History of the Inquisition of Spain. Henry Charles Lea

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      TORQUEMADA

      The selection of Torquemada justified the wisdom of the sovereigns. Full of pitiless zeal, he developed the nascent institution with unwearied assiduity. Rigid and unbending, he would listen to no compromise of what he deemed to be his duty, and in his sphere he personified the union of the spiritual and temporal swords which was the ideal of all true churchmen. Under his guidance the Inquisition rapidly took shape and extended its organization throughout Spain and was untiring and remorseless in the pursuit and punishment of the apostates. His labors won him ample praise from successive popes. Already, in 1484, Sixtus IV wrote to him that Cardinal Borgia had warmly eulogized him for his success in prosecuting the good work throughout Castile and Leon, adding “We have heard this with the greatest pleasure and rejoice exceedingly that you, who are furnished with both doctrine and authority, have directed your zeal to these matters which contribute to the praise of God and the utility of the orthodox faith. We commend you in the Lord and exhort you, cherished son, to persevere with tireless zeal in aiding and promoting the cause of the faith, by doing which, as we are assured you will, you will win our special favor.” Twelve years later, Cardinal Borgia, then pope under the name of Alexander VI, assures him in 1496, that he cherishes him in the very bowels of affection for his immense labors in the exaltation of the faith.[482] If we cannot wholly attribute to him the spirit of ruthless fanaticism which animated the Inquisition, he at least deserves the credit of stimulating and rendering it efficient in its work by organizing it and by directing it with dauntless courage against the suspect however high-placed, until the shadow of the Holy Office covered the land and no one was so hardy as not to tremble at its name. The temper in which he discharged his duties and the absolute and irresponsible control which he exercised over the subordinate tribunals can be fitly estimated from a single instance. There was a fully organized Inquisition at Medina, with three inquisitors, an assessor, a fiscal and other officials, assisted by the Abbot of Medina as Ordinary. They reconciled some culprits and burnt others, apparently without referring the cases to him, but when they found reason to acquit some prisoners they deemed it best to transmit the papers to him for confirmation. He demurred at this mercy and told the tribunal to try the accused again when the Licentiate Villalpando should be there as visitador. Some months later Villalpando came there, the cases were reviewed, the prisoners were tortured, two of them were reconciled and the rest acquitted, the sentences being duly published as final. Torquemada on learning this was incensed and declared that he would burn them all. He had them arrested again and sent to Valladolid, to be tried outside of their district, where his threat was doubtless carried into effect.[483] When such was the spirit infused in the organization at the beginning we need not wonder that verdicts of acquittal are infrequent in the records of its development. Yet withal Torquemada’s zeal could not wholly extinguish worldliness. We are told, indeed, that he refused the archbishopric of Seville, that he wore the humble Dominican habit, that he never tasted flesh nor wore linen in his garments or used it on his bed, and that he refused to give a marriage-portion to his indigent sister, whom he would only assist to enter the order of beatas of St. Dominic. Still, his asceticism did not prevent him from living in palaces surrounded by a princely retinue of two hundred and fifty armed familiars and fifty horsemen.[484] Nor was his persecuting career purely disinterested. Though the rule of his Dominican Order forbade individual ownership of property and, though his position as supreme judge should have dictated the utmost reserve in regard to the financial results of persecution, he had no hesitation in accumulating large sums from the pecuniary penances inflicted by his subordinates on the heretics who spontaneously returned to the faith.[485] It is true that the standards of the age were so low that he made no secret of this and it is also true that he lavished them on the splendid monastery of St. Thomas Aquinas which he built at Avila, on enlarging that of Santa Cruz at Segovia of which he was prior and on various structures in his native town of Torquemada. Yet amid the ostentation of his expenditure he lived in perpetual fear, and at his table he always used the horn of a unicorn which was a sovereign preservative against poison.[486]

      INTERNAL QUARRELS

      As delegated powers were held to expire with the death of the grantor, unless otherwise expressly defined, Torquemada’s commission required renewal on the decease of Sixtus IV. Ferdinand and Isabella asked that the new one should not be limited to the life of the pope, but that the power should continue, not only during Torquemada’s life, but until the appointment of his successor.[487] The request was not granted and, when Innocent VIII, by a brief of February 3, 1485, recommissioned Torquemada it was in the ordinary form. This apparently was not satisfactory, but the pope was not willing thus to lose all control of the Spanish Inquisition and a compromise seems to have been reached, for when, February 6, 1486, Torquemada was appointed Inquisitor-general of Barcelona and his commission for Spain was renewed, on March 24th of the same year, it was drawn to continue at the good pleasure of the pope and of the Holy See, which, without abnegating papal control, rendered renewals unnecessary.[488] This formula was abandoned in the commissions of Torquemada’s immediate successors, but was subsequently resumed and continued to be employed through the following centuries.[489]

      Torquemada’s commission of 1485 contained the important power of appointing and dismissing inquisitors, but the confirmation of 1486 bore the significant exception that all those appointed by the pope were exempted from removal by him, indicating that in the interval he had attempted to exercise the power and that the resistance to it had enlisted papal support. In fact, at the conference of Seville, held in 1484 by Torquemada, there were present the two inquisitors of each of four existing tribunals; from Seville we find Juan de San Martin, one of the original appointees of 1479, but his colleague, Miguel de Morillo, has disappeared and is replaced by Juan Ruiz de Medina, who had been merely assessor, while but a single one, Pero Martínez de Barrio, of the seven commissioned by Sixtus IV in 1482 appears as representing the other tribunals—the rest are all new men, doubtless appointees of Torquemada.[490] There was evidently a bitter quarrel on foot between Torquemada and the original papal nominees, who held that their powers, delegated directly from the pope, rendered them independent of him, and, as usual, the Holy See inclined to one side or to the other in the most exasperating manner, as opposing interests brought influence to bear. Complaints against Torquemada were sufficiently numerous and serious to oblige him thrice to send Fray Alonso Valaja to the papal court to justify him.[491] He seems to have removed Miguel de Morillo, who vindicated himself in Rome, for a brief of Innocent VIII, February 23, 1487, appoints him inquisitor of Seville, in complete disregard of the faculties granted to Torquemada. Then a motu proprio of November 26, 1487, suspends both him and Juan de San Martin and commissions Torquemada to appoint their successors. Again, a brief of January 7, 1488, appoints Juan Inquisitor of Seville, while subsequent briefs of the same year are addressed to him concerning the business of his office as though he were discharging its duties independently of Torquemada, but his death in 1489 removed him from the scene. The quarrel evidently continued, and at one time Fray Miguel enjoyed a momentary triumph, for a papal letter of September 26, 1491, commissions him as Inquisitor-general of Castile and Aragon, thus placing him on an equality with Torquemada himself.[492] It would be impossible now to determine what part the sovereigns may have had in these changes and to what extent the popes disregarded the authority conferred on them of appointment and removal. There was a constant struggle on the one hand to render the Spanish Holy Office national and independent, and on the other to keep it subject to papal control.

      FIVE INQUISITORS GENERAL

      Finally the opposition to Torquemada became so strong that Alexander VI, in 1494, kindly alleging his great age and infirmities, commissioned Martin Ponce de Leon, Archbishop of Messina, but resident in Spain, Iñigo Manrique, Bishop of Córdova, Francisco Sánchez de la Fuente, Bishop of Avila, and Alonso Suárez de Fuentelsaz, Bishop of Mondonego and successively of Lugo and Jaen, as inquisitors-general with the same powers as Torquemada; each was independent and could act by himself and could even terminate cases commenced by another.[493] It is quite probable that, to spare his feelings, he was allowed to name his colleagues as delegates of his powers, for in some instructions issued, in 1494, by Martin of Messina and Francisco of Avila they describe themselves as inquisitors-general in all the Spanish realms subdelegated by the Inquisitor-general СКАЧАТЬ