A History of the Inquisition of Spain (Vol. 1-4). Henry Charles Lea

deemed so obnoxious scarce amounted to more than the Concordia of Castile so long in force, save provisions that the inquisitors should be Catalans and should take an oath to obey the laws, and that disputes of jurisdiction should be settled by a junta consisting of an inquisitor, a judge of the Audiencia and the Bishop of Barcelona. Moderate as they were, Philip kept his promise and referred them, September 23d, to Diego de Guzman, Archbishop of Seville, acting head of the Suprema in the vacancy of the inquisitor-generalship, so that, on the adjournment of the Córtes, the whole matter remained suspended.[1142]

      An attempt at compromise was made in what was known as the Concordia of Cardinal Zapata, arranged, December 24, 1630, between him as inquisitor-general and the Council of Aragon. This made no substantial change in the jurisdiction of the Inquisition but was directed chiefly to restraining the misuse of excommunication on the one side and the recourse to the Banch Reyal on the other, by providing that all disputed cases should be settled by competencias conducted according to the received form of procedure, under penalty for a first offence of five hundred ducats on the tribunal refusing, and suspension from office for a second. This left untouched the roots of trouble and accomplished little, in consequence, it is said, of the delays and evasions of the inquisitors, and frequent recourse continued to the Banch Reyal, especially by creditors.[1143]

      CATALONIA

      The Córtes of 1626 had not been dissolved and they met again in 1632 to conclude their unfinished business. As usual, the tribunal and the Suprema prepared for the struggle by earnest appeals to Philip, who responded with assurances of special care in all that concerned the Inquisition. The Suprema had the hardihood to tell him that the Concordia of 1512, on which the Catalans based their claims, had never been confirmed, but it was within the truth when it said that it had never been observed. It declared moreover that the articles framed by the Córtes would so prostrate the tribunal that it would have to cease its functions. A memorial by the secretary of the tribunal, Miguel Rodríguez, gives a deplorable account of the social condition of Catalonia, where the barons and gentlemen, the cities and church foundations, he says, possessed excessive powers and where the bishops were also barons. The hostility of the nobles and cities to the familiars was manifested by the daily murders committed on them and their children and the burning of their houses. But for the protection of the Inquisition they would be exterminated, for its jurisdiction was the only one respected. Fathers endured the murder of their sons, sons that of their fathers and wives that of their husbands, for fear of greater evils and, in addition to this, was the turbulent temper of the population. The viceroys had nominal power, but it was exercised only on the common folk and not on the powerful, whom no one dared to accuse or to bear witness against. All this busy preparation was superfluous; the Córtes were dissolved without gaining their object.[1144]

      The Inquisition, as usual, had triumphed, but peace was impossible between the incompatible claims of rival jurisdictions. In 1637 the Suprema complained of the continuous series of troubles and of the disregard of the Concordia of Zapata. This time the offender was the viceroy, the powerful Duke of Cardona, who had imprisoned a familiar for carrying a pistol and refusing to surrender it, and had arrested two servants of the receiver, fining one and discharging the other. When the tribunal sent to him a priest bearing a monitorio with excommunication, he shut the priest up, incomunicado, in a room of the palace. Then he invited to dinner the fiscal of the tribunal and shut him up likewise. He ordered the inquisitor to withdraw the excommunication and, on his refusal, he pronounced sentence of banishment, posted four hundred men around the Inquisition and made ready a vessel to carry him to Majorca. The inquisitor assembled five bishops who declared that Cardona had incurred the excommunication of the bull Si de protegendis and the inquisitor so declared him, though for the avoidance of scandal he forbore to publish it. Under the intervention of the bishops the sentences of banishment and excommunication were mutually withdrawn, and the viceroy released the priest and fiscal, boasting that he had carried his point. Thereupon the Suprema asked the king to execute on Cardona the penalties of the Concordia of Zapata and greater ones in view of his unprecedented acts and also that the ipso facto censures of the canon Si quis suadente and the bull Si de protegendis be published in order that he might seek the salvation of his soul. To this the weary king could only reply by deprecating these unseemly quarrels and ordering that viceroys should not try the cases of familiars—Cardona apparently having undertaken to do this only because there was no other authority that ventured to do so, although the offence was one which forfeited the fuero.[1145] Soon after this, in 1639, a still more serious trouble broke out in Tortosa, in which the magistrates were involved and the people rose against the Inquisition, but while this was in progress the Catalan rebellion broke out and prudence counselled abstention from severe measures of repression.[1146]

      Whatever share the Inquisition may have had in stimulating the disaffection that led to the rebellion, the unredressed grievances which so excited the Córtes nowhere appear on the surface. The proximate cause, as has been stated above, was the burning of the churches of Montiró and Rio de Arenas by the Neapolitan troops quartered on the people; some consecrated hosts were found reduced to coals and the peasants, who had suffered from the outrages of the unpaid soldiery, rose in arms, cut them off in detail, styled themselves the Exercit Christiá and bore on their banners the Venerable Sacrament, with the legend “Senor judicau vostra causa” and claimed that their object was to protect the people and defend the Catholic faith. In fact, the Inquisition was invited to prosecute the guilty authors of the sacrilege and undertook to do so, but of course the culprits could not be identified and it was reduced to excommunicating them in bulk. It was against the representatives of the king that the initial riots of June 7 and 8, 1640, were directed, when the judges of the royal Audiencia and the Viceroy, the Count of Santa Coloma, were murdered. The inquisitors at once proffered their services to the Diputados and, at the request of the latter, they wrote to the king and inquisitor-general praising the efforts of the Diputados to preserve peace, not knowing that for months they had been organizing the rebellion in correspondence with France. When too, in September, a tax was laid to put the land in a state of defence, the assent of the tribunal was asked as to levying it on familiars.[1147]

      CATALONIA

      There was thus no open hostility towards the Inquisition, but, at the same time, there was no respect for its inviolability. When the mob rose again on Christmas day, to put to death all Castilians, there was a report that two thousand of them were concealed in the Inquisition. Led by a coachman of one of the inquisitors, the people broke into the Inquisition, maltreated the officials, hanged some of them, emptied the money chests and found in the secret prison a solitary Castilian on trial for heresy. Him they carried to the town-council who returned him to the tribunal and garroted the coachman.[1148]

      When, on January 23, 1641, terms of submission to France were concluded, the Inquisition was provided for. Having cut loose from Spain, it was impossible to permit the tribunal to remain subject to the Suprema in Madrid, and the clause respecting it was that all inquisitors and officials should be Catalans, jurisdiction should be restricted to matters of faith, and it should be directly under the Roman Congregation of the Holy Office.[1149] Still the inquisitors remained at their posts; for five months they had had no word from the Suprema; they expected to be called upon to take the oath of allegiance to King Louis and they sent their secretary, Juan de Eraso, to Madrid for instructions, suggesting that they had better move to Tarragona or Tortosa. Philip ordered them to remain and they resolutely obeyed, but the situation grew constantly worse and, on November 7th, they made another appeal, representing their danger, their destitution, their inability to perform their functions, and their expectation that they would be forced to kiss the hands of the Marshal de Brézé, the approaching French governor. This was confirmed by Don Antonio de Aragon, who had just returned from Barcelona; on two occasions the mob had set fire to the Inquisition and heresy was rampant, for many of the French troops were Calvinists and Calvinism was openly preached. The Suprema characteristically debated the question under four heads—Shall the Inquisition be removed to Tarragona or Tortosa? Shall the inquisitors kiss the hands of the French governor? Does their lack of means to prosecute relieve them from prosecuting native or French heretics? Shall testimony against such heretics be taken in Madrid and action be based on it? After elaborate discussion the fourth question was decided in the affirmative and the other three in the negative. Juan de Mañozca was appointed to gather testimony in Madrid,