local, were to take the same oath on assuming office and all this was repeated in various formulas so as to leave no loop-hole for equivocation. Ferdinand also took an oath promising to obtain from the pope orders that all inquisitors, present and future, should observe the articles and also that, whenever requested by the Córtes, the Diputados or the councillors of Barcelona, he would issue the necessary letters and provisions for their enforcement. This was the first of the agreements which became known as Concordias-adjustments between the popular demands and the claims of the Holy Office. We shall have frequent occasion to hear of them in the future, for they were often broken and renewed and fresh sources of quarrel were never lacking. The present one was not granted without a binding consideration, for the tribunal of Barcelona was granted six hundred libras a year, secured upon the public revenues.2

If the Catalans distrusted the good faith of king and inquisitorgeneral they were not without justification, for the elaborate apparatus of oaths proved a flimsy restraint on those who would endure no limitation on their arbitrary and irresponsible authority. At first Ferdinand manifested a desire to uphold the Concordia and to restrain the inquisitors who commenced at once to violate it. The city of Perpignan complained that the prescription of time was disregarded and that the duplicate payment of old debts was demanded, whereupon Ferdinand wrote, October 24, 1512, sharply ordering the strict observance of the terms agreed upon and the revocation of any acts contravening them. Before long however his policy changed and he sought relief. For potentates who desired to commit a deliberate breach of faith there was always the resource of the authority of the Holy See which, among its miscellaneous attributes, had long assumed that of releasing from inconvenient engagements those who could command its favor, and Ferdinand's power in Italy was too great to permit of the refusal of so trifling a request. Accordingly on April 30, 1513, Leo X issued a motu proprio dispensing Ferdinand

1 Capitols concedits y decretats per lo Reverendissim don Juan Bisbe de Leyda e inquisidor general a supplicatio dels tres staments de Cathalunya convocats en los Corts de Montso ha 2 de Agost, 1512 (Pragmáticas y altres Drets de Cathalunya, Lib. 1, Tit. viii, cap. 1; Lib. 1, Tit. ix, cap. 3, 6. Barcelona, 1589).

The articles agreed upon for Aragon are given by Llorente, Añales, II, 19. Capitols y Actes de Cort, fol. xxviii (Barcelona, 1603).

Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 3, fol. 200.

and Bishop Enguera from their oaths to observe the Concordia of Monzon.1

The popular demands, however, had been too emphatically asserted to be altogether ignored and an attempt was made to satisfy them by a series of instructions drawn up, under date of August 28, 1514, by Bishop Luis Mercader of Tortosa, who had succeeded Enguera as inquisitor-general. These comprised many of the reforms in the Concordia, modified somewhat to suit inquisitorial views, as, for instance, the number of armed familiars permitted for Barcelona was twenty-five, with ten each for other cities. From Valladolid, September 10th, Ferdinand despatched these instructions by Fernando de Montemayor, Archdeacon of Almazan, who was going to Barcelona as visitor or inspector of the tribunal. It was not until December 11th that they were read in Barcelona in presence of the inquisitors and of representatives of Catalonia. The latter demanded time for their consideration and a copy was given to them. Another meeting was held, January 10, 1515, and a third on January 25th, in which the instructions were published and the inquisitors promised to obey them. There is no record that the Catalans accepted them as a fulfilment of the Concordia and, if they were asked to do so, it was merely as a matter of policy. In a letter of January 4th to the archdeacon, Ferdinand assumes that the assent of the Catalans was a matter of indifference; the instructions were to be published without further parley and no reference to Rome was requisite as the privileges of the Inquisition were not curtailed by them.2

Subsequent Córtes were held at Monzon and Lérida, where the popular dissatisfaction found expression in further complaints and demands, leading to some concessions on the part of Ferdinand. The temper of the people was rising and manifested itself in occasional assaults, sometimes fatal, on inquisitorial officials, to facilitate the punishment of which Leo X, by a brief of January 28, 1515, authorized inquisitors to try such delinquents and hand them over to the secular arm for execution, without incurring the "irregularity" consequent on judgements of blood. Ferdinand

1 Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Libro I, fol. 137. Confirmed by a second and fuller one, September 2, 1513.-Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 921, fol. 21, 23.

' Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 933; Libro 3, fol. 316.

' Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 3, fol. 323, 456.-Parecer del Doctor Martin Real (MSS. of Bodleian Library, Arch. S, 130).

was too shrewd to provoke his subjects too far; he recognized that the overbearing arrogance of the inquisitors and their illegal extension of their authority gave great offence, even to the wellaffected, and he was ready to curb their petulance. A case occurring in May, 1515, shows how justifiable were the popular complaints and gave him opportunity to administer a severe rebuke. It was the law in Aragon that, when the Diputados appointed any one as lieutenant to the Justicia, if he refused to serve they were to remove his name from the lists of those eligible to public office. A certain Micer Manuel, so appointed, refused to serve and to escape the penalty procured from the inquisitors of Saragossa letters prohibiting, under pain of excommunication, the Diputados from striking off his name. This arbitrary interference with public affairs gave great offence and Ferdinand sharply told the inquisitors not to meddle with matters that in no way concerned their office; the Diputados were under oath to execute the law and the letters must be at once revoked. Finally he recognized that the demands of the Córtes of Monzon had been justified and that he had done wrong in violating the Concordia of 1512. One of his latest acts was a cédula of December 24, 1515, announcing to the inquisitors that he had applied to the Holy See for confirmation of the agreements made and sworn to in the Córtes of Monzon and Lérida; there was no doubt that this would speedily be granted, wherefore he straitly commanded, under pain of forfeiture of office, that the articles must not be violated in any manner, direct or indirect, but must be observed to the letter; the inquisitor-general had agreed to this and would swear to comply with the bull when it should come."

Ferdinand died January 23, 1516, followed in June by Inquisitorgeneral Mercader. Leo X probably waited to learn whether the new monarch Charles desired to continue the policy of his grandfather. It is true that he had dispensed Ferdinand and Enguera from their oaths in view of the great offence to God and danger to conscience involved in the observance of the Concordia, but a word from the monarch was sufficient to overcome his scruples. What Ferdinand had felt it necessary to concede could not be withheld when, in the youth and absence of Charles, his representatives could scarce repress the turbulent elements of civil discord. Accordingly Leo confirmed all the articles of both the

1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 3, fol. 337.

2 Ibidem, fol. 355.

Catalan and Aragonese Concordias by the bull Pastoralis officii, August 1, 1516, in which he declared that the officials of the Inquisition frequently transgressed the bounds of reason and propriety in their abuse of their privileges, immunities and exemptions and that their overgrown numbers reduced almost to nullity the jurisdiction of the ordinary ecclesiastical and secular courts. This action, he says, is taken at the especial prayer of King Charles and Queen Juana and all inquisitors and officials contravening its prescriptions, if they do not, within three days. after summons, revoke their unlawful acts, are subject to excommunication lata sententiæ, deprivation of office and perpetual disability for re-employment, ipso facto. Moreover the Archbishops of Saragossa and Tarragona were authorized and required, whenever called upon by the authorities, to compel the observance of the bull by ecclesiastical censures and other remedies without appeal, invoking if necessary the secular arm.1

Thus, after four years of struggle, the Concordias of 1512 were confirmed in the most absolute manner and the relations between the Inquisition and the people appeared to be permanently settled. The inquisitors however, as usual, refused to be bound by any limitations. They claimed, and acted on the claim, that the papal bull of confirmation was surreptitious and not entitled, to obedience and that both the Concordias and the Instructions of Bishop Mercader were invalid as being restrictions impeding/ the jurisdiction of the Holy Office. On the other hand the people grew more restive and increased their demands for relief. The occasion presented itself when Charles came to Spain to assume possession of his mother's dominions. At Córtes held in Saragossa, May, 1518, he received the allegiance of Aragon and swore to observe the fueros of the Córtes of Saragossa, Tarazona and Monzon. Money was soon wanted to supply the reckless liberality with which he filled the pouches of his greedy Flemings, and towards the end of the year he summoned another assembly to grant him a subsidio. It agreed to raise 200,000 libras but

1 Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Libro 1 de copias, fol. 219.-Pragmáticas y altres Drets de Cathalunya, Lib. 1, Tit. viii, cap. 2.

Ferdinand must have resolved on this policy about a year earlier, but delayed putting it into execution. In the Simancas archives, Patronato real, Inquisicion, Leg. único, fol. 6, there is a similar brief, but without the executive clauses, addressed to him and commencing Exponi nobis nuper fecisti. It bears date May 12, 1515, and was apparently held by him in reserve.

2 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion de Barcelona, Córtes, Leg. 17, fol. 2.

coupled this with a series of thirty-one articles, much more advanced than anything hitherto demanded in Aragon-in fact copied with little change from those agreed to in Castile by Jean le Sauvage and abandoned in consequence of his death-articles which revolutionized inquisitorial procedure and assimilated it to that of the secular criminal courts. Charles, in these matters was now wholly under the influence of his former tutor and present inquisitor-general Cardinal Adrian. He wanted the money, however, and he gave an equivocal consent to the articles; it was, he said, his will that in each and all the holy canons should be observed, with the decrees of the Holy See and without attempting anything to the contrary. If doubts arose the pope should be asked to decide them; if any one desired to accuse inquisitors or officials, he could do so before the inquisitor-general, who would call in counsellors and administer justice, or, if the crime appertained to the secular courts, he would see that justice was speedy. This declaration, with the interpretation to be put on each and every article by the pope, he promised under oath to observe and enforce and he further swore not to seek dispensation from this oath or to avail himself of it if obtained.' The people were amply justified in distrusting their rulers, for Charles subsequently instructed the Count of Cifuentes, his ambassador at Rome, to procure the revocation of the articles and a dispensation from his oath to observe them.2

Charles had thus shuffled off from his shoulders to those of the pope the responsibility for this grave alteration in inquisitorial procedure which, by forcing the Holy Office to administer open justice, would have diminished so greatly its powers of evil. The question was thus transferred to Rome and the Córtes lost no time in seeking to obtain from Leo X the confirmation of the articles. A letter requesting this was procured from Charles and was forwarded to Rome with a copy of the articles and of Charles's oath, officially authenticated by Juan Prat, the notary of the Córtes. The papers were sent to Rome by a certain Diego de las Casas, a Converso of Seville who, as his subsequent history shows, must have been amply provided with the funds necessary to secure a favorable hearing.

The situation was one which called for active measures on the part of the Inquisition. The Córtes dissolved January 17, 1519,

1 Llorente, Añales, II, 146–53.

Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 921, fol. 76.