Chapter II: Retrospect (1)

[Sidenote: _PRESENT CONDITION_]

No modern European nation has endured such vicissitudes of good and evil fortune as the Spanish. From the virtual anarchy of the Castilian kingdoms under Juan II and Enrique IV, the resolute wills of Ferdinand and Isabella evoked order and, by the union with Aragon, the conquest of Granada, Naples and Navarre and the acquisition of the New World, they left Spain in a most commanding position. When, under Charles V, to this were added the Netherlands, the Austrian possessions, Milan and the headship of the Holy Roman Empire, the hegemony of Europe was secured, and the prospect of attaining the universal monarchy seemed sufficiently possible to arouse the fears of Europe. The loss of the Empire and of Austria, awarded to the younger branch of the Hapsburgs, strengthened rather than weakened the inheritance of Philip II, by rendering it less cumbrous and unwieldy, while the acquisition of Portugal unified the Peninsula and the increasing wealth of the Indies promised almost unlimited resources for the extension of his power. Yet this power, so colossal in outward seeming, was already becoming a mere shell, covering emptiness and poverty, for its rulers had exhausted the nation in enterprises beyond its strength and foreign to its interests. Throughout the seventeenth century its downward progress was rapid until, at the death of Carlos II, in 1700, it had reached a depth of misery and helplessness in which it might almost despair of recuperation. Yet its efforts, in the War of Succession, showed that it still possessed a virile nationality; its decadence was arrested, and a slow upward progress was begun, accelerated under the enlightened rule of Carlos III, until, at his death in 1788, it had so far regained its position that, if not yet a power of the first rank, it might not unhopefully look forward to attaining that position. Then followed the weak and disastrous reign of Carlos IV, under the guidance of Godoy, when impotence invited the intrusion of Napoleon, resulting in the manifestation of national energy, which surprised the world in the heroic War of Liberation. After the Restoration in 1814, the land was, for more than half a century the scene of almost unintermittent conflict between antagonistic forces, resulting in the apathy of exhaustion after attaining the form of democratic constitutional monarchy. Yet we are told that absolute monarchy has merely been replaced by absolute _Caciquismo_ or, in American parlance, the rule of the political "boss."[1038] Government, it seems, is exploited purely for the private interest of the office-holding class and the strength of the nation has been wasted, its development has been neglected, until the unexpected feebleness revealed in the war of 1898 led earnest patriots to declare that, if the existing maladministration were to continue, it would be better to seek shelter under England or France, and to put an end to the history of Spain as an independent nation.[1039] This shock to the national consciousness, and the skilful and vigorous agitation to which it gave birth, bear promise of results in the political as well as in the material and industrial development of the land, and we may reasonably hope that a nation, which has suffered so much with fortitude, is entering upon a new career that may make amends for the miseries of the past.

Vicissitudes such as these have their causes, and we cannot conclude this long history of the Inquisition without inquiring what share it and the spirit, which at once created and was stimulated by it, contributed to the misfortunes endured, with few intermissions, by the Spanish people since its organization. These causes are numerous, many of them not directly connected with our subject, but yet to be enumerated in order that undue importance may not be ascribed to the influence of the Inquisition.

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To begin with, the Spanish monarchy developed into a pure despotism, based on the maxim of the Institutes--_quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem_--the prince's pleasure has the force of law. All legislative and executive functions were concentrated in the crown; the king issued laws, levied taxes, raised troops, declared war, made peace at his will, and the execution of the Justicia Lanuza, in 1591, without a trial, shows that the lives of his subjects were at his disposal. It was the same with their liberties, as illustrated by the imprisonment, without a hearing, of ministers like Cabarrús, Floridablanca, Jovellanos and Urquijo. For awhile the ancient fueros of the kingdoms of the crown of Aragon served as some restraint in those territories, but Philip V, in 1707 and 1714, took advantage of the War of Succession to declare them forfeited. Under such concentration of authority, the fate of the nation depended on the character and capacity of the monarch. Charles V had unquestioned ability, but his ambitious enterprises, while flattering to the national vanity, not only exhausted the resources of Spain, in quarrels foreign to its interests, but crippled its prosperity by the reckless devices employed to supply his needs. Philip II was a man of very moderate talents, irresolute and procrastinating to that degree that the Venetian envoy Vendramino, in 1595, declared that what would cost another prince ten ducats cost him a hundred, in consequence of his dilatoriness.[1040] His enormous and disjointed empire was too much for his narrow intelligence, and his vast expenditures in defence of Latin Christianity consumed all his resources and kept him in perpetual financial straits. At his death, in 1598, he had nothing to show for the ruin of his country but the gloomy pile of the Escorial and the acquisition of Portugal. Holland was hopelessly lost; his rival, Henry IV, was firmly seated on the throne of a reunited France, and the papacy was alienated. The internal condition of the land is depicted in the despairing complaints of the Córtes of 1594--"The truth, which cannot be questioned, is that the kingdom is totally exhausted. Scarce any man has money or credit, and those who have it do not employ it in trade or for profit, but hoard it to live as sparingly as possible, in hope that it may last them to the end. Thus comes the universal poverty of all classes.... There is not a city or a town but has lost largely in population, as is seen by the multitude of closed and empty houses, and the fall in the rents of the few that are inhabited."[1041]

[Sidenote: _GOVERNMENT BY FAVORITES_]

With Philip III we commence the long line of favorites who dominated Spain during the seventeenth century. Well meaning, but weak and incapable, he left everything to the Duke of Lerma, under whose guidance a reckless course of prodigality was followed as though the only trouble was to get rid of surplus revenues. Charles V had cast aside the severe simplicity of the old Castilian court for the stately magnificence of the Burgundian household; his successors followed his example, in spite of the remonstrances of the Córtes, but where Philip II spent on it four hundred thousand ducats a year, Philip III lavished a million and three hundred thousand, while he was begging money of his nobles and prelates and seeking to seize all the plate in the kingdom in order to coin it. He was not alone in this, for the nobility and gentry were consumed with usury and overwhelmed with debt, owing to their extravagance. The Venetian envoy Contarini, in 1605 describes the land as overspread with poverty and general discontent and all the evils attendant upon a corrupt and vicious government, under an indolent king and a rapacious and incapable minister. The worst war, he concludes, that could be made on Spain was to allow it to consume itself in peace under misgovernment, while to attack it would be to arouse the dogged determination of the people. The reports of the Lucchese envoys tell the same story.[1042] Such was the condition when the expulsion of the Moriscos robbed the land of its most productive class.

Matters grew worse when Philip IV ascended the throne, in 1621. Good-natured, affable, indolent and pleasure-loving, his thirty-one unacknowledged natural children, besides the acknowledged one--the second Don John of Austria--serve to explain why he abandoned the cares of state to his favorite, the Count-Duke Olivares, after whose fall in 1643 his nephew, Don Luis de Haro, succeeded to the post. The official historiographer describes Spain, at his accession, as being in extremity, and the people crushed under their burdens; everything was in disorder, and the condition of the nation so weakened that it could only be deplored and not amended. Yet Philip's first act was to break the truce with Holland and, from that time to the end of his long reign, he was involved in almost continual war. He called together the Córtes and asked for supplies to which they replied by petitioning him to try to stop the general depopulation and find occupation for the people, who were wandering with their families over the country in vain search for work.[1043] Yet Philip, engrossed with his plebeian amours and the pleasures of his court, continued his wars and his extravagance, without giving thought to the misery of his people whom he was crushing with ever new exactions. The courtly festivities were conducted with a magnificence till then unexampled; the carnival festival of 1637 was officially admitted to cost three hundred thousand ducats and was popularly estimated at half a million.[1044] In 1658 the Venetian envoy reports his giving to the son of Don Luis de Haro fifty thousand pesos for skilfully arranging a ballet for the ladies of the court. Every bull-fight cost him sixty thousand reales, and the celebration at the birth of Prince Prosper (who speedily died) involved an expenditure of eight hundred thousand pesos. All this, as the envoy remarks, was extracted from the blood of the miserable people, who were poorer in Spain than anywhere else. The immense resources of the kingdom were absorbed by the rapacity of the ministers or were dissipated by the profuseness of the king.[1045]

[Sidenote: _RESOURCES AND POSSIBILITIES_]

In 1665, Carlos II, then but four years of age, succeeded to his father, under the regency of the Queen-dowager Maria Ana of Austria. We have seen how she abandoned affairs to her confessor, the Jesuit Nithard, and when he was dismissed by the efforts of Don John of Austria, in 1669, she replaced him with the worthless favorite Fernando de Valenzuela. Again Don John was called in; Valenzuela was exiled to the Philippines and Don John assumed the reins of government. His limited abilities were unequal to the task; he was driven from power and died soon afterwards in 1679. Carlos had been declared of age in 1675; he was utterly incapable and, though he can scarce be said to have had favorites, under such ministers as the Duke of Medinaceli and the Count of Oropesa, Spain sank deeper in misery and degradation until his death in 1700. The kingdom was reduced to the last extremity, without money, without industry, without means of defence to resist the aggressive wars of Louis XIV, or to defend the colonies from the ravages of buccaneers. The population is said to have shrunk to 5,000,000; in 1586 it had been estimated at 8,000,000 by the Venetian envoy Gradenigo.[1046] Such was the result of two centuries of absolute government, under monarchs not wilfully evil, who merely reigned according to the light vouchsafed them.

Yet it was not so much the extravagance of the court, or the perpetual wars of the Hapsburgs, or the emigration to the colonies, that reduced the population and the power of Spain. The land could have endured all these if its rich resources and vast opportunities had been wisely developed. Lying between two seas and holding Sicily and Naples, it commanded the Atlantic and the Mediterranean; with its wealthy colonies, the source of the precious metals which revolutionized the finances of Europe and furnished the basis for the most profitable commerce that the world had seen, it was invited to become the greatest of maritime states, with a navy and a mercantile marine beyond rivalry, dominating the seas as the Catalans had dominated the Mediterranean in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It was largely secured from hostile aggression by the Pyrenees, and could work out its destinies with little to fear from external enemies. It is true that much of its surface is mountainous, and that large districts suffer from insufficient precipitation, but the Moors had shown what wonders could be wrought by irrigation, and how, by patient labor, even mountain sides could be made to yield their increase. No land could boast a greater variety of agricultural products, including those of semi-tropical and temperate zones which, combined with mineral wealth, should have rendered it self-supporting. All that was needed was steady and intelligent industry, fostered by wise legislation, encouraging production and commerce, and enabling every man to work out his own career with as few artificial impediments as possible, and Spain might be today what she was in the sixteenth century, the leader among civilized nations.

This was not to be. The fatal gift of the Burgundian inheritance distracted the attention of her rulers from the true arena of her expansion in Africa and on the ocean, to distant enterprises wholly foreign to her true interests, while the undeviating determination to enforce unity of faith at home, and to combat heresy elsewhere, led her to drive out her most useful population, and involved her in ruinous expenditures abroad. To extort the means for the furtherance of this policy, industry was strangled with the most burdensome and complicated system of taxation that human folly could devise, the weight of which fell almost exclusively on the oppressed producing classes, who were least able to endure it, while the nobles and gentry and clergy, who held by far the larger portion of Spanish wealth, were exempt.[1047] As taxation was virtually at the discretion of the monarch, imposts were added as the exigencies of extravagance demanded, usually with little thought as to their consequences, until the taxpayer was entangled in a network which crippled him at every step. This moreover was accompanied with regulations to prevent evasions, and to protect the consumer at the expense of the producer, which greatly enhanced the deadly influence of the anomalous and incongruous accumulation of exactions.

[Sidenote: _OPPRESSIVE TAXATION_]

All this fell with peculiar weight on agriculture and on the _labradores_ or peasants, on whom ultimately the support and prosperity of the nation depended. When, in 1619, the Royal Council, in obedience to the commands of Philip III, presented an elaborate consulta on the causes of depopulation, it commenced by ascribing this to the grinding and insupportable taxation of the producing taxables, and the exemption of the consuming classes--the mules and cart of the peasant were seized for taxes, he was driven from the land and hid himself in the large cities, or sought a livelihood abroad.[1048] The warning was unheeded and, ten years later, Fray Benito de Peñalosa y Mondragon, while enthusiastically extolling the power and wealth of Spain, describes the condition of the labradores as the poorest, most completely miserable and depressed of all, as though all the other classes had combined and conspired to ruin and destroy them. Their cabins and huts of mud walls are decaying and crumbling, they possess some badly cultivated lands and lean cattle, always hungry for lack of the common pasture, and they are burdened with tributes, mortgages, taxes, censos and many impositions, demands and almsgivings that cannot be escaped. In place of wondering at the depopulation of villages and farms, the wonder is that any remain. Probably most of those who go to the Colonies are labradores and they also flock to the cities, engaging in all kinds of service.[1049]

The process went on without interruption. A century later an experienced financial official tells the same story, in a report to Philip V. The burden of taxation fell upon the poor; all that was unpaid was added to the levy of the succeeding year; a horde of blood-suckers lived by selling out delinquents, when the costs amounted to more than the taxes. Consequently the poor were obliged to sell their property to meet the demands of the tax-gatherer, or to let it be seized and sold, thus becoming beggars and tramps, and every year saw their numbers increase. The peasant, moreover, was subject to special and ruinous restrictions. The tassa or price of his grain was officially determined every year, at a maximum above which he was forbidden to sell it; moreover it could not be exported, nor could it be transported by sea from one province to another to prevent infractions of the prohibition. The result of this was that if the harvest was deficient, grain was secreted and held at exorbitant prices and this infraction of the law was winked at under necessity. The sufferer was the peasant, who had not the means of storing his grain but had to sell it to the wealthy who could withhold it, and thus, whether the harvests were abundant or scanty he fared ill. Thus production was discouraged and diminishing; the producer realized little, while the consumer paid extravagantly, checking both production and consumption. Lands were left uncultivated and labor was unemployed; everything moved in a vicious circle, and the evil was constantly growing. Trade was similarly strangled. The alcavala of 10 per cent. and the cientos of 4 per cent. were levied on every transaction, no matter how often an article changed hands. Manufactures, under this system, had almost disappeared. Spaniards were forced to sell their raw products to foreigners at low prices, for there were no other buyers, and to purchase them back in their finished state at the sellers' prices. The heavy tariff increased the cost to the consumer, while innumerable smugglers enabled the importers to realize the benefit of the duties. The foreigner, moreover, secured all the precious metals of the Indies, for all exports thither were of foreign goods, with which Spaniards could not compete, owing to the excessive imposts and tributes, which doubled the price of everything to the consumer. Yet of the product of these crushing burdens but little reached the treasury, owing to the system of collection, smuggling, and frauds.[1050]

[Sidenote: _THE MESTA--FORESTRY LAWS_]

The disabilities thus imposed on agriculture, industry, and trade were greatly aggravated by the absence of means of intercommunication, and it is symptomatic of Spanish policy that the energies of the rulers were concentrated on the suppression of heresy, foreign wars and court festivities to the exclusion of care for internal development. It is true that, under Charles V and Philip II, considerable effort was spent on the water-ways; the Canal Imperial de Aragon was built along the Ebro, as well as the smaller canals of Jarama and Manzanares, and there were improvements in the navigation of the Tagus and Guadalquivir, but these ceased and no attention was paid to the roads which, for the most part were mere _caminos de herradura_, or mule-tracks. Even as late as 1795, Jovellanos tells us that there was no communication by wagon between the contiguous provinces of Leon and Asturias, so that the wines and wheat of Castile could not bear the expense of mule carriage to the seaboard. In 1761 Carlos III undertook to construct highways from Madrid to Andalusia, Valencia, Catalonia, Galicia, Old Castile, Asturias, Murcia and Extremadura, but in 1795 none of them had reached half-way, and no attention was paid to interprovincial wagon-roads, to enable the miserable peasant to get from village to village, or from market to market, save at the cost of exhausting his cattle and at the risk of losing everything in a mudhole.[1051]

Another intolerable burden on agriculture was the _Mesta_, or combination of owners of the immense flocks of sheep, which wintered in the lowlands and summered in the mountains. Through privileges dating from the fourteenth century and gradually increased, the provinces, through which the trashumantes or migratory flocks passed, were subjected to serious disabilities. Pasturage could not be broken up for cultivation, its rental was fixed by an unalterable _tassa_, and a _mesteño_ tenant could not be evicted. All enclosures were forbidden in order that the flocks when migrating might feed without payment on the stubble in the autumn and on the fallow land in the spring, although this privilege was somewhat curtailed in 1788 by permitting the enclosure of orchards, vineyards and plantations. Thus the husbandman was deprived of control over his property and the raising of horses and of stationary herds of cattle and sheep--vastly more important than the _trashumantes_--was effectually discouraged within the range of the Mesta. Equally short-sighted were the forestry laws, designed to foster the production of lumber, which was greatly needed both for building and shipping. The owner was obliged to get and pay for a permit before he could fell a tree, to obey fixed rules as to pruning, to sell against his will and at a fixed price, to admit inspections and official visits, and to answer for the condition and number of his trees--thus opening the door to unlimited extortion. In short, the freedom of action through which men seek their interests, and thus contribute to the general welfare, was destroyed by the paternalism of an absolute government, which blindly hampered all improvement and checked all individual initiative and ambition.[1052]

This explains the _despoblados_ and _baldíos_--the depopulated villages and uncultivated lands--which were the despair of the statesmen who discussed the possible regeneration of Spain. According to Zavala, in the circumscription of Badajoz alone, the _baldíos_ amounted to over three hundred square leagues, mostly good farm land, in which the remains of buildings could be traced, but then grown up in copses and thickets, affording refuge to wolves, smugglers and robbers. In Andalusia, Jovellanos tells us that these baldíos were immense; they were less in Extremadura, La Mancha and the two Castiles, while, in the northern provinces, from the Pyrenees to Portugal, the population was denser and the baldíos less frequent and of inferior quality.[1053] We have seen the attempt made by Carlos III to reclaim these districts with the _nuevas poblaciones_, and how the promising experiment was checked by the Inquisition.

[Sidenote: _INDOLENCE_]

As though these blind and irrational policies were insufficient to destroy prosperity, an equally efficient factor was devised in tampering with the coinage. This began tentatively in 1566 by Philip II, in diminishing the alloy of silver in the vellon or copper coinage. In 1602, Philip III, in his financial distress, was bolder and resolutely issued a pure copper coinage with a fictitious value of seven to two, calling forth the protest of Padre Mariana which cost him his prosecution by the Inquisition. In 1605 the Lucchese envoy informs us that the treasury had already reaped a profit of 25,000,000 ducats by this fiat money, of which the marc cost 80 maravedís and had a forced circulation of 280. This was the first of a long series of violent measures continued throughout the seventeenth century, of alternate expansion and contraction. Thus, in 1642 the fictitious legal-tender value was suddenly reduced to one-sixth, followed in 1643 by raising it fourfold, and in 1651 by increasing it still further. In 1652 an attempt was made to demonetize the vellon, June 25th, which was abandoned November 14th. In 1659 the _vellon grueso_ was reduced in value one-half and, in 1660 it was trebled. Attempts were made to regulate prices by decrees of _maxima_ and to prevent or define the inevitable premium on gold and silver, but the unwritten laws of trade were imperative, until at last, in 1718, the _real de plata_ was admitted to be worth twice the _real de vellon_, a ratio which remained nearly permanent. The largest vellon coin was the _cuartillo_, or fourth of a real, equivalent to about three cents of American money, which became the standard of value in Spanish trade; the coins were tied in bags of definite amount and these passed from hand to hand, for the precious metals necessarily disappeared, and were rarely seen except in Seville, in spite of the most savage decrees against their exportation.[1054] It would be impossible to exaggerate the disastrous influence on industry and commerce of these perpetual fluctuations of the circulating medium. The relations between debtor and creditor, between producer and consumer, were ever at the mercy of some new decree that might upset all calculations. All transactions, from the purchase of a day's supply of bread to a contract for a cargo of merchandise were mere gambling speculations.

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These causes of decadence were accentuated by an aversion and contempt for labor, which was recognized as a Spanish characteristic, attributable perhaps to the long war of the Reconquest and the endless civil broils which rendered arms the only fitting career for a Spaniard, and accustomed him to see all useful work performed by those whom he regarded as belonging to inferior races--Jews and Mudéjares. Their expulsion was destructive to all industrial pursuits, but the Old Christian still looked down on the descendants of the Conversos who were to a large extent debarred, by the statutes of Limpieza, from the Spanish resource of living without labor by entering the Church or holding office. The evil effects of this were intensified by constitutional indolence. The Spanish Conquistadores gave memorable examples of indefatigable energy and hardihood, sparing no toil when their imaginations were inflamed with the lust of conquest or the hopes of gold, but they would not work as colonists. One of them, Bernardo de Vargas Machuca, who for thirty years was Governor of Margarita, defends the enslavement of the Indians by candidly saying that Spaniards would not settle on unoccupied land, no matter how healthy or how rich in gold and silver, but would go where there were Indians, even if the land were sterile and unhealthy for, if they had not Indians to work for them, they could not enjoy its products, and its possession would be no benefit.[1055] Nor were the Spaniards of whom he speaks gentlemen adventurers, but were mostly drawn from the humbler classes. It was the same at home. Already, in 1512, Guicciardini, who spent two years in Spain as envoy from Florence, describes Spain as a land rich in natural resources, but sparsely populated and largely undeveloped. The people, he says, are warlike and skilled in arms, but they look upon industry and trade with disdain; artisans and husbandmen will work only under pressure of necessity and then rest in idleness until their earnings are spent.[1056] The Córtes of Valladolid, in 1548, complain that agricultural laborers and mechanics would not come to work before 10 or 11 o'clock, and would break off an hour or two before sunset. A century later, Dormer, the historiographer of Aragon, reproves the indolence of the people, except in Catalonia, for they would not work as was customary in other lands, but only a few hours a day, with perhaps frequent intermissions, and they expected this to provide for them as fully as the incessant labor of other lands.[1057]

[Sidenote: _EDUCATED IDLENESS_]

Spanish indolence was a frequent theme with the Venetian envoys who describe Spain as abounding in resources, and able to supply all its needs, but dependent upon foreign nations in consequence of the rooted dislike for labor. As Gianfrancesco Morosini writes, in 1581, the people have little aptitude for any of the mechanic arts, and are most negligent in agriculture, while in manual labor they are so slow and lazy that what anywhere else would be done in a month, here takes four.[1058] The Lucchese envoys, in the next century, tell the same story. There are few Spaniards, they say, except office-holders, who will work; the greater part of the workmen are foreigners, who have made a new Spain, to the great detriment of the old kingdoms. This explains why Spain is only a port through which the precious metals pass; the Spaniards consume only foreign merchandise imported by foreign merchants; among the contractors there is not a single Castilian, and there are more pieces of eight in China than in Spain.[1059] So, in 1687, Luis de Salazar y Castro attributes the decline of the monarchy to its substance flowing out through every pore, and the ultimate cause of this is the lack of energy. "I say it is our indolence, ignorance and want of application ... we attribute to deficient population what is laziness and sloth. Could our torpidity go further than our requiring Frenchmen to makes tiles, to grind knives, to carry water and to knead bread?"[1060] A moralist of the period is excessively severe upon this indolence coupled with reckless extravagance, which he compares with the tireless industry and thrift of the Frenchman.[1061] To this he attributes the poverty of Spain, as we have seen (Vol. III, p. 390) had been done, in 1594, by Francisco de Idiaquez, the secretary of Philip II.

One development of this indisposition to labor is touched upon by the consulta of the Royal Council in 1619, when it alludes to the multiplication of grammar-schools, to which the peasants send their children for a smattering of education, and thus withdraw them from productive industry.[1062] The Córtes of the same year asked for restrictions on this and Navarrete, in his commentary on the consulta, dwells at some length on the evils thence arising, for the sons of peasants flock thither, to gain the exemptions of the learned classes; an infinite number of them fail to reach the priesthood, becoming beggars and vagrants and criminals, while many of those who enter orders are forced to dishonorable practices, the public suffering in consequence from the lack of laborers and artisans.[1063] Protests were in vain and, in 1753, Gregorio Mayans y Siscar still called attention to the crowds of half-educated students who sponged on the community--drones who sucked the honey while they might be of service in driving a plough or handling a musket--a complaint echoed with still greater vigor by Jovellanos in 1795.[1064]

To this tendency may be attributed the frenzied rush for office, to which the suggestive name of _empleomanía_ has been given, burdening the State with a vast superfluity of employees and depriving it of their services in useful production. In 1674 the Lucchese envoy wonders at the revenues, estimated at seventy-five millions, without apparent result, which he ascribes partly to the waste in collecting, the collectors employed numbering two hundred thousand--a manifest exaggeration, but yet suggestive.[1065] About 1740, Macanaz ranks this as the first in his enumeration of the causes of Spain's condition; there are, he says, a thousand employees where forty would suffice, if they were kept at work, and the rest could be set at some useful labor.[1066] The evil still continues, if we may believe modern writers who regard it as one of the serious impediments to prosperity.[1067]

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[Sidenote: _IMPROVEMENT_]

From the depth of poverty, disorder and humiliation to which Spain had fallen, the process of recuperation under the Bourbons was slow and at first vacillating. Something was accomplished by Philip V, in spite of his continual wars and his melancholy madness, when he had rid himself of such adventurers as Alberoni and Ripperda and gave scope to the practical genius of Patiño.[1068] The upward impulse continued under Fernando VII, while, under Carlos III and his enlightened ministers the progress was rapid. A memorial addressed by Floridablanca to the king, towards the close of his reign, enumerates the reforms and works of utility undertaken during his ministry. There were canals, both for navigation and irrigation, the drainage of marsh lands, the establishment of the nuevas _poblaciones_, the improvement of roads. The trade to the colonies was thrown open to all the ports instead of being restricted to Seville, with the result that the exports quickly trebled and the customs revenue doubled. The Banco Nacional was founded and the public credit, which had fallen very low, was speedily restored. Insurance companies were established and other trading associations, which gave life to industry and commerce. The tariff on imports was rendered uniform at all the ports, and its schedules were arranged so as to foster internal development, being light on machinery and raw materials and heavy on articles produced in Spain, not only stimulating industry to the great prosperity of the land, but increasing the customs revenue to a hundred and thirty millions when it had previously never exceeded thirty millions in the most prosperous years. The complicated and burdensome Rentas _Provinciales_ were regulated so as to fall equally on the various provinces and to be easily borne; the _Millones_ were reduced one-half; the formalities of the alcavala were simplified and its percentage greatly reduced, so as to bear lightly on industry, and with the expectation of its abrogation. The numbers of the exempts were diminished. All the mechanic arts were "habilitated," so that nobles engaging in them should not forfeit their nobility, thus taking away the excuse for idleness and vice of those who called themselves noble and refused to work, however poor they might be. Through this policy during the reign of Carlos III, the population of Peninsular Spain increased by a million and a half and, under his guidance it emerged from the Middle Ages and began to take position with modern nations.[1069]

Much as had thus been accomplished, much remained to do, as set forth, in 1795, by Jovellanos in his celebrated "Informe." Unfortunately progress was arrested by the indolent Carlos IV and his favorite Godoy. Then came the Napoleonic wars, and the course of events, as traced in the preceding chapter, was not conducive to improvement. Yet, in all the vicissitudes which Spain has endured since then, if we may trust the growth of population as an index of advancement, the substitution of liberal institutions for absolutism has proved a success and, however real may be the abuses of which the reforming element complains, the present situation is vastly better than the past. The census of 1768 showed a total of 9,309,804; that of 1787, 10,409,879; that of 1799, something over 12,000,000. Then there was a falling off and, in 1822, it was 11,661,980. Yet, in spite of Carlist wars and political troubles, in 1885, it had risen to 17,228,776, and it is now reckoned at 19,000,000 or about double that of the period of Spanish greatness. The fair inference from this is that Spain has a future; that, while much remains to do, much has been accomplished, and that there is progress which, if continued, will restore in great measure her ancient strength, although the enormous growth of modern nations precludes the expectation that she can resume her commanding position.

In addition to these secular causes of Spanish decadence, there remains to be considered another class of no less importance--those arising from clericalism, or the relations of the Church to the State, and its influence on the popular character and tendencies.

The accumulation of lands and wealth by the Church, and especially by the religious Orders, was, from an early time, a source of concern to statesmen and of complaint by the people, for the exemption from the royal jurisdiction, from military service and from taxation, claimed as imprescriptible rights by the Church, weakened the power of the State and threw increased burdens upon the population. Almost all the European nations endeavored to curb this acquisitiveness by laws of which the English Statutes of Mortmain and the French _droits d'amortissement_ may be taken as examples. These acquisitions came from two sources, each abundantly productive--gifts or bequests and purchase. The sinner, unable to redeem in money the canonical penance for his sins impossible to perform, would make over a piece of land and obtain absolution or, if on his death-bed, would bequeath a portion of his estate to be expended in masses for his soul--perhaps founding a _capellanía_ for that purpose, or as provision for a son who would serve as chaplain. So audacious became the demands of the Church on the estates of the dying that, in 1348, the Córtes of Alcalá complained that all the Orders obtained from the royal chancery letters empowering them to examine all testaments, whereupon they claimed all bequests made to uncertain places or persons; also, if there was not a bequest for each Order, those omitted demanded one equal to the largest in the will and they further claimed the whole estates of those who died intestate. If these demands were contested, they wearied the heirs with litigation into a compromise. Alfonso promised to revoke all such letters but the Black Death, which speedily followed, brought an immense accretion of lands for the foundation of anniversaries and chaplaincies, which led to lively reclamations by the Córtes of Valladolid, in 1351.[1070]

[Sidenote: _THE BURDEN OF THE CHURCH_]

With wealth thus constantly accumulating, the church or monastery would purchase lands from the laity, and as these became exempt from taxation it could afford to pay more than a secular purchaser. Whatever thus passed into ecclesiastical possession was never alienated; it remained in the grip of the Dead Hand which, by constant accretions, came to hold a large portion of the most desirable lands and thus of the wealth of the kingdom.

It would be tedious to recapitulate the complaints of the Córtes and the devices attempted by legislation from the eleventh century onward to check this growth, which was regarded as threatening the most serious evils to the nation.[1071] Laws were adopted only to be evaded or forgotten, and the process went on. A new element, however, was injected into the struggle when, in 1438, the Córtes of Madrigal made a vigorous representation to Juan II that, if no remedy were applied, all the best lands in the kingdom would belong to the Church, resulting in manifold injury to the people and the crown, to which the feeble king evasively replied that he would apply to the pope.[1072] Hitherto Spanish independence of the papacy had regarded all such questions as subject to national regulation, but this utterance indicated that papal confirmation was beginning to be recognized as necessary in everything that affected the Church. This was not at once admitted, for Juan, in 1447, in response to the Córtes of Valladolid, and by a decree of 1452, imposed a tax of twenty per cent, on all purchases, bequests and donations,[1073] but it gradually established itself and furnished a ready answer to the vigorous representations which, with growing insistence, the Córtes of the sixteenth century made in 1515, 1518, 1523, 1528, 1532, 1534, 1537, 1538, 1542, 1544, 1551 and 1573.[1074] This put all remedy out of the question, for no pope could be expected to set limits to ecclesiastical wealth and influence, from which the curia derived its revenues; and the petitions of the Córtes served only to emphasize the magnitude of the evil and its universal recognition by the people.

It was not only the progressive absorption of wealth and land that was detrimental but the corresponding increase in the numbers of the clergy, regular and secular, who were released from all the duties of the citizen, and whose vows of celibacy aided in accelerating the diminution of the population. The process continued with added vigor, especially after the commencement of the seventeenth century, owing partly to a wave of religious fervor which led to the founding of chapels and convents on a greater scale than ever, and partly to the growing destitution forcing men to seek conventual refuge, where they might at least escape starvation, and inducing parents to give their sons such smattering of education as might enable them to take orders and have at least a chance to secure a livelihood free from the crushing burdens of taxation. The result of this is seen in Fray Bleda's boast, in 1618, that one-fourth of the Christians of Spain were priests, frailes or nuns, and, even though this is obviously an over-estimate, it indicates how great was the task imposed on the producing classes to support in idleness so large a portion of the population.[1075] The increase was largely in the Mendicant Orders, whose systematic begging, that no one dared refuse, was a grievous addition to the tithes and first fruits.

A single instance will illustrate this inordinate growth. Cardinal Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo, the "third king" under Ferdinand and Isabella, stubbornly refused to allow convents to be founded in his province, saying that there were already many that were injurious to the people obliged to sustain them, but this ceased with his death in 1495. His biographer, Doctor Pedro de Salazar, penitentiary of the cathedral, tells us that the city of Toledo held a privilege from Alfonso X prohibiting the erection of convents there. At that time there were six, but in 1625, when he wrote, these had been enlarged and numerous others had been founded, so that they then occupied more than fifty royal and noble houses and more than six hundred smaller ones. The disastrous influence of this on the prosperity of the place is self-evident and Salazar regards this portentous development of ecclesiasticism as the chief cause of the decline in the population of Spain, which he estimates at twenty-five per cent.[1076]

[Sidenote: _THE BURDEN Of THE CHURCH_]

The consulta of the Council of Castile, in 1619, naturally included in its enumeration of the causes of national distress the foundation of so many religious houses, which were filled with those attracted, not by vocation but by a life of idleness, while their lands were exempt from taxation.[1077] In a similar mood, the Córtes, assembled by Philip IV on his accession, made a forcible and somewhat rhetorical representation, asking for measures to restrain the multiplication of foundations and the purchases of land, which not only diminished the alcavalas but, in a few years, would exempt all real estate from the royal jurisdiction and accumulate all taxation on the miserable poor, thus destroying the population of the provinces, for it was evident that, if the clergy continued to increase as it was doing, the villages would be without inhabitants, the fields without laborers, the sea without mariners and the arts without craftsmen; commerce would be extinct and, marriage being despised, the world would not last for a century.[1078]

At the earnest request of the kingdom, which represented that it could not support these idle multitudes or furnish soldiers for war, Urban VIII, in 1634, granted a bull reforming the religious Orders and suppressing some of the Barefooted ones, but the opposing influences were too strong and it was ineffective.[1079] In 1677 the matter was again debated, including the excessive numbers of the secular clergy, but action was postponed until there was a better prospect of results. The recognized evils were too serious to remain thus pigeon-holed, and an attempt was again made in 1691, the feebleness of which demonstrates how completely the Church dominated the State and could not be reformed without its own consent. The king deplored the multiplication of convents, and the consequent relaxation of discipline, and the pope was to be asked for authority to appoint visitors with full powers. The excessive increase of the secular priesthood, he said, was the cause of numerous disorders, to cure which the pope was to be applied to for faculties enabling bishops and abbots to reduce their numbers, so that all incumbents could live decently. The clergy in minor orders were so numerous that their exemption from the royal jurisdiction and the public burdens was a grievous injury to the laity and the bishops were asked to limit their ordination. The absorption of lands by the Church was an evil which had puzzled the wisest heads in all ages; many states had adopted laws regulating this, but he hesitated to have recourse to such measures until statistics could be gathered, and it could be decided how to reduce the numbers of the secular clergy.[1080] In short, the Church was an Old Man of the Sea, strangling the State, which lacked power to rid itself of its oppressor.

With the advent of the Bourbons there was less tendency to this hopelessness and, in 1713, the plain-spoken Macanaz, in a report to the king, presented a terrible picture of the misery and impoverishment resulting from the overgrown numbers and wealth of the clergy.[1081] Yet, short of revolution, effective remedy was impossible, and Philip V contented himself with a decree expressing regret that, without papal assent or a concordat, he could not afford general relief to his vassals. While awaiting this, however, he severely characterized the frauds of confessors in inducing the dying to impoverish their heirs. Such testators were declared not to be of free will, their bequests were invalid and scriveners drawing them were threatened with condign punishment.[1082]

Much of this evil would have been averted had the salutary reforms prescribed by the Council of Trent been enforced,[1083] but they had been a dead letter, at least in Spain. In 1723, however, Philip induced the Spanish bishops to supplicate Innocent XIII on the subject, resulting in a constitution in which he embodied at great length the Tridentine decrees as to restricting ordinations and the number of religious in convents.[1084] It was a tribute to the capacious learning rather than to the consistency of Macanaz that the Regular Orders employed him to draw up a memorial to the king, protesting against the enforcement of the papal decree, in which he lavished praises on them, and argued vigorously against any restriction on numbers beyond the capacity of support.[1085] This, however, was but a lawyer's argument for a client and did not prevent him, in memorials to Philip V, about 1740 and to Fernando VI, in 1746, from expressing his true opinions as to the evils which were a main cause of Spanish distress--more than half the land held in mortmain and exempt from public burdens, and the immense number of those who, in place of being good laborers were bad priests, wandering around as beggars to the scandal of religion, while the overgrown religious Orders were useless consumers, living on the rest of the nation.[1086]

[Sidenote: _THE BURDEN OF THE CHURCH_]

In negotiating the Concordat of 1737, Philip obtained with difficulty a concession subjecting to taxation future acquisitions, but it was impossible of enforcement and repeated decrees by him, in 1745, by Fernando VII in 1756 and by Carlos III in 1760 and 1763, only attest the powerlessness of the State when dealing with the Church. In 1795 Godoy dallied with a project of secularizing Church property to meet the expenses of the disastrous war with France, but was obliged to abandon the project and only imposed a tax of fifteen per cent, on new acquisitions.[1087] It was inevitable that the Córtes of Cádiz and the constitutional Government of 1820-3 should partially carry out what Spanish publicists for centuries had demanded, and should earn the bitterest clerical hostility.

As a matter of course the wealth of so numerous, powerful and worldly a Church was enormous. As early as 1563 Paolo Tiepolo states that the clergy possessed little less than one half the total revenues of Spain. He rates the income of the Archbishop of Toledo at 150,000 ducats, and in addition the church of Toledo had 300,000.[1088] Exemption from public burdens gave ample opportunity of increase and, at the end of the eighteenth century, the archbishop was estimated as enjoying an income of half a million dollars.[1089] Navarrete, in 1624 regards as one of the leading causes of the hatred entertained for the Church by the laity, the contrast between its affluence and the general poverty,[1090] nor is this unlikely for, during the worst periods of national disaster, the Church seems always to have enjoyed superabundant resources. As its income, other than the produce of its lands, was largely derived from tithes, it necessarily varied, from year to year, but was always enormous. In 1653, we find Plasencia spoken of as one of the four most lucrative bishoprics in Spain, with an income of 40,000 ducats, but that there were years in which it had been worth 80,000--and this at a time when the State was virtually bankrupt, the currency in frightful disorder, commerce and industry prostrate, and the whole land steeped in poverty.[1091] Against this, it is true, must be set the habit of the monarch in calling upon the bishops, as well as on the nobles, for contributions, as we have seen in the case of Valdés; thus Cardinal Quiroga, when Archbishop of Toledo, from 1577 to 1594, is said to have given to Philip II an aggregate of a million and a half of ducats.[1092] There were also certain papal grants to the crown on the revenues of the clergy at large, known as the _subsidio_ and the _excusado_ which, in 1573, were reckoned at 575,000 crowns a year and in 1658 at something over two million ducats.[1093]

[Sidenote: _THE BURDEN OF THE CHURCH_]

It betrays a consciousness of overgrown wealth that all knowledge of its amount was carefully concealed. In 1741, Benedict XIV granted to Philip V eight per cent. of the revenues of the clergy, regular and secular, for that year. The collection of this in Granada was delegated, with full coercive powers, to the Archdeacon Juan Bautista Simoni who, after Easter 1742, issued an edict requiring all incumbents, within ten days, to render sworn statements of their property and income. This aroused intense excitement. Under one pretext or another all, from the archbishop down, endeavored to escape the revelation of their wealth; there were meetings held and open threats were made of a _cessatio a divinis_ if the measure was insisted on. A compromise was offered of payment of a double _servicio_, which was assumed to be equivalent to eight per cent., but they refused absolutely to make a return of property and income. Simoni seems to have been sincerely desirous of executing his unpleasant duty with as little friction as possible but, in reporting this repugnance to make sworn statements, he does not hesitate to say that its object was to prevent the king from learning that about three fourths of all the property in Spain was in the hands of the clergy, secular and regular, and especially of the Carthusians, Jesuits, Geronimites and Dominicans. It proved to be impossible to compel the archbishop to make the return, and finally it was compromised by taking the average of a valuation made during five years of a vacancy, 1728-32, which resulted in estimating the revenues of the see at about 39,000 ducats--evidently an undervaluation, although Granada was reckoned as the poorest of the five Castilian archbishoprics.[1094]

All this wealth and splendor was drawn, in its ultimate source, from the labor of the husbandman and the administration of the sacraments, casting a grievous burden on the industry of the land and counting for much in the general impoverishment. When the little development of Protestantism in 1558 excited so much dread, it was assumed as a matter of course that the people would welcome a reform that would bring relief from the burdens of the church establishment. Jovellanos asks what is left of the ancient glory of Castile save the skeletons of its cities, once populous and full of workshops and stores, and now filled with churches, convents and hospitals, which survive the misery that they have caused.[1095] So, in 1820, the learned Canon Francisco Martínez Marina, in indicating the measures necessary to restore prosperity, says that the first one is to reduce the wealth of the clergy for the benefit of agriculture and the poor and oppressed peasant, and to abolish forever the unjust and insupportable tribute of the tithe, a tribute unknown to Spain before the twelfth century, a tribute which directly prevents the progress of agriculture and one of those which have inflicted the greatest misery on the husbandman.[1096]

A clergy thus worldly, and so far removed from apostolic poverty, was not apt to be devoted to its duties, or to set an example of morality to its subjects. A project, drawn up by a Spanish bishop, of matters to be urged on the Council of Lateran in 1512, affords a glimpse into the deplorable condition of the Church which was so deeply concerned with the salvation of the Marranos and Moriscos. Few among the laity observed the prescribed fasts and feasts, and even the Easter communion was neglected. The priests were negligent and, even in cathedrals, it was sometimes difficult to have divine service performed. Among the clergy, from bishops to the lower orders, concubinage was universal and shameless, while simony ruled everywhere.[1097] The provisions of the Council of Seville in 1512, and of Coria in 1537, indicate the vicious and degraded character of the priesthood and the impossibility of restraining their habitual concubinage.[1098] Alphonso de Castro argues that if it were not for the protection of God it would be difficult to preserve religion in view of the unworthiness of the priests and their wickedness. It is known to all, he says, that the contempt felt for them arises first from their excessive numbers, secondly from their ignorance and lastly from their flagitious lives.[1099] Archbishop Carranza is emphatic in reproving the negligence of the clerics, who were so indifferent to their duty that they abandoned their churches and might as well be non-existent, in addition to which were their evil and scandalous lives and the abuse of their wealth.[1100]

[Sidenote: _CLERICAL DEMORALIZATION_]