History of the Inquisition of Spain. Henry Charles Lea

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ removing a cause of discord only intensified and multiplied it. The right to bear arms could scarce be held to include weapons which were prohibited to all by general regulations, yet the authorities had no jurisdiction over familiars to enforce them. Thus when flint-lock arquebuses were prohibited and the Viceroy of Valencia included familiars in a proclamation on the subject, in 1562, Philip II called him to account, telling him that the order must come from the inquisitors and, in 1575 he repeated this to the Viceroy of Catalonia.[988] The Suprema might decide that familiars were included in prohibitory decrees and that inquisitors must issue the necessary orders, as it did, in 1596, with regard to one respecting daggers and in 1598 to one forbidding fire-locks and pistols at night,[989] but the tribunals had no police to enforce these orders and, when the secular authorities undertook to do so, inquisitors were prompt to resent it, in their customary fashion, as a violation of the immunities of the Holy Office.

      BEARING ARMS

      Even more fruitful of trouble was the fact that it was impossible to make the inquisitors respect the limitations imposed by the Concordias on the number of familiars and consequently to obey the rule of furnishing lists of them to the authorities so that they might be known. Appointments were lavished greatly in excess of all possible needs and without informing the magistrates—often, indeed, without keeping records in the archives. The familiar might or might not carry with him the evidence of his official character but, whether he did so or not, his arrest or disarmament was violently resented, and the ordinary citizen when caught offending was apt to claim that he was a familiar in hopes of being released. How exasperating to the civil authorities was the situation may be gathered from a case occurring in Barcelona, in 1568. The veguer, on his nightly rounds, arrested Franco Foix, whom he found armed with a coat of mail, sword, buckler and dagger. The culprit claimed to be a familiar and the veguer obediently handed him over to the tribunal. He proved not to be one, but, instead of returning him, the inquisitors fined him in forty-four reales for their own benefit (presumably as a penalty for personating an official) and restored to him his forfeited arms.[990] When the laws were thus openly set at defiance, conditions were eminently favorable for quarrels, even without the violent mutual animosity everywhere existing between the tribunals and the civil authorities; collisions were correspondingly frequent and were fought to the bitter end.

      It would be wearisome to multiply cases illustrating the various phases of these quarrels which occupied the attention of the king and his councils in their settlement. A single one will suffice to show the spirit in which they were conducted on both sides. In 1620, by order of the tribunal of Valencia, acting in its secular capacity and not in a matter of faith, the commissioner at Játiva arrested a man and sent him to Valencia under the customary guard of relays of familiars. One of these named Juan López, armed with a prohibited flint-lock, was conveying him, on February 23d, when at Catarroja, about a league from the city, some armed alguaziles, in the service of Dr. Pedro Juan Rejaule, a judge on the criminal side of the Audiencia, arrested him, taking away his weapon and carrying him to Dr. Rejaule’s house. Disregarding his documents, Rejaule told him that he could not be released without giving bail to present himself to the viceroy and, as he was unable to furnish it he was handed as a prisoner to the local magistrates. On learning the event the inquisitors applied to the regent of the Audiencia who ordered the release of López, which was effected and Rejaule visited the tribunal, admitted that he had been in error and promised in future to observe all necessary respect. In spite of this the inquisitors proceeded to try him for impeding the Inquisition, ordered him to keep his house as a prison under pain of three hundred ducats, and threw into the secret prison as though they were heretics, the four alguaziles who had made the arrest. When notice of this was served on Rejaule he protested that the inquisitors were not his judges and that he would appeal, whereupon the additional indignity was inflicted upon him of posting two guards in his house with orders to keep him in sight.

      BEARING ARMS

      This produced a crisis. The viceroy assembled in his palace all three salas or branches of the Audiencia, where the matter was fully discussed and it was resolved to release Rejaule and hold the two guards as hostages for the imprisoned alguaziles. At 2 A.M. Dr. Morla went with halberdiers furnished by the viceroy, seized and handcuffed the guards and brought Rejaule to his brother judges. At the same time a scrivener of the court had been sent to the inquisitor Salazar with a message from the viceroy to the effect that, as the offence had not been in a matter of faith, Rejaule was justiciable only by the king; if the Inquisition held otherwise a competencia could be formed; the Audiencia had decided that Rejaule and the alguaziles must be released and the guards be held until this was done. The scrivener also presented a petition of appeal to the pope, or to whomsoever was judge, and demanded apostolos or letters to that effect. To this Salazar replied in writing that the arrests had been made for matters incident to and dependent upon affairs of the faith, in which the Inquisition had exclusive jurisdiction and could admit no competencia; he could say no more as to the cause of the arrests without violating the secrecy of the Inquisition and incurring excommunication and he begged the viceroy not to interfere in a matter concerning so greatly the service of God and the king. At 4 A.M. the scrivener returned with this reply to where the viceroy and judges were waiting. At the magic word “faith,” however fraudulently employed, all opposition vanished. By six o’clock Dr. Morla had taken Rejaule back to his house and had replaced the guards and, at the same time, the scrivener bore to the inquisitors a note from the viceroy saying that, as they had certified that it was a matter of faith, the Audiencia had restored everything to its previous condition and he offered not only not to impede the Inquisition but to show it all aid and favor.

      The case was thus transferred to the court, where the Suprema on one side and the Council of Aragon on the other, struggled for a favorable decision from Philip III. The former evidently felt the weakness of the claim that the faith was involved, but it argued that impeding the Inquisition in any way conferred jurisdiction on it and Aliaga, in his double capacity of inquisitor-general and royal confessor, added a bitter complaint as to the manner in which the Inquisition was abused and maltreated. To this the king replied that he wished the affair treated with the customary moderation and mercy of the Holy Office, especially as it was not directly a matter of faith, and whatever sentence the Suprema resolved upon for Rejaule and the other inculpated parties must be submitted to him before publication. Besides, he ordered a junta of two members each of the Suprema and the Council of Aragon to be formed and to devise a plan for the avoidance of future contention. This assumed Rejaule’s guilt and awarded the victory to the Suprema, but it was not satisfied and presented a consulta representing the perilous condition of the Valencia tribunal, which necessitated the punishment of the delinquents as a warning, but Philip merely repeated his former decision.[991]

      What was Rejaule’s fate we have no means of knowing, but his career was evidently blasted, whatever may have been the so-called mercy exhibited. As for the perilous position of the tribunal insisted on by the Suprema, it seems to be set forth in a Petition of the syndic of the College of Familiars, February 25, 1616, complaining of arrests and ill-treatment and asking the tribunal to take evidence on the subject. It accordingly did so, but while the testimony was ample as to the existence of ill-feeling towards the familiars, in substance it amounted only to their being deprived at night of daggers and bucklers which were prohibited weapons, and it does not appear that any action was taken in consequence. Complaints continued and another petition of October 30, 1626, asked that an envoy be sent to the Suprema, for which the familiars would defray the cost, for unless some relief was had they would resign in a body, as their position only exposed them to wrong and insult and their privileges were set at naught.[992]

      The difficulty of enforcing the laws on the people was intensified by the privileges claimed by the familiars. They were by no means peaceable folk and the unprivileged class naturally regarded it as a hardship to be restricted to the use of swords when these gentry were so much more efficiently armed. The Suprema as a rule supported its satellites. For ten years, from 1574, it resisted, in Aragon, the enforcement on familiars of a royal decree against carrying prohibited weapons at night, although the Concordia of Aragon in 1568 provided that familiars should obey the laws respecting arms and that inquisitors should not protect them in violations. СКАЧАТЬ