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

Ferdinand and Isabella declare that this would be a grievous impediment to the Holy Office and disservice to God and they affectionately entreat Manoel to surrender the accused for the honor of God and also to protect from maltreatment the officials who had aided in their capture.[527]

We may not uncharitably assume that a portion, at least, of the favor shown to Lucero may have been due to the pecuniary results of his activity. By this time the confiscations, which at first had contributed largely to the royal treasury, were considerably diminished and at some places were scarce defraying the expenses of the tribunals. To this Córdova was now an exception; that its productiveness was rapidly growing is manifest from a letter of Ferdinand, March 12, 1501, to the receiver, Andrés de Medina, stating that he learns that there is much to be done and authorizing the appointment of two assistants at salaries of 10,000 maravedís and, on January 12 and 13, 1503, orders were drawn on Córdova for 500,000 maravedís to defray inquisitorial salaries elsewhere. On the same date we have another illustration of Lucero’s activity in the sudden arrest of four of the official public scriveners. As they were the depositaries of the papers of their clients, the sequestration of all their effects produced enormous complications, to relieve which Ferdinand ordered all private documents to be sorted out and put in the hands of another scrivener, Luis de Mesa. This shows how the operations of the Inquisition might at any moment affect the interests of any man and it illustrates another of the profits of persecution for, when these delinquents should be burnt or disabled from holding public office, there would be four vacancies to be eagerly contended for by those who had money or favor for their acquisition.[528]

      SECRETARY CALCENA

      As early as 1501 there is evidence of hostility between Lucero and the Córdovan authorities. When the receiver of confiscations, accompanied by Diego de Barrionuevo, scrivener of sequestrations, was holding a public auction of confiscated property, the alguazil mayor of the city, Gonzalo de Mayorga, ordered the town-crier, Juan Sánchez, who was crying the auction, to come with him in order to make certain proclamations. The scrivener interposed and refused to let Sánchez go; hot words passed in which Mayorga insulted the Inquisition and finally struck the scrivener with his wand of office, after which the alcalde mayor of the city, Diego Rúiz de Zarate, carried him off to prison. The inviolability of the officials of the Inquisition was vindicated by a royal sentence of September 6th, in which Mayorga, in addition to the arbitrary penance to be imposed on him by Lucero, was deprived of his office for life, was disabled from filling any public position whatever, and was banished perpetually from Córdova and its district, which he was to leave within eight days after notification. Zarate was more mercifully treated and escaped with six months’ suspension from office.[529] This severity to civic officials of high position was a warning to all men that Lucero was not to be trifled with.

      The unwavering support that he received from Ferdinand is largely explicable by the complicity of Juan Róiz de Calcena, a corrupt and mercenary official whom we shall frequently meet hereafter. He was Ferdinand’s secretary in inquisitorial affairs, conducting all his correspondence in such matters, and was also secretary to the Suprema, and thus was able in great degree to control his master’s action, rendering his participation in the villainies on foot essential to their success. How these were worked is displayed in a single case which happens to be described in a memorial from the city of Córdova to Queen Juana. The Archdeacon of Castro, Juan Muñoz, was a youth of seventeen, the son of an Old Christian mother and a Converso hidalgo. His benefice was worth 300,000 maravedís a year and he was a fair subject of spoliation, for which a plot was organized in 1505. His parents were involved in his ruin, all three were arrested and convicted and he was penanced so as to disable him from holding preferment. The spoils were divided between Cardinal Bernardino Carvajal, for whom bulls had been procured in advance, Morales the royal treasurer, Lucero and Calcena. The governor and chapter of Córdova gave the archdeaconry to Diego Vello, chaplain of the bishop, but the Holy See conveniently refused confirmation and bestowed it on Morales; Lucero obtained a canonry in Seville and some benefices in Cuenca, while Calcena received property estimated at 4,000,000 maravedís—doubtless an exaggerated figure representing the aggregate of his gains from complicity throughout Lucero’s career.[530]

      It was probably in 1501 that the combination was formed which emboldened Lucero to extend his operations, arresting and condemning nobles and gentlemen and church dignitaries, many of them Old Christians of unblemished reputation and limpios de sangre. It was easy, by abuse and threats, or by torture if necessary, to procure from the accused whatever evidence was necessary to convict, not only themselves but whomsoever it was desired to ruin. A great fear fell upon the whole population, for no one could tell where the next blow might fall, as the circle of denunciation spread through all ranks. Apologists from that time to this have endeavored to extenuate these proceedings by suggesting that those compromised endeavored to secure allies by inculpating in their confessions men of rank and influence, but in view of Lucero’s methods and the extent of his operations such an explanation is wholly inadequate to overthrow the damning mass of evidence against him.[531]

      LUCERO’S REIGN OF TERROR

      His views expanded beyond the narrow bounds of Córdova, and he horrified the land by gathering evidence of a vast conspiracy, ramifying throughout Spain, for the purpose of subverting Christianity and replacing it with Judaism, which required for its suppression the most comprehensive and pitiless measures. In memorials to Queen Juana the authorities, ecclesiastic and secular, of Córdova described how he had certain of his prisoners assiduously instructed in Jewish prayers and rites so that they could be accurate in the testimony which, by menaces or torture, he forced them to bear against Old Christians of undoubted orthodoxy. In this way he proved that there were twenty-five profetissas who were engaged in traversing the land to convert it to Judaism, although many of those designated had never in their lives been outside of the city gates. Accompanying them were fifty distinguished personages, including ecclesiastics and preachers of note.[532] Of course, these stories lost nothing in passing from mouth to mouth, and it was popularly said that some of these prophetesses, in their unholy errand, travelled as drunken Bacchantes and others were transported on goats by the powers of hell.[533] A single instance, which happens to have reached us, illustrates the savage thoroughness with which he protected the faith from this assault. A certain Bachiller Membreque was convicted as an apostate Judaizer who had disseminated his doctrines by preaching. Lists were gathered from witnesses of those who had attended his sermons and these, to the number of a hundred and seven, were burnt alive in a single auto de fe.[534] The inquisitorial prisons were filled with the unfortunates under accusation, as many as four hundred being thus incarcerated, and large numbers were carried to Toro where, at the time, Inquisitor-general Deza resided with the Suprema.

      The reign of terror thus established was by no means confined to Córdova. Its effects are energetically described by the Capitan Gonzalo de Avora, in a letter of July 16, 1507, to the royal secretary Almazan. After premising that he had represented to Ferdinand, with that monarch’s assent, that there were three things requisite for the good of the kingdom—to conduct the Inquisition righteously without weakening it, to wage war with the Moors, and to relieve the burdens of the people—he proceeds to contrast this with what had been done. “As for the Inquisition,” he says, “the method adopted was to place so much confidence in the Archbishop of Seville (Deza) and in Lucero and Juan de la Fuente that they were able to defame the whole kingdom, to destroy, without God or justice, a great part of it, slaying and robbing and violating maids and wives to the great dishonor of the Christian religion. … As for what concerns myself I repeat what I have already written to you, that the damages which the wicked officials of the Inquisition have wrought in my land are so many and so great that no reasonable person on hearing of them would not grieve.”[535] When a horde of rapacious officials, clothed in virtual inviolability, was let loose upon a defenceless population, such violence and rapine were inevitable incidents, and the motive of this was explained, by the Bishop of Córdova and all the authorities of the city, in a petition to the pope, to be the greed of the inquisitors for the confiscations which they habitually embezzled.[536]

      It was probably in 1505, after the death of Isabella, November 16, 1504, that the people of Córdova first ventured to complain to Deza. He offered to send the Archdeacon Torquemada who, with representatives of the chapter and