History of the Inquisition of Spain. Henry Charles Lea
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appointed by Inquisitor-general Zapata and when he, in the course of a few years, became Bishop of Badajoz, the business was intrusted to the inquisitor-general himself. For awhile the payments were made with some regularity, but, in 1650, an investigation showed that for a long while it had been quietly allowed to drop and, as it was in the hands of the inquisitor-general, there were no means of enforcing an accounting. For a year Arce y Reynoso eluded the efforts of the Sala de Media Añata to obtain information and finally, May 17, 1651, the king ordered him peremptorily to pay his own media añata (due since 1643), to make the other officials do so and to furnish the required information to the Sala. On receiving this he said there were difficulties in making ecclesiastics like inquisitors pay, but he would consult the Suprema and reply in July. July passed away and the Sala again applied to him, when he replied that, as concerned the familiars and other secular officials, orders had already been given and collections made, but as to clerics there were scruples about which he would advise with the king. He failed to do so and in October the king was urged to repeat his demand for immediate payment. The outcome of the affair was that ecclesiastics were exempted and laymen had to pay, while familiars, who had no salaries, were assessed nine ducats—so Arce y Reynoso succeeded in eluding his tax. Collection, moreover, from the laymen was not easy and, January 28, 1654, the Suprema issued general instructions to deduct it without exception from the salaries. This only transferred the indebtedness from the individuals to the receivers or treasurers of the tribunals, who seem to have been equally slow to pay and, in 1655, an inquisitor in each tribunal of Castile and the colonies was designated to collect the money from the treasurer and remit it at once.[916] It is safe to assume that the receipts were trivial and the whole business affords an illustration of the methods by which the revenues of Spain were frittered away before reaching the treasury. Whether productive or not, however, the media añata remained until the end a permanent charge upon the lay officials. In Valencia, in 1790, it had for ten years amounted to an annual average of ten libras.[917]
With regard to local taxation, contests were renewed at every new impost with varying success, and a single case will elucidate the character of these struggles. In 1645 the Córtes of Valencia agreed to furnish for six years twelve hundred men to garrison Tortosa, reserving the right to impose whatever duties or excise might be necessary to defray the expense. In order that the clergy might be included the assent of Archbishop Aliaga was sought, which he granted with difficulty and only on condition that, within eight months, a confirmatory papal brief should be obtained, which was duly accomplished. To meet the charge an excise, known as the sisa del corte was levied on all goods cut for garments. The tribunal refused to submit to this and pointed to its contributions to a loan of twenty thousand ducats made by the Inquisition to the king in 1642, and to its payment since 1643 of five per cent. of the salaries for the maintenance of certain mounted men. The city yielded for a while and then a compromise was made; the ecclesiastics at the time were paying eighteen deniers on the libra (7½ per cent.) while the officials of the tribunal were to be taxed only six deniers (2½ per cent.). To maintain their principle of exemption, however, for some years they had their garments made in the name of other ecclesiastics and paid the eighteen deniers, but in 1659 they grew tired of this and paid the six deniers for themselves, first registering a protest that it was without prejudice to their privileges and exemptions. This continued until 1668, when suddenly, on June 19th, the fiscal of the tribunal summoned the collectors of the sisa del corte to pass freely, within twenty-four hours, the cloth cut for the garments of Benito Sanguino, the alcalde mayor, under pain of five hundred ducats. On the 21st the syndics of the city and the collectors interjected an appeal to the king, in spite of which the next day the mandate was repeated, this time giving twelve hours for obedience and adding excommunication to the fine. Another appeal was interposed and the regent of the Audiencia applied for a competencia, or orderly method of settling disputes, as provided in the Concordia, but notwithstanding this the next day the excommunications were published and the names of the collectors were affixed to the doors of the cathedral as under the anathema of the Church.[918] The final outcome is of little moment; the interest of the affair lies in its illustration of the persistence of the Inquisition and the violence of its methods.
In this respect the case is not exceptional. The formularies of the Inquisition contained a full assortment of arbitrary mandates which it employed, in place of seeking the legal courses prescribed in the Concordias, by which the king and the Córtes sought to preserve the peace. One of these, drawn in the name of the tribunal of Llerena, addressed to the governor and magistrates, recites that complaint has been made of the imposition on officials and familiars of a new octroi on meat and proceeds to assert that, by immemorial custom and royal cédulas, the commissioned officials are exempted from paying any taxes, excise, imposts and assessments, whether royal or local or otherwise; the magistrates are commanded within two hours to desist from the attempt, under pain of major excommunication and a fine of a hundred thousand maravedís for the governor or his deputy and of fifty thousand for subordinates, with the threat, in case of disobedience, of prosecution with the full rigor of law. Moreover the secretary or notary of the city is ordered within the two hours to bring to the tribunal and surrender all papers concerning the assessment on the officials, under pain of excommunication and ten thousand maravedís.[919] Such were the peremptory commands habitually employed, the arrogance of which rendered them especially galling.
TAXATION
Not only were these fulminations ready for use when the case occurred, but there were formulas drawn up in advance to prevent any attempted infraction of the privileges claimed by the officials. Thus this same collection has one addressed to the corregidor and magistrates of a town where a fair is to be held, reciting that an official of the tribunal proposes to send thither a certain number of cattle bearing his brand, which he swears to be of his own raising and, as he is exempt from paying alcavala, tolls, ferriages, royal servicio and all other assessments and dues and, as he fears that there may be an attempt to impose them, therefore all officials and collectors are ordered, under pain of major excommunication and two hundred ducats, to abstain from all such attempts, with threats of further punishment in case of disobedience.[920] The enormous advantage which the official thus possessed is plain, as well as the door which it opened to fraud. That the claim was groundless appears by a memorial presented to the Suprema in 1623, in response to a call by Inquisitor-general Pacheco on his colleagues for suggestions as to the better government and improvement of the Inquisition—a remarkable paper to which reference will frequently be made hereafter. On this point it states that, in some tribunals, the officials are exempted from paying the alcavala on the products of their estates, while in others they are not. In some, a portion of the officials have dexterously secured exemption, while others have been compelled to pay, by judicial decision, as there is no basis for such claims. If there is no right or privilege of exemption, it is not seen how the officials can conscientiously escape payment, or how the inquisitors can defend them in evading it, besides the numerous suits thence arising which occupy the time of the tribunals. To cure this it is suggested that the king grant exemptions to all, for there are not more than two or three in each tribunal to be thus benefited.[921] This suggestion was not adopted, but the claim was persisted in with its perpetual exasperation and multiplicity of litigation.
The large numbers of the unsalaried officials, especially the familiars, rendered the question of their exemption of considerably greater importance. They had no claim to it, but they were persistently endeavoring to establish the right and for the most part they were supported by the tribunals in the customary arbitrary fashion. In the futile Concordia of Catalonia in 1599, it was provided that levies and executions for all taxes and imposts could be made on familiars and commissioners by the ordinary officers of justice. In the memorial to Clement VIII asking for the disallowance of this Concordia, the Suprema proved learnedly, by a series of canons from the fourth Council of Lateran down, that the cruce-signati (whom it claimed to correspond with the modern familiars) were exempt. It even had the audacity to cite the Concordia of 1514, which in reality denied their exemption, and it assumed with equal untruth that this was the universal custom in Spain.[922] Yet, in a consulta of December 30, 1633, the Suprema tacitly excluded the unsalaried officials when it argued that there were not, exclusive of ecclesiastics, more than two hundred officials in Spain entitled to the exemption.[923]
TAXATION
Still, the Inquisition fought the battle for the unsalaried