Chapter 26
SECTION 26 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 VIII, CHAPTER VII, PART II, SPHERES OF ACTION, PROPOSITIONS.
There were two special propositions which were so widely held and came so repeatedly before the tribunals that they almost form a special class. One of these was the assertion that the married state is as good as or better than that of celibacy as prescribed for clerics and religious. That this was plainly heretical could not be doubted after the anathema of the Council of Trent in 1563, and its prevalence is a noteworthy fact. In the Toledo Record, from 1575 to 1610, there are 30 cases of this.
In strictness, as the assertion of a doctrine contrary to the teachings of the Church, and condemned as heretical, it should have been visited with reconciliation. or at least with abjuration de vehementi, and heavy penalties. But as the heresy was one of tridentine definition and a novelty, it was mercifully treated with abjuration de levy,
and usually with a moderate fine, or vergüenza, or even with less. Extreme leniency was shown to Sebastian Vallejo in 1581, who had declared that if he had a hundred daughters, he would not make nuns of them, in view of the licentiousness of the frails, for those in the convents were as lecherous as those outside.
No parent should put his children in religion until they were of full age, and, as to marriage, he advanced the customary argument that it was established by God, while monarchism was the work of the saints. He came to denounce himself, and pleaded drunkenness and extenuation, which probably explains his escape with a reprimand.
Soon after this, Maria de Orduña was treated with equal mercy, on denouncing herself for the same offense, the reason alleged being that she was a very simple-minded woman. As the offense was thus lightly regarded, it follows that torture was not permitted in the prosecution.
The error was difficult of eradication. In 1623, a writer calls attention to the number of cases still coming before the tribunals and suggests for its repression that the sentences be read in the churches of the offenders, so that a knowledge of the erroneous character of the assertion should be disseminated. Some 20 years later, it still was sufficiently frequent to be treated as a separate class,
though we are told that it was visited with less severity than of old, as it presumably arose from ignorance that was not to be considered as a heresy. This is remarkable in view of the ease with which it might have been regarded as Lutheran. A still more frequent proposition, which gave much trouble to eradicate, was that fornication between unmarried folk is not a mortal sin.
Although the theologians held that this assertion in itself was a mortal sin, there was really in it nothing that savored of heresy, and its cognizance by the Inquisition was an arbitrary extension of jurisdiction without justification. Perhaps there was some confused conception that it was derived from the Moors, whose sexual laxity was well known, but the usual argument offered in its defense,
by those who entertained it, was the toleration by the state of public women and of brothels, whence the inference was natural that it could not be a mortal sin. It seems to have been between 1550 and 1560 that the Inquisition commenced its efforts to suppress this popular error. The earliest record of its action that I have met occurs in the great Seville auto of September 24, 1559, where there were no less than twelve cases, of whom eight abjured de levy, one de vehementi,
six were paraded in vergüenza, four were scourged with a hundred lashes, of whom one was a woman, and two heard mass as penitents. The requirement of abjuration shows that suspicion of heresy was already attributed to the proposition, but this as yet was not universally accepted, for in 1561 the Suprema wrote to the tribunal of Calahora that Pedro Sestero, whom it had penanced for this offense, ought to have been prosecuted as a heretic,
for it would seem to be heresy. Thus heresy was injected into it, and we speedily find it to be a leading source of business in the Castilian tribunals. Seville was notably active. In the auto of October 28, 1562, there were 19 cases.
In that of May 13, 1565, out of 75 penitents, 25 were for this proposition. The punishments were severe. all abjured de levy and appeared in their shirts with halter and candle all but one were gagged fourteen were scourged with an aggregate of nineteen hundred lashes five were paraded in vergüenza two were fined in two hundred ducats apiece, and two others in a thousand meravedis each, six were exiled and one was forbidden to leave Seville without permission.
Besides these there was one man who had a hundred lashes, for saying that there was no sin in keeping a mistress, and three women were penanced for saying the same of living in concubinage, of whom two had a hundred lashes apiece, and the third was paraded in vergüenza. Two men appeared for saying that keeping a mistress was better than marriage,
of whom one had the infliction of the gag. To these we may add two who held that marriage was better than the celibacy of the frails, and we have a total of thirty-three cases, or nearly one-half of all in the auto, for errors concerning the relations of the sexes. Active as was this work, it did not satisfy the Suprema, which, in a Carta Accordada of November 23, 1573, speaks of the prevalence of the offense as indicated in the reports of autos, and the little progress thus far made in its suppression.
Greater vigor was therefore ordered, and in future all delinquents were to be prosecuted as heretics. This was followed by another, October 2, 1574, ordering the proposition to be included in the Edict of Faith, and yet another, December 2 of the same year, repeating the complaint of its frequency and the little improvement accomplished. It was apparently an error of ignorance, and to remedy this, a special edict was ordered to be published everywhere, declaring it to be a heresy condemned by the Church, and that all uttering and believing it would be punished as heretics. All preachers, moreover, were to be instructed to warn and admonish the people from the pulpits. All this was wholesome, and yet it is difficult to understand this ardent zeal for the morals of the laity when compared with the slackness as to solicitation.
Be this as it may, the activity of the tribunals under this stimulus was rewarded with an abundant harvest of culprits. We chance to hear of eight cases in the auto of 1579 at Larena and of five at Cuenca in 1585. A more effective showing is that of the Toledo record from 1575 to 1610, in which the number of cases is 264, by far the largest aggregate of any one offense, the Judaizers only amounting to 174 and the Moriscos to 190.
These statistics comprehend only the tribunals of the Crown of Castile. Those at hand for the kingdoms of Aragon are scanty, but from such as are accessible, it would appear probable either that there was less energy or a much smaller number of culprits. The only cases that I have happened to meet are two in a Saragossa auto of June 6, 1585, while in a Valencia list for the five years 1598 to 1602, comprising in all 392 cases,
there are but four of this offense and not a single one in the reports for the three years 1604 to 6. Notwithstanding the characterization of the offense as heresy, torture was not to be employed in the trial, although confinement in the secret prison and sequestration were permitted. The energy and severity with which it was prosecuted virtually suppressed it in time. In 1623, a writer speaks of it as less common than formerly,
and, in a list of the cases tried at Toledo, commencing in 1648, the first one of this offense occurs in 1650, the next in 1665, and the third in 1693. Thenceforth it may be said practically to disappear from the tribunals, although, as late as 1792, Don Ambrosio Perez, beneficed priest of Candamas, was tried for it in Saragossa, and in 1818 there was a case in Valencia.
Thus, the Inquisition succeeded in suppressing the expression of the opinion, though, as it took no action against the sin, its influence on the side of morality was inappreciable. End of Section 26 Recording by Linda Johnson
