History of the Inquisition of Spain. Henry Charles Lea

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СКАЧАТЬ appeal from the Suprema, decided that those of the Inquisition, in common with other tribunals, should be exempt, but that real and personal property, including trade, belonging to officials, should be held liable to the tax.[929]

      Towards the close of the eighteenth century various documents show that all ideas of resistance and all pleas of exemption had been abandoned. The Holy Office submitted to ordinary and extraordinary exactions and the Suprema warned the tribunals that the assessments were wholly in the hands of the royal officers and that it had no cognizance of the matter. The calls were frequent and heavy, as when, in 1794, four per cent. was levied on all salaries of over eight hundred ducats, and three months later a demand was made of one-third of the fruits of all benefices and prebends, which was meekly submitted to and statements were obediently rendered.[930] Under the Restoration, the Inquisition was less tractable. In 1818 an incometax was levied and was imposed on all salaries, including those of the Suprema, which at once prepared for resistance. There seems to have been a prolonged struggle with a successful result for, on November 17th, it issued a circular enclosing a royal order which conceded exemption.[931]

      The exemption from taxation, which included import and export dues or merchandise and provisions required for officials and prisoners, led to the claim of other privileges and to not a few abuses. It was not confined to sea-ports and frontier towns, for the jealous particularism of the kingdoms, dynastically united, kept up their antagonistic policy towards each other and intercourse between them was subjected to regulations similar to those of foreign trade. The exemption from these, as well as from the octroi duties of the towns, was a most important privilege, capable of being turned to account in many ways besides diminishing the expenses of the officials.

      CUSTOMS DUTIES

      We have seen that Ferdinand, in 1508, prohibited the issue of orders to pass goods free, but nevertheless it continued. When, in 1540, Blas Ortiz went to take possession of his office as inquisitor of Valencia, the Suprema furnished him with a pass addressed to all customs officials permitting him to cross the frontiers with three horses and four pack-mules; he could be required to swear that what he carried was his private property and was not for sale, but all further interference was hidden under pain of excommunication and a hundred ducats.[932] It was not only on such occasions, however, that the customhouses were thus eluded. Before the introduction of regular posts, the constant communications between the tribunals and with the Suprema were carried by couriers or by muleteers, and the mysterious secrecy which shrouded all the operations of the Holy Office furnished an excuse for preventing any risk that these sacred packages should be examined. All bearers of letters therefore, even when they had loaded mules, were furnished with passes forbidding, under excommunication and fine, any unpacking or investigation of what they carried.[933] The facilities thus offered for contraband trade are obvious and their value can only be appreciated through a knowledge of the elaborate system of import and export duties and prohibitions of import and export which characterize the policy of the period.[934] Complaints were fruitless, for when the Council of Hacienda issued letters against certain familiars in the Canaries, detected in importing prohibited goods, Philip II, February 11, 1593, ordered the letters to be recalled and that no more should be issued.[935]

      There were few things concerning which there was more jealousy than the transfer of grain from one Spanish kingdom to another, and when it was permitted there were duties, either import or export or perhaps both. Deficient harvests, in one province or another, were not infrequent and the tribunals were constantly seeking special relief by obtaining permits to violate the laws, or by violating the laws without permits. Many instances of this could be cited, but it will suffice to recount the experience of the Valencia tribunal in endeavoring to obtain wheat from Aragon. For this it had special facilities, for the Aragonese districts of Teruel and Albarracin were subject to it, but, on the other hand, Aragon was especially firm in prohibiting the exportation of wheat. In 1522 the tribunal undertook to bring some wheat from Aragon and threatened the frontier officials with excommunication if they should interfere. In spite of this they detained it, when the inquisitor published the censures and imprisoned a guard whom he caught, whereupon the Aragonese Diputados remonstrated, saying that if the emperor or pope wanted wheat from Aragon he applied for licence, and begging the inquisitor to keep within his jurisdiction and release the guard. Then an accommodation was reached and the tribunal was permitted to bring in thirty cahizes (about one hundred bushels), on condition of removing any excommunication that might exist, but it repudiated its side of the agreement and summoned the officials to appear and receive penance. This exhausted the patience of the Diputados; they ordered the wheat to be stopped or, if it had gone forward to be followed and captured with the mules bearing it; the inquisitor might do what he pleased, but they would employ all the forces of the kingdom and enforce respect for the laws. The position in which the inquisitor had placed himself was so untenable that the inquisitor-general issued an order forbidding tribunals to take anything out of Aragon in violation of the prohibitions.[936]

      IMPORTATION OF WHEAT

      The effect of this rebuff was evanescent. The tribunal persisted and by false pretences established a claim which, in 1591, the Suprema warned it to use with moderation as the Council of Aragon was making complaint. As usual no attention was paid to this and, in 1597, Philip II was compelled to interfere because the tribunal was issuing to excess letters authorizing the export of wheat from Teruel—an abuse which was doubtless abundantly profitable.[937] If this brought any amendment it was transient. On June 16, 1606, the Diputados represented to the tribunal that they were bound by their oaths of office, under pain of excommunication, to enforce the laws prohibiting the export of wheat; that, in spite of these laws, large quantities were carried to Valencia, to the destruction and total ruin of the land, by individuals armed with licences issued by the tribunal, wherefore they prayed that no more licences be issued. No attention was paid to this and on January 8, 1607, they wrote again, stating that the abuse was increasing and that they must appeal to the king and the Suprema for its suppression. This brought an answer to the effect that the tribunal was more moderate than it had previously been and would continue to be so as it would find convenient, without prejudice to the rights conceded to it by the royal cédulas and, as it was occupied in the service of God, it could reasonably exercise those rights. The asserted rights under which it had so long nullified the laws of Aragon were a conscious fraud for, when it complained to the Suprema of the interference of the Diputados with its immemorial privilege and enclosed the royal cédula conferring it, the Suprema pointed out that this referred only to Castile and not to Aragon; the complaints of the Diputados had been listened to and all that could be done was to invoke the good offices of the Saragossa tribunal to obtain permission to get fifteen hundred bushels per annum. The Saragossa inquisitors willingly lent their aid, but in vain. They wrote, June 6, 1608, that they had brought to bear all their influence on the Diputados who declared that the fuero prohibiting the export of grain was too strict for them to violate it. A correspondence ensued with the Suprema which ordered the tribunal, February 8, 1610, to abstain, as previously ordered, but if, in any year, there should be special necessity, it might report the quantity required when instructions would be given. This imposed silence on it until 1618, when another attempt was made to overcome the obstinacy of the Diputados; it had abstained, the tribunal said, for some years from issuing licences, in consequence of the great abuses and excesses of those to whom they were granted, but now the sterility of the land causes great inconveniences and it asks that the fruits of its prebends in Aragon and its rents be invested in wheat allowed to be exported. The Diputados however wisely refused to open the door; the law to which they had sworn imposed heavy penalties for its infraction and they were compelled to refuse. This was probably effectual, as far as concerned Aragon, for we happen to find the tribunal, in 1631, obtaining from the king licence to import two hundred and fifty bushels from Castile.[938]

      IMPORTATION OF WHEAT

      EVASION OF OCTROI DUTIES

      This narrative is instructive in more ways than one. The pretence of necessity in the service of God was as fraudulent as the claims put forward. The whole business was purely speculative and the licences were doubtless sold to the highest bidder through all СКАЧАТЬ