Spanish Inquisition

“ CHAPTER II. Rise and progress of the Inquisition in Spain—sketch of the government of the ancient Spanish Inquisition—dreadful persecution of the Jews and Moors—Torquemada appointed Inquisitor-general—proceedings of his successors Deza and Ximenes—zeal of the Emperor Charles V. in behalf of the Inquisition—his son Philip II. is still more superstitious and intolerant—ludicrous trial of the famous Galileo before the "Holy Tribunal."
In no place in the world have the dreadful effects of the Inquisition been more severely felt than in Spain. ”

“ Spanish Inquisition was only a more perfect and a more lasting institution than the others were able to fashion—as regards{532} witchcraft, indeed, a more humane and rational one, for no one can appreciate the service which in this matter it rendered to Spain who has not realized the horrors of the witchcraft trials in which Catholic and Protestant Europe rivalled each other. The spirit among all was the same, and none are entitled to cast the first stone, unless we except the humble and despised Moravian Brethren and the disciples of George Fox. ”

“ The Spanish inquisition, strictly so called, that is to say, the modern or later institution established by Pope Alexander the Sixth and Ferdinand the Catholic, was doubtless invested with a more complete apparatus for inflicting human misery, and for appalling human imagination, than any of the other less artfully arranged inquisitions, whether papal or episcopal. It had been originally devised for Jews or Moors, whom the Christianity of the age did not regard as human beings, but who could not be banished without depopulating certain districts. ”

“ In the Spanish Inquisition, solicitation uncomplicated by Illuminism or Molinism, inferred only light suspicion of heresy, requiring merely abjuration de levi. Consequently the accused was not exposed to torture. It is true that, academically speaking, though he could not be tortured as to intention and belief, he might be subjected to it if he denied facts, but in practice it was never employed, although the formal accusation contained the otrosi demanding it. ”

“ The Spanish Inquisition is an institution of a new and peculiar kind, which finds no prototype in the whole course of time, and admits of comparison with no ecclesiastical or civil tribunal. Inquisition had existed from the time when reason meddled with what is holy, and from the very commencement of scepticism and innovation ”

“ It is evident that the Spanish Inquisition did not share the horror felt in Rome for such offences, and this is manifested in the comparative moderation of the penalties inflicted. About 1650, a Spaniard in Rome, writing to a friend at home, and comparing the severity of the Italian Inquisition with the mildness of the{342} Spanish, instances the Roman torture of bigamists and soliciting confessors, the longer terms of galleys for the former, and the implacable relaxation of those who celebrate mass without ordination. [732] There was no such ferocity in Spain. ”

“ When, in 1503, Ferdinand obtained the whole kingdom by ousting his accomplice Louis, Gonsalvo de Córdova, to facilitate the surrender of Naples, made an engagement that the Spanish Inquisition should not be introduced, for its evil reputation rendered it a universal object of dread, to which the numerous Spanish refugees had doubtless largely contributed. ”

“ 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 offences, grouped under{139} the general term of Propositions, was by no means the least noteworthy subject of inquisitorial activity. ”

“ The Spanish Inquisition was too orthodox to accept so rationalistic a view of sorcery, and continued to prosecute it as a reality. In 1787, Madrid was excited by an auto in which an impostor named Coxo was sentenced to two hundred lashes and ten years of presidio. He had thrived by selling philtres to provoke love, formed indecently of the bones and skin of a man and a woman, for which he had numerous customers, including ladies of quality. The affair abounded in lascivious details, which, when inscribed on the insignia hung in the church caused no little scandal. ”

“ To appreciate the attitude of the Spanish Inquisition in this debate the origin of the myth must be understood. The flying by night of female sorcerers to places of assemblage was an ancient belief, entertained by Hindus, Jews and the classical nations. ”

“ A defender of the institution, in 1803, commences by deprecating the hatred which had pursued it from the beginning; even in the present age, he says, of greater enlightenment, there is crass ignorance of its essential principles and a mortal opposition to its existence. [1278]
Thus, notwithstanding the Spanish abhorrence of Jews and heretics, the dread which the Inquisition inspired was largely mingled with detestation, arising from its abuse of its privileges in matters wholly apart from its functions as the guardian of the faith. ”

“ Thus Father Gams attributes the Spanish Inquisition to the national peculiarity of the Spaniard, who requires that the State should represent God on earth, and that Christianity should control all public life; he demands unity of faith and not freedom of faith. The Inquisition is an institution for which the Church has no responsibility.—P. Pius Gams, O. S. B., Die Kirchengeschichte von Spanien, III, II, 7, 8, 11, 12.
[99] Septimi Decretal. Lib. V, Tit. i, cap. 5.
[100] Paramo de Orig. Offic. S. Inquisitionis, p. ”

“ Neither the commendations of University professors nor the scissors of a meticulous editor could save the treatises of St. John of the Cross from that particular form of attack which, more than all others, was feared in the seventeenth century. We shall say nothing here of the history, nature and procedure of the Spanish Inquisition, which has had its outspoken antagonists and its unreasoning defenders but has not yet been studied with impartiality. It must suffice to set down the facts as they here affect our subject. ”

“ More nearly akin to the real business of the Inquisition was its dealing with the class known as beatas revelanderas—women professing a holy life, specially favored by heaven with trances, revelations and visions, and gifted with spiritual attributes and powers. Popular superstition rendered this a profitable trade in Spain, where the Holy Office was perpetually engaged in exposing and punishing their impostures; Peru was equally afflicted ”

“ He was denounced{352} to the Barcelona tribunal, which warned him to desist, for he had no power to exorcise, and threatened to proceed against him, whereupon he promised to obey [757] . Exorcists also sometimes abused their opportunities by committing indecencies upon their patients. I have not met with such cases in the Spanish Inquisition, but in this it would doubtless follow the example of the Roman Congregation, which, in 1639, ordered the prosecution of a most flagrant one, reported by the Inquisitor of Bergamo [758] . ”

“ It is difficult for us to estimate the horror which, as the inquisitors boasted, the Holy Office cast over the population. They relate with pride that in Spain men cited to appear, even on matters not pertaining to the faith, but ignorant of the cause, were known to take to their beds and die of sheer terror. ”

“ Safety lay only in the well-beaten track of accepted conventionality and, while Europe, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was passing through a period of evolution, Spanish intellect became atrophied. The splendid promise of the{149} sixteenth century was blasted by the steady repression of all originality and progress, and Spain, from the foremost of the nations, became the last.
The minuteness of the captious criticism which exposed the most eminent men to the horrors of inquisitorial prosecution can best be understood by two or three cases. ”

“ The maintenance and extension of these privileges involved the tribunal in constant strife with the authorities, lay and spiritual, quarrels which were carried on with a violence frequently destructive to the public peace. The governmental officials, however high-placed, who sought to curb inquisitorial arrogance, could have slender hope of support from their royal master. As we have seen in the chapter on Mexico, there was preserved in the Madrid archives the formula of a letter addressed to viceroys, insisting on their subservience to the Inquisition. ”

“ Time after time, the blind arrogance of the Spaniard as champion of orthodoxy throughout the world, has rebounded against him in blows from which he will never recover. The Inquisition in itself established an hereditary fear of personal thinking that remains the stumbling-block in the way of Spanish progress to this day. Too, the natural indolence of the people inclines them to accept without question the statements and standards handed down from their directors in Church or State. ”

“ Accustomed as the people had been for centuries to the existence of the Inquisition, the Spanish institution was a very different affair, not only as to activity and severity but still more from the privileges and immunities claimed and enforced by its officials and their servants and familiars, especially their exemption from taxes and import dues and their fuero or right to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, whether as plaintiffs or defendants, giving rise to perpetual irritation through the oppression and injustice thus rendered possible. ”

“ He thought it would be well to found an Inquisition in Buenos Ayres and, if the expenses were too great, there might be an inquisitor and a fiscal, while the other offices could be filled by wealthy men who would gladly serve gratuitously. Or, if this were too costly, a Dominican fraile could fill the post of inquisitor as in Naples and other parts of Italy, and he ordered the Suprema to arrange the matter accordingly. ”

“ In fact, it marks a turning-point in the relations of the Inquisition to Spanish mysticism, of which the persecution became one of its regular and recognized duties. Even before the auto of 1579, the Suprema, in a carta acordada of January 4, 1578, ordered the tribunals to add to the Edict of Faith a section in which the errors developed in the trials were enumerated. These consisted in asserting that mental prayer is of divine precept and that it fulfils everything, while vocal prayer is of trivial importance; that the servants of God are not required to labor ”

“ The Edict of Expulsion proclaimed to the world the policy which in its continuous development did so much for the abasement of Spain. At the same time it closed the career of avowed Jews in the Spanish dominions. Henceforth we shall meet with them as apostate Christians, the occasion and the victims of the Inquisition. ”

“ This correspondence was strictly secret, but the brief had been shown in Rome to the Augustinian procurador-general, who sent a copy to Madrid, where it was busily transcribed and circulated throughout{290} the land, creating a tremendous sensation. Prado y Cuesta, addressed, September 16, 1748, a bitter complaint to Benedict, dwelling on the indiscretion of allowing such matters to be gossiped on the streets, and of affording such comfort to the heretics. The Jesuit party openly proclaimed the independence of the Spanish Inquisition in such matters, and asserted that its honor was at stake. ”

“ A matter not easily understood is the bestowal, May 25, 1568, on Fúnez, by the dean and chapter, sede vacante, of cognizance of{147} superstitions and sorcery, because these crimes should not remain unpunished and his powers as inquisitor were deficient in this respect. [281] These offences in Spain were recognized as subject to inquisitorial jurisdiction when savoring, as they always were assumed to do, of heresy and pact with the demon; they formed by far the larger part of the cases coming before the Canary tribunal and the previous inquisitors had not hesitated to deal with them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We have thus virtually reached the end of native Spanish Protestantism, but the impression produced by the Valladolid and Seville heretics was still profound. Philip II addressed, November 23, 1563, to the Spanish bishops, a letter enlarging upon the efforts of the Lutherans to spread their doctrines throughout Spain. In these perilous times, he says, the Inquisition must be aided by having everywhere those who will report to it all suspect of Lutheran or other errors. ”

“ All a priori considerations cast the responsibility on the censorship of thought, whether printed or expressed verbally in what were known as “propositions,” and the burden of proof is thrown upon those who deny it. Their reliance is on the fact that Isabella stimulated the development of Spanish culture and, at the same time, established the Inquisition, which thus was in existence for more than a century before the decadence became marked. This is quite easily explicable. The Inquisition was founded to extirpate Jewish and Moorish apostasy ”

“ The Inquisition could suppress Judaism, it could destroy Protestantism, it could render necessary the expulsion of the Moriscos, but it failed when it sought to eradicate the abuses of Mysticism, which not only signalized the ardor of Spanish faith, but were so difficult of differentiation from beliefs long recognized and encouraged by the Church. There seems to be, in the average human mind, an insatiable craving for manifestations of the supernatural. ”