Chapter III: Privileges and Exemptions (2)

The War of Succession brought fresh necessities and the change of dynasty was unfavorable to the Inquisition in this as in so much else. A royal decree of February 11, 1706, abolished all exemptions but, as a favor to the Inquisition, four of its officials were excepted in towns and twenty in cities that were seats of tribunals. The Suprema accepted this cheerfully but, when a decree of January 19, 1712, revoked all exemptions, it remonstrated and was told that, while the king recognized the claims of the Inquisition to all the privileges granted by his predecessors, the existing urgency required the withdrawal of all exemptions and, as the law was absolute, he could make no exceptions. Although this covered the salaried officials, it seems to have been the familiars who complained the loudest; possibly now that the tribunals could no longer protect them they were exposed to special discrimination. It was a question of money, however, rather than of hardship, for a system of composition had been developed under which by paying the _cuartel_ or _utensilio_--an assessment proportioned to the wealth of the individual--the billet was escaped.[968] When the urgency of immediate peril was passed these decrees were either withdrawn or became obsolete. The claim of exemption revived and with it the active efforts of the tribunals to protect those whose exemptions were disregarded and to punish the officials who disregarded them.[969]

In 1728 Philip V made a well-intentioned attempt to relieve the oppression of the poor arising from the numerous classes of officials who claimed exemption from the common burdens, including the billeting of troops. As for the familiars, he says, who all claim exemptions and give rise to disturbances, attacks on the local magistrates, with excommunications and other penalties, and perpetual competencias, all this must cease. Yet he admits their exemption and only insists that it must be confined to the number allowed by the Concordia of 1553; that limitation had never been observed and the inquisitors had appointed large numbers in excess of it, in spite of perpetual remonstrance, and Philip now ordered that tribunals should not issue certificates to more than the legal number and should not take proceedings against the local magistrates.[970] As usual the royal orders were disregarded. The tribunal of Valencia threatened with excommunication and fine the magistrates of Játiva and San Mateo, at the instance of some familiars on whom soldiers had been quartered, and, on learning this, Philip addressed the Suprema in 1729 stating that the records showed that familiar were entitled to no exemption; even if they were, the tribunal had exceeded its powers in employing obstreperous methods in defiance of the royal decrees. There must be no competencia; the Valencia tribunal must be notified not to exceed its jurisdiction and the Suprema itself must observe the royal orders. After the delay of a month, the Suprema forwarded the royal letter to Valencia, sullenly telling the tribunal to report what could be done and not to act further without orders.[971]

For two centuries the Inquisition had been accustomed to obey or to disregard the royal decrees at its pleasure and to tyrannize over the local authorities. The habit was not easily broken and it was hard to conform itself to the new order of things. A formulary of about 1740 contains a letter to be sent to magistrates granting billets on familiars, couched in the old arrogant and peremptory terms and threatening excommunication and a fine of two hundred ducats. Familiars, it says, are not to furnish quarters and beasts of burden, except in extreme urgency when no exemptions are permitted, and this it assumes to be in accordance with the royal decrees, including the latest one of November 3, 1737.[972] I can find no trace of a decree of 1737 and we may assume that it was this obstinacy of the Inquisition that induced Philip, in 1743, to reissue his decree of 1728 with an expression of regret at its inobservance and the disastrous results which had ensued; he added that, when the houses of the non-exempt were insufficient for quartering troops, they could be billeted on hidalgos and nobles.[973]

[Sidenote: _BEARING ARMS_]

The Inquisition still adhered to its claims, but Carlos III taught it to abandon its comminatory style. When, in 1781, the authorities of Castellon de la Plana billeted troops on familiars, the Valencia tribunal adopted the more judicious method of persuading the captain-general that they were to be classed with hidalgos and he issued orders to that effect. This did not please Carlos III, who brushed aside the claim to exemption by a peremptory order that the familiars of Castellon de la Plana should subject themselves to the local government in the matters of billets and that there should be no change until he should issue further commands.[974]

This would seem in principle to abrogate all claims to exemption, but Spanish tenacity still held fast to what it had claimed and, in 1800, when José Poris, a familiar of Alcira, complained that the governor had quartered on him an officer of the regiment of Sagunto, the Valencia tribunal took measures for his relief.[975] The times were adverse to privilege, however, and in 1805 the Captain-general of Catalonia sent a circular to all the towns stating that familiars were not exempt. The magistrates accordingly compelled them to furnish quarters and beasts of burden, and, when the tribunal complained to the captain-general and adduced proofs in support of its claims, he responded with the decrees of 1729 and 1743, which he assumed to have abrogated the exemption and he continued to coerce the familiars. The same process was going on in Valencia and, when that tribunal applied to Barcelona for information and learned the result, it ordered its familiars to submit under protest. Then followed a royal cédula of August 20, 1807, limiting strictly what exemptions were still allowed; the Napoleonic invasion supervened and under the Restoration I have met with no trace of their survival.[976]

* * * * *

Another privilege which occasioned endless debate and contention was the right of officials and familiars to bear arms, especially prohibited ones. This was a subject which, during the middle ages, had taxed to the utmost the civilizing efforts of legislators, while the power assumed by inquisitors to issue licences to carry arms, in contravention of municipal statutes, was the source of no little trouble, especially in Italian cities.[977] The necessity of restriction, for the sake of public peace, was peculiarly felt in Spain, where the popular temper and the sensitiveness as to the _pundonor_ were especially provocative of deadly strife.[978] It would be impossible to enumerate the endless series of decrees which succeeded each other with confusing rapidity and the repetition of which, in every variety of form, shows conclusively how little they were regarded and how little they effected. Particular energy was directed against _armas alevosas_--treacherous weapons--which could be concealed about the person. In the Catalan Córtes of 1585, Philip II denounced arquebuses, fire-locks and more especially the small ones known as pistols, as unworthy the name of arms, as treacherous weapons useless in war and provocative of murder, which had caused great damage in Catalonia and had been prohibited in his other kingdoms. They were therefore forbidden, not only to be carried but even to be possessed at home and in secret, and against this no privilege should avail, whether of the military class or official or familiar of the Inquisition or by licence of the king or captain-general, under penalty for those of gentle blood of two years' exile, for plebeians of two years' galley-service, and for Frenchmen or Gascons of death, without power of commutation by any authority. Three palms, or twenty-seven inches of barrel, was the minimum length allowed for fire-arms in Catalonia and four palms in Castile. Philip IV, in 1663, even prohibited the manufacture of pistols and deprived of exemptions and fuero those who carried them, while as for poniards and daggers, Philip V, in 1721, threatened those who bore them with six years of presidio for nobles and six years of galleys for commoners.[979]

[Sidenote: _BEARING ARMS_]

These specimens of multitudinous legislation, directed against arms of all kinds, enable us to appreciate how highly prized was the privilege of carrying them. In an age of violence it was indispensable for defence and was equally desired as affording opportunities for offence. That the Inquisition should claim it for those in its service was inevitable and it had the excuse, at least during the earlier period, that there was danger in the arrest and transportation of prisoners and in the enmities which it provoked, although this latter danger was much less than it habitually claimed. The old rules, moreover, were well known under which no local laws were allowed to interfere with such privilege,[980] and the Inquisition had scarce been established in Valencia when the question arose through the refusal of the local authorities to allow its ministers to carry arms. Ferdinand promptly decided the matter in its favor by an order, March 22, 1486 that licences should be issued to all whom the inquisitors might name--for the time had not yet come in which the inquisitors themselves issued licences.[981] Probably complaints arose as to the abuse of the privilege for the instructions of 1498, which were principally measures of reform, provided that, in cities, where bearing arms was forbidden, no official should carry them except when accompanying an inquisitor or alguazil.[982] As indicated by this, policy on the subject was unsettled and it so remained for a while. November 14, 1509, Ferdinand ordered that the ministers of the Sicilian Inquisition should not be deprived of their arms; June 2, 1510, he thanked the Valencia tribunal for providing that its officials should go unarmed, for, by the grace of God, there is no one now who impedes or resists the Inquisition and, if there were, the royal officials or he in person will provide for it; then, in about three months, on August 28th, he wrote to the Governor of Valencia that the salaried officials of the tribunal, with their servants and forty familiars should enjoy all the prerogatives of the Holy Office and were not to be deprived of their arms.[983]

We see in all this traces of general popular opposition to exempting inquisitorial officials from the laws forbidding arms-bearing. This was stimulated by the difficulty of preventing the exemptions from being claimed by unauthorized persons without limit, leading Catalonia, in the Concordia of 1512, to provide that officials bearing arms could be disarmed, like other citizens, unless they could show a certificate from the tribunal, and further that the number of familiars for the whole principality should be reduced to thirty, except in cases of necessity.[984] Although this Concordia was not observed, Inquisitor-general Mercader, in his instructions of August 28, 1514, admitted the necessity of such regulations by prohibiting the issue of licences to bear arms; by reducing the overgrown number of familiars to twenty-five in Barcelona and ten each in Perpignan and other towns, by permitting the disarmament of those who could not exhibit certificates and by endeavoring to check the fraud of lending these certificates by requiring them to swear not to do so and keeping lists whereby they could be identified.[985]

The right of arming its familiars, thus assumed by the Inquisition was by no means uncontested. We have seen how the Empress Isabella when in Valencia, in 1524, ordered the arms taken from them and broken, leading to a protest from Inquisitor-general Manrique, who asserted this to be a privilege enjoyed since the introduction of the Inquisition. In spite of this Charles V, by a cédula of August 2, 1539, ordered inquisitors to prohibit the use of arms by familiars.[986] The matter remained a subject of contest for some years more. In 1553 there were quarrels concerning it between the Valencia tribunal and the local authorities, but the Concordia of 1554 admitted the right unreservedly.[987]

By this time, in fact, it was generally recognized, but this, in place of removing a cause of discord only intensified and multiplied it. The right to bear arms could scarce be held to include weapons which were prohibited to all by general regulations, yet the authorities had no jurisdiction over familiars to enforce them. Thus when flint-lock arquebuses were prohibited and the Viceroy of Valencia included familiars in a proclamation on the subject, in 1562, Philip II called him to account, telling him that the order must come from the inquisitors and, in 1575 he repeated this to the Viceroy of Catalonia.[988] The Suprema might decide that familiars were included in prohibitory decrees and that inquisitors must issue the necessary orders, as it did, in 1596, with regard to one respecting daggers and in 1598 to one forbidding fire-locks and pistols at night,[989] but the tribunals had no police to enforce these orders and, when the secular authorities undertook to do so, inquisitors were prompt to resent it, in their customary fashion, as a violation of the immunities of the Holy Office.

[Sidenote: _BEARING ARMS_]

Even more fruitful of trouble was the fact that it was impossible to make the inquisitors respect the limitations imposed by the Concordias on the number of familiars and consequently to obey the rule of furnishing lists of them to the authorities so that they might be known. Appointments were lavished greatly in excess of all possible needs and without informing the magistrates--often, indeed, without keeping records in the archives. The familiar might or might not carry with him the evidence of his official character but, whether he did so or not, his arrest or disarmament was violently resented, and the ordinary citizen when caught offending was apt to claim that he was a familiar in hopes of being released. How exasperating to the civil authorities was the situation may be gathered from a case occurring in Barcelona, in 1568. The veguer, on his nightly rounds, arrested Franco Foix, whom he found armed with a coat of mail, sword, buckler and dagger. The culprit claimed to be a familiar and the veguer obediently handed him over to the tribunal. He proved not to be one, but, instead of returning him, the inquisitors fined him in forty-four reales for their own benefit (presumably as a penalty for personating an official) and restored to him his forfeited arms.[990] When the laws were thus openly set at defiance, conditions were eminently favorable for quarrels, even without the violent mutual animosity everywhere existing between the tribunals and the civil authorities; collisions were correspondingly frequent and were fought to the bitter end.

It would be wearisome to multiply cases illustrating the various phases of these quarrels which occupied the attention of the king and his councils in their settlement. A single one will suffice to show the spirit in which they were conducted on both sides. In 1620, by order of the tribunal of Valencia, acting in its secular capacity and not in a matter of faith, the commissioner at Játiva arrested a man and sent him to Valencia under the customary guard of relays of familiars. One of these named Juan López, armed with a prohibited flint-lock, was conveying him, on February 23d, when at Catarroja, about a league from the city, some armed alguaziles, in the service of Dr. Pedro Juan Rejaule, a judge on the criminal side of the Audiencia, arrested him, taking away his weapon and carrying him to Dr. Rejaule's house. Disregarding his documents, Rejaule told him that he could not be released without giving bail to present himself to the viceroy and, as he was unable to furnish it he was handed as a prisoner to the local magistrates. On learning the event the inquisitors applied to the regent of the Audiencia who ordered the release of López, which was effected and Rejaule visited the tribunal, admitted that he had been in error and promised in future to observe all necessary respect. In spite of this the inquisitors proceeded to try him for impeding the Inquisition, ordered him to keep his house as a prison under pain of three hundred ducats, and threw into the secret prison as though they were heretics, the four alguaziles who had made the arrest. When notice of this was served on Rejaule he protested that the inquisitors were not his judges and that he would appeal, whereupon the additional indignity was inflicted upon him of posting two guards in his house with orders to keep him in sight.

[Sidenote: _BEARING ARMS_]

This produced a crisis. The viceroy assembled in his palace all three _salas_ or branches of the Audiencia, where the matter was fully discussed and it was resolved to release Rejaule and hold the two guards as hostages for the imprisoned alguaziles. At 2 A.M. Dr. Morla went with halberdiers furnished by the viceroy, seized and handcuffed the guards and brought Rejaule to his brother judges. At the same time a scrivener of the court had been sent to the inquisitor Salazar with a message from the viceroy to the effect that, as the offence had not been in a matter of faith, Rejaule was justiciable only by the king; if the Inquisition held otherwise a competencia could be formed; the Audiencia had decided that Rejaule and the alguaziles must be released and the guards be held until this was done. The scrivener also presented a petition of appeal to the pope, or to whomsoever was judge, and demanded _apostolos_ or letters to that effect. To this Salazar replied in writing that the arrests had been made for matters incident to and dependent upon affairs of the faith, in which the Inquisition had exclusive jurisdiction and could admit no competencia; he could say no more as to the cause of the arrests without violating the secrecy of the Inquisition and incurring excommunication and he begged the viceroy not to interfere in a matter concerning so greatly the service of God and the king. At 4 A.M. the scrivener returned with this reply to where the viceroy and judges were waiting. At the magic word "faith," however fraudulently employed, all opposition vanished. By six o'clock Dr. Morla had taken Rejaule back to his house and had replaced the guards and, at the same time, the scrivener bore to the inquisitors a note from the viceroy saying that, as they had certified that it was a matter of faith, the Audiencia had restored everything to its previous condition and he offered not only not to impede the Inquisition but to show it all aid and favor.

The case was thus transferred to the court, where the Suprema on one side and the Council of Aragon on the other, struggled for a favorable decision from Philip III. The former evidently felt the weakness of the claim that the faith was involved, but it argued that impeding the Inquisition in any way conferred jurisdiction on it and Aliaga, in his double capacity of inquisitor-general and royal confessor, added a bitter complaint as to the manner in which the Inquisition was abused and maltreated. To this the king replied that he wished the affair treated with the customary moderation and mercy of the Holy Office, especially as it was not directly a matter of faith, and whatever sentence the Suprema resolved upon for Rejaule and the other inculpated parties must be submitted to him before publication. Besides, he ordered a junta of two members each of the Suprema and the Council of Aragon to be formed and to devise a plan for the avoidance of future contention. This assumed Rejaule's guilt and awarded the victory to the Suprema, but it was not satisfied and presented a consulta representing the perilous condition of the Valencia tribunal, which necessitated the punishment of the delinquents as a warning, but Philip merely repeated his former decision.[991]

What was Rejaule's fate we have no means of knowing, but his career was evidently blasted, whatever may have been the so-called mercy exhibited. As for the perilous position of the tribunal insisted on by the Suprema, it seems to be set forth in a Petition of the syndic of the College of Familiars, February 25, 1616, complaining of arrests and ill-treatment and asking the tribunal to take evidence on the subject. It accordingly did so, but while the testimony was ample as to the existence of ill-feeling towards the familiars, in substance it amounted only to their being deprived at night of daggers and bucklers which were prohibited weapons, and it does not appear that any action was taken in consequence. Complaints continued and another petition of October 30, 1626, asked that an envoy be sent to the Suprema, for which the familiars would defray the cost, for unless some relief was had they would resign in a body, as their position only exposed them to wrong and insult and their privileges were set at naught.[992]

The difficulty of enforcing the laws on the people was intensified by the privileges claimed by the familiars. They were by no means peaceable folk and the unprivileged class naturally regarded it as a hardship to be restricted to the use of swords when these gentry were so much more efficiently armed. The Suprema as a rule supported its satellites. For ten years, from 1574, it resisted, in Aragon, the enforcement on familiars of a royal decree against carrying prohibited weapons at night, although the Concordia of Aragon in 1568 provided that familiars should obey the laws respecting arms and that inquisitors should not protect them in violations. Members of all the Royal Councils were involved in the discussion, as though it were the weightiest affair of state and it was not until 1584 that the Suprema was induced to issue the necessary orders, which it was obliged to repeat in 1592.[993]

Another illustration of its attitude occurs with respect to a pragmática of great severity against the use of fire-arms, issued by Philip III, March 14, 1613, pronouncing the mere discharge of a weapon to be a capital offence, whether death ensued or not. It abrogated all privileges and exemptions and conferred on the royal courts full jurisdiction in such cases, and all this was accepted and its observance enjoined by the Suprema. This met with such scant obedience that the Council of Aragon in a consulta of July 31, 1632, called the king's attention to the evils existing from the exemption of familiars and suggested that they should not be permitted to decline the jurisdiction of the courts for crimes committed with fire-arms. It was doubtless in consequence of opposition by the Suprema that it was not until September 30, 1633, that Philip IV, in a cédula addressed to the Viceroy of Valencia, ordered that, with the assent of the Councils of Aragon and of the Inquisition, the pragmática of 1613 must be strictly observed by which all exemptions were disallowed and offenders were triable and punishable by the royal courts; the Inquisition must withdraw from all pending competencias and the cases be carried to conclusion by the Audiencia. The Suprema must have consented unwillingly to this, for it labored with the wavering monarch and, on November 8th, he wrote withdrawing the cédula and ordering the suspension of all cases before the Audiencia. A few weeks later he yielded to other influences and annulled the last letter, but added that his orders of September 30th must be executed impartially, for the Inquisition complained that it was enforced only against its officials and in such case he would give it a free hand again. December 27th the Suprema sent this to the Valencia tribunal with formal instructions to obey it, but added a confidential letter saying that efforts would not be relaxed to persuade the king to remit all such cases back to them; meanwhile an agreement had been obtained from the Council of Aragon that all sentences by the Audiencia should be referred to it before execution and the tribunal must watch them closely and send such reports as would enable the Suprema to obtain favorable action on them.[994]

For this endless strife, for the habitual disregard of the laws by familiars, the Suprema was primarily responsible. It was perfectly acquainted with the innumerable edicts specifying prohibited weapons and forbidding the carrying of them after night-fall; it acquiesced, ostensibly at least, in the subjection of these offences to the royal courts and yet it encouraged familiars in the belief that it had power to override all laws and could confer licence to violate them. The formula of commission which it caused to be issued to familiars contained a clause granting them full liberty to carry arms, offensive and defensive, publicly and secretly, by day or by night, and ordering all secular officials to abstain from interference with them, in virtue of holy obedience and under penalty of excommunication and of fifty thousand maravedís applicable to the expenses of the Holy Office.[995] It could not be fuller or more explicit; there are no exceptions as to the character of arms or allusion to the jurisdiction in these cases granted by the king to the royal courts. When one branch of the government thus resolutely placed itself in opposition to the sovereign and encouraged its subordinates to resist the laws and the constituted authorities, peace was impossible and conflicts were inevitable. Yet the illegality of all this was admitted when, in 1634, the familiars of Valencia held a meeting to assess themselves for a donation to be offered to the king, in return for a privilege to bear arms, and the Suprema instructed the tribunal to aid the movement, and again when, in 1638, a fruitless offer was made by them of twelve thousand ducats for the revocation of legislation on the subject.[996]

[Sidenote: _BEARING ARMS_]

To crown all this, the Suprema, in 1657, reached the audacity of arguing that the right of familiars to bear arms was imprescriptible and could not be abrogated by any prince, for it would impede the Inquisition in the free exercise of its functions, wherefore it denied that any competencia could be formed in such cases; the secular authorities had no jurisdiction and there could not even be a discussion about their claim to interfere.[997] Philip IV had the weakness to submit to these extravagant claims, in 1658, and to decide that the Suprema alone had cognizance in such matters. The case in which this occurred was that of Jaime Espejo, alcaide of the penitential prison of Valencia, arrested for carrying pistols and it has interest for us because in it the inquisitor, Don Antonio de Ayala Verganza, argues away all the royal decrees and pragmáticas as not meaning what they said and proves it by citing a vast number of cases in which, when carried up to the king, he overruled his own legislation, invariably deciding in favor of the Inquisition and against his own jurisdiction. He could sometimes be brought to issue wholesome general regulations, but, when it came to their execution, the ever-present dread of interfering with the service of God overwhelmed him.[998]

Yet Philip promptly reversed himself for, in a despairing effort to put an end to these interminable quarrels, he was induced to issue a royal letter, December 23, 1659, declaring that the cognizance of infractions of the laws respecting prohibited arms lay with the royal jurisdiction and that no competencias should be formed in these cases. When this letter was alleged by the royal court, in the case then pending of Joseph Navarro, a familiar arrested for carrying a pistol, the Inquisition in reply airily cast aside the pragmática of 1613, and its confirmation in 1633, by asserting that both before and after those laws it had always exercised jurisdiction over these cases, as was notorious to every one--which was all doubtless true. As for the recent letter of 1659, it had not been issued with the assent of the Suprema; being thus irregularly issued it should not be regarded as valid, until the king should be supplicated to modify it, and until this was done the accused should be surrendered to it or he could be released under bail to both jurisdictions.[999] The vacillating monarch probably yielded again; whether he did so or not mattered little to the Holy Office, which regarded his decrees so lightly. The miserable business of quarrelling over the multiplication of the laws went on and, in 1691, Carlos II found it necessary again to prohibit the carrying of pistols and _armas cortas_ and to deprive offenders of their claims to jurisdiction, even if they were familiars or salaried officials of the Inquisition.[1000]

Several cases in the earlier years of Philip V seem to indicate that this matter was an exception to the general limitation of the privileges of the Holy Office and that there was a tendency to admit its claims.[1001] Their final extinction, however, was not far off. In 1748, Fernando VI prohibited all officials of tribunals, including the Inquisition, from carrying cut-and-thrust weapons any kind; exclusive jurisdiction in the enforcement of this was reserved for the secular courts and all claims to _fuero_ were abolished. He confirmed and extended this by proclamations of 1749, 1751 and 1754, with penalties of six years in the mines for commoners and six years service in presidio for nobles. In another of 1757 he regretted the non-observance of these laws and ordered their irremissible enforcement without privilege of fuero. This legislation was supplemented by Carlos III, in 1761, who included in the prohibition all fire-arms of less than four palms length of barrel, although he conceded to gentlemen the use of holster pistols when on horseback but not when on mule-back.[1002] Yet the Inquisition continued to issue the old form of commissions granting unlimited license, until the magistrates of Seville and Alcalá la Real refused to recognize them when, in 1777, it admitted its altered position by a modification which granted the right to carry non-prohibited weapons, but only when on duty for the Holy Office, and contented itself with exhorting the secular authorities not to interfere with this.[1003]

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[Sidenote: _MILITARY SERVICE_]

In somewhat ludicrous contrast with the belligerent spirit, indicated by the earnest desire to carry arms, was the claim that all connected with the Inquisition were exempt from military service. In its relations with the State the Holy Office recognized no duties of citizenship; it only claimed privileges. That the salaried officials, regularly employed in the tribunals, should enjoy such exemptions was merely in accordance with old custom, for a law of Juan II, in 1432, specifically released from the obligation of service nearly all officials, including even physicians, surgeons and schoolmasters.[1004] That this should apply to the Inquisition seems to have been assumed as a matter of course in its early days but, in 1560, the corregidor of Córdova summoned the officials and familiars to appear in the musters; they all claimed exemption, when the inquisitor-general upheld the appeal of the officials but denied that of the familiars. Similar questions arose in Murcia in 1563 and 1575, in which a similar distinction was drawn.[1005] In Valencia, the familiars had probably been more successful, for an article in the Concordia of 1568 provides that they must serve their turns in guarding the coasts and that inquisitors shall not defend them in seeking exemptions under pretext of their office.[1006] The same question arose in Majorca and was settled by a law providing that familiars refusing to perform guard-duty on their appointed days could be compelled by the royal officials.[1007] Thus by common consent at this time salaried officials were exempted while the claims of familiars were rejected.

In the troubles of the seventeenth century, when the very existence of Spain was threatened, the question as to officials as well as familiars came up again and the Suprema sought to protect both classes. In 1636 and 1638, the corregidors of various cities refused to except the officials when making up the lists for conscription, but Philip IV decided that they were exempt.[1008] As the danger increased, in 1640, with the rebellions in Catalonia and Portugal, and the resources of the kingdom were strained to the utmost, all claims were disregarded. By a cédula of September 7, 1641, Philip declared this to be a religious war, as the rebels were allied with nations infected with heresy. Inquisitor general Sotomayor was required to summon all officials and familiars to organize and serve and was clothed with power to enforce it. No protest was made against this, for it was a financial rather than a military move; arrangements were made to commute service for cash and the Suprema was thus aided in meeting the royal demands for contributions.[1009]

This was only a temporary truce. Philip, in a letter of February 22, 1644, to Inquisitor-general Arce y Reynoso, reported that the attitude of the officials had excited much dissatisfaction in Galicia; he therefore ordered that no exemptions be admitted and no excuses be received. To this the Suprema responded with bitter complaints that in Saragossa the lot had fallen on a messenger of the tribunal and the widow of a notary, who were told that they must furnish substitutes, all of which was in violation of the privileges of the Inquisition, crippling it in its pious labors so essential to the faith and reducing it in popular esteem to a level with other institutions. Unstable as usual where the Holy Office was concerned, Philip abandoned his position and admitted that salaried officials were not liable to serve or to furnish substitutes, which the Suprema promptly conveyed to the tribunals, cautioning them not to employ excommunication in collisions with the royal officials until after obtaining its permission.[1010]

Even in this hour of supreme need the liability of familiars was contested. Philip endeavored to placate the Suprema by assigning them to garrison duty, but it remonstrated, asserting that the Inquisition could not perform its functions if wholly deprived of them, and the cause of religion was higher than any other. It therefore asked that no place should be left without one, in small towns there should be two and in larger places four. To this Philip assented, on condition that those exempted should contribute to those who served, but the Suprema demurred; every one could avoid service who could pay the assessment, so this would be giving the familiars no special privileges; there could be no question that favors shown to the Inquisition would contribute to success in the war, for experience had demonstrated that the more sovereigns had fostered it the more fortunate they had been. However just was the argument it was fruitless; Philip adhered to his decision, but when the corresponding decrees were issued, the Council of Castile remonstrated in its turn and the distracted monarch was involved in a fresh discussion between the two.[1011]

[Sidenote: _RIGHT TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE_]

The Suprema carried its point that those exempted should not contribute to those conscripted and the arrangement remained in force. It was repeated in a _carta acordada_ of January 14, 1668, and, when, in 1681, a question arose in Tembleque, the Suprema cautioned the Toledo tribunal not to issue more letters of exemption than the settlement permitted, in order to avoid competencias which only serve to render the Holy Office hateful and to imperil its other privileges.[1012] Carlos III seems to have been more liberal when, in 1767, he included, in an elaborate list of those exempt from military service, the ministers and dependents of the Inquisition who were relieved from billets under the decree of May 26, 1728, which, it will be remembered, granted the privilege to the number of familiars allowed under the old Concordias. Carlos IV was more exacting for, in 1800, when regulating the conscription in minute detail, he granted exemption only to the titular officials and took special care to exclude familiars and other dependents.[1013] This continued to the end. September 14, 1818, the Suprema communicated to the tribunals a decision of the king that, in order to secure exemption from conscription, it was not necessary to exhibit a royal commission, but one from the inquisitor-general or Suprema sufficed.[1014] Evidently the local tribunals were no longer allowed to issue certificates of exemption.

* * * * *

The right of officials and familiars to hold secular offices raised questions that caused no little debate. It was evidently of advantage to the Inquisition that those who were bound to it and enjoyed its exemptions should be in positions of influence where they could guard its privileges and promote their extension. On the other hand, for these very reasons, the people were jealous of office-holding by its ministers and dreaded to have their local authorities relieved of responsibility through their claim on the _fuero_ or jurisdiction of the Inquisition. Had these local positions been elective, popular good sense could have averted the danger, but they were awarded by lot, the names of those deemed eligible being placed in a _bolsa_ or bag--a process known as _insaculacion_--and drawn forth.[1015]

The earliest instance I have met of a refusal to include officials of the Inquisition among the eligibles occurs in 1503, when Ferdinand wrote to his Lieutenant-general of Majorca that he was astonished to learn that the names of Pere Prat, his son Pere Prat, Carman Litra and Gerónimo Serma had not been insacculated because they held office in the Inquisition; it should rather be a recommendation; they must not be thus dishonored and their names must at once be put in the bolsa.[1016] Doubtless Ferdinand's watchfulness preserved this privilege for officials during his life, but subsequently popular feeling must have manifested itself by their exclusion, for, in 1523, Charles V forbade it in an edict and he followed this by a special pragmática, May 30, 1524, asserting their eligibility to public office in all his dominions and for all future time, under pain of the royal wrath and of two thousand florins, but he provided that they should not be entitled to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition for official malfeasance.[1017] Notwithstanding this, Philip II was obliged to issue special instructions on the subject to Sardinia in 1552 and to Navarre in 1558.[1018]

In this, as in so much else, the Catalans were especially intractable. Córtes of the three kingdoms of Aragon were held in 1553, in which Catalonia alone took up the matter and adopted a law, confirmed by Prince Philip, prescribing that no bayle or his lieutenant, or judge, or scrivener could be a familiar, nor could he accept office after his term of service had expired.[1019] This received scant obedience, nor did the Inquisition pay attention to the clause in the pragmática of 1524 depriving it of cognizance of official malfeasance. One of the complaints of the royal Audiencia to de Soto Salazar, in his visitation of the Barcelona tribunal in 1566, was that it assumed jurisdiction in all such cases. Salazar recommended that this should be forbidden, for it impeded the proper administration of the towns, and officials could not be punished for violating local ordinances about bread, vineyards, meadows, breaking irrigating canals to water their lands, and multitudinous other derelictions.[1020]

[Sidenote: _RIGHT TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE_]

Catalonia refused to accept the Concordia of 1568 and, in 1585, the Córtes re-enacted the provisions of 1553 in an enlarged form, including almost all offices, and subjecting violation to a penalty of two hundred ducats, which was confirmed by Philip II.[1021] This seems to have been enforced for, in 1586, a memorial from the Bishop of Segovia says that in Catalonia the names of all officials of the Inquisition were removed from the lists of eligibles, that commissioners and familiars were resigning and that every day withdrawals were received from applicants, so that the tribunal would be crippled and the Córtes could have contrived nothing more damaging.[1022] The Catalans held good, despite the earnest efforts of the Holy Office, which declared long afterwards that this was the severest blow that it had ever received. In the Córtes of 1599 the battle was renewed after elaborate preparations by the inquisitors. On June 30th the king presented a series of articles, in response to those submitted to him by the Córtes, and among them was one declaring officials and familiars eligible to all offices, but the Catalans would have none of it. In the elaborate memorial presented to Clement VIII by the Suprema against the work of the Córtes, it complained bitterly of the laws of 1553 and 1585 as diminishing notably the authority of the Inquisition and causing great lack of officials, so many having ignominiously resigned, while others could not be found to replace them.[1023]

Again, when the Córtes were about to assemble in 1626, the Barcelona tribunal implored the Suprema to use its utmost exertions for the repeal of the law of 1585, for no person of consideration would accept office and it was obliged to appoint those of low condition, which was fatal to its authority. The Córtes yielded in so far as to adopt an article throwing open the offices, provided incumbents were justiciable by the civil courts for a long series of offences, but the whole legislation of the Córtes came to naught through lack of the royal confirmation.[1024] When the question was coming up again in the Córtes of 1632, earnest appeals were made to the Suprema to have the obnoxious law of 1585 repealed. The condition of the Inquisition in Catalonia was represented as most deplorable by reason of it. In a memorial to the king it was stated that in Barcelona there were but four or five familiars, and they were mechanics, ineligible to public office; there was not a single advocate of the accused, nor an ecclesiastical consultor, so greedy was every one for public office. Throughout the principality there was the same dearth--familiars only in miserable villages, destitute of tempting positions, and those were of base condition, for in fact the barons would endure none other in their lands. The Suprema was urged to bring the matter before the Rota and it submitted the question to its fiscal, but he wisely reported that, although a favorable result was to be anticipated, yet it was expedient to set the example of recourse to Rome which might result in other matters being carried thither with damage to the jurisdiction of the Holy Office.[1025]

Thus Catalan pertinacity triumphed. When, in 1667, Pedro Momparler, familiar at Alconer, asked permission to resign, in order to accept the office of bayle, and his request was referred to the Suprema, it replied that it should be denied on account of the evil influence of his example, but it added that if he should renounce his familiarship before the royal justice for the term of his office, the inquisitors should pretend ignorance.[1026]

[Sidenote: _RIGHT TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE_]

In Majorca, frequent alterations of the law show that it was subject to active debate and that preponderance shifted from one side to the other. In 1637 it was decided that none of those connected with the Inquisition could hold public office; then, in 1643, they were allowed to do so, in positions where they had not to vote or to give counsel; again, in 1660, the prohibition was made absolute; then, in 1662, royal letters of January 11th and March 4th removed the prohibition, provided they would previously renounce all claim to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. These letters afford a remarkable illustration of the vacillation of the monarch and of the extent to which bureaucracy had crippled his autocracy--only this time it was the Council of Aragon which imitated the methods of the Suprema. The latter body was dissatisfied with the arrangement and addressed to the king a consulta, April 5, 1663, asking its suspension and that a junta of the two councils should be called to consider the subject. Philip promptly acceded and, on April 10th, ordered the Council of Aragon to write to that effect to the viceroy. The command was not obeyed and, on September 19th, the Suprema asked him to remedy the omission, whereupon he asked the council to state its reasons and, on its doing so, he again ordered it, October 3d, to execute his decree of April 10th. It was still recalcitrant and, on March 19, 1664, the Suprema represented the delay to the king who the next day called upon the council to render an exact account of what it had done, replied that in conformity with his commands it had written on October 3, 1663, copy of which it enclosed. This proved to be merely copies of the letters of 1662 which had given rise to the debate, showing that it had deliberately nullified his orders. In view of all this the Suprema, July 24, 1664, asked the king to insist on literal compliance and that a copy of the despatch of the Council of Aragon to the viceroy should be furnished to it. This proved to be merely a duplicate of that of October 13, 1663, with the date altered to April 6, 1664. Then the Suprema again asked the king peremptorily to order exact obedience and he replied that he had done so. Meanwhile the Viceroy and the inquisitor of Majorca had been playing at cross-purposes in consequence of the contradictory despatches received by each.[1027] Such a method of carrying on an organized government seems incredible and, trivial as was the question at issue, a case such as this throws light on one of the causes of Spanish decadence. The question itself, after all this trouble, apparently remained unsettled, for, in 1673, there was a competencia over Gabriel Berga, a knight of Santiago and a familiar, when the tribunal contended that he could not renounce its jurisdiction.[1028]

It would be superfluous to follow out in detail the vicissitudes of this matter in the other provinces of Spain, where it gave abundant occasion for quarrels conducted with customary vehemence. It seems to have settled itself into the rule that officials and familiars were eligible to public office but that, during their terms of service, they were not entitled to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. Such, we are told in 1632, was the practice in Castile, Aragon and Valencia.[1029] Yet still there were disputes for, about the middle of the seventeenth century, a formula is given for use when a familiar is prevented from taking office. This sets forth at much length that, if familiars are refused office, no one will take the position, which will inflict great detriment on the faith; it cites the royal cédulas, it sets aside opposing arguments by showing that for all malfeasance in office the familiar will be subject to the royal jurisdiction and finally it orders his immediate induction in his post under penalty of excommunication and of five hundred ducats; no further notice will be given and all further action will be published in the halls of the Inquisition, which will be full legal notice to all parties concerned.[1030] I have met with no further legislation on the subject and presumably some arrangement of this kind was in force to the end.

* * * * *

It was highly inconsistent but, at the same time, thoroughly in keeping with the spirit of the Inquisition in its dealings with the public, that while it vindicated so energetically the right of its officials to hold honorable and lucrative posts, it claimed for them the privilege to refuse to serve in those which were onerous. In the municipalities there were a certain number of these latter, entailing unremunerative labor and responsibility which no one could refuse to accept when his name was drawn from the bolsa. The officials claimed to be insaculated for the desirable positions but not for the undesirable ones. That such a claim could be made and sustained is a forcible illustration of the power of the Inquisition.

[Sidenote: _RIGHT TO REFUSE OFFICE_]

There is no allusion to this in the earlier Concordias and no specific grant that I have been able to find. It seems to have been merely a gratuitous assumption on the part of the Inquisition, asserted with its customary persistence. A noteworthy case growing out of it occurred, in 1622, in the town of Lorca (Murcia) where a familiar refused to serve in the office of collector of the alcavala, or tax on sales, and was imprisoned for contumacy. The inquisitors of Murcia demanded his liberation and excommunicated the alcalde mayor for refusing to obey. This failing, they prepared to arrest him and called upon the corregidor of Murcia, Pedro de Porres, for assistance. On his refusal they excommunicated him and then laid an interdict on the city of Murcia. The citizens appealed to their bishop, Fray Antonio Trejo, who remonstrated with the tribunal and, finding this unavailing, issued an edict declaring the interdict invalid. Bishops were not subject to inquisitorial jurisdiction, even for heresy, without special papal faculties, but the inquisitor-general, Andres Pacheco, was the most audacious and inexorable assertor of inquisitorial omnipotence and he did not hesitate to condemn the episcopal edict, to publish the condemnation in all the churches, to fine the bishop in eight thousand ducats and to summon him, under pain of four thousand more, to appear within twenty days and answer to the action brought against him by the fiscal as an impeder of the Inquisition. The bishop and chapter sent the dean and a canon to represent them, but, without a hearing, they were thrown _incomunicado_ into the secret prison, excommunicated and the censure published in all the churches. The inquisitors imprisoned the parish priest of Santa Catalina for disregarding the interdict and the whole ecclesiastical body of Murcia became involved. Finally, through the intervention of the king and the pope, the bishop was absolved, but the Inquisition reaped a rich harvest of fines. Those of the bishop, dean and some of the canons were kept by the Suprema, while the local tribunal, in addition to inflicting terms of exile, of from one to eight years, secured from José Lucas, the episcopal secretary, a thousand ducats, from Alonso Pedriñan, the fiscal, eight hundred and, from thirteen other priests and dignitaries of the church, sums ranging from fifty to one hundred and fifty--in all, an aggregate of 3272 ducats.[1031]

A claim enforced so relentlessly was dangerous to dispute and even the Aragonese Concordia of 1646, which registered a triumph over the Holy Office, admitted the right of salaried officials and familiars to decline onerous offices.[1032] In time, however, there seems to have come a slight modification of the claim. About 1750 we have the formula of a mandate, issued at the instance of a familiar, forbidding, under pain of excommunication and of two hundred ducats, the authorities of a town from including him among those liable to serve in any of the minor offices, nor in any of the more important ones until every other inhabitant has served his turn.[1033]

* * * * *

It is not difficult to understand the origin of the claim that the buildings of the Inquisition and the houses of its officials were sanctuaries into which the officers of justice could not penetrate without special permission. The asylum afforded to criminals in churches was an old established practice throughout Europe to which Spain was no exception. Even as late as 1737 the papal sanction was deemed necessary to except from this certain crimes, such as murder, highway robbery and high treason.[1034] Asylum was also afforded by the feudal rights which debarred royal officers of justice from intruding on lands of nobles, and the withdrawal of this right in Granada is cited as one of the causes of the agitation leading to the rebellion of 1568.[1035] In Aragon this was developed so far that a law of Jaime I, in the Córtes of Huesca in 1247, which still continued in force, gave to the houses of infanzones, or gentlemen, the same right of asylum as that possessed by churches.[1036]

It is therefore somewhat remarkable that the claim of affording asylum was not made at the outset by the Inquisition, especially in view of the importance attached to the secrecy which shrouded all its operations. Yet, until the middle of the sixteenth century, such claims when made were authoritatively repudiated. Inquisitor-general Tavera writes, September 3, 1540, a sharp letter to the inquisitors of Seville saying that he is informed that recently certain murderers had been received and protected in the castle of Triana, occupied by the tribunal, and that the officers of the royal justice had not been allowed to search for them; the punishment of delinquents should be in no way impeded and no occasion be given for complaint; the gates of the castle must be kept shut so that criminals cannot take refuge there.[1037] So, in 1546, among instructions from the Suprema to the tribunal of Granada, is an order that no criminals or debtors shall find refuge in the Inquisition, nor be allowed to sleep there nor between the gates; the janitor must eject them and, if they will not go, report it to the inquisitors for proper action.[1038] This shows that the abuse was commencing but that it was disapproved and the same is seen in the Valencia Concordia of 1554, which says that, as the Inquisition has no privileges as an asylum, it cannot protect those who take refuge there.[1039]

[Sidenote: _RIGHT OF ASYLUM_]