de Zuñiga, at that time Viceroy of Naples, with superabundant zeal, kidnapped him and despatched him to Spain. Instantly the papal court was aflame; Zuñiga was promptly excommunicated, but the censure was suspended for four months to allow him to return the fugitive. A rupture seemed imminent and Zuñiga, conscious of his mistake, on learning that the galeasses had been driven back to Palermo, sent thither in hot haste, but his messenger was too late and Jean de Berri was carried to Spain. Papal despatches couched in vigorous language were forthwith sent to the nuncio, to Philip, to Inquisitor-general Quiroga and to the Saragossa tribunal, the nuncio being ordered to prosecute Quiroga if the prisoner was not remanded. Philip had no alternative; Quiroga, in a letter of September 12, 1582 to Gregory announced Berri's departure, at the same time remonstrating against the asylum to fugitives offered by Rome. Berri was duly delivered to the Roman Inquisition, but there was probably a secret understanding for, at a meeting of the Congregation, June 13, 1583, presided over by Gregory, it was decreed that he should be placed in the hands of Quiroga, who should judge his case. Quiroga did nothing of the kind; he was sent to Saragossa and the last we hear of him is a letter of the Suprema, August 3rd, to that tribunal ordering it to do justice-the customary formula for confirming a sentence.' As usual, the curia abandoned those whom it had undertaken to protect. From 1582 to 1586, the nuncio, Taberna Bishop of Lodi, was largely occupied with the question of these appeals. It formed one of several grievances arising from the exercise of papal jurisdiction in Spain-a jurisdiction which was becoming an anachronism in the development of absolute monarchy, but, as the faculties of the Inquisition were solely a delegation from the Holy See, papal control of its operations was unassailable and had to be endured. Philip gained nothing by instructing his ambassador Olivares, November 10, 1583, that it was highly important to represent to the pope that appeals should not be entertained but should be remitted back to the inquisitor-general. We have 1 Archivo de Simancas, Gracia y Justicia, Inquisicion, Leg. 621, fol. 171.— Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 118, n. 12, fol. 442.—Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. IV, fol. 77, 81, 83, 87; Lib. III, fol. 442.-Theiner, Annal. Ecclesiast. III, 361-2. Hinojosa, Despachos de la Diplomacia Pontificia, I, 252–4, 358. 3 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Leg. 1465, fol. 28. seen how little ceremony was used by Sixtus V, in 1585, when he evoked the case of the Jesuit Provincial Marcen and his colleagues, and how the Suprema was forced to submit. While Philip thus was unable to dispute the papal right of intervention, he had as little scruple as his predecessors in disregarding papal letters. In 1571 he ordered the surrender of all briefs evoking cases to the Holy See. Some years later the Suprema instructed the tribunal of Lima that, if apostolic letters were presented, it was to "supplicate" against them-that is, to suspend and disregard them-and this was doubtless a circular sent to all tribunals. They were practically treated as a nullity and it is a singular fact that, after so long an experience, the curia still found purchasers credulous enough to seek protection in them. In a Toledo auto de fe of 1591 there appeared twenty-four Judaizers of Alcázar, detected by Inquisitor Alava during a visitation. Among them was Francisco de Vega, a scrivener who, on hearing that the inquisitor was coming, had sent to Rome and procured absolutions for himself, his mother and his sister, thinking to find safety in them, but they were treated with contempt and all three culprits were reconciled with the same penalties as their companions.2 While thus the supreme jurisdiction of the Holy See was admitted and evaded, the Inquisition sought to create the belief that it had been abandoned. Zurita who, as secretary of the Suprema, unquestionably knew better, makes such an assertion and Páramo, whose experience as inquisitor in Sicily had taught him the truth, does not hesitate, in 1598, to say that, since Innocent VIII decreed that appeals should be heard by the inquisitorgeneral, no pope had permitted cases to be carried to the Apostolic see. It is a fair example of the incurable habit of the Inquisition to assert its possession of whatever it desired to obtain. 3 Under Philip III, the papal supremacy continued to be exercised and was submitted to as reluctantly as ever. In 1602 a Doctor Cozas, under prosecution by the tribunal of Murcia, managed to escape to Rome and to have his case tried there. 1 Somoza, op. cit., P. II, cap. xxxiii, n. 138.-MSS. Bibl. nacional de Lima, Protocolo 223, Expediente 5270. 'MSS. of Library of Univ. of Halle, Yc, 20, Tom. I. 3 Zurita, Añales de Aragon, Lib. xx, cap. xlix.-Páramo, p, 151. Philip labored strenuously and persistently to have him remanded, first through his ambassador the Duke of Sesa and then through the succeeding envoy, the Duke of Escalona, to whom, on April 1, 1604 he sent a special courier, urging him to renew his efforts, for every day the Roman Inquisition was intervening in what the popes had granted exclusively to the inquisitor-general, thus threatening the total destruction of the Spanish Inquisition.' In 1603 a Portuguese appealed to the Roman Inquisition, alleging that his wife was unjustly held in prison; he obtained an order on the inquisitor-general to transmit the papers and meanwhile to suspend the case; Acevedo demurred, eliciting from Clement VIII a still more peremptory command, whereupon the documents were sent and, while the case was under consideration in Rome, the woman was discharged. It was preferable to let an assumed culprit go free than to allow the Roman Holy Office to exercise jurisdiction. The subserviency of Philip IV to his inquisitors-general was even more marked, and we have seen how vigorously he supported the Inquisition in its extension of its jurisdiction over matters foreign to the faith, leading the clergy of Majorca to procure papal briefs exempting them from it in such cases. The chapter of Valencia was less fortunate and was exposed to the full force of the royal indignation in 1637. Inquisitor-general Sotomayor had obtained a pension of nine hundred ducats on the archdeaconry of Játiva and one of three hundred and forty ducats on a prebend vacated by the death of the canon Villarasa. The chapter refused payment; Sotomayor sued them in the tribunal and of course obtained a decision in his favor. The aggrieved chapter revenged itself by ceasing the customary courtesy of sending two canons to receive the inquisitors at the door of the cathedral on the occasion of publishing the edict; this continued for two years and, on the second, the door of the great chapel was locked and the inquisitors had to await its opening. For this disrespect they prosecuted the chapter, which then appealed to Rome on both suits and obtained briefs committing the cases to a special commission of the Roman Inquisition, granting a faculty to relieve them from any excommunication and citing Sotomayor to appear 1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 939, fol. 285. in Rome. The case was assuming a serious aspect and the Suprema, November 30, 1637, presented to Philip a consulta with letters for his signature, addressed to his ambassador, to the pope, to the viceroy, the archbishop, and the chapter. Philip was in the full ardor of a contest with the pope over the jurisdiction of the nuncio and the Roman condemnation of books supporting the royal prerogative; he was not content with the measures proposed and returned the consulta with the comment that much more vigorous methods were required, nor did it comport with the royal dignity to ask for what he could legally enforce. He had therefore ordered the Council of Aragon to write to the chapter, through the viceroy, expressing his displeasure and his determination to resort to the most extreme steps. Letters were also to be written to the viceroy and the archbishop commanding the prosecution of the chapter in the Banco Real unless the briefs were forthwith surrendered; the Inquisition was not to appear in the matter, but only the archbishop, and a minister of justice was to be at hand when the demand was made, so as to seize the briefs as soon as they were produced. This violent program was duly carried out; Canon Oñate, the custodian of the briefs, was forced to surrender them; through the hands of the Council of Aragon they were passed to Sotomayor and were carefully preserved as trophies in the archives of the Suprema.1 If this inspired in ecclesiastics the terror desired it did not influence defendants under trial, who continued to appeal to Rome, for a carta acordada of August 3, 1538, orders the tribunals, when such cases occur, to send reports not only to it but direct to the Roman agent of the Inquisition, in order that no time should be lost by him in working for their withdrawal. A few years later there followed the most bitter and stubborn conflict that had yet occurred between Madrid and Rome on the subject of appeals-the case of Gerónimo de Villanueva, which is so illustrative in various ways that it merits a somewhat detailed examination. Gerónimo de Villanueva, Marquis of Villalba, belonged to an ancient family of Aragon, of which kingdom he was Prothonotary, 1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 25, fol. 56; Lib. 52, fol. 186; Gracia y Justicia, Inquisicion, Leg. 621, fol. 102.-Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. V, fol. 51, 52. * MSS. of Royal Library of Copenhagen, 213 fol. p. 145. or secretary of state; while his brother Agustin was Justicia. He won the favor of Olivares, as well as of Philip, and accumulated a plurality of offices, rendering him at last one of the most important personages of the state, for he became a member of the Councils of Aragon, War, Cruzada and Indies, of the Camara of the Council of Indies, Secretary of State and of the "Despacho universal de la Monarquia." In 1623 there was founded in Madrid, with the object of restoring the relaxed Benedictine discipline, a convent under the name of La Encarnacion bendita de San Placido, with funds furnished by Villaneuva and by the family of Doña Teresa de Silva (also called Valle de la Cerda), who was elected abbess. She had for some years been under the direction of Fray Francisco Garcia Calderon, a Benedictine of high reputation, who was inclined to mysticism. Villanueva had an agreement with the superiors of the Order giving him the appointment of spiritual directors and he naturally placed Calderon in charge. Before the year was out, one of the nuns became demoniacally possessed; the contagiousness of the disorder is well known and soon twenty-two out of the thirty were similarly affected, including Teresa herself. Calderon was reckoned a skilful exorcist, but he was baffled, as was likewise the Abbot of Ripel, who was called in. At the suggestion of the latter, the wild utterances of the demoniacs were written down, and a mass accumulated of some six hundred pages, for it was a current belief that demons were often compelled by God to utter truths concealed from man. These largely took the shape of announcing that the convent would be the source of a reformation, not only of the Order but of the whole Church; eleven of the nuns were to be the apostles of a New Dispensation, one having the spirit of St. Peter, another that of St. Paul and so 1 Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 1, n. 4, fol. 23. For much of the earlier history of this case I am indebted to a MS. "Relacion sumaria de la causa que a seguido en el santo oficio de la Inquisicion del Reyno de Toledo contra Don Gerónimo de Villanueva" in the Simancas archives, Lib. 53, fol. 250-98. It bears no date but seems to have been drawn up, in 1647, as an official justification of the sentence, and presents the subject from the standpoint of the prosecution. It will be referred to as "Relacion." The other side of the story of the convent of San Placido is given in the appeal of Doña Teresa for a reversal of her sentence. Several copies of this have been preserved. The one I have used is in the Bibl. nacional, MSS., S, 294, fol. 387. Fuller details of this curious conventual episode will be found in my "Chapters from the Religious History of Spain," pp. 309-18. |