Chapter VII: Peru (3)

The decision of the Suprema had suspended Calderon until he should answer judicially the charges made against him, and he consequently lived in retirement, while the tribunal was carried on by Amusquíbar and Rodríguez Delgado, who had been sent out to replace Unda. As usual they quarrelled and, in 1754, Amusquíbar formally demanded that his colleague should be removed by promotion to the episcopate, for he was inquisitor only in name, being utterly inefficient and incapable. Rodríguez, on his side, described Amusquíbar as arbitrary and impenetrably obstinate; a case had been ready for final sentence for a year, yet he could not be brought to agree as to its settlement. The sudden death of Rodríguez, however, October 31, 1756, restored peace and José de Salazar y Cevallos, who was appointed in his place, died in November, 1757, before he could assume possession, so that Amusquíbar remained sole inquisitor. He paid so little attention to his duties that in five months he was only three times in the audience-chamber and, on the plea of illness, he absented himself from Lima and appointed as his representative the fiscal, Bartolomé Lopez Grillo, an act which excited much adverse comment.

Meanwhile nothing was heard as to the dealings of the Suprema with the papers of the visitation. They seem to have been gone over with even more than customary deliberation and we chance to learn that, in 1762, Calderon was charged with improper conduct of the cases of Bartolomé Cortez de Umansoro and Andrés de Muguruza. In 1763 the Suprema adopted the expedient of sending to the Viceroy Armat y Yuniant blank commissions by which to appoint two competent ecclesiastics who with Amusquíbar should form the court to try the charges. The instructions reached Lima in 1764, by which time both Calderon and Amusquíbar had passed away and thus, some twenty years after its inception, the visitation died a natural death, every one concerned in it having passed to a higher jurisdiction.[655]

A paralysis had fallen on the tribunal and from this time its functions almost ceased, although its organization was kept complete and its pay-roll suffered no diminution. One of its last autos was held in 1773, in which only eight penitents appeared. Possibly this torpidity only rendered its official positions more attractive, for they came to be a matter of almost open bargain and sale. In 1789, Cristóbal de Cos, chief clerk in the secretariat of the Suprema, commenced to traffic in them through his agent, Fernando Piélago, one of the secretaries of the Lima tribunal. To save the expense of transportation, the Suprema had for some time adopted the practice of appointing natives or residents of Peru, which may have given rise to the sale of offices or may, perhaps, only have rendered it notorious, for Cos could not have transacted the business without the connivance and participation of his superiors. Piélago himself had paid three thousand pesos for his position, and Manuel de Vado Calderon the same, for the office of secretary of sequestrations. Narciso de Aragon gave six hundred for a minor position and three cases are mentioned in which sums were paid for jubilation, or retirement on half-pay, with the privilege of appointing a successor. The culmination was reached in the career of Pedro Zalduegui, who commenced as sweeper and sacristan of the chapel of the tribunal. He was wholly illiterate, but he was a shrewd trader and he paid the capellan mayor of the tribunal a thousand pesos to surrender his place to him. Finally, through Piélago and Cos, he bought the position of inquisitor for the sum of fourteen thousand ducats; there was little concealment in the transaction and the scandal was great. The Suprema was obliged to order an investigation which it confided to the Inquisitors Abarca and Matienzo. In a letter of November 8, 1794, they confirmed the reports as to the sale of offices and the incompetence of those who bought them. Against this Zalduegui, in 1796, defended himself, by asserting that the trouble arose from his refusal to join with his colleagues in their mismanagement of the affairs of the tribunal for their private interests. At length he manifested his gross ignorance in a controversy with Bartolomé Guerrero on the intricate question of sanctifying grace; they obliged him to define his position and, on the strength of the doctrinal error involved, they prosecuted him and suspended him from office. That the Suprema restored him is fairly suggestive of another payment and he retained his office till the last.[656]

* * * * *

Inquisitors of the character thus indicated, owning no superior save the distant inquisitor-general and Suprema, armed with the terrible power of excommunication which none but themselves could remove, judging all and judged by none, could not fail to be a disturbing element in the colonial administration. They were at the head of a body of officials and familiars, scattered over the land, who enjoyed exemption from all other jurisdiction, secular and ecclesiastical, and who were sure, whatever crimes they might commit, to find protection and mercy in the tribunal. Even their servants and slaves had the benefit of this _fuero_ and formed a peculiarly obnoxious class in the community. The maintenance and extension of these privileges involved the tribunal in constant strife with the authorities, lay and spiritual, quarrels which were carried on with a violence frequently destructive to the public peace. The governmental officials, however high-placed, who sought to curb inquisitorial arrogance, could have slender hope of support from their royal master. As we have seen in the chapter on Mexico, there was preserved in the Madrid archives the formula of a letter addressed to viceroys, insisting on their subservience to the Inquisition. This in 1603 was duly sent to the Marquis of Monterey, Viceroy of Peru.[657] How often this was repeated it would be impossible to say, but in 1655, at least, it was sent to the Count of Alba by Philip IV, as a warning in consequence of some squabbles in which he came to be involved with the tribunal.[658] When the colonial Inquisitions were founded, Philip II, by a cédula of August 16, 1570, took the inquisitors and all the officials under the royal protection and decreed that any one, no matter of what rank, who disturbed or injured them should incur the penalty of violating the safeguard, and this was repeated by Philip III in 1610.[659]

Francisco de Toledo, the first viceroy who had to deal with the Inquisition, was a man of decided character who, by holding the purse-strings, managed to keep within bounds Cerezuela, who was of a yielding disposition. There was dissension however, for which Alonso de Arceo, canon of la Plata, decried him as a heretic and a forger, whom the tribunal dared not accuse, but when Toledo asked it to prosecute him, it evaded the request.[660] The next viceroy, the Count del Villar, was weaker, while Ulloa, as we have seen, enforced the prerogatives of the Holy Office with a masterful hand. The quarrels which arose were long and intricate and were conducted in a way to abase thoroughly the vice-regal authority. We have seen that Villar banished Catalina Morejon to put an end to the scandal of her relations with Inquisitor Ulloa; this may have been either the cause or a result of the ill-feeling between them, but motives for dissension could not be lacking, when the domineering spirit of the tribunal refused obedience to all constituted authority, and could always frame some excuse for asserting its superior jurisdiction.

May 30, 1587, the English made a descent on Payta, where they burnt some churches and convents and desecrated some images. They had been piloted into the port by Gerónimo de Rivas, an inhabitant of Payta, whom they had captured at sea and who remained after their departure. The deputy corregidor naturally arrested him and Villar ordered him to be sent by land to Lima for examination. In some way the inquisitorial commissioner, the Mercenarian Fray Pedro Martínez, was interested in him and to save him claimed and obtained him from the corregidor as a fautor of heretics, justiciable by the Inquisition. He was forwarded by sea to Lima and was withheld from the viceroy. In August Fray Martínez came to Lima to attend a chapter of his Order, which made him comendador of his ruined convent so that he could rebuild it. Villar, who felt much aggrieved, forbade the Provincial, Fray Thomas de Valdez, to issue the commission, but the tribunal interposed and by threats of excommunication compelled its delivery. Soon after this, at the auto of November 30, 1587, there arose a quarrel, probably about the distribution of seats, which resulted in the excommunication of the viceroy, who was compelled to seek absolution.

Villar sustained an even more humiliating defeat in another encounter which exhibits the elasticity of inquisitorial jurisdiction. A young man named Antonio de Arpide y Ulloa (possibly of kin to Inquisitor Ulloa) came to Lima, with orders to admit him to a “lance” in the lancers of the guard, which was accordingly done. Ulloa appointed him fiscal of the tribunal, although, according to the Visitador Prado, he was naturally ill-conditioned, a youth in all things, careless in his office, and it was a scandal to see a fiscal wearing the garments of a layman. Villar thereupon discharged him from the guard, replacing him with Don Luis de Nevares, for the sufficient reason that the two positions were incompatible and that no one could enjoy two salaries. Arpide petitioned the tribunal for relief; as its official he was entitled to its fuero and the viceroy had no authority over him. The tribunal confirmed this view; the viceroy had no right to dismiss him, and it ordered, under a penalty of a thousand pesos, the officers of the guard to strike from the rolls the name of Nevares and replace that of Arpide, to whom the salary must be paid. The officers represented that they were under the viceroy’s orders, when they were told that they had thus incurred excommunication and the penalty. The affair was put into the shape of a suit between Arpide and Nevares, in which the tribunal of course gave a decision in favor of the former and, when the latter appealed the Suprema, it refused to allow the appeal.

There was another source of trouble in the case of Dr. Salinas, a man of evil reputation, who was appointed advocate of prisoners. Previous to this appointment he had uttered disparaging remarks about the viceroy, and had a quarrel with his secretary Juan Bello. Villar procured the assent of Ruiz de Prado and arrested Salinas, prosecuted him and subjected him to severe torture in the course of the trial. Then the tribunal interfered and Villar surrendered him and all the papers. This did not satisfy Ulloa and Prado, who forgot their mutual strife and united to give the viceroy a final blow, as his five years’ term of service was drawing to an end. Formal proceedings were commenced against him. September 26, 1589, Arpide as fiscal presented his _clamosa_ or indictment, representing that Villar had always been disaffected to the Inquisition, had talked against it, had impeded it and had diminished its authority as far as he could. In the case of his secretary, Juan Bello, he had sent a threatening message; at the auto of November 30, 1587, he had invented means to deprive it of the services of its officials; as soon as Dr. Salinas received an appointment, he had prosecuted him for trifling words uttered long before; in the case of Gabriel Martínez de Esquivel, familiar in Huanuco, he had ordered him to report forthwith in Spain to the Council of Indies and, when asked by the tribunal for his reasons, he had made an offensive reply; he had even made investigations against the persons and reputations of the inquisitors themselves. From all this, which was notorious, it followed that he had incurred the pains and censures provided by the bull _Si de protegendis_ of Pius V (April 1, 1569), against all who offend or despise the officials of the Inquisition, wherefore the tribunal was asked to declare him to have incurred these censures, notwithstanding any absolution _ad cautelam_ which he might have obtained, so that he might serve as an example to all Christian people of their obligation to respect and reverence everything connected with the Holy Office.

Without going through the prescribed formalities of submitting the matter to calificadores and assembling consultores and, without hearing the accused, the tribunal that same morning decreed that Villar had incurred the censures of the bull of Pius V, while for the other penalties prescribed in it he was remitted to the Suprema. To this the viceroy replied, October 3d, that he had only sought to perform the duties of his office, but seeing that they had declared him to be under the excommunication of the bull, as an obedient son of the Church he begged for absolution and asked that it be speedy, as he was under orders to sail for Spain. For an answer to this he waited until the 16th, when he sent a judge and alcalde de corte, both consultors of the Inquisition, to the tribunal to enquire about his petition. There was read to them a reply, dated on the 14th, to the effect that the inquisitors had repeatedly intimated to him that he had incurred these censures and, in fact, it was so self-evident that every one could have known it, for every one knows that all incur them who impede the Inquisition directly or indirectly, or who ill-treat, in word or deed, the inquisitors or officials to the injury of their reputation and authority, and that good intentions are powerless to avert it. The viceroy’s acts had been so notorious that it was needless to recite them and, before absolution could be granted, condign satisfaction must be rendered for them, especially to Dr. Diego de Salinas, while, as regarded the injuries to the Holy Office, he was referred to the Suprema. As it had long been evident that he was under these censures, without seeking their removal, and as he was about to undertake a long and perilous voyage, the inquisitors had been moved by loving charity to bring him to a recognition of the condition of his soul. They were ready to absolve him as soon as he should do what was requisite and, in consideration of his station, he should be spared the solemnities required by law.

After some parleying this portentous document was delivered to Villar on the 19th and on the 27th he replied at much length. He had never been told that he was under excommunication, or he would at once have applied for absolution. He had always favored and enriched the Inquisition; he had not proceeded against Dr. Salinas till assured by Prado that he could do so, and he had surrendered him and the papers, January 11, 1589, as soon as he was summoned. Then Prado, after consulting Ulloa, had given to Fray Pedro de Molina a commission to absolve him _ad cautelam_, in case he had incurred excommunication for that or anything else, and he had received the absolution with great satisfaction, but the certificate had been withdrawn more than a month ago, and since then he had abstained from hearing mass or taking the sacraments, except on the feast of San Francisco (October 4th) when he had special licence from the inquisitors. He did not know how he was to give satisfaction to Dr. Salinas, as the matter had been remitted to the Suprema which, with the king, would do as they might see fit. Meanwhile, as a gentleman and an humble and obedient son of the Church, he again prayed for absolution.

The victory of the tribunal and the humiliation of the viceroy were complete. When the inquisitors read his petition, October 27th, they issued to Antonio de Balcázar, provisor of the archdiocese, a commission to absolve him, at the same time admonishing him to present himself to the Suprema as early as possible. They also gave him the papers of the suit brought against him by Dr. Salinas, in order to enable him to make his defence before the Suprema. Villar received the absolution with much humility and satisfaction, as a great favor from the inquisitors, and on the 28th the provisor was summoned, who solemnly absolved him in the chapel of the palace.[661]

Yet Villar was so little reassured that, on his voyage home, he wrote from Havana to implore the protection of the king from the enmity of Salinas. He rehearsed the services of his ancestors to the monarchy, while of his children five sons had been killed and one crippled in the king’s wars with heretics and infidels, two more were then serving and two were in training for service, while two had died in the priesthood. His fears were probably groundless for the Suprema, in a letter to Prado, blamed him for the dissensions in the tribunal which it attributed to his favor for Salinas, a man of such evil life and tortuous methods that he alone would throw any republic into discord. Apparently it did not as yet know that the secret of the influence of Salinas was the relations of his sister-in-law with Prado, a scandal which continued until Prado’s recall.[662]

It has seemed worth while to give somewhat in detail the particulars of this obscure quarrel to illustrate the position adopted by the tribunal towards the highest authorities, its arrogant assumption of superiority, and the readiness with which its jurisdiction could be extended in any desired direction. It can easily be perceived how difficult was the task of the viceroys to maintain an efficient government, and to keep the peace with so independent and so unruly a factor in the land. But few of them escaped collisions, although it does not appear that in any subsequent case the quarrel went so far as the institution of a formal prosecution against the personal representative of the king. It is not surprising therefore that, however pious were the viceroys, they were almost unanimous in deprecating the acts and the influence of the Holy Office. The Count del Villar naturally exhaled his woes in long and lugubrious epistles to the king. His successor, the Count of Cañete, as early in his term as 1589, complained bitterly of the exemptions through which all connected with the Holy Office admitted responsibility to no one. This gave rise to endless trouble, for every one who was summoned to have his accounts examined, or who refused to pay his dues to the royal treasury, procured a familiarship or some office and with it secured exemption. Even Alvaro Ruiz de Navamuel, the government secretary, had himself made a familiar and auditor, and assumed that he was not subject to investigation. The royal officials were familiars-one of them at Arequipa, when called upon for his accounts, refused because he was a familiar.[663] Government conducted after this fashion seems like _opéra bouffe_.

In like manner the Viceroy Luis de Velasco, in 1604, represented strongly to Philip III the intrusion of the tribunal on other jurisdictions and its overbearing methods, so that the superior royal officials, on whom rested the peace and quiet of the land, had to abandon their rights to avoid scandals. As for himself, sometimes he temporized, sometimes he yielded, and sometimes he pretended not to see, in order to avoid dissension, for, when the tribunal was opposed, it made public demonstrations, which degraded the authority of the vice-regal office and of the Royal Audiencia. So, in 1609, the Viceroy Marquis of Montesclaros, in representing some scandalous ill-treatment of the alcaldes of the city, declared that the inquisitors were arbitrary and assumed that there was no power superior to them to restrain or even to resist them.[664] It was probably representations such as these which led to the concordias of 1610 and 1633. In these some of the more flagrant usurpations of authority were forbidden, but the underlying principles were unchanged and we have seen how, in Mexico, the attempted reform was frustrated.

The Viceroy Count of Alba de Aliste was involved in many encounters with the tribunal, for which, as noted above, in 1655, Philip IV sent him a copy of the circular letter of 1603 commanding respect and obedience. This did not prevent him, in 1657, from writing that the reiteration and multiplication of its excesses of jurisdiction might render it necessary for him to break with it altogether, as the only way of maintaining the authority of the Government.[665] With the advent of the Bourbon dynasty, the consequent infusion of Gallicanism in Spain, and the resolute assertion of the regalías, the authority of the viceroys was more fully recognized, and we hear less, in the eighteenth century, of their struggles to maintain it against the tribunal. Yet the latter did not cease to assert the superiority of its jurisdiction and to extend it as far as possible, giving rise to a perpetual succession of embittered contests with the other judicial organizations, to the detriment of the public peace and the weakening of the functions of government. Even after its decadence had fairly set in, as late as 1773, the Viceroy Manuel Amat y Yunient writes that the Inquisition, so necessary for the purity of the faith, would be more useful and respected if it would confine itself to its proper functions, for its cognizance of civil cases has always led to collisions with the royal courts, which are particularly prejudicial at this distance from the king and, though there have been concordias and royal cédulas to prevent them, there are never lacking occasions to revive the contention to the great disquiet of the people.[666]

The eighteenth century, in fact, presents an almost continuous series of quarrels with all the different jurisdictions, the existence of which so greatly weakened the organization of the Spanish colonial system, and these quarrels were fought out with a persistent bitterness, sometimes degenerating into violence, which taxed to the utmost the efforts of the viceroys as peacemakers. Into the trivial details of these dreary conflicts it is not worth while to enter at length, but a single case may be briefly described, to illustrate the ferocity displayed by all parties and the confusion arising from the complexity of the multiplied judicial systems which influenced Spanish development so unfortunately.

On November 11, 1723, two brothers, the Licentiates Juan and Martin Lobaton, presented themselves before the tribunal to claim its protection. Juan was cura or parish priest of Soras and commissioner of the Inquisition in Guancabelica; Martin was cura of Viñao and “persona honesta” or cleric called in to be present when witnesses ratified their evidence. Both parishes were in the see of Guamanga, then _sede vacante_ and governed by the chapter, which had required Juan to account for the property of an Indian woman, a parishioner who had died some two years previous, and it had ordered him not to leave Guamanga, under penalty of excommunication, whereupon he had promptly fled to Lima. In his case, the fiscal reported that the matter did not concern the Inquisition and the papers were returned to the episcopal Ordinary. Martin had assisted his brother’s flight and for this he was confined to his house by the episcopal authorities and a coadjutor appointed, to the great scandal and destruction, we are told, of the parish. In this case the tribunal assumed jurisdiction; it ordered him, June 2, 1724, to be restored and his property released, on his giving security, and the chapter was ordered to prosecute before the Inquisition whatever charges it had to bring against him.

Martin meanwhile had the town of Guamanga as a prison. On the afternoon of April 30th, as he was standing in the street, the dean of the chapter, who was also commissioner of the Inquisition, passed in his carriage, then got out and scolded him roundly for not taking off his hat. Martin withdrew, but the dean, still unsatisfied, went to his house with the alcalde, broke open the door and embargoed all his goods--even to his clothes and breviary--then summoned the chapter and by 5 o’clock had him excommunicated and fined twenty pesos, as the papers stated, for not removing his hat to the dean an hour before, and notices of the excommunication were duly affixed to the doors of the churches.

When the inquisitorial sentence of June 2d was served upon the chapter it said that it had nothing against Martin, but when his embargoed property came to be restored much of it was found to have been stolen by the depositaries to whom it had been confided. The tribunal held the chapter responsible and ordered the loss to be made good, under threat of excommunication. The chapter replied, September 29th, that the case belonged to the bishop and chapter and its previous surrender of the papers had been without prejudice. Then Fray Luis de Cabrera, prior of the Augustinian convent, to whom the sentence had been sent as executor, excommunicated the chapter. The archdeacon as Commissioner of the Cruzada, declared the excommunication void, ordered the notices to be removed, and replaced them with others excommunicating Cabrera as a disturber of the Bull of the Cruzada. Cabrera responded by excommunicating the alguazil and notary of the Cruzada and, on October 2d, the archdeacon pronounced these excommunications to be null.

When the tribunal heard of this, by orders of October 18th and 27th it declared the excommunications on both sides to be null; it put the matter of the chapter in the hands of Luis de Mendoza, rector of the Jesuit college, and it ordered Cabrera to push the restitution of Martin’s property, but not to employ censures without instructions. This was the situation when the new bishop, Alfonso Roldan, arrived at Lima and, on its being stated to him, he expressed himself as satisfied. Then Martin came before the tribunal asserting that one of the depositaries, Juan Joseph Lasco, who had stolen most of the goods, had pawned some silverware of his with a merchant named Joseph de Villanueva, and asking their restoration on his proving property. Consequently on March 14, 1725, orders were sent to Cabrera that, if the silver were proved to be Martin’s, it should be deposited in safe hands. This was done on April 5th, when Villanueva deposed that Lasco had pawned with him ninety-three marks of silver plate. He was ordered to deposit it and promised to do so but, on the 7th, he testified that the day before the bishop had ordered him not to surrender the silver but to tell Cabrera to throw up the commission of the Inquisition and any other that he might hold. This was followed by the archdeacon notifying Martin to go to his parish in sixteen hours and, on his representing the impossibility of this, as he had been a prisoner for a year and was deprived of his property, he was posted as an excommunicate. After considerable delay he was absolved and was told to stay in the city, but on falling sick and unable to assist in the church, he was excommunicated again and recluded in his house.

All this is a one-sided relation, furnished by the tribunal to the Suprema. It evidently omits much that would show the tribunal in a less favorable light, as the outcome indicates, for in it there is nothing to justify the intervention of the viceroy and Audiencia. Yet we learn from another source that Cabrera had arbitrarily excommunicated and fined the alcalde of Guamanga who complained to the Audiencia, and on October 30, 1724, the viceroy notified the tribunal that the Audiencia, after considering the evidence, had resolved that the Inquisition should restrain its officials. A correspondence ensued, continued until the summer of 1725, in which the tribunal complained that the viceroy and Audiencia were assuming to be the superiors of the Inquisition, in violation of the laws and the royal cédulas. The affair finally took the shape of a competencia referred for settlement to the Suprema and the Council of Indies. The Suprema took high ground; it alone could review the acts of the tribunal or entertain appeals, and no other authority had power to intervene. This might have answered under Philip IV, but times had changed. A decree of Philip V, February 1, 1729, ordered it to correct the excesses of the tribunal by such means as it deemed requisite, and to this it replied, April 16th, that it had revoked the acts of the tribunal in the affair of Martin Lobaton, ordering the surrender of all papers to the Ordinary and judge of Cruzada before whom he must plead; that it had entirely disapproved the proceedings of the tribunal and that it had instructed the inquisitors hereafter to observe the provisions of the law.[667]

The Cruzada jurisdiction which emerges in this case was another of the subdivisions of judicial authority, which so fatally complicated the administration of justice in the Spanish dominions and furnished an abundant source of quarrels. The indulgence known as the Santa Cruzada supplied a large revenue to the crown and the organization for its sale was elaborate. At its head was a chief commissioner who held exclusive jurisdiction, civil and criminal, over his subordinates and, although this was by law confined to their official acts, yet it was, as we have just seen, extended to protect them in every way.[668] While the case just mentioned was in progress, another prolonged quarrel arose, similarly involving all three jurisdictions. Don Antonio de Marcategui, the priest of Quiquixana, was also a commissioner of the Inquisition. As such he was already engaged in a contest with the episcopal provisor of Cuzco, in which the Suprema decided against him and ordered all his acts to be revoked. While this was pending he celebrated mass in the chapter’s chapel of the Virgin, on a feast-day, without first settling with the Cruzada for the indulgences gained there by the worshippers under some old concessions. For this Don Juan de Ugarte, commissioner of the Cruzada in Cuzco, on January 8, 1724, notified him that he was fined in three hundred pesos, and also excommunicated him without trial. Marcategui went to Cuzco and laid the matter before Bishop Arregui, who sided with Ugarte. After some further trouble the corregidor was sent to arrest him and sequestrate his property; he gathered together some Indians and Spaniards for resistance but thought better of it and escaped to Lima when, on appealing to the Inquisition, it declared all the proceedings to be invalid and ordered the surrender to it of all the papers. The bishop however sent his papers to the viceroy and Ugarte his to the Cruzada tribunal of Lima. The inquisitors demanded the former from the viceroy and asked him to compel the Cruzada to surrender the latter, but the viceroy refused, alleging that what he held concerned the royal _patronato_ and that he had no control over the Cruzada, whose jurisdiction was ecclesiastical, exempt and privileged. To a second demand, he expressed the wise determination not to get entangled in ecclesiastical matters and jurisdictions, and he further claimed cognizance of the case of the corregidor, whom the Inquisition was prosecuting for sequestrating Marcategui’s property and attempting his arrest. He stubbornly rejected repeated requests and he finally ordered the tribunal to suspend its summons to Ugarte to appear before it. The case was carried to Spain to vex the souls of the Suprema, the Council of Indies and the Commissioner of the Cruzada. In 1729 the king decided against the Inquisition and ordered the case to be surrendered to the Cruzada and the episcopal court, but it still dragged on and, in 1733, a royal decree ordered the Inquisition to obey the Concordias and the laws, but even this was not the end, how it was finally settled matters little; its only interest lies in illustrating the hopelessly impracticable character of Spanish colonial organization and administration.[669]

These defeats of the Inquisition were followed soon afterwards by a still greater invasion of the privileges of the inquisitorial employees. A citizen of Lima pursued a slave into the house of a salaried official, whereupon the tribunal forthwith ordered his arrest. The royal Audiencia intervened, representing to the viceroy, the Marquis of Castel-Fuerte, that the officials enjoyed only the passive and not the active fuero; that the pretensions of the Inquisition, if admitted, would destroy the royal jurisdiction, and that an order should be issued requiring the aggrieved party to plead in the Audiencia. This opinion the viceroy sent to the tribunal with a request that it should abstain. It replied that the official had withdrawn his complaint on account of the apologies made to him, but that the tribunal could not assent to the position of the Audiencia without committing the grave fault of crippling its powers. A considerable correspondence ensued in which the Audiencia asserted decisively that, in matters not connected with faith, the officials of the Inquisition did not enjoy the fuero and much less the active fuero; that there were no laws or customs to contravene the settled principle that the plaintiff or prosecutor must seek the court of the defendant. To this the tribunal replied that the Audiencia had no authority to frame general rules in contravention of laws and customs, and that the matter must be settled by the Suprema. Castel-Fuerte rejoined that the competence of the royal court was not to be impugned, that the Suprema had cognizance only of matters of faith and that to admit the contrary was to place the whole administration of justice at the mercy of the tribunal.[670]

These were brave words which a century earlier would have consigned the utterer to disgrace. They were the denial of the privileges and exemptions which the Inquisition had enjoyed for nearly two centuries and a half, and their significance lies in their expression of the tendencies of the period. In time those tendencies brought about their inevitable development. In 1744 there was a contest over the will of D. Felix Antonio de Vargas, in the consulado or commercial court. A secretary of the tribunal claimed to have an interest in the estate, and it consequently asserted jurisdiction over the whole affair. This was resisted by the consulado, and Viceroy Villagarcia ordered a _sala de competencia_ to decide between the conflicting claims, according to established rule. The tribunal refused, on the ground that its rights were too clear to be called in question. While this was pending, Superunda succeeded to Villagarcia and, after no little trouble, he induced the visitador Arenaza to agree to a _sala reflexa_, to determine whether a _sala de competencia_ should be held. Then there came fresh trouble on the side of the senior judge of the Consulado, but finally the decision was reached that the officials of the Inquisition were entitled to the active fuero. When Superunda reported the matter to Fernando VI there resulted the royal cédula of June 20, 1751, declaring that the officials should enjoy only the passive fuero, and this in both civil cases and those criminal ones not excepted by the concordias, while their servants and the familiars were wholly deprived of it. In the case in question, the papers were to be surrendered to the Consulado; in future no sala reflexa was to be held and, when the matter was so clear as in this one, the viceroy should decide it, as the effort was manifestly an assault on the regalías.

By this time Arenaza had departed and the inquisitors were Amusquíbar and Rodríguez. The latter was disposed to accept the royal cédula without dispute, but Amusquíbar refused to obey it on the ground that it had not come with the confirmation of the Suprema. A long wrangle ensued, but at length another cédula of February 29, 1760, was received, ordering the observance of the previous one, and this time it was accompanied by a corresponding decree of the Suprema. These were communicated to the tribunal, March 24, 1761, which, seeing that further resistance was useless, promptly promised obedience. This was followed by a demand for the papers of the estate of Vargas, which, after an interval of seventeen years, was at length placed in train for adjudication.[671]

This settled the question as to the civil jurisdiction of the tribunal and simultaneously another case put an end to conflicts over criminal matters. A negro slave of the alguazil mayor had been arrested for some offence; the tribunal demanded the prisoner with its customary threats of fines and excommunications. The affair was pending when the cédula of 1760 was received; the Audiencia thereupon served on the tribunal an inhibition to issue letters of excommunication and fine against the alcaldes del crimen and proceeded to try the slave. The cédula was sent to all the judicial officers of the vice-royalty and they were ordered to defend the royal jurisdiction in all cases covered by it. To the arrogant temper of Amusquíbar this limitation of the traditional jurisdiction of the Inquisition must have been gall and wormwood, but it was worth much to the peace of the land. In 1796, the Viceroy, Frey Francisco Gil de Taboado y Lemos, tells us that it had put an end to the former conflicts between the jurisdictions.[672]

We have seen how neglectful was Amusquíbar of the real duties of his office, but he found time and energy to keep Barroeta y Angel, the Archbishop of Lima, in a condition of exasperation for years, and in this he seems to have had the support not only of the Suprema but of Fernando VI. What was the origin of the dissension between them does not appear, but Barroeta lost no opportunity of exercising his authority for Amusquíbar’s annoyance and always to his own discomfiture. The rupture must already have been pronounced when, October 4, 1752, Barroeta wrote calling his attention to the fact that his licence as confessor had not been renewed, while in spite of this he continued his visits to the nunneries of the Recollects, which was unfitting his position and was prohibited; his ceasing these visits would relieve the Archbishop from further proceedings. This sharp provocation was disarmed by cool insolence. Amusquíbar delayed a reply until November 14th, when he simply said that he had postponed acknowledging the note in order to be temperate, and he now omitted answering it in order not to fail in the respect due to his own office and the dignity of the archbishop. Barroeta transmitted the correspondence to the Suprema for redress and obtained none. Amusquíbar, however, ceased his visits but kept up a correspondence. So it was, in 1756, when Barroeta called upon Amusquíbar and Rodríguez for a statement of settlements with creditors and sales of farms belonging to chaplaincies, in order that he might see that the souls of the founders were reaping the benefits designed in the foundations. The inquisitors replied that it was impossible and, on his asking why, replied that it was on account of the mode of his demand; the archbishop could send his fiscal and any special question about any special foundation would be answered. Again he forwarded the letters to the Suprema but its only action was to file them away. He had equal ill-luck in all the questions that he raised. In 1751 the Suprema sent to Amusquíbar its approval and that of the king, as to his conduct in an encounter with Barroeta over jubilee faculties for absolving for heresy. Then Barroeta claimed that the inquisitors should submit to him their licences to celebrate and hear confessions, but the king decided against him. Barroeta transferred the delegation of his inquisitorial jurisdiction from his Ordinary to another person; the tribunal disputed it and the king decided in its favor. He undertook to deprive the inquisitors of their faculties as confessors, and only provoked fresh rebukes from Spain. He issued an edict on fasting which the tribunal prohibited; then he printed it at the end of his Synodal Constitutions only to have the prohibition confirmed and the decision approved by the Suprema. There was a question about the notary of the episcopal court going to the tribunal to report certain acts, in which the Suprema sustained its action, and the visits of ceremony between them was a fruitful source of controversy.[673] Barroeta died, December 10, 1757, his whole episcopate marred with these little squabbles. It is all very petty, but it illustrates how the relations of the Inquisition with the spiritual authorities were as unfriendly as with the temporal.

* * * * *

Thus far we have considered the activity of the tribunal in matters foreign to its original purpose, which, indeed, were the most important portion of its record. As regards its proper function, that of maintaining the purity of the faith, its chief business in Peru, as in Spain, was with a class of cases which could only by forced construction be considered as heretical. Bigamists furnished a large proportion of penitents--the adventurer who left a wife in Andalusian Córdoba was apt to take a new one in Córdova de Tucuman and chance might at any time bring detection, while, even in Peru itself, distances were so great and intercommunication so difficult, that the seeker after fortune was easily tempted in his wanderings to duplicate the sacrament of matrimony. Blasphemy was another prolific source of prosecution, for the gambling habit was universal and lost none of its provocative character in crossing the ocean. Sorcery moreover, including the innumerable superstitions for creating love or hatred, curing or causing disease, bringing fortune or averting misfortune, and foretelling the future, which were technically held to include implicit or explicit pact with the demon, brought an ample store of culprits before the tribunal. To the mass of superstitious beliefs carried from home by the Spaniards were speedily superadded those of the native wise-women and a sprinkling taught by Guinea negro slaves. We find but few whites among these offenders, but every other caste is represented--negro, mulatto, quadroon, mestizo and sambo and sometimes Indian, for in this crime the jurisdiction of the Inquisition over the Indians seems to have been admitted. One feature of Indian sorcery which constantly meets us is the use of the drug coca, owing to the marvellous properties attributed to it, akin to the _peyote_ which, in Mexico, was employed to produce fatidical dreams and revelations. Both of these were strictly prohibited by the respective Inquisitions.[674]

No specific cases of witchcraft occur in the autos de fe, but, in 1629, a special Edict of Faith directed against the occult arts and sorcery was published, enumerating all the forbidden practices in minute detail and forming a curious body of superstitions and folk-lore, much more extensive than anything of the kind issued in Spain. It brought in, we are told, numerous denunciations, but the practices were ineradicable and continued to flourish until the end. The virtual paralysis of the tribunal in the later years of Amusquíbar caused many complaints, among which was one from Córdova de Tucuman to the Suprema, representing that, in the interior provinces, sorcery was universal; there was no case of sickness that was not attributed to it, but denunciations and testimony sent to the tribunal received no attention and, as the civil magistrates were precluded from acting, it flourished unrepressed.[675]

Propositions, which furnished so large a portion of the work of the Spanish tribunals, afforded a much smaller percentage in Peru. This is probably attributable to lack of intellectual activity, for some of the cases tried indicate that the susceptibility of the Inquisition was as delicate as in Spain, and that there was the same readiness to denounce any careless speech or ill-sounding remark uttered in vexation or anger. Thus, in 1592, Felipe de Lujan was tried because, when looking at a picture of the Last Judgement, he said it was not well painted, for Christ was not with the Apostles. Juan de Arianza had the indelible disgrace of appearing in the auto of February 27, 1631, because, when reading the Scriptures, he exclaimed “Ea! there is nothing but living and dying,” which sounded ill to those who heard it. A case, which came near to ending in tragedy, was that of Antonio de Campos who, for uttering certain heretical propositions and adhering to them pertinaciously, was condemned to relaxation. Fortunately for him the expense of a public auto was too great to be incurred for him and the Suprema was consulted, in 1672. During the delay thus caused it was found that his real name was Fray Teodoro de Ribera and that his brain had been turned by a potion given to him by a woman. This afforded a solution and he was handed over as insane to his Provincial. A case in 1721 is noteworthy as illustrating the dangers which environed all speculations connected with the Church. A Frenchman, known as Juan de Ullos, was denounced for saying that neither the pope nor a general council was the head of the Church. In due course this proposition was submitted to two calificadores, Padre Luis de Andrade, S. J., and the Mercenarian Fray Francisco Galiano. It was probably through some vague reference to Gallicanism that they reported that the qualification was difficult because the accused was a Frenchman, and for this they were imprisoned, with sequestration of their property.[676]

As we have already seen in Mexico (p. 241), one of the most frequent offences, not strictly heretical, with which the Inquisition had to deal, was that of so-called solicitation--the seduction of women by priests in the confessional, but as these offenders never appear in the relations of the autos, they are only to be gathered from more or less imperfect records. Prior to 1578 there had been various cases, about one of which, that of Antonio Hernández de Villaroel, the tribunal reported that it could not diminish the penalty of perpetual deprivation of confessing women, because this had been ordered by the Suprema in the case of Rodrigo de Arcos, and this was construed as a general law. If so, it was not long in force for, about 1580, we find Juan de Alarcon deprived for only three years. In a collection of cases between 1578 and 1581 there are seven of solicitation and between 1581 and 1585 there are eight. Thus they are constantly appearing and, in 1595, we are told that there were twenty-four priests in prison awaiting sentence, one of whom, Juan de Figueroa, was testified against by forty-three women. In 1597 seven priests were prosecuted from the province of Tucuman alone, where, among the Indian converts, few confessors seem to have had scruples.[677]

In view of the heinousness of the offence the treatment of culprits in Spain was remarkably lenient, but this was surpassed by the tenderness shown to them in Peru. Another fraile from Tucuman, the Dominican Francisco Vázquez, was sentenced, in 1599, for this and for twenty-four scandalous propositions, but for this cumulation of offences he escaped with deprivation of confessing women and reclusion for a year in a convent. At the same time the Franciscan Bartolomé de la Cruz, Guardian of the convent at Santiago de Estero, against whom fifteen women testified, was deprived of confessing and had some spiritual penances. Fray Andrés Corral, Guardian of the convent at las Juntas, testified against by twenty-eight women, had aggravated the offence by committing rape in the church and for this he was banished from Tucuman and subjected to a discipline. On the other hand Rodrigo Ortiz Melgarejo, the only priest in Asuncion, denounced himself to the commissioner in 1594, to the delegate in Asuncion and to the tribunal in 1596, for guilt with seven women. He was obliged to go to Lima, where he presented himself in 1600. He was regarded as excessively scrupulous, he had performed a journey of over a thousand miles and this seems to have been thought an ample punishment. The fact that there was no evidence against him shows that the commissioner and his delegate regarded the matter as too trivial to gather testimony about it.[678]

In some of these cases the customary reading of the sentences before colleagues of the culprits was omitted because, as the tribunal explained, there were so many of them of various Orders that the omission seemed best to spare the honor of the religious bodies; the character of the Indian female witnesses was doubtful, but experience showed that they spoke truth, for most of the accused confessed and this was confirmed by the evil lives and example of all the frailes summoned from Tucuman. This had led the tribunal to deprive them perpetually of confessing women, even when the witnesses were Indians and few in number, especially as all those priests and frailes were very ignorant and profligate.[679]

Inquisitor Ordóñez, as we have seen, was not especially sensitive or straight-laced, but he felt compelled, in a letter of April 20, 1599, to call the attention of the Suprema to the frequency of solicitation, especially in Tucuman, where, as he said, it appeared that there was scarce a priest not guilty of it, and the worst feature was that some of them told the Indian women that the sin was no sin when committed with them, and it was consummated in the churches. He therefore asked authority to increase the punishment indicated in the Instructions and the Suprema accordingly gave permission to add service in the galleys--a permission, however, of which the tribunal seems never to have availed itself. So far from there being an improvement, the tribunal was led to issue, in 1630, a special edict to the effect that, notwithstanding the clauses in the annual Edict of Faith, the crime continued to prevail; that confessors ignored that it was strictly reserved to the Inquisition, and absolved the guilty as well as the penitents, without requiring the latter to denounce their seducers as prescribed by the papal decrees; further, that learned persons when consulted furnished opinions that these cases did not come within inquisitorial jurisdiction; wherefore all persons were required, within six days after notice, to denounce these offenders under pain of excommunication _latæ sententiæ_.[680]

It was all in vain and solicitation continued until the end to furnish a notable portion of the dwindling business of the tribunal. As late as 1806 the fiscal Sobrino reported to the Suprema that the worst criminals were to be found in the vice-royalty of Buenos Ayres, which was hastening to its ruin, especially through irreligious propositions and solicitation. Possibly wholesome severity might have placed some check on the persistency of the crime, but the same inexplicable tenderness continued to be shown to culprits. In 1737, Pedro de Zubieta, canon of Lima, denounced himself for soliciting Doña Lorenza de Fuentes, a nun in the convent of la Concepcion--a confession which she confirmed to some extent. Then Sor Eugenia Evangelista, of the convent del Prado, denounced him with details of the filthiest and most corrupting talk. As, however, he was a person of consideration, the tribunal, before taking action, consulted the Suprema, with the result that, in 1743, he was merely reprimanded and advised to give up hearing confessions. Almost equal leniency was shown, in 1793, to the priest Fermin de Aguirre, whose sentence was read in the presence of twelve priests, when he abjured _de levi_ and had some spiritual penances.[681]

* * * * *

More nearly akin to the real business of the Inquisition was its dealing with the class known as _beatas revelanderas_--women professing a holy life, specially favored by heaven with trances, revelations and visions, and gifted with spiritual attributes and powers. Popular superstition rendered this a profitable trade in Spain, where the Holy Office was perpetually engaged in exposing and punishing their impostures; Peru was equally afflicted; indeed, the boldness and grossness of their demands upon the credulity of the people exceeded even that displayed in the mother country.

Almost the first occupation of the new tribunal was a case of this kind. About 1568, in Lima, a young _endemoniada_, named María Pizarro, had visitations from the angel Gabriel, in which many things were revealed to her, including the Immaculate Conception. She was exorcised by numerous frailes, who accepted these revelations and carried them out to their ultimate conclusions. Conspicuous among these were the Padres Luis López and Gerónimo Ruiz Portillo, two of the three Jesuits selected by S. Francisco de Borja as the first missionaries of the Society sent to Peru, where they were received as angels of light. There were also several Dominicans--Fray Francisco de la Cruz, professor of theology and a man of such high repute that the Archbishop of Lima had proposed him as coadjutor--Fray Pedro de Toro, Fray Alonso Gasco, prior of the convent of Quito, and others of minor importance. Early in 1571 Gasco denounced himself to the Bishop of Quito and surrendered sundry objects which had been blessed by the demon, among them a copy-book of blank paper, two pens and a cloth. The paper had the faculty that whatever was written on it was true, even in doubtful matters, and the cloth was a cure for disease. The bishop sent Gasco to the tribunal, where he was imprisoned, May 8, 1572; the others and María Pizarro were arrested at different times.