History of the Inquisition of Spain. Henry Charles Lea

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СКАЧАТЬ authority in his district, as he represents both pope and king; and the Suprema, in a consulta addressed to Philip V, in 1713, boasted that its jurisdiction was so superior that there was not a person in the kingdom exempt from it.[883] The haughty supremacy which it affected is seen in instructions issued in 1578 that inquisitors, when the tribunal is sitting, are not to go forth to receive any one, save the king, the queen or a royal prince and are not, in an official capacity, to appear in receptions of prelates or other public assemblies, and this was virtually repeated in 1645, when they were told not to visit the viceroy or the archbishop or accept their invitations, for such demonstrations were due only to the person of the king.[884] Exception however, was probably taken to this for a carta acordada of March 17, 1648, lays down less stringent rules and specifies for each tribunal, according to the varying customs of different places, the high officials whom the inquisitor is permitted to visit on induction into office and on occasions of condolence or congratulation.[885]

      In the social hierarchy the viceroys and captains-general stood next to the king as representing, in their respective governments, the royal person. To outrank these exalted personages was not beyond inquisitorial ambition. In 1588 there was great scandal in Lima, when the inquisitors claimed precedence over the Count of Villar, the Viceroy of Peru, and carried their point by excommunicating him, but Philip II, in a cédula of March 8, 1589, took them severely to task for their arrogance and added that the viceroy was equally to blame for yielding, as he represented the royal power. This lesson was ineffectual and some years later another method was tried of asserting superiority. In 1596, the Captain-general of Aragon complained to the king that, in the recent auto de fe, the inquisitors had refused to give him the title of Excellency. To this Philip replied, February 6, 1597, that it was unreasonable for them thus to affect equality with his personal representative; they must either concede to him the title of Excellency or themselves be treated as vuestra merced, in place of muy ilustres or señoria, and therefore he could attend the next auto.[886]

      ASSERTION OF SUPERIORITY

      This asserted superiority of the Inquisition was very galling to the bishops, who argued that the Holy Office had been founded only four hundred years before, as an aid to their jurisdiction, and they resented bitterly the efforts of the resolute upstarts to claim higher privileges and precedence. The Inquisition, however, was an organized whole, with sharp and unsparing methods of enforcing its claims and protected in every way from assault, while the episcopate was a scattered and unwieldy body, acting individually and, for the most part, powerless to defend the officials, through whom it acted, from those who claimed that everything concerning themselves was a matter of faith of which they had exclusive cognizance. The serious conflicts over jurisdiction will be considered in a subsequent chapter; here we are concerned merely with questions of etiquette and ceremonial. Seen through the perspective of the centuries, these quarrels, which were conducted with frantic eagerness, seem trivialities unworthy of record, but their significance was momentous to the parties concerned, as they involved superiority and inferiority. The hundred years’ quarrel over precedence in Rome, between the ambassadors of France and Spain, which was not settled until 1661 by the triumph of France, had a meaning beyond a mere question of ceremony. In Spain these debates often filled the land with confusion. All parties were tenacious of what they conceived to be their rights and were ready to explode in violence on the smallest provocation. The enormous mass of letters and papers concerning the seats and positions of the inquisitors and their officials at all public functions—whether seats should be chairs or benches and whether they were to have canopies, or cushions, or carpets, shows that these were regarded as matters of the highest moment, giving rise to envenomed quarrels with the ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries, requiring for their settlement the interposition of the royal authority. The inquisitors were constantly arrogating to themselves external marks of superiority and the others were disputing it with a vehemence that elevated the most trivial affairs into matters of national importance, and the attention of the king and the highest ministers was diverted from affairs of state to pacify obscure quarrels in every corner of the land.

      It would be futile to enter into the details of these multitudinous squabbles, but one or two subjects in dispute may be mentioned to illustrate the ingenuity with which the Inquisition pushed its claims to superiority. Towards the middle of the seventeenth century it demanded that, when there was an episcopal letter or mandate to be published in the churches and also an edict or letter of the Inquisition, the latter should have precedence in the reading. This was naturally regarded as an effort to show that the inquisitorial jurisdiction was superior to the episcopal and it led to frequent scandals. In 1645, at Valencia, on Passion Sunday, a secretary of the tribunal endeavored to read letters of the inquisitors before one of the archbishop’s, but, by the latter’s order, the priest refused to give way, whereupon the inquisitors arrested him: the matter was carried up to the king, who ordered the priest to be discharged in such wise that there should be no record of his prosecution and that his good fame should be restored. Soon after this, in Saragossa on a feast-day in the cathedral, a priest commenced to read an archiepiscopal letter, but before he had finished more than a few lines, a secretary of the Inquisition mounted the other pulpit and began reading a letter of the Inquisition; the priest was so disturbed that he stopped, whereupon the archbishop, Juan Cebrian, ordered his arrest, but he pleaded his surprise and confusion and the archbishop relented. In 1649 a more determined effort was made by the Saragossa tribunal. August 15th the parish priest of the cathedral read certain archiepiscopal letters at the accustomed time and was followed by the secretary of the Inquisition with others of the inquisitors. Two days later the priest was summoned before the tribunal and was made to swear secrecy as to orders given to him. The result showed what were his instructions, for the next Sunday, having archiepiscopal letters to read, he waited until the secretary read those of the inquisitors. Some days later similar secret orders were given to the priest of Nuestra Señora del Pilar and when, on October 11th, he commenced reading an archiepiscopal letter, an officer of the Inquisition seized him by the arm and forced him to read first those of the tribunal. Archbishop Cebrian addressed memorials to the king, September 7th and 21st and October 12th asking his protection to preserve the archiepiscopal jurisdiction; the Council of Aragon presented a consulta supporting him, on which the wearied monarch made an endorsement, deploring the evil results of such conflicts and telling the Council to write to the archbishop not to proceed to extremities but to seek some adjustment similar to that by which, a short time before, Cardinal Moscoso in Toledo had caused an inquisitorial letter to be read on a different day, to which the tribunal must be made to conform.[887]

      ASSERTION OF SUPERIORITY

      The persistence with which the Inquisition maintained any claim once advanced is illustrated by its endeavor to introduce change in the ritual of the mass favorable to its assumption of superiority. It was the custom that the celebrant should make a bow to the bishop, if present, and in his absence, to the Eucharist. In 1635, at Valladolid, the inquisitors required that when the Edict of Faith was read the bow should be made to them and, on the refusal of the officiating canon, they arrested him and the dean who upheld him and held them under heavy bail. This aroused the whole city and brought a rebuke from the king, who ordered them to discharge the bail and not to abuse their jurisdiction. Unabashed by this the effort was made again at Compostella, in 1639, and duly resisted; the king was again obliged to examine the question and, after consultation with learned men, decided that the chapter was in the right and that the inquisitors had the alternative of absenting themselves from the reading. Two rebuffs such as this should have sufficed but, in 1643, after careful preparation, another attempt was made at Córdova, which produced a fearful scandal. Neither side would yield; the services were interrupted; the inquisitors endeavored to excommunicate the canons, but the latter raised such a din with howls and cries, the thunder of the organ, the clangor of bells and breaking up the seats in the choir, that the fulmination could not be heard. Even the inquisitors shrank from the storm and left the church amid hisses, with their caps pulled down to their eyes, but they lost no time in commencing a prosecution of the canons, who appealed to the king, in a portentous document covering two hundred and fifty-six folio pages. Philip and his advisers at the moment had ample occupation, what with the dismissal of Olivares, the evil tidings from Rocroy and the rebellions in Catalonia and Portugal, СКАЧАТЬ