History of the Inquisition of Spain. Henry Charles Lea
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as was the tone of these letters they produced no effect upon the obstinate Valencians. The Córtes and the city joined in sending a deputation to the king to remonstrate against the proposed violation of their rights. The Maestre Racional stood by and did nothing to remove the dead-lock. Even the Royal Council of Valencia prevented the inquisitors from opening their tribunal, on the ground that they were foreigners while, by the fueros, none but natives could exercise official functions. All this produced another explosion of royal anger under date of August 31st. Ferdinand roundly scolded his officials and threatened punishment proportioned to the gravity of the offence; the reasons alleged by the envoys and the council were brushed aside as untenable; he ordered the governor to set the inquisitors at work, without caring what the Córtes might do or what the people might say, and he exhorted the inquisitors to lose no time in performing their duties.[628] The struggle continued but at length opposition was broken down and, on November 7, 1484, the inquisitors were able formally to assume their functions by preaching their sermon de la fe and publishing their edicts. Although they were thus in shape to carry on the business of the tribunal, the usual solemnities were omitted and they did not venture to exact, from the secular and ecclesiastical dignitaries, the customary oaths—all of which Ferdinand subsequently ordered to be performed.[629]
VALENCIA
Scarcely had the inquisitors commenced operations when Borgia’s representative, the Archdeacon Mateo Mercader, was the cause of fresh trouble. Discord arose between him and Juan de Epila which threatened to have even more serious results than his quarrels with Gualbes, which had compromised the attempt to revive the old Inquisition. Ferdinand’s patience was exhausted and so serious did he consider the situation that he despatched his secretary, Antonio Salavert, to Valencia armed with peremptory orders to Mercader and the governor. The former was required to make over his episcopal functions to Martí Trigo, another vicar-general, to surrender the bull of December 4, 1481, delegating to him inquisitorial powers, and no longer to meddle in any way with the Holy Office. In case of disobedience, the governor was instructed, without a moment’s delay, to order him under pain of five thousand florins, to depart within twenty-four hours for the royal court and to be beyond the frontier of Valencia within six days; if he failed in this all his temporalities were to be seized to defray the fine and further contumacy was to be met by banishing him from the kingdom as a disobedient rebel. The inquisitors were also told no longer to summon him to their deliberations and not to allow him to take part in their action.[630] All this was in flagrant violation of the fueros of the land and independence of the Church and shows what latitude Ferdinand allowed himself when the Inquisition was concerned. It was successful however and we hear no more of Mercader, though it was not until February 8, 1486, that the curia assented to this arbitrary illegality by withdrawing his commission along with those of the old inquisitors.[631]
Still, Valencia was not disposed to allow to the Inquisition the untrammelled exercise of its powers or to render to it the assistance required of all the faithful. The nobles continued for some months to offer resistance and when this was nominally broken down it continued in a passive form. To meet it, Ferdinand, in a letter of August 17, 1485, ordered Mossen Joan Carrasquier, alguazil of the Inquisition, at the simple bidding of the inquisitors, to arrest and imprison any one, no matter how high in station. For this he was not to ask the concurrence of any secular authority, for the whole royal power was committed to him and all officials, under pain of two thousand gold florins, and other arbitrary punishment, were required to lend him active assistance. Even this infraction of the royal oath to respect the liberties of the subject did not suffice, for another letter of January 23, 1486, states that the nobles continued to give refuge in their lands to fugitives from the Inquisition, even to those condemned and burnt in effigy, wherefore they were summoned, under their allegiance and a penalty of twenty thousand gold florins, to surrender to the alguazil all whom he might designate and to aid him in seizing them. About the same time Ferdinand placed the royal palace of Valencia at the service of the Inquisition and ordered to be built in it the necessary prisons. His own officials apparently had by this time been taught obedience for in March, 1487, he writes to the governor warmly praising their zeal.[632] To stimulate this, on July 28, 1487, he issued a safe-conduct, taking under the royal protection all the officials of the Inquisition, their families and goods; all royal officials, from the highest to the lowest, were required, under pain of five thousand florins and the king’s wrath, to assist them and to arrest whomsoever they might designate.[633]
ARAGON
Still, there were occasional ebullitions of resistance which were met with prompt and effective measures. In 1488 the Lieutenant-general of the kingdom ventured to remove by force, from the inquisitorial prison, a certain Domingo de Santa Cruz, condemned for heresy, and was at once summoned by Torquemada to answer for his temerity. Ferdinand at the same time wrote to him severely to come without delay and, that the kingdom might not be without a governor, sent him a commission in blank to fill in with the name of a deputy to act during his absence or until the king should otherwise provide; moreover, all who had assisted in the removal of the prisoner were to be forthwith arrested by the inquisitors.[634] So, when in 1497 the notaries of Valencia claimed that the notaries of the Holy Office had no power to certify documents concerning the sales of confiscated property and other similar business and summoned them before the secular authorities, Ferdinand threatened them with severe punishment, besides the prosecution by the inquisition to which they were liable for impeding it, for it was not subject to any of the laws or privileges of the land. He also wrote to the Duke of Segorbe, his lieutenant-general, to support the Inquisition; the fiscal of the Suprema presented a clamosa claiming that those guilty of this action were excommunicate and liable to the penalties for fautorship of heresy, and the inquisitor-general forwarded this to them with a summons to appear within fifteen days and defend themselves.[635] The Inquisition was so sacred that a mere attempt to decide at law a question of business was a crime involving heavy penalties. Ferdinand’s sharp rebuke, in 1499, when a case of confiscation, involving peculiar hardship, provoked the royal officials and local magistrates to meet and draw up a protest in terms unflattering to the tribunal has already been referred to (p. 189). It was probably one of the results of this that, on June 28, 1500, the inquisitors summoned all the officials and the Diputados before them and, when all were assembled, read to them the apostolic letters and those of the king respecting the tribunal and its fees and required all present to take the oath of obedience, which was duly acceded to without objections.[636] The unintermitting pressure of the throne was thus finally effective and, in spite of its fueros, the little kingdom was brought under the yoke.
The tribunal had been active and efficient. Already, in June, 1488, a list of those reconciled under the Edicts of Grace amounted to 983 and, among these, no less than a hundred women are described as the wives or daughters of men who had been burnt. Those included in this enumeration were given assurance that their property would not be subject to confiscation—unless it had already been sequestrated—and that they could effect sales and make good titles. Apparently inquisitorial zeal disregarded this assurance for these penitents applied for and obtained its confirmation, May 30, 1491.[637] Of course they had been subjected to heavy fines under the guise of pecuniary penance and we can readily imagine how large was the sum thus contributed to the coffers of the Inquisition, to which as yet these fines enured.
ARAGON.
OPPOSITION IN SARAGOSSA
The parent state of Aragon proper seemed at first sight to present an even more arduous problem than Valencia. The people were proud of their ancient liberty and resolute in its maintenance, through institutions sedulously organized for that purpose. The Conversos were numerous, wealthy and powerful, occupying many of the higher offices and intermarried with the noblest houses and, in the fate of their brethren of Castile, they had ample warning of what was in store for them. In the revival of the old Inquisition, Valencia was the scene of action and we hear little of Gualbes and Orts beyond its boundaries. The acceptance, however, by the Córtes of Tarazona, in the Spring of 1484, of Torquemada’s jurisdiction, of course included Aragon; he lost no time in organizing a tribunal in Saragossa, by the appointment, May 4th, as inquisitors of Fray Gaspar Juglar and of Maestre Pedro Arbués, a canon of the cathedral, with the necessary subordinates and, by May 11th, the appointments for a full court were completed, as we learn