History of the Inquisition of Spain. Henry Charles Lea

him.

      These were questions which had to be decided. It would seem that the inquisitors construed their powers in the most liberal fashion, giving rise to abuses which called for repression and a limitation of their jurisdiction. The reformatory Instructions of 1498, accordingly, order them not to defend officials and their servants in civil cases and only officials in criminal actions, a rule repeated in a carta acordada of May 4th of the same year.[1054] This excluded servants wholly and deprived officials of the fuero in civil matters, but it was soon modified by Ferdinand, in a letter of January 12, 1500, to the Catalonia tribunal, ordering it not to interfere with the royal court in a certain suit, and expressing the rule that the plaintiff must seek the court of the defendant.[1055] It was impossible however to restrain inquisitors from exceeding their jurisdiction and he was obliged, August 20 1502, to repeat his injunctions to the same tribunal, in consequence of complaints from the Diputados. The inquisitors were roundly taken to task for lending themselves to the schemes of the receiver in buying up debts and claims and then collecting them through the tribunal; they were told that they must defend none but salaried officials actually in service; if they are plaintiffs in civil suits they must apply to the court of the defendants, while if they are defendants the plaintiffs must seek the tribunal. To evoke other cases, he says, causes great scandal and will lead to troubles which must be prevented. A fortnight later he emphasized this about a civil case which they had evoked from the royal court; they must remit it back and not have to be written to again as he would not tolerate such proceedings.[1056] Thus familiars and servants were not entitled to the fuero, or inquisitorial jurisdiction, while salaried officials enjoyed it, active and passive, in criminal actions and only passive in civil suits.

      INTERFERENCE WITH COURSE OF JUSTICE

      Unduly favorable as was this to the Inquisition, the tribunals paid no attention to its limitations; they welcomed all who sought their judgement seat, and the desire for it of those who had no claim on it shows that they had a reputation of selling justice. One or two cases will exemplify this and show how good were the grounds of complaint by the people. There was a certain Juan de Sant Feliu of Murviedro, whose father and mother-in-law had been condemned for heresy, and to whom Ferdinand had kindly granted their confiscations, including the dowry of his wife. In 1505 the town of Murviedro farmed out to him and his wife the impost on meat for 11,100 sueldos a year; he died and, in the settlement of his account, he was found to owe the town a hundred and fifty libras, which it proceeded to collect from his sons in the court of the governor. Under pretext that his property had been confiscated and restored, they appealed in 1511 to the tribunal of Valencia, which promptly evoked the case and inhibited the court from further action, whereupon the town complained to Ferdinand who ordered the case remitted to the governor. Unabashed by this, in 1513, Sant Feliu’s heirs on the same pretext obtained the intervention of the tribunal in another case, in which Doña Violante de Borja had sued them for 7500 sueldos which she had entrusted to him to invest in a censo of the town of Murviedro; the censo had been paid off and he had concealed the fact and kept the money. Judgement was given against them, when the inquisitors interposed and prohibited the royal court from further action. Ferdinand expressed much indignation at their interference with justice in a matter wholly foreign to their jurisdiction and ordered the prohibition to be withdrawn. Even more arbitrary was the action, in 1511, of the Majorca tribunal, when Pedro Tornamirandez sued the heirs of Francisco Ballester for some cattle and obtained judgement in the court of the royal lieutenant, whereupon the heirs appealed to the inquisitor who evoked the case and forbade further proceedings in the secular court. None of the parties had any connection with the Inquisition and there was not even the pretext of confiscation; it was a mere wanton interference with the course of justice, only explicable by some illicit gain, and when Ferdinand’s attention was called to it he ordered the inquisitor to revoke his action.[1057] If, under Ferdinand’s incessant vigilance the Inquisition thus boldly prostituted its powers, we can appreciate how well-founded, under his careless successors, were the complaints of those who suffered under wrongs perpetrated under the pretence of serving God.

      In the Catalan Concordia of 1512 there was an attempt to do away with some of these abuses and the bull Pastoralis officii of Leo X, confirming the Concordia, marks another stage in the development of the fuero. No one, he said, could be cited save in his own ordinary court at the instance of an official or familiar; if it were attempted, all acts concerning it were invalid and the inquisitors must condemn the plaintiff in double the expenses and damage; if any official bought property in suit, or on which a suit was expected, he could be cited before a court not his own and if he claimed property under seizure by a secular judge, the latter could disregard all inhibitions issued by inquisitors; moreover inquisitors should have no cognizance in matters concerning the private property of officials. While thus striking at some of the more flagrant abuses of the fuero, Leo opened the door to worse ones by admitting familiars and the commensals or servants of officials to participation in the immunities of the Inquisition.[1058] The bull, in fact, is in accordance with the Instructions of 1514, as issued by Inquisitor-general Mercader, and we shall see how completely the restrictive clauses were ignored while those admitting familiars and servants were developed.[1059]

      IMMUNITY OF SERVANTS

      The question as to familiars and servants was not absolutely settled for some years. It is true that, in 1515 at Logroño, when the corregidor arrested Martin de Viana, a servant of the secretary Lezana, and refused to surrender him to the tribunal, he and his deputy and alguazil were excommunicated and the Suprema on appeal subjected them all to fines and humiliating penance.[1060] On the other hand, in 1516 at Valladolid, when Alonso de Torres, servant of Inquisitor Frias, was thrown into the royal prison, the inquisitor did not reclaim him but procured the interposition of the Suprema, which ordered him to be released on bail and then, after nine months had passed without a charge being brought against him, he procured a royal cédula for the release of his bondsmen.[1061] Whatever doubts may have existed on the subject were removed, in 1518, by a cédula of Charles V, reciting that in Jaen the secular courts assumed cognizance of criminal cases concerning officials and familiars and their servants, which was contrary to the privileges of the Holy Office, wherefore he forbade it strictly for the future.[1062] After this the Inquisition had no hesitation in insisting on its rights. When, in 1532, the corregidor and officials of Toledo were excommunicated for punishing the servant of an inquisitor and the Empress-regent Isabel wrote to the tribunal to absolve them, the Suprema instructed it not to obey her.[1063] She learned the lesson and, in 1535, when ordering some servants of inquisitors and familiars to be remitted to the Inquisition, she said it was accustomed to have their cases, both civil and criminal, and it was her pleasure that this should be observed.[1064]

      The civil authorities were somewhat dilatory in recognizing the immunity of servants, and cases continued to occur in which the tribunals vindicated their jurisdiction energetically. About 1565 two officers of the royal justice in Barcelona arrested a servant of Inquisitor Mexia in a brothel where he was quarrelling with a woman, for which they were thrown into the secret prison as though they were heretics and were banished for three months, while the judge of the royal criminal court, who had something to do with the matter, was compelled to appear in the audience-chamber and undergo a reprimand in the presence of the assembled officials of the tribunal. The virtual immunity for offenders resulting from the privilege is illustrated by the case, in the same tribunal, of Pedro Juncar, servant of the receiver, who murdered the janitor of the Governor of Catalonia; the governor arrested him but was forced to surrender him to the tribunal, which discharged him with a sentence of exile for a year or two and costs.[1065] The influence on social order of conferring immunity on such a class can readily be conceived.

      The privilege of the fuero was not confined to servants but was extended in whatever direction the ingenuity and perseverance of the tribunal could enforce it. Penitents who were fulfilling their terms of penance were claimed and the claim was confirmed, in 1547, by Prince Philip. In Valencia and Barcelona the workmen employed on the buildings of the Inquisition were given nominal appointments under which they claimed immunity. In Lima the tribunal complained to the viceroy of the arrest of a bricklayer who was working for it, but it got no satisfaction. In Barcelona the tribunal granted inhibition with censures on the civil court, in which the brother of a familiar was suing a merchant on a protested bill of exchange.[1066]

      IMMUNITY