CHAPTER VIII

THE INQUISITION

Some allusion has already been made in our introductory chapter to the character of the Castilian Church in mediæval times. Strongly national in its resentment of papal interference, as in its dislike of alien races within the Spanish boundaries, its wealth and popularity were a sure index of the large part it must play in any difficult crisis. Amongst churchmen both Henry IV. and the rebels who opposed him had found their councillors and their generals; to the Church Queen Isabel had turned, with a confidence that was not belied, for financial help against the Portuguese; and it was a churchman, sitting in constant deliberation with her and Ferdinand, who gained amongst contemporaries the proud title of “the Third King.”

Pedro Gonsález de Mendoza had been a favourite of fortune from his birth. A member of one of the proudest and wealthiest families in Spain, the settlement of his profession had been almost coincident with his admission to its material benefits; and, from holding a curacy in early boyhood and a rich benefice at twelve years old, he had passed through the lesser offices of the episcopate to succeed Don Alonso Carrillo, on his death in 1482, as Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Castile. Judicious influence had previously obtained him a Cardinal’s hat; but, marked though her favour had been, his reputation was not solely of fortune’s weaving.

Pedro Gonsález was in himself a striking personality. Nature had made him a Castilian noble, and, in adopting one of the few careers considered worthy of his rank, it never occurred to him that the claims of religion should exclude those of his blood and class. A clear-headed practical statesman, whose loyalty proved none the less valuable that it had been inspired by a cautious regard to the interests of himself and his house, he was also a liberal patron of education and philanthropy, and an accomplished soldier and courtier.

“There was never a war in Spain during his time,” we are told, “in which he did not personally take part, or at least have his troops engaged”; nor did he disdain the amours, that with conspiracies and duelling formed the fashionable life of Henry IV.’s Court. When that impressionable monarch succumbed to the charms of the Portuguese lady-in-waiting, Doña Guiomar, the name of Gonsález de Mendoza, then Bishop of Calahorra, was linked with that of the favourite’s cousin; and the chronicles record that two of his sons in later years intermarried, through their father’s influence, with connections of the royal family.

Illegitimacy carried with it little stain amongst a people whose standard of life was as low as their ideals were often high; and the Church, sharing deeply as we have seen in the national life, paid the penalty of this intimacy in a blinding of her own eyes to the distance many of her sons had wandered from their Master’s footsteps. Queen Isabel, whose personal purity was a standing witness to the high code of morality in which she believed, was yet daughter enough of her age to accept Cardinal Mendoza at his popular value. He had been her protector and advisor through many of her difficulties, showing himself subtle and far-seeing in politics, as well as the kindly friend a man of mature years will often prove to young ambitions. Ferdinand and Isabel owed him much, and they paid their debt by a trust and reverence that gained him honour in Spain only second to that accorded to themselves.

Peter Martyr, in a letter to the Cardinal, addresses him as, “You, without whom the King and Queen never take the smallest step, whether engaged actively in war or enjoying peace, and without whose advice they arrive at no important conclusion.” It is the language of eulogy, but it touches truth at bottom; and the strength of Isabel’s affection for her chief councillor may be gauged by her deference to his will, on those occasions that it happened to clash with her own. When, in 1485, she would have carried the royal jurisdiction with her to Alcalá de Henares, superseding temporarily with her prerogative all local justice, as elsewhere on her progress, the Cardinal declined to admit her claims within the boundaries of his diocese of Toledo. To all her expostulations he returned an obstinate refusal, till Isabel, seeing that the matter must end either in an open breach or her own surrender, yielded the point. It was a concession she would have made to few of her subjects.

[Illustration:

THE CARDINAL OF SPAIN, DON PEDRO GONSÁLEZ DE MENDOZA

FROM “HISTORIA DE LA VILLA Y CORTE DE MADRID” BY AMADOR DE LOS RIOS ]

Very different was her attitude when a criminal of Trujillo, on being hailed for his misdeeds before the royal judges, protested that he had received the tonsure and therefore he should be tried in the ecclesiastical courts. To this plea, a trick to which men who had no intention of taking orders resorted, that they might escape the rigours of the secular law, the judges paid no heed; whereupon some priests, relations of the accused, took up arms in his favour. “The Faith,” they declared, “was in danger of perdition,” and having roused the mob by inflammatory speeches, they attacked the house of the corregidor and the local prison. The criminal was released; but the triumph of ecclesiastical privilege was short-lived; for, some companies of men-at-arms appearing on the scenes in response to the corregidor’s appeal to the Queen, the principal lay rioters were hung. The clerical offenders, saved by their cloth from a like fate, spent the rest of their days in exile, meditating on the long arm of royal justice.

Equally firm was the position maintained by Ferdinand and Isabel in their dealings with the Roman See. From one aspect they were sincerely loyal and devoted to their “Holy Father in Christ,” seeking his sanction for all those actions where orthodoxy demanded papal consent; and informing him, in sure confidence of his blessing, of every success they enjoyed in their struggle with infidels and heretics. The very nature of the war of Granada earned for them a reputation in Europe as special champions of the Faith; and, though the honour was prompted rather by his needs than their deserts, no title could have been more fitting than “Los Reyes Católicos,” “The Catholic Kings,” bestowed on them by Alexander VI. in 1494.

Yet, from another point of view, these same “Catholic Kings” were as staunch opponents of papal encroachments as any imperial Frederick II. or Henry VIII. of England. It might be said that their disputes with the Holy Father savoured rather of the spoilt than the rebellious child. Conscious of their merits as perpetual crusaders and chasteners of the unorthodox, they preferred, instead of making war on the general principle of Roman interference in ecclesiastical matters, to demand exemption as their special right,—the right of those who, with their ancestors, had won back the soil of their native land in conflict with a heathen race.

Their hand was none the less iron that it was discreetly gloved. When in 1491 an appeal to Rome was admitted by the Court of Chancery at Valladolid, in a case falling by law solely within the royal jurisdiction, Isabel in her indignation did not hesitate to remove all the judges who had consented to this step, appointing others in their place.

Still more drastic was the action taken by Ferdinand and herself in 1482, when the question of the extent of Roman patronage came prominently to the fore. Sixtus IV., anxious to provide for a host of needy relatives, had appointed a Cardinal-nephew to the rich see of Cuenca, then vacant. Quite unprepared for the indignation with which this announcement was received in Spain, he was soon disillusioned by the sovereigns, who utterly refused to acknowledge his protégé, declaring that it had always been the custom to appoint natives of the country;—and this, not only as a reward for the services rendered by Spain to Christendom, but as a national safeguard, since the majority of the sees carried with them the control of fortresses and strongholds.

Sixtus replied by alleging his unlimited right to provide incumbents to all and every church in Christendom. In vain ambassadors passed to and fro suggesting compromise. The dispute had reached an impasse that no arguments could remove, when Ferdinand and Isabel, by commanding all their subjects at Rome to leave the Papal dominions without delay, removed the matter to an altogether different plane. Spaniards in the Holy City were less afraid of Papal anger than of the threat that their goods at home would be sequestered, if they failed to obey the royal edict; and Sixtus, witnessing the preparations for their departure, realized the seriousness of the issue. A loss of revenue, a Spanish appeal to a General Council that might depose him, these and many other possible results of his obstinacy floated before his mind; and it was an embassy of conciliation that he next despatched from Rome.

The sovereigns, who were at Medina del Campo, at first received the overture with unbending pride, bidding the ambassador depart as they saw no reason why he should be admitted to their presence. When at length, by the mediation of the Cardinal of Spain, negotiations were once more entertained, the Pope agreed to withdraw his nephew’s claims and to appoint one of the Queen’s chaplains. Henceforth he conceded to the sovereigns the right to petition in favour of candidates, whom they might deem suitable for the episcopate, reserving for himself the actual nomination.

This decision was equivalent to a triumph for the Crown; but it proved only the first of a series of battles, and the instructions issued to Spanish ambassadors at Rome throughout the reign continually pressed the royal prerogative in ecclesiastical matters. In the case of presentment to livings, of which patronage the Pope was peculiarly jealous, Ferdinand and Isabel were often able to achieve their purpose indirectly, by laying an embargo on the rents of the nominee to whom they objected, until he saw his way to complying with their views.

If, in matters of practical administration, the sovereigns accepted their duty of obedience, like certain brides, with reservations, they did not let their enthusiasm for Catholic dogma blind their eyes to the scandals of the Roman Court, and more especially to the evil reputation it acquired during the pontificate of Alexander VI., the notorious Rodrigo Borgia. Conscious of the harm his example wrought in the Church, they sent private ambassadors to petition him that he would send away his children from Rome, “purify his life, reform his house, and cease to allow the sale of benefices and ecclesiastical offices.”

That their motive was a genuine desire to raise the prevalent low standard of morality may be gathered from their rigorous policy of ecclesiastical reform at home. Hitherto all efforts in this direction had proved abortive; and the instructions issued by Alonso Carrillo, Archbishop of Toledo, at the Council of Aranda in 1473 show how deep-seated was the evil. Open immorality of life and more venial habits, such as dicing and the wearing of gaily-coloured clothes are amongst the ordinary offences scheduled; but even the standard recommended for the future scarcely touched a high level. Bishops were not to take money in return for conferring ordination, nor to accept as fitting candidates those unable to speak Latin, the language of the Church. Priests must celebrate Mass at least four times a year and bishops three, while both were strongly urged not to lead a riotous or military life. The latter charge, as emanating from Don Alonso Carrillo, has its humorous aspect, but criticism was disarmed by the grave addition, unless it should be to take service with kings or princes of the blood.

The character of the episcopate, in whose hands these measures of reform were left, fully explains the failure that attended them. An Alonso Carrillo could not be expected to quench military tendencies; an Alonso Fonseca, the giver of banquets, to suppress luxury; a Pedro Gonsález de Mendoza to inveigh heavily against broken vows of celibacy. This Queen Isabel realized, and with the exception of Cardinal Mendoza, her advisers in spiritual matters were men of a very different type.

“He is a gentle-natured priest, somewhat narrow of mind perhaps, but a sound theologian without bitterness or passion.” Thus wrote Peter Martyr of Fra Fernando de Talavera, Isabel’s confessor, who exercised so large an influence over her mind throughout the earlier part of her reign. The story of his introduction to his duties is characteristic of both man and Queen. At their first confessional, the Friar, seating himself on a low stool, bade his companion kneel before him; but she, unwilling to lower her dignity, reminded him gently that it was the custom for her confessors also to kneel.

“Señora,” replied Fra Fernando, “this is the tribunal of God, and therefore must you kneel and I be seated.”

“He is the confessor whom I have long sought,” was the Queen’s comment on this interview, the acknowledgment of her readiness to bow before the spiritual director she could respect. To some minds his answer might have savoured of arrogance; but the friar’s personal humility forbade such an interpretation; and when, on the surrender of Granada in 1492, he was appointed as first Archbishop of that city, he accepted the office with a shrinking reluctance that was wholly sincere.

He took away with him to his southern diocese much of the saner and kindlier influences at work on Isabel’s soul; for, though she continued to rely on his advice both in religious and worldly affairs, yet other and less tolerant directors were helping to shape her conscience.

The name of her new confessor, Ximenes de Cisneros, is famous in Spanish history,—the name of one of the world’s chosen few, who solely by their natural gifts climb from poverty and obscurity to pluck her richest fruits. His success is the more arresting that, by the irony of fate, he cared nothing for the world or her rewards. Literary fame had stretched before him as chaplain of the cathedral church of Sigüenza, and he deliberately turned his back on it to exchange the free life of the chapter for the monk’s cell. Here he donned the Franciscan habit; not as the cloak for idleness and evil customs it had become with many of the Order but as the rough garment of humility and self-abnegation that Saint Francis had offered to his followers of old.

The Franciscan community was split at this time into two distinct sections: the Conventuals, wealthy, influential, and prosperous, who in the decadence of their life had ceased even to realize the loss of their ideals; and the Observants, those who observed the old rules with an austerity and fire that burned all the more brightly for their brothers’ failings. Between these two was war; and it was natural that Cisneros should be found in the camp of the ascetics, natural also that even in this retreat his talent should be discovered, and his gift for preaching and organization win him uncoveted renown.

[Illustration:

XIMINES DE CISNEROS

FROM “ICONOGRAFIA ESPAÑOLA” BY VALENTIN CARDERERA Y SOLANO ]

He was already fifty-five years old at the time of the fall of Granada when Cardinal Mendoza, consulted by the Queen as to her new confessor, remembered his own light-hearted days as Bishop of Sigüenza and a certain austere but brilliant chaplain of his cathedral, who had turned his back on the world for the sake of his religious ideals. The portrait caught Isabel’s fancy; and Cisneros was duly summoned to Court and named her confessor, an appointment that filled him with even more dismay than the frivolous courtiers.

“Behold!” says Peter Martyr, “an Augustine in his piercing intellect, a Jerome in his self-inflicted penances, an Ambrose in his zeal for the Faith.”

It was a combination to leave its mark on the spiritual life of those around him; the more that the admiration which his character inspired in the Queen was soon to widen his sphere of action. At the beginning of the year 1495 Pedro Gonsález de Mendoza died. The Queen had visited him during the last days of his illness and consulted him as to a fitting successor in the Primacy; on which the old Cardinal frankly advised her not to give the office to any man of great family or wealth, lest he should be tempted to use it for his own ends. Instead he suggested the humble Franciscan friar, whose life to both their minds represented the highest earthly fulfilment of Christianity. Isabel joyfully agreed, refusing to yield to Ferdinand’s wish that the honour should go to his own illegitimate son, Alfonso, Archbishop of Saragossa.

Knowing her confessor’s character, she sent secretly to Rome for the bull of nomination. When it arrived, she handed it to him; but Cisneros, reading the opening address, “To our venerable brother, Fra Ximenes de Cisneros, Archbishop-elect of Toledo,” pushed it away, saying “Señora, this cannot be meant for me.”

He quitted the royal presence abruptly and hastened from Madrid, replying to all appeals and arguments that he did not feel himself worthy to enter on so high an office. It was not till some six months later, on the receipt of another bull from Rome, commanding him to accept the archbishopric without delay, that the friar withdrew his opposition.

Never had the Spanish Church witnessed a more curious transformation. The humble Observant had become an ecclesiastical prince, the holder of the see in Christendom coveted, according to contemporaries, next to Rome itself. Henceforth his annual revenue would amount to over 80,000 ducats a year, the value of the patronage at his disposal far exceed that sum, his military retainers would make a small army, his judicial rights over his diocese were to be those of a viceroy.

Warned by the Pope that it befitted the Primate of Castile to maintain a certain state and dignity, Cisneros grimly adopted the splendour of his predecessor’s régime, tolerating as a necessary evil the rich furniture and food, the household of young nobles, and the velvet and silk of his outward clothing, that to many a priest of the day would have filled the foreground of the picture. Some indeed believed that the Archbishop had shed the fine ideals of the monk; and once in his presence a Franciscan boldly preached to this effect. Cisneros listened in silence; but after the service was over took his critic apart and, drawing aside the gorgeous vestment in which he was clothed, showed beneath it the friar’s rough woollen shirt. This, with the frugal dishes, that were his own portion from his loaded tables, and the hard straw mattress that shamed his canopied bed, were the realities of Ximenes’s material life in the midst of all his glory.

His indifference to the soft things of this world was equalled by his contempt of popularity; and the revenues that had bought for other archbishops of Toledo influence and fame amongst the wealthy and well-born of the kingdom now went to ameliorate the lives of the poor and to enrich hospitals and schools. From the first, also, he had set his face against patronage bestowed for any reason except the personal merit of the candidate in question.

Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, a brother of the Cardinal, had been appointed Adelantado of Cazorla, a military office in the diocese of Toledo. Fearful, lest he should now be deprived of it, he obtained a recommendation from the Queen, but Cisneros would not look at it. “Archbishops of Toledo,” he declared, “should administer their patronage freely and not on any recommendation. My Sovereign Lord and Lady, whom I deeply respect, can dismiss me to the cell from which they fetched me, but they cannot force me to act against my conscience and the laws of the Church.”

Isabel received the report of this interview with the serenity that ordinary court flatterers found so baffling; while Cisneros, on his part, satisfied on enquiry as to Diego Hurtado’s character and capability, consented to ratify his nomination.

The work of reform, undertaken by Queen and confessor, proceeded with renewed energy after the latter’s appointment as Primate. With regard to the secular clergy, the sovereigns had from the beginning of their reign endeavoured to leaven the worldly character of the episcopate by conferring vacant bishoprics on men of the lower nobility or middle class, who were distinguished for their mental or moral qualities. Nor did they leave to the lax arm of the ecclesiastical courts the administration of the numerous laws and edicts designed to check the widespread immorality of the lesser clergy; and it was royal officials who “fined, scourged, or banished” the women kept by priests in defiance of their vow of celibacy.

This policy of amendment and repression met with Cisneros’s full approval; but the reform in which as a friar he was most interested was that of the monastic orders. In 1493 the sovereigns had obtained a papal brief, authorizing them to appoint “visitors,” who should inspect the various Religious Houses, correct the errors that they found, and punish evildoers.

From this tour the Conventual section of the Franciscans did not emerge scatheless; and the indignation, aroused amongst its members, at the penalties inflicted and changes introduced was so great that an appeal against the Archbishop’s tyranny was finally lodged at Rome. Four hundred friars, it was declared, rather than submit to the new order of things had been driven to turn Mahometan and seek refuge in Africa. Such a tale might well have inspired the conviction that the drastic measures of the Queen and her adviser were fully justified; but in Alexander VI. it only prompted a heartfelt sympathy with the Conventuals; and in January, 1496, he dispatched a bull, forbidding further reform until he was satisfied as to its necessity. Isabel replied by sending special ambassadors to plead her side of the case; a transaction in which they succeeded so admirably that the Pope withdrew his opposition.

In the meanwhile she and Cisneros had continued with unwavering energy the task they had begun. Her own share was no sinecure; for, taking her needlework or her spinning, she would visit the convents and, seated amongst the nuns, strive by her personal influence to win them back to a sense of their duties, and the devotion that could alone inspire their calling. According to his biographer, success also attended the harsher treatment meted out to the Franciscans by Cisneros, till at length “few monasteries remained where the rules of the Observants were not kept, to the great satisfaction of the Archbishop and edification of the people.”

The reform of the morals and customs of the Spanish Church was now well in train; but it formed only a part, and the smaller part, of the sovereigns’ general scheme for the promotion and safeguard of the Catholic Faith within their realms. If the foundations of a building are insecure, the beauty and strength of its walls will soon prove valueless; and Ferdinand and Isabel, regarding “right belief” as the foundation of “right action,” and identifying “right belief” with “acceptance of the doctrines and practice of the Holy Catholic Faith,” were led by logical reasoning to establish the monstrous tyranny of the Inquisition. There can be few things so pitiless as logic when carried to its extreme, and few so faulty when the conclusions concern the soul; perhaps because it is in this sphere that human intelligence most often fails to test the truth of its premises. Heresy was to the mediæval mind “the unpardonable sin”; the heretic in the language of the day, “a venomous reptile requiring to be exterminated, lest he should spread contagion by his very breath.” And in Spain this unpardonable sin was more diffused and difficult to eradicate than amongst her neighbours; for, through the centuries of reconquest, her population had been exposed to constant intercourse with races of alien creed, endowed moreover with the subtlety of mind that is the heritage of the Oriental. However high the barriers built by racial prejudice, so long as Christian, Jew, and Moor stood side by side on Spanish soil, a certain amalgamation and interchange of ideas were inevitable. The Church, jealous for the safety of the Catholic Faith, made the construction and maintenance of barriers her lifework, and issued frequent canons prohibiting mixed marriages as well as the friendly intercourse arising from shared feasts and common dwellings. This proved unavailing; and finally Jews and Moors were segregated in special quarters, called “Juderías” and “Morerías,” and compelled to wear a dress or a badge, that would distinguish them from their Christian neighbours when they walked abroad.

Such legislation was to have far-reaching results, little foreseen by those who framed it, though the immediate effect was highly satisfactory. Some there were amongst the subject races, who preferred to keep their own religion and suffer ignominy, rather than accept the Faith they had learned to hate; but the majority, faced by a choice between conversion and the scorn, disabilities, and even danger, that became the daily portion of the professed Jew or Mahometan, chose the easier path. At first the movement was gradual; but an outburst of Christian fanaticism and racial prejudice towards the close of the fourteenth century, led to a general massacre of the Jews, throughout all the large cities of Spain, and this in turn to a wholesale conversion of the survivors.

The “Conversos,” or “New Christians,” as they were often called in contradistinction to the “Old Christians” of unblemished Catholicism, were to introduce another jarring element into the already complicated society of Spain. Welcomed by the Church as “brands plucked from the burning,” they took full advantage of the opportunity to enter offices and professions hitherto closed, as well as to continue unmolested in the commerce and business they had formerly carried on under sufferance. Since conversion affected neither their natural industry, nor their racial capacity for making money, the New Christians soon developed the wealth and power that have followed the footsteps of the Jew in all ages and countries, where he has been free to pursue them. From the collection of rents and taxes to the control of the King’s treasury, they invaded every corner of the financial and economic life of Spain, wringing from the carelessness of the Spaniard and their own foresight the wealth that was one of the causes of their future ruin.

The Jew has always believed himself “the chosen of God,” and regarded Gentiles with a scorn akin to that felt by the Greeks of old for their “barbarian” neighbours. He might under pressure forsake his religion, but his inborn sense of racial superiority remained; and the envy excited in “Old Christians” by the accumulated honours of “the New” was often fanned to the white heat of passion by the arrogance with which these honours were borne.

An additional barrier was religious distrust that, removed in theory by conversion and baptism, existed still in a more insidious form. Enforced conversion is rarely sincere; and though some of the New Christians out-heroded Herod in their hatred and denunciations of the religion they had abandoned, the majority were content with a nominal or lukewarm profession of the Catholic Faith. Old habits and customs cling; and the Conversos, while attending Mass and other services of the Church, would often observe in private the Jewish sabbath, and practise the rites and ceremonies of their forefathers.

This laxity tended to increase during the reigns of weak or tolerant kings, such as John II. and Henry IV. of Castile; while the anger it excited amongst the mass of the people became proportionately more violent as they watched their unorthodox neighbours “wax and grow fat.” The growing spirit of fanaticism left its trail in riots instigated by the “Old Christians” against “the New” in Toledo, Segovia, Ciudad Real, Cordova, and Seville; rebels made use of it to threaten the unorthodox Henry IV., and at length, in the Concord of Medina del Campo of 1465, a resolution was passed, advocating that power should be given to the archbishops and bishops of the kingdom to imprison, fine, and punish “evil Christians and those whose faith was suspect.”

The Concord failed, but the desire for the castigation of heresy did not die with the resolutions. When, in 1477, Ferdinand and Isabel came to Seville, they were approached by a body of leading laymen and clergy, who petitioned that “as Catholic Princes they would punish this detestable sin, because if they left it ... unchecked, it would grow so rapidly that great harm would befall the Holy Catholic Faith.”

Commissioners were appointed to hold an inquiry; and these gave their opinion that the evil was so widespread that nothing but the establishment of the Inquisition would have power to eradicate it.

“So rampant was this heresy,” says the Curate of Los Palacios, “that lawyers almost preached the law of Moses”; while in another place he adds: “These heretics and cursed Jews fled both Christian doctrines and customs, avoiding when they could the baptism of their children, or, if they must have them baptized immediately washing away the sign in their own homes.”

Ferdinand and Isabel had in 1474 resisted an attempt of Sixtus IV. to plant the papal Inquisition in Spain, by endowing his legate with inquisitorial powers; their motive being not so much humanity as their strong dislike of Roman interference in ecclesiastical matters, to which attention has already been drawn. Now that an Inquisition of some kind appeared a necessity, their whole endeavour was directed to obtaining a bull that would secure for them the control of the new institution. For this Sixtus was most unwilling; but their obstinacy, as on another occasion, proved greater than his, and in November, 1478, he issued a bull, authorizing the sovereigns to appoint as inquisitors three bishops or other suitable men, with the right to remove them at pleasure.

The way lay clear; but Ferdinand and Isabel did not take advantage of it till 1480, when a scheme of Cardinal Mendoza to combat heretical beliefs by instruction and persuasion had been proclaimed by its author totally unavailing. Seville was the first seat of the Holy Office, but its sphere was soon extended to Cordova, and then to the other towns of Andalusia and Castile; while, in 1485, Aragon also fell under its iron yoke.

The dread assizes would be opened, on the arrival of the inquisitors, by the publication of an “Edict of Grace,” granting to those conscious of heresy a period of from thirty to forty days, during which they could, without fear of death, make full confession of their errors and, after due penance, be reconciled with the Mother Church. This term of indulgence expired, the real work of the Inquisition would begin, and the suspected heretic be summoned before the judges to clear himself of the charges brought against him, the justice of the day holding him guilty until he had proved his innocence.

The situation of the accused [says Lea] was helpless. Standing up alone before the stern admonitions of the trained and pitiless judge; brooding in his cell, cut off from all external communication, during weeks or months of interval between his audiences; apparently forgotten, but living in constant uncertainty of being at any moment summoned to appear; torturing his mind as to the impression which his utterances might have made, or the deductions drawn from his admissions or denials ... it required an exceptionally resolute temperament to endure the prolonged strain, with the knowledge that the opponent in the deadly game always had in reserve the terrible resource of the torture chamber.[4]

Footnote 4:

Lea, _History of Spanish Inquisition_, ii., p. 483.

Death, imprisonment for life, scourging, a loss of property, and public ignominy: these were the main penalties inflicted. Since the object of the Inquisition was to impress the populace with a terror of heresy and its consequences, care was taken that the _Auto-de-Fe_, or “Act of Faith,” regarded by many as a manifestation of the last Judgment, should be as widely seen as possible. Amid the jeers or horror of the spectators, and the low chanting of attendant priests the condemned marched from their prison to their death, clad in “sanbenitos” or the coarse woollen garment of the penitent. Across their breasts and shoulders were embroidered, for those who were reconciled to the Faith, crosses; for the obstinate heretic, flames and devils, symbols of the everlasting torment that awaited his soul, when earthly judges had finished their task.

The “Conversos,” terrified by the storm that had at last broken over their heads, sought shelter where they could. Some took advantage of the Edicts of Grace, and, caught in the toils of the demand that their confession must be “full,” or it would avail them nothing, accused in their panic neighbours and even relations, that their own repentance might seem the more sincere. Others, leaving their lands and houses to pay toll for their unorthodoxy, fled to Portugal, Italy, or France. Pulgar tells us that the number of houses deserted in Seville, Cordova, and the other cities of Andalusia amounted to over four thousand.

And although [he adds] through the exodus of this race, a great part of the land was depopulated, and word was brought to the Queen that trade was diminishing, yet she, esteeming little the loss of her revenues and as of great value the purity of her dominions, declared that, putting aside her own interests, she would seek to cleanse the land from this sin of heresy; because she believed that thus she fulfilled God’s service and her own. And the supplications that were made to her on this matter could not turn her from her purpose....

According to Bernaldez, the single tribunal of Seville, during the first eight years of its office, committed to the flames seven hundred persons, and condemned five thousand more to perpetual imprisonment or rigorous penance. So fierce was the persecution that even the dead were not spared; the bones of those suspected of heresy were exhumed and publicly burnt, their children forbidden to hold any office or benefice, and their property seized and employed to meet the heavy expenses of the Inquisition.

It will be seen that Isabel brought to the task of exterminating heresy the same unshrinking thoroughness that marked her share in the restoration of law and order, and the continuance of the Moorish war. Nor was Ferdinand less zealous. It was in his name that most of the business of the Inquisition was transacted, and his correspondence on the subject shows that the minute interest he exhibited was prompted far more by religious fervour than by financial greed or policy. Lea has described him as “sincerely bigoted”; but though founders and patrons, neither he nor Isabel was the moving spirit of the Holy Office.

[Illustration:

TORQUEMADA

AFTER A PAINTING ATTRIBUTED TO MIGUEL ZITTOZ, FROM “TORQUEMADA AND THE SPANISH INQUISITION”

REPRODUCED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR, MR. RAFAEL SABATINI ]

The appointment of Tomas de Torquemada as Inquisitor-General of Castile in May, 1483, placed in control of the practical working of this institution a judge, whose bigotry was untempered by ordinary humanity. A Dominican of Jewish extraction, he was for a time the Queen’s confessor and won her favour, like Fra Fernando de Talavera and Cisneros, by his austerities and contempt of the world. From regard for the dignity of his office he accepted an escort of fifty horse and two hundred foot, and wealth, which he lavished freely on churches and monasteries; but his personal asceticism remained unchanged. Till the day of his death, he ate no flesh, nor would he consent to wear linen next his skin, nor to sleep on any bed save a wooden plank; while he sternly refused to a sister more financial help than would enable her to enter a Dominican convent.

Under his presidency the Inquisition received what might be called a constitution and laws; for in 1484 a “Supreme Council,” “La Suprema” as it was afterwards known, was established; and “Instructions for the governance of the Holy Office” were issued, informing judges and officials of the exact nature and extent of their duties. They reveal, as Rafael Sabatini remarks in his _Life of Torquemada_,

a spirit at once crafty and stupid, subtle and obvious, saintly and diabolical, consistent in nothing,—not even in cruelty, for in its warped and dreadful way it accounted itself merciful, and not only represented but believed that its aims were charitable.

Ordinary conceptions of mercy were to Torquemada synonymous with weakness; and an acquittal of an accused heretic by a subordinate would be sufficient excuse in his eyes for a second trial. Was it not better for an innocent man to perish, than for a guilty man to pass out again into the world through negligence and sow eternal damnation amongst his neighbours? The penitent condemned, when the Inquisition was first introduced, to wear his sanbenito for twelve months as a sign of his repentance, now found himself cut off for the rest of his life from all true Catholics by this badge of his shame. The orthodox son of the convicted dead, whose bones had been committed to the flames, saw hanging up before him, whenever he entered his parish church, the garment of infamy that kept alive the memory of his parent’s sin.

None were safe; for the indefinable sphere of the Holy Office and the royal favour and protection it enjoyed enabled Torquemada to encroach with safety on the rights of other courts, both civil and ecclesiastical, and to add as he thought fit to the number of inquisitorial ordinances and decrees. Proceedings were even taken against two bishops of Jewish lineage, on account of the supposed apostacy of their ancestors; with the result that one of them, Pedro de Aranda, Bishop of Calahorra, found himself despoiled of his see and revenues, while the other, the aged Juan Arias Davila, Bishop of Segovia, died at Rome, after successfully pleading his cause there before the Pope.

The complaints and appeals lodged against Torquemada’s unbridled tyranny grew so loud that in 1494 Alexander VI. appointed four other inquisitor-generals with equal power, in the hope that they would exercise a restraining influence over their colleague’s actions. He, however, continued his work with unshaken zeal, until in 1498, he died tranquilly at the monastery he had founded at Avila, confident of a life well spent in devotion to the Faith, and revered as a Saint by the rest of his Order.

It is difficult to ascertain exactly how many heretics were burned during his term of office; some historians placing the number at more than 8000, and others at 2000, while 90,000 are declared to have been subject to various forms of penance. Whatever the exact statistics, they represent but a small section of the results of the Inquisition during these years. Men die and are forgotten but the suspicion and treachery that are born of terror, the spirit of pitiless fanaticism that springs from licensed intolerance, the intellect bowed into subservience to an iron yoke of uniformity,—these were to leave their mark for generations and lessen the force of progress that Ferdinand and Isabel fostered so strongly in other directions.

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