 Preface of History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 1. In the following pages I have sought to trace from the original sources as far as possible the character and career of an institution which exercised no small influence on the fate of Spain and even one may say indirectly on the civilized world. The material for this is preserved so super-abundantly in the immense Spanish archives that no one writer can pretend to exhaust the subject. There can be no finality in a history resting on so vast a mass of inedited documents, and I do not flatter myself that I have accomplished such a result, but I am not without hope that what I have drawn from them and from the labors of previous scholars has enabled me to present a fairly accurate survey of one of the most remarkable organizations recorded in human annals. In this a somewhat minute analysis has seemed to be indispensable of its structure and methods of procedure of its relations with the other bodies of the state and of its dealings with the various classes subject to its extensive jurisdiction. This has involved the accumulation of much detail in order to present the daily operation for tribunal of which the real importance is to be sought, not so much in the awful salemnities of the autodefé or in the cases of a few celebrated victims, as in the silent influence exercised by its incessant and secret labors among the mass of the people and in the limitations which it placed on the Spanish intellect, in the resolute conservatism with which it held the nation in the medieval groove and unfitted it for the exercise of rational liberty when the 19th century brought in the inevitable revolution. The intimate relations between Spain and Portugal, especially during the Union of the Kingdoms from 1580 to 1640 has rendered necessary the inclusion in the chapter devoted to the Jews of a brief sketch of a Portuguese Inquisition which earned a reputation even once sinister than its Spanish prototype. I cannot conclude without expressing my thanks to this gentleman whose aid has enabled me to collect the documents on which the work is largely based. Don Claudio Perez-Credillia of the Archives of Simancas, Don Ramon Santa Maria of those of Alcalá de Henares, prior to their removal to Madrid, Don Francisco de Pofarul o Sanz of those of the Crown of Aragon, Don H. Figuero-Hermandes, formerly American Vincent-Consul at Madrid, and to many others to whom I am indebted in a minor degree. I have also to tender my acknowledgments to the authorities of the Bodleian Library and of the Royal Libraries of Copenhagen, Munich, Berlin, and the University of Halle for favors formally appreciated. Henry Charles Lee, Philadelphia, October 1905. End of preface. History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 1, by Henry Charles Lee. Book 1, Origin and Establishment, Chapter 1, The Castilian Monarchy, Part 1. It were difficult to exaggerate the disorder pervading the Castilian kingdoms when the Spanish monarchy found its origin in the Union of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. Many causes had contributed to prolong and intensify the evils of the feudal system and to neutralize such advantages as it possessed. The struggles of the reconquest from the Saracen continued at intervals through 700 years and varied by constant civil broils had bred a race of fierce and turbulent nobles as eager to attack a neighbor or their sovereign of the Moor. The contemptuous manner in which the Sid is represented in the earliest ballads as treating his king shows what was in the 12th century the feeling of the chivalry of Castile toward its overlord. And a chronicler of the period seems rather to glory in the fact that it was always in rebellion against the royal power. So fragile was the feudal bond that a Rico-Homme or noble could at any moment renounce allegiance by a simple message sent to the king through an Hidalgo. The necessity of attracting population and organizing conquered frontiers which subsequently became inland led to granting improvidently liberal franchises to settlers which weakened the powers of the crown without building up as in France a powerful third estate to serve as a counterpoise to the nobles and eventually to undermine feudalism. In Spain the business of the Castilian was war. The arts of peace were left with disdain to the Jews and the conquered Muslims known as Mudejaris who were allowed to remain on Christian soil and to form a distinct element in the population. No flourishing centers of industrious and independent burgers arose out of whom the kings could mold a body that should lend them efficient support in their struggles with their powerful vassals. The attempt indeed was made. The courtes whose cooperation was required in the enactment of laws consisted of representatives from 17 cities who while serving enjoyed personal inviolability but so little did the cities prize this privilege that under Henry IV they complained of the expense of sending deputies. The crown eager to find some new sources of influence agreed to pay them and thus obtained an excuse for controlling their election and although this came too late for Henry to benefit by it it paved the way for the assumption of absolute domination by Ferdinand and Isabella after which the revolt of the comunidades proved fruitless. Meanwhile their influence diminished their meetings were scantily attended and they became little more than an instrument which in the interminable strife that cursed the land was used alternately by any faction as opportunity offered. The crown itself had contributed greatly to its own abasement. When in the 13th century a ruler such as San Fernando III made the laws respected and vigorously extended the boundaries of Christianity Castile gave promise of development in power and culture which miserably failed in the performance. In 1282 the rebellion of Sancho el Bravo against his father Alfonso was the commencement of decadence. To purchase the allegiance of the nobles he granted them all that they asked and to avert the discontent consequent on taxation he supplied his treasury by alienating the crown lands. Notwithstanding the abilities of the regent Maria de Molina the successive minorities of her son and grandson Fernando IV and Alfonso XI stimulated the downward progress although the vigor of the latter in his maturity restored in some degree the luster of the crown and his stern justice re-established order so that as we are told property could be left unguarded in the streets at night. His son Don Pedro earned the epithet of the cruel by his ruthless endeavor to reduce to obedience his turbulent nobles whose disaffection invited the usurpation of his bastard brother Henry of Trastamara the throne which the latter won by fratricide and the aid of the foreigner he could only hold by fresh concessions to his magnates which fatally reduced the royal power. This heritage he left to his son Juan I who forcibly described in the Cortes of Valladolid in 1385 how he wore morning in his heart because of his powerlessness to administer justice and to govern as he ought in consequence of the evil customs which he was unable to correct. This depicts the condition of the monarchy during the century intervening between the murder of Pedro and the accession of Isabella a dreary period of endless revolt and civil strife during which the central authority was steadily growing less able to curb the lawless elements tending to eventual anarchy. The king was little more than a puppet of which rival factions sought to gain possession in order to cover their ambitions with a cloak of legality and those which failed to secure his person treated his authority with contempt or set up some rival in a son or brother as an excuse for rebellion. The work of the reconquest which for 600 years had been the leading object of national pride was virtually abandoned save in some spasmodic enterprise such as the capture of Antequera and the little kingdom of Granada apparently on the point of extinction under Alfonso XI seemed destined to perpetuate forever on Spanish soil the hateful presence of the Crescent. The long reign of the feeble Juan II from fourteen oh six to fourteen fifty four was followed by that of the feebler Henry the fourth popularly known as el impotente in the Seguro de Tordesillas in fourteen thirty nine the disaffected nobles virtually dictated terms to Juan II in the disposition of Avila in fourteen sixty five they treated Henry the fourth with the bitterest contempt his effigy clad in mourning and adorned with the royal insignia was placed upon a throne and four articles of accusation were read for the first he was pronounced unworthy of the kingly station when Alonso Carillo Archbishop of Toledo removed the crown for the second he was deprived of the administration of justice when Alvará de Zuniega count of Placencia took away the sword for the third he was deprived of the government when Rodrigo Pimentel count of Benavente struck the scepter away for the fourth he was sentenced to lose the throne when Diego Lopez de Zuniega tumbled the image from its seat with an indecent jive it was scarce more than a continuation of the mockery when they elected as his successor his brother Alfonso a child of eleven years of age the lawless independence of the nobles and the effacement of royal authority may be estimated from a single example at Placencia two powerful lords Garci Alvarez de Toledo senior of Oropeza and Hernán Rodriguez de Monroy kept the country in an uproar with their armed dissension Juan the second sent Ayala senior of Cebola with a royal commission to suppress the disorder Monroy in place of submitting insulted Ayala who as a buen caballero disdain to complain to the king and preferred to avenge himself Juan on hearing of this summoned to his presence Monroy who collected all his friends and retainers and set out with a formidable army Ayala made a similar levy and set upon him as he passed near Cebola there was a desperate battle in which Ayala was worsted and forced to take refuge in Cebola while Monroy passed on to Toledo and when he kissed the king's hands Juan told him that he had sent for him to cut off his head but as Ayala had preferred to write himself he gave Monroy a godspeed on his journey home and washed his hands of the whole affair the Rico Omes who thus were released from all the restraint of law had as little respect for those of honor and morality the virtues which we are want to ascribe to chivalry were represented by such follies as the celebrated Paso Onroso of Suero de Quinones when that night and his nine comrades in 1434 kept in honor of their ladies for 30 days against all comers the pass of the bridge of Orbigo at the season of the feast of Santiago and 69 challengers presented themselves in the lists with exceptions such as this and a rare manifestation of magnanimity as when the Duke of Medina Sidonia raised an army and hastened to the relief of his enemy Rodrigo Ponce de Leon besieged in Alhama the record of this time is one of the foulest treachery from which truth and honor are absent and human nature displays itself in its basest aspect according to contemporary belief Ferdinand was indebted for the crown of Aragon to the poisoning of his brother the deeply mourned Carlos Prince Aviana while the crown of Castile fell to Isabella through the similar taking off of her brother Alfonso. A characteristic incident is one involving Donia Maria de Monroy who married into the great house of Enrique of Seville and was left a widow with two boys when the youths were respectively 18 and 19 years old they were close friends of two gentlemen of Seville named Manzano the younger brother dicing with them in their house was involved in a quarrel with them when they set upon him with their servants and slew him then fearing the vengeance of the elder brother they sent him a friendly message to come and play with them when he came they led him along a dark corridor in which they suddenly turned upon him and stabbed him to death when the disfigured corpses of her boys were brought to Donia Maria she shed no tears but the fierceness of her eyes frightened all who looked upon her the Manzano's promptly took horse and fled to Portugal with a Donia Maria followed them in male attire with a band of 20 Cavaliers her spies were speedily on the track of the fugitives within a month of the murders she came at night to the house where they lay concealed the doors were broken in and she entered with 10 of her men while the rest kept guard outside the Manzano's put themselves in defense and shouted for help but before the neighbors could assemble she had both their heads in her left hand and was galloping off with her troop never stopping till she reached Salamanca where she went to the church and laid the bloody heads on the tomb of her boys thenceforth she was known as Donia Maria la Brava and her exploit led to long and murderous feuds between the Monroyas and the Manzano's Donia Maria was but a type of the unsexed woman mujeres varoniles common at the time who would take the field or maintain their place in factious intrigue with as much ferocity and pertinacity as men Ferdinand could well look without surprise on the activity in court and camp of his Queen Isabella when he remembered the prowess of his mother Juana Enriquez who had secured for him the crown of Aragon Donia Leonora Pimentel Duchess of Arevalo was one of these of the Countess Medellin it was said that no Roman captain could get the better of her in feats of arms and the Countess of Harro was equally noted the Countess of Medellin indeed kept her own son in prison for years while she enjoyed the revenues of his town of Medellin and when Queen Isabella refused to confirm her possession of the place she transferred her allegiance to the King of Portugal to whom she delivered the castle of Merida at the same time the Moorish influence which was so strong in Castile occasionally led to the opposite extreme the Duke of Nachera kept his daughters in such absolute seclusion that no man not even his sons was permitted to enter the apartments reserved for the women and the reason he alleged that the heart does not covet what the eye does not see was little flattering to either sex the condition of the common people can readily be imagined in this perpetual strife between war like ambitious and unprincipled nobles now uniting in factions which involve the whole realm in war and now contenting themselves with assaults upon their neighbors the land was desolated the husband men scarce could take heart to plant his seed for the harvest was apt to be garnered with the sword and thrust into castles to provision them against siege as a writer of the period tells us there was neither law nor justice save that of arms in a letter describing the universal anarchy written by Hernando del pulgar from Madrid in 1473 he says that for more than five years there has been no communication from Murcia where the family of Fajardo reigned supreme it is he says as foreign a land as Navar that the roads were unsafe for trade or travel was a matter of course every petty idol go converted his stronghold into a den of robbers and what these left was swept away by bands of free companions disorder reigns supreme and all pervading the crown was powerless and the royal treasury exhausted in provident grants of lands and revenues and jurisdictions to bribe the treacherous fidelity of faithless nobles or to gratify worthless favorites were made till there was nothing left to give and then Henry the fourth bestowed licenses for private mints until there were a hundred and fifty of them at work flooding the land with base money to the unutterable confusion of the coinage and the impoverishment of the people the courtes of Madrid in 1467 and of Ossania in 1469 called on Henry to resume his improvident grants and those of madrigal in 1476 repeated the urgency to Ferdinand and Isabella who had been forced to follow his example to this the sovereigns replied thanking the courtes and postponing the matter they did not feel themselves strong enough until 1480 when at the courtes of Toledo they resumed 30 million Maravedes of revenue which had been alienated during the troubles and this after an investigation which left untouched the gifts to loyal subjects and only withdrew such as had been extorted respect for the crown had fallen as low as its revenues the story told of the count of Benavente shows how difficult it was even after the accession of Isabella for the nobles to recognize that they owed any obedience to the sovereign he was walking with the queen when a woman came weeping and begging justice saying that he had had her husband slain in spite of a royal safe conduct she showed the letter which her husband had carried in his breast pierced by the blow which had ended his life when the count jeeringly remark a quiras would have been of more service peaked by this Isabella said count do you then not wish there was no king in Castile rather he said I wish there were many and why because then I should be one of them in such a chaos of lawless passion it is not to be supposed that the church was better than the nobles who filled its high places with worthless scions of their stocks or then the lower classes of the laity who sought it in provision for a life of idleness and license the primate of Castile was the arch bishop of Toledo who was likewise ex officio chancellor of the realm and whose revenues were variously estimated at from 80 to 100,000 ducats with patronage at his disposal amounting to 100,000 more the occupant of this exalted position at the accession of Isabella was Alonso Carillo a turbulent prelate delighting in war foremost in all the civil broils of the period who not content with the immense income of his sea lavished extravagant sums in alchemy hernando the pulgar in a letter of remonstrance said to him the people look to you as their bishop and find in you their enemy they groan and complain that you use your authority not for their benefit and reformation but for their destruction not as an exemplar of kindness and peace but for corruption scandal and disturbance when in 1495 the Puritan Jimenez was appointed to the arch bishop break one of his first acts is said to have been the from near the altar of the Franciscan church of Toledo of a magnificent tomb which Carillo had erected to his bastard Troilo Carillo his successor in the sea of Toledo has a special interest for us in view of his labors to purify the faith which culminated in establishing the inquisition Pero Gonzalez de Mendoza was one of the notable men of the day whose influence with Ferdinand and Isabella one him the name of the third king while yet a child he held the curacy of Hita at 12 he had the arch deaconry of Guadalajara one of the richest benefices in Spain which he retained during the successive bishoprics of Calahora and Seguenza and the arch bishopric of Seville the sea of Seguenza he kept during the whole tenure successively of the arch episcopates of Seville and Toledo in addition to which he was a cardinal and titular patriarch of Alexandria with his kindred of the powerful house of Mendoza he adhered to Henry the fourth until they affected the sale of the hapless Beltranega who was in their hands to her father Henry for certain estates and the title of Dutel Infantado for Diego Hurtado the head of the family after which Pedro Gonzales and his kinsmen promptly transferred their allegiance to Isabella his admiring biographer assures us that he was more ready with his hands than with his tongue that he was a gallant knight and that there was never a war in Spain during his time in which he did not personally take part or at least have his troops engaged though he had no leisure to attend to his spiritual duties he found time to yield to the temptations when in 1484 he led the army of invasion to Granada he took with him his bastard Rodrigo de Mendoza a youth of twenty who was already Señor del Castile del Sid and who in 1492 was created Marcus of Sinente on the occasion of his marriage amid great rejoicings in the presence of Ferdinand and Isabella to Leonor de Serda daughter and heiress of the Duke Niseli and niece of Ferdinand himself this was not the only evidence of his frailty of which he took no shame for he had another son named Juan by a lady of Valladolid who was married to Donia Ana de Aragon another niece of Ferdinand with such men at the head of the church it is not to be expected that the lower orders of the clergy should be models of decency and morality rendering Christianity attractive to Jew and Muslim Alonso Carillo the Archbishop of Toledo can scarce be regarded as a strict disciplinarian but even he felt obliged when holding the Council of Aranda in 1473 to endeavour to repress the more flagrant scandals of the clergy as a corrective of their prevailing ignorance it was ordered that in the future none should be ordained who could not speak Latin the language of the ritual and the ritual instruction theological and otherwise they were forbidden to wear silk or gaily coloured garments as their licentiousness rendered them contemptible to the people they were commanded to part with their concubines within two months as their fondness for dicing led to perjuries scandals and homicides they were required thereafter to abstain from it privately as well as publicly as many priests disdain to celebrate mass in order to do so at least four times a year bishops moreover were urged to celebrate at least thrice a year under pain of severe penalties to be determined at the next Council the absurdities poured forth in their sermons by wandering priests and friars were to be repressed by requiring examinations prior to issuing licences to preach and the scandals of the pardon sellers were to be diminished by subjecting them to the bishops were also urged to make severe examples of offenders in the lower orders of the clergy when delivered to them by the secular courts and not to allow their enormities to enjoy continued immunity the bishops moreover were commanded to make no charge for the conferring of ordinations they were exhorted and all other clerics were required not to lead a disillute military life or to enter the service of secular lords accepting of the king and princes of the blood all duels were forbidden both laity and clergy were warned that if slain in such encounters they would be refused Christian burial that this effort at reform was as might be expected wholly abortive is evidenced from the description of the vices of the ecclesiastical body when Ferdinand and Isabella subsequently endeavored to correct its more flagrant scandals it was wholly secularized and only to be distinguished from the laity by the sacred functions which rendered its vices more abhorrent by the immunities which fostered and stimulated those vices and by the intolerance which blind to all aberrations of morals proclaimed the stake to be the only fitting punishment for aberration in faith while powerless to reform itself it yet had influence enough to educate the people up to its standard paradoxy in the ruthless persecution of all whom it pleased to designate as enemies of Christ end of book one chapter one part one recording by B.G. Oxford December 2008 book one chapter one part two of history of the inquisition of Spain volume one this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by B.G. Oxford history of the inquisition of Spain volume one by Henry Charles Lee book one chapter one the Castilian monarchy part two yet in Spain the immunities and privileges of the church were less than elsewhere throughout Christendom the independence which the secular power in Castile had always manifested toward the Holy See and its disregard of the canon law are points which will occasionally manifest themselves hereafter and are worthy of a moment's consideration here I have elsewhere shown that alone among the Latin nations Castile steadily refused to admit the medieval tradition and disregarded completely the prescriptions of the church regarding heresy in the 12th century the popular feeling toward the papacy is voiced in the ballads of the Sid when a demand for tribute to the emperor Henry IV is said to be made through the Pope Ruidias advises King Fernando to send a defiance from both of them to the Pope and all his party which the monarch accordingly does when the Sid accompanies his master to a great council in Rome and kicks over the chair prepared for the king of France the Pope excommunicates him whereupon he kneels before the Holy Father and asks for absolution telling him it will be the worst for him if he does not grant it which the Pope promptly does on condition of his being more self-restrained during the remainder of his stay there is no trace of the veneration of God which elsewhere was inculcated as an indispensable religious duty when such was the popular temper it is easy to understand that the prohibition to carry money out of the kingdom to the Pope was even more emphatic than in England the claim to control the patronage of the church which was so prolific a source of revenue to the Curia met throughout Spain a resistance as sturdy as in England though the troubled condition of the land interfered with its success in Catalonia the Cortes in 1419 adopted a law in which after alluding to the scandals and irreparable injuries arising from the intrusion of strangers it was declared that none but natives should hold preferment of any kind and that all papal letters and bulls contravening this should be resisted in whatever way was necessary in Castile the Cortes of 1319 forcibly represented to Juan I the evils resulting from this foisting of strangers on the Spanish church but his speedy death prevented action the remonstrance was renewed to the tutors of the young Henry III who promptly placed an embargo on the revenues of foreign benefice holders and forbade the admission of subsequent appointees this led to a compromise in 1393 which the Avignonese Curia secured the recognition of existing incumbents by promising that no more such nominations should be made the promise made by the Avignonese Antipope was not binding on the Roman Curia and the quarrel continued even if the recipient was a native there was little ceremony in dealing with papal grants of benefices when occasion prompted as was shown in the affair he revealed the unbending character of the future cardinal Jimenez during his youthful sojourn in Rome Jimenez procured papal expectative letters granting him the first preferment that should fall vacant in the diocese of Toledo on his return he made use of these letters to take possession of the archiprestasgo of Uceda but it happened that Archbishop Carrillo simultaneously gave it to his creatures and as Jimenez refused to surrender his rights he was thrown into a tower in Uceda a tower he subsequently when himself Archbishop of Toledo used as a treasury as he continued obstinate Carrillo transferred him to the Pozo de Santorcas a harsh dungeon used for clerical malefactors where he lay for six years resolutely refusing to abandon his claim until released at the intercession of the wife of a nephew of Carrillo evidently the Castilian prelates had slender respect for papal diplomas about the same time during the civil war between Henry IV and his brother Alfonso when Hernando de Luxan Bishop of Seguenza died the Dean Diego Lopez obtained possession of the castles and the treasure of the sea joined the party of Alfonso and with the aid of Archbishop Carrillo caused himself to be elected bishop meanwhile Paul II gave the sea to Juan de Maella Cardinal Bishop of Zamora but Diego Lopez refused to obey the bulls and appealed to the future council against the Pope and all his censures he disregarded and interdict launched against him and was supported by all his clergy Maella died and Paul II gave the bishopric to the bishop of Calaora requesting Henry IV to place him in possession so secure did Diego Lopez feel that he rejected a compromise offering him the sea of Zamora in exchange but the possession of Seguenza happened to be of importance in the war by bribery a troop of royalist soldiers obtained admittance to the castle and carried off Lopez as a prisoner it was the same even with Sopias a monarch as Ferdinand the Catholic when in 1476 the Archepiscopal sea of Saragossa became vacant by the death of Juan of Aragon Ferdinand with his father Juan II asked Sixtus IV to appoint his natural son Alfonso a child six years of age the claim of the papacy to Archepiscopal appointments based on the necessity of the palium was of ancient date and had become incontestable in the 13th century Alfonso X had admitted it in the case of the Archbishops but when Isabella appointed Jimenez to the sea of Toledo in 1495 the proceedings showed that the post was considered to be in the gift of the crown and the papal confirmation to be a matter of course so in the present case the request was a mere form as was seen when Sixtus refused the defective birth could be dispensed for but the youth of Alfonso was an insuperable objection and Sixtus appointed Ancius Despoch then Archbishop of Montréal thinking that the services rendered by him and by his uncle the master of the order of Montessa would induce the king to assent Despoch accepted but Ferdinand at once sequestrated all the revenues of Montréal and the priory of Santa Cristina and ordered him to resign on his hesitating Ferdinand threatened to seize all the castles and revenues of the master ship of Montessa which was effectual and Sixtus compromised by making the boy perpetual administrator of Saragossa Isabella despite her piety was as firm as her husband in defending the claim of the crown against the papacy when in 1482 the sea of Cuenca became vacant and Sixtus IV appointed a Genoese cousin to the position Ferdinand and his queen energetically represented that only Spaniards should have Spanish bishoprics and that the selection should be made by them Sixtus retorted that all benefices were in the gift of the pope and that his power was granted whereupon they ordered home all their subjects resident in the papal court and threatened to take steps for the convocation of a general council these energetic proceedings brought Sixtus to terms and he sent to Spain a special nanzio but Ferdinand and Isabella stood on their dignity and refused even to receive him then the cardinal of Spain Perro Gonzales de Mendoza on Sixtus withdrawing his pretensions they allowed themselves to be reconciled they alleged that whatever might be the papal rights in other countries in Spain the patronage of all benefices belonged to the crown because they and their predecessors had rested the land from the infidel so jealous indeed were they of the papal encroachments that among the subjects which they submitted to the national synod assembled by them in Seville in 1878 was how to prevent the residents of papal legates and nanzios who not only carried off much money from the kingdom but threatened the royal preeminence to which the synod replied that this rested with the sovereigns to do as their predecessors had done it is easy thus to understand why in the organization of the Inquisition they insisted that all appointments should be made by the throne in other ways the much prized superiority of the canon over secular law was disregarded in Spain the Cortes and the Monarch had never hesitated to legislate on ecclesiastical affairs and the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts was limited with a jealousy which paid scant respect to canon and decradle nothing for instance was better settled than the spiritual cognizance of all matters respecting testaments yet when in 1270 the authorities of Badajoz complained of the interference of the bishops court with secular judges in such affairs proceeding to the excommunication of those who exercised jurisdiction over them Alfonso X expressed surprise and gave explicit commands that such cases should be decided by the lay courts exclusively so little respect was felt for the immunity of ecclesiastics from secular law in defense of which Thomas Becket had laid down his life that as late as 1351 an ordinamento of Pedro the Cruel concedes to them that they shall not be cited before secular judges except in accordance with the law on the other hand laymen were jealously protected from the ecclesiastical courts the crown was declared to be the sole judge of its own jurisdiction no appeal from it was allowed in the exercise of this supreme power laws were repeatedly enacted providing that a layman who should cite another layman before a spiritual judge not only lost his cause but incurred a heavy fine and disability for public office the spiritual judge could not imprison a layman or levy execution on his property and he who attempted it or any other invasion of the royal jurisdiction forfeited his benefices and became a stranger in the kingdom thus rendering him incapable of preferment the ecclesiastic who cited a layman before a spiritual judge lost any privileges or graces which he might hold of the crown the layman who attempted to remove a cause from a lay court to a spiritual one was punished with confiscation of all his property while any vassal who claimed benefit of clergy and declined the jurisdiction of a royal court forfeited his fief in re-enacting these laws in the courtes of Toledo in 1480 Ferdinand and Isabella complained of their in-observance and ordered their strict enforcement no other nation in Christendom dared thus to infringe on the sacred limits of spiritual jurisdiction yet even this was not all for the secular power asserted its right to intervene in matters within the church itself elsewhere the inerradictible vice of priestly concubinage was left to be dealt with by bishops and archdeacons the guilty priests themselves even in Castile were exempt from civil authority but Ferdinand and Isabella had no hesitation in invading their domiciles and by repeated edicts in 1480 in 1491 1502 and 1503 endeavored to cure the evil by finding, scourging and banishing their partners in sin it is true as we have seen above that these laws were eluded but there was at least a vigorous attempt to enforce them for in 1490 the clergy of Gipuzkoa complained that the officers of justice visited their houses concubines which of course they denied and carried off their women to prison where they were forced to confess themselves concubines to the great dishonor of the church whereupon the sovereigns repressed the excessive zeal of their officials and ordered them in future to interfere only when the concubinage was notorious a yet more significant extension of royal authority was exercised when in 1490 the Kito Biscay complained that though there were 12 mass priests in the parish church they all celebrated together and at uncertain times so that the pious were unable to be present this was a matter belonging exclusively to the diocesan authority yet the appeal was made to the crown and the royal council felt no scruple in ordering the priests to celebrate in succession and at reasonable hours under pain of banishment and forfeiture of temporalities thus disregarding even the imprescriptible immunities of the priesthood so slender indeed was the respect paid to these immunities that the council of Aranda in 1473 complained that magistrates of cities and other temporal lords presumed to banish ecclesiastics holding benefits in cathedral churches and it may well be doubted whether the interdict with which the council threatened to punish this infraction of canon was effective in its suppression one of the most deplorable abuses with which the church afflicted society was the admission into minor orders of crowds of laymen who without abandoning worldly pursuits adopted the tauncher in order to enjoy the irresponsibility afforded by the claim acquired to spiritual jurisdiction whether as criminals or as traders the courtes of Torcedillas in 1401 declared that the greater portion of the Rufianes and malefactors of the kingdom wore the tauncher when arrested by the secular officials the spiritual courts demanded them and enforced their claims with excommunication after which they freely discharged the evildoers this complaint was re-echoed with an occasional allusion to the stimulus thus afforded to the evil propensities of those who were really clerics the kings in responding to these representations could only say that they would apply to the Holy Father for relief but the relief never came the spirit in which these claims of clerical immunity were advanced as a shield for criminals and the resolute firmness with which they were met by Ferdinand and Isabella are illustrated by an occurrence in 1486 in Trujillo where a man committed a crime and was arrested by the Corregidor he claimed to wear the tauncher and as the officials delayed in handing him over to the ecclesiastical court some clerics who were his kinsmen paraded the streets with a cross and proclaimed that religion was being destroyed they succeeded thus in arousing a tumult in which the culprit was liberated the sovereigns were in Galicia but they forthwith dispatched troops to the scene of disturbance severe punishment was inflicted on the participants in the riot and the clerics who had provoked it were deprived of citizenship and were banished from Spain less serious but still abundantly obnoxious were the advantages which these taunchered laymen possessed in civil suits by claiming the privilege of ecclesiastical jurisdiction to meet this was largely the object of the laws in the Ordenanzas Reales described above and these were supplemented in 1519 by an edict of Charles V forbidding episcopal officials from cognizance of cases where such so-called clerics engaged in trade sought the spiritual courts as a defense against civil suits a similar abuse by which such clerics in public office evaded responsibility for wrongdoing by pleading their clergy he remedied by reviving an old law of Juan I declaring them ineligible to office thus the royal power in Spain asserted its authority over the church after a fashion unknown elsewhere we shall see that so long as it declined to persecute Moors and Jews Rome could not compel it to do so when its policy changed under Isabella it was inevitable that the machinery of persecution should be under the control not of the church, but of the sovereign we shall also see that when the inquisition inflicted similar wrongs by the immunities claimed for its own officials and familiars the sovereigns customarily turned a deaf ear to the complaints of the people such was the condition of Castile when the death of the miserable Henry IV December 12, 1474 cast the responsibility of royalty on his sister Isabella and her husband Ferdinand of Aragon the power of the crown was eclipsed the land was ravaged with interminable war between nobles who were practically independent the sentiment of loyalty and patriotism seemed extinct deceit and treachery, false oaths whatever would serve cupidity and ambition were universal justice was bought and sold private vengeance exercised without restraint there was no security for life and property the fabric of society seemed about to fall in ruins to evolve order out of this chaos of passion and lawlessness was a task to test to the uttermost the nerve and capacity of the most resolute and sagacious to add to the confusion there was a disputed succession although in 1468 the oath of fidelity had been taken to Isabella with the assent of Henry IV in the contract of Perales by which he for the second time acknowledged his reputed daughter Juana not to be his he was popularly believed to be impotent and when his wife Juana sister of Alfonso V of Portugal bore him a daughter whom he acknowledged and declared to be his heir her paternity was maliciously ascribed by Trun de la Cueva and she was known by the opposite party as La Belle Traneja though Henry had been forced by his nobles to set aside her claims in favor of his brother Alfonso in the declaration of Cabezon in 1464 and after Alfonso's death in favor of Isabella in 1468 the latter's marriage in 1469 with Ferdinand of Aragon so angered him he betrothed Juana to Charles Duke of Guyenne brother of Louis XI of France and made the nobles of his faction swear to acknowledge her at his death he testified again to her legitimacy and declared her to be his successor in a will which long remained hidden and finally in 1504 fell under the control of Ferdinand who ordered it burnt there was a powerful party pledged to support her rights and they were aided on the one hand by Alfonso of Portugal and on the other by Louis of France each eager to profit by dismembering the unhappy land some years of war more cruel and bloody than even the preceding aimless strife were required to dispose of this formidable opposition years which tried to the utmost the ability of the young sovereigns and proved to their subjects that at length they had rulers endowed with kingly qualities the decisive victory of Toro won by Ferdinand over the Portuguese March 1st 1476 virtually settled the result although the final treaty was not signed until 1479 the Beltranéa was given the alternative of marrying within six months Prince Juan son of Ferdinand and Isabella then but two years old or of entering the order of Santa Clara in a Portuguese house she chose the latter but she never ceased to sign herself and her pretensions were a frequent source of anxiety she led a varied life sometimes treated as a queen with a court around her and sometimes as a nun in her convent dying at last in 1531 at the age of 70 Isabella was queen in fact as well as a name under the feudal system the husband of an heiress was so completely lord of the fief that in the capitulations of Cervera, January 7th 1469 which preceded the marriage the Castilians carefully guarded the autonomy of their kingdom and Ferdinand swore to observe the conditions yet on the death of Henry IV he imagined that he could disregard the compact alleging that the crown of Castile passed to the nearest male descendant and that through his grandfather Ferdinand of Antiquera brother of Henry III he was the lawful heir the position was however too doubtful and complicated for him to insist on this a short struggle convinced his consummate prudence that it was wisdom to yield and Isabella's wifely tact facilitated submission it was agreed that their two names should appear on all papers both their heads on all coins and that there should be a single seal on the arms of Castile and Aragon thereafter they acted in concert which was rarely disturbed the strong individuality which characterized both conduct to harmony for neither of them allowed courtiers to gain undue influence as Pulgar says the favorite of the king is the queen the favorite of the queen is the king Ferdinand without being a truly great man was unquestionably the greatest monarch of an age not prolific in greatness the only contemporary whom he did not wholly eclipse being Henry VII of England constant in adversity not unduly elated in prosperity there was a steadfast equipoise in his character which more than compensated for any lack of brilliancy far seeing and cautious he took no decisive step that was not well prepared in advance but when the time came he could strike promptly and hard not naturally cruel he took no pleasure in human suffering but he was pitiless when his policy demanded dissimulation and deceit are too invariable an ingredient of statecraft for us to censure him severely for the craftiness in which he surpassed his rivals or for the mendacity in which he was an adept cold and reserved he preferred to inspire fear rather than to excite affection but he was well served and his insight into character gave him the most useful faculty of a ruler the ability to choose his instruments and to get from them the best work which they were capable of performing while gratitude for past services never imposed on him any significant obligations he was popularly accused of avarice but the empty treasury left at his death showed that acquisitiveness with him had been merely a means to an end his religious convictions were sincere and moreover he recognized wisely the invaluable aid which religion could lend to statesmanship at a time when Latin christianity was dominant without arrival this was especially the case in the 10 years war with Granada his conduct of which would alone stamp him as a leader of men the foolhardy defiance of Abu al-Hassan when in 1478 he haughtily refused to resume payment of the tribute which for centuries had been imposed on Granada and when in 1481 he broke the existing truce by surprising Zahara was a fortunate occurrence which Fernando improved to the utmost the unruly Castilian nobles had been reduced to order but they chafed under the unaccustomed restraint by giving their warlike instincts legitimate employment in a holy cause he was securing internal peace by leading his armies personally he was winning the respect of his Castilian subjects who hated him as an Aragonese and he was training them to habits of obedience by making conquests for the crown of Castile he became naturalized and was no longer a foreigner it was more than 100 years since a king of Castile had led his chivalry to victory over the infidel and national pride and religious enthusiasm were enlisted in winning for him the personal authority necessary for a sovereign which had been forfeited since the murder of Pedro the Cruel had established the bastard line upon the throne it was by such means as this inquisition that he started the movement which converted feudal Spain into an absolute monarchy his life's work was seen in the success with which against heavy odds he lifted Spain from her obscurity in Europe to the foremost rank of Christian powers yet amid the numerous acts of cruelty and duplicity which tarnished the memory of Ferdinand as a statesman examination of his correspondence with his officials of the Inquisition especially with those employed in the odious business of confiscating property of the unhappy victims has revealed to me an unexpectedly favorable aspect of his character while urging them to diligence and thoroughness his instructions are invariably to decide all cases with rectitude and justice and to give no one cause of complaint while insisting on the subordination of the people and the secular officials to the holy office once we find him intervening to check arbitrary action and to correct abuses and when cases of peculiar hardship arising from confiscations are brought to his notice he frequently grants to widows and orphans a portion of the forfeited property all this will come before us more fully hereafter and a single instance will suffice here to illustrate his kindly disposition to his subjects in a letter of October 20 1902 he recites that Domingo Munoz of Calatayna has appealed to him for relief representing that his little property was burdened with an annual sensale or ground rent of two souls, eight dineros part of a larger one confiscated in the estate of Juan de Buendía condemned for heresy and he orders Juan Royes his receiver of confiscations at Zaragoza to release the ground rent and let Munoz have his property unencumbered giving us a reason that the latter is old and poor it shows Ferdinand's reputation among his subjects that such an appeal should be ventured and the very triviality of the matter renders it the more impressive that a monarch whose ceaseless personal activity was devoted to the largest affairs of the tumultuous world should turn from the complicated treachery of European politics to consider and grant so humble a prayer in his successful career as a monarch he was well seconded by his queen without deserving the exaggerated and communes which have idealized her Isabella was a woman exactly adapted to her environment as we have seen the mujer varonil was a not uncommon development of the period in Spain and Isabella's youth passed in the midst of civil broils with her fate more than once suspended in the balance had strengthened and hardened the masculine element in her character self reliant and possessed of both moral and physical courage she was prompt and decided bearing with ease responsibilities that would have crushed a weaker nature and admirably fitted to cope with the fierce and turbulent nobles who respected neither her station nor her sex and could be reduced to obedience only by a will superior to their own she had the defects of her qualities she could not have been the queen she was without sacrifice of womanly softness and she earned the reputation of being hard and unforgiving she could not be merciful when her task was to reduce to order the wild turmoil and lawlessness which had so long reigned unchecked in Castile but in this she shed no blood wantonly and she knew how to pardon her policy dictated mercy how she won the affection of those in whom she confided can be readily understood from the feminine grace of her letters to her confessor Hernando of Talavera a less praise worthy attribute of her sex was her fondness for personal adornment in which she indulged in spite of a chronically empty treasury and a people overwhelmed with taxation we hear of her magnifying her self-abnegation in receiving the French ambassador twice in the same gown while an attache of the English envoy says that he never saw her twice in the same attire and that a single toilet with its jewels and appendages must have cost at least two hundred thousand crowns she was moreover rigidly tenacious of royal dignity once when Ferdinand was playing cards with some grandees the admiral of Castile whose sister was Ferdinand's mother addressed him repeatedly as nephew Isabella was undressed in an inner room and heard it she hastily gathered a garment around her put her head through the door and rebuked him hold my lord the king has no kindred or friends he has servants and vassals she was deeply and sincerely religious placing almost unbounded confidence in her spiritual directors whom she selected not among courtly casualists to soothe her conscience but from among the most rigid and unbending churchmen within her reach and to this may in part be attributed the fanaticism which led her to make such havoc among her people she was scrupulously regular in all church observances in addition to frequent prayers she daily recited the hours like a priest and her biographer tells us that in spite of the pressing cares of state she seemed to lead a contemplative rather than an active life she was naturally just and upright though in the torturous policy of the time she had no hesitation in becoming the accomplice of Ferdinand's frequent duplicity and treachery with all the crowded activity of her eventful life she found time to stimulate the culture despised by the war like chivalry around her and she took a deep interest in an academy which at her insistence was opened for the young nobles of her court by the learned Italian Peter Martyr of Anghiara End of Book 1 Chapter 1 Part 2 Recording by B.G. Oxford December 2008 Book 1 Chapter 1 Part 3 of History of the Inquisition of Spain Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by B.G. Oxford History of the Inquisition of Spain Volume 1 by Henry Charles Lee Book 1 Chapter 1 The Castilian Monarchy Part 3 Isabella recognized that the surest way to curb the disorders which pervaded her kingdom was the vigorous enforcement of the law and as soon as the favorable aspect of the war of the succession gave her leisure for less pressing matters she set earnestly to work to accomplish it The Victory of Toro was followed immediately by the Cortes of Madrigal April 27, 1476 where far-reaching reforms were enacted among which the Administration of Justice and the vindication of the royal prerogatives occupied a conspicuous place It was not long before she gave her people a practical illustration of her inflexible determination to enforce these reforms In 1477 she visited Seville with her court and presided in public herself over the trial of malefactors Complaints came in thick and fast of murders and robberies committed in the bad old times The criminals were summarily dispatched and a great fear fell upon the whole population for there was scarce a family or even an individual who was not compromised Multitudes fled and Seville bade fair to be depopulated when at the supplication of a great crowd headed by Enrique de Guzman Duke of Medina Sidonia she proclaimed an amnesty conditioned on the restitution of property making however the significant exception of heresy From Seville she went accompanied by Ferdinand to Cordova there they executed malefactors compelled restitution of property took possession of the castles of Robert Hidalgos and left the land pacified as opportunity allowed in the busy years which followed Isabella visited other portions of her dominions from Valencia to Biscay and Galicia on the same errand and when she could not appear in person she sent judges around with full powers to represent the crown the influence of which was further extended when in 1480 the royal officers known as Corregidors were appointed in all towns and cities one notable case is recorded which impressed the whole nobility with salutary terror in 1480 the widow of a scrivener appealed to her against Alvar Iannes a rich caballero of Lugo in Galicia who to obtain possession of a coveted property caused the scrivener to forge a deed and then murdered him to ensure secrecy probably this which led to Ferdinand and Isabella to send to Galicia Fernando de Acuña as governor with an armed force and Garcia López de Centilla as Corregidor Iannes was arrested and finally confessed and offered to purchase pardon with 40,000 ducats to be applied to the Moorish wars Isabella's counselors advised acceptance of the tempting sum for so wholly a cause but her inflexible sense of justice rejected it she had the offender put to death but to prove her disinterestedness she waived her claim to his forfeited estates and gave them to his children Alvar Iannes was but a type of the lawless nobles of Galicia who for a century had been accustomed to slay and spoil without accountability to anyone so desperate appeared the condition of the land that when in 1480 the deputies of the towns assembled to receive Acuña and Centilla they told them that they would have to have powers from the king of heaven as well as from the earthly king to punish the evildoers of the land the example made of Iannes brought encouragement but the work of restoring order was slow in 1882 the representatives of the towns of Galicia appealed to the sovereigns stating there had been long neither law nor justice there and begging that a justicia mayor be appointed armed with full powers to reduce the land to order they especially asked for the destruction of the numerous castles of those who having little land and few vassals to support them lived by robbery and with them they clasped the fortified churches held by prelates at the same time they represented that homicide had been so universal that if all murderers were punished the greater part of the land would be ruined and they suggested that culprits be merely made to serve at their own expense in the war with Granada with the support of the well disposed however the royal power merely made itself felt they lent efficient support to the royal representatives 46 robber castles were raised and 1500 robbers and murderers fled from the province which became comparatively peaceful and orderly a change confirmed when in 1486 Ferdinand and Isabella went thither personally to complete the work yet it was not simply by the protection of the laws was secured for the population constant vigilance was exercised to see that the judges were strict and impartial in 1485 1488 and 1490 we hear of searching investigations made into the actions of all the corregidores of the kingdom to see that they administered justice without fear or favor jueces de residencia as they were called armed with almost full royal authority were dispatched to all parts of the kingdom as a regular system to investigate and report on the conduct of all royal officials from governors down with power to punish for injustice oppression or corruption subject always to appeal in larger cases to the royal council and the detailed instructions given to them show the minute were exercised over all details of administration bribery also which was almost universal in the courts was summarily suppressed and all judges were forbidden to receive presents from suitors to maintain constant watchfulness over them a secret service was organized of trustworthy inspectors who circulated throughout the land in disguise and furnished reports as to their proceedings and reputation attention moreover was paid to the confused jurisprudence of the period since the confirmation of the 7 partidas of Alfonso the 10th in 1348 and the issue at the same time of the ordenamiento de Alcalá there had been countless laws and edicts published some of them conflicting and many that had grown obsolete though still legally in force the greatest jurist of the day Alfonso Diaz de Montalvo was employed to gather from these into a code all that were applicable to existing conditions and further to supplement their deficiencies and this code known as the ordenanzas reales was accepted and confirmed by the Cortes of Toledo in 1480 this reconstruction of Castilian jurisprudence was completed for the time when in 1491 Montalvo brought out an edition of the 7 partidas noting what provisions had become obsolete and adding what necessary of the more modern laws the result of all these strenuous labors is seen in the admiring exclamation of Peter Martyr in 1492 thus we have peace and concord so unknown in Spain justice which seems to have abandoned other lands pervades these kingdoms the inestimable benefits resulting from this are probably due more especially to Isabella yet I have been led to the conviction that her share in the administration of her kingdom has been exaggerated the chroniclers of the period were for the most part Castilians who would naturally seek to subordinate the action and say intruder and subsequent writers in their eagerness to magnify the reputation of Isabella have followed example in the copious royal correspondence with the officials of the inquisition the name of Isabella rarely appears to these in Castile as in Aragon Fernand mostly writes in the first person singular without even using the pluralis majestades the receiver of confiscations is mi receptor the royal treasury is mi camera evisco the council of the inquisition is mi consejo in spite of the agreement of 1474 the signature rarely appears alongside of yo el re but still rarer are Ferdinand's allusions to la serenísima reina mi muy cara la mujer while in the occasional letters issued by Isabella during her husband's absence she is careful to induce his authority as that of el re mi señor it is scarcely likely that this preponderance of Ferdinand was confined to directing the affairs of the holy office there has been a tendency of late to regard the inquisition as a political engine for the conversion of Spain from political feudal monarchy to one of the modern absolute type but this is an error the change affected by Ferdinand and Isabella and confirmed by their grandson Charles the Fifth was almost holy wrought as it had been two centuries earlier in France by the extension and enforcement of the royal jurisdiction superseding that of the feudatories in Castile the latter had virtually ceased to be an instrument of good during the long period of turbulence which preceded the accession of Isabella something evidently was needed to fill the gap the zealous and efficient administration of justice which I have described not only restored order to the community but went far to exalt the royal power and while it abased the nobles it reconciled the people to possible usurpations so beneficent in the consolidation and maintenance of this no agency was so effective as the institution known as the Santa Hermandade Hermandades brotherhoods or associations for the maintenance of public peace and private rights were no new thing in the troubles of 1282 caused by the rebellion of Santa the Fourth against his father the first idea of his supporters seems to have been the formation of such organizations in these associations however the police functions were subordinated to the political object of supporting the pretensions of Sancio the Fourth and recognizing their danger he dissolved them as soon as he felt the throne assured to him after his death his widow the regent Donia Maria de Molina organized them anew for the protection of her child Fernanda the Fourth and again in 1315 when she was a second time regent in the minority of her grandson Alfonso the 11th the idea was a fruitful one and speedily came to be recognized as a potent instrumentality in the struggle with local disorder and violence perhaps the earliest Hermandade of a purely police character similar to the later ones was that entered into in 1302 between Toledo, Talavera and Villarreal to repress the robberies and murders committed by the golfiness in the district of Sara Fernanda the Fourth not only confirmed the association but ordered the inhabitants to render it due assistance and subsequent royal letters of the same report were issued in 1303 1309 1312 and 1315 in 1386 Juan I framed a general law providing for the organization and functions of Hermandades but if any were formed under it at the time they have left no traces of their activity in 1418 this law was adopted as the constitution of one which organized itself in Santiago but this accomplished little and in 1421 the guilds and the confraternities of the city united in another for mutual support and sucker there was in fact at this time at least nominally a general Hermandade probably organized under the statute of Juan I and possessing written charters and privileges and customs and revenues with full jurisdiction and vendors it commanded little respect however for it complained in 1418 to Juan II of interference with its revenues and work in response to which Juan vigorously prohibited all royal and local judges and officials from impeding the Hermandades in any manner the continuity, nominal at least of this with subsequent organizations is shown by the confirmation of this adherence by Juan II in 1423 by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1485 by Juana LaLoca in 1512 and 1518 by Philip II in 1561 by Philip III in 1601 and by Philip IV in 1621 in the increasing disorder of the times however it was impossible at that period to maintain the efficiency of the body in 1443 an attempt was made to reconstruct it but as soon as it endeavored to repress the lawless nobles and laid siege to Pedro López in Ayala in Salvatierra its forces were cut to pieces and dispersed by Pedro Fernández de Velasco some 20 years later in 1465 when the disorders under Henry IV were culminating the war effort was made the suffering people organized and taxed themselves to raise a force of 1800 horsemen to render the roads safe and they endeavored to bring the number up to 3000 it was a popular movement against the nobles and the king hailed it as the work of God who was lifting up the humble against the great he empowered them to administer justice without appeal except to himself that they had well earned the name of Santa Hermandad and he urged them earnestly to go forward in the good work the attempt had considerable success for a time but it soon languished and was dissolved for lack of the means required to carry it on again in 1473 there was another endeavor to form a Hermandad but the anarchical forces were too dominant for its successful organization as soon as the victory of Toro in March 1476 gave promise of settled government the idea of reviving the Hermandades occurred to Alfonso the Quintanilla Contador Mayor or Chief Auditor of Ferdinand and Isabella with their approval he broached the subject to leading citizens of the principal towns in León and Old Castile deputies were sent to meet and the project was debated so many obstacles presented themselves that it would have been abandoned but for an eloquent argument by Quintanilla his plan was adopted but so fearful were the deputies that the taxes necessary for its maintenance might become permanent that they limited its duration to three years under the impulse of the sovereigns it rapidly took shape and was organized with the Duke Alfonso natural brother of Ferdinand at its head no time was lost in extending it throughout the kingdom in spite of resistance on the part of those who regarded with well founded apprehension not only its efficiency as a means of coercing malefactors but as a dangerous development of the royal power Seville for instance recalcitrated and only yielded to a preemptory command from Isabella in June 1477 one of the reasons assigned in 1507 by Ferdinand for assenting to the demoralizing arrangement under which the archbishop of Compostela resigned his sea in favor of his natural son was that he had received the royal judges and the Hermandade throughout his province in opposition to the will of the nobles and gentry when in 1479 Alonso Carillo a key of Vienna made a final attempt to urge the king of Portugal to another invasion of Castile one of the arguments advanced was the hatred entertained for Ferdinand and Isabella in consequence of the taxes levied to support the 3000 horsemen of the Hermandade in some provinces the resistance was obstinate in 1479 we find Isabella writing to the authorities of Biscay expressing surprise at the neglect of the royal orders and threatening continued punishment for further delay not withstanding which repeated commands were requisite and it was not till 1488 that the stubborn Biscayans submitted while soon afterward complaints came from Guiz Buscoa that the local courts neutralized it by admitting appeals from its sentences it was in the same year that Ferdinand obtained from the Cortes of Saragossa an invasion of the Hermandade in his kingdom of Aragon but the Aragonese always jealous of the royal power chafed under it for in December 1493 Isabella writing from Saragossa expresses a fear that the Cortes may suppress it though it is the only means of enforcing justice there and in the Cortes of Monion in 1510 Ferdinand was obliged to approve a fuero for the future anything of the kind to be established in 1490 the independent kingdom of Navarre adopted the system and cooperated with its neighbors by allowing malefactors to be followed across the border and extraditing them when caught even absconding debtors being thus tracked and surrendered the institution thus founded was watched with Isabella's customary care in 1483 complaints arose of bribery and extortion when she summoned a convention at Pinto of representatives from all the provinces where the guilty were punished and abuses were reformed the Santa Hermandade thus formed a mounted military police which covered the whole kingdom under the Duke of Via Hermosa who appointed the captains and summoned the force to any point where trouble was threatened each center of population two alcaldes one a gentleman and the other a taxpayer or commoner and levied a tax to defray the expense of the organization the alcaldes selected the quadrilleros or privates and held courts which dispensed summary justice to delinquents bound by no formalities and required to listen to no legal pleadings their decision was final save and appeal to the throne their jurisdiction extended over all crimes of violence and theft and they could inflict stripes mutilation or death by shooting with arrows the quadrillero in pursuit of an offender was required to follow him for five leagues raising the hue and cry as he went and joined by those of the country through which he passed who kept up the hunt until the fugitive was either caught or driven beyond the frontier great as were the services of the Armandad in repressing the turbulence of the nobles and rendering the roads safe its cost was a source of complaint to the communities which defrayed it this was by no means small in fourteen eighty five it was computed at thirty two million maravedes and subsequently it increased greatly it was meant by a tax of eighteen thousand maravedes on every hundred hearths and the money was not handled by the authorities but was paid to the crown nominally the organization was in their hands but virtually it was controlled by the sovereigns and when in fourteen ninety eight Ferdinand and Isabella with an appearance of generosity relieved the taxpayers and assumed to meet the expenses from the royal revenues although they left the election of the alcaldes and the quadrilleros in the hands of the local populations yet the result was inevitable in subjecting it still more closely to the crown the institution became permanent and its modern development is seen in the guardia civil none of the reforms of Ferdinand and Isabella was so efficient in restoring order and none did more to centralize power it was not only a rudimentary standing army which could be concentrated speedily to suppress disorder but it carried the royal jurisdiction into every corner of the Ferdinand and made the royal authority supreme everywhere it was practically an alliance between the crown and the people against the centrifugal forces of feudalism without which even the policy of Ferdinand and the iron firmness of Jimenez might have failed to win in the final struggle when municipal independence likewise perished in the defeat of the comunidades the only power left standing in Spain was that of the throne which thus became absolute and all pervading the new absolutism was embodied in the self-effacing declaration of the Cortes of Valladolid in 1523 to Charles V that the laws and customs were subject to the king who could make and revoke them at his pleasure for he was the living law how immense was the revolution and how speedily accomplished is seen in the contrast between the time when the count of Benevente jeered at a royal safe conduct and the people of Galicia scarce dared to receive a royal commissioner and some 60 years later when in the unruly Basque provinces the people of San Sebastian in 1536 appealed to the emperor Charles V to relieve them from local nuisances and royal letters were gravely issued forbidding the butchers of that town from erecting stalls or skinning cattle in the streets and restricting the latter operation to places duly assigned for the purpose thus the crown had become absolute and its interposition could be invoked for the minutest details of local government he reads history to little purpose who imagines that this was the work of the inquisition another measure of no little importance in establishing the royal supremacy was the virtual incorporation in the crown of the master ships of the three great military orders of Santiago of Calatrava and of Alcantara under Henry IV a master of Santiago had been able to keep the whole kingdom in confusion and the wealth and power of the others although not so great were sufficient to render their chiefs the equals of the highest nobles from Innocent VIII in 1489 Ferdinand procured a brief granting him for life the administration of all three and in her will Isabella bequeathed to him an annual income of ten millions of Maravedes from their revenues as Ferdinand's death drew near the orders endeavored to be released from subjection claiming that they could be governed only by their own members but prudent care secured in the time the succession of the master ships to Charles V who after Leo's death made haste to obtain from Adrian VI a bull which annexed them in perpetuity to the crown it was impossible that a king so far seeing and politic as Ferdinand and a queen so pious as Isabella when reducing to order the chaos which they found in Castile should neglect the interest of the faith on which according to medieval belief all social order was based there were in fact burning religious questions which to sensitive piety might seem even more urgent than protection of life and property to comprehend the intricacy of the situation will require a somewhat extended retrospect into the relations between the several races occupying the peninsula end of book one part three recording by B.G. Oxford December 2008 book one chapter two part one of history of the inquisition of Spain volume one this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org history of the inquisition of Spain volume one by Henry Charles Lee book one chapter two the Jews and the Moors part one the influences under which human character can be modified for good or for evil are abundantly illustrated in the conversion of the Spaniards from the most tolerant to the most intolerant nation in Europe Apologists may seek to attribute the hatred felt for Jews and Moors and heretics in the Spain of the 15th and succeeding centuries the inborn peculiarity of the race Acosa de España which must be accepted as a fact and requires no explanation but such facts have their explanation and it is the business of the expository of history to trace them to their causes the vicissitudes endured by the Jewish race from the period when Christianity became dominant may well be a subject of pride to the Hebrew and of shame to the Christian the annals of mankind afford no more brilliant instance of steadfastness under adversity of unconquerable strength through centuries of hopeless oppression of inexhaustible elasticity in recuperating from apparent destruction and of conscientious adherence to a faith whose only portion in this life was contempt and suffering nor does the long record of human perversity present a more damning illustration of the facility with which the evil passions of man can justify themselves with the pretext of duty than the manner in which the church assuming to represent him who died to redeem mankind deliberately planted the seeds of intolerance and persecution and deciduously cultivated the harvest for nearly 1500 years it was in vain that Jesus on the cross had said Father forgive them for they know not what they do it was in vain that St. Peter recorded as urging in excuse for the crucifixion and now brethren I watched that through ignorance ye did it as did also your rulers the church taught that short of murder no punishment no suffering no obliquy was too severe for the descendants of those who had refused to recognize the Messiah and had treated him as a rebel against human and divine authority under the canon law the Jew was a being who had the right to existence and could only enjoy it under conditions of virtual slavery as recently as 1581 Gregory the 13th declared that the guilt of the race in rejecting and crucifying Christ only grows deeper with successive generations entailing on its members perpetual servitude and this authoritative assertion was embodied in an appendix to the corpus juris when paramo about the same period sought to justify the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 he had no difficulty inciting cannons to prove that Ferdinand and Isabella could righteously have seized all their property and have sold their bodies into slavery man is ready enough to oppress and to spoil his fellows and when taught by his religious guides that justice and humanity are a sin against God spoilation and depression become the easiest of duties it is not too much to say that for the infinite wrongs committed on the Jews during the Middle Ages and for the prejudices that are even yet rife in many quarters the church is mainly if not wholly responsible it is true that occasionally she lifted her voice in mild remonstrance when some massacre occurred more atrocious than usual but these massacres were the direct outcome of the hatred and contempt which she so jealously inculcated and she never took steps by punishment to prevent their repetition Alonso de Espina merely repeats the currently received orthodox ethics of the subject when he tells us that to oppress the Jew is true kindness and piety for when he finds that his impiety brings suffering he will be led to the fear of God and that he who makes another do right is greater in the sight of God than he who does right himself due of Spanish abhorrence to Jews and Saracens during the last five or six centuries it is a fact worthy of note that the Spanish nations of the medieval period were the last to yield to this impulsion of the church the explanation of this lies partly in the relations between the several races in the peninsula and partly in the independent attitude which Spain maintained towards the Holy Sea and it's in disposition to submit to the dictation of the church to appreciate fully the transformation which culminated in the establishment of the Inquisition and to understand the causes leading to it it will require a brief review of the position occupied by the Jew and the Saracen towards the church and the state in the primitive church there would seem to have been a feeling of equality if not of corgeality between Christian and Jew when it was deemed necessary in the apostolic cannons to forbid bishops and priests and deacons as well as laymen from fasting or celebrating feasts with Jews or partaking of their unleavened bread or giving oil to their synagogues or lighting their lamps this argues that kindly intercourse between them was only to be restricted in so far as it might lead to religious fellowship this kindly intercourse continued but as the church became mostly Gentile in its membership the prejudices existing between the Jew in the Gentile world gathered strength until there becomes manifest a tendency to treat him as an outcast early in the fourth century the Council of Alvira held under the lead of the uncompromising Hoseus of Cordova forbade marriage between Christians and Jews because there could be no society common to the faithful and the infidel no farmer was to have his harvest blessed by a Jew nor was anyone to eat with him Saint Augustine was not quite so rigid for while he held it lawful to dissolve marriage between the Christian and the infidel he argued that it was inexpedient Saint Ambrose was one of the earliest to teach proscription when he reproved Theodosius the Great for the favor shown by him to Jews who slew Christ and who deny God in denying his son and Saint John Chrysostom improved on this by publicly preaching that Christians should hold no intercourse with Jews whose souls were the habitations of demons and whose synagogues were their playgrounds the antagonism thus stimulated found its natural expression in 415 in the turbulent city of Alexandria where quarrels arose resulting in the shedding of Christian blood when Saint Cyril took advantage of the excitement by leading a mob to the synagogues of which he took possession and then abandoned the property of the Jews to pillage and expelled them from the city which they inhabited since its foundation by Alexander that under such impulsion these excesses were common is shown by the frequent repetition of imperial edicts forbidding the maltreatment of Jews and the spoiling and burning of their synagogues they were not allowed to erect new ones but were to be maintained in possession of those existing at the same time the commencement of legal disabilities is manifested in the reiterated prohibitions of the holding of Christian slaves by Jews while confiscation and perpetual exile or death were threatened against Jews who should convert or circumcise Christians or marry Christian wives the church held it to be a burning disgrace that a Jew should occupy a position of authority over Christians in 438 it procured from Theodosius II the enactment of this as a fixed principle and we shall see how earnestly it labored to render this a part of the public law of Christian dumb this spirit received a check from the Arianism of the Gothic conquerors of the western empire Theodoric ordered the privileges of the Jews to be strictly preserved among which was the important one that all quarrels between themselves should be settled by their own judges and he sternly repressed all confusion. When a mob in Rome burned a synagogue he commanded the punishment of the perpetrators in terms of severe displeasure when attempts were made to invade the right of the Jews of Genoa he intervened effectually and when in Milan the clergy endeavored to obtain possession of the synagogue he peremptorily forbade it. So long as the Whisagas remained Arian this spirit prevailed throughout their extensive dominions although Orthodox were allowed to indulge their growing uncharitableness when the council of Agde in 506 forbade the faithful to banquet or even to eat with Jews it shows that social intercourse still existed but that it was condemned by those who ruled the church. In the east the same tendency had freer opportunity of expressing itself in legislation as when in 706 the council of Constantinople forbade Christians to live with Jews or to bathe with them to eat their unleavened bread to consult them as physicians or to take their medicines Gregory the Great was too large-minded to approve of this growing spirit of intolerance and when some zealots in Naples attempted to prevent the Jews from celebrating their feasts he intervened with a peremptory prohibition of such interference arguing that it would not conduce to their conversion and that they should be led by kindness and not by force to embrace the faith all of which was embodied in the canon law to become conspicuous through its non-observance in fact his repeated enunciation of the precept shows how little it was regarded even in his own time when moreover large numbers of Jews were compelled to submit to baptism in southern Gaul he wrote reprovingly to the bishops Virgil of Arles and Theodore of Marseille but this did not prevent Saint Davidus of Clermont about the same time from baptizing about five hundred who thus saved their lives from the fanatic fury of the populace these forced conversions in Gothia were the first fruits of the change of religion of the Wissigas from Arianism to Catholicism the Ostrogas, Theodoric and Theodotus had expressly declared that they could not interfere with the religion of their subjects for no one can be forced willingly to believe the Wissigoths who dominated southern Gaul in Spain when adapting the Roman law to suit their needs had contented themselves with punishing by confiscation the Christian who turned Jew with liberating Christian slaves held by Jews and with inflicting the death penalty on Jewish masters who should force Christian slaves to conversion besides preserving the love Theodosius II prohibiting Jews from holding office and building new synagogues this was by no means full toleration but it was merciful in comparison with what followed the conversion of the Goths to Catholicism the change commenced promptly though it did not at once reach its full severity the Third Council of Toledo held in May 589 to condemn the Arian heresy and to settle the details of the conversion adopted cannons which show how free had hitherto been the intercourse between the races Jews were forbidden to have Christian wives or concubines or servants and all children sprung from such unions were to be baptized any Christian slaves circumcised or polluted with Jewish rights was to be set free no Jew was to hold an office in which he could inflict punishment on a Christian and this action was followed by some further disabilities decreed by the Council of Narbonne in December of the same year that freedom of discussion continued for some time is manifested by the audacity of a Jew named Froganus not long afterwards who as we are told in the presence of all the nobles of the court exalted the synagogue and depreciated the church it was easier perhaps to close his mouth than to confute him for Aracias Bishop of Toledo excommunicated him and declared him anathematized by the father of the Holy Ghost and by all the celestial hierarchy and cohorts the greatest church man of the day Saint Isidore of Seville whose career of 40 years commenced with the Catholic Revolution did what in him lay to stimulate and justify persecution his treatise against the Jews is not vituperative as are so many later controversial writings but he proves that they are condemned by oppression until at the end of the world their eyes are to be opened and they are to believe that he should have felt called upon to compose such a work was an evil sign and still more evil were the conclusions which he taught they could not fail of deplorable results as was seen when Cisabot ascended the throne in 612 and signalized the commencement of his reign by a forcible conversion of all the Jews of the kingdom what means he adopted we are not told but of course they were violent which Saint Isidore mildly reproves seeing that conversion ought to be sincere but which yet he holds to be strictly within the competence of the church the church in fact was thus brought face to face with the question whether the forcible propagation of the faith is lawful this is so repugnant to the teachings of Christ that it could scarce be accepted but on the other hand the sacrament of baptism is indelible so the convenient doctrine was adopted and became the settled policy that while Christianity was not to spread by force unwilling converts were nevertheless Christians they were not to be permitted to apostatize and were subject to all the pains and penalties of heresy for any secret inclination to their own religion this fruitful conception led to infinite misery as we shall see hereafter was the impelling motive which created the Spanish Inquisition whatever may have been the extent and the success of Sissabot's measures the Jews soon afterwards reappear and they and the conversos became the subject of an unintermittent series of ecclesiastical and secular legislation which shows that the policy so unfortunately adopted could only have attained its end by virtual extermination the Anvil bade fair to wear out the hammer the constancy of the persecuted exhausted the ingenuity of the persecutor with the conversion to Catholicism ecclesiastics became dominant throughout the Whizzagothic territories and to their influence is attributable the varied series of measures which occupied the attention of the successive councils of Toledo from 633 until the Saracenic invasion in 711 every expedient was tried the seizure of all Jewish children to be shut up in monasteries or to be given to God fearing Christians the alternative of expulsion or conversion to the enforcement of which all kings at their accession were to take a solemn oath the gentle persuasives of shaving, scourging, confiscation and exile that the people at large did not share in the intolerance of their rulers is seen in the prohibitions of social intercourse mixed marriages and the holding of office proselytism was evoked in justification of these measures as though the persecuted Jew would seek to incur its dangers even had not the Talmud declared that quote, a proselyte is as damaging to Israel as an ulcer to a healthy body end quote the enforced conversions thus obtained were regarded naturally with suspicion and the converts were the subjects of perpetual animadversion thus the church had triumphed the toleration of the Aryan Goths had been converted into persecuting orthodoxy history repeats itself and 800 years later we shall see the same process with the same results toleration was changed into persecution conversions obtained by force or by its equivalent irresistible pressure were recognized as fictitious and the unfortunate converts were held guilty of the unpardonable crime of apostasy although the Goths did not invent the inquisition they came as near to it as the rudeness of the age and the looseness of their tottering political organization would permit by endeavoring to create through the priesthood a network of supervision which should attain the same results the inquisition was prefigured and anticipated as apparently the Jews could not be exterminated or the conversos be trained into willing Christians the two classes naturally added an element of discontent to the already unquiet and motley population consisting of superimposed layers of Goths Romans and Celtiberians the Jews doubtless aided the Gallo-Roman rebellious of Flavius Paulus about 675 for Saint Julian of Toledo in describing its suppression by King Wamba denounces Gaul in the bitterest terms ending with the crowning reproach that it is a refuge for the blasphemy of the Jews whom Wamba banished after his triumph in spite of the unremitting efforts for their destruction they still remained a source of danger to the state at the council of Toledo in 694 King Ahissa appealed to his prelates to devise some means by which Judaism should be wiped out or all Jews be subjected to the sword of justice and their property be appropriated for all efforts to convert them had proved futile and there was danger that in conjunction with their brethren and other lands they would overthrow Christianity in its response the council alludes to a conspiracy by which the Jews had endeavored to occupy the throne and bring about the ruin of the land and it decrees that all Jews with their wives children in posterity shall be reduced to perpetual servitude while their property is declared confiscated to the king they are to be transferred from their present abodes and be given to such persons as the king may designate who shall hold them as slaves so long as they persevere in their faith taking from them their children as they reach the age of seven and marrying them only to Christians such of their Christian slaves as the king may select shall receive a portion of the confiscated property and continue to pay the taxes hitherto levied on the Jews doubtless this inhuman measure led to indiscriminate plunder and infinite misery but its object was not accomplished the Jews remained and when came the catastrophe of the Saracen conquest they were ready enough to welcome the Berber invaders that they were still in Spain is attributed to Witteza who reigned from 700 to 710 and who is said to have recalled them and favored them with privileges greater than those of the church but Witteza though a favorite target of the Jews of later analysts was an excellent prince and the best contemporary authority says nothing of his favoring the Jews if the Jews helped the Muslim as we may readily believe both from the probabilities of the case and the testimony of Spanish and Arab writers they did no more than a large portion of the Christians to the mass of the population the Goths were merely barbarous masters whose yoke they were ready to exchange wars nor were the Goths themselves united if we are to believe an Arab chronicler at the decisive battle of Zaries Don Roderick confided his right and left wings to Kinsmen of Witteza who were secretly conspiring against him and whose flight caused his defeat the land was occupied by the Morris with little resistance and on terms easy to the conquered it is true that where resistance was made the higher classes were reduced to slavery the lands were divided among the soldiery and one fifth was reserved to the state on which peasants were settled subject to an impost of one-third of the product but submission was general under capitulations which secured to the inhabitants the possession of their property subject to the impost of a third and allowed them the enjoyment of their laws and religion under native counts and bishops in spite of this liberality this embraced Mohammedanism partly to avoid taxation and partly through conviction that the marvelous success of the Muslim cause was a proof of its righteousness the hardy resolution of the few who preferred exile and independence and who found refuge in the mountains of Galicia and Asturias preserved the peninsula from total subjection to Islam during the long struggle of the reconquest the social and religious condition of Spain was strangely anomalous presenting a mixture of races and faiths whose relations however antagonistic they might be in principle were for the most part dominated by temporal interests exclusively mutual attrition so far from inflaming prejudices led to mutual toleration so that fanaticism became reduced to a minimum precisely in that corner of Christendom where a priori reasoners have been tempted to regard it especially violent End of Book 1, Chapter 2, Part 1