ordered a prompt remedy. The Suprema no longer ventured an opposition or remonstrance, but wrote immediately to Valencia expressing its surprise; the demand must be withdrawn at once; if any censures had been published they must be revoked and no such demonstration should have been made without previous consultation.[951]

It would be superfluous to adduce further examples of the manner in which the tribunals abused their power for unlawful gains and benefits, and we can readily conceive the exasperation thus excited, even among those most zealous in the extermination of heresy.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _BILLETING TROOPS_]

Few of the privileges claimed by the Inquisition gave rise to more bickering and contention than its demand that all connected with it should be exempt from the billeting of troops and the furnishing of _bagages_ or beasts of burden for transportation. The subject is one of minor importance, but it furnishes so typical an illustration of inquisitorial methods that it is worthy of examination somewhat in detail. Under the old monarchy the _yantar_ or _droit de gîte_, or right to free quarters, was an insufferable burden. Almost every Córtes of Leon and Castile, from the twelfth century complained of it energetically, for it was exercised, not only by the royal court in its incessant peregrinations, but by nobles and others who could enforce it, and it was accompanied by spoliation of every kind, while the impressment of beasts of burden was an associated abuse and even the lands of the Church were not exempt.[952] The more independent Aragonese were unwilling to submit to it, and a fuero of the Córtes of Aleañiz, in 1436, provided that the courtiers and followers of the king should pay all Christians in whose houses they lodged.[953] When the Inquisition was founded and was to a great extent peripatetic, its officials apparently claimed free quarters, for a clause in the Instructions of 1498 provides that where a tribunal was set up they should pay for their accommodations and provide their own beds and necessaries.[954] When travelling, a decree of Ferdinand, October 21, 1500, repeated in 1507, 1516, 1518, 1532, and 1561, provided that they should have gratuitous lodging and beds, with food at moderate prices.[955] The frequent repetition of this indicates that it aroused opposition and, in 1601, when the inquisitor of Valencia was ordered to go at once on a visitation of Tortosa, he was told not to oppress the city by demanding free quarters but to lodge decently in a monastery or in the house of some official.[956]

Furnishing free quarters however was different from enjoying them. The old abuses gradually disappeared with the settled habitations for kings and tribunals, but the change in military organization, with standing armies, gave rise to others which, if more occasional, were also more oppressive--the billeting of troops. When Louis XIV resorted to the _dragonnades_--the quartering of dragoons on Huguenot families--as an effective coercion to conversion, it shows how severe was the infliction. The rebellion of Catalonia, in 1640, had for its proximate cause the outrages committed by troops quartered for the winter in places insufficient for their support, culminating in their burning the churches of Riu de Arenas and Montiró.[957] The massacre in Saragossa, December 28, 1705, of the French troops in the service of Philip V, had the same origin.[958]

As the pay of Spanish armies was habitually in arrears and the commissariat system imperfect, it can be realized how valuable was the privilege of exemption from entertaining these uninvited guests and providing them with transportation when they departed. In the war with Portugal, in 1666, Galicia suffered so seriously that we are told a company of cavalry was worth to its captain two thousand ducats in ransoms, from outrage.[959] That the Inquisition should claim such exemption was to be expected, for it was one of the privileges of hidalgos, but the earliest allusion to it that I have met occurs in 1548, when Inquisitor-general Valdés ordered that no billets must be given on houses occupied by inquisitors or officials, even though not their own or during their absence, for their clothes were in them.[960] What authority he had to issue such a command it might be difficult to say, but it indicates that the exemption was an innovation and, as it refers only to salaried officials, it infers that the numerous unsalaried ones were not entitled to the privilege, which is further proved by the fact that, in the Castilian Concordia of 1553, regulating the exemptions of familiars, there is no allusion to billeting. The action of Valdés, however, settled the matter as far as the salaried officials were concerned and even the Aragonese Córtes of 1646, which greatly limited the claims of the Inquisition, admitted that they had the same privileges as hidalgos.[961]

[Sidenote: _BILLETING TROOPS_]

The determination with which this was enforced is seen in a case in 1695, when Inquisitor Sanz y Múñoz of Barcelona threatened with excommunication and a fine of two hundred libras the town-councillors of Manlleu if they should assign quarters in a country-house belonging to the portero of the Inquisition, although it was occupied by a peasant who worked on the land. The councillors appealed for protection to the Audiencia, or royal court, which invited the inquisitor to settle the matter amicably in the prescribed form of a competencia, but he treated the overture with such contempt that he promptly issued a second mandate, under the same penalties, and summoned the councillors to appear before him as having incurred them. The Audiencia made another attempt at pacification to which he replied that he proposed at once to declare the councillors as publicly excommunicated. The Diputados of Catalonia thereupon protested vigorously to the king that, while all the rest of the people were patriotically united in aiding the war, and the gentry had voluntarily foregone their privilege of exemption, the officials and familiars of the Inquisition were exciting tumults and riots in their efforts to extend exemptions to those who had no claim.[962]

The chief trouble arose with the unsalaried officials, especially the multitudinous familiars, who had no claim to exemption. The Barcelona tribunal seems to have started it, for one of the complaints made to de Soto Salazar, on his visitation of 1567, was that the inquisitors forbade the quartering of soldiers in the houses of familiars; in his report he suggested that it should be done when necessary and the Aragonese Concordia of 1568 followed this idea by prohibiting inquisitors to support familiars in refusing to receive men assigned to them when there were no other houses to receive them.[963] There was evidently no recognized exemption but a steady effort to establish one, while the familiars complained that the hatred felt for them led to their being oppressed with billets when others went free. To remedy this Philip II, in a cédula of February 21, 1576, ordered that no discrimination should be made against them, but that they should be placed on an equality with justicias and regidores who were not called upon to furnish quarters until all other houses were occupied. Complaints continued and he advanced a step, February 22, 1579, by decreeing that for three years, in towns of upwards of five hundred hearths, familiars should be exempt from billeting and furnishing transportation; in smaller towns, one-half should be exempted and where there was but one he should be exempt. This was renewed frequently for three years at a time and as frequently was overlooked, but this made little difference for we are told by an experienced inquisitor that it was always assumed to be in force and, when a familiar complained of a billet, the tribunal would issue a mandate ordering his relief within three hours under a penalty of 100,000 mrs.; if the exemption was in force, a copy of the cédula was included in the mandate, if it was not it still was quoted as existing in the archives of the tribunal.[964]

There were few questions which gave rise to more embroilment than this. Both sides were unscrupulous; the privilege excited ill-will, it was evaded by the authorities wherever possible and the tribunals were kept busy in defending their familiars with customary violence. At length, in 1634, the necessities of the state were pleaded by Philip IV as his reason for withdrawing all exemptions--a measure which he was obliged to repeat more than once.[965] It is somewhat remarkable therefore that, when the Córtes of Aragon, in 1646, succeeded in greatly abridging the privileges of familiars, they were included with the salaried officials in the exemption from billets. This did not avail them much for we are told that, in the changes effected by the Córtes, the terror felt for the Inquisition was so greatly diminished that there was scant ceremony in imposing on its officials; that the familiars were singled out to have two or three soldiers quartered on them and when they complained the tribunal ventured no more than to instruct its commissioner to use persuasion.[966] Catalonia was not so fortunate and strife continued with the usual bitterness. As a frontier province, in war time it was occupied with troops and there were abundant opportunities for friction. In 1695 the Diputados complained that, as the only mode of escaping billets was to become a familiar, many had themselves appointed, although there was already an innumerable multitude, and that even when the local magistrates were compelled to receive soldiers, the familiars refused, in contempt of the royal orders.[967]

[Sidenote: _BILLETING TROOPS_]