Chapter XVI: Miscellaneous Business (1)

In the undefined and widely extending jurisdiction of the Inquisition there were a number of matters, more or less connected with the faith, of which it assumed cognizance. Their cursory consideration is indispensable and they can more conveniently be grouped together.

MARRIAGE IN ORDERS.

The celibacy enjoined on the Catholic clergy includes the seculars, from the subdiaconate upwards, and the regulars who are bound by the three vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. Even degradation from orders does not remove the disability, as the indelible _character_ impressed in ordination remains.[708] Strict as has been the enforcement of the canons, since the twelfth century, the weakness of the flesh has, at all times, led to occasional infractions of the rule, punishable with degradation, reclusion in a monastery and other penalties. Whether the offence was justiciable by the Inquisition was, in the earlier period, the subject of debate, some authors holding that, if the marriage was public, it implied heretical error, bringing it under inquisitorial jurisdiction, but that, if it was secret, this showed that there was no intellectual misbelief, making the offender guilty only of violating the law and subjecting him, if secular, to the spiritual courts, and if regular, to the prelates of his Order.[709]

[Sidenote: _MARRIAGE IN ORDERS_]

The Reformation, which sanctioned clerical marriage, introduced a new and controlling factor that in time altered the situation. Yet, for a considerable period there was a powerful movement, especially among German Catholics, to relax the prohibition in the hope of effecting a reunion. The question was regarded as open for discussion, as a matter merely of discipline; Arnaldo Albertino argues that the pope can dispense for marriage in orders, and instances the dispensation granted by Alexander VI to his son Cæsar Borgia, then a cardinal-deacon, to marry the heiress of Valentinois.[710] The reactionary influences which controlled the Council of Trent changed all this when, in 1563, it made clerical celibacy a matter of faith, rendering priestly marriage unquestionably thenceforth heretical.[711]

The Inquisition, however, did not wait for this to assume jurisdiction, though it seems not to have acted until after the outbreak of the Reformation had rendered clerical celibacy a subject of discussion. The earliest case that I have met is that of Miguel Gómez, a priest of Saragossa, sentenced, for marrying in orders, by the Toledo tribunal in 1529, when the peculiar punishment would seem to show that it was a novelty for which no precedent existed. He was exhibited for three days on a ladder at the portal of the cathedral, in his shirt and drawers, with his hands tied, his feet chained and a mitre on his head, after which he was deprived for life of sacerdotal functions and banished forever from the province. Toledo had no other case until 1562, when it had to deal with the somewhat complicated offence of Fray Juan Ramírez, who entered a religious order while married, but twice left it and returned again, during which performances he married two wives.[712] That jurisdiction depended wholly on the sacrament is seen in the case of Juan Carrillo, alias Fray Juan Ortiz, a Franciscan denounced, in 1596, to the Toledo tribunal by his prelate, Fray Juan de Ovando, for apostasy and living with a woman reputed to be his wife. Investigation showed that she was merely his concubine, so the case was suspended, and he was remanded to Ovando to be dealt with under the rules of the Order.[713]

[Sidenote: _PERSONATION OF PRIESTHOOD_]

After the offence had clearly been made heresy by the Council of Trent, the terrifying formula of accusation by the fiscal describes the offender as unworthy of mercy, to be deprived of all ecclesiastical privilege, to be degraded from his orders and to be relaxed to the secular arm, to which was added the _otrosi_ demanding the free use of torture.[714] In practice, however, there was the widest discretion. It is true that writers speak of appearance in public auto or degradation and reclusion in a monastery for a few years, or a similar term of galley service, but there seems to have been no rule.[715] Indeed, it is not easy to understand how an offence so uniform in its nature should have been visited with penalties so diverse. In 1597, Francisco Agustin, an Augustinian of Barcelona, married in Toledo, sought to defend himself on the plea that he had entered the Order under compulsion in order to escape his debts; his sentence was appearance in an auto, abjuration _de levi_ and imprisonment for life in the convent where he had made profession.[716] In 1629, Fray Lorenzo de Avalle, a Benedictine priest, accused himself to the Valladolid tribunal of having married and lived for eight years as a musician in Aragon. Notwithstanding his self-denunciation, he was sentenced to verbal degradation and to four years' detention in a monastery, where he was to undergo a circular discipline, while the woman was notified that she was free to marry again.[717] In strong contrast with this was the case of Juan Alonso Palacios, a married Jesuit, before the Toledo tribunal in 1659, who, though not an _esponianeado_, escaped with a reprimand and four years of reclusion. Then, in 1664, Fray Juan de Ayala, a Mercenarian priest, was, by the same tribunal, suspended perpetually from his functions and recluded for three years in a convent with one year's Friday fasting and some spiritual penance. Again, in 1675, the same tribunal condemned Gerónimo de Morales, a married subdeacon, to five years in the galleys, three more of exile and disqualification for orders.[718] Five years of galleys, with three more of exile and deprivation of functions and benefices, was the portion of Don Cristóval de Zabiati, alias Don Juan Baptista de Verganza, priest of Talavera de la Reina, who appeared in the great Madrid auto of 1680.[719] In 1700 the Toledo tribunal had to deal with a case characterized as "con circonstancias gravísimas," so that we may regard the sentence as representing the extremity of punishment for the offence. The culprit was not required to appear in an auto, but his sentence was read in the audience-chamber, in the presence of twenty-four ecclesiastics. It prescribed abjuration _de levi_, perpetual deprivation of functions, perpetual confinement in a convent cell, to be left only for choir and refectory, in which he was to have the last place, to fasting for four years, on bread and water on Fridays and vigils, and to a circular discipline when taken to the convent. The details of his career are not given, but there is a suggestion of material for a picaresque novel, as the culprit was a Dominican, Fray Tomas Juster, who had been a calificador of the Inquisition and a preacher of the king, and who enjoyed the multifarious aliases of Don Juan de San Feliú Cisneros, Don Vicente de Ochaita and Don Juan de Ibarrola.[720] It is somewhat remarkable that degradation appears so rarely to be resorted to.

The offence seems to have been by no means frequent. In the Toledo reports from 1575 to 1610, there are only the two cases referred to above, and, in the record of the same tribunal from 1648 to 1794 the number is only ten. From 1780 to 1820 the combined records of all the tribunals show only six cases.[721]

PERSONATION OF PRIESTHOOD.

The veneration with which the sacraments are regarded, and the supreme importance ascribed to them as a means of salvation, render it indispensable that they should be guarded with the utmost solicitude. Not only is their validity essential to those who seek them, but any fraud in their dispensation is sacrilege, which, in the case of the mass, may plunge all worshippers present into the sin of idolatry. With the exception of baptism, they can be administered only by those in full priest's orders, and the pretence to do so by men unqualified is a wrong, not only to the faithful who are deceived, but to the Creator who has established them for the solace and salvation of His creatures.[722]

The fees attaching to the confection and bestowal of the sacraments are a valuable privilege of the priesthood, and the temptation was great for graceless laymen or clerics in the lower orders to simulate the possession of the requisite faculties, and to betray the unsuspecting into accepting from their hands the worthless simulacra. In the venality of the fourteenth century this would seem not to have been regarded as an especially grave offence for, in the tax-roll of Benedict XII, the official fee for absolution for pretending to be a priest, hearing confessions and granting absolution, is only six _grossi_ or about three-quarters of a florin.[723] After the outbreak of the Reformation it was regarded as a more serious matter. Paul IV, in briefs of May 20, 1557, and February 17, 1559, defined the offence as subject to the Inquisition, and to be punished by relaxation, even when there was not relapse.[724] Sixtus V felt compelled to reissue the brief of Paul, and Clement VIII, in 1601, confirmed the acts of his predecessors, authorizing prosecution by either the Inquisition or the episcopal Ordinary. This was applicable only to culprits who had reached the age of 25, but Urban VIII, in 1627, reduced the limit to 20.[725]

[Sidenote: _PERSONATION OF PRIESTHOOD_]

This repetition of legislation shows the stubbornness of the evil and the papal determination to suppress it. Even complicity was sternly punished for, in 1619, a layman assisting a celebrant, whom he knew to be unqualified, was tortured for intention, made to abjure _de vehementi_, to serve five years in the galleys, and was perpetually suspended from assisting at mass.[726] Cardinal Scaglia, however, states that when the offence was committed through thoughtlessness, relaxation was commuted to ten years of galleys,[727] but there was no hesitation in inflicting the full penalty in appropriate cases. As late as July 18, 1711, Domenico Spallacino, a hardened offender, who had lived for five years by celebrating mass in Rome, Loreto and other places, was relaxed and condemned to be hanged and burned; he was duly hanged in the Piazza di Campo de'Fiori, the body was fastened to an iron stake on a pile of wood and was reduced to ashes, which were gathered up and buried.[728]

In Spain the matter was treated less seriously. The Inquisition at first did not regard itself as having jurisdiction unless there were misbelief as to the sacraments. A carta acordada of January 31, 1533, instructs the tribunals that, in these cases, the culprit is to be asked whether he thought himself possessed of the power, or whether he had anywhere heard it so asserted as an opinion, and what was his intention; if he acknowledges no erroneous belief, the matter does not concern the Inquisition and, he is to be handed over to the magistrate. The briefs of Paul IV were not admitted in Spain, and the matter slumbered until 1574 when, on January 13th, the Suprema addressed to the tribunals a circular inquiry, asking whether there had been any prosecutions for this offence; if so, on what grounds was the jurisdiction based, what form of procedure was followed, and what penalty was inflicted; also opinions were asked as to how such cases should be treated.[729] Evidently no attention had as yet been paid to the question; the replies showed that there was no general policy, and a brief of August 17th, of the same year, was obtained from Gregory XIII reciting that in Spain there were conflicting opinions whether the Inquisition had or had not jurisdiction, wherefore he granted to it exclusive cognizance, and forbade the episcopal courts from entertaining such cases.[730] This the Suprema sent, November 26th, to all the tribunals with orders to prosecute in such cases, and to introduce a corresponding clause in the Edict of Faith.[731]

It is evident that the Spanish Inquisition did not share the horror felt in Rome for such offences, and this is manifested in the comparative moderation of the penalties inflicted. About 1650, a Spaniard in Rome, writing to a friend at home, and comparing the severity of the Italian Inquisition with the mildness of the Spanish, instances the Roman torture of bigamists and soliciting confessors, the longer terms of galleys for the former, and the implacable relaxation of those who celebrate mass without ordination.[732] There was no such ferocity in Spain. No time had been lost in assuming the jurisdiction and already, in 1575, there was a culprit in a Toledo auto--Fray Alonso García, a Franciscan--who had celebrated mass and heard confessions, and whose sentence was merely abjuration _de levi_ and four years' galley service. The most complete discretion was exercised and the penalties varied in the same tribunal according to the circumstances of the case and the temper of the inquisitors. Thus in Toledo, in 1578, Pero Joan Queito, a student, who carried forged certificates and had confessed many persons, absolving them and imposing penance, appeared in an auto, with halter and candle, abjured _de levi_, and had two hundred lashes and three years of galleys. In the same year a Frenchman named Pierre Saletas, accused of having for twenty years heard confessions and celebrated mass on forged certificates, was tortured without confessing and was banished the kingdom for four years and forbidden to administer sacraments without genuine certificates. In 1600, Balthasar Rodríguez, a deacon, appeared in an auto, abjured _de levi_, was suspended for ten years from the exercise of his orders, with perpetual disability for promotion, and had six years of galleys. In the same year the Mercenarian, Fray Gregorio de Palacios, was spared appearance in an auto, but abjured _de levi_, had fifty lashes and was recluded for three years in a monastery of his Order.[733] In 1622, at Valladolid, the Franciscan deacon, Fray Juan Tapia, for celebrating mass, was merely ordered to keep his convent as a prison and to present himself when summoned. Somewhat greater severity was shown to Fray Antonio Frechado, a Trinitarian subdeacon, who for publicly hearing confessions was required to abjure _de levi_, was suspended from his functions for two years, during which he was recluded in his convent, was disabled for promotion and had some spiritual penance.[734]

[Sidenote: _PERSONATION OF PRIESTHOOD_]

It would be useless to multiply examples of this diversified moderation. I have met with but one case in which the papal prescription of relaxation was obeyed and this occurred in Mexico, in 1606, when Fernando Rodríguez de Castro, a mulatto, was relaxed for administering sacraments without ordination, but this was no precedent for, in the great auto of 1648, Gaspar de los Reyes was sentenced to two hundred lashes and the galleys for life and Martin de Villavicencio Salazar to the same scourging and five years of galleys.[735]

The systematic writers assure us that the papal decrees were not received in Spain, and that the punishment varied with the nature of the case, consisting usually of scourging, unless the offender was a fraile, the galleys, exile, reclusion, degradation, suspension of functions, etc., varied at the discretion of the tribunal and that, in cases of minor culpability, it could be commuted for money. Relaxation was kept in view only for some error in faith persistently held--a purely academical supposition, although the culprit was exhaustively examined as to his belief in the necessity of priestly orders to the validity of sacraments.[736] That ecclesiastics between themselves in reality attached but little importance to the offence may be inferred from the case of the Mercenarian Fray Pedro de la Presentacion, who celebrated mass when only in subdeacon's orders. The Toledo tribunal condemned him, June 16, 1662, to three years of galleys. The superior of his Order at once interceded for him and, in September, the Suprema commuted the penalty to three years' reclusion in a convent, with three years' subsequent exile from Daimiel, Toledo and Madrid. When only ten months of the term had expired the Provincial of Castile applied for the remission of the remainder, but in vain and, when two years had passed the effort was renewed.[737] Evidently the good frailes recked little of the idolatry into which he had plunged all who were present at his ministration.

As the eighteenth century advanced a still more lenient view seems to have obtained. In 1749 the case of Fray Juan de Santa Rosa, a Franciscan deacon, was an aggravated one, for he had administered the sacraments of baptism, the Eucharist, penitence and matrimony, but the Toledo tribunal only declared him "irregular" for promotion, suspended him from the diaconate for two years and imposed fifteen days of spiritual penance. No special expectation of amendment earned this benignity, for his Provincial was instructed to send him to a convent, from which he was not to go out alone, so as not to expose him to relapse.[738]

Under the Restoration there was leniency difficult to understand. The sentence of the Dominican Fray Tomas García by the Cuenca tribunal, November 14, 1816, for celebrating mass without priests' orders, was that the commissioner of Villaescusa was to reprimand him in presence of the superior of his convent, pointing out the severe penalties provided by the papal decrees and prescribing spiritual penances for a year, besides informing the prelate that he could not ascend to full orders. This was confirmed by the Suprema, with the addition that he be transferred to a house of stricter observance. December 11th of the same year, Angel Sampayo, a married layman of Campo Ramiro (Lugo) was convicted of celebrating mass. The Suprema alludes to his _atentato horrible_, but merely orders him to be reprimanded and sent back to his home, where the parish priest and his father are to keep watch over him.[739]

* * * * *

In connection with this subject it may be mentioned that the Inquisition also took cognizance of a class of cases, alluded to above under Solicitation, in which laymen managed to hear confessions of women, not with a view to administer the sacrament of penitence, but through jealousy, or for the opportunity of asking indecent questions, or in the hope of listening to prurient details. These cases were by no means infrequent. In 1785, there were three before the tribunal of Valencia; in 1793, one in Murcia; in 1796, Joseph Herranz was prosecuted in Madrid for doing this in order to hear his wife's confession. The same year there was a case in Seville; in 1797, one in Barcelona and, in 1807, Miguel Domínguez, sacristan of San Miguel de Niebla, pretended to be a Capuchin with the object to listening to the confession of a woman.[740] With what severity such cases were treated, I have not been able to ascertain.

[Sidenote: _PERSONATION OF OFFICIALS_]

PERSONATION OF OFFICIALS.

In the universal dread inspired by the Holy Office, the temptation was great to personate its agents, and to extort money as the price of forbearance, for no one ventured to question the authority or acts of any stranger who presented himself as an official.

The opportunities thus afforded were speedily recognized and utilized. As early as 1487, at Saragossa, a special auto was held, April 1st, at which appeared a cleric who had pretended to be an inquisitor and as such had made an arrest. The penalty inflicted is not recorded, but evidently the opportunity was taken to make an impressive warning[741].

The systematic writers assume that in these cases there should be careful consideration of the injury inflicted, for the pretender may deserve exemplary punishment. The usual offence is asserting that there are accusations and that he will save the accused from prosecution; for this he must refund the money received, appear in an auto and suffer two hundred lashes and five years of galley service. If the imposture is assumed only to escape from some trouble and causing no damage, there is some penalty of fine or exile; if there has been only an assertion of official position, the penalty is very light and secret.[742] Other authorities tell us that, if the culprit is of a low class, he has two hundred lashes and four years of galleys, more or less according to the gravity of the offence; if he is a noble or rich, he is fined one or two thousand ducats and serves for two or three years, without pay, as a gentleman in the galleys, or against the Moors or heretics[743]. Evidently in an offence which varied so much in motive and result, much was necessarily left to the discretion of the tribunal and a few cases will serve to indicate the different methods of operating and the deterrent penalties inflicted.

[Sidenote: _PERSONATION OF OFFICIALS_]

In the Seville auto of September 24, 1559, there were three cases of personation. Alonso de Hontiveros, for pretending to be a familiar and endeavoring to make arrests for the purpose of extortion, appeared with halter and gag and was sent to Xeres his place of residence to receive a hundred lashes; Juan de Aragon, of Málaga, for the same offence, was spared the gag, but wore a mitre and had a scourging at Málaga and another where his offence was committed, besides two years of exile, while his accomplice, Francisco Prieto, received the same sentence, with the substitution of vergüenza for scourging[744]. On the other hand, at Toledo, in 1581, Francisco de la Bastida was visited with the utmost rigor. He represented himself as an alguazil, carrying a _vara de justicia_ and using the name of the inquisitor-general. He would summon the alcades and other officials to render assistance, which was freely given without question; he would make arrests, carry his prisoners to some distance, take their money, leave them in charge of some local familiar and disappear. In this way he moved from Fuente de Enzina to Almaden and Madrid, and thence to Saragossa where he was arrested. He confessed freely at once and was condemned to relaxation, by virtue of a special brief obtained from Gregory XIII, but the Suprema, with doubtful mercy, commuted this to six hundred lashes--two hundred each in Toledo, Almaden and Fuente de Enzina--and the galleys irremissibly for life[745]. Zapata relates what is evidently the exploit which brought to a close the promising career of this enterprising knave. At Almagro, he says, the agent of the Fuggers of Augsburg was Juan Xelder, a man highly esteemed and reputed to be of great wealth. Suddenly a stranger appeared, with the vara of an alguazil of the Inquisition, who sought out two familiars and commanded them to assist him in making an arrest. Proceeding to Xelder's house he made the arrest, locked him up in a room and consoled the frightened family by assuring them of the customary mercy of the Inquisition. He then summoned a notary and placed all the property of the prisoner under sequestration, except two thousand ducats which he said he had orders to take for the expenses of the trial. The whole town was thrown into commotion, but no one dared to ask for papers, or authority, or identification. Xelder was placed in a carriage, with strict orders that no one should exchange a word with him; the familiars were required to accompany it to the next halting place, where they and the carriage were dismissed with handsome gratuities and the stranger confided Xelder to the care of a familiar of high standing, with orders to guard him carefully, _incomunicado_, while he would proceed to Toledo and send instructions. Ten days passed when the familiar, growing tired of the expense, made inquiries and ascertaining the facts released the prisoner. Meanwhile the impostor, fearing to carry the gold, deposited it with a banker and took a bill of exchange on Saragossa, so that he was readily tracked and arrested when he presented the bill for payment. The secular court claimed him, but the Inquisition asserted its jurisdiction--fortunately, Zapata says, for the culprit, for the offence was capital and he escaped with scourging and the galleys[746].

Another method of speculation on the fears and hopes of the defenceless appears in the case of Gerónimo Roche, son of the secretary of the University of Lérida. He pretended to be an official, to have much influence with the tribunal, and to hold faculties to remit four sanbenitos and to appoint four familiars. He approached a Morisca who, with her three daughters, had been reconciled, and offered to relieve her of her sanbenito for two hundred ducats, and those of her three daughters if one of them would abandon herself to him. He was forbidden the house but he persisted in writing letters of mingled threats and love. For this he appeared in the Saragossa auto of June 6, 1585, where he was sentenced to vergüenza and eight years in the galleys, being spared the scourging in consideration of his father[747].

There appears to have been a very lenient view taken, in 1582, by the Toledo tribunal, of the case of Pedro Moreno, a sacristan, who pretended to be a familiar and as such visited the hospital and asked the inmates whether they had confessed, when he arrested and carried off those who had not. It was in evidence also that, on seeing two men quarrelling in a church, he arrested one in the name of the Inquisition. There does not seem to have been a pecuniary motive in these eccentricities, and he escaped with a reprimand and banishment for a year[748]. Another motive, which was regarded with a lenient eye, was assuming official position in order to enjoy the exemptions and privileges of the Inquisition. Thus when Jayme Corvellana of Barcelona in this manner bluffed off the officers of justice who came to his house to seize some salt, Inquisitor Padilla imposed on him a fine of fifty ducats and some spiritual penance, and was rebuked by the Suprema for inflicting so heavy a penalty for so trifling a cause--"en causas tan livianas."[749]

Personation was by no means uncommon, but I am convinced that Llorente is mistaken when he says that there rarely was an auto in which some one was not punished for this offence. In the Toledo record from 1575 to 1610, the number of cases is only thirteen and, in the same tribunal, from 1648 to 1794, they amount only to four.[750]

The principal interest in these cases is the evidence which they afford of the terror inspired by the Inquisition, the very name of which seemed to paralyze, so that no one, whether magistrate or individual, dared to question the authority of any impostor who assumed to represent it, and this same terror doubtless is the reason why this apparently facile method of trading on popular fear was not more frequently exploited. It required more than common nerve to incur the risk of inquisitorial vengeance.

Somewhat akin to this was the levying of blackmail by threats of denunciation. No doubt there was a good deal of this, in which the victims prudently suffered in silence, rather than to draw upon themselves the attention of the dreaded tribunal. It was a matter of which the Inquisition took cognizance, but the only case which I have happened to meet is that of Pedro Jacome Pramoseltes, who was sentenced by the Toledo tribunal, in 1666, to three years of galley-service for astrology and had his term extended to five for attempts at extortion in this manner.[751]

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION.

[Sidenote: _DEMONIACAL POSSESSION_]

That evil spirits can take possession of a human being, deprive him of his free-will and subject him to extreme bodily and mental suffering, is a belief handed down from ancient times and still largely held as a matter of faith. That relief can be had by the ministrations of an exorcist, duly authorized by admission into one of the lower orders of the priesthood, is a corresponding belief, and formulas without number have been prepared to enable him to exercise his power over the demon. There is no heresy involved in either the possession or the exorcism and, under normal conditions, there was no call for interference by the Inquisition, but when, for any reason, such interference was desired, there was little trouble in finding pretext for its jurisdiction. We have seen (Vol. II, p. 135) the active measures taken, in 1628, with the nuns of San Placido, whose demoniacally inspired revelations were somewhat revolutionary. Greater self-denial was exhibited by the Valladolid tribunal in a contemporaneous case, when a Jesuit confessor reported to it that Doña Felippa and Doña Aña de Mercado, Bernardino nuns in Santo Espíritu of Olmeda, made gestures and other irreverent acts in confession and communion, which caused scandal, and he thought proceeded from demoniacal possession. The tribunal felt doubts as to its jurisdiction and consulted the Suprema, which submitted the matter to a calificador of high attainments. Prolonged investigations were made, other nuns were examined, and it was in evidence that the two inculpated were women of exceptional virtue and piety who had prayed to God to test them with afflictions. The case dragged on for more than ten years, resulting in the conviction that it was undoubtedly one of possession, for which the nuns were free from blame, and finally, April 16, 1630, the Suprema ordered its suspension[752]. Wherever there was the faintest suspicion of heresy, the Inquisition could assert jurisdiction.

This involved the question of the responsibility of the demoniac for his utterances, which was somewhat intricate. In the case of one under trial by the Granada tribunal, in 1650, the learned Jesuit, Padre Diego Tello, who was called in as a calificador, reported, with an immense array of authorities, and after three visits to the accused in the secret prison, that there could be no doubt as to the possession, for he was able to discuss points of theology and other matters far beyond his capacity; he could also speak Latin intelligibly and he quoted Scripture while, as he uttered many heresies, it was evident that the spirit was evil. At the same time he was rational on so many points that he could not be regarded as irresponsible for his heresies. Luther and Zwingli, he added, were notoriously possessed by demons, but they were none the less held responsible for their teachings and it was the uniform practice of the Inquisition so to decide in these cases.[753]

In the hysterical epidemics which form so notable a feature of possession, the Inquisition was apt to be called in and was ready to act, although it would be difficult to determine on what grounds. In 1638 there was such an epidemic in one of the Pyrenean valleys and, on September 24th, Jacinto de Robles, secretary of the Governor of Aragon, reported to the Saragossa tribunal that, on a recent visit to Jaca, he had found, in the Valle de Tena, that there were about sixty _endemoniadas_ and that the malady was spreading. It was attributed to Pedro de Arrecibo and his friend Miguel Guillen, who had been seized by the secular authorities; Guillen had been executed, while Arrecibo's trial was nearly concluded. He had confessed that a Frenchman had given him a paper and some conjurations through which to win women, but it only rendered them possessed--a statement evidently fabricated to satisfy his torturers. It was the demons who had accused these two men, adding that their death would not stay the infection, for there were other accomplices. The women affected were of the best families, their ages ranging from 7 to 18--some were pregnant and others were suckling their infants, for demons were able to produce these results in the virtuous. The Bishop of Jaca and some Jesuits were exhausting their exorcisms, and an inquisitor was badly needed. What function was expected of an inquisitor is not stated, but the Suprema was consulted and, after some delay it appealed to the king. It was ready to send an inquisitor and four frailes, but it had no funds for the expenses of the latter, which would have to be defrayed from some other source. The king gave orders accordingly, but they were not obeyed, and the last we hear of the matter is another consulta of March 28, 1640, in which he was urged to speedy action in view of the great importance of the affair.[754]

[Sidenote: _DEMONIACAL POSSESSION_]

The intervention of the Inquisition might well be welcomed if it was always as rational and as effective as in an epidemic of the kind which troubled Querétaro (Mexico) in 1691. Two young girls who had suffered themselves to be seduced pretended to be possessed. The Franciscans and _Padres Apostólicos_ took them in hand, exorcising them at night in the churches with the most impressive ceremonies, which spread the contagion, until there were fourteen patients, and the community was thoroughly excited. It would doubtless have extended much further, but fortunately the Dominicans, the Jesuits and the Carmelites, jealous of the rival Orders, pronounced the whole to be an imposture. The two factions denounced each other from the pulpits, the people took sides, and passions grew so hot that severe disturbances were impending. Both factions appealed to the Inquisition, which submitted the matter to calificadores. These decided that the demoniacal possession was fraudulent, and that the blasphemies and sacrilegious acts of the energumens and the violent sermons of the frailes were justiciable by the Inquisition. With great good sense the tribunal issued a decree, January 9, 1692, ordering the cessation of all exorcism and of all discussion, whether in the pulpit or in private. The excitement forthwith died away and the energumens, left to themselves, for the most part recovered their senses. Prosecutions were commenced against four of them and against the Franciscan Fray Mateo de Bonilla, which seem to have been suspended after a few years. One of the girls, however, who had caught the infection, had her nervous system too profoundly impressed for recovery; she continued under the inspection of the Inquisition, gradually sinking into a condition of confirmed hypochondria, until we lose sight of her in 1704.[755]

Cases of imposture were not infrequent. Whether this in itself rendered the impostor liable to prosecution by the Inquisition may be doubted but, in the deception, she was very apt to commit acts or to utter blasphemies which brought her under its jurisdiction. Thus, in 1796, we find the Valencia tribunal prosecuting Benita Gargori, a pretended demoniac, and Francisca Signes, an accomplice, for irreligious actions and utterances.[756]

The exorciser also occasionally laid himself open to inquisitorial animadversion. Thus, in 1749, Fray Jaime Sans, a lay-brother of the Order of San Francisco de Assis, used to visit the sick and pronounce them to be possessed, when he would make the sign of the cross and sprinkle them with holy water. He was denounced to the Barcelona tribunal, which warned him to desist, for he had no power to exorcise, and threatened to proceed against him, whereupon he promised to obey[757]. Exorcists also sometimes abused their opportunities by committing indecencies upon their patients. I have not met with such cases in the Spanish Inquisition, but in this it would doubtless follow the example of the Roman Congregation, which, in 1639, ordered the prosecution of a most flagrant one, reported by the Inquisitor of Bergamo[758].

Considered as a whole, the influence of the Inquisition must have been decidedly beneficial in restraining the development of this disease, for experienced inquisitors recognized that the methods usually adopted only aggravated it. Cardinal Scaglia ([dagger symbol] 1639), in treating of these epidemics among nuns, remarks that the superiors, not content with exorcisms, commence prosecutions, examine witnesses and interrogate the pretended criminals suggestively and absurdly and threaten them with torture, thus extracting whatever confessions they desire and creating still greater disturbance in the convent and the city[759].

INSULTS TO IMAGES.

Allusion has already been made to the invasion of episcopal jurisdiction by the assumption of the Inquisition that outrages or insults offered to sacred images fell under its cognizance. For this there was more justification than for some other inferential heresies, for wilful irreverence to the objects of universal cult was reasonably regarded as causing suspicion of erroneous belief, and during the period of active persecution of crypto-Judaism and of Protestantism such offences were readily ascribable to heretical fanaticism.

[Sidenote: _INSULTS TO IMAGES_]

In one instance, at least, the secular magistrates exercised jurisdiction. In December, 1643, Madrid was much excited by a robbery committed on a miracle-working image of Nuestra Señora de la Gracia, when all its jewels, ornaments and vestments were taken, and worst of all, the image was left lying face downwards on the ground. Great efforts were made to detect the perpetrators of the sacrilege, and it was accounted miraculous when they were identified while investigating another robbery. They must have been tried by the criminal judges, for no mention is made of the Inquisition and all three were hanged in March, 1644, in presence of an immense crowd[760].

This was exceptional, and the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was generally admitted. We are told, by a writer of the period, that, when images of the saints are outraged by word or act, if the accused belongs to a nation infected with iconoclastic heresy, and the evidence is sufficient and he denies intention, he must be tortured. Overcoming the torture, without having sufficiently purged the evidence, he can be sentenced to an extraordinary penalty and to abjuration, either _de levi_ or _de vehementi_: if he confesses both fact and intention and begs for mercy, he is to be reconciled, but if pertinacious he must be relaxed[761]. This however applies to cases of absolute heretics, in which the sacrilege was apt to be merely an aggravating incident, while the great majority of cases consisted of more or less reckless Catholics, whose punishment varied with the circumstances and was rarely vindictive. In the Toledo tribunal, from 1575 to 1610, there were but four cases, which illustrate the general principles of treatment and the extreme susceptibility felt with regard to any irreverence towards sacred objects. The first of these occurs in 1579, when Francisco del Espinar, a boy of 13, was tried for pulling up a way-side cross, playing with it until he broke it and cast the fragments into a vineyard, and then alleging that it was no sin because the cross was not a blessed one. He confessed freely and pleaded that it was not through irreverence, because he was drunk, but he was punished with sixty lashes and two years of exile. The second was in 1595, when Fernando Rodríguez was accused by three witnesses of throwing a stick at a paper image of the Virgin on an altar, tearing it and uttering a filthy jest, but he proved an alibi and the case was suspended. The next was in 1600, when Anton Ruiznieto was punished with abjuration de levi and three years' exile, for maltreating a crucifix and using offensive words to it. The fourth, in 1606, illustrates the circumspection requisite to avoid even the appearance of irreverence, and the danger of denunciation which constantly impended over every one. Isabel de Espinosa was denounced by three witnesses because she had placed on a close-stool, which she kept in her living-room, a painted board on which were representations of Christ and some saints. A neighbor removed it and she replaced it, when the neighbor spoke to her and she changed its place. She was brought from Ocaña to Toledo and a house was assigned to her as a prison. In defence she explained that her mother-in-law had left her some old furniture, which her husband had just brought to the house; among it was this board, black and indistinguishable with age and, without examination, she had put it on the objectionable article, but when this was pointed out to her she had removed it. As she was a simple woman and there was no apparent malice, the case was suspended[762].

In contrast with the severity of the secular courts, as manifested by the Madrid case of 1644 above referred to, and the French case of the Chevalier de La Barre, the Inquisition was singularly merciful. In 1661, Francisco de Abiles, chief auditor of the Priors of St. John, for insults to an image of Christ, was only exiled for two years by the Toledo tribunal, which likewise, in 1689 merely exiled for one year Juan Martin Salvador for stabbing a cross[763]. Perhaps the instance of greatest rigor that I have met was that visited, in 1720, by the Madrid tribunal on a youth named Joseph de la Sarria. While confined in the royal prison he became enraged in gambling and, in his wrath, he threw in the dirt a picture of the Virgin and tore up another, for which he was sentenced to two hundred lashes, five years in the galleys and eight years of exile from Madrid and his native province of Galicia[764].

[Sidenote: _UNCANONIZED SAINTS_]

During the active period of the Inquisition, cases of this offence are singularly few. In all the sixty-four autos held in Spain, from 1721 to 1727, there is not a single specific instance serious enough to require appearance in an auto, indicating how universal and deep-seated was the popular reverence for sacred symbols. It is therefore significant of the spiritual and intellectual unrest characterizing the close of the century, that outrages on images became comparatively frequent. In the decade, 1780-1789 inclusive, there were sixteen cases; in that of 1790-1799, thirty-three and, from 1800 to 1810, nineteen, some of them, such as trampling on the cross, indicative of iconoclastic zeal. Under the Restoration, there are but three cases on record.[765]

During this period the spirit of revolt manifested itself in other kindred ways. In 1797, 1798, 1799, 1800 and 1802 there were trials for throwing down and trampling on consecrated wafers. In 1797, in Valencia, Bernardo Amengayl, Ignacio Sánchez, Miguel Escribá and Valentin Duza were prosecuted for exhibitions burlesquing the saints and sacred objects. In 1799, at Seville, Manuel Mirasol was tried for a sacrilegious assault on a priest carrying the sacrament to a sick man. In 1807, Dr. Vicente Peña, priest of Cifuentes was prosecuted in Cuenca for celebrating a burlesque mass and Don Eusebio de la Mota for assisting him.[766] These were surface indications of the hidden currents which were bearing Spain to new destinies, and it is worthy of note that they almost ceased during the brief years of the Inquisition under the Restoration.

* * * * *

Akin to the function of preserving images from insult, was the reverent care with which the Inquisition sought to protect the cross from accidental pollution. A carta acordada of September 20, 1629, instructs the tribunals to suppress the custom of painting or placing crosses in recesses of streets or where two walls form an angle, or other unclean places, where they are exposed to filth, while all existing ones are to be removed or erased under discretional penalties. Another carta of April 19, 1689, recites that not only has this not been done, but that the custom of placing crosses in these objectionable places is extending, wherefore the previous orders are reissued, with notice that six days after publication will be allowed, subsequently to which the penalties will be enforced.[767]

UNCANONIZED SAINTS.

In the exuberant cult offered to saints, there must be some central and absolute authority to determine claims to sainthood and to preserve the faithful from the superstition of wasting devotion on those who have no power of suffrage. St. Ulric of Augsburg is said to be the first saint whose sanctity was deliberately passed upon by Rome, in 993, and Alexander III, in 1181 definitely forbade the adoration of those who had not been canonized by the Holy See.[768] The assumption of such authority was essential, for the cult of a local saint was profitable to a shrine fortunate enough to possess his remains, and popular enthusiasm was ready at any moment to ascribe sainthood to any devotee who had earned the reputation of especial holiness.

How difficult it was for even the Inquisition to crush this eagerness for new intercessors between God and man, is seen in the disturbances which troubled Valencia for seven years, between 1612 and 1619. After the death of Mosen Francisco Simon, a priest of holy life, there developed a fixed belief that he was a saint in heaven. Chapels and altars were dedicated to him, books were printed filled with the miracles wrought by his intercession, his images were adorned with the nimbus of sanctity, processions and illuminations were organized in his honor, and the question of his right to a place in the calendar became a political as well as a religious one. It was in vain that the Holy See asserted its unquestioned right of decision and ordered the Inquisition to suppress the superstition. Popular excitement reached such height that an attempt was made to murder in the pulpit a secretary of the tribunal, when he endeavored to read the edict; a priest named Ozar was slain for opposing the popular frenzy, and Archbishop Aliaga, for six years after his election in 1612, was unable to perform the visitation of his see, because he would everywhere have met with the unauthorized cult which he could not sanction by partaking. The Suprema did its best by continual consultas to Philip III, asking the aid of the secular arm in suppressing this schismatic devotion, and enable it to publish its condemnatory edicts. Its efforts were neutralized by the Council of Aragon, backed by the all-powerful favorite Lerma, whose marquisate of Denia led him to favor the Valencians. It was doubtless his disgrace, in 1618, which enabled the Suprema to attain its purpose, when an energetic consulta of January 10, 1619, was returned with a decree in the royal autograph to the effect that, if certain five points that had been agreed upon were not executed within a month, the tribunal could be ordered to publish the edicts without further delay.[769]

[Sidenote: _UNCANONIZED SAINTS_]

In this case the Inquisition acted under special papal commands, but the growing abuse of the unauthorized cult of supposititious saints led Urban VIII, in 1634, to issue a general decree empowering bishops and inquisitors to repress, with penalties proportioned to the offence, all worship of saints and martyrs not pronounced as such by the Holy See, or relating their miracles in books, or representing them with the nimbus.[770] Under this the Index of Sotomayor, in 1640, and the subsequent ones, ordered the suppression of all images or portraits adorned with the insignia of sanctity, unless the persons represented had been duly beatified or canonized by Rome.[771]

Yet they did not condemn a work issued, in 1636, by a pious priest of Salamanca and Toledo, Francisco Miranda y Paz, urging the cult as a saint of Adam, the father of the human race, and audaciously asking whether this could not be done without the licence of the Roman pontiff.[772] In fact, what the Inquisition did in discharge of this duty is less significant than what it left undone. We have seen (Vol. I, p. 134) that the assumed martyrdom of _El Santo Niño de la Guardia_ was followed by a popular cult of the unknown victim. That cult proved exceedingly lucrative to those who exploited it and has continued to the present day, although Rome could never be induced to sanction it, yet the Inquisition prudently forbore to interfere with it in any way.[773] Similar abstention was observed in the celebrated case of the forgeries known as the _Plomos del Sacromonte_--inscribed leaden plates, accompanied by bones assumed to be those of the earliest Christian martyrs, exhumed in 1595, on a mountain near Granada. The forgeries were clumsy enough, but they favored the two points dearest to the Spanish heart--the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin and the Spanish apostolate of St. James. They were welcomed with the intensest fervor, a house of secular canons was erected on the spot, which grew wealthy through the offerings of pilgrims, and innumerable miracles attested the sanctity of the relics. Rome refused to admit the authenticity of the _plomos_ without examining them; after a long struggle they were sent there in 1641, and after another protracted contest they were condemned as fabrications, May 6, 1682, by Innocent XI in a special brief. The bones of the so-called martyrs were not specifically condemned as spurious, but they were not accepted as genuine, yet the Index of Vidal Marin, while printing the condemnation of the plomos and of the books written in their defence, was careful to assert that the prohibition did not include the relics or the veneration paid to them; the Sacromonte is still a place of pilgrimage and, in the Plaza del Triunfo of Granada, there stands a pillar bearing the names and martyrdoms of the saints as recorded in the plomos.[774] Yet, so long as the claims of the martyrs were not allowed by Rome and the only evidence in their favor was condemned as fabricated, this was superstition, and its suppression was the duty of the Inquisition.

While it was empowered to do this by the decree of Urban VIII, it is not easy to see whence Inquisitor-general Arce y Reynoso obtained faculties to authorize the cult of supposititious saints not accepted by the Holy See. The success of the plomos led a learned Jesuit, Roman de la Higuera, and his imitators, to fabricate chronicles of early Christian times, principally designed to stimulate Mariolatry and belief in the Christianization of Spain by St. James. They were long accepted as genuine and, in 1650, Arce y Reynoso ordered the fictitious saints and martyrs who figure in them to be included in litanies as objects of veneration and worship.[775]

Still, the Inquisition asserted to the last its authority under the decree of Urban VIII. So recently as 1818, when Josef de Herrera, an apothecary of Xeres de la Frontera, desired to establish the cult of an engraving of the Trinity, copied from a picture venerated in the cathedral of Mexico, the tribunal of Seville prohibited the effort.[776]

[Sidenote: _THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION_]

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin had a struggle for recognition through six centuries, before it was defined as an article of faith by Pius IX in 1854.[777] In Spain, where popular devotion to the Virgin was especially ardent, it had, in the seventeenth century, become almost universally accepted, except by the Dominicans, whose reverence for their great doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, bound them to follow him in its denial. In this they had long been fighting a losing battle with their great rivals, the Franciscans, and of late with their still more bitter foes, the Jesuits. Successive popes--Sixtus IV, Paul IV, Paul V and Gregory XV--in vain sought to suppress the disputatious scandals by forbidding public discussion of the subject under severe penalties, and the two latter extended these penalties to those who should publicly assert the Virgin to have been conceived in original sin--but still the Holy See cautiously abstained from declaring the conception to have been immaculate. The enforcement of these penalties was confided to all bishops and inquisitors.

From 1617 to 1656, Philip III and Philip IV made the Immaculate Conception a matter of state policy, by long and earnest efforts with the papacy to decide it affirmatively, and negotiations for combined action were carried on with France, but the Gallican court responded only with pious phrases.[778] That in this the crown was but voicing the wishes of the people was manifested when, in 1636, a man who ventured, in Madrid, to assert that the Virgin was conceived in original sin, was promptly cut down by some passing soldiers, was arrested by the Inquisition, and as soon as his wounds were healed, was thrown into the secret prison for due prosecution under the papal decrees.[779]

The Dominicans and their followers found it hard to observe the discreet silence prescribed by the popes and, in 1661, the Spanish bishops united in earnest request to Alexander VII, representing that persons were still found who publicly denied the Immaculate Conception. Philip IV sent the Bishop of Plasencia to Rome, as a special envoy, to convey this memorial, resulting in the brief _Sollicitudo_, of December 8, 1661, in which Alexander expressly abstained from defining it as a dogma, but forbade the teaching of the opposite, as well as stigmatizing the opposite as heresy, thus continuing the non-committal policy of his predecessors, to prevent discussions and quarrels without deciding the question. To this end he empowered all prelates and inquisitors to prosecute and punish transgressors severely, no matter what exemptions they might claim, and including even Jesuits. He also placed on the Index all books impugning the Immaculate Conception and likewise those which should tax unbelievers with heresy.[780]

This brief was received with great rejoicings by the upholders of the doctrine, who regarded it as a triumph. In Valencia it was made the occasion of a splendid festival, in which pasquinades on the opponents were plentiful. One, which was greatly applauded, represented a Dominican stretched on a sick-bed and watched by a Jesuit. A Franciscan opening the door enquires "How is the good brother?" to which the Jesuit replies "He is speechless, but he still lives." It was doubtless to the temper thus evinced that we may attribute the suppression by the Suprema of the city's official report of the celebration, the prohibition of one paper and the correction of another.[781]

[Sidenote: _UNNATURAL CRIME_]