Chapter IV: Conflicting Jurisdictions (5)

It was difficult for the Inquisition to reconcile itself to the tendencies of the age and several cases, about this time, in which the tribunal of Valencia refused even to admit competencias, asserting that its combined ecclesiastical and royal jurisdictions rendered it the sole judge of all that concerned its officials, show that the old spirit still lingered and found expression whenever it dared.[1223] Carlos III, however, was even more assertive of the royal prerogative than his brother Fernando. We have seen his orders of 1763 concerning municipal and police regulations which included the prohibitions of carrying concealed weapons and exporting money, in all of which familiars were wholly removed from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, and in 1775 a competencia in Córdova caused him emphatically to order the inviolable observance of this decree.[1224] All this led to the change in the commissions of familiars as regards carrying arms, which was brought about, in 1777, by the authorities of Alcalá la Real and Seville refusing to register commissions issued by the tribunals of Toledo and Seville, because they were not in accordance with the new regulations. In place, as of old, of blustering and coercing the magistrates, the Suprema collected from all the tribunals the formulas employed by them and framed a new one, phrased in a very different spirit and in accordance with the royal edicts.[1225]

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That the endless quarrels which we have been considering ought to be settled in an amicable manner was so self-evident that, from an early period, persistent efforts had been made to accomplish it, resulting in the "competencia" so frequently alluded to above. Originally it would seem that there was no established procedure and that the Inquisition settled for itself all questions arising with the magistrates. After the first opposition had been broken down these were not numerous, until the attribution of the fuero to the officials, and the enormous multiplication of familiars and other unsalaried officers, gave occasion for collisions with the courts. The earliest attempt that I have met to provide a method of settlement is a cédula, issued about 1535 by the empress-regent in the absence of Charles V, ordering that, when there was a dispute about jurisdiction, the president and judges of the royal court should meet the inquisitors and arrange matters harmoniously, so that it should not be known that there had been a difference between them. It was in conformity with this that, in 1542, when Joaquin de Tunes was tried in Barcelona for the murder of Juan Ballell, a familiar, the inquisitor, Miguel Puig, held a conference with the regent and judges of the royal chancellery, prior to the arrest, and the custody of the accused was settled without difficulty. It was impossible, however, to preserve peace between classes mutually jealous, and we have seen (p. 435) the troubles which Prince Philip endeavored to settle by the cédula of May 15, 1545. This favored the royal jurisdiction and produced complaints from the Suprema as when, in 1548, it represented to Charles V that in Granada the judges made the cédula a pretext to intervene in the business of the tribunal, whenever any one made a complaint, requiring the inquisitors to interrupt their work and come to the Audiencia, when they were ordered not to proceed and, if this was disobeyed, the judges raised a great disturbance. All this would cease if the old rule were restored that any one feeling aggrieved must appeal to the Suprema where he would get justice.[1226] Prince Philip's cédula of 1553 settled this as far as concerned matters of faith, but neither it nor the Castilian Concordia of the same year could prevent disputes over the immunities of the officials and familiars which the Inquisition was persistently endeavoring to extend. The Concordia, however, endeavored to provide for the settlement of these by the process described above (p. 436) which became technically known as competencia. It is remarkable that, in the Valencia Concordia of 1554, there is no such provision, but in that of 1568, for the Aragonese kingdoms, it appears in the slightly different form that the regent of the Audiencia and the senior inquisitor should consult and endeavor to come to some agreement. If they could not do so, the regent was to send his side of the case to the Council of Aragon and the inquisitor his to the Suprema, when the king would arrange how the matter should be decided.[1227] The two formulas were combined in practice and remained the established method of settling conflicts of jurisdiction.

This should have produced peace but we have seen that it only gave occasion for fresh subjects of discord. The inquisitors were restive under any restraint on their arbitrary methods and already in 1560, a carta acordada of November 14th warns them that they are not to proceed with censures against the judges, when the latter offer competencias, but are to send the papers to the Suprema and await the result, under a penalty of twenty ducats for every infraction of the rule.[1228] The inquisitors however avoided competencias as far as they could and, when obliged to concede them, the opportunity was taken of humiliating the royal judges and make them feel their inferiority in a manner most galling to men so tenacious of the respect due to position and so insistent on courtesy. When de Soto Salazar reports of the inquisitors of Barcelona that, when they had occasion to notify the lieutenant of the king or the regent of the Audiencia, they sent a messenger to summon him and then kept him waiting in the antechamber and that sometimes they called the judges before them and scolded them without cause, we can readily appreciate the intensity of the hatred thus excited.[1229]

[Sidenote: _COMPETENCIAS_]

So, when the Inquisition established its formula for competencias, they were sedulously framed to be as arrogantly insulting as possible. The first mandate inhibits peremptorily the judge from action and orders him to remit the case to the tribunal within twenty-four hours. If an arrest has been made the prisoner is to be discharged on bail to present himself before the inquisitors and any property seized or sequestrated is to be released. If the secular judge has any reason to allege to the contrary he is to present himself in person or by procurator to the tribunal, which will render justice, and all this is under holy obedience and the threat of major excommunication and a heavy fine. If there are any papers in the case the scrivener is ordered to surrender them, and the accuser or plaintiff is to appear within a time specified and receive justice, in default of which the case will be heard without him and without further notice. Then, if a reply is made to this alleging reasons for not obeying, a second mandate is issued pronouncing them insufficient and ordering the first one to be obeyed within a specified time under the above penalties. If the judge then proposes a competencia, a mandate is sent to him reciting the previous ones and saying that, to avoid, troubling the higher powers, he is ordered to surrender all papers and suspend all action, or the excommunication and fine will be enforced on his person and property. The next mandate accepts the competencia, states that the tribunal is ready to forward its papers and orders the judges to send their side within twelve days, adding a threat of excommunication and fine if any additional testimony be taken in the case. All this is phrased in the most mandatory fashion as of a superior addressing a subordinate and all these missives are ordered to be returned to the tribunal. If, after a competencia was formed, the familiar or official accepted the jurisdiction of the secular court, he was deprived of his commission. As we have frequently seen, there was no hesitation, at any stage of the proceedings, to excommunicate the judges, to anathematize them and to lay an interdict on the city, followed by a _cessatio a divinis_.[1230]

In addition to the gratification of thus humiliating the magistrates, there was also in this truculence the object of rendering the process so offensive as to make them shrink from resisting the encroachments of the Inquisition. When this failed the tribunal had abundant sources of annoyance in raising interminable questions of precedence and formalities, which were sometimes fought so bitterly and long as virtually to supersede the original case. The points that could be raised were endless. In 1602, the Count of Benavente, then Viceroy of Valencia, issued letters ordering a conference over the arrest of Gerónimo Falcon; the tribunal surrendered him, admitting that the case did not pertain to it, but demanded that the viceroy and chancellery should cancel the letters on their records and, on refusal, it excommunicated the regent. The matter was carried up to the Suprema and Council of Aragon, when the king decided that the letters must be expunged and it was done in presence of a secretary of the Inquisition. The same humiliation had been inflicted on the count's father, when he was viceroy, and also on the Duke of Segorbe.[1231]

This arrogance continued until Carlos III, in his decree of 1775, informed the Inquisition that the royal jurisdiction which it exercised was on precisely the same level as that of his judges and magistrates; there must be entire equality between them; all threats of excommunication and fines must be abandoned; there must be free interchange of papers, mutual courtesy and no assumption of superiority. It was difficult for the tribunals to abandon the formulas which flattered their vanity and a second command was necessary, issued in 1783, on the occasion of a prolonged conflict of the Valencia tribunal with the alcalde of Consentaina. This finally produced obedience and the Suprema transmitted the royal order to Valencia with instructions for its observance.[1232]

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[Sidenote: _MODERATION UNDER THE RESTORATION_]

While this doubtless diminished the exasperation of these conflicts, it did not check their frequency. They continued to be a constant source of trouble and it was from a desire to diminish this, as well as to extend its authority, that the Suprema, in 1806, forbade the tribunals from instituting them without submitting the case to it and receiving its approval.[1233] When, under the Restoration, the Inquisition was revived, in 1814, the officials naturally claimed the fuero, active and passive, civil and criminal, and Fernando VII, in the decision of a case carried up to him from Seville, announced, February 15, 1815, in no uncertain tones, that they should be protected in its enjoyment, but the cases appear to be rare and the aggressive spirit had disappeared.[1234] When, in Seville, the creditors of Francisco de Paula Esquivol complained of him to the tribunal, in place of defending him, it promptly dismissed him, June 27, 1815, an action which was confirmed by the Suprema.[1235] Even more significant was a case, in 1816, when in Seville Lorenzo Ayllon abused a priest while celebrating mass and endeavored to seize the sacrament, and the secular authorities arrested and proceeded to try him. In such a case there could be no question as to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, but there was no disturbance, and when the tribunal claimed his transfer to the secret prison the Suprema interposed and ordered that he should be allowed to remain in the public gaol, a detainer being lodged to prevent his discharge during his trial--a concession to the royal jurisdiction which would have petrified Pacheco or Arce y Reynoso.[1236]

There was the same disposition to avoid coming to extremes with the spiritual courts. In 1816 the provisor of the see of Tuy prosecuted Joseph Metzcler for impious, execrable and sacrilegious blasphemies. The tribunal of Santiago applied, in a courteous note, to the provisor for the papers and received a reply without signature. This the Suprema directed it to return and explain that there was no desire to invade the episcopal jurisdiction, but as the blasphemous propositions and acts of Metzcler might be heretical, of which the Inquisition had exclusive cognizance, it must insist on seeing the evidence to extract what appertained to it, after which the papers would be returned. It seems to have obtained the evidence for, on October 15, 1817, it voted to imprison Metzcler, as soon as his trial by the provisor should be ended, but the Suprema instructed it not to wait for this, as the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was privileged.[1237]

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There was one peculiarly irritating feature in the position of the Inquisition in these quarrels, which exacerbated them greatly and often neutralized all efforts to maintain harmony--the power which it arrogated to itself of refusing to form competencias on the ground that its rights were too clear to admit of debate. Thus it held that the salaried and titular officials, with their families and servants, were so wholly beyond all secular jurisdiction that it refused to entertain any proceedings in contest of their claims. It was in vain that Philip III, by a royal letter of 1615, declared that if inquisitors refused a conference, on the ground that the matter was too clear to justify it, the regent of the chancellery should form a competencia and forward the papers as usual.[1238] It was equally useless for Philip IV to decree, in 1630, that when a contention was started by either party, the other must entertain it, no matter how clear it might be, under pain, for a first offence, of five hundred ducats and, for a second, of suspension during the royal pleasure. To ensure the imposition of the fine, each Council was to give the other faculties for its collection from offenders, but, when the Suprema forwarded this decree to the tribunals, with orders for its strict observance, it added significantly that it did not apply to cases of salaried and titular officials, though no such exception was made in the decree. It knew that Philip would never summon courage to enforce his law and it was right. When, in 1633, the Council of Aragon endeavored to collect such a fine, the Suprema interposed, asserting that it could only be done by consent of both Councils, which was, in effect, to invalidate the law, and Philip himself violated it, in 1634, when Augustin Vidal, messenger of the tribunal of Valencia, was arrested by the royal court for the murder of Juan Alonso Martínez, a Knight of Santiago and Bayle of Alicante. The tribunal demanded him and refused a competencia, when Philip weakly ordered him to be surrendered "for this time and without prejudice to my royal jurisdiction."[1239]

[Sidenote: _REFUSAL OF COMPETENCIAS_]

The Inquisition carried its point. Philip, by decisions of 1645 and 1658, admitted that there could be no competencias in the case of salaried officials and the Suprema enforced these decisions by a carta acordada of August 7, 1662, pointing out that they must not be entertained where such officials were concerned; at the same time tribunals were warned to exercise moderation and not to employ censures without consulting it, unless delay was inadmissible.[1240] Even Philip however had to intervene against the consequences of his own acts, in 1664, when the portero of the tribunal of Logroño killed in his house a priest, apparently through jealousy. The alcalde mayor prosecuted the murderer and arrested his wife; the tribunal excommunicated the alcalde and cast an interdict on the town. The Council of Aragon formed a competencia and claimed that during it the censures should be raised according to custom, but the Suprema refused on the ground that there could be no competencia. Philip was appealed to and ordered the censures raised for the unanswerable reason that as judges under excommunication could not hold their courts, if it were allowed thus to paralyze all judicial business it would have arbitrary control over all cases and frustrate all legal remedies.[1241] This decision was disregarded. It seems extraordinary that any community would endure for centuries the indefinite stoppage of the administration of justice, constantly occurring through the reckless abuse of the power of excommunication, as when, in 1672, we find the queen-regent applying to the inquisitor-general to know how she is to answer the complaints of the town of Logroño at the prolonged suspension of the powers of the corregidor who lay under excommunication, seeing that there is no conclusion of the competencia which has been so long pending.[1242]

The Inquisition evidently aggravated as far as it could the public distress as a means of establishing its claims. In an effort to limit the abuse of refusing competencias, there was a junta formed, in 1679, from the Suprema and Council of State with the assistance of some theologians. This admitted that there could be no competencia in the cases of salaried officials, except when they held public office and were prosecuted for malfeasance, but it laid down the rule that, when the Suprema refused a competencia, the Council of State could appeal to the king who could appoint a junta to decide this secondary question. A limited time was allowed to the Suprema to state its reasons for refusal and during a competencia the accused was to be liberated on bail and all censures were to be raised.[1243] This removed some of the hardships, but the Suprema seems to have sought to evade it by sullenly refusing to form the juntas with the Royal Councils, for another decree of Carlos II ordered it to attend when summoned so that these affairs might be settled.[1244] It was in vain that, in 1730, the Council of Castile urged that competencias be admitted in all cases, for Philip V decided that the agreement of 1679 should stand.[1245] Probably not much was gained in the latest attempt to settle these perennial quarrels by Carlos IV in 1804, who ordered that when a conflict arose between a royal court and a tribunal, in a matter not of faith concerning an official, the court should refer the case to the governor of the Royal Council and the tribunal to the Suprema. These should then select an examiner who was to report to the Secretaría de Gracia y Justicia for the royal decision.[1246]

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[Sidenote: _PROTRACTED DELAYS_]

The evils of the system were admitted on all hands, but it was so vicious in principle that remedies were impossible. The customary juntas of two members each from the Suprema and the Council of Castile or of Aragon was at best a clumsy device, onerous on the Councils and usually leading only to procrastination. To systematize it, in 1625, a permanent Junta Grande de Competencias was formed of two members from each Council, whose duty it should be to despatch all cases, and rules for it were framed in April, 1626, but it was short-lived. In 1634 Philip IV ordered the formation of a junta of two members each of the Suprema and Council of Castile to formulate a plan of relief, but, on June 9th of that year, the Suprema reported that it had never been able to accomplish a meeting of the Junta. Then, in 1657, the Junta Grande was resuscitated and we meet with an allusion to it in 1659, but it appears to have been abandoned soon afterwards.[1247] Ingenuity was at fault to alleviate the evils inseparable from the permanent antagonism between the rival jurisdictions. Of these evils the one most keenly felt was the interminable delay in the settlement of cases. The councils from which the members were drawn were crowded with their more legitimate business; there was rarely accord in the junta; the matter would be argued without expectation of agreement; each side would be obstinate; perhaps the case would be referred to the king or years would pass before a settlement would be reached; perhaps, indeed, it would be silently dropped without a decision, especially when a decision might be undesirable because one or both sides feared a troublesome precedent. Meanwhile the case remained petrified in the condition existing at the time the competencia was formed. Until the so-called Concordia of 1679 permitted the release of prisoners on bail, if any one had been arrested, he remained in prison, perhaps to die there as sometimes occurred. In 1638 the Inquisition complained of this, when its officers happened to be the prisoners, for competencias were always slow of settlement and the work of the tribunals was crippled for lack of their ministers, while their poverty precluded their giving adequate salaries to substitutes.[1248] It was not until 1721 that a remedy for this procrastination was sought by Philip V in a decree reciting the long delays and the frequency of cases remaining undecided by reason of a dead-lock in the junta, wherefore in future when a junta was formed, he was to be notified in order that he might appoint a fifth member, thus assuring a majority.[1249] It does not seem however that this accomplished its purpose and, when Carlos III consolidated the cumbrous framework of government by instituting the _Junta de Estado_, composed of the ministers of the several departments, Floridablanca enumerates, among the benefits accruing, the expediting of cases of competencia and avoiding the interminable delays caused by the etiquette of the tribunals and the intrigues of the parties concerned.[1250]

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I have dwelt thus in detail on this subject, not only because it absorbed so large a portion of the activity of the Inquisition, but because of its importance in the relations between the Holy Office and the other institutions of Spain and in explaining the detestation which the Inquisition excited. If the people regarded it as a whole with awe and veneration, as the bulwark of the Catholic faith, their hatred was none the less for its members, and the perpetual struggle against the tremendous odds of its power, supported by the unflinching favor of the Hapsburgs, bears equal testimony to the tenacity of the Spanish character and to the magnitude of the evils with which the Inquisition afflicted the nation.