A History of the Inquisition of Spain (Vol. 1-4). Henry Charles Lea
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to Sardinia in 1552 and to Navarre in 1558.[1018]
In this, as in so much else, the Catalans were especially intractable. Córtes of the three kingdoms of Aragon were held in 1553, in which Catalonia alone took up the matter and adopted a law, confirmed by Prince Philip, prescribing that no bayle or his lieutenant, or judge, or scrivener could be a familiar, nor could he accept office after his term of service had expired.[1019] This received scant obedience, nor did the Inquisition pay attention to the clause in the pragmática of 1524 depriving it of cognizance of official malfeasance. One of the complaints of the royal Audiencia to de Soto Salazar, in his visitation of the Barcelona tribunal in 1566, was that it assumed jurisdiction in all such cases. Salazar recommended that this should be forbidden, for it impeded the proper administration of the towns, and officials could not be punished for violating local ordinances about bread, vineyards, meadows, breaking irrigating canals to water their lands, and multitudinous other derelictions.[1020]
RIGHT TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE
Catalonia refused to accept the Concordia of 1568 and, in 1585, the Córtes re-enacted the provisions of 1553 in an enlarged form, including almost all offices, and subjecting violation to a penalty of two hundred ducats, which was confirmed by Philip II.[1021] This seems to have been enforced for, in 1586, a memorial from the Bishop of Segovia says that in Catalonia the names of all officials of the Inquisition were removed from the lists of eligibles, that commissioners and familiars were resigning and that every day withdrawals were received from applicants, so that the tribunal would be crippled and the Córtes could have contrived nothing more damaging.[1022] The Catalans held good, despite the earnest efforts of the Holy Office, which declared long afterwards that this was the severest blow that it had ever received. In the Córtes of 1599 the battle was renewed after elaborate preparations by the inquisitors. On June 30th the king presented a series of articles, in response to those submitted to him by the Córtes, and among them was one declaring officials and familiars eligible to all offices, but the Catalans would have none of it. In the elaborate memorial presented to Clement VIII by the Suprema against the work of the Córtes, it complained bitterly of the laws of 1553 and 1585 as diminishing notably the authority of the Inquisition and causing great lack of officials, so many having ignominiously resigned, while others could not be found to replace them.[1023]
Again, when the Córtes were about to assemble in 1626, the Barcelona tribunal implored the Suprema to use its utmost exertions for the repeal of the law of 1585, for no person of consideration would accept office and it was obliged to appoint those of low condition, which was fatal to its authority. The Córtes yielded in so far as to adopt an article throwing open the offices, provided incumbents were justiciable by the civil courts for a long series of offences, but the whole legislation of the Córtes came to naught through lack of the royal confirmation.[1024] When the question was coming up again in the Córtes of 1632, earnest appeals were made to the Suprema to have the obnoxious law of 1585 repealed. The condition of the Inquisition in Catalonia was represented as most deplorable by reason of it. In a memorial to the king it was stated that in Barcelona there were but four or five familiars, and they were mechanics, ineligible to public office; there was not a single advocate of the accused, nor an ecclesiastical consultor, so greedy was every one for public office. Throughout the principality there was the same dearth—familiars only in miserable villages, destitute of tempting positions, and those were of base condition, for in fact the barons would endure none other in their lands. The Suprema was urged to bring the matter before the Rota and it submitted the question to its fiscal, but he wisely reported that, although a favorable result was to be anticipated, yet it was expedient to set the example of recourse to Rome which might result in other matters being carried thither with damage to the jurisdiction of the Holy Office.[1025]
Thus Catalan pertinacity triumphed. When, in 1667, Pedro Momparler, familiar at Alconer, asked permission to resign, in order to accept the office of bayle, and his request was referred to the Suprema, it replied that it should be denied on account of the evil influence of his example, but it added that if he should renounce his familiarship before the royal justice for the term of his office, the inquisitors should pretend ignorance.[1026]
RIGHT TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE
In Majorca, frequent alterations of the law show that it was subject to active debate and that preponderance shifted from one side to the other. In 1637 it was decided that none of those connected with the Inquisition could hold public office; then, in 1643, they were allowed to do so, in positions where they had not to vote or to give counsel; again, in 1660, the prohibition was made absolute; then, in 1662, royal letters of January 11th and March 4th removed the prohibition, provided they would previously renounce all claim to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. These letters afford a remarkable illustration of the vacillation of the monarch and of the extent to which bureaucracy had crippled his autocracy—only this time it was the Council of Aragon which imitated the methods of the Suprema. The latter body was dissatisfied with the arrangement and addressed to the king a consulta, April 5, 1663, asking its suspension and that a junta of the two councils should be called to consider the subject. Philip promptly acceded and, on April 10th, ordered the Council of Aragon to write to that effect to the viceroy. The command was not obeyed and, on September 19th, the Suprema asked him to remedy the omission, whereupon he asked the council to state its reasons and, on its doing so, he again ordered it, October 3d, to execute his decree of April 10th. It was still recalcitrant and, on March 19, 1664, the Suprema represented the delay to the king who the next day called upon the council to render an exact account of what it had done, replied that in conformity with his commands it had written on October 3, 1663, copy of which it enclosed. This proved to be merely copies of the letters of 1662 which had given rise to the debate, showing that it had deliberately nullified his orders. In view of all this the Suprema, July 24, 1664, asked the king to insist on literal compliance and that a copy of the despatch of the Council of Aragon to the viceroy should be furnished to it. This proved to be merely a duplicate of that of October 13, 1663, with the date altered to April 6, 1664. Then the Suprema again asked the king peremptorily to order exact obedience and he replied that he had done so. Meanwhile the Viceroy and the inquisitor of Majorca had been playing at cross-purposes in consequence of the contradictory despatches received by each.[1027] Such a method of carrying on an organized government seems incredible and, trivial as was the question at issue, a case such as this throws light on one of the causes of Spanish decadence. The question itself, after all this trouble, apparently remained unsettled, for, in 1673, there was a competencia over Gabriel Berga, a knight of Santiago and a familiar, when the tribunal contended that he could not renounce its jurisdiction.[1028]
It would be superfluous to follow out in detail the vicissitudes of this matter in the other provinces of Spain, where it gave abundant occasion for quarrels conducted with customary vehemence. It seems to have settled itself into the rule that officials and familiars were eligible to public office but that, during their terms of service, they were not entitled to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. Such, we are told in 1632, was the practice in Castile, Aragon and Valencia.[1029] Yet still there were disputes for, about the middle of the seventeenth century, a formula is given for use when a familiar is prevented from taking office. This sets forth at much length that, if familiars are refused office, no one will take the position, which will inflict great detriment on the faith; it cites the royal cédulas, it sets aside opposing arguments by showing that for all malfeasance in office the familiar will be subject to the royal jurisdiction and finally it orders his immediate induction in his post under penalty of excommunication and of five hundred ducats; no further notice will be given and all further action will be published in the halls of the Inquisition, which will be full legal notice to all parties concerned.[1030] I have met with no further legislation on the subject and presumably some arrangement of this kind was in force to the end.
It was highly inconsistent but, at the same time, thoroughly in keeping with the spirit of the Inquisition in its dealings with the public, that while it vindicated so energetically the right of its officials to hold honorable and lucrative posts, it claimed for them the privilege to refuse to serve in those which were onerous. In the municipalities there were a certain number of these latter, entailing unremunerative labor and responsibility which no one could refuse to accept when his name was drawn from the bolsa. The officials claimed to be insaculated for the desirable positions but not for the undesirable ones. That such