Chapter VII: Establishment of the Modern Inquisition (2)

[12] Basnage, History of the Jews, book 7, chap. 5, 15, 16.--Castro, Biblioteca Española, tom. i. pp. 116, 265, 267.--Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. i. p. 906;--tom. ii. pp. 63, 147, 459.--Samuel Levi, treasurer of Peter the Cruel, who was sacrificed to the cupidity of his master, is reported by Mariana to have left behind him the incredible sum of 400,000 ducats to swell the royal coffers. Tom. ii. p. 82.

[13] Sir Walter Scott, with his usual discernment, has availed himself of these opposite traits in his portraits of Rebecca and Isaac in Ivanhoe, in which he seems to have contrasted the lights and shadows of the Jewish character. The humiliating state of the Jews, however, exhibited in this romance, affords no analogy to their social condition in Spain; as is evinced not merely by their wealth, which was also conspicuous in the English Jews, but by the high degree of civilization, and even political consequence, which, notwithstanding the occasional ebullitions of popular prejudice, they were permitted to reach there.

[14] Calumnies of this kind were current all over Europe. The English reader will call to mind the monkish fiction of the little Christian,

"Slain with cursed Jewes, as it is notable,"

singing most devoutly after his throat was cut from ear to ear, in Chaucer's Prioresse's Tale. See another instance in the old Scottish ballad of the "Jew's Daughter" in Percy's "Reliques of Ancient Poetry."

[15] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 43.--Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. pp. 186, 187.--In 1391, 5000 Jews were sacrificed to the popular fury, and, according to Mariana, no less than 10,000 perished from the same cause in Navarre about sixty years before. See tom. i. p. 912.

[16] According to Mariana, the restoration of sight to the blind, feet to the lame, even life to the dead, were miracles of ordinary occurrence with St. Vincent. (Hist. de España, tom. ii. pp. 229, 230.) The age of miracles had probably ceased by Isabella's time, or the Inquisition might have been spared. Nic. Antonio, in his notice of the life and labors of this Dominican, (Bibliotheca Vetus, tom. ii. pp. 205, 207,) states that he preached his inspired sermons in his vernacular Valencian dialect to audiences of French, English, and Italians, indiscriminately, who all understood him perfectly well; "a circumstance," says Dr. McCrie, in his valuable "History of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Spain," (Edinburgh, 1829.) "which, if it prove anything, proves that the hearers of St. Vincent possessed more miraculous powers than himself, and that they should have been canonized, rather than the preacher." P. 87, note.

[17] They were interdicted from the callings of vintners, grocers, taverners, especially of apothecaries, and of physicians, and nurses. Ordenanças Reales, lib. 8, tit. 3, leyes 11, 15, 18.

[18] No law was more frequently reiterated than that prohibiting the Jews from acting as stewards of the nobility, or farmers and collectors of the public rents. The repetition of this law shows to what extent that people had engrossed what little was known of financial science in that day. For the multiplied enactments in Castile against them, see Ordenanças Reales, (lib. 8, tit. 3.) For the regulations respecting the Jews in Aragon, many of them oppressive, particularly at the commencement of the fifteenth century, see Fueros y Observancias del Reyno de Aragon, (Zaragoza, 1667,) tom. i. fol. 6.--Marca Hispanica, pp. 1416, 1433.--Zurita, Anales, tom. iii. lib. 12, cap. 45.

[19] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 43.--Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, préf. p. 26.--A manuscript entitled _Tizon de España_, (Brand of Spain,) tracing up many a noble pedigree to a Jewish or Mahometan root, obtained a circulation, to the great scandal of the country, which the efforts of the government, combined with those of the Inquisition, have not been wholly able to suppress. Copies of it, however, are now rarely to be met with. (Doblado, Letters from Spain, (London, 1822,) let. 2.) Clemencin notices two works with this title, one as ancient as Ferdinand and Isabella's time, and both written by bishops. Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. p. 125.

[20] Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. p. 479.--Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 77.

[21] Reyes Católicos, MS., cap, 43. Vol. I.21.

[22] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, ubi supra.--Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 77.--Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 386.--Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. p. 44.--Llorente, tom. i. pp. 143, 145.

Some writers are inclined to view the Spanish Inquisition, in its origin, as little else than a political engine. Guizot remarks of the tribunal, in one of his lectures, "Elle contenait en germe ce qu'elle est devenue; mais elle ne l'était pas en commençant: elle fut d'abord plus politique que religieuse, et destinée à maintenir l'ordre plutôt qu'à défendre la foi." (Cours d'Histoire Moderne, (Paris, 1828-30,) tom. v. lec. 11.) This statement is inaccurate in reference to Castile, where the facts do not warrant us in imputing any other motive for its adoption than religious zeal. The general character of Ferdinand, as well as the circumstances under which it was introduced into Aragon, may justify the inference of a more worldly policy in its establishment there.

[23] Essai sur les Moeurs et l'Esprit des Nations, chap. 176.

[24] Sigüenza, Historia de la Orden de San Gerónimo, apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 13.--This anecdote is more characteristic of the order than the individual. Oviedo has given a brief notice of this prelate, whose virtues raised him from the humblest condition to the highest posts in the church, and gained him, to quote that writer's words, the appellation of "El sancto, ó el buen arzobispo en toda España." Quincuagenas, MS., dial. de Talavera.

[25] Zurita, Anales, tom. iv. fol. 323.

[26] The uniform tenderness with which the most liberal Spanish writers of the present comparatively enlightened age, as Marina, Llorente, Clemencin, etc., regard the memory of Isabella, affords an honorable testimony to the unsuspected integrity of her motives. Even in relation to the Inquisition, her countrymen would seem willing to draw a veil over her errors, or to excuse her by charging them on the age in which she lived.

[27] Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2. cap. 77.--Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 43.--Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. pp. 143-145.--Much discrepancy exists in the narratives of Pulgar, Bernaldez, and other contemporary writers, in reference to the era of the establishment of the modern Inquisition. I have followed Llorente, whose chronological accuracy, here and elsewhere, rests on the most authentic documents.

[28] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., ubi supra.--Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 77.--I find no contemporary authority for imputing to Cardinal Mendoza an active agency in the establishment of the Inquisition, as is claimed for him by later writers, and especially his kinsman and biographer, the canon Salazar de Mendoza. (Crón. del Gran Cardenal, lib. 1, cap. 49.--Monarquía, tom. i. p. 336.) The conduct of this eminent minister in this affair seems, on the contrary, to have been equally politic and humane. The imputation of bigotry was not cast upon it, until the age when bigotry was esteemed a virtue.

[29] In the interim, a caustic publication by a Jew appeared, containing strictures on the conduct of the administration, and even on the Christian religion, which was controverted at length by Talavera, afterwards archbishop of Granada. The scandal occasioned by this ill-timed production undoubtedly contributed to exacerbate the popular odium against the Israelites.

[30] It is worthy of remark, that the famous cortes of Toledo, assembled but a short time previous to the above-mentioned ordinances, and which enacted several oppressive laws in relation to the Jews, made no allusion whatever to the proposed establishment of a tribunal, which was to be armed with such terrific powers.

[31] This ordinance, in which Llorente discerns the first regular encroachment of the new tribunal on the civil jurisdiction, was aimed partly at the Andalusian nobility, who afforded a shelter to the Jewish fugitives. Llorente has fallen into the error, more than once, of speaking of the count of Arcos, and marquis of Cadiz, as separate persons. The possessor of both titles was Rodrigo Ponce de Leon, who inherited the former of them from his father. The latter (which he afterwards made so illustrious in the Moorish wars) was conferred on him by Henry IV., being derived from the city of that name, which had been usurped from the crown.

[32] The historian of Seville quotes the Latin inscription on the portal of the edifice in which the sittings of the dread tribunal were held. Its concluding apostrophe to the Deity is one that the persecuted might join in, as heartily as their oppressors. "Exurge Domine; judica causam tuam; capite nobis vulpes." Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 389.

[33] Ordenanças Reales, lib. 8, tit. 3, ley 26.

[34] Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. pp. 153-159.

[35] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 44.--Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. 1, p. 160.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 164.-- The language of Bernaldez as applied to the four statues of the _quemadero_, "_en que_ los quemavan," is so equivocal, that it has led to some doubts whether he meant to assert that the persons to be burnt were enclosed in the statues, or fastened to them. Llorente's subsequent examination has led him to discard the first horrible supposition, which realized the fabled cruelty of Phalaris.--This monument of fanaticism continued to disgrace Seville till 1810, when it was removed in order to make room for the construction of a battery against the French.

[36] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 164.--Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 44.--Mariana, lib. 24, cap. 17.--Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, ubi supra.--L. Marineo diffuses the 2000 capital executions over several years. He sums up the various severities of the Holy Office in the following gentle terms. "The church, who is the mother of mercy and the fountain of charity, content with the imposition of penances, generously accords life to many who do not deserve it. While those who persist obstinately in their errors, after being imprisoned on the testimony of trust-worthy witnesses, she causes to be put to the torture, and condemned to the flames; some miserably perish, bewailing their errors, and invoking the name of Christ, while others call upon that of Moses. Many again, who sincerely repent, she, notwithstanding the heinousness of their transgressions, _merely sentences to perpetual imprisonment_"! Such were the tender mercies of the Spanish Inquisition.

[37] Bernaldez states, that guards were posted at the gates of the city of Seville in order to prevent the emigration of the Jewish inhabitants, which indeed was forbidden under pain of death. The tribunal, however, had greater terrors for them, and many succeeded in effecting their escape. Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 44.

[38] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 164.--Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 396.--Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 77.--Garibay, Compendio, tom. ii. lib. 18, cap. 17.--Paramo, De Origine Inquisitionis, lib. 2, tit. 2, cap. 2.--Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. pp. 163-173.

[39] Over these subordinate tribunals Ferdinand erected a court of supervision, with appellate jurisdiction, under the name of Council of the Supreme, consisting of the grand inquisitor, as president, and three other ecclesiastics, two of them doctors of law. The principal purpose of this new creation was to secure the interest of the crown in the confiscated property, and to guard against the encroachment of the Inquisition on secular jurisdiction. The expedient, however, wholly failed, because most of the questions brought before this court were determined by the principles of the canon law, of which the grand inquisitor was to be sole interpreter, the others having only, as it was termed, a "consultative voice." Llorente, tom. i. pp. 173, 174.--Zurita, Anales, tom. iv. fol. 324.--Riol, Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, tom. iii. pp. 156 et seq.

[40] Puigblanch, Inquisition Unmasked, vol. i. chap. 4.--Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 6, art. 1; chap. 9, art. 1, 2.--The witnesses were questioned in such general terms, that they were even kept in ignorance of the particular matter respecting which they were expected to testify. Thus, they were asked "if they knew anything which had been said or done contrary to the Catholic faith, and the interests of the tribunal." Their answers often opened a new scent to the judges, and thus, in the language of Montanus, "brought more fishes into the inquisitors' holy angle." See Montanus, Discovery and Playne Declaration of sundry subtill Practises of the Holy Inquisition of Spayne, Eng. trans. (London, 1569,) fol. 14.

[41] Limborch, Inquisition, book 4, chap. 20.--Montanus, Inquisition of Spayne, fol. 6-15.--Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 6. art. 1; chap. 9, art. 4-9.--Puigblanch, Inquisition Unmasked, vol. i. chap. 4.

[42] Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 9, art. 7.--By a subsequent regulation of Philip II., the repetition of torture in the same process was strictly prohibited to the inquisitors. But they, making use of a sophism worthy of the arch-fiend himself, contrived to evade this law, by pretending after each new infliction, of punishment that they had only suspended, and not terminated, the torture!

[43] Montanus, Inquisition of Spayne, fol. 24 et seq.--Limborch, Inquisition, vol. ii. chap. 29.--Puigblanch, Inquisition Unmasked, vol. i. chap. 4.--Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, ubi supra.--I shall spare the reader the description of the various modes of torture, the rack, fire, and pulley, practised by the inquisitors, which have been so often detailed in the doleful narratives of such as have had the fortune to escape with life from the fangs of the tribunal. If we are to believe Llorente, these barbarities have not been decreed for a long time. Yet some recent statements are at variance with this assertion. See, among others, the celebrated adventurer Van Halen's "Narrative of his Imprisonment in the Dungeons of the Inquisition at Madrid, and his Escape in 1817-18."

[44] The prisoner had indeed the right of challenging any witness on the ground of personal enmity. (Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 9, art. 10.) But as he was kept in ignorance of the names of the witnesses employed against him, and as even, if he conjectured right, the degree of enmity, competent to set aside testimony, was to be determined by his judges, it is evident that his privilege of challenge was wholly nugatory.

[45] Confiscation had long been decreed as the punishment of convicted heretics by the statutes of Castile. (Ordenanças Reales, lib. 8, tit. 4.) The avarice of the present system, however, is exemplified by the fact, that those who confessed and sought absolution within the brief term of grace allowed by the inquisitors from the publication of their edict, were liable to arbitrary fines; and those who confessed after that period, escaped with nothing short of confiscation. Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. pp. 176, 177.

[46] Ibid., tom. i. p. 216.--Zurita, Anales, tom. iv. fol. 324.--Salazar de Mendoza, Monarquía, tom. i. fol. 337.--It is easy to discern in every part of the odious scheme of the Inquisition the contrivance of the monks, a class of men, cut off by their profession from the usual sympathies of social life, and who, accustomed to the tyranny of the confessional, aimed at establishing the same jurisdiction over thoughts, which secular tribunals have wisely confined to actions. Time, instead of softening, gave increased harshness to the features of the new system. The most humane provisions were constantly evaded in practice; and the toils for ensnaring the victim were so ingeniously multiplied, that few, very few, were permitted to escape without some censure. Not more than one person, says Llorente, in one or perhaps two thousand processes, previous to the time of Philip III., received entire absolution. So that it came to be proverbial that all who were not roasted, were at least singed.

"Devant l'Inquisition, quand on vient à jubé,
Si l'on ne sort rôti, l'on sort au moins flambé."

[47] Montanus, Inquisition of Spayne, fol. 46.--Puigblanch, Inquisition Unmasked, vol. i. chap. 4.--Every reader of Tacitus and Juvenal will remember how early the Christians were condemned to endure the penalty of fire. Perhaps the earliest instance of burning to death for heresy in modern times occurred under the reign of Robert of France, in the early part of the eleventh century. (Sismondi, Hist. des Français, tom. iv. chap. 4.) Paramo, as usual, finds authority for inquisitorial autos da fe, where one would least expect it, in the New Testament. Among other examples, he quotes the remark of James and John, who, when the village of Samaria refused to admit Christ within its walls, would have called down fire from heaven to consume its inhabitants. "Lo," says Paramo, "fire, the punishment of heretics; for the Samaritans were the heretics of those times." (De Origine Inquisitionis, lib. 1, tit. 3, cap. 5.) The worthy father omits to add the impressive rebuke of our Saviour to his over- zealous disciples. "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. The son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."

[48] Puigblanch, vol. i. chap. 4.--The inquisitors, after the celebration of an auto da fe at Guadaloupe, in 1485, wishing probably to justify these bloody executions in the eyes of the people, who had not yet become familiar with them, solicited a sign from the Virgin (whose shrine in that place is noted all over Spain) in testimony of her approbation of the Holy Office. Their petition was answered by such a profusion of miracles, that Dr. Francis Sanctius de la Fuente, who acted as scribe on the occasion, became out of breath, and, after recording sixty, gave up in despair, unable to keep pace with their marvellous rapidity. Paramo, De Origine Inquisitionis, lib. 2, tit. 2, cap. 3.

[49] _San benito_, according to Llorente, (tom. i. p. 127,) is a corruption of _saco bendito_, being the name given to the dresses worn by penitents previously to the thirteenth century.

[50] Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 9, art. 16.-- Puigblanch, Inquisition Unmasked, vol. i. chap. 4.--Voltaire remarks (Essai sur les Moeurs, chap. 140) that, "An Asiatic, arriving at Madrid on the day of an auto da fe, would doubt whether it were a festival, religious celebration, sacrifice, or massacre;--it is all of them. They reproach Montezuma with sacrificing human captives to the gods.--What would he have said, had he witnessed an auto da fe?"

[51] The government, at least, cannot be charged with remissness in promoting this. I find two ordinances in the royal collection of _pragmáticas_, dated in September, 1501, (there must be some error in the date of one of them,) inhibiting, under pain of confiscation of property, such as had been _reconciled_, and their children by the mother's side, and grandchildren by the father's, from holding any office in the privy council, courts of justice, or in the municipalities, or any other place of trust or honor. They were also excluded from the vocations of notaries, surgeons, and apothecaries. (Pragmáticas del Reyno, fol. 5, 6.) This was visiting the sins of the fathers, to an extent unparalleled in modern legislation. The sovereigns might find a precedent in a law of Sylla, excluding the children of the proscribed Romans from political honors; thus indignantly noticed by Sallust. "Quin solus omnium, post memoriam hominum, supplicia in post futuros composuit; _quîs prius injuria quàm vita certa esset_." Hist. Fragments, lib. 1.

[52] The Aragonese, as we shall see hereafter, made a manly though ineffectual resistance, from the first, to the introduction of the Inquisition among them by Ferdinand. In Castile, its enormous abuses provoked the spirited interposition of the legislature at the commencement of the following reign. But it was then too late.

[53] 1485-6. (Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. p. 239.)--In Seville, with probably no greater apparatus, in 1482, 21,000 processes were disposed of. These were the first fruits of the Jewish heresy, when Torquemada, although an inquisitor, had not the supreme control of the tribunal.

[54] Llorente afterwards reduces this estimate to 8800 burnt, 96,504 otherwise punished; the diocese of Cuença being comprehended in that of Murcia. (Tom. iv. p. 252.) Zurita says, that, by 1520, the Inquisition of Seville had sentenced more than 4000 persons to be burnt, and 30,000 to other punishments. Another author whom he quotes, carries up the estimate of the total condemned by this single tribunal, within the same term of time, to 100,000. Anales, tom. iv. fol. 324.

[55] By an article of the primitive instructions, the inquisitors were required to set apart a small portion of the confiscated estates for the education and Christian nurture of minors, children of the condemned. Llorente says, that, in the immense number of processes, which he had occasion to consult, he met with no instance of their attention to the fate of these unfortunate orphans! Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 8.

[56] Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 44.--Torquemada waged war upon freedom of thought, in every form. In 1490, he caused several Hebrew Bibles to be publicly burnt, and some time after, more than 6000 volumes of Oriental learning, on the imputation of Judaism, sorcery, or heresy, at the autos da fe of Salamanca, the very nursery of science. (Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 8, art. 5.) This may remind one of the similar sentence passed by Lope de Barrientos, another Dominican, about fifty years before, upon the books of the marquis of Villena. Fortunately for the dawning literature of Spain, Isabella did not, as was done by her successors, commit the censorship of the press to the judges of the Holy Office, notwithstanding such occasional assumption of power by the grand inquisitor.

[57] Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 77.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 164.--The prodigious desolation of the land may be inferred from the estimates, although somewhat discordant, of deserted houses in Andalusia. Garibay (Compendio, lib. 18, cap. 17,) puts these at three, Pulgar (Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 77,) at four, L. Marineo (Cosas Memorables, fol. 164,) as high as five thousand.

[58] Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 7, art. 8; chap. 8, art. 6.

[59] Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Vetus, tom. ii. p. 340.--Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 8, art. 6.

[60] "Per la fè--il tutto lice." Gerusalemme Liberata, cant. 4, stanza 26.