History of the Inquisition of Spain. Henry Charles Lea
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March 18th, a consulta adjuring her in solemn terms to reflect calmly, for she was making the inquisitor-general a judge of all the bishops in her dominions, not only as to conflicts of jurisdiction but also as to criminal accusations, without his holding faculties from the pope, while, at the same time, she was forbidding appeals to the Holy See which was the only proper judge. She was warned that it was impossible to exaggerate the importance of the questions at issue and she was implored, before making so momentous a decision, to consult the Councils of Castile, Italy and the Indies, for the interests of the whole monarchy were involved as well as the supreme power of the pope. To this her reply was merely a repetition of her former orders and a demand for a duplicate of the letters of the Council to the Viceroy. For the third time it disobeyed her and sent none and there are intimations that it was engaged in arousing the whole Spanish episcopate to a sense of the impending danger.
Then the affair suddenly assumed another phase. On March 7th the queen had written to her ambassador in Rome to procure the abstention of the pope from the matter, but, on that very day, the Congregation of the Inquisition, with the approval of the pope, had pronounced invalid the censures fulminated by the inquisitor. It was late in May before this was communicated to the queen by the nuncio, who said that the pope had recognized the gravity of the assault by an inquisitor on the episcopal dignity and the magnitude of the ensuing scandal, and had caused the whole subject to be carefully considered by the Congregation with the above result. The pope had felt deeply, not only the indignity offered to the episcopal office, but also that the fiscal of the Inquisition had applied to the queen to summon the bishop before it, solely on the ground of his having appealed to the Holy See. In the name of the pope the nuncio therefore asked the queen to order inquisitors not to proceed against bishops and to reject the application of the fiscal.
THE SPIRITUAL COURTS
Even this did not shake the determination of Nithard to reduce the episcopate to subjection. A long and argumentative consulta was presented to the queen, proving that the papal decision was surreptitious and therefore invalid, and that anyhow the decrees of the Roman Inquisition had no currency in Spain. The old prohibitions of appeals to Rome were invoked and the queen was told that one of the most precious jewels of the Spanish crown was at stake, for, unless the regalías were preserved, the Inquisition must disappear, delinquents would be unpunished, religion would suffer and, with the loss of its unity, there would no longer be obedience to the throne. The queen was therefore urged to stand firm; the prosecution of the bishop must not be suspended and the Council of Aragon must be forced to obey the royal commands.
Nithard was ready to risk an open breach with the Holy See in his audacious ambition to render the Inquisition supreme in the Spanish Church. How far the queen would have suffered herself to be carried in the execution of his plans cannot be told, as the documents fail us here. His career, however, was drawing to a close. In February, 1669, he was driven from Spain amid universal execration, yet the prosecution of Bishop Manjarre was not abandoned, for the Inquisition was not accustomed openly to admit defeat. It dragged until his death, December 26, 1670, when it was quietly dropped.[1196]
Practically the intervention of Rome gave the victory to the Mallorquins, of which they took advantage. In 1671 there arose another quarrel over a fine incurred by a canon who was also a consultor of the tribunal. Both sides exchanged excommunications and Inquisitor-general Valladares, profiting by his predecessor’s experience, showed moderation. On the plea that it was a matter of government rather than of jurisdiction, the Suprema ordered the tribunal to abandon the case and remove the censures imposed on the canons, but the latter were not content with this and procured from the Roman Holy Office a decree declaring invalid the censures of the inquisitors and valid those of the executors of the brief. The Council of Aragon communicated this to the queen who submissively signed a letter, January 25, 1672, to the chapter, expressing her confidence that in its use they would pay fitting attention to the peace and advantage of the Church.[1197]
The Inquisition was not accustomed to defeat and it chafed under this, as was shown when, in 1690, a quarrel arose because a priest of Minorca, named Juan Bruells, used insulting words to the commissioner, Rafael Pons. For this he was prosecuted and the case threw all the islands into confusion. The viceroy, the Audiencia and the clergy all united against the Inquisition. The Ordinary of Minorca, as executor of the brief of 1642, forcibly released Bruells, forbade the inquisitor to proceed and, on his disobeying, excommunicated him. About this time the Mallorquin tribunal had claims to consideration arising from its vigorous proceedings against Judaizers and the large resultant confiscations. The Suprema espoused its cause with the usual energy and, in repeated consultas to Carlos III, denounced the papal briefs as surreptitious and invalid, full of defects and nullities. The feeble king issued repeated commands for the prosecution of Bruells and the surrender of the briefs, but no one paid attention to them. The Mallorquin clergy procured from the Congregation of the Inquisition a decree validating the censures pronounced by the Ordinary and annulling those of the inquisitor; the pope confirmed this but subsequently suspended it at the earnest solicitation of the Spanish ambassador, at the same time ordering his nuncio to make the king understand that the Congregation had supreme power to decide all questions of jurisdiction. The affair did not result to the satisfaction of the Inquisition for the last we hear of it is a bitter complaint by the Suprema, March 11, 1693, of the contumacious Mallorquins and the miserable condition to which they had reduced the Inquisition. In Minorca, the clergy and their dependents were so hostile that Pons could not find a church in which to celebrate mass, while the officials were shunned as excommunicated heretics.[1198]
MILITARY ORDERS
Another jurisdiction with which there were occasional quarrels was that of the army, for soldiers were exempt from the secular courts. In such competencias settlements were made by a junta of two members each of the Suprema and the Council of War, with final reference to the king in case of disagreement. I have happened to meet with but few cases of this and they seem never to have attained the importance of those with the secular and ecclesiastical courts. One occurred in 1629, arising from disputes with the garrison that had occupied the Aljafería since the troubles of 1591. A somewhat curious case was that of Don Fernando Antonio Herrera Calderon, of Santander, who was alguazil and familiar and who resigned, in 1641, from his military company, although warned that, by so doing during hostilities, he would be tried by the Council of War. It naturally claimed him and the Suprema endeavored to protect him.[1199] It would seem that, towards the end of the eighteenth century, the exemption of the military was causing special troubles, for a royal cédula of February 9, 1793, declares that, to put an end to them, in future the military judges shall have exclusive cognizance of all cases, civil and criminal, in which soldiers are defendants, except inheritances, and that no tribunal or judge of any kind shall form a competencia concerning them under any pretext.[1200]
There was yet another independent jurisdiction with which the Inquisition occasionally came into collision. In Spain the Military Orders formed so important a body that, among the State Councils, there was one of Orders, which had exclusive jurisdiction over their members. It will be recalled that one of Ferdinand’s most efficient measures to ensure the peace of the kingdom was to obtain the perpetual administration of those of Santiago, Calatrava and Alcántara, while the queen assumed that of Montesa. Yet he was not disposed to favor their claims of exemption in temporal matters from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. A letter of September 15, 1515, to the tribunal of Jaen, says that certain confiscations involve property held by knights of the three Orders who may claim exemption and refuse to plead before the judge of confiscations; if so they are not to be listened to and, if necessary, are to be prosecuted with the full rigor of the law.[1201]
In civil and criminal matters the members of the Orders asserted exemption from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, leading to disputes more or less acrimonious. In 1609, at Córdova, Don Diego de Argoté, a Knight of Santiago, with levelled pistol, prevented the arrest of one of his servants by officials of the tribunal. A competencia resulted which, when carried up to Philip III, was decided by him in favor of the Council of Orders. To this the Suprema replied in a consulta, fortelling the entire destruction of the Inquisition in case the decision was allowed to stand and so worked on Philip that he reversed his decree and allowed the Suprema to prosecute the culprit.[1202] The complication caused by these class privileges is illustrated in the case alluded to above, occurring