The History of the Inquisition of Spain from the Time of its Establishment to the Reign of Ferdinand Part 10

Some bibles, which had been introduced into Spain, and were not upon the list, were also prohibited; and the inquisitors were commanded to publish the interdict, and to employ severe measures against those who refused to obey it. The ordinances of the Council of Castile, composed by the order of the king, and approved by him, were published in the same year; they gave the council the privilege of permitting books to be printed, on the condition that they should be examined previously, if the subject of which they treated was important.

Charles V. and Philip II. had regulated the circulation of books in their American states. In 1543 the viceroys and other authorities were commanded to prevent the introduction or printing of tales and romances.

In 1550 a new decree obliged the tribunal of the commerce of Seville to register all the books destined for the colonies, to certify that they were not prohibited.

In 1556 the government commanded that no work relating to the affairs of America should be published without a permission from the council of the Indies, and that those already printed should not be sold unless they were examined and approved, which obliged all those who possessed any to submit them to the council. The officers of the customs in America were also obliged to seize all the prohibited books which might be imported, and remit them to the archbishops and bishops, who, in this case, possessed the same powers as the inquisitors of Spain.

Lastly, Philip II. in 1560 decreed new measures, and the _surveillance_ was afterwards as strictly observed in the colonies of the New World as in the Peninsula.

Although Charles V. and Philip II. neglected nothing that could prevent the introduction of prohibited books into Spain, several which were favourable to the Lutheran heresy penetrated into the kingdom. In 1558 the inquisitor-general published an edict more severe than any of the preceding; and also drew up an instruction for the use of the inquisitors; importing, that all books mentioned in the printed catalogue should be seized; that a public _auto-da-fe_ should be made of those tending to heresy; that the commentaries and notes attributed to Melancthon should be suppressed in all the treatises on grammar where they were introduced; that the bibles marked as being suspected should be examined; that no books should be seized except those mentioned in the list; that all the books printed in Germany since 1519 without the name of the author should be examined; that the translation of _Theophylact_ by _OEcolampadius_ should be seized; likewise some volumes of the works of St. John Chrysostom, which had been translated by that arch-heretic and _Wolfang Nusculus_; that the commentaries by heretics on works composed by catholics should be suppressed; and that a book on medicine might be seized, although it was not mentioned in the index.

When this edict was published, Francis Sanchez, professor of theology in the university of Salamanca, wrote to inform the Supreme Council, that he had occupied himself for several years in examining dangerous books, and gave his opinion on the course which ought to be pursued.

The council, in consequence, decreed that those theologians in the university who had studied the Oriental languages, should be obliged, as well as other persons, to give up their Hebrew and Greek Bibles to the commissaries of the holy office, on pain of excommunication; that the proprietors of Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew books, not mentioned in the list, should not be molested; that the order concerning the books printed without the name of the author, related only to modern productions; that the request made by some persons to be allowed to keep _Pomponius Mela_, with the commentary of _Nadicano_, should be refused; that these books should be remitted to the council to be examined; that the order to seize all works containing errors should only be applied to modern books; and that the _Summa Armata_ of Durand, of Cajetan, Peter Lombard, Origen, Theophylact, Tertullian, Lactantius, Lucian, Aristotle, Plato, Seneca, and other authors of that cla.s.s, should be allowed to circulate; that the council, being informed that several catalogues of prohibited books existed, would unite them, and compose one general catalogue.

In the year 1558 the terrible law of Philip II. was published, which decreed the punishments of death and confiscation for all those who should sell, buy, keep, or read, the books prohibited by the holy office; and, to ensure the execution of this sanguinary law, the index was printed, that the people might not allege ignorance in their defence.

A bull of 1559 enjoins confessors to interrogate their penitents on this subject, and to remind them that they were obliged to denounce the guilty on pain of excommunication. A particular article subjects the confessors to the same punishment if they neglected this duty, even if their penitents were of the highest rank.

This severe law was however mitigated in 1561, when the Cardinal of Alexandria, inquisitor-general of Rome, published a decree, announcing, in the name of Pius. IV., that some of the prohibitions of books had been withdrawn. This decree also granted permission to read and possess some books which had been suppressed only because they were written by heretics.

Valdes, the inquisitor-general of Spain, immediately wrote to the inquisitors of the provinces, to suspend the execution of the edict, until he had received the orders of the king, to whom he had represented the danger arising from a measure which annulled the punishment of excommunication; but Valdes had another motive in the proceeding.

In 1559, this inquisitor had published a printed catalogue of prohibited books, which was much more extended than that of 1558, and in which, according to the advice of Francis Sanchez, he had introduced all the works mentioned in the catalogues of Rome, Lisbon, Louvain, and those of Spain of an earlier date. He divided them into six cla.s.ses. The first consisted of Latin books; the second of those written in Castilian; the third of those in the Teutonic language; the fourth of German books; the fifth of French; and the sixth of Portuguese. Valdes, in a note at the end of his index, gave notice that there were many books subject to the prohibition, not mentioned in the list, but that they would be added.

He appointed the punishment of excommunication, and a penalty of two hundred ducats, for those persons who should read any of these books, and in this number were included some which were permitted to be read by the last edict of the Pope.

Valdes had inserted in his catalogue some books which had not only been considered catholic, but were in the hands of everybody and full of true piety, particularly some works of Don Hernand de Talavera, the venerable Juan d'Avila, Bartholomew Carranza de Miranda, Archbishop of Toledo; Hernand de Villegas, Louis de Granada, a Dominican; and St. Francis Borgia.

The catalogue of Valdes contained other general prohibitions. This proscription included all Hebrew books, and those in other tongues which treated of the Jewish customs; those of the Arabs, or those which in any way treated of the Mahometan religion; all works composed or translated by an heretic, or a person condemned by the holy office; all treatises in the Spanish language with a preface, letter, prologue, summary, notes, additions, paraphrase, explanation, glossary, or writing of that nature added by an heretic; all sermons, writings, letters, discourses on the Christian religion, its mysteries, sacraments, or the Holy Scriptures, if these works were inedited ma.n.u.scripts.

Lastly, the same prohibition was extended to a mult.i.tude of translations of the Bible, and other books which had been written by men of great piety, and had always been considered at proper guides to virtue: of this number were the works of Denis, _the Carthusian_; the author known by the same of _the Idiot_; the Bishop Roffense, and many other writers.

In the eighteenth session of the Council of Trent (which began on the 26th February, 1562), the bishops found that it was necessary to examine the books which were denounced as suspicions, on account of the complaints which had been made on the prohibition of the great number of works which had been unjustly enrolled in the decree of Paul IV. The council appointed commissioners to examine them, and they made a report of their labour in the last session in 1563: they had drawn up a catalogue of the works which they considered necessary to be prohibited.

It was submitted to Pius V., who published it in 1564, with ten general rules for the solution of any difficulties which might be discovered. A great number of books, which had been unjustly condemned by Valdes, were omitted in this index, and the Catechism of Carranza was declared to be orthodox by an a.s.sembly of theologians who had been appointed to examine it.

In 1565 the Doctor Gonzales Illescas published the first part of his _Pontifical History_. It was immediately seized by the holy office, and the second part, printed at Valladolid in 1567, shared the same fate. A short time after, Illescas was persecuted by the inquisitors of Valladolid; and, to preserve himself from becoming their victim, was obliged to suppress his work and write another, omitting the articles against some of the popes: this work appeared in 1574. Although the holy office had so carefully suppressed the first edition, it was inserted in the index of 1583, as if some copies had been still in existence.

In 1567 the council commanded the theological works of Brother John Fero, a Franciscan of Italy, to be seized, with the notes and corrections of Brother Michael de Medina, and some other works of the same author, who ended his days in the dungeons of the Inquisition in 1578, before his sentence had been p.r.o.nounced. After his death, his _Apology for John Fero_ was inserted in the expurgatory index.

In 1568 the Supreme Council charged the officers of the Inquisition to watch the frontiers of Guipuscoa, Navarre, Aragon, and Catalonia, with the greatest vigilance, to prevent the introduction of prohibited books.

This resolution was adopted, because information had been received that a great number of Lutheran books in the Castilian tongue were packed and sent in hogsheads of the wines of Champagne and Burgundy, with so much art, that the officers of the customs could not discover the deception.

In 1570 the council prohibited a work on the Pentateuch by Brother Jerome de Holcastro; and the _Pet.i.t Office_, printed at Paris in 1556.

The motive for this suppression was singular: the frontispiece was decorated with a cross and a swan, with the motto, "IN HOC CIGNO VINCES." It is plain that the _Pet.i.t Office_ was prohibited, because a C was used instead of the S in the word _signo_. The same severity was shewn in all cases where the books had this symbol, or any allegories of that nature.

In 1571 the inquisitors caused a Spanish Bible, printed at Baste, to be seized, and Philip II. wrote to the Duke of Alva, the governor of the Low Countries, to compose an index for the use of the Flemish people, with the a.s.sistance of the learned Arias Monta.n.u.s. He presided in an a.s.sembly of theologians, who judged that the new index should only consist of the Latin prohibited by the Inquisition, or which it was necessary to correct. This measure was applied only to some well-known authors who were dead, and to some others, still living; but more particularly to the works of Erasmus, and with circ.u.mstances which might lead to the supposition, that his books were the princ.i.p.al objects of the prohibition, and that of the other authors merely a pretext to conceal the injury done to him. This catalogue was printed at Antwerp in 1571, with a preface by Arias Monta.n.u.s, a royal decree and a proclamation of the Duke of Alva enforcing the execution of it. This list is known by the name of the _Expurgatory Index of the Duke of Alva_. The holy office had no part in this affair, as the Flemings had refused to recognise their authority.

In 1582 the inquisitor-general, Don Gaspard de Quiroga, published a new _Prohibitory Index_. It is remarkable _that the Index of his predecessor Valdes is mentioned in this list_.

That which was published in 1584 was drawn up by Juan de Mariana, who soon after had some of his own works prohibited. In 1611, a new index was formed under the inquisitor-general Don Bernard de Roxas de Sandoval.

The Cardinal Zapata, who succeeded Roxas, adopted one more extended in 1620, and it was used by his successor, Don Antonio de Sotomayer, in 1630. This catalogue was the first which the inquisitors presumed to publish from their own authority, and without being commissioned by government. Don Diego Sarmiento Valladares, inquisitor-general, in 1681, began to reprint it with additions, and it was finished by Don Vidal Marin, who published it in 1707.

Don Francis Perez del Prado, another inquisitor-general, commissioned the Jesuits Casani and Carrasco to compose a new catalogue. Although these monks were not authorized by the Supreme Council, they inserted in the list all the books which they supposed to be favourable to the Jansenists, Baius and Father Quesnel. Their conduct was denounced to the Supreme Council by the Dominican Concina, and some other monks; the Jesuits were examined, and defended themselves: the council, though it could not approve, did not carry the affair further; it had not sufficient power to balance the influence of the Jesuit Francis Rabago, who was confessor to Ferdinand VI.

Among the books which they prohibited were the works of Cardinal _Norris_, which were held in general estimation by the learned throughout Christendom. Benedict XIV., in 1748, addressed a brief to the inquisitor-general, commanding him to revoke the prohibition; as this order was not obeyed, the Pope complained to the king, but was unable to obtain his request until ten years after, when the Jesuit Rabago no longer directed the conscience of the monarch.

The index of the Jesuits also contained several treatises of the venerable Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Archbishop and Viceroy of Mexico. The congregation of rites afterwards declared that there was nothing in them worthy of censure, and the inquisitor-general was obliged to revoke the prohibition in an edict, the copies of which were immediately bought up by some friends of the Jesuits. To give an idea of the criticism of Perez del Prado, it is sufficient to say that he bitterly lamented the misfortunes of the age he lived in, saying, "_That some individuals had carried their audacity to the execrable extremity of demanding permission to read the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongue_, without _fearing to encounter mortal poison therein_."

In 1792 a new index was published, without the consent, and even in opposition to the Supreme Council, by Don Augustine Rubin de Cevallos, inquisitor-general. It is this index which is still in force, but the prohibitions and expurgatory measures have since been multiplied.

The prohibitory decrees are preceded by _qualification_. The process is inst.i.tuted before the supreme council; but as the information is generally laid before the inquisitors of the court, they appoint the qualifiers who censure the book. A copy of the work and the denunciation is sent to the first qualifier, and afterwards to the second, unsigned by the opinion of the first; if they do not accord, copies are sent a third time before it is submitted to the Supreme Council. The inquisitors of the provinces have likewise the privilege of receiving informations: they proceed in the same manner; but the council always commission the inquisitors of the court to censure books, because they were more sure of their qualifiers.

If any person presumed to buy, keep, or read prohibited books, he rendered himself liable to be suspected of heresy by the inquisitors, although it might not be proved that he became an heretic from such reading; he incurred the punishment of major excommunication, and was proceeded against by the tribunal: the result of this action was the absolution _ad cautelam_.

During the last years of the eighteenth century, no person has been imprisoned for reading prohibited books, unless he was convicted of having advanced or written heretical propositions. The punishment inflicted was merely a pecuniary penalty, and a declaration that the individual was slightly suspected of heresy; it must be acknowledged that this qualification was omitted, if there was any reason to suppose that the accused had erred from motives of curiosity, and not from a tendency to false doctrine. Nevertheless all these proceedings are arbitrary, and the inquisitors have the power of pursuing the infringers of this law as if they were heretics.

The permission to read prohibited books, rendered all actions inst.i.tuted against those who violated the law ineffectual. The Pope granted it for a sum of money, without inquiring if the person who demanded it was capable of abusing the permission. The inquisitor-general of Spain acted with more prudence; he took secret informations on the conduct of the solicitor, and required him to state in writing the object of his demand, and the subject on which he wished to consult the prohibited books. Where the permission granted was general, the books mentioned in the edicts were excepted. In this sense the works of Rousseau, Montesquieu, Mirabeau, Diderot, d'Alembert, Voltaire, and several other modern philosophers, among whom was Filangieri, were excepted from the privilege. During the last years of the Inquisition, the permissions granted by the Court of Rome did not defend the persons who received them from the inquisitorial actions; they were subject to revision, and the inquisitor-general did not authorize the use of them without great difficulty, and as if the Court of Rome had never granted them.

The Inquisition also prohibited pictures, medals, prints, and a number of other things, with as much severity as books. Thus fans, snuff-boxes, mirrors, and other articles of furniture, were often the cause of great troubles and difficulties to those who possessed them, if they happened to be adorned with the mythological figure which might be considered as indecent.

CHAPTER XIV.

PARTICULAR TRIALS FOR SUSPICION OF LUTHERANISM, AND SOME OTHER CRIMES.

_Edicts against Lutherans, Illuminati, &c._

The inquisitor-general, who perceived the necessity of arresting the progress of Lutheranism in Spain, decreed, in concert with the Council of the Inquisition, several new articles in addition to the annual edict. These articles oblige every Christian to declare, if he knows or has heard of any person who has said, maintained, or thought that the sect of Luther is good, or that his partisans will be saved, and approved nor believed any of his condemned propositions: for example, that it is not necessary to confess sins to a priest, and that it is sufficient to confess to G.o.d; that neither the Pope nor the priests have the power of remitting sins; that the body of Jesus is not actually present in the consecrated host; that it is not permitted to pray to saints, or expose images in churches; that faith and baptism are sufficient for salvation, and that good works are not necessary; that every Christian may, although not of the priesthood, receive the confession of another Christian, and administer the sacrament to him; that the Pope has not the power of granting indulgences; that priests and monks may lawfully marry; that G.o.d did not establish the regular religions orders; that the state of marriage is better and more perfect than that of celibacy; that there ought to be no festivals but the sabbath, and that it is not sinful to eat meat on Friday, in Lent, or on other fast-days.

Alphonso Manrique also gave permission to the inquisitors of the provinces to take any measures they might think proper, to discover those persons who had embraced the heresy of the _illuminati_, (_alumbrados_.) These people, who were also called _dejados_ (_quietists_), formed a sect whose chief, it is said, was that _Muncer_ who had already established that of the Anabaptists. Some time after, the Council of the Inquisition added several articles relative to the _illuminati_ to those already mentioned.

I am of opinion, that the first Spaniards who followed the doctrines of Luther were Franciscan monks; for Clement VII., in 1526, authorized the general and provincials of the order of Minor Friars of St. Francis d'a.s.siz, to absolve those of the community who had fallen into that heresy, after they had taken an oath to renounce it for ever. Several monks of the same order had already represented to the Pope, that by the privileges granted to them in the bull _mare magnum_, and confirmed by other decrees of the holy see, no stranger had a right to interfere in their affairs, and that they did not recognize any judge but the judge of their inst.i.tution, even in cases of apostasy.

Manrique, embarra.s.sed in his ministry by the pretensions of the Franciscans, wrote to the Pope, who expedited, in 1525, a brief, by which the inquisitor-general was empowered to take cognizance of these affairs, a.s.sisted by a monk named by the prelate of the order, and that, in cases of appeal from judgment, the Pope should be applied to: but these appeals were afterwards ordered to be made before the inquisitor-general.

_Trials of Several Persons._

During the ministry of the inquisitor-general Manrique, history points out several ill.u.s.trious and innocent victims of the tribunal, who were suspected of Lutheranism: such was the venerable Juan d'Avila, who would have been beatified, if he had been a monk, but he was only a secular priest: he was called, in Spain, the _Apostle of Andalusia_, on account of his exemplary life and his charitable actions. St. Theresa de Jesus informs us, in her works, that she derived much a.s.sistance from his counsels and doctrine. He preached the gospel with simplicity, and never introduced into his discourses those questions which at that time so disgracefully agitated the scholastic theologians. Some envious monks, irritated at his aversion for disputes, united to plan his ruin. They denounced some of his propositions to the Inquisition, as tending to Lutheranism and the doctrines of the _illuminati_. In 1534, Juan d'Avila was confined in the secret prison of the holy office, by an order of the inquisitors; they did not make their resolution known to the Supreme Council or to the ordinary, on the pretence that this measure was only ordained in case of a difference of opinion. Although this proceeding was contrary to the laws of the Inquisition, to the royal ordinances, and those of the Supreme Council, yet they contemned these violations, and even tacitly approved them, as no reprimand was addressed to the offenders. This act of the Inquisition, which took place at Seville, much affected the inquisitor-general: he occupied the see of that city, and had the greatest esteem for Juan d'Avila, whom he regarded as a saint, which was a fortunate circ.u.mstance for him, as the protection of Manrique, as chief of the Inquisition, greatly contributed to prove his innocence; d'Avila was acquitted, and continued to preach with the same zeal and charity until his death.

This year was more fatal to two men, who are celebrated in the literary history of Spain--Juan de Vergara, and Bernardin de Tobar, his brother: they were arrested by the Inquisition of Toledo, and were not released from its dungeons, until they had been subjected to the abjuration (_de levi_) of the Lutheran heresy, to receive the absolution of censures _ad cautelam_, and to several penances. Juan de Vergara was a canon of Toledo, and had been secretary to Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros, and to Don Alphonso de Fonseca, his successor in the see of that city. Nicholas Antonio has inserted, in his library, a notice of the literary productions of this Spaniard, and does justice to his virtue and merit.

His profound knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew languages was the cause of his misfortune; he had remarked some faults in the translation of the Vulgate, and thus gave the signal for persecution to some monks who had only studied Latin and the jargon of the schools. The chapter of Toledo honoured his memory in placing on his tomb an epitaph, which is preserved by the author I have cited. Vergara had a claim on the grat.i.tude of this community, for having composed the inscriptions which decorate the choir of their church.

Bernardin de Tobar is less known, but Peter Martyr d'Angleria mentions him among the learned men of the sixteenth century, and John Louis Vives, a learned man of that age, says, in writing to Erasmus: "We live in a difficult time; it is dangerous either to speak or be silent; Vergara, his brother Bernardin de Tobar, and several other learned men, have been arrested in Spain[7]."