A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages Volume II Part 6

The kingdom of Aragon, stretching across both sides of the Pyrenees, with a population kindred in blood and speech to that of Mediterranean France, was particularly liable to inroads of heresy from the latter.

The Counts of Barcelona had been Carlovingian va.s.sals, and even owned a shadowy allegiance to the first Capetians. We have seen how ready were Pedro II. and his successors to aid in resisting Frankish encroachments, even at the cost of encouraging heresy, and it was inevitable that schismatic missions should be established in populous centres such as Barcelona, and that heretics, when hard-pressed, should seek refuge in the mountains of Cerdana and Urgel. In spite of this, however, heresy never obtained to the west of the Pyrenees the foothold which it enjoyed to the east. Its manifestations there were only spasmodic, and were suppressed with effort comparatively slender.

It is somewhat remarkable that we hear nothing specifically of the Cathari in Aragon proper. Matthew Paris, indeed, tells a wild tale of how, in 1234, they were so numerous in the parts of Spain that they decreed the abrogation of Christianity, and raised a large army with which they burned churches and spared neither age nor s.e.x, until Gregory IX. ordered a crusade against them throughout western Europe, when in a stricken field they were all cut off to a man; but this may safely be set down to the imagination of some pilgrim returning from Compostella and desiring to repay a night's hospitality at St. Alban's. In the enumeration of Rainerio Saccone, about 1250, there is no mention of any Catharan organization west of the Pyrenees. That many Cathari existed in Aragon there can be no doubt, but they are never described as such, and the only heretics of whom we hear by name are _los encabats_--the Insabbatati or Waldenses. It will be remembered that it was against these that the savage edicts of Alonso II. and Pedro II. were directed, towards the close of the twelfth century.[184]

After this, for a while, persecution seems to have slept. The sympathies and ambition of King Pedro were enlisted with Raymond of Toulouse, and after his fall at Muret, during the minority of Jayme I., the Aragonese probably awaited the results of the Albigensian war with feelings enlisted in favor of their race rather than of orthodoxy. As it drew to a close, however, Don Jayme, in 1226, issued an edict prohibiting all heretics from entering his kingdom, doubtless moved thereunto by the numbers who sought escape from the crusade of Louis VIII., and he followed this, in 1228, with another, depriving heretics, with their receivers, fautors, and defenders, of the public peace. The next step, we are told by the chroniclers of the Inquisition, was taken in consequence of the urgency of Raymond of Pennaforte, the Dominican confessor of the young king, who prevailed on him to obtain from Gregory IX. inquisitors to purge his land. This is based on the bull _Declinante_, addressed, May 26, 1232, to Esparrago, Archbishop of Tarragona, and his suffragans, instructing them to make inquest in their dioceses after heretics, either personally or by Dominicans or other fitting persons, and to punish such as might be found, according to the statutes recently issued by him and by Annibaldo, Senator of Rome. This doubtless gave an impulse to what followed, but as yet there was no thought of a papal or Dominican Inquisition, or of adopting foreign legislation. In the following year, 1233, Don Jayme issued from Tarragona, with the advice of his a.s.sembled prelates, a statute on the subject, showing that the matter was regarded as pertaining to the State rather than to the Church. Seigneurs who protected heretics in their lands forfeited them to the lord, or, if allodial, to the king. Houses of heretics, if allodial, were to be torn down; if held in fief, forfeited to the lord. All defamed or suspected of heresy were declared ineligible to office. That the innocent might not suffer with the guilty, no one was to be punished as a heretic or believer except by his bishop or such ecclesiastic as had authority to determine his guilt.

Bishops were ordered, when it might seem expedient to them in places suspected of heresy, to appoint a priest or clerk, while the king or his bailli would appoint two or three laymen, whose duty it should be to investigate heretics, and, taking precautions against their escape, to report them to the bishop or to the royal officials, or to the lord of the place. In this incongruous mixture of clerical and lay elements there may, it is true, be discovered the germ of an Inquisition, but one of a character very different from that which was at this time taking shape at Toulouse. The subordinate position of these so-called inquisitors is seen in the provision that any negligence in the performance of their functions was punishable, in the case of a clerk, by the loss of his benefice, in that of a layman, by a pecuniary mulct.[185]

To what extent this crude expedient was put in practice we have no means of knowing, but probably some attempts were made which only proved its inefficiency. Esparrago died soon afterwards and was succeeded in the archiepiscopal seat of Tarragona by Guillen Mongriu, whose vigorous and martial temperament was ill.u.s.trated by his conquest of the island of Iviza. Mongriu speedily found that the domestic Inquisition would not work, and applied for the solution of some doubts to Gregory, who sent him, April 30, 1235, a code of instructions drawn up by Raymond of Pennaforte. About this time we find the first record of active work in persecution, which ill.u.s.trates the absence of all formal inquisitorial procedure. Robert, Count of Rosellon, was one of the great feudatories of the crown of Aragon. He seems to have been involved, as most n.o.bles were, in some disputes as to fiefs and t.i.thes with the Bishop of Elne, whose diocese was in his territories. The bishop accused him of being the chief of the heretics of the region and of using his castles as a refuge for them. All this was very likely true--at least the bishop had no difficulty in finding witnesses to prove it, when Robert obediently abjured, but subsequently relapsed. Don Jayme accordingly had him arrested and imprisoned, but Robert managed to escape and shut himself in one of his inaccessible mountain strongholds. His position, however, was desperate, and his lands liable to confiscation; he therefore expressed to Gregory IX. his desire to return to the bosom of the Church, and offered to serve with his followers against the Saracen as long as the pope might designate. Gregory therefore wrote, February 8, 1237, to Raymond of Pennaforte, that if the count would for three years with his subjects a.s.sist in the conquest of Valencia, and give sufficient security that in case of relapse his territories should be forfeited to the crown, he could be absolved. On hearing this the good bishop hastened to the papal court and declared that if Robert was absolved he and his witnesses would be exposed to the imminent peril of death, and that heresy would triumph in his diocese; but, on receiving a.s.surances that his fiefs and t.i.thes would be taken care of, he quieted down and offered no further opposition.[186]

Under the impulsion of Gregory and of Raymond of Pennaforte, Dominican inquisitors had at last been resorted to, and in this year, 1237, we first become cognizant of them. In right of his wife Ermessende, Roger Bernard the Great of Foix was Vizconde of Castelbo, a fief held of the Bishop of Urgel, with whom he had had a bitter war. He gave Castelbo to his son Roger, who, by the advice of his father, in 1237, allowed the Inquisition free scope there, placing the castle in the hands of Ramon Fulco, Vizconde of Cardona, in the name of the Archbishop of Tarragona and the bishops a.s.sembled at the Council of Lerida. That council thereupon appointed a number of inquisitors, including Dominicans and Franciscans, who made a descent on Castelbo. It had long been noted as a nest of Catharans. In 1225, under the protection of Arnaldo, then lord of the place, perfected heretics publicly preached their doctrines there. In 1234 we hear of a heretic of Mirepoix going thither to receive the _consolamentum_ on his death-bed. The inquisitors, therefore, had no difficulty in finding victims. They ordered two houses to be destroyed, exhumed and burned the bones of eighteen persons, condemned as heretics, and carried off as prisoners some forty-five men and women, condemned fifteen who fled, and were undecided about sundry others. Still, the Bishop of Urgel was not satisfied, and he gratified his rancor by condemning and excommunicating Roger Bernard as a defender of heretics, and it was not until 1240 that the latter, through the intervention of the Archbishop of Tarragona, and by submitting, abjuring heresy, and swearing to perform any penance a.s.signed to him, procured from the bishop absolution and a certificate that he recognized him "_per bon et per leyal e per Catholich_."[187]

In 1238 the Inquisition of Aragon may be said to be founded. In April of that year Gregory IX. wrote to the Franciscan Minister and Dominican Prior of Aragon deploring the spread of heresy through the whole kingdom, so that heretics no longer seek secrecy, but openly combat the Church, to the destruction of its liberties; and though this may be an exaggeration, we know from a confession before the Inquisition of Toulouse that there were enough scattered through the land to afford shelter to the wandering Catharan missionaries. Gregory, therefore, placed in the hands of the Mendicants the sword of the Word of G.o.d, which was not to be restrained from blood. They were instructed to make diligent inquisition against heresy and its abettors, proceeding in accordance with the statutes which he had issued, and calling in when necessary the aid of the secular arm. At the same time he made a similar provision for Navarre, which was likewise said to be swarming with heretics, by commissioning as inquisitors the Franciscan Guardian of Pamplona and the Dominican Pedro de Leodegaria. As an independent inst.i.tution the Inquisition of Navarre seems never to have advanced beyond an embryonic condition. In 1246 we find Innocent IV. writing to the Franciscan Minister there to publish that Grimaldo de la Mota, a citizen of Pamplona, is not to be aspersed as a heretic because while in Lombardy he had eaten and drunk with suspected persons, but this is the only evidence of vitality that I have met with, and Navarre was subsequently incorporated into the Inquisition of Aragon.[188]

In Aragon the inst.i.tution gradually took shape. Berenger de Palau, Bishop of Barcelona, was busily engaged in organizing it throughout his diocese at the time of his death in 1241, and the vicar, who replaced him while the see was vacant, completed it. In 1242 Pedro Arbalate, who had succeeded Guillen Mongriu as archbishop, with the a.s.sistance of Raymond of Pennaforte, held the Council of Tarragona to settle the details of procedure. Under the guidance of so eminent a canonist, the code drawn up by the council showed a thorough knowledge of the principles guiding the Church in its dealings with heretics, and long continued to be referred to as an authority not only in Spain, but in France. At the same time its careful definitions, which render it especially interesting to us, indicate that it was prepared for the instruction of a Church which as yet practically knew nothing of the principles of persecution firmly established elsewhere. It was probably under the impulse derived from these movements that active persecution was resumed at Castelbo, which does not seem to have been purified by the raid of 1237. This time the heretics were not as patient as before, and resorted to poison, with which they succeeded in taking off Fray Ponce de Blanes, or de Espira, the inquisitor, who had made himself peculiarly obnoxious by his vigorous pursuit of heresy for several years. This aroused all the martial instincts of the retired archbishop, Guillen Mongriu, who a.s.sembled some troops, besieged and took the castle, burned many of the heretics, and imprisoned the rest for life.

An organized effort was made to extend the Inquisition throughout the kingdom, and the parish priests were individually summoned to lend it all the aid in their power. Urgel seems to have been the headquarters of the sectaries, for subsequently we hear of their sharp persecution there by the Dominican inquisitor, Bernardo Travesser, and of his martyrdom by them. As usual, both he and Ponce de Blanes shone forth in miracles, and have remained an object of wors.h.i.+p in the Church of Urgel, though in 1262 the latter was translated to Montpellier, where he lies magnificently entombed.[189]

Still, the progress of organization seems to have been exceedingly slow.

In 1244 a case decided by Innocent IV. shows a complete absence of any effective system. The Bishop of Elne and a Dominican friar, acting as inquisitors, had condemned Ramon de Malleolis and Helena his wife as heretics. By some means they succeeded in appealing to Gregory IX., who referred the matter to the Archdeacon of Besalu and the Sacristan of Girona. These acquitted the culprits and restored them to their possessions; but the case was carried back to Rome, and Innocent finally confirmed the first sentence of conviction. Again, in 1248, a letter from Innocent IV. to the Bishop of Lerida, instructing him as to the treatment in his diocese of heretics who voluntarily return to the Church, presupposes the absence of inquisitors and absolute ignorance as to the fundamental principles in force. The power conferred the same year on the Dominican Provincial of Spain to appoint inquisitors seems to have remained unused. The efforts of Archbishop Mongriu and Raymond of Pennaforte had spent themselves apparently without permanent results.

King Jayme grew dissatisfied, and, in 1254, urgently demanded a fresh effort of Innocent IV. This time the pope concluded, at Jayme's suggestion, to place the matter entirely in Dominican hands; but so little had been done in the way of general organization that he confided the choice of inquisitors to the priors of Barcelona, Lerida, Perpignan, and Elne, each one to act within his own diocese, unless, indeed, there are inquisitors already in function under papal commissions--a clause which shows the confusion existing at the time. Innocent further felt it necessary to report this action to the Archbishops of Tarragona and Narbonne, and to call upon them to a.s.sist the new appointees. This device does not seem to have worked satisfactorily. At that time the whole peninsula const.i.tuted but one Dominican province, and, in 1262, Urban IV. again adopted definitely the plan, in general use elsewhere, of empowering the provincial to appoint the inquisitors--now limited to two. A few days before he had sent to those of Aragon a bull defining their powers and procedure, and a copy of this was enclosed to the provincial for his guidance. This long remained the basis of organization; but after the division of the province into two, by the General Chapter of Cologne in 1301, the Aragonese chafed under their subordination to the Provincial of Spain, whose territories consisted only of Castile, Leon, and Portugal. The struggle was protracted, but the Inquisition of Aragon at last achieved independence in 1351, when Fray Nicholas Roselli, the Provincial of Aragon, obtained from Clement VI. the power of appointing and removing the inquisitors of the kingdom.[190]

Meanwhile the inquisitors had not been inactive. Fray Pedro de Cadreyta rendered himself especially conspicuous, and as usual Urgel is the prominent scene of activity. In conjunction with his colleague, Fray Pedro de Tonenes, and Arnaldo, Bishop of Barcelona, he rendered final judgment, January 11, 1257, against the memory of Ramon, Count of Urgel, as a relapsed heretic who had abjured before the Bishop of Urgel, and whose bones were to be exhumed; but, with unusual lenity, the widow, Timborosa, and the son, Guillen, were admitted to reconciliation and not deprived of their estates. Twelve years later, in 1269, we find Cadreyta, together with another colleague, Fray Guillen de Colonico, and Abril, Bishop of Urgel, condemning the memory of Arnaldo, Vizconde of Castelbo, and of his daughter Ermessende, whom we know as the heretic wife of Roger Bernard the Great of Foix. They had both been dead more than thirty years, and her grandson, Roger Bernard III. of Foix, who had inherited the Vizcondado of Castelbo, was duly cited to defend his ancestors; but if he made the attempt, it was vain, and their bones were ordered to be exhumed. It is not likely that these st.u.r.dy champions of the faith confined their attention to the dead, though the only execution we happen to hear of at this period is that of Berenguer de Amoros, burned in 1263. That the living, indeed, were objects of fierce persecution is rendered more than probable by the martyrdom of Cadreyta, who was stoned to death by the exasperated populace of Urgel, and who thus furnished another saint for local cult.[191]

During the remainder of the century we hear little more of the Inquisition of Aragon, but the action of the Council of Tarragona, in 1291, would seem to show that it was neither active nor much respected.

Otherwise the council would scarce have felt called upon to order the punishment of heretics who deny a future existence, and, further, that all detractors of the Catholic faith ought to be punished as they deserve, to teach them reverence and fear. Still more significant is the injunction on parish priests to receive kindly and aid efficiently the beloved Dominican inquisitors, who are laboring for the extirpation of heresy.[192]

With the opening of the fourteenth century there would appear to be an increase of vigor. In 1302 Fray Bernardo celebrated several _autos de fe_, in which a number of heretics were abandoned to the secular arm. In 1304 Fray Domingo Peregrino had an _auto_ in which we are told that those who were not burned were banished, with the a.s.sent of King Jayme II.--one of the rare instances of this punishment in the annals of the Inquisition. In 1314 Fray Bernardo Puigcercos was so fortunate as to discover a number of heretics, of whom he burned some and exiled others.

To Juan de Longerio, in 1317, belongs the doubtful honor of condemning the works of Arnaldo de Vilanova. The names of Arnaldo Burguete, Guillen de Costa, and Leonardo de Puycerda have also reached us, as successful inquisitors, but their recorded labors were princ.i.p.ally directed against the Spiritual Franciscans, and will be more particularly noted hereafter. The Aragonese seem not to have relished the methods of the Inquisition, for in 1325 the Cortes, with the a.s.sent of King Jayme II., prohibited for the future the use of the inquisitorial process and of torture, as violations of the Fueros. Whether or not this was intended to apply to the ecclesiastical as well as to the secular courts it is impossible now to tell, but, if it were, it had no permanent result, as we learn from the detailed instructions of Eymerich fifty years later.

About the middle of the century, the merits of the Inquisitor Nicholas Roselli earned him the cardinalate. It is true that when the energetic action of the Inquisitor Jean Dumoulin, in 1344, drove the Waldenses from Toulouse to seek refuge beyond the Pyrenees, Clement VI. wrote earnestly to the kings and prelates of Aragon and Navarre to aid the Inquisition in destroying the fugitives, but there is no trace of any corresponding result.[193]

To Roselli, however, belongs the credit of raising a question which inflamed to a white heat the traditional antagonism of the two great Mendicant Orders. It is worth brief attention as an ill.u.s.tration of the nicety to which doctrinal theology had attained under the combined influence of scholastic subtlety in raising questions, and inquisitorial enforcement of implicit obedience in the minutest articles of faith. In 1351 the Franciscan Guardian of Barcelona, in a public sermon, stated that the blood shed by Christ in the Pa.s.sion lost its divinity, was sundered from the Logos, and remained on earth. The question was a novel one and a trifle difficult of demonstration, but its raising gave Roselli a chance to inflict a blow on the hated Franciscans, and he referred it to Rome. The answer met his most ardent antic.i.p.ations. The Cardinal of Sabina, by order of Clement VI., wrote that the pope had heard the proposition with horror; he had convened an a.s.sembly of theologians in which he himself argued against it, when it was condemned, and the inquisitors everywhere were ordered to proceed against all audacious enough to uphold it. Roselli's triumph was complete, and the unfortunate guardian was obliged to retract his speculations in the pulpit where he had promulgated them. The Franciscans were restless under this rebuff, which they construed as directed against their Order. In spite of the papal decision the question remained an open one in the schools, where it was eagerly debated on both sides. The Franciscans argued, with provoking reasonableness, that the blood of Christ might well be believed to remain on earth, seeing that the foreskin severed in the Circ.u.mcision was preserved in the Lateran Church and reverenced as a relic under the very eyes of pope and cardinal, and that portions of the blood and water which flowed in the Crucifixion were exhibited to the faithful at Mantua, Bruges, and elsewhere. After the lapse of a century, the Franciscan, Jean Bretonelle, professor of theology in the University of Paris, in 1448 brought the matter before the faculty, stating that it was causing discussion at Roch.e.l.le and other places. A commission of theologians was appointed, which, after due debate, rendered a solemn decision that it was not repugnant to the faith to believe that the blood shed at the Pa.s.sion remained on earth. Thus encouraged, the Franciscans grew bolder.

The Observantine Franciscan, Giacomo da Monteprandone, better known as della Marca, was one of the most prominent ecclesiastics of the fifteenth century. His matchless eloquence, his rigid austerity, his superhuman vigor, and his unquenchable zeal for the extermination of heresy well earned the beatification conferred on him after death; and since 1417 he had been known as a hammer of heretics. He held a commission as universal inquisitor which clothed him with power throughout Christendom, and the heretics in every corner of Italy, in Bohemia, Hungary, Bosnia, and Dalmatia, had learned with cause to tremble at his name. It required no little nerve to a.s.sail such a man, and yet when, April 18, 1462, at Brescia, he publicly preached the forbidden doctrine, the Dominican Inquisitor, Giacomo da Brescia, lost no time in calling him to account. First a courteous note expressed disbelief in the report of the sermon and asked a disclaimer; but on the Observantine adhering to the doctrine, a formal summons followed, citing him to appear for trial on the next day. The two Orders had thus fairly locked horns. The Bishop of Brescia interfered and obtained a withdrawal of the summons, but the question had to be fought out before the pope.

The bitterness of feeling may be judged by the complaint of the inquisitor that his opponent had so excited the people of Brescia against him and the Dominicans that but for prompt measures many of them would have been slain; while, from Milan to Verona, every Dominican pulpit resounded with denunciations of Giacomo della Marca as a heretic.

The politic Pius II. feared to quarrel with either Order, and had a tortuous path to tread. To the Dominicans he furnished an authenticated copy of the decision of Clement VI. To Giacomo della Marca he wrote that this had been done because he could not refuse it, and not to give it authority. It had not been issued by Clement, but only in his name, and the question was still an open one. Giacomo might rest in peace in the conviction that the pope had full confidence in his zeal and orthodoxy, and that his calumniators should be silenced. On May 31 he issued commands that all discussions of the question should cease, and that both sides should send their most learned brethren to an a.s.sembly which he would hold in September for exhaustive debate and final decision.

This he hoped would put an end to the matter, while skilful postponement of the conference would allow it to die out; but he miscalculated the enmity of the rival Orders. The quarrel raged more fiercely than ever.

The Franciscans declared that the inquisitor who started it would be deprived of his office and masters.h.i.+p in theology. Pius thereupon soothed him by a.s.suring him that he had only done his duty, and that he had nothing to fear.

The conference had become an inevitable evil, and Pius found himself obliged to allow it to meet in December, 1463. Each side selected three champions, and for three days, in the presence of the pope and sacred college, they argued the point with such ardent vehemence that, in spite of the bitter winter weather, they were bathed in sweat. Then others took part and the question was debated pro and con. The Franciscans put in evidence the blood of Christ exhibited for the veneration of the faithful in many shrines, and to the foreskin which was in the Lateran and also in the royal chapel of France. They also appealed to the cuttings of Christ's hair and beard, the parings of his nails, and all his excretions--did these remain on earth or were they divine and carried to heaven? To these arguments the Dominican reply is a curious exhibition of special pleading and sophistry; but as no one could allege a single text of Scripture bearing upon the question, neither side could claim the victory. The good Bishop of Brescia, who had at first played the part of peacemaker, consistently presented a written argument in which he proved that the pope ought not to settle the question because such a determination would, firstly, be doubtful; secondly, superfluous; and, thirdly, perilous. This wise utterance was probably inspired, for Pius reserved his decision, and, August 1, 1464, only eight days before his death, issued a bull in which he recited how the faithful had been scandalized by the quarrel between the two Orders, and, therefore, he forbade further discussion on the subject until the Holy See should finally decide it. The Dominicans were emphatically prohibited from denouncing the Franciscans as heretics on account of it, and any infraction of his commands was punishable by _ipso facto_ excommunication supplemented with harsh imprisonment. He tells us himself that after the public discussion the cardinals debated the matter for several days. The majority inclined to the Dominicans and he agreed with them, but the preaching of the Franciscans was necessary for the crusade against the Turks which he proposed to lead in person, and it was impolitic to offend them, so he postponed the decision.

Mutterings of discussion, without open quarrel, have since then occasionally occurred between the Orders, but the popes have never seen fit to issue a definite decision on the subject, and the momentous question started by Roselli remains still unsettled--a pitfall for unwary feet.[194]

In 1356 Roselli was created Cardinal of S. Sisto, and was succeeded after a short interval by Nicolas Eymerich, the most noteworthy man of whom the Aragonese Inquisition can boast, although after more than thirty years of service he ended his days in disgrace and exile. Trained in varied learning, and incessant in industry, of his numerous works but one has had the honors of print--his "Directorium Inquisitorum," in which, for the first time, he systematized the procedure of his beloved inst.i.tution, giving the principles and details which should guide the inquisitor in all his acts. The book remained an authority to the last, and formed the basis of almost all subsequent compilations. Eymerich's conception of the model inquisitor was lofty. He must be fully acquainted with all the intricacies of doctrine, and with all the aberrations of heresy--not only those which are current among the common people, but the recondite speculations of the schools, Averrhoism and Aristotelian errors, and the beliefs of Saracen and Tartar. At a time when the Inquisition was declining and falling into contempt, he boldly insisted on its most extreme prerogatives as an imprescriptible privilege. If he a.s.sumed that the heretic had but one right--that of choosing between submission and the stake--he was in this but the conscientious exponent of his age, and his writings are instinct with the conviction that the work of the inquisitor is the salvation of souls.

From Eymerich's lament over the difficulty of providing for the expenses of an inst.i.tution so necessary to the Church, it is evident that the kings of Aragon had not felt it their duty to support the Holy Office, while the bishops, he tells us, were as firm as their brethren in other lands in evading the responsibility which by right was inc.u.mbent on them. The confiscations, he adds, amounted to little or nothing, for heretics were poor folk--Waldenses, Fraticelli, and the like. In fact, so far as we can gather, the sum of Eymerich's activity during his long career is so small that it shows how little was left of heresy by this time. Occasional Fraticelli and Waldenses and renegade Jews or Saracens were all that rewarded the inquisitor, with every now and then some harmless lunatic whose extravagance unfortunately took a religious turn, or some over-subtle speculator on the intricacies of dogmatic theology.

Thus, early in his career, about 1360, Eymerich had the satisfaction of burning as a relapsed heretic a certain Nicholas of Calabria, who persisted in a.s.serting that his teacher, Martin Gonsalvo of Cuenca, was the Son of G.o.d, who would live forever, would convert the world, and at the Day of Judgment would pray for all the dead and liberate them from h.e.l.l. In 1371 he had the further gratification of silencing, by a decision of Gregory XI., a Franciscan, Pedro Bonageta. The exact relation between the physical matter of the consecrated host and the body of Christ under certain circ.u.mstances had long been a source of disputation in the Church, and Fray Pedro taught that if it fell into the mud or other unclean place, or if it were gnawed by a mouse, the body of Christ flew to heaven and the wafer became simple bread; and so also when it was ground under the teeth of the recipient, before he swallowed it. Gregory did not venture to p.r.o.nounce this heretical, but he forbade its public enunciation. About the same time Eymerich had a good deal of trouble with Fray Ramon de Tarraga, a Jew turned Dominican, whose numerous philosophical writings savored of heresy. After he had been kept in prison for a couple of years, Gregory ordered him to have a speedy trial, and threatened Eymerich with punishment for contumacy if his commands were disobeyed. Ramon must have had powerful friends in the Order whom Eymerich feared to provoke, for six months later Gregory wrote again, saying that if Ramon could not be punished according to the law in Aragon, he must be sent to the papal court under good guard with all the papers of the process duly sealed. In fact, the Inquisition was not established for the trial of Dominicans. At the same time another Jew, Astruchio de Piera, held by Eymerich on an accusation of sorcery and the invocation of demons, was claimed as justiciable by the civil power, and was sequestrated until Gregory ordered his delivery to the inquisitor, who forced him to abjure and imprisoned him for life.

Somewhat earlier was a certain Bartolo Janevisio, of Majorca, who indulged in some apocalyptic writing about Antichrist, and was forced, in 1361, by Eymerich to recant, while his book was publicly burned. More practical, from a political point of view, was Eymerich's doctrine that all who lent a.s.sistance to the Saracens were punishable by the Inquisition as fautors of heresy, but this seems to have remained a theoretical a.s.sertion which brought no business to the Holy Office. We shall see hereafter how he fared in seeking the condemnation of Raymond Lulli's writings, and need only say here that the result was his suspension from office, to be succeeded by his capital enemy Bernardo Ermengaudi, in 1386, and that after the succession to the throne, in 1387, of Juan I., who was bitterly hostile to him, he was twice proscribed and exiled, and was denounced by the king as an obstinate fool, an enemy of the faith inspired by Satan, anointed with the poison of infidelity, together with other unflattering qualifications. He did not succeed better when in his rash zeal he a.s.sailed the holy San Vicente Ferrer for saying in a sermon that Judas Iscariot had a true and salutary repentance; that, being unable to reach Christ and obtain forgiveness owing to the crowd, he hanged himself and was pardoned in heaven. When the case was drawing to a conclusion, Pedro de Luna, then Cardinal of Aragon, took Vicente under his protection and made him his confessor, and, after his election in 1394 as Avignonese pope, under the name of Benedict XIII., he forced Eymerich to surrender the papers, which he unceremoniously burned. The next inquisitor, Bernardo Puig, is said to have been earnest and successful, punis.h.i.+ng many heretics and confuting many heresies. In Valencia, about 1390, there was a case in which Pedro de Ceplanes, priest of Cella, read in his church a formal declaration that there were three natures in Christ--divine, spiritual, and human. A merchant of the town loudly contradicted it, and a tumult arose. The inquisitor of Valencia promptly arrested the too ingenious theologian, who only escaped the stake by public recantation and condemnation to perpetual imprisonment; but he broke jail and fled to the Balearic Isles, interjecting an appeal to the Holy See.[195]

The creation, in 1262, of the kingdom of Majorca, comprising the Balearic Isles, Rosellon, and Cerdana, by Jayme I. of Aragon, for the benefit of his younger son Jayme, seemed to render a separate inquisition requisite for the new realm. At what time it was established is uncertain, the earliest inquisitor of Majorca on record being Fr.

Ramon Durfort, whose name occurs as a witness on a charter of 1332, and he continued to occupy the position until 1343, when he was elected Provincial of Toulouse. From that time, at least, there is a succession of inquisitors, and the forcible reunion in 1348, by Pedro IV., of the outlying provinces to the crown of Aragon did not effect a consolidation of the tribunals. As the Inquisition declined in dignity and importance, indeed, it seems to have sought a remedy in multiplying and localizing its offices. In 1413 Benedict XIII. (who was still recognized as pope in Aragon) made a further division by separating the counties of Rosellon and Cerdana from the Balearic Isles, Fray Bernardo Pages retaining the former, and Guillen Sagarra obtaining the latter. Both of these were energetic men who celebrated a number of _autos de fe_, in which numerous heretics were reconciled or burned. Sagarra was succeeded by Bernardo Moyl, and the latter by Antonio Murta, who was confirmed in 1420, when Martin V. approved of the changes made. At the same time Martin, at the request of the king and of the consuls of Valencia, erected that province also into a separate Inquisition. The Provincial of Aragon appointed Fray Andrea Ros to fill the position; he was confirmed in 1433 by Eugenius IV., but was removed without cause a.s.signed the next year by the same pope, although we are told that he inflexibly persecuted the "Bohemians" or "Wickliffites" with fire and sword. His successors, Domingo Corts and Antonio de Cremona, earned equal laurels in suppressing Waldenses.[196]

A case occurring in 1423 would seem to indicate that the Inquisition had lost much of the terror which had rendered it formidable. Fray Pedro Salazo, Inquisitor of Rosellon and Cerdana, threw in prison on charges of heresy a hermit named Pedro Freserii, who enjoyed great reputation for sanct.i.ty among the people. The accused declared that the witnesses were personal enemies, and that he was ready to purge himself before a proper judge, and his friends lodged an appeal with Martin V. The pope referred the matter, with power to decide without appeal, to Bernardo, Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of Arles, in the diocese of Elne.

Bernardo deputed the case to a canon of the church of Elne, who acquitted the accused without awaiting the result of another appeal to the pope interjected by the inquisitor; and Martin finally sent the matter to the Ordinary of Narbonne, with power to summon all parties before him and decide the case definitely. The whole transaction shows a singular want of respect for the functions of the Inquisition.[197]

Even more significant is a complaint made in 1456 to Calixtus III. by Fray Mateo de Rapica, a later inquisitor of Rosellon and Cerdana.

Certain neophytes, or converted Jews, persisted in Judaic practices, such as eating meat in Lent and forcing their Christian servants to do likewise. When Fray Mateo and Juan, Bishop of Elne, prosecuted them, they were so far from submitting that they published a defamatory libel upon the inquisitor, and, with the aid of certain laymen, afflicted him with injuries and expenses. Finding himself powerless, he appealed to the pope, who ordered the Archbishop and Official of Narbonne to intervene and decide the matter. The same spirit, in even a more aggravated form, was exhibited in a case already referred to, when, in 1458, Fray Miguel, the Inquisitor of Aragon, was maltreated and thrown in prison for nine months by some n.o.bles and high officials of the kingdom, whom he had offended in obeying the instructions sent to him by Nicholas V.[198]

Yet, as against the poor and friendless, the Inquisition retained its power. Wickliffitism--as it had become the fas.h.i.+on to designate Waldensianism--had continued to spread, and about 1440 numbers of its sectaries were discovered, of whom some were reconciled, and more were burned as obstinate heretics by Miguel Ferriz, Inquisitor of Aragon, and Martin Trilles of Valencia. Possibly among these was an unfortunate woman, Leonor, wife of Doctor Jayme de Liminanna, of whom, about this time, we hear that she refused to perform the penance a.s.signed to her by the Inquisition of Cartagena, and that she was consequently abandoned to the secular arm. The post of inquisitor continued to be sought for. To multiply it, Catalonia was separated from Aragon by Nicholas V. shortly after his accession in 1447. In 1459 another division took place, the diocese of Barcelona being erected into an independent tribunal by Martiale Auribelli, Dominican General Master, for the benefit of Fray Juan Conde, counsellor and confessor of the infant Carlos, Prince of Viane. The new inc.u.mbent, however, had not a peaceful time. It was probably the Inquisitor of Catalonia, objecting to the fractioning of his district, who obtained from Pius II., in 1461, a brief annulling the division, on the ground that one inquisitor had always sufficed. Fray Juan resisted and incurred excommunication, but the influence of his royal patron was sufficient to obtain from Pius, October 13, 1461, another bull restoring him to his position and absolving him from the excommunication. In 1479 a squabble occurring at Valencia shows that the office possessed attractions worth contending for. The Provincial of Aragon had removed Fray Jayme Borell and appointed Juan Marquez in his stead. Borell carried the tale of his woes to Sixtus IV., who commanded the General Master to replace him and retain him in peaceful possession.[199]

Ferdinand the Catholic succeeded to the throne of Aragon in 1479, as he had already done, in 1474, to that of Castile by right of his wife Isabella. Even before the organizing of the new Inquisition in Aragon, in 1483, it is probable that the influence of Ferdinand had done much to restore the power of the inst.i.tution. In 1482, on the eve of the change, we find the Inquisition of Aragon acting with renewed vigor and boldness, under the Dominican, Juan de Epila. A number of cases are recorded of this period, including the prosecution of the father and mother of Felipe de Clemente, Prothonotary of the kingdom. As a preparatory step to placing the dominions of the crown of Aragon under Torquemada as Inquisitor-general, it was requisite to get rid of Cristobal Gualvez, who had been Inquisitor of Valencia since 1452, and who had disgraced his office by his crimes. Sixtus IV. had a special enmity to him, and, in ordering his deposition, stigmatized him as an impudent and impious man, whose unexampled excesses were worthy of severe chastis.e.m.e.nt; and when Sixtus, in 1483, extended Torquemada's authority over the whole of Spain, with power to nominate deputies, he excepted "that son of iniquity, Cristobal Gualvez," who had been interdicted from the office in consequence of his demerits, and whom he even deprived of the function of preaching.[200]

The great kingdom of Castile and Leon, embracing the major portion of the Spanish peninsula, never enjoyed the blessing of the mediaeval Inquisition. It was more independent of Rome than any other monarchy of the period. Lordly prelates, turbulent n.o.bles, and cities jealous of their liberties allowed scant opportunity for the centralization of power in the crown. The people were rude and uncultured, and not much given to vain theological speculation. Their superfluous energy, moreover, found ample occupation in the task of winning back the land from the Saracen. The large population of Jews and of conquered Moors gave them peculiar problems to deal with which would have been complicated rather than solved by the methods of the Inquisition, until the union of Aragon and Castile under Ferdinand and Isabella, followed by the conquest of Granada, enabled those monarchs to undertake seriously the business, attractive both to statecraft and to fanaticism, of compelling uniformity of faith.

It is true that the Dominican legend relates how Dominic returned from Rome to Spain as Inquisitor-general, on the errand of establis.h.i.+ng there the Inquisition for the purpose of punis.h.i.+ng the renegade converted Jews and Moors; how he was warmly seconded by San Fernando III.; how he organized the Inquisition throughout the land, celebrating himself the first _auto de fe_ at Burgos, where three hundred apostates were burned, and the second _auto_ in the presence of the saintly king, who himself carried on his shoulders f.a.gots for the burning of his subjects, and the pertinacious wretches defiantly rejoiced in the flames which were consuming them; how, after this, he established the Inquisition in Aragon, whence he journeyed to Paris and organized it throughout France; how, in 1220, he sent Conrad of Marburg as inquisitor to Germany, and in 1221 finished his labors by founding it in all the parts of Italy. All this can rank in historical value with the veracious statement of an old chronicler--a compatriot of the Pied Piper of Hamelin--that St. Boniface was an inquisitor, and that, with the support of Pepin le Bref, he burned many heretics. Detailed lists, moreover, are given of the successive inquisitors-general of the Peninsula--Frailes Suero Gomes, B.

Gil, Pedro de Huesca, Arnaldo Segarra, Garcia de Valcos, etc., but these are simply the Dominican provincials of Spain, who were empowered by the popes to appoint inquisitors, and whose exercise of that power did not extend beyond Aragon. Even Paramo, although he tries to prove that there were inquisitors nominally in Castile, is forced to admit that practically there was no Inquisition there.[201]

Yet, even in the distant city of Leon, Catharism had obtained a foothold. Bishop Rodrigo, who died in 1232, expelled a number of Cathari, on his attention being called to them by their circulating a story to excite hatred of the priesthood, relating how a poor woman placed a candle on the altar in honor of the Virgin, and on her leaving it a priest took it for his own use. The following night the Virgin appeared to her votary and cast burning wax into her eyes, saying, "Take the wages of your service. As soon as you went away a priest carried off the candle; as you would have been rewarded had the candle been consumed on my altar, so you must bear the punishment, since your carelessness gave me the light only for a moment." This diabolical story, says Lucas of Tuy, an eye-witness, so affected the minds of the simple that the devotion of offering candles ceased, and it required two genuine miracles to restore the faith of the people. During the interval between the death of Bishop Rodrigo, in March, 1232, and the election of his successor, Arnaldo, in August, 1234, the heretics had ample opportunity to work their wicked will. A Catharan named Arnaldo had been burned, about 1218, in a place in the suburbs used for depositing filth. There was a spring there which the heretics colored red, and proclaimed that it had miraculously been turned to blood. Many of them, simulating blindness, lameness, and demoniacal possession, were carried there and pretended to be cured, after which they dug up the heretic's bones and declared them to be those of a holy martyr. The people were fired with enthusiasm, erected a chapel, and wors.h.i.+pped the relics with the utmost ardor. In vain the clergy and the friars endeavored to stem the tide; the people denounced them as heretics, and despised the excommunication with which the neighboring bishops visited the adoration of the new saint; while the real heretics made many converts by secretly relating how the affair had been managed, and pointing it out as a sample of the manufacture of saints and miracles.

G.o.d visited the sacrilege with a drouth of ten months, which was not broken until Lucas, at the risk of his life, destroyed the heretic chapel; and when the rains came there was a revulsion of feeling which enabled him to expel the heretics. All this would seem to indicate that the heretics were numerous and organized; it certainly shows that there was no machinery for their suppression; but after the elevation of Lucas to the see of Tuy, in 1239, we hear no more of heretics or of persecutions. The whole affair, apparently, was a sporadic manifestation, probably of some band of fugitives from Languedoc, who disappeared and left no following.[202]

If what Lucas tells us be true, that ecclesiastics frequently joined in and enjoyed the ridicule with which heretics derided the sacraments and the clergy, the Spanish Church was not likely to give much aid to the introduction of the Inquisition. How little its methods were understood appears in the fact that when, in 1236, San Fernando III. found some heretics at Palencia, he proceeded to brand them in the face, which brought them to reason and led them to seek absolution. No one seemed to know what to do with them, so Gregory IX. was applied to, and he authorized the Bishop of Palencia to reconcile them. There is probably no truth in the statement of some historians that the king, on several occasions, was obliged to levy from his subjects a tribute of wood with which to burn the unrepentant, and the story only serves to show how utterly vague have been the current conceptions of the period.[203]

We reach firmer ground with the codes known as El Fuero Real and Las Siete Partidas, the first issued by Alonso the Wise, in 1255, and the second about ten years later. By this time the Inquisition was at its height. It was thoroughly organized, and wherever it existed the business of suppressing heresy was exclusively in its hands. Yet not only does Alonso take no count of it, but in his regulation by secular law of the relations between the heretic and the Church he shows how completely, up to this period, Spain had remained outside of the great movements of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Heresy, it is true, is one of the matters pertaining to the ecclesiastical tribunals, and any one can accuse a heretic before his bishop or vicar. If the accused is found not to believe as the Church teaches, effort is to be made to convert him, and if he returns to the faith he is to be pardoned. If he proves obstinate, he is to be handed over to the secular judge. Then, however, his fate is decided without reference to the laws which the Church had endeavored to introduce throughout Christendom. If the culprit had received the _consolamentum_, or is a believer observing the rites, or one of those who deny the future life, he is to be burned; but if a believer not observing the rites, he is to be banished or imprisoned until he returns to the faith. Any one learning heresy, but not yet a believer, is fined ten pounds of gold to the fisc, or, if unable to pay, to receive fifty lashes in public. In the case of those who die in heresy or are executed, their estates pa.s.s to Catholic descendants, or, in default of these, to the next of kin; if without such kindred, the property of laymen goes to the fisc, of ecclesiastics, to the Church, if claimed within a year, after which it inures to the fisc. Children disinherited for heresy recover their portions, but not the mesne profits, on recantation. No one, after condemnation for heresy, can hold office, inherit property, make a will, execute a sale, or give testimony. The house where a wandering heretic missionary is sheltered is forfeited to the Church, if inhabited by the owner; if rented, the offending tenant is fined ten pounds of gold or publicly scourged. A _rico home_ or n.o.ble sheltering heretics in his lands or castles, and persisting after a year's excommunication, forfeits the land or castle to the king; and if a non-n.o.ble his body and property are at the king's pleasure. The Christian who turns Jew or Moslem is legally a heretic, and is to be burned, as well as one who brings up a child in the forbidden faith. Prosecutions of the dead, however, are humanely limited to five years after decease.[204]

All this shows that Alonso and his counsellors recognized the duty of the State to preserve the purity of the faith, but that they considered it wholly an affair of the State, in which the Church had no voice beyond ascertaining the guilt of the accused. All the voluminous and minute legislation of Gregory IX., Innocent IV., and Alexander IV. was wholly disregarded--the canon law had no currency in Castile, which regulated such matters to suit its own needs. That in this respect the popular needs were met is shown by the Ordenamiento de Alcala, issued in 1348, which is silent on the subject of heresy. Apparently no change was deemed necessary in the provisions of the Partidas, which were then for the first time confirmed by the popular a.s.sembly. Under such legislation it follows as a matter of course that the Dominican provincial had no inquisitors to appoint, except in Aragon, under the bull of Urban IV. in 1262.

Castile continued unvexed by the Inquisition, and persecution for heresy was almost unknown. In 1316 Bernard Gui, of Toulouse, discovered in his district some of the dreaded sectaries known as Dolcinists or Pseudo-Apostoli, who fled to Spain to escape his energetic pursuit. May 1, 1316, he wrote to all the prelates and friars of Spain describing their characteristics and urging their apprehension and punishment. Had there been an Inquisition there he would have addressed himself to it.

From remote Compostella he received an answer, written by Archbishop Rodrigo, March 6, 1317, announcing that five persons answering to the description had been captured there and were held in chains, and asking for instructions as to the mode of trying them and the punishment to be inflicted in case they are found guilty, "for all this is heretofore unaccustomed in our parts." Evidently there was no Inquisition in Castile and Leon to which to apply, and even the provisions of the Partidas were unknown, though of all places in the kingdom Compostella must have been the one most familiar with the outer world and with heretics, from the stream of penitents continually sent thither as pilgrims.[205]

In 1401 Boniface IX. made a demonstration by appointing the provincial, Vicente de Lisboa, inquisitor over all Spain, directing that his expenses should be paid by the bishops, and that no superior of his Order could remove him. The only heresy specifically alluded to in the bull is the idolatrous wors.h.i.+p of plants, trees, stones, and altars--apparently superst.i.tious relics of paganism which indicate the condition of religion and culture in the Peninsula. Boniface's action could hardly have been taken with any expectation of result, as Spain rendered obedience to Benedict XIII., the Antipope of Avignon, and it was probably only a move in the political game of the Great Schism.

Whatever the motive, however, the effort was fruitless, for Fray Vicente was already dead in the odor of sanct.i.ty at the date of the bull. On learning this, Boniface returned to the charge, February 1, 1402, by empowering forever thereafter the Dominican Provincial of Spain to appoint and remove inquisitors, or to act as such himself, with all the privileges and powers accorded to the office by the canons. Inoperative as this remained, it at least had the advantage of supplying to the Spanish historians an unbroken line of inquisitors-general to be catalogued. About the same time King Henry III. increased the penalties of heresy by decreeing confiscation to the royal treasury of one-half of the possessions of heretics condemned by the ecclesiastical judges.[206]

This, perhaps, technically justifies Alonso Tostado, Bishop of Avila, who soon afterwards alludes to inquisitors in Spain investigating those defamed for heresy, and it explains the remarks of Sixtus IV. when, in January, 1482, he confirmed the two inquisitors appointed at Seville by Ferdinand and Isabella at the commencement of their reforms, and forbade their naming more, for the reason that the appointees of the Dominican provincial were sufficient. In spite of all this, the Spanish Inquisition was simply potential, not existent. When, in 1453, Alonso de Almarzo, Abbot of the great Benedictine foundation of Antealtares of Compostella, with his accomplices, was tried for selling throughout Spain and Portugal indulgences warranted to release the souls of the d.a.m.ned from h.e.l.l, for counterfeiting the papal Agnus Dei, for forging and altering papal letters, and for persuading Jewish converts to apostatize, had there been an Inquisition it would promptly have taken cognizance of the culprits; but in place of this the case was referred to Nicolas V., who instructed the Bishop of Tarazona to proceed against them. A few years later Alonso de Espina, about 1460, sorrowfully admits the absence of all persecution of heresy. Bishops and inquisitors and preachers ought all to resist the heretics, but there is no one to do it. "No one investigates the errors of heretics. The ravening wolves, O Lord, have gained admittance to thy flock, for the shepherds are few.

There are many hirelings, and because they are hirelings they care only for shearing, not for feeding the sheep!" and he draws a deplorable picture of the Spanish Church, distracted with heretics, Jews, and Saracens. Soon after this, in 1464, the Cortes a.s.sembled at Medina turned its attention to the subject and complained of the great number of "_malos cristianos e sospechosos en la fe_," but the national aversion to the papal Inquisition still manifested itself, and its introduction was not suggested. The archbishops and bishops were requested to set on foot a rigid investigation after heretics, and King Henry IV. was asked to lend them aid, so that every suspected place might be thoroughly searched, and offenders brought to light, imprisoned, and punished. It was represented to the king that this would be to his advantage, as the confiscations would inure to the royal treasury, and he graciously expressed his a.s.sent; but the effort was resultless.[207]

For the most part the orthodoxy of Spain had been vexed only with a few Fraticelli and Waldenses, not numerous enough to call for active repression. The main trouble lay in the mult.i.tudes of Jews and Moors who, under the law, were ent.i.tled to toleration, but whom popular fanaticism had forced to conversion in great numbers, and whose purity of faith was justly liable to suspicion. Hereafter I hope to have the opportunity of showing that from both the religious and the political standpoint of the age the measures taken by Ferdinand and Isabella were by no means without justification, however mistaken they were both in morals and in policy, and however unfortunate in their ultimate results.

At present it suffices to point out this condition of affairs to explain the dissatisfaction which was widely prevalent and the demand for an efficient remedy.

At the same time even Spain was not wholly unmoved by the spirit of unrest and inquiry which marked the second half of the fifteenth century, sapping the foundations of tradition and rejecting the claims of sacerdotalism. About 1460 we learn from Alonso de Espina that many were beginning to deny the efficacy of oral confession, and this point could not have been reached without calling in question many other doctrines and observances which the Church taught to be necessary to salvation. At length these innovators grew so bold that Pedro de Osma, a professor in the great University of Salamanca, ventured to promulgate their obnoxious opinions in print. Oral confession, he a.s.serted, was of human, not of divine precept, and was unnecessary for the forgiveness of sins; no papal indulgence could insure the living from the fires of purgatory; the papacy could err, and had no power to dispense with the statutes of the Church. Had there been any machinery of persecution at hand, short work would have been made with so bold a heretic, but the authorities were so much at a loss what to do with him that they applied to Sixtus IV., who sent a commission to Alonso Carrillo, Archbishop of Toledo, the dignitary next in rank to the king, to try him. In 1479 a council was a.s.sembled for the purpose at Alcala, consisting of fifty-two of the best theologians in Spain, besides a number of canon lawyers.

Pedro was summoned to appear, and on his failing to do so his doctrine was condemned as heretical, and he was sentenced--not to the stake for contumacy, but to recant publicly in the pulpit. He submitted and did so, and we are told in the official report of the proceedings that all the faithful burst into tears at this signal manifestation of the conquering hand of G.o.d. Pedro died peacefully in the bosom of the Church during the next year, 1480, and Sixtus IV., in confirming the action of the council, ordered the archbishop to prosecute as heretics any of his followers who would not imitate his obedience.[208]

Evidently some more efficient and less c.u.mbrous method was requisite if the population of reunited Spain was to enjoy the blessing of uniformity in faith. It did not take long for the piety of Isabella and the policy of Ferdinand to discover appropriate means.

In Portugal, Affonso II., at the commencement of his reign, in 1211, had manifested his zeal by inducing his Cortes to adopt severe laws for the repression of heresy; but when Sueiro Gomes, the first Dominican Provincial of Spain, endeavored to introduce in his kingdom inquisitors of the order, Affonso refused to admit them, and successfully insisted that heretics should be tried as heretofore by the ordinary episcopal courts. This rebuff sufficed for nearly a century and a half, and there must have been considerable freedom of thought, for, about 1325, Alvaro Pelayo gives a long list of the errors publicly defended in the schools of Lisbon by Thomas Scotus, a renegade friar. Their nature may be appreciated from his Averrhoistic a.s.sertion that there had been three deceivers--Moses who deceived the Jews, Christ the Christians, and Mahomet the Saracens. He seems to have enjoyed immunity until he declared that St. Antony of Padua kept concubines, when the Franciscan prior had him incarcerated, and his trial followed. At last, by a bull, dated January 17, 1376, Gregory XI. authorized Agapito Colonna, Bishop of Lisbon, to appoint, for this time only, a Franciscan inquisitor, as heresies were known to be spreading, and there were no inquisitors in the kingdom. The nominee was to receive an annual salary of two hundred gold florins a.s.sessed upon all the dioceses in the proportion of their contributions to the apostolic chamber. Under this authority Agapito appointed the first Portuguese inquisitor, Martino Vasquez. From what we have seen elsewhere we may reasonably doubt his success in collecting his stipend; but, small as his receipts may have been, they were the equivalent of his service, for no trace of any labors performed by him remains.[209]

The Great Schism commenced in 1378, and as Portugal acknowledged Urban VI. while Spain adhered to the antipope Clement VII., the Dominican province of Spain divided itself, the Portuguese choosing a vicar-general, and finally a provincial, Goncalo, in 1418, when Martin V. legalized the separation. This perhaps explains why Martino Vasquez was succeeded by another Franciscan. In 1394 Rodrigo de Cintra, calling himself Inquisitor of Portugal and Algarve, applied to Boniface IX. for confirmation, which was graciously accorded to him. Apparently the revenues of the office were nil, for the privilege was granted to him of residing with one a.s.sociate at will in any Franciscan convent, which was bound to minister to his necessities, the same as to any other master of theology. Rodrigo was preacher to King Joo I., who requested this favor of Boniface, and his career, like that of his predecessor, is a blank.