Chapter 25
SECTION XXV of A HISTORY of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 4. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A HISTORY of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 4, by Henry Charles Lee. Book 8, Chapter 7, Part 1.
SPHERES OF ACTION. PROPOSITIONS. Although the Spanish Inquisition was founded for the suppression of Crypto-Judaism, it promptly vindicated its jurisdiction over all aberrations from the faith. There were, at the time, no other formal heresies in Spain, but the people at large were not universally versed in all the niceties of theology, and the supineness of the spiritual courts permitted a license of speech in which the trained theologian could discern potentialities of error. all this the inquisition undertook to correct and ultimately under the general denomination of propositions there developed an extensive field of action which towards the end became the principal function of the institution
reckless or thoughtless expressions uttered in anger or in jest or through ignorance or carelessness gave to pious zeal or to malice the opportunity of secret denunciation which in time impressed upon every Spaniard the necessity of caution and left its mark upon the national character as we have seen the closest family ties did not release from the obligation of accusation and every individual lived in an atmosphere of suspicion, surrounded by possible spies of his own household. Men of the highest standing for learning or piety, moreover, were exposed to the torture of prolonged prosecution and possible ruin for words spoken or written to which an heretical intent could be ascribed in relation to the obscurest points of theology, and thus the
development of the Spanish intellect was arrested at the time when it promised to become dominant in Europe. From every point of view, therefore, the miscellaneous offenses, grouped under the general term of propositions, was by no means the least noteworthy subject of inquisitorial activity. How soon began the espionage, which eventually brought every man under its baneful influence, is seen in the case of Juan de Zamora, condemned in the Saragossa auto of February 10, 1488,
to perpetual prison, because at Medina, in chatting with some casual acquaintances, he was said to have spoken disrespectfully of the Eucharist and to have denied the real presence, while in the Alto of May 10, 1489, Juan de Unbun, a notary, was penanced for saying that he cared more for ten florins than for God. Even more significant of the danger overhanging every man was the case of Diego de Uceda before the Toledo Tribunal in 1494 on the very serious charges of
having said that the Eucharist was only bread, that so villainous a crew as the Jews could not have put Christ to death, and that he ate meat on fast days. He explained that some six or eight years before, at Fuensalida, a priest in celebrating found the wafer broken and angrily cast it on the floor, ordering the sacristan to bring him another. The people were scandalized, and Diego sought to quiet them by explaining that the wafer before consecration was only bread.
The next charge arose from a remark in a discussion on an exuberant sermon on the Passion. As for the third, he proved that he was a devout Catholic, punctual in all observance, with a special devotion to St. Gregory, to whose intercession he attributed his relief from a chronic trouble of stomach and liver. that had forced him at one time to eat meat on fast days.
He lay in the secret prison for six months with sequestration of property and was finally sentenced to combergation, which he performed with the Count of Fuensalida and two priests as his compurgators. But had he not been a man of standing and influence, he might have been burnt as an impenitent heretic.
There was no prescription of time for heresy, and trivial matters occurring years before might thus at any moment be brought up, when they had faded from the memory of all but those who had a grudge to satisfy. The ever-present danger impending over every man is well illustrated by the case of Alvaro de Montalvan, a septuagenarian in 1525.
Returning to Madrid after a day's pleasure excursion in the country, Alonso Ruiz, a priest who was of the party, took occasion to moralize on the troubles of life in comparison with the prospects of future bliss. Alvaro, who subsequently pleaded that he was in his cups,
remarked that we know what we have here, but know nothing of the future. Some six months later, one of the party in his Easter confession chanced to mention this
and was instructed to denounce Alvaro. He was arrested, and, on searching the records, it was found that nearly 40 years before, in 1486, during a term of grace, he had confessed to some Jewish observances without intention and was discharged without reconciliation or penance.
On this new charge, he was made to confess intention intention, and was sentenced October 18, 1525, to reconciliation, confiscation, and perpetual prison, the latter being commuted November 27, 1527, to confinement in his own house. There was scarce anything, however innocently spoken, that might not be tortured into a censurable sense, and as in so wide and vague a region, no formal rules could be enunciated to
restrain inquisitorial zeal. It afforded ample opportunity for oppression and cruelty, especially before the tribunals were thoroughly subordinated to the Suprema. The occasional visitations by an inspector might reveal abuses but could not prevent them. That of de Soto Salazar at Barcelona affords ample evidence of the recklessness with which inquisitors exercised their power. In 1564, we hear of a physician, Maestre Pla, prosecuted for saying that his wife was so
exhausted that she looked like a crucifix dead with hunger. Juan Garaver, a swineherd, was forced to appear in an auto with a mitre, followed by scourging, for saying that if he had money and enough to eat, the devil might take his soul, which the Suprema decided to belong to Episcopal and not to inquisitorial cognizance. It rebuked the tribunal sharply for relaxing Guillain Berberia Guacho for a single proposition, without calling in learned men to persuade and
advise him, especially as one of the witnesses stated that he uttered the words in French. Clemenza Paresa was fined ten ducats and penanced for saying, You see me well enough off in this world, and you will not see me punished in the other. And Juana Serralves, for the same utterance, was condemned to public penance. Badia, priest of Falset, was fined twenty ducats with spiritual penances for saying that he would not forgive God.
Juan Canalvero was fined six ducats and penanced for saying that he would cheat his father or God in buying or selling. There were many other similar cases, in some of which the Suprema ordered the fines to be returned and the names to be stricken from the registers. The very triviality of these cases illustrates the atmosphere of suspense and distrust in which the Spanish population existed, nor can their full import be realized, unless we remember
that, slight as the penalties may seem, they were the least part of the punishment, for penancing by the Inquisition was fatal to limpieza. How readily a man's career could thus be ruined by rivals or enemies is seen in the case of the Dominican Alonso de los Raelos in the Canaries. In 1568, some assertions of his respecting purgatory attracted attention, but led to no formal trial, because he did not deny its existence, and theologians are not agreed as to its exact locality and character. Some years later, there were feuds in the order due to an attempt to erect the Canaries into a
separate province, when the prior, Blas di Merino, who hoped to become provincial and who regarded Fray Alonso as a possible rival, accused him to the tribunal for this proposition. He was thrown into prison and, in 1572, was sentenced to penance and reclusion, thus rendering him ineligible. We have seen in the previous chapter the penalties regarded as sufficient for the crime of seduction in the confessional, and a comparison between these and the punishments inflicted for utterances in the heat of discussion and indicative of no settled tendency to heresy, reveal the very curious standard of ethics prevalent at the period. In 1571, a priest named Miguel Lidueña de Osorio was accused in Valencia of having said
that the bishops at the Council of Trent deserved to be burnt because they assumed to be popes, and, moreover, that St. Anne was deserving of higher honor than St. Joaquin. For this, he was required to abjure di vehementi. he was suspended from orders, recluded for six years, and banished perpetually from Valencia. It was not often that flagrant cases of solicitation were visited with such severity.
The infinite varieties and intangible nature of the offense rendered impossible the formulation of hard and fast rules for the tribunals, which were thus left to their discretion in a matter which was constantly forming a larger portion of inquisitorial business. The space devoted to it by Rojas in his little book indicates its growing importance, and he tells us that he was led to treat it thus at length because so many of the accused admit the facts
while denying belief and intention, and he had seen such diametrically opposite modes of treatment and punishment adopted in different tribunals. He is emphatic in insisting on the allowance to be made for the ignorance and rusticity of most of the culprits, and he points out that in view of the restrictions on the defense, the inquisitor should be especially careful to give weight to whatever could be alleged in favor of the accused,
whether he were ignorant and rude, or learned and subtle. The manner and occasion of the utterance ought to be carefully considered, as well as the nativity of the speaker, if he comes from lands where heresy flourishes. How much, depended on the temper of the tribunal, is exhibited in a case in which a man going to hear Mass and finding that it was over said, faith alone suffices, and was prosecuted for
the remark. Rojas decided that he was not to be held as asserting that faith without works suffices, which would be heretical, for doubtful words are to be interpreted according to circumstances, but a more zealous or less conscientious inquisitor could readily have convicted him. For ordinary cases, he tells us, the accused should rarely be confined in the secret prison. The abjuration may be de levy or de vehementi, according to circumstances, and the
extraordinary punishment should be scourging or fines. As the Suprema gradually assumed control over the tribunals, there grew up certain more or less recognized rules of procedure. Thus, if there was evidence of heretical utterances, and the accused confessed them but denied intention, he was to be tortured. If this brought confession of intention, he was to be reconciled with confiscation in a public auto as a formal heretic.
If he overcame the torture, he had to abjure dei vehementi in an auto with scourging, vergüenza, exile, etc., according to his station and the character of the propositions. This, we are told, was merciful, for the common opinion of the doctors was that if the propositions were formally heretical, the offender should be relaxed in spite of his denying intention.
Mercy was carried even further, for if ignorance was alleged with probable justification, the accused was not tortured nor condemned as a heretic, but abjured de levy with discretional penalties. There was, moreover, as we have seen,
a vast range of propositions in which heresy was only inferential, characterized as scandalous, offensive to pious ears, etc., for which abjuration de levy was considered sufficient with spiritual penances. In this enumeration of penalties, there is no allusion to fines which, however, were by no means neglected. In 1579, for instance, the Bacillère Montesinos, in defending an adulteress, put in an argument of cynical ingenuity to prove
that she had committed no sin. This was transmitted to the Toledo Tribunal, whose calificadores founded it four heretical propositions besides a citation from St. Paul amounting to heretical blasphemy. Montesinos threw himself on the mercy of the tribunal, wept and wrung his hands, protested that he must have been out of his senses, owing to old age, and offered every excuse that he could suggest. He escaped with abjuration de levy, six months suspension from
his functions as an advocate, and a fine of 8,000 maravedis. Many similar cases could be cited from the Toledo record, but two more will suffice. In 1582, the bachiller Pablo Hernandez denounced himself for having in the heat of discussion been led on to say that in canonizations the Pope had to rely upon witnesses who might be false, and therefore it was not necessary to believe that all so canonized were saints. He was sentenced to abjure de levy, to pay six thousand maravedis,
and to have his sentence read in his parish church while he heard Mass. From this, he appealed to the Suprema, which remitted the humiliation in church, but thriftily increased the fine to 20,000 maravedis. In 1604, the tribunal had a richer prize
in an old German named Giraldo Paris, a resident of Madrid who seems to have been a dabbler in alchemy. He was accused of saying that the Old Testament was a fable, that St. Job was an alchemist, the Christian faith was a matter of opinion,
and much more of the same kind. The evidence must have been flimsy, for serious as were these charges, there was discordia on the question of arresting him, and it required an order from the Suprema
before he was confined in the secret prison. He gradually confessed the truth of the charges, but was not sentenced to reconciliation, escaping with absolution di vehementi, a year's reclusion in a monastery, the surrender of all books and papers dealing with alchemy and quintessences, and a fine of 3,000 ducats.
The general impression produced by a group of these cases is that scourging was reserved for those too poor to pay a moderate fine, and that fines were scaled rather upon the ability of the culprit than on the degree of his guilt. In determining penalties, however, it was advised that considerable weight in extenuation should be allowed for drunkenness and for the readiness and frankness of the culprit in confessing, as well as for his ignorance or simplicity. End of section 25. Recording by Linda Johnson.
