A History of the Inquisition of Spain (Vol. 1-4). Henry Charles Lea

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      CHAPTER V.

       POPULAR HOSTILITY

       Table of Contents

      THE preceding chapters illustrate some of the causes that provoked popular hatred of the Inquisition, but these were by no means all. It enjoyed, as we have said, enthusiastic support in the exercise of its appropriate functions in defending the faith, but apart from this, it had infinite ways of exciting hostility. This was the inevitable result of entrusting irresponsible power to men, for the most part overbearing and arrogant, who owed obedience only to the Suprema and who early learned that, while it might disapprove of their acts, it always supported them against complaints and, while it might administer rebuke in secret, it hesitated long before it would compromise the asserted infallibility of the Holy Office by dismissal or any other public demonstration. There was no other power to call them to account and they could rely upon its indulgence. This indulgence they extended to their subordinates, over whom, indeed, they had not the power of removal, and the consequence was that the whole body thoroughly earned the detestation of the people by the abuse of their privileges, creating irritation which was none the less exasperating because its causes might be trivial. The situation finds expression in a carta acordada of October 12, 1561, in which the Suprema begs the tribunals, for the love of God, to inflict no wrong or oppression for, since they are accused when they do right, what is to be expected when they give just grounds of complaint?[1251]

      Whether just or not, grounds of complaint were never lacking. The power of the inquisitor had practically scarce any bounds but his own discretion, and the temptation to its abuse was irresistible to the kind of men who mostly filled the position. In the memorial of Llerena to Philip and Juana, in 1506, complaint is made that the officials seized all the houses that they wanted and in one case, when some young orphan girls did not vacate as quickly as ordered, they fastened up the street-door and the occupants were obliged to make an opening in order to leave it.[1252] The same spirit was shown to parties not quite so defenceless in 1642, when its exhibition in Córdova nearly provoked a disastrous tumult. There was a vacant house which Juan de Ribera, one of the inquisitors, talked of renting, but he went to Murcia without taking it. On his return he found that it had been leased to a son of Don Pedro de Cardenas, one of the veinticuatros, or town-councillors. He sent for Cardenas and asked whether he knew that he had engaged the house. Cardenas professed ignorance, adding that, if he had not moved his family into it, he would abandon it. Ribera ordered him to leave it and, on his refusal, the tribunal took up the quarrel by serving on him a notice to quit. As he did not obey, it cited him to appear and forced him to give security. His kinsmen and friends rallied around him and promised to sustain him by force; the matter became town-talk and the tribunal felt its honor engaged to sustain its commands by violence. It assembled the two companies of soldiers which it kept in the alcázar, while the caballeros armed themselves and guarded the house. The corregidor appealed to the tribunal not to drench the city in blood by exposing the poor civic militia to the swords of the gentlemen, and it consented to carry the matter to the king. The Council of Castile ordered that the tenant be maintained in possession, while the Suprema instructed the tribunal not to yield a jot, but to eject him by whatever means it could.[1253] What was the outcome does not appear, but the case illustrates the extent to which the Inquisition magnified its powers and the determination with which it employed them.

      ABUSES

      It was impossible to prevent these lawless abuses. The Suprema might scold and threaten but, as it rarely punished and always protected the offenders, its restraining efforts amounted to little. The visitadores, or inspectors, duly reported disorders, and instructions would be issued to reform them, but to these the inquisitors paid little respect. There is no reason to suppose that the Barcelona tribunal was worse than any other and a series of reports of visitations there gives us an insight into the evils inflicted on the people. In 1544, Doctor Alonso Pérez sent in a report in consequence of which the Suprema roundly rebuked all the subordinates, except the judge of confiscations. All but two were defamed for improper relations with women; all accepted presents; all made extra and illegal charges; all neglected their duties and most of them quarrelled with each other. The fiscal was especially objectionable for his improper conduct of prosecutions and for appropriating articles belonging to the tribunal; he refused to pay his debts; he arrested a candle-maker for not furnishing candles as promptly as he demanded; when a certain party bought some sheep from a peasant and was dissatisfied with his bargain, the fiscal cited the peasant, asserted that the purchase money was his and forced the peasant to take back the sheep and return the money. Yet the Suprema was too tender of the honor of the Holy Office to dismiss a single one of the peccant officials. It ordered them to be severely reprimanded, a few debts to be paid and presents to be returned and uttered some vague threats of what it would do if they continued in their evil courses.[1254]

      The natural result of this indulgence appears in the next visitation by the Licenciado Vaca, in 1549. The same abuses were flourishing, with the addition that the inquisitor, Diego de Sarmiento, had accepted the position of commissioner of the Cruzada indulgence and had appointed as its preachers and collectors the commissioners and familiars of the tribunal, to the great oppression and vexation of the people, whose dread of the Holy Office prevented complaints. Sarmiento was dismissed in 1550, but in 1552 he was reappointed to Barcelona; the fiscal and notary, who were specially inculpated, were suspended for six months and the gaoler, for ill-treatment of prisoners, was mulcted in one month’s wages.[1255] In 1561 another visitation was made by Inquisitor Gaspar Cervantes, whose report was exceedingly severe on the disorders of the tribunal and drew from the Suprema an energetic demand for their reform.[1256] This produced no amendment, the tribunal went on СКАЧАТЬ